Best Sword and Shield in Wayfinder

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Reviewed by Jeffrey Hsu

In Wayfinder, your choice of weapon matters a lot. Besides greatly affecting your playstyle, each weapon must be individually leveled and crafted with your precious resources. To help those who like a balance of offense and defense, we’ll be taking a look at the best Sword and Shield options in Wayfinder.

Currently, there are only three craftable Sword and Shield sets that you can make with Arsenal’s help in Skylight. We’ll be going over each one of them, their strengths/weaknesses, and how to maximize them.

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Sword and Shield Playstyle

Before I get into the specific weapons, I want to go over some things about the Sword and Shield as a weapon type.

First off, the Sword and Shield is not a top-tier weapon as far as damage goes. If you want to be a non-stop killing machine, you’ll want to grab some daggers, two-handed weapons, or rifles.

But If you’re interested in being a stalwart defender who resolutely stands against the encroaching gloom, then the Sword and Shield is an excellent choice. This weapon type is particularly effective in group play, where you’ll be the one wading through enemies and holding their attention while your allies safely whittle away at them. Unsurprisingly, this strategy is especially effective if you’re playing as Windgrave.

Just remember that the Sword and Shield is designed to be a balanced weapon type. While you won’t be topping the damage charts, you’ll be able to outlast and survive far more challenges than you normally could.

3 Best Sword and Shield Weapons in Wayfinder

With that out of the way, let’s take a deep dive into our three options! Each Sword and Shield is viable in Wayfinder and just specializes in a different aspect. That being said, since you can’t currently respec your affinity points, it’s best to find a weapon that synergizes with your current distribution.

Grim Harvest (Best for Defense)

The first Sword and Shield option we’ll be going over is the bone-themed Grim Harvest. Aside from being super badass and fittingly festive for Halloween, Grim Harvest is a solid weapon – quite literally, as it’s overall the best defensive Sword and Shield in Wayfinder.

Let’s start by looking at Grim Harvest’s special ability – Bone Geyser. This ability is awesome, and not just because of the name. Bone Geyser is a radius AoE attack that not only does damage to all enemies within said radius, but staggers them as well. Bone Geyser also does additional damage by consuming your latent power pips. This makes it a nice source of burst damage, meaning Grim Harvest isn’t just stuck holding the defensive line.

Now, let’s look at the base stats for Grim Harvest. As with all the weapons in Wayfinder, these are broken up by affinity.

• Instinct: Gives 95 Resilience and 239 Crit Rating
• Discipline: Gives 399 Physical Defense and 119 Weapon Power
• Focus: Gives 399 Magical Defense and 119 Ability Power

Now you can probably guess what I am going to say here, but I’m still going to say it anyway. Max out Discipline and Focus. The 399 in both Physical and Magical Defense is simply too amazing to give up.

Remember when I said Grim Harvest is literally a solid weapon? Yup, this is what I was talking about. These defensive stats are really strong, and the 119 for Weapon Power and Ability Power aren’t too bad themselves. This build can really let you lean into that defensive strategy I was talking about before.

Tooth and Claw (Best for Damage)

Tooth and Claw is the next Sword and Shield on our list and the best one for DPS in Wayfinder. Great for any zombie apocalypse! You can also use it to mow down reavers if no zombies are available.

Let’s start by looking at Tooth and Claw’s special ability – Shredder Toss (an apt name). Using this ability launches your shield to tear through and bounce between enemies like you’re some horror movie version of Captain America. While Shredder Toss doesn’t stagger enemies like Bone Geyser, it does deal additional damage for each latent power pip consumed. As a result, you have a rather nasty AoE that can pile on the damage. This makes Shredder Toss great for grinding and leveling up.

Now let’s get into the base stat spread for Tooth and Claw.

• Instinct: Gives 119 Crit Power and 239 Weapon Power
• Discipline: Gives 239 Crit Rating and 95 Resilience
• Focus: Gives 239 Ability Power and 79 Max Health

This is actually a very interesting stat breakdown that gives us some different options.

Going for Instinct and Discipline as your focuses can make for a halfway decent Crit build that comes with solid Weapon Power. Given that Tooth and Claw is definitely a more DPS focused Sword and Shield, it’s not a bad way to go.

However, if you give up Discipline and choose to invest in Focus, you can go for Ability Power. This lets you go all in on Shredder Toss, which isn’t a bad idea either. Regardless of which direction you go, I personally find Tooth and Claw to have a less defined identity than Grim Harvest. If you’re fine with giving up a bit of defensive power for more damage, then Tooth and Claw is a perfectly fine weapon that can perform well.

Radiant Dawn (Best for Blocking)

Last but not least, we have Radiant Dawn. This is the Sword and Shield for all the Windgrave mains that want to double down on the righteous paladin look.

The special ability for Radiant Dawn is Archon’s Blade. Rather than an attack, Archon’s Blade is a buff that gives you extended damage and range for all of your melee attacks. It also empowers blocking, which means you will take significantly less stamina damage from blocking enemy attacks while this buff is active.

I really like this ability and think it makes for an interesting angle for the defensive build. It scores really high on flavor as well. Lastly, it pairs nicely with some of the base stat options below.

Here are the stats that your affinity gives for Radiant Dawn.

• Instinct: Gives 144 Resilience and 180 Weapon Power
• Discipline: Gives 300 Physical Defense and 180 Crit Rating
• Focus: Gives 180 Ability Power and 120 Max Health.

It’s a shame that we don’t get any Magical Defense with Radiant Dawn. Despite that, the best affinities to max out for Radiant Dawn are Instinct and Discipline. While the 300 Physical Defense is obviously great, the 144 Resilience isn’t slouching either.

Radiant Dawn leans into the defensive strategy of preventing your guard from being broken, helping to make our blocking options better. It’s certainly an interesting build option if nothing else. It also gives us some offense with Weapon Power and Crit Rating. While the Crit Rating is less relevant for this build, I’m certainly not going to turn it down.

All in all, I think Radiant Dawn is an interesting defensive choice with neat flavor to boot. If you want to play a holy warrior, then this is the best Sword and Shield for you in Wayfinder. No doubt about that!