Weaponsupporting

Highland Axe

Highland Axe is a Stormveil Castle pickup found beneath a portrait of Godfrey. It is an ordinary axe whose equipped passive strengthens roar attacks, pairing naturally with War Cry, Barbaric Roar, Braggart's Roar, and roar-focused talismans.

Importance

supporting

Elden Ring · weapon

Key Takeaways

Highland Axe is a standard axe distinguished less by a unique moveset than by its built-in synergy with roar attacks and skills.

Roar-focused axe

Its defining passive improves roar-based attacks, making it a natural choice for characters using War Cry or other roar skills.

Stormveil pickup

Highland Axe is obtained as a fixed pickup in Stormveil Castle rather than through a vendor purchase or an enemy drop.

Standard weapon flexibility

It follows the regular reinforcement path and can be developed through the normal Ashes of War and affinity systems rather than a unique-weapon upgrade route.

Close-range limitations

As a one-handed axe, it demands close spacing and offers less reach than many swords and polearms, so its roar synergy does not remove its positioning requirements.

Built for committed attacks

The weapon is most useful when its wielder can create openings for charged attacks, roar buffs, or follow-up swings instead of relying on constant long-range pressure.

Distinct from ordinary axes

Compared with a conventional axe such as Battle Axe, Highland Axe’s main reason to choose it is its roar interaction and customization potential, not a universal claim of higher damage.

Overview

Highland Axe is a standard axe in Elden Ring, found during the early-to-mid game and distinguished by its support for roar-focused play. It is a practical Strength-oriented melee option rather than a unique or legendary weapon, with a conventional axe moveset and a passive effect that rewards using roar skills or related buffs.

As an axe, Highland Axe occupies the close-range space between lighter fast weapons and heavier high-commitment arms. Its identity comes less from an unusual moveset than from how it complements roar effects, making it relevant to characters that use War Cry or other roar-based actions. The weapon remains useful as a focused sidegrade rather than defining an entire build.

The axe is obtained as regular world loot in Stormveil Castle, placing it within the base game's early progression rather than behind Shadow of the Erdtree content. That placement gives players an opportunity to adopt its roar-oriented role before many later specialized weapons become available, although its value still depends on whether the character actively uses compatible skills or buffs.

Highland Axe differs from an ordinary axe chosen only for its physical attacks because its passive effect gives roar attacks additional value. This makes it a more deliberate choice for a player building around temporary attack enhancements, altered heavy attacks, or other roar interactions. For a general melee build that never uses those effects, the distinction is correspondingly less important.

The weapon is not a named boss armament, remembrance reward, or special DLC variant, and it does not replace the need to compare axe reach, requirements, scaling, and skill flexibility elsewhere on the page. Its main reason to remain equipped is the interaction between a straightforward axe moveset and roar-focused support, not a universally superior damage profile.

Statistics

Elden Ring publishes no 0–100 stat bars, so this page lists the verified requirements, scaling and handling figures instead. Taken from the project's verified weapons database, not from generated text.

Category
Axes
Damage Type
Slash
Primary Scaling
Str D / Dex D
Weight
7.5
Skill
Storm Blade
Str Req
14
Dex Req
12
How to Obtain
Loot, Weeping Peninsula

Figures verified against Consolidated Game Weapons Database.

Compared to similar axes

Weapon	Str Req	Dex Req	Weight	Primary Scaling
Highland Axe	14	12	7.5	Str D / Dex D
Battle Axe	12	9	6.5	Str D
Putrescence Cleaver	14	13	6.5	Arc D
Smithscript Axe	13	15	6	Str D / Dex D
Death Knight's Twin Axes	16	18	9	Str D / Dex D

Requirements, scaling grades and weight are the game’s own published figures. From Consolidated Game Weapons Database.

How to Obtain

Before you start

Access to Stormveil Castle in the base game; no DLC, NG+, vendor, currency, or attribute prerequisite is required.

01Travel to Stormveil Castle in Limgrave and reach the castle interior. In the side room containing a Grafted Scion and a large painting, loot the corpse to obtain the Highland Axe. This is a fixed world pickup, not an enemy drop, vendor purchase, quest reward, or random chest roll.
02The pickup remains available while exploring Stormveil Castle and does not require defeating a boss or completing a quest. It is one copy per playthrough, with no known separate Story, DLC, or NG+ acquisition route; a new playthrough is required to obtain another copy.

