Alright, so I’ve been sinking a lot of time into Solo Leveling: Arise lately, just like many of you probably. Got pretty hooked, you know? And as I started pulling different weapons for Sung Jinwoo and the other hunters, I kept wondering, “Okay, which of these things are actually worth leveling up?” There’s a bunch of them, and resources aren’t exactly infinite.
So, I decided to figure it out myself, put together my own little ranking. Seemed like a practical thing to do, might help someone else out too. First thing I did was just play the game. A lot. I made sure I got my hands on as many different weapons as I could, both the SSR fancy ones and the SRs you see more often. You can’t really judge something you haven’t used, right?
Getting Started and Testing
My process wasn’t super scientific, more based on feel and results. I’d equip a weapon and just run content with it.
- Story Mode: Good for seeing baseline performance against regular mobs and bosses I already knew.
- Gates: This was crucial. Different gates have different challenges, different enemy types, elemental weaknesses. I tried swapping weapons here to see how they handled various situations.
- Instance Dungeons/Other Modes: Basically, anywhere I could fight stuff, I’d try out the weapon I was focusing on at the time.
While I was doing this, I paid attention to a few things:
- Damage Output: Obvious one. Does it hit hard? Are the skills doing good numbers?
- Skill Cooldowns: How often can I use the good stuff? Long cooldowns can be a real pain.
- Usefulness/Utility: Does the weapon’s skill help break shields? Does it group enemies? Does it provide buffs or debuffs? Sometimes it’s not just about raw damage.
- Synergy: How well did it work with Sung Jinwoo’s own skills? Or if it was a hunter weapon, how well did it fit their kit?
- Feel: This is subjective, but important! Did the weapon feel good to use? Were the animations smooth? Did it make combat flow better?
I kept some rough notes, just jotting down thoughts like “This axe hits like a truck but skill takes forever” or “This dagger is fast, good for breaking”. I didn’t use spreadsheets or anything crazy, just my own observations written down.
Looking Around and Making the Tiers
After I felt I had a decent handle on a good chunk of the weapons, I did peek online a bit. Checked some forums, saw what other players were chattering about. Not to copy their lists, but more to see if my experiences matched up or if maybe I missed something about a weapon I’d ranked lower. Sometimes someone points out a specific use case you hadn’t considered, which is helpful. But mostly, I stuck to what I learned from my own playtime.
Then came the hard part: actually ranking them. I started sorting them into broad categories first, like ‘Really Good’, ‘Pretty Good’, ‘Okay’, ‘Meh’. Then I refined that into the tier system people usually use – S, A, B, C kind of thing.
S Tier: These were the weapons that just felt universally strong or had skills that were game-changers. The ones I always felt good about having equipped, making fights noticeably easier. Often the SSRs everyone talks about land here, but not always solely based on rarity. Performance was key. For Sung Jinwoo, Demonic Plum Flower Sword felt like an obvious top pick early on for its bleed and damage. Thethyst’s Grimoire also felt super impactful with its utility.
A Tier: Really solid weapons. Maybe not quite as broken as the S tiers, but very effective and reliable. Good damage, useful skills, maybe just missing that little extra something. A lot of strong SRs and some SSRs that are good but maybe more situational ended up here in my list. Things like Vulcan’s Rage or Shadow Scythe felt like they belonged around here based on my runs.
B Tier: Decent options, totally usable, especially if you don’t have the top-tier stuff. They get the job done but you might feel the difference compared to the higher tiers. Maybe their damage is okay, or their skill is useful but not amazing. Some SR weapons I used fell into this spot.
C Tier & Below: These were the weapons that felt underwhelming. Low damage, awkward skills, long cooldowns, or just easily replaced by better options. Usually the lower rarity stuff, but sometimes even an SR could feel disappointing compared to others.
Final Thoughts
So yeah, that was pretty much my process. Played the game, tested the weapons myself in different modes, focused on how they actually performed and felt, compared notes loosely with the community buzz, and then sorted them based on my own experience. It’s not perfect, and the game changes with updates, new weapons get added, balances happen. So, this kind of list is always a work in progress. But it was a fun exercise, and hopefully gives a decent idea based on my time playing.
