Dauntless Best Armor for Dealing Damage - Offensive Perks & Cells

There are twenty armor sets in Dauntless. That might not seem like much, but every set consists of four parts, which means there’s a huge number of combinations. Add to that the insane number of perks armor has, as well as the cells that add even more, and you’ll quickly realize you can customize your outfit down to the smallest detail. You can finely tune your armor so that it provides the most protection, mobility, offensive capabilities, or something else entirely. This guide will show you the best armor for dealing damage in Dauntless, or how to supplement your weapons with offensive perks and cells.

Best offensive perks & cells

There are more than a dozen offensive perks in the game, but some are inherently better than others. Some are viable at lower levels, others have their usability surge as you stack them. In order to get a perk up to +6, our advice would be to equip one armor piece that has it (this’ll get you up to +3), and one cell (another +3). In our experience, these are the best attack perks (in no particular order):

• Energized: Increases weapon meter gain rate (+40% at level 6). Essential for swords (allowing you to fill up your overdrive faster), good for axes and chain blades, pretty much useless for everything else. Can be found in the following armor pieces:
  • Lightning Helm (Stormclaw helmet)
  • Lightning Plate (Stormclaw chest piece)
• Sharpened: Gives a percentual increase to part damage (+30% at level 6, three times that after a perfect dodge). This one’s pretty self-explanatory. At lower levels, Bladestorm (which gives a flat boost to part damage) is a better option, but as you upgrade your gear you should switch to Sharpened. The following armor pieces come with it:
  • Draskscale Gauntlets (Drask gloves)
• Cunning: Increases your chance of dealing double damage (+15% at level 6). Great for weapons with a high attack rate, like the repeaters and chain blades. If you combine it with perks that guarantee a critical hit, it can make quite a mess. You’ll find it in:
  • Light’s Virtue (Rezakiri chest piece)
• Predator: Increases your damage if you don’t get hit (+35% on level 6 after not being hit for 15 seconds). If you’re able to dodge consistently, this one is essential no matter the weapon. Getting hit will remove the buff once you have it, so you have to really know what you’re doing to make the most of it. It can be found in:
  • Mantle of Thorns (Koshai chest)
  • Stride of Thorns (Koshai boots)
• Rage: Increases damage when your health is low (at level 6, gives you +25% damage when you’re below 50% health). Like the one above, it’s an all around great perk if you can dodge. If you’re not that good at dodging, it pairs well with Iceborne, which gives you life steal up to 50% HP at later levels. You can get Rage by equipping one of these:
  • Boreal Resolve (Boreus chest)
  • Boreal Might (Boreus gloves)
  • Volcanic Grips (Charrogg gloves)
  • Volcanic Treads (Charrogg boots)
  • Dark Watch (Shrowd helmet)
  • Dark Marrow (Shrowd chest)
• Knockout King: Gives percentual increase in stagger damage (+30% at level 6, three times as much after a perfect dodge). Great fit for hammers and axes, but not much else. Can be replaced with Weighted Strikes at lower levels, which gives a flat increase in stagger damage. It’s present in the following armor pieces:
  • Brow of Ice (Pangar helmet)
  • Arms of Ice (Pangar gloves)
• Savagery: Increases part damage against wounded parts (+100% at level 6). This one’s basically only useful to war pike players, or consistent teams that have one, but it’s a lot of added damage. You can get it by wearing:
  • Quillspike Mask (Quillshot helmet)
  • Quillspike Jacket (Quillshot chest)
• Ragehunter: Increases damage done to enraged behemoths (+50% at level 6). This one isn’t recommended for slow weapons – when they’re enraged, the behemoths tend to attack faster, leaving you less time to attack. It’s a good fit for swords, chain blades and repeaters. Since you can reliably push behemoths into an enraged state by doing enough damage, it’s a better choice than the Aetherhunter one, which increases the damage done to aether charged behemoths. You can get it from:
  • Hellplate Casque (Hellion helmet)
  • Gnasher Grips (Gnasher gloves)

Having this knowledge, you can mix and match to make the best build for the situation. Keep in mind that there’s no one-size-fits-all perfect build. Which armor you choose will depend on who you’re fighting, which weapons you’re using, what’s your play style with those weapons like, as well as your end goal. Trying to sever the tail of a terra behemoth will require a much different loadout than defeating a blaze behemoth in under two minutes.