.jpg?q=50&fit=contain&w=1140&h=570&dpr=1.5)
Quick Links
With Project Warlock 2 finally entering Early Access, we have managed to get our mits all over the game and experience the bliss-like joy of murdering hundreds of demons with high-powered weaponry. Your base-level weapons are already monstrously powerful, but as you play, you will find upgrade stations. These change everything.
Upgrading your weapons in Project Warlock 2 is an exciting prospect. Just how powerful can these weapons actually get? Each weapon has two upgrade paths, and each path drastically changes how each weapon operates. This leads to a fair amount of experimentation, but sometimes, you just want to know which path is best. That’s what we are here for.
Project Warlock 2 is currently in Early Access. The game could be rebalanced or changed in the future, and this guide will be updated to reflect those changes.
Claymore - Titanium Core
The Claymore is a brilliant weapon that is unfortunately overshadowed by even better weapons. This thing hits like a truck, has infinite ammo, but is held back by a stamina system and, well, a lack of range. Upgrading the Claymore tends to be at the bottom of the to-do list as a result.
Upgrading the Claymore is a great idea because its upgrades drastically increase its utility. Of the two you can choose from, Titanium Core is the way to do it.
What Does Titanium Core Do?
Titanium Core does two things. Firstly, it increases your attack speed. This functionally increases your DPS since you are, well, swinging your sword faster. It also consumes less Stamina per swing, which means you can use the Claymore more often.
These two things combined make the Claymore a more well-rounded weapon. It still doesn’t make it better than, say, pulling out a shotgun, but it does save on ammo. It also unlocks the Execution upgrade.
What Does Execution Do?
Execution is the final upgrade for the Titanium Core Claymore, and it’s a doozy. Execution lets you instantly kill any enemy who is below 50 percent HP, or, any Frozen enemy. This is huge and can be combined with your Frost Magic to effortlessly slaughter entire waves of enemies instantly.
All you have to do is cast Freeze, pull out your Claymore, and slice. It really is as simple as that. Tougher enemies can also be taken out just by slashing them at low HP too, which is a nice benefit. Especially considering the Claymore has enough damage to kill most weaker enemies in a single swing, and it has an AOE component.
Rifle - Heavy
The rifle is the workhorse weapon of Project Warlock 2. You will be using this almost constantly since it deals good damage, it has a high ammo count, and it’s accurate at any range. Topping it all off is how abundant the ammo for this weapon is. It’s very hard to run out of Rifle ammo.
The rifle comes with two upgrade paths, and they are either the Laser path or the Heavy path. Of the two, the Heavy path is the best.
What Does Heavy Do?
Upgrading your Rifle to the Heavy Rifle turns this small assault rifle into a full-blown LMG. Its damage is increased substantially and it never needs to reload. You can just hold down the trigger and everything dies. The only drawback is that the projectiles fired are slightly slower, but this is barely noticeable in most situations.
It also unlocks the ability to buy the Burst Fire upgrade.
What Does Burst Fire Do?
Burst Fire is an alternate fire mode that unloads buckets of lead very quickly at whatever you point at. The damage this does is more than enough to kill just about anything you use it on. It’s as simple as pointing and shooting. Things just die.
Shotgun - Harvester
The Shotgun is always the best weapon in any game that knows how to deliver a good time. Project Warlock 2 is no exception. This thing deals tremendous damage at close range, and even the toughest of enemies can be taken out with one well-placed shot.
Both upgrade paths for the Shotgun are stellar. They both serve a purpose, and they both can carry you through the game easily. Of the two, however, we’d rank the Harvester path as the slightly better option.
What Does Harvester Do?
Harvester does one thing, but it does it so right you can’t help but smile. It turns the Shotgun into a quad-barrelled Shotgun. Double the barrels, double the fun. This allows you to fire more shells before reloading. It allows you to unleash way more DPS. It allows you to coat your screen in so much red you won’t be able to see further than your nose.
It also unlocks the ability to purchase the Allshot upgrade.
What Does Allshot Do?
Allshot is hilarious. It allows you to unleash all four of your barrels with a single trigger pull. This is enough to instantly kill any enemy in the game. You just walk up to them, and they vanish from existence. They are instantly turned into red goo. This always works on large hordes of enemies due to the weapon's ludicrous spread.
Combine with Guns Akimbo and you can fire eight barrels of Shotgun at once. This is enough to take massive chunks out of bosses. It’s enough to clear rooms out. It’s stupid in the best possible way.
Cannon - Grenade Launcher
The Cannon is a mostly underwhelming weapon when you first get it. Its damage is fine, but it isn’t quite enough to deal with the tougher enemies in a single shot, it doesn’t have any AOE potential, and it’s very slow to reload.
Thankfully, upgrading this gun turns it into something special. The best upgrade is easily the Grenade Launcher.
What Does Grenade Launcher Do?
You turn your cannonball firing cannon, into a grenade launcher. The benefits of doing this are beyond enticing. Basically, you now have a weapon that deals massive amounts of AOE damage. It arks and bounces as is to be expected, but if it hits an enemy directly? An instant explosion that will take out most enemies in a single shot.
That’s all you need to know. Run around and blow everything up. Just be wary of the blast radius. It’s quite large - you will probably hit yourself.
What Does Rapid Fire Do?
The one downside of the Cannon in general - including the Grenade Launcher upgrade - is how slow it is to fire. Simply put, the reload is very long. Rapid Fire fixes this as it allows you to launch five grenades at once. Five.
One grenade will kill a small horde. It will kill most enemies. It’s pretty darn lethal. Five will clear a room and it will kill any enemy in range - even explosion-resistant enemies like Shamblers.
Not only that but this ability can be used with Guns Akimbo. You can now launch 10 grenades at a time. This is enough firepower to end any encounter no matter the size. You can use this two-three times per Akimbo duration, meaning you can empty your entire ammo supply in under 10 seconds. Nothing can survive this. Because of the blast radius and the sheer number of grenades, you might not survive. It’s amazing.
Staff - Lightning
When you need everything to die, and you want to do it without turning yourself into a corpse, the Staff is the way to go. It is by far the most powerful weapon per shot, it just has low ammo capacity, rare pickups, and lacks AOE. You can burn through your ammo in about 5 seconds if you hold the trigger down, less if you use Akimbo. The plus side? Everything you hit probably turned to ash.
When it comes to upgrades, there is no bad path for the Staff. It is always a powerhouse of weapon. We do prefer the Lightning path, however.
What Does Lightning Do?
Lightning turns the staff from a projectile-lobbing murder stick to a beam-firing death ray. You point, and things instantly die. That’s it. The same downsides exist, unfortunately - namely the lack of ammo. You can burn through your entire supply before you can finish a single blink if you aren’t careful.
This means the Lightning Staff is almost exclusively a big enemy killer or a boss killer. You whip it and you chunk anything big enough to survive vaporisation.
What Does Lightning Ball Do?
Upgrading the Staff a second time unlocks Lightning Ball. This takes a while to charge, but when it does, it launches an orb of explodey death. Despite it taking a lot of ammo to use, the Lightning Ball is more ammo-efficient than just firing the staff.
You would use this ball to kill clumps of enemies. It’s very effective at doing just that. Because the radius isn’t quite as large as the Grenade Launcher, you can use this without worrying about killing yourself too, which is nice.