If you’ve spent any time messing around with Doom’s more creative total conversion mods, you know Doom the Dark Ages stands out for its gritty, brutal take on medieval first-person combat. It trades plasma rifles and BFGs for iron axes, longbows, and a roster of underrated niche weapons that most players sleep on for their first few playthroughs. The most game-changing of these, by far, is doom the dark ages chainshot. A lot of new players write it off as a clunky, gimmicky flail variant, but once you learn its quirks, it’s easily one of the highest DPS, most versatile weapons in the entire mod for both single-player and multiplayer runs.
What Makes Doom the Dark Ages Chainshot Unique Among Medieval Weapons
Unlike the ship-mounted cannon ammo you might associate with the name, this chainshot is a handheld, grip-mounted weapon with two heavy spiked steel balls connected by a reinforced 10-foot chain. It doesn’t work like any other melee weapon in the mod, which is why so many players struggle to use it well at first. Unlike most melee options that only hit targets within 3 to 5 feet, the chainshot has a 12-foot effective range, letting you hit enemies before they can get within striking distance of their own weapons.
Its base damage sits at 75 per individual spiked ball hit, but if both balls connect with a single target, you’ll get a 150 damage burst that’s higher than a fully upgraded steel longsword’s heavy attack. That burst damage comes with a tradeoff, though: it has a 0.8 second windup time before each swing, so you can’t spam it like you would a dagger or one-handed mace. I lost three straight PvP duels to a player using only a basic chainshot before I stopped writing it off as a gimmick and started learning how to leverage its unique strengths.
How to Craft and Unlock the Chainshot Early in Your Playthrough
You won’t find the chainshot as a random drop from low-level bandits or chests, and wandering merchants almost never sell it fully assembled. To get it early, you’ll need to track down its crafting recipe first, which is hidden in a chest in the back of the Cursed Monastery, the first optional dungeon you’ll encounter about 90 minutes into a standard playthrough. The dungeon is full of fast, swarming ghouls that trip up a lot of new players, but the reward is more than worth the effort. Once you have the recipe, you’ll need the following materials to craft it at any blacksmith station:
- 2x Steel Spiked Balls: looted from bandit captains or smelted from 4 iron ingots each at a furnace
- 1x Reinforced Steel Chain: found in castle armories or crafted from 3 iron ingots + 1 leather strip
- 1x Hardwood Grip: crafted from 2 oak logs, or purchased from wandering merchants for 15 gold
- 1x Weapon Oil: optional, adds 10 extra fire damage for 20 hits immediately after crafting
If you rush the Cursed Monastery within the first 2 hours of a new playthrough, you can get the chainshot before you face the first major boss, the Baron of the Blighted Woods. The boss has a 10-foot swing range for his massive battleaxe, so the chainshot lets you hit him from outside his attack range entirely, cutting the fight time in half even if you’re undergeared. I’ve done this for every new playthrough I’ve started in the last year, and I haven’t died to the Baron once since I started using this trick.
Optimal Combat Tactics for the Chainshot in PvE and PvP
For PvE content, the chainshot shines most for crowd control and taking down high-health elite enemies. Wide horizontal swings can hit up to 3 grouped enemies at once, and every hit comes with a 40% stun chance that stops charging enemies in their tracks. The chainshot's stun chance is 40% on every hit, so it's perfect for stopping charging ogres or groups of raiders before they break your defense. That said, you don’t want to use it in tight corridors or small rooms: the chain will catch on walls and cancel your swing halfway through, leaving you wide open for counterattacks. Stick to open fields, large castle courtyards, or wide dungeon chambers for best results.
For PvP matches, the chainshot is a secret weapon that will catch most opponents off guard. 90% of players run either a sword and shield build or a bow build, and the chainshot counters both perfectly. It outranges every one-handed and two-handed sword in the mod, so you can hit sword users before they can get close enough to swing. Against shield users, aim for the legs, the chainshot wraps around shields and hits lower body parts for full damage, ignoring 70% of shield defense. Against bow users, you can close the gap fast and land a stun hit before they can nock a second arrow. Just don’t swing unless you’re sure you’ll land the hit; the windup time leaves you vulnerable to counterattacks if you miss.
Best Builds to Pair With Your Chainshot for Maximum Damage
The chainshot scales with both strength and dexterity, so you can build around it for two very different playstyles. For a slow, tanky playstyle, go all in on a strength build with 30+ strength points, which boosts chainshot damage by 30% and reduces the chance your swing gets interrupted by incoming damage. Pair this build with heavy plate armor so you can tank hits while you wind up your swings, and keep a lightweight dagger on hand for close-quarters fights where the chainshot is too slow to use effectively. For strength builds, pair the chainshot with a light dagger as a secondary weapon to finish off low-health enemies that get too close to use the chainshot effectively.
If you prefer fast, hit-and-run play, go for a dexterity build with 25+ dexterity points. That cuts the chainshot’s windup time by 35%, so you can swing almost as fast as a standard longsword while still keeping your 12-foot range advantage. Pair this build with light leather armor for extra movement speed, and you can dart in and out of combat range to land hits without taking damage in return. Skip magic builds if you plan to main the chainshot, though; as of the latest mod update, there’s no way to enchant it for extra magic damage, so any points you put into magic will be wasted.
You can also invest a few points into stamina if you plan to use the chainshot heavily. Each swing uses 15 stamina, which is more than twice the cost of a one-handed sword swing, so extra stamina lets you land multiple hits in a row without having to pause to recharge.
Next time you boot up a new Doom the Dark Ages playthrough, skip the standard longsword and give the chainshot a try. It takes an hour or two to get the swing timing down, and you’ll probably miss a lot of hits at first, but once you get comfortable with it, you’ll wonder how you ever played without it. The doom the dark ages chainshot is easily the most underrated weapon in the entire mod, and it’s well worth the small learning curve to unlock its full potential.
