Where Winds Meet Weapon Tier List: PvE & PvP (2.1)

Where Winds Meet weapon tier list decisions come down to one hard truth: raw numbers on a stat sheet don’t win duels, timing does.

We’ve spent the weeks since Version 2.0’s “Hidden Mountain” update on July 23 running the same combos over and over, tracking which pairings actually hold up once a boss enrages or an opponent starts reading your openers.

Version 2.1 landed on August 20 and mostly tuned systems and Vernal Umbrella’s attunement options rather than rewriting the weapon hierarchy, so the bones of this list still apply.

We pulled from arena climbs, raid clears, and the frame-by-frame behavior of every weapon path, including the still-maturing Heavenwill Gauntlets and Skygrasp Rope Dart that Mohist Hill introduced.

What follows is a mechanical breakdown first and a ranking second, because a tier letter means nothing if you don’t understand why a weapon earned it.

See also: 7DS Origin Weapon Tier List: SS to B Ranked (Aug 2026)

How We Create Our Where Winds Meet Weapon Tier List

We don’t rank weapons in a vacuum. Where Winds Meet ties every martial art to a Path (Bellstrike, Bamboocut, Stonesplit, Silkbind, and their sub-branches), and your two equipped weapons swap mid-fight, so isolated numbers rarely tell the full story.

A weapon that looks mediocre alone can jump tiers once it’s paired with the right partner and Inner Ways investment.

Here’s the framework we run every weapon through:

• Output consistency. Does the weapon land its damage window reliably, or does it need a perfect setup every time?
• Investment cost. Martial Points, Inner Ways breakpoints, and material spend all matter. Spreading resources across too many weapons weakens all of them.
• Path pairing. A strong dual-weapon combination lifts both halves of the build. We factor in what a weapon does for its partner, not just for itself.
• Mode-specific priorities. PvE cares about boss uptime, sustain, and group utility. PvP cares about engage and disengage windows, burst, and how badly a mistake gets punished.
• Live balance data. July’s DoT and Bleed retunes and the ongoing PvP healing restrictions on support weapons both shift placements from what older, pre-2.0 lists still show.

One thing worth saying plainly: a tier list is a starting point, not a leash. Mastering a B-tier weapon with tight execution regularly beats sloppy play on an S-tier pick.

Specialization pays off more than chasing whatever a spreadsheet calls the best weapon this patch.

See Also: Lost Sword Tier List 2026: PvE, PvP & Best Team Comps

Where Winds Meet Weapon PvE Tier List

PvE rewards weapons that hold up over a ten-minute raid boss fight, not just the first thirty seconds. Consistency, sustain, and group value carry more weight here than pure burst.

S Tier

Nameless Sword stays the most flexible primary in the game. It weaves in and out of boss range mid-combo, and its Version 1.7 tuning against low-Qi and Qi Imbalance targets keeps its damage relevant against every current raid boss.

Panacea Fan and Soulshade Umbrella function as a package. Panacea Fan’s healing and resurrection utility combine with Soulshade Umbrella’s Floating Grace damage buff, making this the default support slot for any co-op content harder than open-world farming. Recent balance changes trimmed Umbrella stacking in speedrun scenarios, but the support value in group content hasn’t moved.

Heavenwill Gauntlets, usually paired with Skygrasp Rope Dart, are climbing fast. Their Light Attack strings repeatedly trigger Falcon’s Pursuit, feeding Heaven’s Will into the Vile Condemned finisher, and Soaring High resets that finisher’s cooldown once a boss gets staggered. The catch is resource management. You’ll whiff the timing on your first dozen attempts before the rotation clicks, and the Inner Ways investment to unlock the ceiling isn’t cheap.

Strategic Sword paired with Heavenquaker Spear stacks damage over time until it detonates for a burst window, while the spear covers multi-target scenarios and adds mobility for repositioning mid-fight.

Thundercry Blade got real weight from its Version 1.7 buffs. Stronger charge damage and a tighter Stonebreaker combo make it a legitimate boss-damage option, but it demands precise blocking and counter timing to hit that ceiling.

Nameless Spear and Heavenquaker Spear round out the tier as the safe, reach-heavy picks that let newer players learn a boss’s moveset without eating unnecessary damage.

A Tier

Snowparting Blade, Everspring Umbrella, Infernal Twinblades, Phalanxbane Blade, Vernal Umbrella, Unfettered Rope Dart, and Inkwell Fan all sit here.

Each one performs well with the right setup or as a secondary weapon, but most need more Inner Ways investment or tighter execution than the S-tier picks to reach the same output.

Vernal Umbrella’s longest-in-game range still makes it worth a second weapon slot, and Phalanxbane Blade’s combo with Snowparting Blade is strong enough that the pairing outperforms either weapon solo.

