God of War is here! That’s right, everyone’s favorite red, white, and well, more red, anti-hero is back. The demigod who is literally covered in the ashes of his old family is back in another high intensity, action-packed, rage-filled journey to end anyone and everything that’s ever made him slightly angry. Or is he? In 2018’s God of War for the PS4, everything you know about the franchise is mostly different. Kratos has now been dad-ified, and that comes with a complementary beard. But the Spartan’s appearance isn’t the only difference here, he’s been taking some anger management classes, and is now trying to teach his puppy-eyed son not to repeat papa’s mistakes and weld chains to his arms for all eternity. This time around, Kratos lore-hopped into Norse mythology and has been living with his now deceased wife and talkative son Atreus. Together, father of war and son travel throughout the 9 realms looking for the place to spread mommy dearest’s ashes.

Again, this time around, everything is different, and that includes combat. Kratos has stats now. If Kratos could see the menus in this game and try to understand all the numbers, he’d probably fly into a Spartan Rage. And along with those stats come different armor sets, talismans, enchantments, and a whole host of other standard RPG equips that Kratos has done his best to avoid. We’ve done the heavy lifting of testing out all of these axe handles, spirit animals, and attack runes for you so we can let you know the 15 Best and the 15 Worst equips in the new God of War!

Artwork by Tanktop Nerd

Disclaimer: A couple of these items do include spoilers into how you acquire them, so be forewarned. There are no story spoilers though.

30 Best: Versatile Warriors Handle (Axe Pommel)

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Well here we go, but why would I put a green tier early game item on this list? Because it carries your early game in God of War. Once you’ve had your beautiful orchestral introduction to the game, and then proceed to IMMEDIATELY teach your son how amazing winning feels. Kratos and his short ball of rage travel to Tyr’s Temple in the Lake of the Nine, your central hub for the game. Once there you get the opportunity to explore the open world and sail around the lake while Kratos tells stories poorly about how the tortoise was a boss and the hare was an unmotivated jerk. Among that open lake is an island with a stone brazier which, once you light, enemies spawn! After they’re uh, taken care of, a spirit appears and tosses the Versatile Warriors Handle your way! The spirit also asks if you can light all 3 of the other braziers on the lake, which, if you do, gets you all the materials you need to get this handle to max level real quick.

This handle gives an even spread of buffs in every single stat, basically making it an overall buff for Kratos very early in the game.

Other rewards up to this point have only targeted one or two stats, plus the Warriors handle gives more to each stat individually than anything else so far.

29 Worst: The Ancient Set (Armor Set)

Yeah, for some armors, enchantments, and runic attacks, I’ll be grouping multiple items into one entry because it’d be odd to judge them individually. Now onto the Ancient set which is, in a word, boring. The Ancient set, first of all, looks incredibly dull for its context.

It’s an armor set you get from defeating what are essentially elemental golems (though all of them are made of rock) and using their bright glowing hearts, rock limbs, and other parts to craft into armor.

Now, I said these are rock monsters right? Then why does the armor set look like Brok/Sindri took a bunch of failed chainmail links and melted them onto scraps of granite? I’m not about to tell game developers how to make their game but they really should have given this set some visual pop. Something like glowing veins from the golem cores on it, or a belt buckle that’s a golem heart, anything to liven it up. Also, the set is basic in its statistical spread as well, it prioritizes defense, which only cowards do. And it has the passive effect to increase elemental resistances. Now, while the resistance buff does make contextual sense since it's made out of elementals, I’ve never met a God of War or character action player that prioritized resistance’s and defense over damage and elemental buffs, it’s just not in the spirit of sick combos to do so.

28 Best: Feathers Of The Fallen Servant (Enchantment)

For anyone who has played God of War PS4 for any amount of time, you know there is a lot of running. Kratos is constantly building his cardio, whether it’s running to the bridge to travel between realms, or running to the boat to sail around and explore, Kratos is a marathon man. And because of all this running, a way to increase running speed is a huge time saver and benefit in the span of the game. It might not sound all that great that a minor speed buff is on this list, but when the game is 15-20 hours long before doing the side content, a swift sprint is a lifesaver.

