With the brand new Arena Mode, you can fight waves of enemies just like Siege Mode, but with primitive weapons and items. Start from nothing but your fists, accumulate money, and work your way up as you buy better weapons, arrows, and food. Or, is that just what they want you to think?
No, I'm not actually writing a dramatic storybook, don't worry.

Remember, you're essentially playing Teardown VR, so you can improvise and loot the map for what it already has. You can even create as much as 1% of what you destroy. But let's just start with the basics.

Around the map, there are quite a few objects you can find and use as weapons (or tools), and even craft. I'll tell you where to find them.

In the Medieval Camp map, there are at least two real tools you can use. First off,

...is quite sharp, and you'll stab yourself right in the chest if you put it in a small slot... Is that what that says? I need to get my eyes checked... The Knife is quite useful, and fits right into a small chest slot. You'll find it at the table with all of the food. It's completely free, is usable from the start, and is a nice backup weapon at all. In terms of a tool, it actually destroys less material than your fists. It's useful for binding objects and as an improvised grip, but I'll get to that later.

...is used properly on the tree murder stump. You'll find it there. It's at the back (if the gate is the front) of the the camp. This time, it actually destroys materials, and is an adequate weapon. It doesn't have grip poses, which means the game doesn't automatically align it in your hand(s), so you'll have to fumble around a little bit.

Please note that you can not store tools looted from the map in your backpack. If it doesn't fit in a slot, it may be cumbersome to use frequently. Also, it's THE THE camp; don't get confused.

Summary: Tools found on the map are free and available immediately. The knife is found at the table with the feast and the axe is found at the back of the camp on a log.

Food will now heal you due to the Arena Mode update. In the Arena Mode, it will be your only way to heal.

Let's say you need to heal. Let's search the... what are you doing with that tablet? Are you ordering food? We have leftovers! LOOK IN THE DAMN FRIDGE!

On the table with the feast, you will notice, well... the feast. There's nothing wrong with these foodstuffs, no curses applied to them like the backpack inhibitions on the tools*. They're just as good as food bought from the tablet. You should eat that food instead of buying from the tablet for as long as you can. To eat food, put it up to your mouth. You don't know that? In fact, you can refill it with food you purchase. If you're too far away (or outside the entire camp), order food from your tablet.

My recommendations? Start with the bread, if you're missing about 1/3 of your health. In a rush? Shove more of the food in your mouth quicker to eat more. Just don't accidentally clock yourself in the face by doing so. | If your health is lower, eat the large blue things. I don't know what they are, but they give surprising amounts of health and look like rotten bananas (same shape, but blue). I guess the game somehow chose the wrong palette-- eh, let's move on. | You can also try the blueberries if the wave is over, since those also give strange healing amounts. | Are you nearly rat food (dead)? Grab anything you can and swallow it whole, but you should aim for a steak as, in correspondence with its $40 price tag, will fully heal you. If you eat the entire thing. You can eat less of a food item by just putting less in your mouth. Just don't bite off more than you have to chew.

*You can not store food in your backpack! They are like any other destructible voxel objects. You must purchase more edibles from the tablet if you cannot reach any existing ones.

Summary: Refrain from ordering food until you absolutely have to. Find food with high healing value such as the blue infected bananas, blueberries, and steak.

Your methods confuse and scare me. Or something like that.

Here, I'll show (tell) you some tactics for fighting enemies effectively and some mechanics of Arena Mode.

I'll tell you everything I know about the mechanics in Arena Mode. I almost just said Medieval Mode, and I only ever play to wave 10 or so; therefore, this won't be complete and you'll have to figure out potential (but not probable) boss enemies yourself.

What I mean are the guys with knives and knuckle sandwiches that you presumably have to fist-fight. Until now.
Grab a weapon and destroy them. They barely take any hits before giving up and proceeding to hit their head on the hard, soft grass.

Well, not just guys wielding swords, but these guys take more damage and hit harder as the waves go on. By wave 6, you'll notice that you lose at least 25% of your health from one hit. And they're a real royal pain when they're paired up with the..

...on wave 5 and beyond. These guys are sitting ducks that shoot you with crossbows from afar. They might start to move toward you if you hide from them. Getting hit for no reason? They're the reason why. Finding wood pieces on the ground that are worth 1 Fuel? They're the reason why! Find a guy with no arms that doesn't make an effort to attack? That's an archer! THEY'RE THE REASON WHY! Anyways, they don't have a fallback melee attack, and you can simply circle them at a close distance to prevent them from shooting you. Hit hard and finish them quickly to make sure the melee units don't catch up to you. By the way, you should prioritize killing them (first).

In Tactics, I'll show you ways to fight all the melee units since I just wrote a 3-in-1 paragraph about the ranged unit.

But for now,

If you play Arena Mode for a little bit, you will, of course, notice that enemies wind up their attack first before they deal damage. You should (ab)use this and perform a world record hit-and-run before quickly backing away. Or, you can juke them into attacking, back away without doing anything, and attack them after their disappointing, failed attack. The latter method could prevent other surrounding enemies from actually landing a hit on you.

If you're walking around the (yes, the) group of enemies and you happen to get close to a unit, quickly punch them (or stab them) in the head, shoulder, or anything you can. It's just like being a cool guy in PZ and shoving down zombies in your path, except you aren't getting mauled to death; you're getting mauled to death with blades. Now that I think of it, these should be in Tactics... whatever. Sneak peek.

Here are some things that you might have thought of that don't actually exist or happen:

• Like I said earlier, Archers do NOT have a melee attack.
  
• Archers do NOT LOSE their ability to reload when you dismember their left arm. What? Is this still the Mechanics section? (go to Tactics)
  
• Units do NOT pick up weapons that are dropped on the ground.
  
• By the way, you cannot buy an Impact Driver. I'll get to its alternative in a bit.

Summary: Melee units get harder as time goes on, and the archers are a nice, annoying annoyance that don't bite up close. Finish the archers first.
Utilize the enemy attack windup to stay safe while attacking. Hit enemies whenever you get the chance.

Now, I'll show you ways to annihilate melee units. Most of the methods I know will actually be found in Fight!, but here are some general and miscellaneous tactics.

I would've also included the virtual equivalent of your controllers with the grip buttons released (fists), but I don't have a good category for that, except for here, where Throwing is.
You can start with your fists, and use them whenever you've dropped all your weapons, and use them when you one-hand a weapon, and use them out of rage if you have a large roomscale play area and just died (try it!), and [*nearly suffocates*] well, just don't destroy your room. Attempting to use them for any real damage will nearly get you sliced into sushi, but you can start throwing quick haymakers if you have nothing else.

Whether you think it's fun, think it's the best method, have barely any alternatives, or are ticked off, you can throw anything you find that isn't bolted down (or sideways, like wooden beams). Some objects seem like they're meant to be thrown, but I'll get to that soon. In 5 minutes. Plus 2 hours. You might actually be more accurate when throwing things than shooting a bow, probably because you're at close range. As a last resort, you can even throw your trusty improvised destructible melee weapons, but do note that they will take damage from hitting the ground if thrown too high.
Note: Soft objects, like cloth, get destroyed easily and deal little to no damage when thrown.

If you find enemy body parts lying on the ground that didn't despawn, that means they aren't grabbable anymore. But, you can "kick" them with your hands and try to hit an enemy. Now that I think about it, it's actually not all that effective. But if you're safe, it won't hurt to try. If you're about to puke or just feel sick, try "kicking" them far away and see if it helps. If it doesn't,
...
.....

Seeing as how your enemies are trying to kill you using violence, and it seems you aren't in a gladiator arena, it only seems fit to fool your enemies into getting snagged in machinery..? No dangerous machinery? Well, do it yourself... that all sounded better in my head than it did out loud. Can we stop talking about this?
What I'm saying is that you should literally cut them to pieces. And pizzas. By hitting their right shoulder hard enough, you can pulverize their right arm and they will be disarmed. None of them are left handed, so cutting their left arm does nothing but damage them. In this state, melee enemies will pretend to attack you, complete with the animations, but deal zero damage. Archers will just stand and watch you.... doing nothing? Don't stare at them, finish them!
Cutting their legs does not make them fall over. In fact, they likely still have their shoe(s) that they control with telekinesis! