Top Offensive Gear Items in the Core Game and Gen 1 Expansions: Part 5 (Patreon)

Greater Gaxe - Gorm

The Greater Gaxe is one of the top Offensive weapons for the super early game, alongside the Lion Beast Katar, and the Rib Blade.  It's one of two axes you get from The Gorm expansion, and while I prefer the way that the Gaxe model looks, there's really no contest when it comes to checking which weapon is better.  The Greater Gaxe is a (2/6+/4/Reach 2/Deadly) weapon with a triggered ability that can give it +4 Strength on a perfect hit. It's outright on par with the Counterweight Axe, but you can get it after the LY1 hunt if you plunge straight into hunting the Gorm.  

On top of that the crafting cost for Greater Gaxe is 1 Dense Bone and 1 Jiggling Lard - in comparison the Gaxe costs 1 Dense Bone and 1 Stout Hide.  Now anyone who has experienced the Gorm expansion will tell you that Stout Hide is the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to making your Gorment suit, you need 6 Stout Hide to build the full T1 Gorment Suit  - so spending one hide on Gaxe is really unwise unless you are never going to build a Gorment suit in the first place.  

I want to like the Gaxe, but when the Greater Gaxe comes with Reach 2 and Deadly, plus it has a more appetising crafting cost, there's really no contest.  You're always going to want a Greater Gaxe unless your axe survivor has only one hand.

Fist and Tooth - Starting

It is insane how good Fist and Tooth is as a weapon type in this game.  It's a (2/8+/0/Deadly) weapon that has one of the best weapon masteries in the game tied too it.  Because a Fist and Tooth Master gives everyone in the settlement access to the incredible specialisation ability (see my piece on weapon masteries for more details: https://www.patreon.com/posts/kingdom-death-1-11800380 and https://www.patreon.com/posts/kingdom-death-2-11800663 )

Interestingly, F&T is only the second best way to train this ability, there is a more effective one which will appear further up the list.  But Fist and Tooth will always be a part of the Top Offensive Items in KD:M because of how powerful it is in the early game.  F&T punching the Prologue White Lion and L1 Flower Knight are very powerful ways of farming for extra resources.  It doesn't matter if you have low strength if you have a high crit chance and F&T is great for that.

Calcified Juggernaut Blade - DBK

This one is super difficult to get.  The easiest way to get the Juggernaut Blade is to break the weapon of the L1 or L2 DBK (Axe Masters are great at doing this) and then fossilize the Regeneration Blade.  However, if you are up to the challenge, you can get one by beating the L3 DBK outright. (Mind you, if you can do that, you really don't need the Juggernaut Blade after all, except to build Griswaldo with).

The CJB is the DBK's signature weapon, it's a (1/5+/9/Slow/Block 1/+1 STR for each token you have) Grand Weapon.  So it effectively makes you immune to -STR tokens and you should remember that this includes all tokens, stat modifiers, bleeding and even the Priority Target Token all count as tokens and give this modifier.  So you can gain a lot of strength with some clever management.

The weapon having Block 1 is also quite useful for builds that want to squeeze out extra efficiency by having a weapon and block in the same slot. But often the additional benefits of a Shield mean that this isn't that desirable.  It's the same issue that the Blast Sword has - Block on a non-shield is decent, but you still often want a shield anyway because of all the other benefits.

However, there is one build that rather loves the Juggernaut Blade and that is the Rolling Armor + Phoenix Placart build.  It's a powerhouse at ignoring hits and one of the more interesting non-shield tank builds you can get.

Riot Mace - Gorm

Difficult to get, costly to make, but the Riot Mace is overall the best club available in the game at the moment.  It's a (2/5+/5/Deadly/When you Crit the monster performs Basic action instead of AI) weapon that even has a right facing blue affinity.

This means Rawhide Armor + Riot Mace DPS Builds are possible in the early game and the weapon hits hard enough that it will transition into the mid game.  In 1.5, where Clubs are given Sharp by Lantern Armor it will even become viable in the late game (it kind of is viable anyway).

You can only build the Riot Mace by scoring a Deathblow hit vs a Gorm (another reason why the Cat's Eye Circlet is so important in this game, Deathblows) and it costs the Pure Bulb, a Stout Kidney, a Jiggling Lard and a Dense Bone to build.  But it is worth every single resource spent.

Sunspot Darts - Sunstalker

For the price of 1 Sunstones plus 3 Bone you gain the Sunspot darts,  these are a (4/7+/3/Range 5/Deadly/Activation Limit: 3/+1 Survival to adjacent survivors when you hit) thrown weapon.

So they have the limitations and issues that most thrown weapons naturally have anyway, relatively poor accuracy, lowish strength, no weapon mastery.  However, these darts have two things that make up for this, Deadly and the extra survival gains.  

These darts are not really a primary weapon, instead they are a tool for survival gain for the entire party.  You roll enough dice that you're likely to hit and then everyone (who should have moved up next to the monster) gains an extra survival.  That's potentially 12 survival stuffed into one gear item.  It's really, really good.   The Deadly is an excellent benefit also because of critical hits (I'm not going to repeat myself on them).

Also, the price for the Sunsport Darts is very low, you gain a Sunstone each time you beat a Sunstalker and bones are the least valuable of all the resources in the game.  It's a steal of a weapon.