Sephiria Great Sword Guide: Storm Cloud to Lazarion

The Great Sword is the class Sephiria players point beginners at, and also the class with the widest spread of completely different playstyles inside one upgrade tree. The same weapon can be a fire-and-forget Storm Cloud caster, a three-hit physical bruiser (Swift Regret), a laser (Troubling Delight), a Wound-explosion specialist (The Inquisitor), or — through Lazarion — a summoner whose own attacks stop mattering. This page walks the documented routes and says which ones are 1.0-confirmed and which are Early Access memories.

The class table and the six-weapon overview are on all weapons; unlocking the Great Sword takes the Heavy Weapon Training node and Moro's training quest, as described on the Destiny Inscription page.

What the base weapon does

Great Sword is a slow, wide melee weapon with a charged special, Whirlwind. You cannot move well mid-swing, which is why every serious Great Sword guide spends talent points on attack speed — the tier 50 write-up calls attack speed "survivability" for this class, and the Wind Song artifact Wind Sheet Music (melee range) is "must have."

Three upgrades exist purely to reshape Whirlwind and nothing else:

1.0.19 added exactly one new upgrade to the class (against four each for Dagger, Crossbow and Staff), so the tree you see today is essentially the Early Access tree plus one node. Walk it in the Comprehensive Training Grounds anvil before committing dice — the Journal's Weapons tab shows every branch.

Route 1 — Storm Cloud (the easy clear)

The community's default recommendation, and the one we describe first on the builds overview. Take the Lightning Greatsword "E2G" line and push to E3G (three Storm Cloud stacks every five attacks) or S3G (Shock on direct attack; its Electrocution damage went from 20% to 33% in 1.0.19). Rush anvils. The special then does the work — "spam your special attack and let the stormcloud win the game for you."

Two 1.0.26 notes touch this route. Superconductor — the Storm Cloud-consuming special — now shows a notification in multiplayer when it cannot fire for lack of clouds, and the Meteorologist Miracle's trade (+10 Storm Cloud out of combat, +4 Lightning, −30% max MP) is unchanged.

Route 2 — Swift Regret (three final attacks)

Swift Regret grants bonus normal-attack damage and rewrites the combo so it ends in three "final attacks" rather than one. A specific set of artifacts keys off final attacks — the tier 50 guide's must-haves are the Golden Crown of Arrogance (final-hit crit chance) and Scythe of Berut, which "massively synergises with the Crown" — and the Sturdy tag multiplies the physical damage underneath. It is the only Great Sword route with a documented Hard Mode tier 50 clear, and it wins by tanking, not by DPS; the full artifact list is on its own page.

The same author tried Solis Sineris — the Great Sword's Solar Blade upgrade — and The Inquisitor on lower tiers before choosing Swift Regret for the tier 50 run. That is a useful data point: both are viable at mid tiers by one experienced player's account, neither was picked for the hardest content.

Route 3 — the rewrites

Three upgrades change what the weapon is rather than tuning it:

• Bone Gearblade replaces Whirlwind with Reassemble (30 MP): the blade lengthens for eight seconds and every normal attack deals +15 damage.
• Troubling Delight turns your attacks into lasers.
• Crimson Thorn applies Wound; The Inquisitor doubles Wound damage and swaps in a Wound Explosion special — this is the Wound build, and the one the tier 50 author kept as a backup.

None of these has a published high-tier clear we can cite, so treat them as documented mechanics rather than recommended routes.

Route 4 — Lazarion, the crystal summoner

The most unusual Great Sword build is Japanese-documented and dates from Early Access (0.8.12): Lazarion, whose special spends 25 MP to summon up to three crystal companions. The guide's key discovery is that the crystals count as #Companion for tag purposes, so the whole Companion artifact family buffs them, and their damage scales off the average of all elemental stats (150% of it, per the guide) — so any element raises them.

The problem it solves: a fresh crystal has 60 HP and spends 5 HP per attack, so it dies in under a second if touched. The fix is the Simple Contract artifact (簡易契約書), which the guide maxes for +150% companion HP, plus the Multipurpose Belt for all-element damage — both carried in through the Wish Fountain. Costume is the Mole, because companion damage boosts are so scarce that "no other character can substitute," accepting its −20 defence. Talents go entirely into Luck and MP regeneration; the author is explicit that once Lazarion is crafted (chapter 2 at the earliest) you stop attacking yourself, so physical stats are wasted. Keep 500 Leaf in hand for Colin the mercenary, who takes aggro; keep enough MP for the Smokescreen spellbook, your only escape when a dash is not available.

One correction the guide itself makes: as of 0.8.12 crystal attacks are not special attacks — artifacts that buff special-attack damage do nothing for them.

This route is Early Access-era. We have no 1.0 confirmation of the 25 MP cost, the 60 HP / 5 HP figures, or the 150% scaling, and 1.0.24 changed Colin's behaviour (dialogue disabled once he becomes a companion). Print it as a documented idea, not as current numbers — that is our standing rule for pre-1.0 values.

Which route for which player

• Stuck on a chapter, want out: Storm Cloud.
• Hard Mode tiers where Storm Cloud stops working: Swift Regret with the evasion-tank bag.
• Like Wound mechanics: Crimson Thorn → The Inquisitor.
• Want the weirdest thing in the game and can tolerate a hard first two chapters: Lazarion, with the Early Access caveat above.

What we will not add is a ranking. The builds overview explains why: TEAM HORAY has never published one, and every "easiest weapon" claim we can find is an individual Steam post.