Dungeon Settlers Weapon and Skill Tree Tiers

CanOpener currently lists Sword, Blunt, Bow, Greatsword, Shield, Fire, Water, and Nature as the live skill trees. Damage still collapses to Physical or Magic (combat). This list ranks trees for Early Access parties of four, assuming you can craft Bone/Carapace and you pause. It is not a DPS spreadsheet from a finished expansion.

Always start from talents and racial aptitudes. A −2 fire Lizardman should not be your pyromancer.

S — Carry tools

Shield

Shield is how permadeath stays theoretical. Provoke, doorway holds, and the 144-attack Red Monster Rat all ask for a guard. Lizardmen get shield aptitude. A party of four strikers looks clever until a swarm wraps the casters. Craft a real shield, not a leftover buckler with 8% durability.

Bow

Bows convert settlement ammo into safe damage. Elves want this tree. Humans can shoot. You must pack arrows; an empty quiver is a melee tree you did not train. Auto-pickup helps. On depletion-positive floors, bows let you finish packs without eating armor durability.

Fire

Fire is the straightforward magic pressure button. Humans have a small aptitude. It eats energy (Willpower) and hates empty bars mid-elite. Pause to recast, do not auto-attack a slime with a staff because the gauge is dry.

A — Excellent with a job

Sword

The Human default. Reliable physical, no extreme downside, easy to gear from early recipes. Swordsmen still need a guard in front on named fights. Dual-purpose camp fighters if you cannot afford a specialist.

Greatsword

Lizardman-friendly, high swing, poor idea in a surround. Place it behind a shield-user. Elf greatsword aptitude is negative; do not force it.

Water

Summons (Bubbleling, Bubbletoad) scale off the caster’s magic attack, not off the summon’s fake independent sheet. That makes Intelligence-talented Water users scale twice: personally and through pets. Summons also soak hits if you drop them in a doorway. Energy hungry. Excellent when you already have a shield and need extra bodies without a fifth party slot.

Nature

Elf-coded control and backline support. Pairs with vegetarian kitchens and bow lines. Lower raw kill speed than Fire, higher expedition survival if you actually use the control skills on pause.

B — Works, needs a reason

Blunt / mace

Stun-adjacent physical. Good on a second frontliner when you already have a sword or greatsword. Lizardman blunt aptitude is real. Blunt does not replace a shield tree; it is a striker flavor.

Shared gear rules

Seven slots: main weapon, off-hand (shield or ammo), helmet, body, two accessories, plus the remaining wear slot the UI shows. Weapons add a flat attack chunk on top of Strength/Agility/Perception (physical) or Intelligence (magic). Accessories like Flower Necklace are mood tools, not vanity.

Durability falls on hit (weapons) and on being hit (armor). Repair at camp. A tier-list “S-tier bow” with 3% durability is a stick. Expedition packing lists live on dungeon expeditions.

Crafting order

Cloth → Bone/Carapace → whatever metal the current region drops. Do not sit on a research project for a vanity hat while your guard wears cloth into 144-attack swipes. The settlement forge exists to feed this list.

What we are not ranking

Playtesters have asked for spears, daggers, necromancy, holy, taming-as-combat, and extra bow types. Those are comment-section wishes, not live trees. The roadmap is where new weapons will show up. Until then, do not save a Genius spear talent you invented.

Pick one primary tree and a backup that shares a resource (shield + blunt, bow + nature, fire + sword on a Human). Then open party compositions so four people do not all roll Fire and starve for energy in the same room.