Minecraft Dungeons: Best weapons and gear

Minecraft Dungeons
Minecraft Dungeons (Image credit: Microsoft)

Minecraft Dungeons is all about the loot, and as you scale those ranks, you'll steadily cycle through the available gear. Tackling its progression system provides an opportunity to unlock increasingly powerful items, best spotlighted when paired with handcrafted builds, fulfilling various team roles. The weapons you choose are among the most defining components, spanning a handful of subcategories across melee and ranged classes.

The world features an extensive lineup of weapons up for grabs; each features differing statistics and rarity tiers. We've completed Minecraft Dungeons across all difficulties, and documented our favorites picked up along the way.

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Fighter's Bindings

Minecraft Dungeons Unique Fighters Bindings

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

When combat gets up close and personal, these maroon-tinted gauntlets will not disappoint. The Fighter's Bindings have steadily gained a reputation as one of the best melee weapons in the game, upgrading your fists improved power and speed. The result is incredibly powerful additions to your gear lineup, distanced from alternatives in the category by their native abilities.

Among the few Unique gauntlets available within Minecraft Dungeons, Fighter's Bindings feature integral bonuses to attack speed, complemented by the "Turbo Punches" ability. Hand-to-hand soon becomes supernaturally fast, dealing a constant stream of hits tearing through lower-level mobs, and rapidly depleting any boss health bar. And if you are lucky enough to roll enchantments that reward hits, there's a steady flow of bonuses also headed your way.

Where to find: Soggy Cave, Cacti Canyon, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Echo, Radiance, Sharpness, Soul Siphon

Nightmare's Bite

Minecraft Dungeons Unique Nightmares Bite

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

Put two of these relentless sickles in any Minecraft Dungeons build for destructive results. With the agility and threat of a poisonous snake, Nightmare's Bite takes influence from venomous fangs for a dual-wield-capable combo. Each hit has the chance to spawn viridescent fumes that poison enemies, delivering steady damage over time.

While several alternative weapons outdo the base power for Nightmare's Bite, speed and toxicity bolster combat performance. Find this pairing with enchantments to further boost damage output and close-quarters efficiency, especially useful against crowds and slow-moving enemies.

Where to find: Soggy Swamp, Soggy Cave, Redstone Mines, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Weakening, Gravity, Radiance, Sharpness

Hammer of Gravity

Minecraft Dungeons Unique Hammer Of Gravity

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

Bending the laws of time and space, the Hammer of Gravity turns the tables of each dungeon floor. Each swing from this mythical hammer pulls enemies within a tight radius toward the point of impact, with follow-up strikes exploiting mobs at their weakest. The Great Splash ability further amps up the carnage with a larger area of effect. Keep your friends close — but with this hammer, your foes even closer.

While all known Unique hammers deal substantial, concentrated damage, the pull from Hammer of Gravity is valuable when wrangling crowds. Controlling your targets through its pulling force provides an easy opportunity to maximize damage with each swing.

Where to find: Fiery Forge, Underhalls, Obsidian Pinnacle, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Exploding, Rampaging, Sharpness, Shockwave

Frost Scythe

Minecraft Dungeons Frost Scythe

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The essential sidekick for any Grim Reaper arrives as a full weapon class in Minecraft Dungeons, inflicting melee damage coupled with passive soul-gathering abilities. Visually, the cold-blooded Frost Scythe is among the most impressive drops in the game, characterized by ice crystals lined across the blade. This scythe also boasts a slowing effect for enemies, following each swipe.

Keeping mobs at bay and preventing unforeseen rushes, the Frost Scythe provides a balance of power and speed. The slowing effect performs best when handling dungeons packed with enemies, providing teammates with additional breathing room, despite overwhelming hordes.