You get this enchantment, unfortunately, a bit late into the game and behind a pretty steep difficulty wall.

A bit more than halfway through the game you obtain the ability to unlock the magic doors that have been locked throughout the game. These are the big old Hidden Chambers with the mirror locks that BOY keeps making fun of Kratos for not being able to open. Behind these doors, most of the time, are the legendary Valkyries of Norse Mythology. These Valkyries are usually ethereal and don’t have a physical form, but they’ve got a physical form now, and they’re ready to use that form to physically end your journey early. Valkyrie Gunnr is found in an Area called Thamur’s body (See if you can figure out why it’s called that), and the Feathers of the Fallen Servant Enchantment is obtained after defeating her.

27 Worst: Arcane Might Set (Armor Set)

I promise this is the last armor set I’ll pick on, but the Arcane Might set is a group of armor pieces you unlock later in the story, and is just purely disappointing. It’s a Legendary Armor set that looks pretty nifty and because it looks so nifty it’s sad that it’s no good. “Arcane Might” is a fancy way of saying Battle Mage or Paladin, which is what this set is obviously trying to advertise itself for. You would think an armor set meant to prioritize casting Runic attacks/Runic Summons and raw battle potential would focus on Strength, Runic, and Cooldown right? Wrong.

This sets biggest stat buff, and I mean big, is Defense.

When all three pieces are equipped Kratos gets a 110 Buff to his defense, which is gigantic! If his defense gets that much, I can only imagine what his Runic gets right? 41…That’s right, 41. Less than half of what it gives to defense it gives to Runic, and it’s an odd number at that! It also gives 53 Strength and 26 vitality but these numbers are eclipsed by strength buffs in other sets that don’t even have “Might” in their title! To summarize, this set looks great, doesn’t cost too much, and looks like it’ll be great for players who like to do combos and cast spells. But it’s not, it’s a big old wall of Defense with some “okay” buffs to strength and runic, and nothing for cooldown.

26 Best: Mistbourne (Axe Pommel)

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Anyone who has even gotten a teensy bit curious and tried out the hardest difficulty in God of War PS4 knows, your health drains faster than the Lake of Nine when Jormungar tries to do a backflip. And in those cases, you need health recovery, whether it’s a talisman, enchantment, or relying on your Hawkeye child to find a health crystal. But there actually is a fourth option.

There are a number of axe and secondary weapon handles in the game that have a chance to recover health based on a number of circumstances, and one of the best among them is the Mistbourne.

This axe handle, first of all, gives amazing buffs to strength and vitality. But mostly, it has a low chance to grant a healing mist on ANY HIT, which, for any player, there are a lot of hits that happen in any encounter. Not only that, but if the healing mist effect goes off, there’s a Runic stat buff as well. This is insanely good for survivability on the harder difficulties, in fact, anything that has the “on any successful hit” phrasing in it, is usually a good equip. The only downside to this amazing pommel is that you essentially have to clear all of Niflheim to get it. Niflheim is an optional side area covered in clouds of Dwarven-made mist, which explains the Axe handles name.

25 Worst: Storm Of The Elks (Runic Summon)

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This one just makes me sad to write about. I really did love the idea of using an elk as a summon. There’s something just so great about using a creature that’s seen as the epitome of peaceful as a weapon. I even used this summon for about 30-40% of the entire game, but ultimately I came away realizing that it has some crucial flaws. First of all a description, this summon is shot into being by Atreus, and then walks forward very slowly all the while damaging enemies in its vicinity. You can upgrade the Elk with XP to stay out on its stroll longer. The problem is, it is summoned wherever Atreus is. And as any seasoned player will know, Atreus can be anywhere, at any time, and he listens to NO MAN when it comes to positioning.

This meant that half the time I summoned this big beastly elk, he was 50 feet from the enemies I wanted it to damage, walking along without a care in the world because Atreus had been shooting his arrows from inside a wall.

Secondly, the damage is laughable, if summoned using light arrows which inflict minor stun on all enemies but not nearly enough to match just shooting a couple of Atreus’ patented arrows of pure distilled knockout juice. When summoned using electric arrows, it does actually manage to keep all the enemies around it in a stunned state, but the damage it does is essentially nil.

24 Best: Focus Set (Armor Set)

Finally, we get to talk about all the good armor sets in this game! The Focus Set is armor that you get relatively early in the game, in fact, you can get it right after you get back from Alfheim. All 3 pieces of this armor set are found in different locations in the mountain after you clear the black fog. Careful though, the chest piece is completely missable and can’t be obtained after a certain point. Just look around for it once you get to the fire traps.

In any case, this armor set is all about the cooldown, baby. You like casting Runic Attacks? Cooldown. Want to summon that spectral elk so you can be disappointed again? Cooldown.

Cooldown is a really fun stat to prioritize in God of War because you essentially have 6 attacks that are affected by it, 4 runic attacks, a talisman, and a Runic Summon. All of these attacks are incredibly powerful so using them all the time is really strong. Plus, the arms for this armor set give Kratos sleeves made out of snakeskin, who wouldn’t want to look so stylish? All three pieces have sort of a snakeskin pattern and honestly look totally silly, but in the best sort of way.

23 Worst: Thamur’s Chisel Piece (Story Item)

This item is KIND of a cheat answer since it’s a required story item, but still. After you climb all around our frozen frigid friend Thamur and find his Chisel., you’re locked into a story dependent boss fight. After said fight, Kratos cuts off a piece of the giant glowing carrot so Atreus and he can finally travel to the land of the Jolly Green Giant and live happily ever after? Wrong. The chisel piece also now lets you open those Hidden Chamber doors you’ve been seeing all around up until now! That is a good thing, these doors give you access to a lot of the best fights in the game with some really cool enemies.

The downside is each and every door that is openable by this chisel has a little mini-game where Kratos has to stab the mirror in the right spots to make a runic symbol.

Basically, you move the chisel all around and when the controller vibrates ESPECIALLY hard you hit the interact button. That doesn’t seem so bad, and honestly, it’s not, but sometimes you have to do this up to three times, and the rumble isn’t exactly super clear on when you’re in the perfect spot. Either way, it’s a little mini-game for opening doors which is neat, it’s just that the mini-game isn’t really fun. Hot tip though, in the accessibility settings of the game you can set it so it just opens the doors without having to play the game!

22 Best: Talisman Of The Realms (Talisman)

Is God of War still a “character action” game like its previous titles? Older God of War titles had a camera that was pulled way back, Kratos would be performing “sick stylin'” combos, and tons of weak enemies spawned in for you to juggle in the air. The new God of War still actually does have all that, albeit a bit slowed down. But when anyone brings up the “character action” descriptor, two games show up as prime examples of the sub-genre, Bayonetta, and Devil May Cry.

In Bayonetta and now God of War there is a mechanic where when you dodge an attack at the last second time slows down for everyone but you, allowing the player to receive an instant reward for their perfect reaction time.

God of War PS4 loved this idea and has this mechanic implemented in two talismans. One is the Talisman of the Realms which allows the player to slow down time when activated for 1-4 seconds depending on how much it’s upgraded. And then there’s the Amulet of Kvasir which is similar to the Talisman of the realms except it auto-activates whenever you perfect dodge and has no cooldown. So if you’ve played Bayonetta and love punching enemies that are frozen in time, God of War has you covered.

21 Worst: Falcons Dive (Runic Summon)

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Alright, Alright, I know I’m picking on some cool spirit animal stuff and that’s not fair. But come on! This summon says it summons spectral falcons! Falcons mind you, and all they do is fly in a circle then dive into the ground. It’s incredibly boring and not at all what I’d expect a falcon to do. I’d love if it was a single target summon that picks up the creature you’re pointing at and drops it down for stun/damage like real falcons do, but nope they just unceremoniously dive into the ground.

