Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle weapons guide

Each hero in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has two weapons — a primary and a secondary. A hero’s skill tree has a huge impact on how you use them in a fight, but weapons define them.

There are lots of weapons to find, unlock and buy in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, but they all fall into nine broad categories — five primary weapons and four secondary.

You’ll unlock new weapons in treasure chests scattered around the overworlds and progressing through the game, and you can purchase all weapons in Battle HQ. We’ll talk about all of the categories of weapons and how to use them below.

Primary weapons

You’re going to use your primary weapon a lot, as the name suggests. It’s always going to be your go-to weapon — mostly because it doesn’t have a cooldown between uses like your secondary does. Because you’ll be using it so often, your primary weapon determines where on the battlefield a hero is most effective. Nearly all primary weapons only target one enemy at a time — the only exceptions are boomshots.

Blaster

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Mario and Rabbid Peach’s blasters are your bog standard guns. They look a little like Mega Man’s arm cannon. The only difference between Mario and Rabbid Peach’s blasters is the super effect damage they offer — Mario’s have bounce and honey effects, while Rabbid Peach’s have push and honey.

Blasters are just all-around kind of weapons. They’re good from mid-field in a battle or up close. When you couple that with Mario and Rabbid Peach’s skills — like Mario’s stomp jump and Rabbid Peach’s stylish dash — blasters work great in the middle of the battlefield. Keep your heroes within movement range of, but just behind the front lines.

Bworb

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While it looks like a futuristic battle yo-yo, Rabbid Luigi’s bworb acts a lot like the blasters above. Bworbs are also medium range, but they tend to lag behind with basic hit damage. They make up for it, though, with an increased likelihood of triggering their super effect damage.

Using a bworb (and, by extention, Rabbid Luigi) is a lot like the blasters above, but with an increased chance of super effects. That makes Rabbid Luigi better (but not perfect) at controlling dangerous enemies — ink super effects, for example, make it so an enemy can’t attack for one round, giving you some breathing room.

Vamp(ire) damage, like in the example above, drains hit points from your enemy and restores them to your hero. When an enemy is under the vamp super effect, any other character that deals damage to that enemy will also receive the healing.

Boomshot

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Think of boomshots as shotguns for Rabbid Mario and Peach. They deal a ton of damage and they spread it around in a cone, so they can hit multiple targets at once. That spread can be a problem when your teammates are in the way, though. Boomshots also have a shorter range than all of the other categories.

The boomshot’s short range means you should get up close (well, close-ish — seven or eight squares is nothing to sneeze at) and deal damage to as many enemies as you can. That Rabbid Mario and Peach both have lots of health means they can stand being up front better than, say, Luigi.

Precision

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Luigi’s precision weapons are sniper rifles. They’ve got the best range of the primary weapons, meaning you can keep Luigi (who has comparatively little health) out of harm’s way while still dealing damage to your enemies. Precision weapons do a little more damage than comparable blasters.

The only shortcoming of precision weapons is Luigi. He has a lot going for him movement-wise, but he’s got the lowest HP of anyone in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. This means that he and his precision weapon are best kept back, out of danger and behind cover — or in a sniper point above enemies.

Rumblebang

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The onomatopoetic rumblebangs that both Yoshis use are unpredictable, chest-mounted Gatling guns. They’ve got a respectable medium range, but they’re kind of all over the place on every other stat. Rumblebangs have a wide hit damage range, meaning they can do either less than or above average damage based on chance. And they deal a lot of super effect damage more rarely. All of this means that, when the stars align and everything goes your way, it’s among the most powerful weapons in your arsenal. But when the stars don’t align, rumblebangs are frustrating and dangerous to rely on.

There’s randomness built into using a rumblebang — it’s a coin flip as to whether you’ll deal a ton of damage or not much at all. Luckily, for Rabbid Yoshi at least, he can do a lot of movement-based damage, too. Your primary focus should be on that — dashing through as many enemies as you can. Use your rumblebang for clean up.

Secondary weapons

Secondary weapons are secondary in name only. We are big fans of secondary weapons, and you should use them often. The biggest drawback with secondary weapons is the cooldown — you only get to use a secondary once every few turns or so. Aside from that, they deal lots of damage, tend to have a better range and tend to ignore cover. Do not neglect your secondary weapons.

Melee

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Both Marios have a melee secondary weapon, which is really just a fancy way to say “big-ass hammer.” Melee weapons deal a lot of damage in a small area, making them fantastic for crowd control.

Melee weapons are fantastic when you’re surrounded by enemies. But that’s also their shortcoming. Hammers are great for when you start your turn surrounded, or when a group of enemies has already been softened up. But be careful rushing in to attack with one. If you move to a place where there are several enemies together to use your hammer, you have to remember that you’ll be stuck there in the middle of the survivors.

Rocket

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Rabbid Luigi and Yoshi both use rockets as their secondary weapon. They’re bazookas (bwahzookas?). Rockets have great range — on par with Luigi’s precision (sniper) weapons — and deal splash damage.

The only real downside of the rocket weapons is their cooldown time. Save it for when you can make it count: The rocket is most productive (destructive) when used to clear out a close-together group of enemies from behind cover.

Sentry

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The sentries that Rabbid Peach and Luigi use as their secondary weapons are a kind of self-driving bomb. When you set them on a target, they’ll pursue it until the sentry gets close enough to explode or gets destroyed. This is true even if its target runs away or it takes a few turns to get close.

It took us a long time to see the beauty of the sentry secondary weapons. That they drive around and seek out a target, ignoring cover and traveling through tubes is wonderful and all, but it’s the other way to use them that made us fall in love. Sentries can act as decoys. When they’re on the battlefield, it’s one more target for your enemies. And a sentry triggers your enemies’ hero sight-like techniques, meaning your heroes are safe(r) to move freely.

Grenaduck

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Grenaducks are exploding rubber duckies. Peach and Rabbid Luigi use these grenades (which, we suspect, is where the name comes from) as their secondaries. Grenaducks have good range and have a wide area of effect, but they tend to have low damage compared to the other secondary weapons. This makes them useful for bouncing around cover or softening up several enemies at once, but they’re rarely going to have the same impact as, say, a rocket.

Grenades, as a rule, aren’t exactly nuanced. The important thing to remember about grenaducks is that they’re (a little) underpowered. You can’t rely on them to take out strong enemies. But you can — and should — use them to soften up groups of baddies for your teammates.