RimWorld Melee Weapon Tier List
All 17 melee weapons scored at steel from the game files and sorted S–F, with the persona weapons in their own grid — and the honest pick of what to forge.
Every craftable and tradeable melee weapon in RimWorld, scored by one transparent formula and dropped into tiers — the forgeable weapons first, then the persona (bladelink) weapons in their own grid. Official content only: base game plus all DLC (Royalty, Biotech, Anomaly, Odyssey), no mods. Written for the player who already has a smithy and a brawler and wants to know which blade belongs in their hands — melee is where RimWorld settles a fight in one or two swings, and the wrong pick shows up as a lost limb. Tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank and the catch.
All weapons ranks the lot by the numbers so you can see where each lands and why. Best picks is the editor's cut — what to actually forge and hand your melee pawns at each stage. Use the first to settle an argument; the second to kit out a brawler.
Patch 1.6 + all DLC Melee only Scored at steel
How the ranking works
Each weapon is scored on its melee DPS using the game's own rule: every attack a weapon has (edge, point, handle and so on) is weighted by the square of its damage, then averaged into a damage-per-second figure and weighted for armour penetration. High-damage attacks dominate the mix, exactly as they do in-game, so a longsword is judged on its cuts and stabs, not its weak pommel bash.
Everything is rated at normal quality, steel — the neutral baseline — so weapons compare fairly. Real weapons scale from there: plasteel raises sharp damage about 38% and swings faster, obsidian (Odyssey) beats it at 40% for a blade, bioferrite (Anomaly) lands just behind at 30%, uranium raises blunt damage about 36%, and quality runs all the way to legendary (×1.65 damage). In the game's own terms a hit is base damage × material modifier × quality modifier; this list pins the last two at 1.0 so the first one is comparable. A steel club stays a club; a legendary obsidian longsword is a different animal. Use the material selector on the grid below to see exactly where each craftable weapon lands once you forge it, and tap any chip for the DPS and AP behind it.
Stats are read straight from the 1.6 / DLC game files (each weapon's melee tools — power, cooldown, armour penetration). Persona weapons get a modest bump for their bonded traits and sit in a separate grid because you can't craft them. A strong starting read, not gospel.
Melee weapons — choose the material
All your craftable, bought and looted weapons, S to F. Steel is the neutral baseline; switch material to watch the craftables re-tier — sharp blades climb on plasteel and higher still on obsidian, blunt weapons on uranium, and everything sinks on wood. Obsidian and bioferrite need Odyssey and Anomaly respectively. The four fixed-stat weapons (monosword, plasmasword, zeushammer, eltex staff) take no material, so they hold their place. Each chip is tagged with what it's forged from.
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// wood — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// steel — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// plasteel — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// uranium — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// obsidian — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
monosword S
What's good
- Top-end output (12.08 DPS)
- Shreds armour (83% AP)
- Fixed ultratech stats — no material to pick
What's not
- Bought or quest-only — can't be crafted
// bioferrite — tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
Persona (bladelink) weapons
Quest-reward and trader-only weapons that bond to a single pawn and gain combat traits over time. They're the best melee in the game, so they sit in their own grid — judged with the bonded-trait bump folded in. You can't forge these; you earn them.
persona monosword S
What's good
- Top-end melee output (16.03 DPS)
- Shreds armour (84% AP)
- Bonded persona traits push it well past its base form
What's not
- Quest-reward only; bonds to one pawn
// tap any weapon for the numbers behind its rank, and the catch
What to actually forge and hand a brawler, stage by stage. The full ranking is in the other tab; this is the cut that matters.
Spear A · the cheap opener
Neolithic, craftable from a few bars or wood, and it carries 41% armour penetration at steel — more than most medieval steel. If you're fielding melee before you have a smithy's worth of options, the spear punches above its cost. Make it from plasteel later and it stays relevant far longer than it has any right to.
Longsword A · the craftable standard
The best all-round weapon you can actually build: top craftable DPS, solid 29% AP, and it scales beautifully — a masterwork or legendary obsidian longsword competes with ultratech gear, and a plasteel one is barely behind it and far more durable. If a melee pawn is your front line, this is the default blade until a monosword shows up.
Mace & warhammer B · armour and stun
Blunt weapons don't bleed targets, but they ignore most armour's weak blunt rating, stun on hit, and spread overkill damage instead of cleanly lopping off a finger. Against armoured raiders and mechanoids they out-perform their DPS line. Forge them from uranium (+36% blunt) and a warhammer starts one-shotting.
