Wicked Weapon Reviews

[DakotaDust]

Sinew

Overview
This weapon with a decent roll is a bit broken. It might not do the most raw damage but it stun locks everything, even Echo Knight. I definitely didn’t break any time records with this one, but nothing really got a chance to move once I started popping abilities.

Attack Style
Of the rapiers I’ve tried, this one is a little on the slower side. It goes for more poise breaking jabs rather than rapid flurries. I didn’t find anything wrong with that, but it’s more of a one on one weapon rather than a group fighter.

Stat Specs
16 faith, 16 int. Only takes about 4 levels to meet the requirements, so this is much, much easier to achieve than the spear I reviewed before this. Not that you’ll get a legendary drop 4 levels into the game, but hey on a new character it’ll be an easy goal. I imagine the damage becomes more meaningful as you pump these two up, but I cleared the content of the game before I got too far with this one.

Runes
The Sinew has 2 really solid runes, and 2 useless ones. To get the useless out of the way, I just don’t see a time where you’d want to sacrifice health for focus, I know the weapon has lifesteal and can just get it back. But in that same time you could just stab the enemy a few times, get the same focus, and not be down on hp. Also Pulse of Health is a trash heal, heal aura does like 6x the healing for 2 focus points.

Those aside, Piercing Spin and Piercing Flurry are absolutely broken. Piercing spin breaks shields and stunlocks anyone it hits, including Echo Knight. You can pretty much just spam this whenever you want and it’ll usually get the job done. Piercing flurry is a good pair for the health steal, as it hits like 10 times (I could be off on that number, but it’s a lot) and with the 4% heal I rolled that’s almost half my hp per attack. Throw on some focus gain on damage and this ability is free on cast. The only thing I didn’t like about Piercing Flurry is that other rapiers just have this attack as part of their normal attack kit. Sinew doesn’t and instead makes it an ability. Which is fine, because the weapon is broken as is, but it felt like 2 of the runes are useless, one is just a basic attack in a rune slot, and then the last is the real mvp.

Gems and Enchantment
Like I said, just slot in focus gain on damage and you’re set. Ice might be interesting due to the rapid attacks, and if you have a torch or ring helping provide the focus instead, you could try that out I suppose.

Final Thoughts
It feels weird giving this weapon an S tier when 2 of it’s runes are trash, the damage isn’t really that high, and it turned one of the best attacks in the rapier’s kit into a rune…but this weapon has natural lifesteal and stunlocks every single enemy or boss in the game, and is easy to meet the stat requirements. So as long as you don’t just completely screw up this is easy mode in a weapon. So, it’s an S until they change either how CC works or focus gain on damage.

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Additional Comment: Some people wanted to know about offhands to use with one handed weapons. I’m going to review offhands as their own thing at some point, but the devs are reworking some of them and I don’t want to do a review and then need to re-review in a few weeks. So stay tuned on that.

As for the last couple of builds I’ve been using a torch with 8 focus gain on damage done…because yeah that shit’s broken.

[DakotaDust]

Yewn Longbow

Overview
Now that the bows have been redesigned to use stamina on basic shots instead of focus, I figured I’d go for a pure bow run and let you know how it worked out. Well in short, the weapon itself works fine but ohhh boy does using only a bow really show how bad the lock on system currently is in this version of the game.

Attack Style
Unlike melee weapons, there really isn’t a moveset for this. You shot an arrow… That’s it. To expand on that though, what I would say is that you’re likely going to be doing a lot of roll back, and then shoot as soon as you stop rolling. You’ll do this with enemies using shields in particular because they block your shots, but if they’re swinging at you they’re open for business.

Stat Specs
The Yewn Longbow requires 22 dex, and realistically your main goal after hitting the 22 dex requirement is just going to be dumping points into focus. If you’re going for a true archer playstyle, you shouldn’t be getting hit. I only put so many points into carry weight because I wanted to wear the new armor sets they added to the game. (They look cool right?)

