Ganking is one of the best ways to make silver in Albion Online—even better if you have a competent group to do it with!
But as with most money-making activities in the game, ganking comes with its own set of risks. That’s why you shouldn’t start ganking people unprepared (unless you don’t mind failing and losing your gears).
If you’re inexperienced in ganking or looking for the best current ganking weapons in Albion Online, this article is for you.
In this article, we’ll talk about the best ganking weapons in the game with their corresponding builds. We’ll also provide you with some tips on how to use them optimally.
Finding the Best Ganking Weapons in Albion Online
Most of the weapons in the game have their niches. Their strengths and weaknesses determine what kind of content they’ll be most effective in.
When it comes to ganking weapons, there are three main features to consider: catch, lockdown, and damage.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is no single weapon that is the best in all three categories, but some weapons excel in at least two aspects.
Catch
As funny as it sounds, the main activity you’ll do when ganking is actually running around.
Although your goal as a ganker is to kill other players (and take their loot), no reasonable player would just let you kill them. So, you’ll likely spend most of the time either looking for targets or chasing them down.
Therefore, weapons that can effectively catch players are crucial to ganking. These weapons often involve movement speed buffs or long-ranged mobility spells to help you pursue your fleeing targets.
Lockdown
But catching players often isn’t enough. You also need to be able to lock your targets down in place.
It doesn’t matter if you can run as fast as your target if you can’t pin them down. You’ll both be just running around in circles—and as a ganker, you’re on the losing end since you’re wasting time not getting a kill.
Weapons with good lockdowns possess skills that either have stuns, roots, slows, or other forms of interrupts and crowd control.
Damage
Lastly, ganking weapons should have enough damage potential to kill your targets. There’s no use chasing and locking down players if you can’t finish them off, not to mention the possibility of them killing you instead.
Damage is also vital when it comes to dismounting your target. As long as your target is mounted, there’s no way you can kill them. Hence, a good ganking weapon should be able to deal sufficient damage to dismount your target.
In most cases, ganking weapons don’t excel in a vacuum. They’re often supplemented by other gears that complement their shortcomings.
Experienced gankers don’t just use the best ganking weapons—they also wear the best ganking builds to be successful.
Now that we know what to look for, here are the best ganking weapons in Albion Online.
Bear Paws
First on this list is the powerful bruiser weapon, Bear Paws. Aside from possessing high damage potential, Bear Paws is also relatively mobile compared to the other weapons in the Axe tree—making it arguably the best ganking weapon in Albion Online.
Thanks to the Axe weapon tree, Bear Paws has access to two potent abilities: Rending Rage and Adrenaline Boost. Rending Rage provides consistent damage and root while Adrenaline Boost boosts (no pun intended) your overall damage output and mobility.
But the main strength of Bear Paws lies in its signature ability, Razor Cut.
Razor Cut is a damage-dealing ability and mobility spell in one. This ability inflicts high initial damage on impact and applies a Bleed on all enemies hit. Affected enemies receive damage over time for six seconds.
Unlike Rending Bleed from your other abilities, Bleed from Razor Cut deals true damage, which ignores your target’s armor values. So regardless of their IP, their mount will bear the full damage of the effect.
Moreover, Razor Cut makes you leap towards a target direction up to 12 meters away, which is often enough to catch your fleeing targets. It also has an initial cooldown of 30 seconds but is further decreased by 40% when you successfully hit at least one enemy.
Due to its decent damage on impact, Bleed true damage, and good range, Razor Cut is an extremely effective ability for dismounting and catching players.
Bear Paws Ganking Build
While Bear Paws excels in catching players and dealing damage, it’s quite lacking in terms of lockdown. Rending Rage is a decent lockdown ability that allows you to root your enemies in place, but it requires a bit of setup and only has a short duration.
Hence, the best way to build around Bear Paws is to maximize its mobility and damage—and the build above does just that.
Royal Sandals and Thetford Cape increase your overall damage output, and the former also boosts your movement speed for a decent duration in exchange for lower damage resistance.
Meanwhile, the Fiend Cowl is primarily for purging enemy movement speed buffs. Your targets will most likely run away from you using their shoes slot ability, and Purge from the Fiend Cowl allows you to deal with that. It’s also useful against other buffs such as Bloodlust (Mercenary Jacket) and Everlasting Spirit (Cleric Robe).
Assassin Jacket is the ideal gear for your Chest slot. It provides you with the ability to sneak up on your targets or escape when things don’t go your way.
The most used food is Deadwater Eel Stew for the bonus damage and cooldown reduction, and the most common potion is Invisibility Potion. Poison Potion is also viable for the additional damage, but your abilities are usually sufficient.