Where to find: Arch Haven, Pumpkin Pastures, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Chains, Echo, Sharpness, Thundering

Guardian Bow

Minecraft Dungeons Unique Guardian Bow

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

While the Guardian Bow doesn't feature the elemental abilities and crazy modifiers assigned to many bows, this underwater relic finds itself picked for its hard-hitting performance. Users find themselves with impressive damage, spotlighted by heavy charged attacks ideal for longer ranges. Where this fossilized coral-crafted bow lacks speed, it leaves its mark on foes.

The value of the Guardian Bow comes from its enchantments, stacking up an already dominant slinger with additional abilities. Score elemental modifiers like Poison Cloud or Fuse Shot to give the bow its voice, or further scale its damage dealt through other upgrades.

Where to find: Fiery Forge, Underhalls, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Power, Supercharge, Poison Cloud

Lightning Harp Crossbow

Minecraft Dungeons Lightning Harp Crossbow

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

Part firearm, part musical, topped with the elements, the Lightning Harp Crossbow packs a lot at first glance. You gain a powerful crossbow built upon a stringed instrument, with each shot emitting an angelic tone. You also receive two abilities, enabling the chance to fire multiple projectiles and ricochet for pure chaos on the battlefield.

I've been running the Lightning Harp Crossbow on the daily, equipped with Multishot and Chain Reaction enchantments. That means you get the bonus projectiles from the crossbow, the chance to fire five additional arrows, and to fire MORE arrows in all directions upon impact. Factor in that ricochet for further carnage, and you've got one crazy recipe.

Where to find: Highblock Halls, Soggy Swamp, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Power, Multishot, Chain Reaction

Eternal Knife

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The Eternal Knife is the only weapon that is guaranteed to have the Soul Siphon enchant, which grants souls on hit rather than on kill. This is absolutely critical to souls-oriented builds that use artifacts charged by souls, such as the Torment Quiver, or the Corrupted Beacon.

The Eternal Knife also hits like a truck, especially at maximum power level. It can be slow to use, but it's a great tool to finish off a mob that is close to death to steal some of their soul juice. This is a great weapon to pair with defensive enchants if you're playing a caster, but sometimes offense is the best defense, right?

Where to find: Soggy Swamp, Desert Temple, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Critical Hit, Enigma Resonator, Echo, Soul Siphon

Heartstealer

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The Heartstealer is a monstrous claymore that deals supreme amounts of damage, albeit a little slowly. The final strike in this combo briefly stuns mobs by knocking them up in the air too, while ripping massive chunks out of any mob's health.

The best thing about the Heartstealer is the innate Lifestealing enchant, which gives you a chunk of health return from every mob you slay. This is a great way to sustain a melee attacker who takes tons of incoming damage, and it pairs nicely with any melee-oriented damage bonus enchant, especially Crit.

Where to find: Obsidian Pinnacle, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Critical Hit, Echo, Rampage, Wounding, Weakening, Sharpness

Bow of Lost Souls

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The Bow of Lost Souls is the best "Soul Bow" in the game, for anyone using Corrupted Beacon or Torment Quiver, a Soul Bow lets you siphon souls from enemies killed, powering your artifacts.

The Bow of Lost Souls comes with multishot as standard, randomly hits five targets. This also stacks with Torment Quiver, which can spread five Torment arrows in a cone for large amounts of damage.

Where to find: Creeper Woods, Creepy Crypt, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Enigma Resonator, Power, Supercharge, Soul Siphon, Infinity

Elite Power Bow

Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

The Elite Power Bow produces the highest damage numbers in the game for arrow attacks, for anyone focusing on regular archery. Paired with Power, Supercharge, and Growing, the damage numbers produced from this weapon can be truly absurd, although it does have a low ammo return rating, so it's best paired with Infinity for extra arrows.

Where to find: Fiery Forge, Underhalls, Blacksmith

Recommended Enchantment pairings: Critical Hit, Power, Supercharge, Infinity, Growing

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Matt Brown

Matt Brown was formerly a Windows Central's Senior Editor, Xbox & PC, at Future. Following over seven years of professional consumer technology and gaming coverage, he’s focused on the world of Microsoft's gaming efforts. You can follow him on Twitter @mattjbrown.