B Tier

Mortal Rope Dart works better as a secondary than a primary since Rodent Rampage’s damage window is short. Stormbreaker Spear trades offense almost entirely for defense and Vulnerable application, making it a support weapon for Thundercry Blade builds rather than something you’d run alone.

Neither weapon is bad. They’re just less resource-efficient than what sits above them, and they reward the kind of mastery that most players won’t put in the hours for.

If you’re starting fresh, Nameless Sword or Nameless Spear paired with Panacea Fan is the safest combination in the game right now. It covers solo content and group content without forcing an early respec.

See Also: Mortal Shell 2 Engine Analysis: Combat, Shells & Stats

Where Winds Meet Weapon PvP Tier List

PvP flips the priorities. Healing gets restricted hard, so support weapons that dominate PvE drop several rungs.

What matters instead is mobility, burst windows, and how quickly you can punish an opponent’s mistake before they recover.

S Tier

Infernal Twinblades paired with a Rope Dart variant stay at the top of high-rank arena. The mobility on this pairing borders on unfair. It’s difficult to pin down without hard crowd control, and the attack frequency keeps constant pressure on an opponent’s Endurance.

Heavenwill Gauntlets with Skygrasp Rope Dart earned their S-tier spot through the Flash Counter mechanic and Tenacity. Their gap closers and extended close-range strings punish incoming attacks directly, and once you’ve drilled the timing, the pairing can dominate an exchange outright. The tradeoff is commitment. Their strongest sequences only work at close range, so a whiffed engage leaves you exposed.

Strategic Sword and Nameless Spear control the pace of a fight through spacing and bleed-driven burst windows, forcing opponents to either close distance under pressure or concede tempo.

Snowparting Blade is one of the cleanest S-tier picks in the current meta. Its mobility and burst damage are difficult for opponents to avoid outright, and it stays close enough to punish mistakes without giving up much ground.

Nameless Sword and Everspring Umbrella round out the tier with clean disengage tools and ranged pressure that’s hard to challenge when properly spaced.

A Tier

Spears in bruiser configurations (Heavenquaker, Nameless, Stormbreaker), Mo Blade or Thundercry Blade for tenacity and interruption resistance, control-oriented umbrellas and fans, and select Rope Dart pairings all live here.

These can beat an S-tier opponent with a skill or matchup advantage, but they need more precision to close the gap.

B Tier

Soulshade Umbrella and Panacea Fan drop hard in PvP. The healing restrictions gut what made them dominant in raids, and while they can still stabilize a fight when paired with a durable primary, their low pressure makes them a liability against anything aggressive. Thundercry Blade solo and Stormbreaker Spear pairings land here too.

Their slow attack speed makes it difficult to pressure a mobile opponent, and their strongest defensive tools become predictable once an opponent has seen them once.

For anyone learning PvP, Spear, Sword, or Mo Blade are the forgiving picks. They recover from a missed read better than the glass-cannon options, and you can climb comfortably with fundamentals before committing to a high-execution build.

See Also: Nikke x Persona Meta Review: Pull Priorities and Tier Placements

Where This List Differs from Other Coverage

Guide sites don’t agree on everything, and it’s worth knowing where the disagreements come from. Several structured databases ranked the Version 2.0 Gauntlets at S-tier faster than most, since they track individual weapon changelogs closely.

Broad-band sites weigh how a weapon feels in real play over pure numbers, which is why Rope Dart and Dual Blades get flagged for PvP pressure while Spear and Mo Blade get flagged for safe PvE learning across nearly every source we checked.

Community sentiment adds one more layer. High-rank arena players keep describing Dual Blades as oppressive because of how freely the weapon engages and disengages, while the Gauntlets generate real hype as a rising contender once a player has the Inner Ways and Skygrasp pairing dialed in.

None of this is settled science. Version 2.1 mostly touched systems and quality-of-life fixes rather than weapon numbers, so expect this list to hold until the next real balance pass changes the math.

See Also: War in the North Legacy Edition Launch & Mechanics Review

The Where Winds Meet weapon tier list above should get you through most of what the current patch throws at you, whether that’s a raid boss enrage timer or a high-rank arena duel.

Start with Nameless Sword or Spear paired with Panacea Fan if you’re still building your foundation, then specialize once you know which playstyle actually fits how you play.

While mastering parry windows and frame data provides a strong mechanical foundation, fully optimizing an endgame loadout with martial arts manuals, high-tier upgrades, and Battle Pass skins still demands significant resources.

Grinding through the free-to-play path alone leaves your character behind the curve, both in raw power and in the cosmetics that separate a serious build from a starter one. Walking into a high-stakes duel or an endgame raid without that gear locked in is a mistake you’ll feel immediately.

Bypassing that tedious grind is simplest with a direct top-up. Joytify offers secure and instant Echo Beads top-ups, allowing you to quickly unlock desired progression tracks and weapon cosmetics without overpaying or enduring a long wait. Prepare your character, set your Path, and carry that competitive edge into your next encounter.