Hound's Claws

Overview

Hound's Claws is a Unique Abyss Gear in Crimson Desert. When activated, it sweeps the surrounding area with bloodstained claws in a 360-degree arc, dealing additional damage to all nearby enemies. The effect triggers when the player uses Spinning Slash (R1 + X / RB + X), making it a powerful crowd-control tool for melee builds.

Hound's Claws comes pre-equipped on The Hound, a two-handed longsword once wielded by Hemon Beindel. It can be extracted from the weapon and socketed into any compatible equipment via a Witch.

Properties

How to Obtain

Hound's Claws is found on The Hound, a unique two-handed longsword obtained by defeating Hemon Beindel at Fort Hellwood. This boss fight is part of the Hellhounds quest chain under the House Celeste faction questline.

To reach the Hellhounds quest, you need to complete a lengthy chain of faction prerequisites in the Hernand region:

• Complete House Roberts quests (10/10)

• Complete House Alphonso quests (6/6)

• Progress House Serkis quests (10/13), including the Staglord boss fight

• Complete the Queen of the Silkspun Citadel quest chain, which includes defeating the Spider Queen and liberating Arboria Castle

• Progress the Finding the Relic quest under the Hernandian Parish of Solumen

• Complete the Reliquary of Saint Senia and defeat Hemon Beindel at Fort Hellwood

Combat Usage

The circular sweep of Hound's Claws covers a wide area around the player, hitting all enemies within melee range. This makes it particularly effective when surrounded by multiple opponents. The damage output is solid even without dedicated build support, and spamming Spinning Slash with this gear equipped generates a high volume of hits.

Hound's Claws is especially strong when paired with polearm weapons. The polearm moveset for Spinning Slash consists of rapid repeated stab motions rather than a single spin, which means each individual thrust can trigger the claw effect. This creates an unceasing offensive where every stab produces a claw sweep, keeping constant pressure on targets.

Build Synergy

• Polearm Spinning Slash builds: The rapid stab cadence of polearms means Hound's Claws triggers frequently, producing overlapping claw sweeps that deal sustained damage.

• Crowd control setups: The 360-degree coverage is ideal for stronghold clearing and large group encounters where enemies attack from all directions.

• Stagger builds: The combined flinch from Spinning Slash plus the claw sweep can keep smaller enemies locked down, preventing them from retaliating.

Spinning Slash Alternative to Dark Crescent

Hound's Claws is a reliable alternative to Dark Crescent for Spinning Slash builds. While Dark Crescent offers its own set of advantages, it can be awkward to land the full effect on small targets, since the crescent sweep arc is tuned for hitting multiple enemies in a line. Hound's Claws, by contrast, is very hard to miss. The claw sweep covers a full 360-degree arc centered on the player, meaning you will connect with anything in melee range regardless of positioning.

The AoE bleed damage from the sweep pattern adds consistent damage over time, stacking bleed on everything caught in the arc. For Spinning Slash builds where the primary targets are smaller or more mobile bosses that tend to sidestep or circle the player, Hound's Claws provides more reliable hit confirmation than Dark Crescent. The tradeoff is lower peak damage on perfectly aligned groups, but in practice the consistency of Hound's Claws makes up for it in most encounters.

Notes

• Abyss Gears are socketable items that can be embedded into equipment to provide various bonuses.

• Visit a Witch in any region to extract Hound's Claws from The Hound and socket it into other equipment.

• The Hound longsword has its own base stats separate from the abyss gear. Players can use the weapon as-is or extract the gear.

See Also

• Abyss Gear - Overview of all Abyss Gears

• Spinning Slash - The skill that triggers Hound's Claws

• House Celeste - The faction quest chain leading to The Hound

• Shadow Claw - Another claw-themed unique Abyss Gear (heavy attack trigger)

• Equipment - Full equipment guide

Community Tier List Rating: Hound's Claws

The following community rating comes from the Abyss Gears Tier List YouTube ranking guide, which scores every Abyss Gear out of 30 across three pillars: damage, usability, and utility. The breakdown below reflects that creator's opinion on Hound's Claws, not an objective measurement from the game's data files. Treat the scores as a useful reference for build decisions, then test the gear in your own loadout.

Tier breakpoints used by the guide: S covers 25 to 30 points, A covers 20 to 24, B covers 15 to 19, C covers 10 to 14, D covers anything under 10, and F is reserved for the lowest scorers under 8.

Score Breakdown

• Damage: 9 out of 10. The wide arcing wave hits hard. The reviewer remarks that you can immediately feel the difference compared to other sprint light gears.

• Usability: 9 out of 10. The wave is centred on the character, so positioning is very forgiving. There is no aiming step.

• Utility: 8 out of 10. The arc is wide enough to clear groups in one swing and to Stagger multiple enemies at once, which makes it strong AoE and Crowd Control.

• Total: 26 out of 30. S tier.

Why it Beats the Rest of Its Slot

Hound's Claws is the standout sprint light Abyss Gear in the rating guide and is called out as one of the four standouts on the entire tier list (alongside Greysoul Howling, the parting gift boots, and shattering frost). It outperforms Dark Crescent on every single pillar and beats Ancient Retribution on damage and AoE while remaining easier to land. If you are choosing a sprint light gear and have access to multiple options, this is the recommended pick.