The Uchigatana Elden Ring players chase early is one of the best starting weapons in the entire game, and for good reason. This katana combines speed, bleed buildup, and a genuinely useful weapon skill that scales into the late game. Few early weapons stay relevant for an entire playthrough, but this one does.
If you are still fighting with a club or a broken straight sword, switching to the Uchigatana Elden Ring community consistently recommends will change how your runs feel. It hits fast, it inflicts Hemorrhage, and it rewards aggressive, punishing play. Once you learn its rhythm, going back to slower weapons feels like a downgrade.
So where do you actually find it? The Uchigatana is located inside the Deathtouched Catacombs in Stormhill, Limgrave, northwest of the Saintsbridge Site of Grace. You will need to solve a short lever puzzle inside the dungeon, and the blade is waiting on a hanging corpse near the end of the corridor. Samurai class characters skip all of this since they start with it equipped.
This guide covers the exact route to the weapon, its stats and scaling, the Unsheathe skill, the best infusions for bleed builds, and the mistakes that cost most players unnecessary deaths along the way.
Where Do You Find The Uchigatana In Elden Ring?
Knowing the uchigatana elden ring location in advance saves a lot of wasted exploring. The dungeon sits in a specific spot on the Stormhill cliffside, and the path there is short once you know where to look.
The Deathtouched Catacombs Route
Here is the fastest way to reach it from the start of the game:
- Fast travel to the Saintsbridge Site of Grace in Limgrave.
- Head west, in the general direction of Stormveil Castle.
- Look for a cliffside slope on your right, just before you reach an enemy camp.
- Climb the slope to find the Deathtouched Catacombs entrance.
- Enter the dungeon and proceed down the staircase inside.
Consequently, this becomes one of the very first optional dungeons most builds visit. It is beatable at extremely low levels if you play carefully around the enemies inside.
Solving The Lever Puzzle
Once inside, the layout can be confusing on a first visit. Follow this order to avoid backtracking:
- Descend the initial staircase and turn right at the bottom.
- Find the room containing a statue with a lever directly in front of it.
- Pull the lever to unlock a nearby corridor.
- Drop down into the now-open passage and turn left.
- Follow the corridor to its end, where a hanging corpse holds the Uchigatana.
After grabbing the katana, a second lever nearby unlocks the main doors back at the entrance. That opens the path to the dungeon's boss, a Black Knife Assassin, which is a tough but optional fight for how early you can reach it.
What Are The Uchigatana's Stats And Scaling?
Understanding the base numbers helps you decide whether this weapon fits your build right now, or whether it becomes a stepping stone toward something heavier later.
Attribute Requirements And Base Damage
The Uchigatana requires 11 Strength and 15 Dexterity to wield without penalty. In addition, it deals solid base physical damage with a strong critical damage bonus on backstabs and ripostes.
Here is a quick comparison against other early katanas players often consider instead:
| Weapon | Requirements | Base Scaling | Bleed Buildup | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uchigatana | 11 Str / 15 Dex | D Str, C Dex | Moderate, high with Blood infusion | Balanced Dex bleed builds |
| Nagakiba | 12 Str / 18 Dex | D Str, C Dex | Lower per hit, longer reach | Poise breaking, ranged pokes |
| Wakizashi | 8 Str / 12 Dex | D Str, D Dex | High per hit, low damage | Parrying and quick bleed procs |
| Rivers of Blood | 12 Str / 18 Dex, 20 Arc | E Str, D Dex, D Arc | Very high with skill spam | Arcane bleed builds |
As shown above, the standard Uchigatana sits in a comfortable middle ground. It is not the hardest hitting katana, but its balance of speed, reach, and reliability makes it approachable for new characters.
How Infusions Change The Scaling
Upgrading the weapon changes its scaling significantly depending on the affinity you choose:
- Standard: Improves from D Strength and C Dexterity up toward better scaling by +25, keeping innate bleed buildup intact.
- Keen: Removes the weapon's Hemorrhage effect but boosts Dexterity scaling to A, ideal for pure Dex builds.
- Heavy: Shifts scaling toward Strength, reaching A grade, useful if you are dumping points into Strength instead.
- Blood: Adds Arcane scaling and significantly raises Hemorrhage buildup, at the cost of lower raw physical scaling.
- Occult: Scales with Arcane like Blood, but fits better into dedicated Arcane bleed builds built around 60 or more Arcane.
Upgrading the Uchigatana costs Smithing Stones in groups of 12 per 3 levels, with the final level requiring a rarer Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. Therefore, plan your material farming ahead of time if you intend to fully upgrade it.
How Does The Unsheathe Skill Work?
The Uchigatana's innate weapon skill is called Unsheathe, and it is one of the reasons this katana punches above its weight class throughout the game.
The Two Attack Variants
Activating Unsheathe puts you into a sheathed stance. Your movement speed and stamina regeneration drop while you hold it, but the payoff on release is significant:
- Light attack release: A quick forward dash paired with a horizontal slash dealing 190% attack power, costing 10 FP.
- Heavy attack release: A slower forward step followed by a heavy overhead slash dealing 245% attack power, costing 15 FP.
