Weapon Mastery requires you to defeat a boss with a broom. It is not a weapon XP system. The broom is the game’s starting weapon, and 1.0 playthroughs show an explicit objective to finish a task using “just the broom” — so keep it equipped for one full boss kill instead of swapping to a crafted weapon mid-fight.
Why the broom is a real challenge
The broom is the first weapon you hold: multiple 1.0 playthroughs open with the line that the weapon you start with is your trusty broom, and the story then moves you to a forge where you craft a “real” weapon — spear, knuckles, short sword or great sword — from materials. That progression is exactly what makes this quest awkward: the game hands you better tools and the quest quietly wants one boss to fall while you are still swinging the starter.
Once you craft a replacement, the broom stops being your default loadout, and finishing the task later means deliberately re-equipping the weakest weapon in your inventory. Plan the attempt while the broom is still natural to use if you can.
Combat basics that make the attempt survivable
Detailed 1.0 mechanics breakdowns describe five attack types — the three-hit normal string, a fourth-hit finisher, the special attack, a special finisher, and gadget or gun damage — and the same source stresses two rules that matter even more when your damage is low:
- Keep moving. Long-form footage shows regular enemies whiffing entirely against a merchant who never stops moving. With a broom you cannot trade hits, so never stop strafing.
- Take short windows. The community advice is to commit to about three attacks, back off, and repeat. Patience outperforms greed in every recorded broom-length fight.
One more mechanic helps a slow weapon: once an enemy drops below roughly half health it enters a purple ruptured state, and a backpack bash can hurl it across the arena. A thrown enemy that hits open ground takes heavy damage — useful burst for a fight you cannot brute-force. Throwing an enemy into a wall does almost nothing, so position the throw.
A five-step attempt plan
- Confirm the Weapon Mastery task is visible in your quest or achievement progress before wasting a fight.
- Pick a boss whose attack patterns you already know — official store screenshots show named bosses such as Senda, Orphis the Orb Keeper, Thalaam and The Herald, so you have options as you progress.
- Enter the arena with full healing and one escape plan you have already used successfully.
- Attack in short strings, keep moving between them, and use a ruptured-state throw for extra damage when the floor allows it.
- Make sure the killing blow lands while the broom is the equipped weapon — then let the task tracker confirm it.
What we deliberately do not claim
Community chatter sometimes suggests extra conditions for this quest. None of the long-form 1.0 playthroughs we checked show a second requirement beyond “defeat a boss with the broom”, so this page stays with the sourced requirement and marks anything stronger as to be confirmed.