Ancient Reckoning

Overview

Ancient Reckoning is a wind imbument Abyss Gear in Crimson Desert. When the player hits an enemy with a wind-imbued attack, Ancient Reckoning creates a whirlwind at the point of impact that bounces up and launches enemies caught in its radius. While the crowd control effect is decent for scattering groups of smaller enemies, the actual bonus damage from the whirlwind is extremely low, making Ancient Reckoning a poor choice for players who prioritize damage output.

How to Obtain

Ancient Reckoning is one of two Abyss Gear items that augment wind imbued attacks. There are two ways to acquire it:

• Assyrian Great Serpent questline: Complete the Shackled God faction quest chain involving the Assyrian great serpent. Ancient Reckoning is awarded as part of the quest rewards.

• Defeat Primus the Ancient at Arrowhead Rock: Arrowhead Rock is located southwest of Duehaven. Start from the nearby abyss nexus and move toward Arrowhead Rock to trigger the encounter with Primus the Ancient. Defeating Primus drops multiple rewards, including Ancient Reckoning.

The Primus fight is difficult. A bow with 100% Infinite Arrows gears combined with explosive arrows makes the encounter significantly easier.

Once obtained, bring the gear to a witch to extract it, then embed it in your gloves or boots. However, for wind builds focused on traversal, the companion gear Pillar of Wind is generally the more impactful choice.

How it Works

Ancient Reckoning triggers whenever the player lands a wind-imbued attack on a target. Upon impact, a visible whirlwind vortex forms at the point where the attack connected. This vortex has two effects:

• Direct hit launch: If the wind-imbued attack connects directly with an enemy, that enemy gets sent flying into the air. This provides useful crowd control, especially against groups of smaller foes.

• Whirlwind area damage: The vortex that forms at the impact point deals continuous damage to any enemy standing within its radius. This is the damage-over-time component of the ability.

Combat Effectiveness

In controlled testing, Ancient Reckoning's whirlwind damage proved to be extremely disappointing. When the player hit next to an enemy (causing the vortex to form near the target without launching it), the whirlwind itself dealt barely any damage. Enemies caught in the swirling wind received negligible health reduction, remaining at nearly full HP after extended exposure to the vortex.

Even when the attack scored a direct hit and launched the enemy, the actual wind twirling damage was close to zero. The launch effect looked dramatic, but the numbers behind it were lackluster. Testing showed that enemies hit by the whirlwind consistently stayed at virtually full HP, confirming that the damage component of this ability is nearly non-existent.

Comparison to Fire Imbuments

Ancient Reckoning falls far behind fire imbument options in terms of damage output. Abilities like Volcanic Eruption and Flames of Judgment trigger powerful fire explosions on imbued attacks that deal substantial bonus damage. Fire imbue combined with Greysoul Howling and Ground Surge forms the current meta for turning slash builds, and the damage gap between fire and wind imbuments is enormous.

Crowd Control Value

The one area where Ancient Reckoning has some use is crowd control. Launching enemies into the air disrupts their attack patterns and can buy the player time to reposition or heal. Against groups of weaker enemies, the launch effect scatters the group and prevents them from swarming the player.

However, against bosses and elite enemies, the launch effect is either reduced or entirely absent. Since these are the encounters where bonus damage matters most, Ancient Reckoning provides neither meaningful damage nor useful crowd control when it counts.

Verdict

Ancient Reckoning is a crowd control tool with negligible damage output. Players looking for strong imbument options should choose fire imbuments like Volcanic Eruption or Flames of Judgment instead. Wind imbue with Ancient Reckoning is only worth considering in niche scenarios where launching smaller enemies is specifically useful, and even then, the damage sacrifice compared to fire is substantial.

Tips

• The whirlwind damage is extremely low. Do not equip this core expecting meaningful bonus damage.

• The launch effect is the main utility. Use it to scatter groups of smaller enemies.

• Fire imbuments (Volcanic Eruption, Flames of Judgment) vastly outperform wind imbue for damage.

• Against bosses, the launch effect is minimal, making this core nearly useless in those fights.

• If you need crowd control, consider whether a defensive ability would serve better than sacrificing your imbue slot.

See Also

• Abyss Gear

• Volcanic Eruption

• Frost Hail

• Combat System

Community Tier List Rating (Ancient Reckoning)

A community tier list of every Abyss Gear published by a Crimson Desert content creator scores each gear out of 30 across damage, usability, and utility. Scores between 5 and 9 land in D tier.

Ancient Reckoning is the offensive option in the wind element category and the only damage-focused wind gear that the tier list evaluates. The other wind element gear (Pillow of Wind) is described as a traversal and mobility tool with little combat value, so Ancient Reckoning carries the wind category by default. Unfortunately, the gear's low damage output puts it deep in D tier and the community summary does not recommend it for any serious damage build.

Players who want to incorporate wind element into a build should treat Ancient Reckoning as a slot filler at best. For top-tier element coverage, the same list points to the fire and frost categories where Volcanic Eruption sits in A tier and Shattering Frost sits in S tier, both of which provide much more reliable damage payoff than any wind option.