Double-Bladed Staff
Double-Bladed Staff has been a part of the ganking meta since its existence. It’s one of the most common and effective ganking weapons in the game—and for good reasons.
When it comes to mobility, the Double-Bladed Staff is matched only by a few other weapons. It possesses an insane chasing capacity and reliable lockdown that makes it effective in both solo and group ganking.
As a member of the Quarterstaff weapon tree, the Double-Bladed Staff features two excellent ganking abilities: Concussive Blow and Stun Run.
Concussive Blow inflicts high single-target damage and has a very short cooldown. It’s a good source of reliable damage that also stuns your target after every second hit.
Moreover, Stun Run provides you with yet another stun. It’s a great ability for catching due to its movement speed buff and additional stun effect.
But what sets Double-Bladed Staff apart from other weapons is its signature ability, Soaring Swipe. It’s perhaps one of the best ganking abilities in the game due to a combination of various factors.
First, Soaring Swipe has an insane range of 15 meters. But its AOE has a 6-meter radius, so you can actually hit enemies up to 21 meters away. That’s almost double the range of Bear Paw’s Razor Cut!
Also, this ability slows down your enemies by 50% for multiple seconds, which prevents your target from ever escaping. On top of all these, this ability only has a 15-second cooldown.
With Soaring Swipe’s low cooldown and slow effect and Stun Run’s movement speed buff and stun, you’re guaranteed to stay on top of your target with this weapon. Concussive Blow is just the icing on the cake.
Double-Bladed Staff Ganking Build
Double-Bladed Staff possesses good lockdown and catch plus decent damage. But you know what’s better? Even more lockdown, catch, and damage!
This featured build adds much-needed damage to the weapon and provides extra tools to catch your targets.
Demon Cape is an important part of this build as it greatly increases your chance of dismounting and killing players. It adds more damage to your overall build and synergizes well with your other abilities.
The usual combo is simply auto-attacking your target after casting Stun Run, which stuns them and triggers the Demon Cape. They would then be stuck in the lava puddle for a few seconds and receive significant damage.
Fiend Cowl is almost a staple for ganking, especially for solo gankers due to its powerful Purge. Additionally, Assassin Jacket lets you sneak up on your targets or bail yourself out in unfavorable situations.
Hunter Shoes is the preferred gear in the shoes slot for the movement speed and CC buff from Rush.
Invisibility Potion and Deadwater Eel Stew are the usual choices for potion and food. But you can also substitute them with Poison Potion and Pork Omelette, respectively.
Grailseeker
Next on this list is another weapon from the Quarterstaff weapon tree: Grailseeker.
Since they belong to the same weapon tree, Grailseeker utilizes the same abilities as Double-Bladed Staff. This weapon takes advantage of its exceptional ganking tools in the form of Concussive Blow and Stun Run.
However, its signature ability, Soul Shaker, is oriented more towards locking down your targets rather than chasing them.
Casting Soul Shaker creates a wall of energy that deals damage and roots any enemies passing through. The wall lasts for 3.5 seconds, and the same goes for its root effect. Moreover, you can cast it twice in a row to summon another wall of energy.
Casting the ability twice in a row results in a longer cooldown but practically doubles your damage output and CC duration. Just make sure that you time your cast correctly.
Three and a half seconds of being rooted means trouble for your target, and an additional wall for another 3.5 seconds of CC most likely means death.
Grailseeker Ganking Build
Unfortunately, Grailseeker isn’t as versatile as Double-Bladed Staff. Although exceptional in group ganking, Grailseeker may feel a bit lacking for solo gankers due to its lack of mobility. Stun Run certainly helps, but it isn’t enough to keep up with your target’s escape abilities alone.
The optimal ganking build for Grailseeker includes either a Stalker Hood to counter invisibility or Demon Helm for the silence effect. Fiend Cowl is a viable alternative.
For the chest slot, Graveguard Armor is recommended. It works well with your Soul Shaker as a reliable setup for Graveguard Armor’s Soul Chain. Additionally, Hunter Shoes’ Rush synergizes well with your other abilities.
The cape of choice is Demon Cape for the high-damage lava puddle. Your CC abilities will usually guarantee that your target takes at least decent damage from the lava as they’re unable to move.
For food, Beef Stew and Pork Omelette are the most popular choices, and they’re often paired with Poison Potion to maximize your overall damage output.
Your main role as a Grailseeker in group ganking is to ensure your targets are kept in place. You aren’t expected to deal a lot of damage—leave that to your other squad members. As long as you time your CC abilities correctly, you’ll have a high gank success rate.