Monosword S · the craft-it-never, want-it-always
Ultratech, so you buy or quest for it rather than build it — but it shreds armour (90% on its cuts) and swings fast. It's the best non-persona melee weapon in the game and the bar everything else is measured against. Grab one the moment a trader offers it.
Persona monosword & zeushammer S · the end of the conversation
Bonded persona weapons are the best melee in RimWorld, full stop. The persona monosword tops raw DPS and armour cut; the zeushammer's blunt-plus-EMP profile makes it the more reliable one-shotter and a mech-stunner besides. They bond to one pawn and can't be handed around freely, so pick your duellist carefully — then watch them delete raids.
Skip: the eltex staff D
It looks like a melee weapon and ranks like a bad one, because it isn't really one — it's a psycaster's focus item that boosts psychic abilities. Hand it to a psycaster for the buff, never to a brawler for the swing.
Hit chance is the pawn, not the weapon
One thing this list can't rank for you: whether the swing lands. RimWorld works out melee accuracy from the pawn alone — melee skill, sight and manipulation, plus traits like brawler. The weapon isn't in that calculation at all. Not its quality, not its material, not its tier. A legendary obsidian longsword and a wooden club connect exactly as often in the same hands. What the weapon decides is what happens once the swing lands, which is why this page ranks damage and armour penetration and nothing else.
The skill curve is steep early and flat late. A pawn with no melee skill lands about half its melee attacks; at level 8 that is roughly three-quarters; at level 20 it caps out near nine in ten. Brawler is worth about four levels on its own and matters most at the bottom — an untrained brawler already hits like a level-4 colonist, while at level 20 it buys barely a percentage point. Sight and manipulation pull both ways: bionic eyes and hands push the number up, a scarred eye or missing fingers drag it down. And a hit that gets through the maths can still be dodged.
The practical read: give your best blade to your best melee pawn, not to whoever is standing closest. A level-8 colonist with a masterwork longsword still misses a quarter of the time, and no amount of plasteel fixes that.
Hit-chance figures come from the melee hit chance stat in the game files, where they are documented against 1.4; the mechanic itself is unchanged in 1.6. Treat them as the shape of the curve, not as decimals.
FAQ
Does the material I forge it from matter?
A lot. Steel is the neutral baseline the tiers default to, but the grid has a material selector — flip it and watch the craftable weapons re-tier. The best blade material in the game is obsidian from Odyssey (+40% sharp damage), with plasteel just behind (+38% and a faster swing) and bioferrite from Anomaly at +30%; blunt weapons love uranium (about +36%), and wood drops almost everything to the bottom. Obsidian carries a real cost: half the hit points, so the weapon wears out fast. The monosword, plasmasword, zeushammer and eltex staff have fixed stats, so they don't change.
What's the best melee weapon overall?
A bonded persona monosword, with the persona zeushammer right behind it. Among weapons you can actually craft, the longsword is the standard and the spear is the bargain; the (non-persona) monosword is the best you'll buy. Blunt weapons like the mace and warhammer beat their DPS line against armour.
Sharp or blunt?
Sharp (swords, spear, knife) deals more raw damage and causes bleeding, which wins drawn-out fights — against lightly armoured enemies a longsword is the straightforward answer. Blunt (mace, warhammer, club, zeushammer) ignores most armour's weak blunt rating, has a chance to stun, and spreads overkill across body parts so it one-shots more reliably at high quality. Bring blunt to armoured and mechanoid fights, sharp to everything else.
What makes persona weapons special?
They bond to a single pawn and gain traits over time — bonus melee damage, faster cooldowns, mood effects and psychic perks. A bonded persona weapon can't be wielded by anyone else (unless the pawn is a freewielder), so choose your duellist deliberately. With their traits and high quality they comfortably outclass everything craftable.
Does quality matter more for melee?
Yes — melee leans on it hard. Quality scales base damage up to ×1.65 at legendary, and on a high-AP weapon that turns good hits into one-shots. A legendary plasteel longsword or uranium warhammer is worth chasing; an awful one is barely better than fists.
Which weapons need a DLC?
Anything tagged Royalty on its chip — the axe, warhammer, monosword, plasmasword, zeushammer, eltex staff and all the persona variants. Everything tagged "base" works with no DLC: knife, club, ikwa, spear, gladius, longsword and the breach axe.
