Best Assassin's Creed Valhalla weapons: No need to axe, we’ve got you covered
From flails to flaming axes, here are the best Assassin's Creed Valhalla weapons
The best Assassin's Creed Valhalla weapons will be subjective based on your playstyle, but there are some that are outright better than others throughout the game. All of them can be upgraded and tweaked to fit your playstyle and while the selection of weapons in Assassin's Creed Valhalla is limited compared to Origins and Odyssey, there are still plenty of tools to choose from to aid your butchering.
You’ll find the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla best weapons in chests scattered across the world. They’re in the chests labelled as gear, so quite often can be found lurking in church crypts or deep underground. If you use Odin’s Sight, they’ll glow gold so if you see a chest far underground, send your raven up and see if you can find a stair indicator anywhere nearby on the map. It’s the one that looks a little like a tombstone with writing on it. Given that Valhalla is much puzzlier this time around, you’ll probably have to do a movement puzzle to get there so keep an eye out for the glowing red of a destructible door lock or weak wooden floors and walls.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla best weapon tiers
As with all good RPGs, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s weapons come in a variety of levels. Weapons with a grey background are your standard garden tools, bronze signifies a Superior weapon, blue is Flawless and gold takes on Mythical status. In order to get to each tier, you’ll need ingots. Taking Carbon ingots to Gunnar will upgrade to Superior, Nickel ingots will take you to Flawless, and you’ll need to find Tungsten ingots to get to Mythical. Given that Tungsten ingots are precious, don’t go in all ingots blazing if you’re not particularly attached to a slaughter tool.
Unlocking each tier will bring a new look to each Viking toy and also unlock more rune slots. There are also a few levels that you can use your own resources to upgrade to add some extra much needed stats. Always make sure that whatever you have equipped, that you make sure each weapon has rune slots filled. If you find you are running low, pop to a merchant and buy some new runes. Every little agility bonus helps when you have Legendary Animals to take down.
While everyone’s fighting style is very different, let’s take a look at 5 of the best Assassin’s Creed Valhalla weapons.
Sepulcher Axe
Let’s start as we mean to go on. On fire. The Sepulcher two-handed Axe doesn’t just look the business, it also has the chance to ignite your weapon after a critical hit. Yes, this means you can be a roaring Viking raiding monasteries with a flaming axe. It’s nice to tick things off the bucket list, isn’t it? You’ll actually find this particular tool as you are progressing through the main campaign. The Sepulcher Axe is found nearer the end Ledecesterscire arc when you go and collect the King from the crypt. Just make sure to open all the chests in the area before you depart with him on your mount. It’s worth the extra few seconds looting.
Petra’s Arc (Predator bow)
Valhalla’s first person Predator bows are exceptionally satisfying. Especially once you’ve upgraded your skills to be able to steer arrows. You’ll get Petra’s Arc upon completion of one of the Legendary Animals so check out our guide to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Legendary Animals locations and work your way through the list. Petra’s Arc stands out among the deadly crowd as it increases your critical damage at full health. This means that if you’re the stealthy sort who’ll pick off enemies before the alarm is raised, you’ll get extra powerful headshots as you stay far enough away to keep your health full.
Carolingian Longsword
Sure axes and bows are nice but what about when you want to go that little bit more Jon Snow? Thankfully Valhalla’s longsword game is strong. They’re all brilliant two-handed toys - especially once you upgrade to the dual-wielding of heavy weapons but the Carolingian Longsword is a particular highlight as it increases critical damage after a finisher. This means the more enemies you kill as gorily as possible, the stronger your attacks become up to 5 times. You probably wouldn’t want more than 5. You’d just be puree-ing Anglo Saxons after that like a Viking Nutribullet.
Ursine Guard Shield
Shields get a bit of a raw deal by the time you have specced out your Assassin’s Creed Valhalla weaponry. Sure a plank of wood has a purpose but why use that when you can have another piece of sharpened steel instead? But always check your shields perks. The Ursine Guard Shield for instance will increase your attack after taking a hit, meaning that you might be picking yourself up off the ground but your attack levels will be boosted to make sure that you don’t go back there in a hurry. Others, like Blodwulf have the chance to ignite your weapon on parrying so lets you transform any of your weapons into the Sepulcher axe.
Spinning Death Flail
And now it’s time to talk about flails. While we’ve grown attached to the Spinning Death Flail which has a chance of dropping a fire bomb after heavy finisher hits (and does so often) any variety of flail is a joyous addition to Eivor’s arsenal. As you might have found while taking on plenty of Mercia’s Anglo-Saxons, flails are mighty difficult to dodge meaning that once you’ve got Eivor spinning one into action, it will have very few plans to stop annihilating those in the surrounding area. Just be careful with passers by. Killing innocents results in de-synchronisation after all.
Carolingian Pike
If you too have a great hatred of spear-wielding enemies, it's time to get your own back. The Carolingian Pike isn't just great for both skewering and sweeping foes off their feet, it's free if you have an Amazon Prime account and link your Ubisoft Connect log in. Just head to Amazon Prime Gaming and get the spear, the full set of Carolingian armour, and an actual pigeon to switch out for your raven.
Excalibur
Yes, that Excalibur. This Mythical great sword can only be found by discovering 11 tablets scattered across the world and inserting them in a series of pillars deep underground. You can find how exactly how to get it in our Assassin's Creed Valhalla Treasures of Britain and how to find Excalibur guide. Once you've got it, Excalibur has the ability to blind enemies around you after performing heavy finishers and criticals making it one of the very best weapons in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Also, because it's automatically at Mythical Quality, you've got three rune slots to make it even more deadly. Why yes, my Excalibur flames after each blinding critical hit...
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Louise Blain is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in gaming, technology, and entertainment. She is the presenter of BBC Radio 3’s monthly Sound of Gaming show and has a weekly consumer tech slot on BBC Radio Scotland. She can also be found on BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live, Netflix UK's YouTube Channel, and on The Evolution of Horror podcast. As well as her work on GamesRadar, Louise writes for NME, T3, and TechRadar. When she’s not working, you can probably find her watching horror movies or playing an Assassin’s Creed game and getting distracted by Photo Mode.