This guide will cover everything you could ever want to know about Plague Weapons, and then some. I’ll be covering topics including how to obtain and upgrade Plague Weapons, how they work, what different types there are, and a full catalog of all Plague Weapons.
What are Plague Weapons in Thymesia
Plague Weapons are unique abilities that mostly take the form of weapons that you can use to augment your playstyle. They are unique to Thymesia but conceptually similar to Sorceries, Incantations, and Ashes of War from Elden Ring.
While you can use Plague Weapons quite frequently, they do not replace your primary attacks and are still supplementary to your saber, dagger, and claws.
Over the course of the game, you’ll be able to pick from 21 different Plague Weapons and can equip up to 2 at a time. Initially, you’ll only be able to equip 1, but there’s a Talent you can unlock that will allow you to equip 2.
This is one of the most valuable Talents in the game and you should unlock it as soon as you have 2 Plague Weapons to equip.
The 21 Plague Weapons come in 3 tiers with 7 Plague Weapons per tier that correspond to the main enemy tiers: normal, strong, and boss.
How to obtain Plague Weapons
Plague Weapons come in 2 forms: Reaved and Equipped.
Reaved Plague Weapons are copied from the enemies you fight. They don’t cost any Energy, but they’re consumed on use. Anytime you hit an enemy with a fully charged Claw Attack (Predator Claw), you will get a copy of that enemy’s weapon or signature attack. The game refers to this act of copying the weapon/signature attack with Predator Claw as Reaving.
Equipped Plague Weapons are not consumed on use, but cost Energy (the green bar below your HP) to use and sometimes have a cooldown timer that prevents you from using it again until the timer has elapsed. These Plague Weapons can be equipped by resting at a beacon/chair or speaking with Aisemy.
Anytime you defeat an enemy, it has a chance to drop 
Skill Shards for its weapon/signature attack. For example, if you defeat an enemy that wields a Halberd, there’s a chance it will drop Halberd Skill Shards.
It costs 3 of that weapon/signature attack’s Skill Shard to initially unlock the equipable version of the Plague Weapon. You’ll typically get 3 Skill Shards the first time you encounter that type of weapon/signature attack, so you can unlock the base version after you take them down.
How to upgrade Plague Weapons
Plague Weapons can be upgraded through those same specific Skill Shards and by assigning attribute points mainly to Strength as you level up.
Skill Shards
Plague Weapons can be upgraded by spending specific Skill Shards in the Plague Weapon menu at any chair/beacon.
Each upgrade costs 3 of that weapon/signature attack’s Skill Shards. There are 5 upgrades, so unlocking and fully upgrading a Plague Weapon costs 18 Skill Shards total.
Bosses can be fought again by playing through the relevant sub-quest. If you want to upgrade a specific boss’ Plague Weapon, you will need to fight it multiple times.
Attributes and Damage Scaling
Plague Weapon damage scales based on your Attack Damage stat, which can be increased by allocating attribute points to Strength when you level up, though there are 3 Plague Weapons that have a component that scales with Claw Damage which is governed by the Plague attribute.
Since Equipped Plague Weapons cost Energy to use, you’ll want to make sure you invest in Talents that grant new avenues or increase the rate of Energy regeneration. In addition, the Plague stat governs your maximum Energy, so you’ll want to allocate some points there as well.
A build that focuses on frequently using Plague Weapons to deal damage will likely put most of their points into Strength and Plague with less of an emphasis on Vitality, so lower max health.
What does upgrading a Plague Weapon do
Upgrading a Plague Weapon with Skill Shards will do some of the following:
- Grant some sort of 10% boost. This is given on all but the third upgrade.
- The third upgrade after you’ve unlocked the Plague Weapon will add some sort of Extended Action
- The final upgrade adds a second attribute bonus
10% Boosts
Every upgrade except the third will offer a type of 10% boost to the Plague Weapon. These boosts come in the form of either reducing the Energy cost, increasing the damage dealt, or reducing the cooldown by 10%.
The first and second upgrade always share the same type of boost while the fourth and fifth upgrade always share a different type of boost. One of the boost types is always -10% Energy cost while the other is either +10% damage dealt or -10% cooldown. It’s typically +10% damage dealt if it’s an attack, but if it’s a buff or attack that provides some sort of unique effect, it almost always offers a cooldown reduction instead.
This creates a bit of separation where the more heavily attack-oriented Plague Weapons deal more damage than those that provide a special effect, though it’s not a massive difference in the first place. Each 10% boost is just taken from the base and added. For example, a Plague Weapon with a 30s cooldown has its cooldown reduced by 3s with each upgrade rather than 3s on the first and 2.7s on the second.
Extended Actions
Every Plague Weapon gets its Extended action as its third upgrade. An Extended Action is an alternate attack for each Plague Weapon that can typically be activated by pressing X/☐/1 twice instead of once.
Some Plague Weapons don’t follow the double-press activation and instead require you to press the appropriate button in a specific context.
For example, all of the Plague Weapons that provide buffs as their base effect will have an actual attack as their Extended Action if you activate that Plague Weapon again while the buff is already active.