The other issue is that there is another animal summon that’s a MURDER OF CROWS. A similar bird type summon that’s an entire group of crows that swarm and attack your enemies.

So not only is the Falcons Dive relegated to being an unspectacular summon visually, but it’s also outclassed damage and spectacle wise but another bird summon! It’s just absurd, that’s like if there was a bear summon where one summon the bear curled up into a ball and went to sleep, then there was also a panda summon where it does a backflip while mauling everything in sight. It’s like they were trying to smear the falcon name! And I’ll tell you what there’s been a long line of cool video game falcons, one is a racecar driver and a captain! And the other is a starship pilot, granted these are both Nintendo characters but come on Sony give us cool falcons!

20 Best: Talisman Of Rejuvenating Fury (Talisman)

So most players will realize really early that Atreus “Boy” Of War, Kratos’ son, is really strong. And I mean he kicks all kind of behind with his arrows. After venturing through Alfheim, Atreus also gets the ability to shoot arrows made of PURE magic McGuffin light, what that amounts to is it lets you and your son open some previously locked areas. That’s neat and all, but in the skill tree, now that’s where the magic happens. You can upgrade the boys light arrows to inflict way more stun then they already did. Now, what does this have to do with the Talisman?

Well when an enemy is stunned in God of War and you press R3 near them, Kratos does some WWE-esque moves that destroy an enemy’s health and give him invincibility during the animation.

The Talisman of Rejuvenating Fury takes those Stun finishers and gives you health back whenever you perform one. Now, on the harder difficulties, this is a godsend, because if you play your cards right, you could be bouncing between invincible stun finishers for half the fight, gaining all your health back while you do it. It’s an incredibly strong talisman. The only issue is that the stun finishers are very lacking in variety so if you hate watching the one where he gut-punches then curb stomps a revenant, I’m sorry but I’ve got bad news for you.

19 Worst: Wrath Of The Frost Ancient (Light Runic Attack)

Now we’ve talked about how this game is a character action, heavy combat sort of game, right? Now, what are some trademarks of a game centered on combat? Constant movement, frame specific dodges, and brutally cool moves are some aspects that come to mind. Now, here we have a runic attack that is the absolute opposite of all three of those things.

The Wrath of the Frost Ancient Runic attack is boring, unnecessary, and weak.

It’s a move where Kratos holds out his trusty axe, then proceeds to…shoot an ice beam out of it? Now if he was fighting a dragon type Pokémon, it would be super strong, but other than that, it’s really not much. The beam has low damage and high frost so it’s great for applying a lot of frost to a very large enemy. But, there are plenty of other, better options to do the same thing. And, in order to apply said frost, you have to stand perfectly still while the attack is going off, so if there are more than 1-2 enemies, you’re going to get hit in the meantime. Overall, God of War offers a huge number of light and heavy runic attacks, so there are plenty of moves you can use to replace this completely unneeded one.

18 Best: Tyr’s Unity Set (Armor Set)

This is personally my favorite armor set in the game. But I was a bit Hacksilver crazy in my playthrough and equipped absolutely everything that buffed my luck. Tyr’s and only a handful of other armors give luck but the real strength of Tyr’s set is how absurdly early you can get it. If you remember earlier, the way to get the Versatile Warriors Handle was to complete one of the spirit missions in the Lake of the Nine. Well once you do all of the big important side missions in and around the Lake you’ll get 3 offerings to Tyr, these offerings are what allow you to craft the arms, chest, and legs of Tyr’s set.

Be warned though, you can’t do all the side quests in the lake until big ol' slippery snake has changed the water level, twice.

Again, like the Warrior’s handle, Tyrs set gives a boost to every single stat, its biggest stats, of course, being defense, luck, and cooldown. Plus it’s a rank 3 gear that goes up to Rank 5, so it can last you until the late game or even all the way through to the end if you’d like. I mean who wouldn’t like to with how snazzy it looks? It’s got cool wolf creatures engraved on the chest and the blue really complements Kratos cold, unyielding stare.

