Plague Halberd

Overview

Plague Halberd is a Rare / Epic halberd-class melee weapon in Windrose. Wounds the body, destroys the soul. It stinks like a ship's hold after a long voyage.

Halberds are two-handed polearms with long reach and high Pierce damage. See Halberds for the full class profile.

At a Glance

Effects

Rare and Epic variants share a base effect. Ascending the Rare to Epic at the Weaponsmith Workshop preserves the Rare effect and stacks an additional bonus on top.

Crafting

Craft at the Weaponsmith Workshop (Level 1). Base recipe: Wood x10, Copper Ingot x3, Ingot Arborum x5.

Ascension to Epic

Ascending the Rare variant at the Weaponsmith Workshop converts it into the Epic variant and unlocks the Epic bonus line. Ingredients: Plague Halberd x1, Tumbaga Ingot x9. The ascension consumes the Rare weapon. See Tumbaga Ingot for sourcing notes and Upgrade System for the full ascension mechanic.

How to Obtain

• Crypt and Gardenruin chests in the Swamps biome.

• Can drop during plague-themed story beats that unlock the Ingot Arborum vendor route.

Loot Sources

Specific chests and drop locations currently listed on the live item card:

Tactical Usage

Strong Strength two-hander. Plague Echoes stacks quickly on wide AoE sweeps, and the Epic tier's 35% max-HP refund on the F-attack makes it a DPS-and-sustain package.

Lead with dodges because halberds cannot Perfect Block. Long-reach pokes during enemy recovery frames are the bread-and-butter pattern; heavy swings are your punish tool when the enemy whiffs.

Talent Synergies

Strength-scaling weapons pull from the Crusher branch of the Talent System, with Toughguy as a survivability complement. Relevant picks include talents that boost Crude damage, two-handed melee damage, posture break on staggered enemies, and stamina-efficient heavy attacks. Strength weapons also benefit from Toughguy talents like Stout Frame and Too Angry to Die that improve survivability during heavy-attack windows.

See the Talent System article for the current list of unlockable talents and their exact bonus values. Respeccing talents costs an in-game currency, so early-game branch commitments tend to lock in weapon pairings for the rest of the playthrough.

Comparison Within Class

Plague Halberd sits alongside 3 other halberds on the current live index. Consider the alternatives:

• Halberd: Uncommon, 340 Crude, Strength (B). no special effect

• Executioner: Rare / Epic, 365 Crude, Strength (C at Rare, B at Epic). Killing enemies grants stacks of Decimation effect. Each stack increases your Critical Hit Chance by 10%, up to 30%.

• Sturdy Halberd: Rare / Epic, 370 Crude, Strength (A at Rare, S at Epic). Increases Critical Hit Chance by 10%.

See Also

• Melee Weapons for the full melee index.

• Weapons for the cross-class roster.

• Halberds for the halberd category roster.

• Strength is this weapon's scaling attribute.

• Upgrade System covers Rare-to-Epic ascension with Tumbaga Ingot.

• Weaponsmith Workshop is the crafting and ascension station.

• Combat covers stamina, posture, and Perfect Block timing.

Scaling and Modifiers

The five-stack special attack is the headline mechanic of the Plague Halberd, but its damage and heal output are tied to a specific set of multipliers. The boom counts as a melee attack even though the visual is an outward AoE explosion, and it cannot critically strike. That single restriction reshapes the optimal gear list, because every crit-focused ring, necklace, and set bonus offers zero value to the explosion itself. Use the table below to plan around it.

In short: stack flat melee damage and Strength, lean on the Pikeman Set for the +15% two-handed multiplier, slot the Major Ring of Bravery, and ignore everything that says "crit" or "special weapon attack" until the bug is patched. Pair the build with Meaty Croc Kebab for the +20 Strength food buff, Coffee for endurance, and Infused Elixir of Cruelty for the melee damage elixir slot.

Stack Management

The Plague Echoes buff applied by light attacks has one frustrating quirk on this weapon: swapping to a pistol or any other weapon erases all built-up stacks. You cannot bank stacks for later, and you cannot pop a quick pistol shot mid-combo without losing the boom. This is a halberd-specific behavior, not a general rule. The Arboris Saber retains its Plague Echoes stacks when you swap weapons, which is one of the saber's key quality-of-life advantages over the halberd.

Practical pattern: commit to five swings on the halberd, fire the special, then re-stack. Multi-target cleaves do not help here because each swing only adds one stack regardless of how many enemies it hits. The fastest path to five stacks is five clean light attacks against a single target or a small group, not a single sweeping swing into a crowd. Once the boom is queued, you can swap freely (the cooldown does not refund stacks anyway), so this is the natural moment to flip to a sidearm or to a Soul Eater if it is off cooldown.

Boarding Bomber Build

The community-favorite setup for ship boarding actions and crowd clear is the Boarding Bomber. It pairs the Plague Halberd with the Soul Eater on the hot bar so that every boarding wave has an answer: the halberd handles trash mobs in five-swing intervals, while the Soul Eater special covers the two-minute window when you need a long-range emergency drain. Together they make the wielder arguably the best two-handed brawler in the game for both bossing and crowd clearing in the Cursed Swamps.

Loadout. Full Pikeman Set for the +15% two-handed weapon damage set bonus. Major Ring of Bravery in the ring slot for +8% melee damage. Plague Halberd in the primary weapon slot, Soul Eater in the secondary slot for the long-cooldown panic heal.

Consumables. Meaty Croc Kebab for the +20 Strength food buff, paired with Coffee for the endurance side so you can keep swinging through stamina drain. Infused Elixir of Cruelty in the elixir slot to push melee damage higher for the duration.

Talents. Prioritize Strength-scaling and two-handed weapon damage talents. Berserk and Momentum both feed the swing damage that builds the stacks. Dominating Presence gives a long melee damage buff after a kill, which is easy to keep refreshed during a boarding action. Stitches and Rum makes the 35% max-HP heal from the boom even bigger, which is the difference between surviving a sloppy boarding and getting cut down by the last defender.

Rotation. Drop in, light attack five times to fill stacks, hit the special to detonate the AoE and refund 35% of max HP, then start the next stack count. If you take heavy damage between stacks, swap to Soul Eater for the wide drain, then return to the halberd. Avoid pulling the pistol mid-stack because you will lose every echo you have built. The build asks you to commit to the swing combo, but the payoff is a Boarding loop where you self-heal every five hits and clear entire freighter decks without leaving the deck of your own ship for long.

Details

Properties

Crafted By

Crafted at: Weaponsmith Workshop

Ascend Cost

Ascend at: Weaponsmith Workshop

Where Found

Beyond the Old Skeleton chests listed under Loot Sources above, the Plague Halberd has no fixed world spawn; it can also be crafted at the Weaponsmith Workshop using the recipe in the Crafting section.

Patch History

Hotfix 0.10.0.2.54 (April 17, 2026): fixed a Plague Halberd visual bug where the special-attack VFX could float above the deck during a boarding sequence rather than playing at the player's position. The fix is purely cosmetic; the special attack's damage, the 5-stack Plague Echoes mechanic, and the Epic-tier 35% maximum-Health restore all behave the same as at launch. Boarding-loop builds that rely on watching the explosion to time the next stack count can do so reliably again post-patch.

No damage, scaling, ingredient, or ascension changes have shipped to the Plague Halberd since launch.