Melee weapons are often underrated in games like Remnant 2. There’s a reason so many people refer to this game as “gun souls”, and it’s not because of it’s melee weapons. But contrary to what many people might think at first, the melee weapons of Remnant 2 have a lot to offer. In many cases, they can be even more powerful than the best boss guns. In this article we’ll take a look at the 5 best melee weapons in Remnant 2, as well as how to get them!
Note: This article contains spoilers for several areas and bosses in Remnant 2. If you haven’t beaten the game or explored all its areas and secrets yet, beware!
Iron Greatsword
Luckily, it’s not hard to get a really good melee weapon right from the start of the game thanks to the Iron Greatsword. While it doesn’t look like anything special at first glance, it’s easily one of the best melee weapons for purely doing damage up close. It doesn’t have any built-in special abilities, but what it does offer is raw damage and a much higher stagger modifier than other melee weapons. In terms of just ripping through groups of enemies, it doesn’t get much better than the Iron Greatsword.
Since the Iron Greatsword is so good at taking out enemies up close, it’s a great weapon to pair with your more long-ranged weapons. If you’re comfortable taking fights at close range, you can easily get by without any short-range guns if you want to. All you need is a good mutator and a willingness to take fights up close and you’ll be good to go.
How to Get the Iron Greatsword
The Iron Greatsword is one of the basic weapons that can be purchased from Brabus at Ward 13. He sells it for just 1000 Scrap, which is an excellent deal considering how powerful it is!
Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher is one of the most important weapons you can get in Remnant 2. In addition to having a really cool mod that allows it to do AOE damage, it’s also essential for unlocking several secrets. You can use the Dreamweaver to interact with certain objects and NPCs, leading you down hidden paths to unique items. For example, if you want the incredibly strong Crescent Moon bow, you’ll have to use the Dreamcatcher to interact with Nimue if you want the item needed to craft the bow. If you want access to some of the most unique hidden weapons, mods, and even archetypes, you’ll need the Dreamcatcher.
Other than its secretive nature, Dreamcatcher actually has merit as a combat weapon as well. Its mod, Dreamwave, allows you to build up damage to release an empowered charge attack. This special charge attack causes a Dreamwave to extend out from the player in a bubble-like shape, slowing all enemies hit and applying a stack of Reverie. Reverie stacks grant 2% bonus damage and 2% bonus movement speed for 15 seconds. If you can find time to successfully build up just 250 damage (which is just three hits at max level), you can turn yourself into a melee machine with this ability.
How to Get the Dreamcatcher
You can find the Dreamcatcher in the Tormented Asylum in Losomn. If you’re starting out with a fresh character or adventure mode, make sure you start out at the Morrow Parish checkpoint. If you just play through the area normally, you’ll be led to a storyline which culminates at the Morrow Sanatorium and Tormented Asylum areas. In the Morrow Sanatorium, there’s a doctor locked up in the basement. You need to find three stone dolls and bring them to her, and if you do she’ll give you the Nightweaver Stone Doll in return.
With the Nightweaver Stone Doll in-hand, progress into the Tormented Asylum. It should be fairly easy to locate, as it’s the natural endpoint for the area, so the game will lead you to it. Before you go into the boss fight, check the open cells for a web you can interact with (pictured above). Give the Nightweaver Stone Doll to the web and you’ll receive the Dreamcatcher melee weapon!
Spectral Blade
Spectral Blade is the best melee weapon for players who want to strike fast and quick. It isn’t nearly as high-impact as the Iron Greatsword, nor does it benefit from the ranged attacks of some others further down on this list. But where it does excel is at the more close-range fights, especially against multiple enemies that you can quickly cut through.
The mod for Spectral Blade is the best thing about it. It’s called Whirlwind, which gives a pretty good indication of what it does. Whirlwind can be used following a neutral backdash (just dodge without holding a direction), then perform a charge attack while doing so. When you do, a barrage of strikes flail out in every direction around you, doing significant damage and getting any too-close enemies off of you. For quick fights and doing a flurry of damage, the Spectral Blade is a fantastic choice. It’s a more traditional katana-like weapon, so just be aware of the best ways to use it and don’t rely on it too much against enemies that can kill you instantly.
How to Get Spectral Blade
Spectral Blade is crafted from the Eidolon Shard item dropped from Sha’Hala: Spectral Guardian of N’Erud. As you might expect, Sha’Hala is the final boss of the N’Erud area. You can locate Sha’Hala in the Sentinel’s Keep area within N’Erud, so once you get finished exploring that massive area, it’s pretty easy to find. (Just make sure you’re really done exploring, because most of N’Erud becomes unavailable once you’ve beaten the area.)