As another example, the Shield Plague Weapon requires you to press X/☐/1 again immediately after you’ve successfully blocked an attack in order to trigger its Extended Action.
Extended Actions are not strictly upgrades over the base Plague Weapon attack or effect, so there’s still a reason to use them even after you’ve unlocked the Extended Action.
The more straightforward ones usually differentiate themselves in terms of range or knockback. For example, the Extended Action might knock the enemy away, which is helpful if you’re dealing with multiple at a time, but if you’re only dealing with a single enemy might just pointlessly put them out of your range.
Attribute Bonuses
Attribute bonuses are additional effects unique to each weapon that are granted if you have 10 or 20 of a specific attribute (Strength, Vitality, Plague). Each Plague Weapon has 2 attribute bonuses: the first one comes as part of unlocking the base Plague Weapon while the second comes as part of the final upgrade.
Boss Plague Weapons require 20 attribute points to receive each bonus while the rest require 20 points total, either as 20 in a single attribute where you get the first bonus with 10 and the second at 20 or as 2 separate stats each at 10 where 1 bonus requires 10 of 1 attribute while the other requires 10 of a different stat.
Attribute bonuses are not proficiencies; they are not requirements in order to wield the Plague Weapons and they aren’t even indicative of damage scaling. Instead, they’re simply small incentives to guide you in allocating your attributes as you level up.
You should strive to at least get the ones that only require 10 of an attribute, but don’t feel obligated to go beyond that or pick a Plague Weapon that matches your attribute allocation.
You should primarily allocate your attributes according to what you need and pick your Plague Weapons based on what you think is the most fun or useful. Only cater to the attribute bonuses when you’re not sure what you should level up next.
Plague Weapon Categories in Thymesia
The Plague Weapons aren’t categorized in the actual game, but all of them do fit into 1 or more of the following categories based on their capabilities: Heavy Attacks and High Damage, Long Range, Buffs, AoE and Multi-Target, Defensive, and Claw.
I want to encourage you to equip a pair of Plague Weapons that do not have overlapping capabilities so that you can maximize your overall versatility in combat. For example, you don’t really need 2 Plague Weapons that work at long range. You’re fine with just 1 and the other can focus on helping you when you need AoE or want to deal a lot of damage in a single hit.
If an entry on the list includes (EA), it means that only the Extended Action allows it to fit in that category, so you’ll need to gather 12 Skill Shards for that Plague Weapon before it can be used in that capacity. If you really want a Plague Weapon with a certain capability, consider an option that has that capability as part of its core functionality.
Heavy Attacks and High-Damage
In exchange for lacking other utility, these Plague Weapons hit a fair bit harder than the alternatives. They also often either make you take less damage during the wind-up animation and/or are capable of breaking through enemy Super Armor with the appropriate attribute bonus. If you want to deal maximum damage with your Plague Weapon, take one of these.
- Handaxe
- Halberd
- Hammer
- Twin Swords
- Greatsword
- Giant Sword
Long-Range
All of the Plague Weapons not listed in this category require you to be very close to your target in order for you to hit them. These long-range options allow you to hit targets that are considerably further away. If you want to play it safe, picking up a long-range Plague Weapon is a great idea.
- Bow
- Whip
- Katar
- Flying Daggers
- Mutated Tentacles
- Javelin Sword
- Handaxe (EA)
- Miasma (EA)
Buffs
Buffs offer a boost in lieu of an attack (until you get their Extended Action). They’re great if you want to spend most of your time interacting with the other core combat mechanics or really want to fully power up a specific aspect of combat, perhaps by unlocking all of the Talents in a given Talent Tree. For this set, I have included which aspect of combat each Plague Weapon boosts in parentheses.
- Blood Blade (Saber)
- Flying Daggers (Feathers)
- Miasma (Dodging)
- Fool’s Punch (Predator Claw)
AoE and Multi-Target
AoE and Multi-Target Plague Weapons feature large sweeping attacks or explosions that are easily able to hit multiple enemies at the same time. These are particularly helpful against regular enemies (outside of boss fights) where you occasionally come across situations where you have to fend off multiple enemies.
- Fist
- Greatsword
- Giant Sword
- Scythe
- Twin Swords
- Miasma
- Halberd (EA)
- Hammer (EA)
- Blood Storm (EA)
Defensive
Defensive Plague Weapons offer some sort of survivability benefit at the cost of dealing less damage. If you are having trouble with the difficulty of the game, I highly recommend equipping at least 1 Defensive Plague Weapon.
- Shield
- Scythe
- Blood Storm
- Vile Blood Shield
- Miasma
Claw
These weapons deal at least partially deal Claw Damage, which scales with the Plague attribute rather than Strength. Since they deal Claw Damage, they are more effective at dealing with the green health bar instead of the white. If you don’t want to use or upgrade the Claw Talent Tree, I highly recommend equipping one of these Plague Weapons.
- Knife
- Fool’s Punch
- Javelin Sword
Fully Upgraded Plague Weapons Catalog
I have compiled a list of all 21 Plague Weapons including everything about them when fully upgraded.
You can find more helpful Thymesia Guides here on VULKK.com. Take a look at these for starters:
