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Plume of Chaos
Evasive Embers
Rising Chaos
Blazing Explosion
Hyperion Pull
Furious Immolation And Immolation
Vaporize Frost
Scorched Earth
Scorched Sweep
Hyperion Grapple
In God of War Ragnarok, you are never too far away from your next fight. In battle, you are going to be swapping frequently between your two primary weapons: your Leviathan Axe and your Blades of Chaos. Kratos' Blades of Chaos are going to be your go-to weapons for encounters with groups.
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But which attacks are the best? Which skills should you build up first? And how do you get the most out of these unique moves? Well, this list is going to try to answer those questions. We will tell you what we think the very best moves are, and we are going to rank them in order of potency.
10 Plume of Chaos
The Plume of Chaos is one of the last skills you will unlock for your Blades of Chaos. This will give your standard combo an incredibly powerful finisher. As is typically the case for your Blades, this attack is fantastic for hitting large swathes of enemies. It isn't just about crowd control, either; it also does a considerable amount of damage.
While we don't think this is the best attack that the Blades of Chaos have to offer, it is absolutely nice to have. Once you unlock it, it is almost always going to be worth using to finish off your combos. Far from essential, but definitely nice to have.
9 Evasive Embers
One of the things that your Blades of Chaos are great at is maintaining a specific distance. That's why we didn't actually name any of the lunging attacks in this list. It isn't because they are bad, many of those moves are actually quite good, it just feels like you are sacrificing that ideal range when you use them. That is where the Evasive Embers come in!
This is a move that propels you backward while firing a projectile as it does so. It is quite simply an excellent tool for allowing Kratos to create a little space when he needs it the most without sacrificing an active offense. Of all the skills on this list, the Evasive Embers are quite possibly the least flashy. However, they serve a specific purpose quite nicely. They are also a cheap, early unlock.
8 Rising Chaos
Do you want your opponents to be airborne? If you answered "yes", then we have the skill for you! Rising Chaos is another simple attack. Hold R2, and launch your foe into the air. Now, being able to launch an enemy is always useful, but Rising Chaos excels at this for a number of reasons.
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For starters, it hits from pretty far away. This means that you can time this to hit opponents running in. Moreover, this attack has a juicy hitbox, which means it will often launch multiple opponents at a time. Simple? Yes. But also extremely useful.
7 Blazing Explosion
We have officially started to get into the fun stuff. Blazing Explosion is an attack that sees Kratos sink both of his blades into an opponent before detonating them, causing a powerful explosion. While it is powerful in its first form, it only gets better once you unlock its second form: Blazing Explosion 2. Now the explosion is quite a bit bigger, allowing you to hit multiple opponents if they are even vaguely close to each other.
If you tag the closest opponent in a group with this one, then as their friends try to move past them, they will all be launched by the resulting explosion. And you can do it to a grounded opponent too. Better yet, you can grab opponents midair and detonate them. Needless to say, it is fun to play around with, and it is an excellent way to control crowds.
6 Hyperion Pull
This is one of the earliest moves you will get for Kratos. It is, for all intents and purposes, a move ripped from Mortal Kombat's Scorpion (though you will have to provide your own "get over here"). To use this move, just hold L2 to enter into your aiming mode, and then press R1. You will grab a foe and fling them forward.
Once you have yanked an enemy toward you, they will be stunned, allowing you to follow up with whatever you want. If you use this move against an airborne enemy, you will instead slam them down. This is a great way to finish off an already wounded enemy fast. The only downside is that this move just doesn't work against the heavier opponents. Nonetheless, you will still get plenty of use out of it yanking everyone else around the arena.
5 Furious Immolation And Immolation
We're doing a twofer with these skills. One of them makes it so that the burn effect will gradually build up, while the other allows you to cash out the burn effect to deal a massive amount of damage. Every hit you land will help you build up your precious burn effect.
You may have noticed that the equivalent skills weren't mentioned in the Leviathan Axe skill list. Well, that isn't because the equivalent skills aren't useful, it is just a situation where the axe doesn't build up the meter quickly when at range, and when you are fighting up close you are more likely to get clipped by stray shots (which resets the elemental buildup). You can probably already see what we are getting at here...
The Blades of Chaos are excellent at hitting multiple times, building up that meter quickly, while also allowing you to keep your distance. For that reason alone, the Immolation skills are absolutely invaluable for the Blades of Chaos. Also, feel free to cash that burn effect in for the extra damage often. Worry not, it isn't a hassle building the meter back up.
4 Vaporize Frost
We hate being predictable, but we can't not mention it. The Vaporize effect is going to make it so that you deal extra damage to opponents who have accumulated the frost effect. It is absolutely central to the combat engine, as it incentivizes the frequent swapping between your weapons. Oh, and by the way, it is one of the cheaper skills available for the Blades of Chaos.
Related: Best Abilities In God Of War Ragnarok
Without Vaporize Frost, Kratos is a less versatile character, and the combat engine loses some of its spice. This should be your first pickup.
3 Scorched Earth
Hammer that triangle button to start swinging the Blades of Chaos and then slam the blade down with R2. You will be rewarded with a powerful, rangy attack that is capable of controlling multiple opponents. But while Scorched Earth is good, the second iteration makes it monstrous.
The explosion you get once you slam the blade down becomes MASSIVE in the second form. It will also hit multiple times, pinning enemies down. You will get access to Scorched Earth 2 sometime in the middle of the game, and that is, unsurprisingly, when the Blades of Chaos go from being good to great. This is an incredible tool for crowd control, but it is also an excellent tool for just doing damage. When means that even against mid-bosses the Scorched Earth skill can play a role.
2 Scorched Sweep
This move is, at first, just solid. It has nice horizontal range, and it is a decent way of dealing with a number of enemies surrounding you. Like the previously mentioned Scorched Earth, you access it out of your blade-spinning stance (hammer the triangle button). However, in its initial form, the Scorched Earth attack just seems like a better option for the most part. That is, at least, until you gain access to Scorched Sweep 3. At that point, everything changes.
Now, your Scorched Sweep attack will deliver a wave of fire that hits multiple times and will carry enemies a shocking distance. Not only that, but the wave will pick up other enemies as it goes, bunging them together. Suddenly the Scorched Sweep becomes one of the absolute best crowd management attacks in the game. Better yet, it sets up the Scorched Earth attack, which is still excellent in its own right, brilliantly. Once you have grouped a bunch of goons together using the Scorched Sweep, you can clean them with the Scorched Earth. Synergy baby!
While spinning your blades fast enough to get access to the powered up Scorched Sweep (as well as Scorched Earth) is already pretty fast, you can use the Radiant Warden Handles accessory to also make yourself invincible to projectiles in this state. Later in the game, when the Scorched Sweep becomes invaluable, we can't recommend using this enough.
1 Hyperion Grapple
While the Leviathan Axe has the benefit of being able to be thrown at enemies, allowing for you to access your stun-centric melee moveset, the Blades of Chaos do not have the same luxury. However, due to the Hyperion Grapple being a thing, they are still quite capable of delivering substantial amounts of stun. In fact, due to the Hyperion Grapple, the Blades of Chaos are your best way of dealing stun.
On most opponents, you can chain the Hyperion Grapple into itself. Leading to, essentially, a guaranteed stun. Once you unlock the Hyperion Grapple 2, you are also provided with a fireball effect that burns enemies behind the foe you are striking. The Hyperion Grapple is a potent, versatile, staple of the Blades of Chaos moveset. It may not be as flashy as some of the other moves in his kit, and it forces you into the range that you rarely want to be in while using the Blades of Chaos, but its ability to dole out an absurd amount of stun makes it extremely powerful nonetheless.
Next: God Of War Ragnarok: All Weapon Upgrade Material Locations
