Every Weapon Class in Dragonwilds and What Each One Is Actually For
A steel mace hits for 73 and a steel dagger hits for 38 — but the dagger swings a seven-hit combo where the mace swings five. That trade is the whole design of Dragonwilds' weapon list, and it repeats at every tier from bronze to adamant. There are nine weapon classes across the three combat styles, each one solving a different problem, and picking by base damage alone will land you with something that fights nothing like you expected. Here is the whole list, with the numbers.
On sourcing. Jagex do not publish weapon tables. The figures below come from the community RuneScape: Dragonwilds wiki, and can change with any patch.
The Nine Classes
| Style | Classes |
|---|---|
| Melee — one-handed | Dagger, sword, scimitar, mace |
| Melee — two-handed | Greatsword, greataxe, warhammer |
| Ranged | Shortbow, longbow, crossbow |
| Magic | Battlestaff |
Two things about that table catch people out.
Both one-handed and two-handed melee weapons can block without a shield. You are not forced into a shield to use the block-and-parry loop — a greatsword blocks too, just less well.
Battlestaves are the only magic weapon class in the game. Wands appear on the wiki's list of upcoming updates, and Jagex have described them as mobility-focused with lower rune damage multipliers — but they are not in yet.
One-Handed Melee: Damage Versus Combo
Every one-handed weapon lands in one of two buckets: a seven-hit combo, or a five-hit combo with more damage per swing.
| Tier | Dagger (combo 7) | Sword (5) | Scimitar (5) | Mace (5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 20 | 31 | — | 38 |
| Iron | 29 | 45 | — | 55 |
| Steel | 38 | 59 | 49 | 73 |
| Mithril | 48 | 75 | 61 | 92 |
| Adamant | 59–152 | 93–168 | 76–160 | 114–202 |
The mace is the highest-damage one-hander at every single tier, and it is also the crush weapon — which matters more than the number, because every vault guardian documented in the Journal is weak to crush.
The dagger is not a worse mace. It is roughly half the damage across 40% more swings, which is what you want against enemies you need to interrupt or reposition around rather than out-trade.
Combo lengths shown here include the bonus attacks from Weapon Expertise, which unlocks at Attack 16 — before that level your combos are shorter than the tables suggest.
Block values climb with tier too: roughly 13 at stone tier, 19.5 bronze, 23 iron, 26 steel, and 30 for mithril and adamant.
Two-Handed Melee: The Three-Way Split
Two-handers all swing a four-hit combo, so they separate purely by damage and damage type:
| Tier | Greataxe | Warhammer | Greatsword |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | — | 52–82 | 42–73 |
| Iron | 82–144 | 76–119 | 62–107 |
| Steel | 108–189 | 100–157 | 81–141 |
| Mithril | 136–238 | 126–198 | 102–177 |
| Adamant | 168–294 | 156–244 | 129–219 |
The greataxe is the highest-damage weapon in the game at every tier it exists. The greatsword is consistently the weakest of the three.
So why take a warhammer? Because warhammer specials stagger non-immune enemies, and warhammers deal crush. Against a vault guardian — weak to crush, and worth interrupting — the warhammer outperforms a greataxe that hits for more.
And two-handers block noticeably better than one-handers: around 32.5 at bronze, 39–40 at iron and steel, and 44 at mithril and adamant. That is still well short of a shield, which reaches 65 at adamant tier. A shield blocks roughly half again what a two-hander does.
A few two-handers carry effects worth knowing:
- Thane's Authority — higher base damage for +15% stamina cost.
- Black Greataxe — increased damage, increased stamina cost.
- Shadow Sword — 25% bonus damage against spectral enemies, which is Fellhollow's entire roster.
- Tzhaar-Ket-Om — hits build up Bleed, at reduced durability.
- Granite Maul — its Battering Ram special can break the block of certain foes.
Ranged and Magic
The three ranged classes are genuinely different weapons, not tiers of one:
| Class | Hands | Range | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shortbow | Two | Close to moderate | Can be drawn or quick-fired; lowest per-shot damage, fastest fire rate when quick-firing |
| Longbow | Two | Longest | Must be drawn; lowest fire rate, highest per-shot damage |
| Crossbow | One | Shortest | Cannot be drawn — fires instantly and reloads automatically |
The crossbow being one-handed is the point. It is the only ranged weapon you can pair with a shield, which means it is the only one that can block and parry between shots.
The damage gap between shortbow and longbow is enormous at the top:
| Tier | Shortbow (arrow multiplier) | Longbow (damage) | Crossbow (damage) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oak / bronze | 20 | 24 | 25 |
| Blightwood / iron | 28 | 34 | 36 |
| Willow / steel | 38 | 65 | 49 |
| Maple / mithril | 48 | 82 | 61 |
| Yew / adamant | 59 | 101 | 76 |
Note the reload caveat on crossbows: the automatic reload is delayed if you try to fire during it, so mashing the trigger is slower than waiting.
Magic runs on battlestaves and a rune damage multiplier, from 1.9 on an Ash Battlestaff to 8.4 on the Master's Staff, Pharaoh's Sceptre and Toktz-Mej-Tal. Every battlestaff uses the same four-hit combo.
The secondary attack is the part people under-use. It expends five runes at once, and what it does depends on the rune:
| Rune | Secondary attack |
|---|---|
| Air | Stuns and knocks back; charge time increases damage and stun |
| Fire | Breathes fire in a cone; charge time increases duration, not damage |
| Water | A damaging bubble, then a field that heals allies standing on it |
That water field is the closest thing Dragonwilds has to a group heal, and it comes from a weapon most groups treat as single-target damage.
Practical tips
- Daggers swing a 7-hit combo; every other one-hander swings 5.
- The mace is the strongest one-hander at every tier — and it deals crush.
- Combo lengths assume Weapon Expertise at Attack 16.
- Greataxes out-damage everything, but warhammer specials stagger and deal crush.
- A shield blocks around 65 at adamant tier; a two-hander blocks 44.
- The crossbow is the only one-handed ranged weapon — the only one that pairs with a shield.
- Longbows out-damage shortbows nearly two to one at willow tier and above.
- Battlestaff secondaries cost 5 runes; the water one leaves a healing field.
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Conclusion
Dragonwilds runs nine weapon classes across three styles. Among one-handers, daggers trade damage for a seven-hit combo while swords, scimitars and maces swing five — with the mace the strongest at every tier and the crush weapon that vault guardians are weak to. Two-handers all swing four, and split into the greataxe (highest damage in the game), the warhammer (crush, and a stagger special) and the greatsword (weakest of the three). On the ranged side the three classes are different tools rather than tiers: shortbows quick-fire, longbows hit nearly twice as hard, and crossbows are the only one-handed option — and therefore the only ranged weapon that can hold a shield and parry. Magic is battlestaves only, scaling from a 1.9× to an 8.4× rune damage multiplier, with a five-rune secondary attack whose water version leaves a healing field for the group. Wands are listed as upcoming and are not in the game yet.
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