Mordhau tier list: The best weapons to rule the melee

  

Nestled within the mayhem of Mordhau’s clashing metal is a beautiful ballet of blades, and we'll help you pick out your dancing shoes with this Mordhau tier list. Weapon stats matter, but they're only part of the story. There's no single best tool for the job: Combat in Mordhau is a physics puzzle where your creativity and feel for a weapon will determine how you land a hit. Use this guide to get a feel for what weapons excel in various scenarios, and as you play you’ll find your own preferences will develop alongside your skills.

Before you read:

In addition to showing you which weapons are the best and worst, each entry also comes with a handy stat sheet that helps you compare stats like damage and timing. Explanations for those stats are found in the section below the tier list, if you need them, along with some handy tips about how to build your own mercenary. Use the table of contents to skip to these sections. 

The best Mordhau weapons

These top-tier weapons each bring a special little something to combat.

B-tier Mordhau weapons

These weapons are still a great pick but sometimes are outmatched or have specific flaws.

C-tier Mordhau weapons

You may find a favorite here, but these fall short of the mark.

The worst weapons in Mordhau

Suitable only as door stops and paperweights.

How weapon stats work

Pro tips

Mordhau's combat is incredibly nuanced. Watch these guides to understand some advanced maneuvers. 

Drags and Accels manipulate the speed of your attacks.
Morphs are when you change your attack during windup.
Chambers are precise counter-attacks.
Feints are when you pretend to attack but don't.
Combos are a way to chain attacks.
Ripostes are a counterattack that follows a parry.

In Mordhau, weapon damage varies against different armor levels and body parts, and many weapons have alternate modes that change how they’re handled (or just let you chuck them at people and hope for the best). But there’s a lot more to the weapons, and I’m going to cover some of those stats here.

Damage & Armor is split up into head hits, body hits, and leg hits based on where your weapon connects. The level of armor is ranked from unarmored (0) to heavily armored (3) and will be based on what your target is wearing on that body part. You’ll learn quickly why going unarmored is incredibly dangerous in Mordhau. 

Length is quite simply how long the weapon is when swung. Since Mordhau uses weapon physics to determine hits, a long weapon means you don’t have to be as close to your opponent to hit him, which is obviously a good thing in many cases.

Windup is the amount of time it takes to begin the ‘damaging’ part of your swing, essentially the amount of time between when you click and when the magic happens. Release is how long the ‘damaging’ part of your swing lasts, which should match the animation you see for the swing. This is when you need to hit your opponent, and also when you want to do more advanced things like performing a drag or accel.

Recover is the largely static amount of time you need to wait after your Release finishes before you can start another attack. Combo is the amount of time before your next Release if you begin another attack during your previous one. This is a great way to keep the pressure up and avoid the Recover window.

Stop on Hit determines whether or not your weapon will stop when it delivers a hit, or if it will continue on and potentially hit another target. Weapons with blades generally pass through things they hit while blunt weapons do not. Block View Tolerances are measured in degrees of view from your cursor, and keeping your opponent’s attack inside this window will determine whether or not a parry will be successful. So far they’re fairly static.

Projectile Speed is a measure of how fast a thrown or fired weapon moves, with higher being quicker, whereas Gravity Scale shows how much a thrown or fired weapon will drop, with lower numbers going further with less drop. Draw is the amount of time it takes after you click and hold to be ready to release your shot, and Reload is the cool down period after you’ve done so before you can start a new shot. 

What makes a good build?

Further reading

Take your Mordhau mercenary skills to the next level with our builds guide. Or, if you really want to be a jerk, learn how to play Mordhau like a right bastard. You can also read our general tips if you need some help staying alive during the melee.

When you have a few games under your belt (and a small bag of gold to spend), your goal should be to create your own character. First, obviously, you have to spend some time getting fashion conscious with the many choices of clothes, emblems, colors, and accessories—just don’t spend all your gold on it right away.

As you begin to build up gold, it's well worth experimenting with different looks for your armor. With all the cosmetic options available, you can easily be deceptive with your armor. There’s value in being a 3 armor body who looks like a 1 armor body—it can mislead opponents into using alt-modes on a weapon that are less effective (or neglecting using one that would be more effective). All warfare relies on deception, even the kind that relies on selecting the right scarf to look like a peasant.

Once you’re done playing dress up with your fresh-faced recruit, there are a lot of excellent choices in the armory. Core to this is going to be your primary weapon, as its points cost is going to determine how much you have left for perks, armor, and backup weapons. I’d recommend picking up something that felt comfortable when you were playing the defaults. Things like the Maul, Executioner’s Sword, Spear, or Pole-Axe are a great if you felt comfortable with big heavy two handers, and something like a Short Spear, Mace, Arming Sword, or Rapier is a good choice if you want to use a shield, or have more points to play with.

I like to look at Perks next, while mentally assuming 5-8 points for armor. Things like Friendly (reducing friendly fire damage both ways), and Fireproof (reducing fire damage by 80%) can be amazing ways to spend your final point. You’ll have to plan more for Dodge (giving you a short hop to dodge attacks), or Bloodlust (refreshes you to full health after kills).

Usually the last few points (if you somehow have any left) are a great spot to put Throwing Axes, Fire Bombs, or even a Medic Bag or Bandage.  

Sarah Richter
Contributor

Sarah is a contributor for PC Gamer, formerly of TechRadar Gaming. With five years of experience writing freelance for several publications, she's covered every genre imaginable and probably a few she made up. She has a passion for diversity and the way different genres can be sandboxes for creativity and emergent storytelling, and loves worldbuilding. With thousands of hours in League of Legends, Overwatch, Minecraft, and countless survival, strategy, roguelike, and RPG entries, she still finds time for offline hobbies like tabletop RPGs, wargaming, miniatures painting, and hockey.