The Marais Executioner’s Sword has long been a legendary weapon in the base game of Elden Ring. When combined with the combo talisman, bleed effects, and other buffs like the Monkey’s Play, it allows players to effortlessly execute boss kills with its powerful skill, earning it the reputation as one of the strongest “wheelchair” weapons. In the Elden Ring: Nightfall expansion, wielding this sword to wreak havoc has become even simpler—players just need to continuously farm enemies. The weapon’s effect increases damage with each enemy defeated.
Japanese streamer and speedrunner mintius took this weapon’s effect as a challenge and pushed it to the extreme, with surprising results.
The Nightfall mode speedrun challenge is timed to prevent players from becoming too powerful or exploring excessively in a single run. However, by exploiting the infinite respawn of mobs in the Wormface encounter and the lack of time limits in boss fights (such as the Nightfall boss fight against Duke’s Dear Freja, where killing small spiders also boosts damage), mintius was able to farm enemies at will.
This farming can even exceed the damage cap, causing the weapon’s damage to reset to zero. When the damage output surpasses the game’s processing limits, an “overflow” occurs, resetting damage values to zero. Since the Marais Executioner’s Sword’s damage boost applies to all player weapons (including fists), this can leave the player with no effective means of attack.
In a recent interview, mintius explained that while he got stuck during solo testing of the Marais Executioner’s Sword, most players won’t face this issue in online play—provided their teammates play as intended. They can still progress through the game, but once the damage multiplier cap is exceeded, teammates can’t rely on the boosted damage anymore. Given the sword’s unique mechanics and the need to kill many enemies to stack its effect fully, reaching the damage cap is mostly feasible in solo play or with a coordinated fixed team.
Mintius plans to conduct further tests on the Marais Executioner’s Sword. He now knows the exact number of kills needed before the weapon fails. Specifically, he wants to test how much damage a falling attack from a high place with the sword can deal to the Fire Chariot. If his calculations are correct, this attack could deal tens of thousands of damage. However, he must carefully monitor the kill count beforehand to avoid ending up with zero damage due to overflow.