17 Worst: Grip Of Volunder (Axe Pommel)

Unfortunately, this next “not so great” item is a quest reward, during the time you’re exploring the Lake of the Nine to get your very own super special, one of a kind Tyr’s Unity Armor set! You’ll come across the Volunder Mines and right before the entrance to these mines is none other than Brok. Brok wants some of the goodies in that mine that belong to an alchemist friend of his who he, matter of factly, assumes is deceased. After you do what you do and explore the mines, you find out in a number of ways that indeed this friend of Brok’s is super gone. Once you trek back to Brok and let him know that’s the end of the quest…for now.

But his reward is to give you this Grip of Volunder! Unfortunately, Kratos should have asked for a better reward.

The Grip gives you a decent 6 strength and 6 defense for being a rare item. But its real problem is its passive ability, on any axe hit, there’s a very low chance to grant a Protective Barrier, which blocks enemy attacks for a second or two. Now here’s the key difference, a lot of items in God of War have a “low chance” attached to them, and with high luck, they actually activate a decent amount. But a “very low chance” seems to basically never activate, at least in my experience. There are only a couple other items with very low in the description but I’d advise just to avoid them because that "very low" isn’t kidding around.

16 Best: Infinity Gauntlet And Stone Based Enchantments (Talisman/Enchantments)

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DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT THANOS’ INFINITY GAUNTLET IS IN GOD OF WAR?! HUH? Yeah, there’s an infinity gauntlet Easter egg in the game. It’s a very fun and cool inclusion, but it’s been talked about constantly since the game came out so I really don’t want to harp on it. What I do want to harp on though, is just how GOOD these enchantments are that are “homages” to the infinity stones. They’re really good, all of them, in different ways of course.

Some give passive buffs, others buff some stats massively, and even some still, are captured souls trapped in a piece of jewelry forever.

Whoops, that last one is a bit of a doozy huh? Don’t worry about it, it’s a side quest you’ll get later. In any case, if you see an enchantment that has the word existence, eye, mind, stone, or soul anywhere in it. Assume it’s one of those and keep it on you. Now, the Talisman you slot these enchantments into is called the Shattered Gauntlet of Ages and is supposed to represent the Infinity Gauntlet. And when you activate it Kratos does get a gauntlet and punches with it, but statistically, it’s INSANELY good. It has 3 enchantment slots, THREE, that’s as much as an armor piece and certainly more than any other talisman gets. So even with the cool little marvel nod, the actual items themselves are really good, which I always appreciate with Easter egg items.

15 Worst: Niflheim Specific Enchantments (Enchantments)

God of War PS4 has A LOT of money put into it, and by a lot, I mean a pile of money about the size of the World Snake. But, it only has a couple of the 9 Realms, 2 of which are Muspelheim, which is a series of combat challenges, and Niflheim, which is a rouge-like-esque area with a demise timer. Niflheim is an area covered in fog that will end Kratos after a certain amount of time, and in order to extend that timer, Kratos has to equip all kinds of gear to combat the “cursed mist.” Some of this gear comes in the form of great enhancements that, any time after beating any enemy, give some of the timer back. On the other hand, there are enchantments that only give a bit of timer after either a successful parry, a precision throw, or an executioners cleave.

I know what you’re thinking, that doesn’t sound too bad! I mean, if you aren’t parrying, throwing, or cleaving a lot, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is you get these enchantments randomly from enemies in the zone, and it’s nothing but annoying to get these ones. They are 100% outclassed by the ones that give timer on successful enemy encounters, so they’re nothing but a disappointment when picked up.

14 Best: Eye Of The Winged Chosen (Enchantment)

We’ve talked about the Witch Time talisman’s that really push players to dodge with perfect timing, and now, here’s the enchantment that basically makes combat a cakewalk. This enchantment, called the Eye of the Winged Chosen, increases both the speed and the distance that Kratos can dodge. This is actually incredibly helpful for just about every attack in the game.