Runes
The reason you’re dumping a lot of points into focus is because spreadshot counts as 5 separate instances of damage. Since it cost 100 points to use, as soon as you get to a point where you’re getting 20+ focus per arrow, then the cast is free…and it one shots just about everything currently in the game. Knockout shot is something I’d add if you’re sticking with a white bow just to cancel out difficult boss moves, but if you enchanted your down to just basic and spreadshot, which will do just fine in most cases.

Note, as of hotfix 7, spreadshot doesn’t so much spread as it homes in on whatever you’re locked onto. Making it extremely effective. If they change this to be more of an actual spreadshot, then that could drastically nerf the rune and you may need to get up close to an enemy to use it effectively.

Gems and Enchantment
Focus gain on damage, that’s all you need. Shoot infinite arrows to your hearts content.

I added a sapphire to see if I would get a freeze proc on Echo Knight, I did not. Electric might be better in this case to help knock him over sooner. I haven’t tested that though.

Final Thoughts
S tier when the lock on system does what you want. F tier, uninstall the game, rage inducing nonsense when the lock on system doesn’t work. So many times, especially earlier on when focus was limited, I would go to shoot an enemy and then lock on to a rat or a shield guy, or just shoot at nothing and this drove me crazy. I really hated playing this weapon half the time I was using it. But it wasn’t at all the weapon’s fault, this bow does excellent. The lock on system just really needs a rework. If they fix that and haven’t nerfed focus gain on damage into oblivion, this bow will easily carry you through the current content without ever being attacked outside of boss fights.

[DakotaDust]

Assegai

Overview
Why they made the easiest to acquire spear, hidden behind a blueprint you can find in The Crucible, I couldn’t tell ya. But I tried it out and… it’s a spear. Cleared The Crucible on my 2nd attempt and dying to fall damage the first time. This did wayyy less damage and did not have the cool moveset as compared to The Coral Piercer…but that required 13 levels to equip… Assegai requires 1 (well not even 1).

Attack Style
Poke 3 times, depending on if you’re walking, running, or rolling, the speed of the pokes changes. I recommend the roll for the quickest set of 3 attacks.

Stat Specs
11 Strength, 11 Dex, one of the easiest weapons to meet the requirements for in the game outside of those with only a single 10 requirement. It didn’t seem to go up too much from dumping more specs into it, so you could just focus on upgrading it to max at the smithy and then putting most of your points into carry weight, stam, and health.

Runes
Ass. starts with twirl spin, which is more like a twirl, followed by two spinning attacks. Style on your foes before you kill them I suppose. It’s fine. If you’re surrounded by mobs and none of them have a shield then it’ll clear what’s directly around you. That’s about it.

I threw on Lightning flurry again…so Echo Knight was just R1 Triangle spam, but I did mix in the other two runes, Frost Dash, and slashing Dodge into fighting the mobs and those were fun. Frost Dash does incredible freeze proc once the weapon is fully upgraded. Everyone in the Crucible, aside from the giants, froze in one jab, or died. Slashing Dodge is more of a jump back, then dash back in with a slice kind of move. It was really good to do against the knights after doing a backstab. With the axe guys in particular, as soon as they get up they shove you which will combo into a chop that fucks you up. With Slashing Dodge you just backstab, wait half a second, then Slash Dodge and you’ll step back from the shove and come in with a killing blow. Felt nice every time I did it.

Gems and Enchantment
I threw on a little bit of everything. The lightning damage honestly does wonders in The Crucible. It cancels out the witches move with every poke and it does decent against everyone else. Obviously the focus on damage is a major gem as always until they nerf it, so that’s good too.

Final Thoughts
Ass. might not have been as flashy and fun as Coral Piercer, but it required 13x less levels to acquire so it didn’t need to be. It was effective at what it did best, which was roll, jab 3 times, and do a special. Which is almost exclusively what I did hundreds of times as I cleared the content currently in the game.

There’s nothing special about the Ass. but with only requiring two skill points, it’s a nice Ass. everyone can grab a hold of. I give it a B+.