Fairly early on in your journey, you will come across plenty of weapons to pick and choose from, each with their own identity. You’ll be able to choose between different styles of weapons, and each of those styles having their own distinct identity so there’s always something different with each weapon. If you’re the type of player who likes big bonk playstyles, then the Axe playstyle is right for you. With us having played through the game, here’s the Axe build for Wuchang Fallen Feather that we used to complete the game.

• Looking for other builds? Check out or Tier List for more insight into the best weapons.

Table of Contents¶

If you want to jump to a specific section, click on the links below.

The Axe Build Explained¶

Before we go any further, we want to explain the unique strengths and weaknesses for any Axe build in Wuchang Fallen Feathers, along with key mechanics that you’ll interact with in game. These are:

Strengths:

• Strong Obliterate with heavy attacks hitting enemies from behind
• Excellent stagger mechanics with the Charged Heavy skill
• Massive burst damage potential
• High vitality and endurance scaling

Weaknesses:

• Slow attack speed
• Mobile bosses create downtime - which can be mitigated with Empyrean Axe(more on this later)
• Difficult to clash reliably and no counter options

Key Mechanics:

• Obliterate: Builds a bar on targets. When full, enemies break momentarily, allowing free attacks. Charged heavy attacks hitting the back of a normal sized human enemy typically trigger Obliterate instantly.
• Stagger: Final hits in light combos and Charged Heavy Attacks skill throw similarly-sized enemies around, canceling their attacks or stunning them briefly.
• Clash/Counter: Axe struggles with these mechanics due to slow swings. Charged Heavy Attack is your best option for timing clashes. Clashes mitigate some of the damage if your blade connects with their blade at the right time which is handy for your heavy attack landing and canceling some of their attack patterns or certain moves.

Impetus Repository Skills¶

The Impetus Repository is a feature that you can access whenever you visit shrines. It’s essentially a large talent tree, which you’ll spend Red Mercury Essence in. This is a material you will get from defeating bosses, one time elite spawns around the game, and when you spend your Red Mercury (souls) to level up in the Impetus Repository. In summary, you want to invest in both the axe tree, and the Illusive tree, which contains the flasks and temperance buffs you need as you collect more items like the Lost Remains and Forgotten Remembrance. Below is an idea of what to focus on:

Skill path strategy:

• First two Essences: Get Skycaller and Glimmer in the Illusive Tree
• Early Game (3-20 Essence): Get Earthshatter and then path to Colossal Smash
• Early-Mid Game (20-40 Essence): Go down the tree to get the light attack speed improvement and grab endurance attributes. Level the multi-nodes up too.
• Mid Game (40 - 80 Essences): Gradually get more attributes and aim for the + strength nodes. Focus on Endurance > Vitality > Strength for attribute upgrades. Progress Illusive tree as required when you get Temperance picks up in Act 3 / 4 and more Essence upgrades.
• Late Game (80+ Essences): Grab attributes from the Longsword tree to improve your Strength, Vitality and Endurance some more to take on the end game areas.

Axe Build Skills¶

For the build, we want to respec at various stages. Don’t worry you can respec for free at any time in the Impetus Repository. The general gist of it is as follows:

Starting Skills:

• Earthshatter: Reduces interruption on Charged Heavy Attacks, adds Vulnerability for boss burst
• Whirlwind: Alternative to Earthshatter, builds Poise status (pairs well with Vermillion War Club)
• Grab both Axe & Hook and Chop & Weave while pathing to get some clashing Bonuses, which you’ll need to learn how they work for the end of Chapter 1 boss.

Core Discipline Skill - Colossal Smash:

• Best synergy with early Temperance fire effect
• Spawns large Corruption that explodes on fire contact when you get the Skills support nodes.
• Guaranteed explosion with fire Temperance buff
• Single biggest source of burst on your weapon, and its easy to land.

Attribute Priority:

• Endurance > Vitality > Strength
• Focus on +5 Strength endcap nodes
• Upgrade multi-node attributes 3-5 times when available

Optional - Rampage:

• Good for flinching enemies when exploring
• Better than Colossal Smash against Bo Sorcerer boss
• Keep spare points for respeccing when needed

Illusive Tree¶

As mentioned, you only really dip into the Illusive Tree depending on your progression.If you find yourself lacking Essences by the time you need to upgrade Manna Flasks or Temperance slots, then feel free to respec a few attributes nodes from the axe tree to progress the milestones below. Also, don’t forget to consume Red Mercury items in your inventory, as you’ll easily stock pile a few levels in your bags without realizing.