I found it especially helpful against dodging the troll, ogre, and Valkyrie attacks, all of which have very wide hitboxes on some of their moves.

I don’t know about you but I adore items in games that give passive effects. The type of buffs that you just set and forget as opposed to ones I have to activate or keep in my mind all the time. And, this enchantment gives a whopping 13 cooldown along with this passive effect. The unfortunate part of it is that you can’t knab this helpful little thing until you’ve obtained Thamur’s Chisel to open the Hidden Chambers. This enchantment, along with a host of other great items on this list, drops from the Valkyrie fights. These fights are customarily only for those who are at the very least mid-game, but even then they’re pretty tough. So if you’re feeling lucky punk, come try and grab them.

13 Worst: Charge Of The White Bear & Spartan Charge (Light Runic Attacks)

So here’s the thing, these attacks are decent, they’re not at all bad runic moves to use. But what puts them so high on this list for me personally is just how uncreative and unoriginal they are. When you obtain the Charge of the White Bear move for your Leviathan Axe early on in the game, it’s cool, the move isn’t all too exciting, but it’s good and has its uses. Then as you progress throughout the story you obtain many, MANY, other runic attacks and even the Blades of Chaos. All of these attacks vary in their spectacle, damage, and usage. And the Blades of Chaos are radically different weapons to the Leviathan Axe, all in all, you have plenty of variability and it’s clear that the attacks for the blades are very different than the one of the Leviathan axe.

Then you get the Spartan Charge ability, and it is, without a doubt, an almost frame for frame copy of the Charge of the White Bear attack with added fire effects.

It’s so boring! And I can understand the reasoning of wanting to have a similar move on the blades so you can open up your options for the Axe runic attacks. But they chose an already boring move to copy, and they didn’t mix it up in the slightest! All in all, it’s not a hindrance to your experience or anything, it’s just disappointing.

12 Best: Breath Of Thamur & Meteoric Slam (Heavy Runic Attacks)

Now here are two Runic attacks that for all intents and purposes, serve the same function, but visually couldn’t be more different. The Breath of Thamur for the Axe and Meteoric Slam for the Blades are too of the most visually appealing attacks in the game. They’re unlocked through story progress pretty late in the game, and you need a pretty big chunk of the items obtained from Muspelheim and Niflheim in order to buy them from the Dwarven brothers. Regardless, they’re worth it.

The Breath of Thamur attack is an absurdly wide attack in a 360-degree radius around Kratos where winds of intense cold do massive damage to any enemy in range.

With upgrades, you extend the time that the runic attack is active, and with the right talisman/stats you could potentially spam this ability and play the game one-handed. Meteoric Slam is a bit different and in my opinion a bit worse, but not by much. Kratos does a huge slam with the blades and knocks up a barrage of volcanic rock. These rocks rain down on your enemies in a semi-random fashion and do massive damage to whoever they hit. Overall, the two attacks are well worth the investment and are a huge help for the late or post-game content.

11 Worst: Valkyrie Set (Armor Set)

I’m going to get into some trouble for this opinion, but the Valkyrie Set looks lame and has “alright” stats at best. There I said it. The Valkyrie Set is armor that you obtain and are able to upgrade only from defeating all of the Valkyries, and the Valkyries are by far the hardest encounters in the game. They’re ruthless, brutal, unforgiving bosses that all have a similar base design with some variations.

And I’ll be honest, none of the great aesthetics from their designs go into the armor set you end up wearing.

Each Valkyrie has their own incredibly unique helm/mask that Kratos collects every time he defeats one. Their outfits are all slightly different and so are their move-sets, mechanic wise. But the things that they are not, are clean, crisp, polished gold angels of perfection. At least not in this Norse timeline. But for some reason, when you get the Valkyrie armor, it looks like this cookie cutter, basic gold armor set instead of anything similar to what the Valkyries themselves were wearing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to have the masks from their helms be incorporated into the set in some way, and the set's appearance could change as you fought more Valkyries, overall it just seems like a bit of wasted potential as a reward for a really great & challenging section of the game.