Doom The Dark Ages All Weapon Mastery Challenges Guide

Doom: The Dark Ages has 11 weapons total that feature mastery challenges (all except the Crossbow). Completing all 11 Weapon Masteries unlocks the Gunpletionist trophy & achievement.

First, you must fully upgrade a weapon to unlock its Mastery Challenge. You can buy the upgrades at green Sentinel Shrines, which are always on the main path and marked by a green icon on the map. Upgrades cost Gold, Rubies, and 1 Wraithstone for the final upgrade on each weapon. The earliest you can upgrade all weapons is in the final chapter (Chapter 22: Reckoning) at the last Sentinel Shrine, as that’s when you find the last Wraithstone.

After fully upgrading a weapon you can track the mastery challenge by pressing Touchpad > Challenges > Mastery > press on the Mastery Challenge you want to pin. It will then track your progress on the left side of the screen. Note that if you farm all masteries in succession you sometimes can’t pin a new challenge immediately, but this is fixed by restarting checkpoints twice in a row.

Mastery challenges are little combat tasks that require dealing damage or doing kills in a specific way. A quick farming spot is the first combat encounter in Chapter 20: Resurrection. There you have a shielded miniboss which doesn’t die until you melee it, and it spawns fodder demons infinitely. There are many large demons in this encounter and it’s at the very start of the chapter. You can also restart the checkpoint to farm the challenges and can adjust the damage dealt to demons in the game settings. Some challenges are easier when you set the damage output to 50% and some go faster when bumping it to 1000%.

For all Gold, Rubies, Wraithstones refer to Doom The Dark Ages Collectible Guide.

Weapon #1: Combat Shotgun

Barrel Buster – Hit demons with every pellet from Combat Shotgun shots (x150)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%” so they can take more hits before dying. Get up close to large demons with high health and shoot them from point-blank range so all pellets hit the enemy. It’s most easily farmed in red miniboss encounters with an enemy that gives a rune at the end, these can’t die if you don’t do a melee hit, so you can keep shooting and they spawn more fodder demons infinitely for you to recharge ammo. The first encounter in Chapter 20 works well (he is shielded which also counts). Equip the upgrade “Tune-Up” to shoot 3 times in a row to make this go faster.

Weapon #2: Super Shotgun

Super Barrel Stuffer – Hit demons with every pellet from Super Shotgun shots (x50)

See strategy for regular Combat Shotgun, the same works for this.

Weapon #3: Shredder

Burster – Cause secondary Pincushion or Ricochet damage to demons with the Rail Spike Shredder (x100)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%”. For the Shredder equip the upgrade “Pincushion”. Shoot big demons with high health until they glow yellow, then throw your shield to cause an explosion, each enemy hit by it counts towards this. By lowering the damage you can farm it multiple times on the same demon before it dies. There are many big demons in the first Chapter 20 encounter. Alternatively, you can also equip the Ricochet upgrade, then throw the shield so it gets stuck in a big demon, then shoot that demon to ricochet bullets at surrounding enemies.

Weapon #4: Impaler

Acupuncture – Regenerate your melee charges with the Lobotomy bonus head shots from the Rail Spike Impaler (x100)

For the Impaler equip the “Chronospike” upgrade, this slow down time when holding which makes headshots easier. Every time you deal a headshot you refill a portion of your melee charge. You must first get rid of your melee charges so that you are able to refill them – simply attack enemies with , the charges are displayed in the bottom right of the screen (up to 3 maximum). After depleting the charges, do headshots to increase the challenge counter. This is best done on fodder demons from up close because they are slow moving and easy targets. Aim a bit higher above the head, the projectile is quite bit and if you aim in the middle of the head sometimes registers as a body hit.

Weapon #5: Accelerator

Redline – Cause Overload or Heatblast damage to demons with the Plasma Rifle Accelerator (x1000)

You can farm this in about 3 minutes in the first encounter of Chapter 20. For the Accelerator equip the upgrades “Modulator” + “Mega Cell”. In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 1000%”. Now kill demons until the shield of the miniboss goes down and damage it until it glows purple. This miniboss can’t die if you don’t melee it and keeps spawning fodder demons infinitely. Get full ammo with the Accelerator, then keep shooting at the purple glowing miniboss, after your weapon starts glowing red the Accelerator goes into “Overload” and each shot will increase the counter. When you run out of ammo kill the fodder demons and shoot the miniboss again. It takes around 50 shots to overcharge, and you have 250 ammo max (if you got all demonic essences), so you can get around 200 overcharged hits per cycle. With Modulator + Mega Cell equipped it goes faster as these increase the rate of fire and the overcharge lasts longer.

