Are you feeling a little lost looking at all the different weapons there are in Dead Cells and you’re not sure which one to pick? No worries, I have you covered with my overview and ranking for all the weapons in Dead Cells that will help you picking the one you like and also the one that works well.
Best Weapons in Dead Cells (Tier List)
Alright, let’s jump right into the list….
S Tier
Excellent weapons. They are excellent in many contexts and will remain useful during the the full playthrough.
Balanced Blade – A player input-focused melee choice, the Balanced Blade is a uniquely combo-centric, high–damage, boss-killing machine that can’t be beaten if looking for a high-skilled playthrough. Given enough time for mastery, this weapon can be incredibly deadly in proper use.
Pure Nail – The Pure Nail is an agility-focused weapon based on critically triggered downward slashes. It presents excellent crit chances for very little effort.
Bladed Tonfas – With a leaping strike leading into a crit-based combo, the Bladed Tonfas take a while to get used to. Once accustomed, however, they are an incredibly powerful tool for rhythmic mayhem. They deal heavy damage, are agile enough to minimize a lot of damage, and, above all else, help to close the gap in melee brawls.
Meat Skewer – This weapon is, frankly, incredible. With a first attack that places you behind the enemy, this weapon can make you dodge around the battlefield at an incredible rate. This even works for projectiles!
Frantic Sword – One might assume it strange to place an item with a crit condition based on low health and malaise stats this high. However, with various items and conditions that limit those resources, and the damage being absolutely incredible, this is a no-brainer for many playstyles.
Gold Digger – The Gold Digger is based around a gold loop. It drops gold on hits and, when enough is gathered, causes critical damage. This is a mind-blowing weapon- as gold is important overall in Dead Cells, having a weapon generating it for you while dealing constant critical damage makes this essential.
A Tier
Good weapons. They are effective in a wide variety of situations.
Assassin’s Dagger – The Assassin’s Dagger has an incredibly unique critical condition. When backstabbing an enemy, the crit is triggered, causing a large release of damage upon impact. This will force players to switch up their playstyle, sure, but it becomes incredibly worthy of its placement from damage ability alone.
Snake Fangs – The Snake Fangs allow you to teleport across the battlefield, with a focus on building up poison markers with each hit. This is a very deadly option, as you consistently introduce building levels of passive damage to enemies.
Rhythm n’ Bouzouki – This weapon is rhythm-based, dealing crits in exchange for rhythmic combo building. Should you learn the technique, this is a great choice for alternative playstyles.
Rapier – This one is a classic. By triggering a crit after dodging or rolling, players are essentially given free damage payouts for simply playing the game. This is an incredible option.
Hattori’s Katana – With a useful dash ability that deals instant crits, this weapon is great for both slashing through groups of enemies and closing the range on bosses.
Nutcracker – When stunned, frozen or rooted, the nutcracker deals critical damage. As such, this should be paired with a build that supports those conditions. That being said, once the build is ready, the nutcracker becomes nigh unstoppable.
Impaler – While crits on enemies against walls may seem like oddly specific criteria, the Impaler’s long reach and quick combos make it a breeze to get enemies into the position. Overall a great, simple choice.
Scythe Claws – Using a stepped system of alternating between two different claws, the Scythe Calw can make for a rapid critical hit machine that focuses on swift, immediate attacks.
Iron Staff – A heavily defense-focused option that favors careful swordplay, the Iron Staff uses parries as its main crit mechanic. Not only is this a fun new trick to learn, but its critical bonuses are fantastically powerful.
Torch – With a whopping 27-second DPS time, the torch is a passive damage powerhouse. This is incredibly useful for both standard enemies and bosses.
Bone – A risk-reward weapon, the Bone creates a tornado on the third attack of each combo. This creates an exciting loop of quick thinking and heavy decision-making. Should you choose correctly, the bone will wipe the floor with most enemies to an extremely enticing degree.
Flawless – As long as you play carefully, the Flawless can be INCREDIBLE. Should you avoid damage for at least 15 seconds, you will be able to inflict regular critical hits on any enemy type. This should make it arguably the best weapon in Dead Cells. The only problem? 15 seconds is a long time in a fast-paced game like Dead Cells. Still, it should be considered.
B Tier
Above average weapons. They are useful in certain use-cases but not universally good as the weapons on S-Tier or A-Tier.
Abyssal Trident – Despite being one of the stranger weapons in terms of controls, the abyssal trident can make for an effective damage powerhouse when used intelligently in Dead Cells. Featuring a run attack- in combination with downward slashes and stabs- players can use this weapon to plow through lower-level enemies while using agility to overpower stronger foes.
Oven Axe – This combo-centric weapon requires repetition and forward momentum. If playing an elemental build, ignore this item. Otherwise, it may prove especially useful for you.
Valmont’s Whip – A whip that deals critical damage and ignores shields, this can be a good long-range option for players with a melee sensibility.
Hayabusa Boots – With an area of effect combo ender that deals critical damage when enemies are thrown into walls, this is an excellent enemy-grinding weapon, especially in cramped maps. Just don’t expect to use it on bosses too effectively.
Vorpan – The Vorpan is a weapon centered around front-facing enemies. As such, it is effective 50% of the time. Just be careful to make yourself properly positioned during combat!
Seismic Strike – One of the more standard weapons in your arsenal in Dead Cells, the Seismic Strike is, overall, a fairly normal sword. It creates a rooting effect, so it is effective against swift opponents.
Hayabusa Gauntlets – While inflicting hits on enemies with 40% hp can be incredibly useful for whittling down their health, you need to reach that point to begin with before you finish them off. Use these carefully during fights and they’ll prove themselves very useful.
Shrapnel Axes – The shrapnel axes are a fantastic combination of ranged and melee combat. Due to the extending metal shards, the added ranged bonus makes these an intriguing option when compared to more standard blades.
Machete and Pistol – This is a standard weapon save for the combo finisher. On a third attack a ranged bump inflicts a critical attack. Overall a standard pick, but there are worse.
Blood Sword – A fairly standard sword, the Bloodsword deals bleed damage. As such, there’s not much special about it. When it becomes powerful is when you stack your build with items that induce the bleed condition. Doing so will create a storm of constant damage that will lead to a very unique, very powerful run.
Symmetrical Lance – This is a great enemy-focused weapon in Dead Cells with a centric identity built around killing two enemies at once.
Spiked Boots – This is another rhythm-based option. Dealing a crit upon interrupting an enemy’s attack, this is a fine- if less effective in comparison to others with similar abilities- choice.
Tombstone – The tombstone dooms nearby enemies after killing one. This is a great standard enemy killing machine, but it is functionally basic when used against bosses.
Swift Sword – Dealing a critical hit when given a speed buff, this sword can be effective in specific moments of gameplay. Your build also matters for this one, so plan your playthrough accordingly.
Flashing Fans – An agility based weapon, the flashing fans focus on projectile repelling. This is useful against many enemies and bosses, and can prove integral for low-defense builds. As long as you practice parrying, this can prove to be an incredible option.
C Tier
Average weapons in Dead Cells, at best. They are useful only in very specific situations.
Dagger of Profit – With a critical condition focused on bonuses when picking up gold, one can be quick to assume this is an incredible crit machine. However, the boss problem rears its ugly head again. As such, this weapon is best used against standard enemies, nothing more.
Spartan Sandals – A decent knockback and a crit when enemies hit walls aren’t enough to make the Spartan Sandals an appealing option in Dead Cells, particularly with it relying heavily on the map’s layout.
Queen’s Rapier – While a weapon focused on attacking multiple foes at once may seem like a huge advantage, there are other weapons on our list that do the same with added bonuses. Not bad, but not a prime choice either.
Spite Sword – By inflicting critical damage after you have taken a hit, the Spite Sword proves itself useful only in moments of intense sacrifice. Without that dangerous element, the sword is fairly standard.
Wrenching Whip – By pulling enemies in for a punishing cit-centric combo finisher, the Wrenching Whip is a great high-damage melee option.
War Spear – The war spear only crits when striking multiple enemies at once, making this both a difficult option for standard combat and a weak option on bosses.
Twin Daggers – A basic three-hit combo weapon. While effective overall, there are much better weapons than these.
Shovel – With the ability to knock enemies and bombs away, the shovel can make for a useful tool- mostly when used creatively or for early-run combat.
Broadsword – A slow, standard weapon, the broadsword tends to lend itself to slower playthroughs and players with position-heavy playstyles. With no real advantages over other weapons, this is an average choice.
Sadist’s Stiletto – This is overall a bog-standard weapon. Dealing crits on enemies who are bleeding or poisoned, there’s not much worth if the player doesn’t build around it.
Oiled Sword – This weapon douses enemies in flammable oil, after which crits are dealt to enemies on fire. That being said, lighting the fire is the tough part- using this weapon correctly requires far more effort than the weapon itself is worth, unless doing a flame-only run.
Maw of the Deep – Despite featuring a rooting element on the combo ender, the Maw of the Deep is just too slow to use- and too complicated mid-gameplay- to be truly useful or satisfying.
Panchaku – By centering itself on attacking when enemies face you, this weapon has a serious focus on position in ways that may not be viable often. This one is most likely a skip for many players.
Flint – The Flint is a strange one. While it’s a standard weapon on the surface, its crit creates a flaming trail. This makes it an oddy passive choice, and one with very little utility due to the trail’s weak damage.
Giantkiller – The giantkiller is based entirely around boss battles. As such, nearly every other choice is better due to multi-purpose focuses. Skip this one.
D Tier
Bad weapons. They are best avoided unless you’re doing challenge runs.
Crowbar – With a critical condition triggered only by opening doors, this weapon effectively becomes useless in many conditions. In addition, this weapon becomes essentially useless against bosses when compared to other options. Avoid at all costs.
Hand Hook – Just like the Crowbar, the Hand Hook has an incredibly specific function that makes it unnecessary for 90% of runs.
Tentacle – This is a mobility-focused option centered around being pulled near enemies and dealing proximity-based damage. Unfortunately, this doesn’t prove to be nearly as useful as it seems, and other agility-centric abilities do more for less effort on the part of the player.
Toothpick – With a cooldown period of eight seconds between crits, the toothpick is a nearly useless item for almost any run.
Wrecking Ball – With an overly specific playstyle and weak dps overall, the Wrecking Ball should only be used for challenge runs.
Conclusion
I hope this (not so) brief overview over all the weapons in Dead Cells helps you pick one that is strong and not wasting your time with a weak one. If you have questions or want to add something, please don’t hesitate posting a comment below.
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