Best Early Weapons In The First Berserker: Khazan

Summary

• Khazan offers unique combat depth with three distinct weapon types, each with complex movesets and skill trees.
• Dual Wield focuses on speed and mobility, Greatsword on power and defense, and Spear on balance and stamina damage.
• Players can enhance their playstyle by investing in specific skills and stats for each weapon type early on.

The First Berserker: Khazan is quickly gaining a reputation as a Soulslike with some unique ideas and fun gameplay. With a stylized animated art style and a gear system more similar to the Nioh games, Khazan is a game that offers significant depth in both combat and loot. There are only three weapon types in the game, but each one has its own complex moveset and skill tree with different paths to pursue.

When players start the game, they’ll only have access to Dual Wield weapons (an axe and sword pairing) but they’ll quickly get access to Spears and Greatswords as well. As for what weapon type players want to focus on early, that will come down to how players want to approach The First Bersker: Zhazan‘s combat.

Loot works on a rarity system, with randomized drops from enemies. Specific weapons within a category won’t make any difference early on, except for the specific stats they roll with. Later in the game, epic weapons gain some differentiation between sets, but early on, weapon choice comes down to play style preference. These are the best reasons to use each weapon type early in The First Berserker: Khazan.

3

Dual Wield

Fast And Mobile

Scaling Stats

* Primary: Willpower

* Secondary: Strength

Recommended Skills

* Whirlwind

* Phantom: Sword Dance

* Gale

* Deftness

* Blowback

The Dual Blades are the first weapon type players get access to in The First Berserker: Khazan. They’re excellent for performing fast flurries of blows and offer excellent mobility during combat. These advantages only become apparent once players have invested a few skill points in the Dual Blades skill tree. Skills like Deftness allow for attacking while dodging, and Blowback allows players to deal damage when performing a brink guard, Khazan’s version of a perfect guard. These two skills feel essential for making the Dual Blades play style really shine.

The Dual Blades inherently make the player take less stamina damage than other weapon types, so using a lot of dodges and perfect guards works well. Both Deftness and Blowback have follow-up skills that offer extra counterattacks or increased effectiveness, so players can spec more towards dodging or blocking, or spread points into both.

The Dual Blades skill tree offers more than just defensive options though, and there are some attack skills that players should definitely invest in early. The Whirlwind skill launches players with a spinning multi-hit attack, and linked skills can be purchased that allow for follow-up slam attacks. Performing The full attack chain allows for a big burst of damage. Phantom: Sword Dance is a flashy attack buff that creates shadow phantoms that add to the player’s attacks for 40 seconds, and this DPS increase is one that every Dual Blades player should invest in.

For players who want to stick with Dual Blades, the best early option will be whatever weapon drops the highest damage rolls. Investing in Willpower will be the most important stat for damage scaling on the weapon, with points in strength also adding damage, but with slightly less value.

2

Greatsword

Tanking And Revenge Damage

Scaling Stats

* Primary: Strength

* Secondary: Proficiency

Recommended Skills

* Mortal Blow

* Savage Momentum

* Bloodshed

* Phantom: Night’s Veil

* Indomitable

* Armor Breaker

The Greatsword can seem slow and unwieldy when players first pick one up in The First Berserker: Khazan. Once players start investing a few skill points in the weapon, though, they’ll find it starts to come into its own with powerful charged attacks and the means to minimize the damage taken when charging.

The charged attacks are the most effective attacks for the Greatsword; Players first have access to Savage Momentum, which allows them to charge their light attacks. Then, Mortal Blow will allow greatsword users to chain charged heavy attacks into their combos. Since charged attacks require the player to stand in one place, the Greatsword skill tree also has skills that help mitigate the damage taken when charging.

The skill Ghost Arm lets players still perform blocks while charging their heavy attacks, and Indomitable means that if players do get hit while charging, the attack will deal more damage. There’s a lot of synergy between the Unbreakable branch of the skill tree and the charged blows. For players who want to be more aggressive, Phantom: Night’s Veil enables a slam attack with phantom assistance, which then means players knock back and damage enemies when charging for the next 40 seconds.

Greatsword players can choose to play defensive, focusing on parrying and returning strikes, or focus on overwhelming enemies with Night’s Veil and charge attacks, or mix a little of both styles. It’s not the easiest weapon to pick up and use without skill investment, so new players might want to pick an easier-to-learn weapon to start with.

1

Spear

Stamina Sapper

Scaling Stats

* Primary: Proficiency

* Secondary: Willpower

Recommended Skills

* Moonlight Stance

* Full Moon

* Crimson Strike

* Spiral Thrust

* Assault

* Phantom Heatwave

The Spear might be the easiest of the three weapon types for a new player to pick up and learn. It has good range and mobility, as well as solid defensive abilities. It’s essentially the midpoint between the two extremes of the quick Dual Blades and slow Greatsword. Spears also get increased stamina damage to enemies as an inherent property, which means players can exhaust enemies and open them up to brutal attacks more easily.

The first skill that players will want to invest in for the Spear is Moonlight Stance. This skill activates when light attacking and creates afterimages of the player for additional attack damage. It can be augmented with several other skills, including boosting its stamina damage, and chaining into a large AoE sweep with Full Moon. It also synergizes with a later skill in the tree, Crimson Strike, which deals extra damage to exhausted enemies.

There are several skills in the other trees worth investing in for the Spear too. Spiral Thrust from the Potent Blow tree is a high-damage single-target attack that synergizes with brutal attacks, dealing more damage if an enemy has already been brutal attacked before using it. This can come in very handy in boss fights. Assault is a dodge attack that’s great for gap closing and dealing stamina damage, and this can be augmented with other skills from the Chain tree.

The Spear also gets one of the best defensive skills in the game, Phantom: Heatwave. This skill parries all incoming attacks when used, also dealing counterstrike damage. It’s capable of parrying flurries of blows while active, and deals damage back to the enemy. Using it successfully also increases the damage of Moonlight Stance, so while this skill isn’t available early, it’s one that Spear players should definitely pick up. The Spear is an all-rounder weapon that’s great for new players in The First Berserker: Khazan.