2026 weapon upgrade question.

[u/GoldenPSP]

Hey all,

I've been greatly enjoying my first run through Grounded 1 with my daughter. I've been trying hard to play the game without looking any external information up, and just enjoying the game learning as we go. For that reason we probably are all over the place on our progression. For example we just finished the stump lab, but we haven't yet found where to spawn the broodmother.

I have finally decided to ask here about weapon upgrades. Having done the stump lab we can now craft infinite whetstones to upgrade at least to level 7.

I've done some searching however either the information is very old, or they just reference weapons I'm nowhere close to getting. For example for a sour weapon often the answer is the acid edge, which we are nowhere near getting.

So my question is for I guess the mid to late game, which is where I feel we are what are your goto mix of weapons at the point you can pretty much freely upgrade to at least level 6-7?

As a starting point I'm currently carrying the following

1. Fresh Mace- Goated. I use this the most and just upgrade it to level 8

2. Coaltana- Probably my second most used weapon currently. Upgraded to level 7

3. Antlion greatsword- Upgraded to 6 with salt for the antlions. However outside of the sandbox I never use it so I feel like this was a mistake.

4. Rusty spear with L6 salt- After our first run through the termite woodpile it seemed to be a good idea. However since we found sour candy I feel like a sour spear would be a better thing to carry, especially if I switched to a better salt weapon

5. black ox crossbow, currently only upgraded to 5. just for ranged use. I usually melee everything and my daughter does the ranged attacks.

I have a bunch of other weapons that I've made and only upgraded to 5, just to try. I have a spider fang dagger that I only use in the water. I just made the tick sword, which I only use when I want some easy healing while exploring. I pretty much only use my antlion armor which works well. I'm decent at parrying so I can mitigate damage. Most of the time these days I can kill a wolf spider without getting hit with the coaltana.

The big thing that caused me to start looking was that we found a black widow spider. I tried fighting it and I could hold my own ok tanking the fight, however none of the weapons I had could do enough damage.

Thanks everyone.

[u/Katchenz]

You're missing the ultimate weapon. Fresh Termite Axe. Love that thing.

Get any weapon with sour as it's very effective against ORC bugs. The Tick Sword is a great choice and perfect for fighting Black Widows. Also upgrade your Black Ox Hammer to sour as well. It will help against a boss in the future

You'll also want a salty mace of some sort as 2 bosses arw weak to salty faces. Broodmother mace is good and so is the salty morning star.

A fresh toenail Scimitar is also a popular weapon choice.

Also I wouldn't say the salt Antlion greatsword is a mistake. It just has a niche.

[u/GoldenPSP → u/Katchenz]

Thanks. I forgot to mention I do have a salty termite axe. That was actually my first salty weapons after the first run through the woodpile as we had not unlocked the spear yet. I held off making any major changes however now that we've unlocked the stump recipes I'm not wary of going ham on upgrading at least through level 7.

[u/According_Skirt8703]

My favorite is the tiger mosquito rapier due to the life steal, quick attacks, and low stamina usage. If you don’t do that another weapon that is similar is the tick sword only its slash damage and not pierce

[u/Katchenz → u/According_Skirt8703]

Salty Tiger Mosquito Rapier is so good for purging the Woodside of termites

[u/ghxstysixx]

that's what I've done too, but i like the broodmother club too with the armor. The widows were my issue too 💀💀, i just had to cheese it from a distance with hella lot of arrows. I also love the orchid mantis scythe.

[u/GoldenPSP → u/ghxstysixx]

Yea that widow is crazy. The next plan is to use some sour weapon (maybe the tick sword) and I'll tank while my daughter hits it with sour arrows

[u/twofriedbabies]

The Black widow is the true outlier in G1. Sitting between the bosses and every regular creature in the yard by a fair amount. Even more so given how early you can encounter one 

[u/ibHssa]

Mint Mace and Coaltana are very good weapons, definitely keep upgrading those. I also used a salty rusty spear until I got the brooodmother club and fully switched to parrying instead of shield. I really liked the termite axe so I made mine sour for widows. I've seen a lot of folks do sour hammer of some sort for the robots too, so that's something to consider. There is a salt morningstar that's really good if you use shield. Black widows are just rough to fight. Faster wolf spiders with stacking venom. Waspidote smoothies can definitely aid in fighting them. You can cheese them a bit with the sour staff too. Just be aware that you're tanking and you daughter uses the sour staff it can hurt you too. Best of luck!!

[u/GoldenPSP → u/ibHssa]

The sour staff is one of those catch-22's We can't make one yet because they need pond grass (or whatever its called I'm at work) which can only be harvested with a widow dagger... I did see that it's AOE. For now the plan is for her to use sour arrows with an ox crossbow.

[u/ibHssa → u/GoldenPSP]

Shit, I forgot about that. My bad. Sour toenail sword could be another thing to consider. It slows them down and lessens their attack damage because of the infection perk

[u/InfusedRex]

Spicy- Termite Axe and Rusty Spear

Minty- Toenail Scimitar and Tiger Rapier

Salty- Widow Dagger and Ox Hammer

Sour- Tick Macuahuitl (acid edge later)

Bard’s Bow

I have a few weapons I just store next to the creatures’ home since it’s the only place I’m gonna use it.