Claws
For anyone who’s ever been ganked in Albion Online (pretty much most players), gank groups with multiple Claws are not a rare sight. Claws are the bane of players in the red zones. When you see a solo red player with Claws, you’re sure to see many others.
Although Claws gankers are annoying as hell, they’re undeniably some of the most effective ones in the open world. Aside from swarming their targets with their 7 to 10-man ganking squad, they can chain root their targets for a long duration, eliminating any chance of escape.
Claws’ signature ability, Disembowel, is the perfect ability for locking down lone players. Not only does it deal damage and root your target, but it also interrupts casting and purges shields during its channeling duration.
This ability only has a short duration based on your IP, so the strategy is to chain root your targets via multiple Claws from your group. This effectively locks down a single player and often guarantees dismounting (and killing) them.
Disembowel is a melee range ability, so you have to be on top of your target to use it. Luckily, Claws belong to the Dagger tree and has access to Deadly Swipe and Shadow Edge, which are highly mobile abilities.
Additionally, Shadow Edge is an excellent gap closer with a 22-meter range—longer than Double-Bladed Staff’s Soaring Swipe! It also applies a short stun, which makes it a good interrupt as well.
Claws Ganking Build
The unfortunate downside is that Claws is ineffective for solo ganking. It’s a weapon meant to kill weaker targets, and it horribly fails against stronger enemies unless you outnumber them.
We don’t recommend using Claws to gank solo or fight people because you will most likely lose. The only exception is if you have a significant IP difference from your target. But in that case, there are other better options.
For a ganking build around Claws, Fiend Cowl and Hunter Shoes are the cookie-cutter gears for the CC boost and the ability to purge enemy movement speed buffs. If your group has enough purges, you can swap Fiend Cowl with Stalker Hood.
Demon Cape is also the optimal cape for this build since it works nicely with Disembowel.
Fiend Robe is the best chest piece for Claws. Fear Aura fits in perfectly with the playstyle of Claws, effectively disabling your target for extended periods. It’s also an amazing tool for blocking exits and escape paths.
Assassin Jacket is a possible alternative if your group already has enough Fiend Robes. Pork Omelette and Poison Potion are the standard options for food and potion.
Your typical combo for catching mounted targets is Poison Potion -> Shadow Edge -> Auto-attack (to proc Demon Cape) -> Disembowel. You can also use Shadow Edge first if you think you’ll be unable to throw a Poison Potion in time.
These are fairly simple steps, but more experience playing this build will help you make better decisions and adjustments when needed.
Special Mentions – Alternative Ganking Weapons
Aside from the ones on this list, there are plenty of other ganking weapons that gankers use with decent success in the open world. They didn’t make the list because they’re either too niche or slightly worse than the ones we’ve mentioned.
However, this doesn’t mean that they’re bad. They’re still perfectly viable for ganking, and you can have great success with these weapons once you learn how to use them properly.
Bloodletter, One-Handed Dagger, Dagger Pair
Do you know what they all have in common with Claws? They’re all part of the Dagger weapon tree. This means they also have access to Deadly Swipe and Shadow Edge.
Bloodletter also has the added benefit of Lunging Stabs for the additional mobility and damage. It’s a good weapon for ganking but not quite as reliable in terms of lockdown. That’s why Bloodletter is seen more as a fighting weapon rather than purely a ganking one.
On the other hand, One-Handed Dagger and Dagger Pair give up mobility for better damage. But they both require additional setups to be effective since neither of their signature abilities has any CC or mobility.
Frost Staff
Frost Staff is another popular group ganking weapon. Its Freezing Wind provides you with a good damaging and disabling ability via slow and eventual root.
This weapon is also decent for fighting if you manage to meet a target who’s willing to fight it out. But since you’re only good option is to wear a cloth chest piece, you suffer from being too vulnerable and fragile, so you’re better off ganking with a group.
One-Handed Mace
When it comes to crowd control, One-Handed Mace is a clear frontrunner. Its Deep Leap is like a lockdown-oriented version of Razor Cut. It deals decent damage and stuns and slows on impact.
However, Deep Leap has a long cooldown of 25 seconds, so it’s not as effective for chasing quick targets. One-Handed Mace also lacks some damage, which is why it’s often paired with a leather chest piece like Assassin Jacket and Thetford Cape for ganking.
Final Thoughts
The beauty of Albion Online’s combat system is that you’re free to try out different weapons and builds however you like. This list is meant to give you a good starting point if you’re new to ganking. But all the viable ganking weapons and builds in Albion Online are certainly not limited to the ones listed here.
Do you think we missed something? Are there other ganking weapons, builds, or strategies you’d like to share? Let us know by commenting below!
