Kingdom Death: Weapon Types - Part 1 (Patreon)

So I'm working on a couple of pin up miniatures at the moment and they tend to take a long time.  Until then I thought I'd push out a little discussion about the various weapon types in the game and some notes on how to facilitate using them.  These are grouped into two different categories: Offensive and Defensive.  While it's not going to be much of a surprise about the best ones, my opinions on the best weapon types currently in the game are well known and not exactly controversial, I do have some notes on the weaker weapon types and how to try and facilitate using them.

I'll also mention the best expansions to use if you are trying to really power up a given weapon type.

Offensive Weapons:

1. Grand Weapon

While I just wrote that I wouldn't put these in rank order I have to confess that Grand Weapons are currently the best kind of weapon available at the moment.  They just about edge out Katars because of their extreme power, utility and the way that they play exactly into the strengths of an effective hunting part.  They are slow, powerful, deadly and accurate, sure you only get to swing once, but when you do you almost always score a wound.

On top of that the weapon specialisation for Grand Weapons is one of the best in the game. +1 Accuracy and Monster Knockdown on a critical wound is just incredible.  It's not hard to combine a Rib Blade with Full Rawhide and a Luck Charm on your +1 Luck Graves survivor and have someone who is packing a 40% of knocking down the monster each time they swing.  That's early game dominance right there because once knocked down everyone else can attack with nothing to fear but the trap.  Doing this can trivialise so much of the early game, it's no joke.

I've heard people comment a few times that the Mastery seems a bit, meh, well the fact is it's not the best out there, but it does have specialist applications, for a start when you have a Bitter Frenzy Berzerker Grand Weapon user (pretty simple to achieve tbh, it tends to just happen over time) then you can hand them a big weapon and watch them really go to town.  (Timeless Eye helps with this build as well, so Sculpture that fighting art as soon as you can).

In addition the Skleaver and Juggernaut Blade require special note.  The Skleaver is the best non-rare Grand Weapon in the game and is also the only non-Slow Grand Weapon we have at the moment.  It's also pretty easy to make, requiring just 2 level 2 Sunstalkers and average luck on the resource drops.  (It's also a beautiful sculpt).

The Juggernaut Blade may seem difficult to get, but trust me it's not, either you crit farm a level 1/2 Dung Beetle Knight for it, or you can join the big leagues and murder a level 3 DBK. :D

Early on it's likely your Grand Weapon user will also tank, but later on they will DPS while your Shield user tanks with a Grand Weapon in their off-hand.

About the only thing wrong with Grand Weapons is that they require 2 hands and are normally heavy.

Best Grand Weapons: Zanbato, Calcified Zanbato, Rib Blade, Dragon Slayer, Juggernaut Blade, Skleaver, Perfect Slayer

Best Expansions: Gorm, Sunstalker

Best Armor sets: Rawhide, Leather, Rolling, Screaming, Gorment

2. Katar

No surprise, but Katar is second on the list. Katars are overall weaker weapons than Grand Weapons, and most of this is because the design team were under the mistaken belief that Paired is good.  It's not.  It's the same problem with White Lion Armour, their design for the set is garbage and it doesn't support Katar users very well.

So my first recommendation is, no matter how cool it looks, use a single Katar - Paired is not worth the slot in your grid.  I'd accept Paired if the Paired weapon didn't take up a gear slot and didn't completely blank the weapon's profile (which is a nonsensical rule, as you can't stack deadly when you have 2 Beast Claws for example.)  These are things that are getting rolled into my personal set of house rules, document to come probably early next year after I see what's been fixed in 1.5 and what's been left fallow.

The Katar has both an excellent Specialisation and Mastery.  Cancelling reactions on the first hit location normally means that even if you hit with 2 blows you should take minimum damage from reactions.  That's pretty damn powerful.  However, the Mastery is INSANE, gaining evasion on perfect hits is so ridiculous that it's hard to get past it.  

Because of that mastery and specialisation you can almost solo chip a Lion God to death as a Katar user with Digging Claws.  Lion Gods are hard countered by reaction cancelling + evasion and just have their trap to protect them at this point.

I will quickly note that the Spidicules Katar is decent, but it's just a variant of the White Lion one and as long as you have access to the Catarium there is no reason to bother building the Scrap Katar.  This might change in the Abyssal Woods expansion.  The same issue lands with the Beast Knuckle - neither of these perfectly decent weapons have Deadly so they are inferior to their White Lion counterpart.

You maybe surprised to see that I recommend Phoenix armour with Katars.  The fact is that when you are insane Phoenix Armour is amazing if you are not attacked too often (Which Katar users should not be once you are out of the early game).  I also recommend Cycloid armor because you should be blind spot attacking anyway and that armor set gets Sharp onto your Katars which will go a long way towards powering them up in the late game if you don't have a strong survivor.

Best Katars: Digging Claws, Beast Claw Katar, Talon Knife, Replica Lion Knight Right Claw

Best Expansions: Dung Beetle Knight, Lion God, Lion Knight, Dragon King

Best Armor Sets: Rawhide, Rolling, Dragon King, Phoenix, Cycloid

3. Bow

Bows are INSANE, there's really not that much more to say about it.  Range is so powerful in this game and Bows have it in spades.  Ignoring the Vespertine Bow as an outlier we have some amazing weapons in this category.  The Arc Bow, Ink Blood Bow and Sunshark Bow are all top tier late game weapons and the Cat Gut Bow is one of the best early game weapons out there - fudge knows why it got a buff.

I don't have that much to say about it overall, except that in the late game the Arc, Vespertine, Sunshark and Ink Blood Bows are of the same power level in the hands of a bow master and that Cumbersome doesn't really do much to limit bows.  People keep suggesting Cumbersome as a 'fix' on the Vespertine Bow and they're missing the point entirely when they do.  But that's a discussion for another time.

The specialisation is amazing, a reroll on a hit is almost better than the +1 accuracy from Grand Weapons and the Mastery is just so much power and is why I rate all of the top end bows at the same level once you're rolling.  Deadly 2 is incredible.

On top of all of this Bows have amazing utility items in their Arrows.  I think there is only one kind of bad arrow and that's the Vespertine one, which is only semi-bad because of it's one shot nature.  It's still powerful and often worth crafting with spare flowers.

If that wasn't enough we also have the quivers in the game. The Dragon King brings us the Shielded Quiver which lets us activate our arrows a second time and the Sunstalker has the Quiver and Sun String that not only lets you carry 3 extra arrows, but when activated gives your bow +2 range.  That means you can use a Vespertine to cancel even the Level 3 DBK's trap.  That's ridiculous, but wait there's more.  You can combine both quivers on the same user and have 3 extra arrows you can fire twice.  That's 2 slots to get effectively 6 arrows per fight.  

I could probably write a whole extra article just on bows, quivers and arrows if there is interest.

If you want to see how degenerate the game can get at times, you'll find a lot of fun in packing a party of 4x bow users.

Best Bows: All of them. They're all amazing.

Best Expansions: Flower Knight, Sunstalker, Dragon King

Best Armor Sets: Rawhide, Rolling, Cycloid.

4. Axe

Axes could be debated as a top 3 weapon type, but it's hard to argue that they are better than the above three weapons.  The specialisation is an incredible mid to late game boon and the mastery is ridiculous when combined with the Cat's Eye Circlet/Wisdom Potion.  

On top of that, we have multiple spear/axe hybrids and they become very powerful when you have spear mastery in the game because they gain the Trap Cancellation ability.

Generally I will complete one mastery first and then work on Axe as a follow up.  However it is worth chasing after this early on, especially if you plan to hunt monsters that are crippled by persistent injuries (like the DBK).

The main issue with Axes is they are still relatively rare, in the core game there is only the Lantern Glaive as the late game powerhouse, but with the Sunstalker expansion added in you can rock the Denticle Axe and have a grand time.  Otherwise the Xmaxe is a fun alternative, if you can get your hands on it.

Best Axes: Greater Gaxe, Counterweight Axe, Denticle Axe, Lantern Glaive, Lantern Halberd, Xmaxe, Butcher's Cleaver

Best Expansions: Gorm, Sunstalker, Lion Knight

Best Armor Sets: Warlord, Rawhide, Rolling (Especially with Lantern Glaives), Cycloid (Sharp in the blind spot), Screaming <3

5. Sword

Swords are so nearly good, but they are a weird beast, because they trend towards high speed and without access to the Black Sword or Griswaldo there isn't really a great late game sword unless you are lucky enough to get a Steel Sword from events.  

I cannot dispute that the specialisation ability on Swords is pretty solid, however the mastery is a combination of good stuff (+1 Accuracy) and problematic (+1 Speed).  Because swords trend towards 2 to 3 speed the mastery becomes quite a liability.

However, the Black Sword (and of course Griswaldo) changes all of this, in the hands of a sword master you have an absolutely insane weapon that will wound just about every single monster in the game.  

The main issue here is, you can get all of these benefits via Vagabond Armor (Before/Beyond the Wall expansions), this promo set is an alternative leather set that exchanges your head armor for sword mastery.  Despite the slightly naff affinity layout on Vagabond Armor it's something I find myself building most campaigns if I am short on masteries and I really hope we see other versions of this armor for different masteries in the future.

Best Swords: Black Sword, Griswaldo, Blast Sword, Scrap Sword, Steel Sword

Best Expansions: Gorm, Green Armor, Dragon King

Best Armor: Vagabond, Gorment, Leather

6. Scythe

Ok, so there is only one scythe in the game and it's a pain in the ass to make.  You have to Deathblow the Dragon King and risk losing a survivor while retrieving the heart (80% chance of death).  That's a lot of work to go through to make this weapon but it is powerful enough to be worth it.

The main thing to bare in mind here is that we've seen pictures of a Bone Scythe in the 1.5 kickstarter, so this is a weapon type that might get expanded on in the future and that's exciting.

The Specialisation/Mastery itself is very interesting and powerful.  The specialisation is more subtle, shuffling a successfully hit location into the deck when you critically hit it might not seem like much, but it gives you a reshuffle on crappy hit locations and that can delay the trap a great deal.

Best Scythes & Best Expansions: When there is only one candidate, there is only one choice.  Vote to re-elect Governor Dragon King with the Nuclear Scythe

Best Armor: Screaming, Leather, Dragon King (sort of).

7. Club

Clubs.  Oh Clubs. Why are you so disliked?  It's not that either the original or the new mastery is bad.  It isn't, the issue is the bloody weapons themselves are either hard to get (Riot Mace, Gloom Hammer) or they are sort of garbage (Skullcap Hammer, Whistling Mace, Thundermaul.)   There are some things you can do with these Clubs, but all of them require either support from Timeless Eye and/or Cycloid Armor (which gives them Sharp so you can trigger the Mastery a bit more often) or a lot of additional strength and accuracy.  

The 1.5 Mastery is rather lacklustre, it has synergy with the specialisation, but once again you need Timeless Eye to really benefit from this properly and I find myself wondering why the Specialisation doesn't increase your perfect hit range, letting you Perfect hit on a 9 or 10.  

Lantern Armor has an obvious synergy with clubs, getting +2 accuracy helps at least one of the problematic aspects of most of the clubs out there at the moment.  But I find it better to wear Rolling Armor and just craft the Lantern Gauntlets separately.  At least I would if it wasn't for that fact that Rolling Armor + Cycloid Sleeves is better for a club wielder. 

Anyway, Clubs leave a lot to be desired, better statlines in the new expansions might help here, it's not that they are bad, it's just they are mostly average and average isn't good enough in this game.  

If you really want to make good use of Clubs, I recommend Cycloid Armor, that set is powerful enough to make a lot of the weaker weapons in the game good.

Best Clubs: Riot Mace, Gloom Hammer

Best Expansions: Slenderman, Gorm, Sunstalker

Best Armor: Gorment, Leather, Cycloid, Lantern, Rolling Armor + Lantern Gauntlets or Cycloid Sleeves

I will write about the remaining 8 weapon masteries in part 2.  Coming Soon!