The Eidolon Shard is the required item for the Spectral Blade, but it’s possible to get a different item from this boss fight. If you use the Override Pin on the terminal before starting the fight, you’ll get a different version of the fight and a different item. That item, the Void Cinder, is used to craft the Aphelion long gun. If you want the Spectral Blade, make sure not to use the Override Pin.
Stonebreaker
The Stonebreaker is both one of the coolest-looking and most effective melee weapons in the game. Obviously it looks cool, but that’s not all it has going for it. In addition to really high base damage (which scales up to 300 damage at level 10), it also has a weapon mod which allows it to take care of enemies at mid-range as well. Each charge attack with the Stonebreaker fires a shockwave across the ground which can go through multiple enemies. The shockwave does respectable damage and can easily clear out waves of enemies, which is exactly what we hoped for from this kind of melee weapon.
You can use this weapon with pretty much any build. Since it works at both super-close and mid-range, you don’t have to rely too much on a close-range hand gun. If you want a build that focuses on being as high-impact and explosive as possible, the Stonebreaker is one of the best melee weapons to go with. It’s great in pretty much every way, and it doesn’t necessitate any specific strategies to work.
How to Get Stonebreaker
Getting the Stonebreaker isn’t necessarily hard, but it can be a bit frustrating. To start, you’ll need to be in a version of Yaesha that starts out in the Red Throne. As long as you’ve got that sorted out, just progress through the area until you eventually reach the Great Bole location. Here, you’ll find the final boss of this version of Yaesha–the Corruptor.
To craft the Stonebreaker, you’ll need the alternative boss item, Hollow Heart. To get this alternative item, you’ll have to finish the fight without killing the Guardian. The Guardian is the large enemy that moves about the three platforms during the fight, using its levitating arms to bombard you with attacks. It can also jump into the air and perform a lightning-charged dive to cross the platforms quicker. If you defeat the Corruptor after killing the Guardian, you’ll get the Twisted Lazurite item. However, as long as you leave the Guardian alive, you’ll get the Hollow Heart you need.
Since leaving the Guardian alive makes the fight much more difficult, make sure and come fully prepared. The best way to handle this fight is to stay near the half-broken staircases so you can quickly make a getaway whenever you need to. You should keep moving between the platforms so the Guardian and Corruptor don’t get the best of you. The Guardian will constantly chase you, and if you stay still too long you risk getting rushed by its levitating hands or crushed by it when it jumps toward you. If you run into problems, just remember to keep moving and take your shots against the Corruptor whenever it uses its laser beam attack.
Atom Splitter
Atom Splitter is very similar to the Stonebreaker, but with one major difference. To activate the Atom Splitter’s mod, Fission Strike, you’ll need to do a neutral evade beforehand. To do that, just use your dodge/roll key without holding down any directions. Then, immediately attack once you’ve done that. Unlike with Stonebreaker, you won’t be able to spam Fission Strike quite as much, but it is slightly more powerful.
Fission Strike is likely the best ranged attack on any melee weapon, as it does really high damage and cuts through enemies like butter. You can also charge the attack to triple its range and increase the damage by 25%. Triple range is a pretty significant bonus, as it allows you to keep enemies at bay from much, much further. We recommend using Atom Splitter for any build where you think you’ll benefit from the ranged attacks, but there’s really no build it’ll be bad in.
How to Get the Atom Splitter
The Atom Splitter is a bit of an annoying item to get. To start out, just make your way to one of the dungeons on N’Erud. You’re looking for an area with large robotic hands picking up pods, as pictured above. This location can spawn in several of the N’Erud dungeons, but there’s no way to know exactly which until you go look for yourself. I found it in the Vault of the Formless, but it seems that there are at least two or three locations it can spawn in.
Once you find this area, find the ledge that sticks out near one of the hands, with a broken off ramp/walkway just above it to the right. Watch the robotic hands as they pick through the pods, and eventually you’ll see them pick up a row of pods with a flat surface on top of them. Jump off the ledge onto the pods, then immediately jump off to your right onto the broken walkway mentioned before. Once you’ve made the jump, all you have to do is walk forward a bit to find the Atom Splitter sticking up from a table.
Join the High Ground
Melee weapons are much more fun to use in Remnant 2 than even some of the coolest guns, and they’re really effective in the right situations. Thanks for checking out this article on our picks for the 5 best melee weapons in Remnant 2, and as always, make sure to keep the high ground!