Weapon #6: Cycler

Thermal Runaway – Cause Overloaded or Lightning Arc damage to demons with the Plasma Rifle Cycler (x500)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 200%”, this is the sweet spot where large demons survive long enough to build up a lightning arc and still die fast enough. It can be farmed very quickly in the first Chapter 20 encounter. Shoot large demons with the Cycler until they glow purple, then kill them to cause a lightning explosion. Your Cycler will now glow and shoot red projectiles. This effect only lasts a few seconds, each hit you land with the red overloaded projectiles counts towards the challenge. It’s best to hit the shielded miniboss as it can’t die. Keep the other large demons to make them glow purple and kill them to trigger the overloaded effect, shoot the shielded boss until the effect runs out, rinse and repeat. If all large demons died you can restart checkpoint. The small demons die too fast before they can build up a purple glow.

Weapon #7: Pulverizer

Hunter – Cause Charged damage to demons with the Skullcrusher Pulverizer (x250)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 1000%”. Each time you kill a demon you build up charge for the Pulverizer, so by dealing x10 damage it goes much faster. You can quickly farm it in the first red combat encounter of Chapter 20, just don’t kill the shielded miniboss and it will keep spawning fodder demons infinitely. It counts as “charged” when your weapon glows yellow and your movement speed increases, then just keep shooting. Hits on the shielded miniboss count too. You can also restart checkpoint to respawn all enemies.

Weapon #8: Ravager

Gatherer – Gather Skullcrusher ammo by damaging demons with the Supplier equipped Ravager (x100)

Equip the Ravager with the “Ignition” upgrade, this makes it reach maximum fire rate faster. Keep shooting until the weapon glows blue (= max fire rate). Then it will drop ammo every few seconds when you hit enemies, effectively allowing you to shoot infinitely as it refills your ammo while you shoot. You have to pick up the little blue ammo drops, so get close to the enemies. It works best on big demons with a lot of health. It’s easy to farm in the first Chapter 20 encounter, there are many Mancubus and other large demons there. In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%”, then the enemies can take more hits. Stand directly in front of a large demon and keep shooting at it, every few seconds the counter for this challenge will go up as the demon drops ammo (while your Ravager glows blue). It only works when the enemy has no armor and takes health damage. Small enemies also drop ammo but it’s less reliable than shooting the same big enemy repeatedly.

Weapon #9: Chainshot

Reverberation – Cause explosive Cosmic Breach damage to demons with fully charged Chainshot Reaver impacts (x100)

You can farm this in about 2 minutes in the first Chapter 20 encounter. In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%”. With the Chainshot hold to fully charge it, then release the button to fire a shot. When it hits, it will cause a small explosion that damages all enemies in a radius. Each enemy affected by this (including the one you hit) counts towards this. Use this on big groups of weak enemies that are close together, or keep hitting one big enemy surrounded by weak ones. The armored Mancubus at the start of the encounter works well as it keeps summoning more enemies around it.

Weapon #10: Grenade Launcher

Clusterfun – Cause secondary Fragment and Cataclysm damage to demons with the Grenade Launcher cluster grenades (x100)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%”. You can farm this in about 60 seconds in the first enemy encounter of Chapter 20. Just keep hitting the same big demon repeatedly with grenades, every second hit will drop cluster grenades that damage to surrounding enemies. There’s an armored Mancubus on this encounter which works perfectly for it. By setting damage to 50% you can land more hits before the enemies die.

Weapon #11: Rocket Launcher

Engorge – Heal yourself with the Cannibalism upgrade from close range blasts of the Rocket Launcher (x50)

In Settings > Difficulty set “Damage to Demons = 50%”. Parry green projectiles with using your shield. This triggers the rocket launcher’s cannibalism perk for a short time. After parrying, get up close to an enemy and shoot the floor so the splash damage hits both you and the enemy, each hit will count towards this. The effect only lasts a few seconds, then you must parry another green projectile. Best place to farm it is the first encounter in Chapter 20, there are many large demons that shoot green projectiles. By setting damage to 50% you can do more hits on the same enemies before they die. It also counts on the shielded enemy in this encounter which often shoots green projectiles and can’t die if you don’t melee it.

That’s all Weapon Masteries in Doom: The Dark Ages.