Essential Early Upgrades:

• Skyborn Might on dodge - Must-have first upgrade
• Sky Calling 1 - Provides three Skyborn Might stacks. Very useful for Discipline Skills or weapon special skills Spend your second pint on this.
• Upgrade Count and Potency nodes three times before unlocking new nodes.

Temperance Timing:

• Level 30+: Start investing in +1 Temperance ready for mid-late Chapter 2
• Mid Chapter 3: The Third Acupuncture Plumed Stone Needle - Temper, comes from Chapter 3. Look for the third Temperance slot then.
• Early Chapter 4: An optional boss early in the act gives you a Temperance extension from 1 minute to 90 seconds, so it’s worth upgrading to a fourth Temperance Acupuncture here.

Weapons¶

In terms of core weapons, you want the following:

The Empyrean Axe is a weapon that has a unique skill called Empyrean Clash.

• Amazing utility as it can launch you airborne for gap closing
• Crashes down on enemies with Skyborn Might enhancement, with a burn and fire attack power effect too.
• Fills Obliterate meter on landing
• Can be timed to dodge enemy strikes instead of perfect dodging them.

This skill is extremely powerful for progressing and learning fights. The synergy with Burn and fire Attack, the defensive use case, the utility for gap closing, and it lowers the chance of losing your Obliterate meter because of the gap close and dodge effect into crash down attack. It’s too valuable.

The other weapon we recommended in Chapter 4 is the Scorn Axe. The benefits of using this weapon are as follows:

• Enhanced Temperance buffs with Fire Archipuncture, increasing the Burn status from attacks, and the weapon’s special move, Combustion Cleaver
• Increased Burn status buildup, especially with Combustion Cleaver, the axe’s special move.
• Colossal Smash + Combustion Cleaver = 5 Skyborn Might burst (no Temperance needed)
• Makes use of th fire Benedictions you’ve picked up through Chapter 2 much better than the Empyrean Axe can

When you get both axes, feel free to equip both. Empyrean Axe is still extremely useful for mobility parts of the fights, while the Scorn Axe is better when you know you can burst an enemy with Temperance, or you need to apply Burn before it phases away from you. Don’t worry about having a second weapon equipped unless you personally want to use one until you get the Scorn Axe. Weapon upgrades getting to level 10 is only really achievable with one weapon type in Chapter 4. So, doubling up on axe upgrades is a very good idea.

Alternatively, one handed swords with their Skyborn Might passive generation is nice. But, it is not needed. You can walk around with the one handed sword out, somewhat passively generating Skyborn Might, which is nice for dumping spells or weapon skills

Pendants for the Wuchang Fallen Feather Axe Build¶

Jade Pendants are part of the customization of the weapon, adding nice buffs to your build. In general, these are the Pendants you want

But, it will take some time to get them. Consider these pendants while you play through the game to fill other weapon slots. These are typically your early game pendants:

Benedictions for the Wuchang Fallen Feather Axe build¶

Benedictions are another game mechanic that players will interact with at various stages. These are essentially buffs to specific weapons. Here’s what to aim for regarding both weapons

Spells for the Axe Build¶

Spells are not that important for the Axe Build, but, there’s a few decent ones.

The reason you want these spells are for the following reasons:

• Divine spells listed above are considered ‘Others’ in spell type, and provide buffs and don’t require Magic or Feathering scalings
• Our build does not have any Magic or Feathering scalings.
• Divine Blessing healing is based on Vitality, which you certainly get a lot of, making it a very strong healing spell when you don’t want to use Manna Flasks..
• You can use the Plumed Branch item in your quick access menu to get max stacks of Skyborn Might and prepare an healing circle during an intermission on a boss

As for your other spells, some form of Burn spell can be nice. Burning Flames or Infernal Flames are good options. Both are Chapter 1 spells. The Crimson Edge Lance is also a cheap spell that can heal you too if you need it, which comes from Chapter 3 in the Reverent Temple.

Video Guide¶

If you’d like to see how this build plays out in video form, check out our video guide below:

This concludes our Wuchang Fallen Feather Axe Build. You now know what weapons, talents, spells, benedictions and jade pendants to complement your builds as you playthrough ans explore the game.