Rotwood is a roguelike dungeon crawler that comes with many staples, but one of the game’s highlights is how it handles weapons and combat to make for a truly outstanding game. It is one of several amazing Roguelikes still in its Early Access stages with a lot of potential. All the weapons featured in the game come with a light attack, a heavy attack, and a special skill.
These attack types can be alternated to create very impressive combos. The game uses a mechanic it calls “Focus Hit” to deal the optimal amount of damage to targets. Each weapon has different Focus Hit conditions, which can dramatically change how you play the game with them.
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How To Use The Hammer In Rotwood
The Hammer is the weapon that you will start the game with and, as such, it has no cost to unlock it. The Hammer gets its Focus Hit bonuses in several ways. Once you dodge, you can move in the direction you just dodged from and press the heavy attack button to perform what is called a “Golf Swing”, to get a lot of damage aimed at whatever you just avoided.
The Hammer is perfect for beginners as it shines when hitting multiple enemies at once and has high-damage options when there is a single powerful foe. Its default skill is “Order In The Court” which can be spammed to output a lot of DPS in a single spot — one of the random upgrades you get in runs will even make the damage increase with every consecutive hit.
Focus Hit Conditions:
- Hit multiple enemies with a single strike.
- Hit enemies with a fully charged heavy attack at the end of a combo.
- Hit enemies with a fully charged Gold Swing.
How To Use The Spear In Rotwood
The Spear is the first weapon that you will be able to afford to unlock in the game. At a cost of five Corestones, it will be a dramatic shift in playstyle from using the Hammer. While the Hammer’s Focus Hit isn’t impacted by the distance you are from enemies, the Spear’s Focus Hit only triggers when you hit enemies with the tip of your spear. This means you will always want to be within arms reach of enemies to ensure you are dealing out your maximum damage.
By using the Spear’s default skill, you can knock back any enemies that get too close to you — keeping them within the ideal range for your Focus Hits to connect. One of the best combos for this weapon is the Spinning Drill, which is performed by pressing the heavy attack button after dodging. This will allow you to quickly move while dealing damage to enemies near you.
Focus Hit Conditions:
- Hit enemies with the tip of your spear
- Hit multiple enemies with Spinning Drill
How to Use The Striker In Rotwood
While the Hammer and the Spear are both dedicated melee weapons, the Striker weapon can be used at both melee and ranged distances. This weapon costs seven Corestones and looks like two ball-shaped weapons that can be thrown and juggled in the air. You will have them bounce off your opponents for you and your allies to hit back toward your enemies to rack up consecutive hits. There will be blue-colored telegraphs of where the Striker weapons will land, allowing players to know exactly where to be to keep the momentum going.
Its default skill will cause the Striker weapons to bounce up and return to where the user is currently positioned. This can be used as a trap to damage enemies that move into this space or be used to get your Strikers back to you from a long distance. This weapon might have you wishing Rotwood was a roguelike you can play on your console, but you will need to settle for plugging a controller into your PC.
Focus Hit Conditions:
- Hit an airborne Striker into an enemy.
- Hit an enemy with a Striker immediately after you catch it.
How To Use The Cannon In Rotwood
The Cannon is the most expensive weapon at nine Corestones, and is not just a pure range-focused weapon. You may expect the optimal playstyle to involve staying out of melee range, but you will want to keep some of them close enough to strike — as this will allow you to keep your damage at its highest. The Cannon is also arguably the hardest weapon to master, as the player’s heavy attack is now their only reliable means of dodging, as it turns the usual dodge button into a means of reloading the cannon when pressed twice.
The default skill of the Cannon will allow you to reload a single unit of ammunition into the cannon by performing a melee attack on enemies. Players will need to reload after firing off all their shots, but this process can be sped up by pressing their usual dodge button twice in quick succession.
While pressing the usual dodge twice will reload the Cannon, pressing it once followed by a heavy attack will cause the player to fire off a volley of motors. Using the skill button after a dodge will cause the player to fire themselves backward like a rocket. Finally, pressing the light attack after the usual dodge button will cause a close-range AoE explosion.
Using the AoE explosion while at full ammo will also damage the player.
Focus Hit Conditions:
- The last 3 shots from the cannon will be Focus Hit attacks.
The ideal way to use Focus Hits for the cannon will be to use your third and second last attacks to attack enemies at a distance, and then using your skill to hit an enemy that is close by. This will maintain a constant state of ranged Focus Hits for optimal damage output.
Which Weapon To Use In Rotwood
There are a lot Roguelikes with amazing graphics, and the weapon animations are all beautiful to look at in Rotwood. Each weapon clearly has a very distinctive playstyle to use, and each has its own difficulty curve. It is best to play around with each and every one of these weapons. It is highly recommended you speak with Toots constantly and try to complete her offered masteries with each weapon to gain a better understanding of them. You don’t need to clear the first area as fast as you can, and the more runs you attempt, the more you can unlock for future runs.
Play some runs with each of these weapons and try to complete as many masteries as you can with each of them. Then you can commit Corestones to getting more powerful versions of that weapon and the armors that best fits the playstyle you find is the one you have the most fun with.
The Best Uses For Each Weapon
While there is no clear-cut best weapon in Rotwood, you can make it easy to decide which is best for you by considering which best suits your playstyle. Below is some pointers on the best uses for each weapon.
Hammer: Best weapon for crowd control and dealing the most damage when hitting multiple enemies. You will be required to get right up in enemies’ faces.
Spear: Best weapon for survivability, as you will always have more room to dodge to safety and never have to worry about reloading or catching your weapon.
Strikers: Lighter than other weapons, so you can wear heavier armor without your weight making you a power type. You will be required to know where your Strikers will land.
Cannon: Best weapon for being able to hit enemies at any range and not need to fetch ammo like with the Strikers. This is the hardest weapon to master, and you will need to master heavy attacks in order to survive.