Mechanics and Handling

The Highland Axe is a close-range hand axe whose handling emphasizes quick, committed swings rather than broad control of space. Its reach is limited compared with longer axe and polearm classes, so attacks are most reliable when used from close spacing. The ordinary attacks form a compact axe sequence suited to single targets, while the weapon’s weight gives its stronger attacks more commitment than its small size might suggest.

War Cry changes the heavy attack pattern

The Highland Axe uses War Cry as its weapon skill. Activating War Cry temporarily increases attack power and changes the weapon’s heavy attacks into forward-driving attacks. The altered heavies can close distance while attacking, but they also commit the character to a more deliberate animation, making them easier to punish if started outside the opponent’s recovery window. They are most useful after creating an opening or staggering an enemy rather than as a blind approach.

Roar-focused identity

The Highland Axe has a passive interaction with roar skills: it strengthens the damage of roar-based weapon skills while it is equipped. This gives the axe a mechanical identity beyond its basic moveset and makes it more relevant to characters using skills such as War Cry or other roar-type attacks. The bonus does not turn the axe into a ranged weapon or replace the need to manage spacing; its normal attacks still require close contact.

Reach, spacing, and handling

Because the Highland Axe is short-ranged, missed swings can leave the wielder outside follow-up range or vulnerable during recovery. Its compact attacks work best against enemies that have been interrupted, cornered, or drawn into a predictable approach. Against mobile targets, the forward movement from its War Cry-enhanced heavy attacks can help maintain contact, but the attack should be timed around an opening rather than used continuously. The weapon has no ammunition, reload cycle, or innate status buildup to manage, so its main handling concerns are spacing, animation commitment, and choosing when to activate its skill.

Upgrades and Variants

Strengths, Weaknesses and Best Uses

Strengths

Its passive increases the damage of roar skills, giving it a defined role in roar-focused setups rather than relying only on the axe moveset.
The passive remains useful when the Highland Axe is equipped as an off-hand weapon, allowing a different primary weapon to benefit from the roar bonus.
As an axe, it offers quicker attacks and lower commitment than heavier axe classes, which helps maintain pressure during close-range openings.

Weaknesses

The passive has little value in builds that do not use roar skills; its opportunity cost is therefore significant compared with an off-hand weapon offering a broader benefit.
Its axe moveset has shorter practical reach than many swords and spears, making spacing more demanding against enemies that outrange it.
The weapon’s close-range attacks require the user to stay inside an opponent’s threat range, while the roar-focused payoff depends on investing in a specific skill family rather than improving every attack.

Best uses

Roar-centered Strength or mixed melee builds that use skills such as War Cry or Barbaric Roar and want the Highland Axe’s passive to amplify their follow-up attacks.
An off-hand support weapon for a roar build, when the main-hand weapon supplies the preferred damage type, moveset, or Ash of War.
Short-range PvE encounters where the user can safely exploit the axe’s quick attacks after creating an opening with a roar skill.

Compared With Similar Weapons

Compared With Similar Weapons
Weapon	Class and role	Distinguishing trait	Choose it over Highland Axe when…
Hand Axe	Compact moveset with a lower-commitment feel	You value quicker handling and mobility more than Highland Axe’s roar synergy	—
Battle Axe	Straightforward axe moveset without Highland Axe’s roar-focused identity	You want a general-purpose axe and do not plan to build around roar attacks	—
Sacrificial Axe	Restores FP when nearby enemies die	Your build benefits more from repeated FP recovery than from Highland Axe’s roar enhancement	—

Lore and Design

Lore and design context

The Highland Axe’s item lore associates it with the highland warriors of Mistwood. Its shape is described as resembling a beast’s fang, and the warriors who used it are said to have drawn inspiration from wild beasts. This gives the weapon a clear thematic link to Elden Ring’s wilderness imagery and helps explain its association with roar-based attacks, but the description does not identify a named wielder, specific historical event, or character relationship. The beast-fang shape is an explicit in-game design detail; it should not be treated as evidence of a documented real-world weapon inspiration or developer intent. No additional official development history or creator commentary is established here.

Trivia

The Highland Axe is one of Elden Ring’s weapons associated with the warriors of the highlands; its item description presents it as their characteristic axe rather than identifying a named wielder.
Its distinctive passive enhances roar-based attacks while the axe is equipped. This makes it relevant to characters using roar-enhancing skills such as War Cry or Barbaric Roar, rather than being only a conventional axe choice.