Black Myth: Wukong Best Build — Best Staff, Armor, & Spells

Making a good build in Black Myth: Wukong isn’t as simple as it sounds. The game might not have stat increases when leveling up and other hard RPG mechanics, but it has plenty of gear, spirits, spells, and more. To make matters worse, most of this gear is hard to find, hidden away in some secret side quest. Here is how to make the Best Build in Black Myth: Wukong.

Black Myth: Wukong Best Build — Best Staff

Staves are the primary weapon used by the Destined One, the protagonist of Black Myth: Wukong. Unlike other action-RPGs, the staves all have the same moveset and feature only slight visual variation. Collecting a new staff isn’t like finding a new weapon but more like upgrading the one you were already using. This means that we only have to look at the statistical advantage offered by those staves to determine the best one.

If we include the very high-end gear, there’s no contest. The Jingubang is the best one. It has the highest attack value of the bunch and various extra effects, whereas most other gear in the game only has one. The downside is that, by the time the protagonist gets his paws on this weapon, the game is almost over. Chances are that if you get stuck on one of the game’s bosses, it will be before this point.

Another alternative to the Jingubang is the Bishui Beast staff, a heavily upgraded form of the basic Willow Wood staff. This weapon doesn’t do anything fancy like the Jingubang, but it has the second-highest damage output in the game: a full 105 Attack and a nifty 10% bonus on critical chance. That might not sound like much, but one in ten attacks becoming critical hits can be massive. With the right skill point investment and gear, this staff can bring your critical hit chance to 25%.

If you want to confront more of the game’s primary weapons, we have a dedicated Black Myth: Wukong staves tier list.

Black Myth: Wukong Best Build — Best Armor

Deciding which armor is best in Black Myth: Wukong is a lot harder than with staves. The main reason is that thanks to the blacksmith of the Painted World, most pieces of armor can be brought to similar levels of defense. That would mean that the only real difference is what else that armor offers, either with its set bonus or a unique effect.

Let’s ignore the possibility granted by the Painted World. Improving your armor with the Blacksmith is extremely expensive and doesn’t exactly level the Plainfield anyway. This leaves us with two armor sets: the very late game Gold armor set, found in Chapter 6 as part of the main story, and the Bull King armor set, which is unlocked in part through Chapter 5’s War Cart quest.

The Bull King armor is focused on minimizing damage and has by far the highest Defense value of any armor in the game. Comparing this armor set’s body piece with its Gold set equivalent reveals a difference of 40 points of defense. The two are worth respectively 120 and 160 points of defense, for a difference of 25%. That said, the Gold Suozi armor comes with an additional 30 points of maximum health. That might be worth it, depending on your build, but I don’t think it’s enough to bridge the gap.

On my end-game character, that +30 Health is added onto a total of 825 HP, while the extra 40 Defense piles on 529 Def points that were already there. Proportionally, the defense bonus is much, much higher.

My preference, because that’s what this ultimately boils down to, is to use two pieces of the Bull King armor and two from the Gold armor. That way I have access to the partial set bonus of both armors (the Jingubang staff counts like a piece of Gold armor) and I get to use both the Bull King’s defense and the Gold Armor’s increased stats and critical hit chance. Most importantly, this avoids triggering the final set ability of the Bull King’s armor, which disables perfect dodges.

Black Myth: Wukong Best Build — Best Spells

Let’s get this out of the way: the best spell in the game is Immobilize. It’s so strong that, and this is a problem, it doesn’t really work on most bosses. Chances are that you’re optimizing your build because you’re having issues with a boss battle, so Immobilize is not a chance.

The second best Mysticism spell is Spell Binder, which you’ll get as a reward for completing the Melon Field side quest. Spell Binding has two uses. The first is to considerably boost attack (and more, if you spec into it). The second is to remove or minimize the effect of some bosses that restrict stamina recovery and spellcasting. This spell will be very useful against the final boss of Chapter 4.

The Alteration spells are both very similar: whether you go with Cloud Step or Rock Solid depends on whether you want more time to heal and eat some pills, or if you want your parry to lead directly to a new attack. Whichever you choose, remember to re-spec your skill points and put everything you can into this spell.

I’m not much of a A Pluck of Many fan, as it consumes far too many mana points to be used consistently, but it might be useful as a finisher of sorts.

As for Transformations, there are too many to count. I quite like Moon Roam since it’s easy enough to dodge attacks while in this form, making it much more durable than most. Azure Dust is the same, but it works by transforming damage received into energy for the spirit’s final attack. If you’re struggling, try matching the Transformation’s elemental damage to what you think your enemy might be weak to.

Let’s start with Spirits and Transformation spells.

Black Myth: Wukong Best Build — Best Spirits

Finally, we get to spirits. Those grant an extra unique attack and they often come with a passive boost. The best choice is probably to pick whatever stat boost you’d benefit from the most, making sure that you can actually land that spirit’s attack.

Top Takes Bottom is a great choice if you want to focus on defense, but its attack penalty is hard to ignore. Tiger’s Acolyte offers a nice 6% increase in critical hit damage, but its attack is quite slow and hard to land. Try to focus on the stat bonus more than the attack, as you’re unlikely to be able to use the active ability more than once per turn.

That concludes our guide on Black Myth: Wukong’s best build. For more content about the game, visit our BMW guides hub.