Moreover, both variants deal solid stance damage, which makes Unsheathe genuinely useful for breaking enemy poise rather than just dealing raw damage.
When To Use Unsheathe In Combat
The skill rewards patience and reading enemy openings rather than mindless spamming. Consider these situations:
- Punishing a boss after it whiffs a slow attack, since the light release comes out fast.
- Opening an engagement from mid range, using the dash to close distance safely.
- Finishing a stagger window with the heavy release for maximum stance damage.
- Baiting an enemy attack, then releasing the skill the moment they commit.
Nevertheless, holding the stance too long against aggressive enemies can get you punished, since your movement is slowed the entire time you are charging it.
What Is The Best Uchigatana Build?
Players searching for how to get uchigatana elden ring builds working almost always end up asking the same follow up question: what stats actually make it strong?
Building Around Bleed
Hemorrhage triggers a burst of percentage-based damage once buildup fills, which makes it extremely strong against tougher enemies and bosses with large health pools. To build around it effectively:
- Prioritize Arcane if you plan to infuse Occult, since Arcane both boosts bleed buildup and status resistance.
- Keep Dexterity reasonably high even on a Blood infusion, since it still contributes to attack rating.
- Pair the katana with a bow or throwing knives to proc bleed from range before an enemy closes in.
- Use talismans that boost Hemorrhage buildup speed to shorten the time between procs.
Building Around Pure Dexterity
Alternatively, a Keen infusion turns the uchigatana location elden ring farming effort into a pure Dexterity investment instead of a hybrid build. This path trades the bleed proc for consistently higher scaling damage on every hit, which some players prefer against enemies resistant to blood loss.
Pro Tips: Uchigatana Builds
- Respec around your infusion, not your starting class: Keen and Occult want very different stat spreads. Why: mismatched stats waste levels on scaling that does not apply to your chosen affinity.
- Carry a backup weapon for bleed-immune enemies: Some bosses and late-game enemies resist Hemorrhage entirely. Why: without a backup, you lose your main damage source in exactly the fights that matter most.
- Time Unsheathe around enemy recovery frames: Firing it mid-combo gets you punished. Why: the stance slows you down, so timing determines whether it is a free hit or a free hit taken.
- Upgrade before respeccing: A +25 Uchigatana at lower stats often outperforms a +10 Uchigatana at higher stats. Why: upgrade levels scale damage more aggressively than most early attribute points.
Common Mistakes Uchigatana Players Make
- Ignoring the affinity trade-offs: Many players infuse Blood without realizing it removes most of the raw physical scaling. Fix: only choose Blood or Occult if bleed buildup is genuinely your win condition.
- Spamming Unsheathe against fast enemies: The stance's slowed movement gets punished hard by quick attackers. Fix: save the skill for openings, not as your default combo starter.
- Skipping the Deathtouched Catacombs boss: Some players grab the katana and immediately leave, missing an efficient early Rune farm. Fix: pull the second lever and fight the Black Knife Assassin once you are comfortable with the katana's moveset.
- Under-leveling Arcane on a Blood build: Low Arcane makes bleed procs take far longer than expected. Fix: check your Hemorrhage buildup stat in the equipment screen before committing runes elsewhere.
Why Does Connection Quality Matter For Elden Ring Sessions?
Elden Ring is primarily single-player, but its online features matter more than people expect. Summoning cooperators, being invaded, and playing modes like Nightreign all depend on a stable connection to other players' sessions.
Lag During Boss Fights And Invasions
A sudden spike in latency during a boss fight or an invasion can turn a clean dodge into a punished hit. This is especially painful in a game where a single mistimed roll can end a run you have spent an hour building toward.
This is where ExitLag comes in. It is not a VPN, it does not encrypt your traffic or mask your identity. Instead, it works as a real-time connection optimizer, analyzing multiple network paths and routing your traffic through the fastest, most stable option available at that moment.
How ExitLag Helps Co-op And Invasion Sessions
ExitLag supports more than 4,000 titles across PC and mobile, backed by over 1,500 servers spread across 190+ countries. It is trusted by more than 30 million users and handles over 18 million optimizations every week.
For an online-adjacent game like Elden Ring, a few features matter most:
- Real-time Optimization: Actively reduces delay and packet loss, which keeps your inputs feeling consistent during co-op boss fights.
- Multipath Technology: Sends your traffic through multiple routes at once, so if one path degrades, another keeps your connection stable.
- Multi-Internet: Lets you combine up to four internet connections simultaneously, so a single dropped connection does not disconnect you mid-invasion.
Safety is worth mentioning too, since Elden Ring runs anti-cheat protections online. ExitLag does not modify any game files, does not inject code, and does not interact with anti-cheat systems in any way, so it is safe to run alongside Elden Ring. Just avoid running it together with a VPN, since the two can interfere with each other's routing.
If unstable connections have cost you cooperators mid-fight or made invasions feel unfair, it is worth trying the ExitLag Download and testing your own routing before your next Limgrave run.
All game images used in this blog post belong to FromSoftware and Bandai Namco. They are used for informational and educational purposes only and do not imply endorsement or affiliation with the rights holders.
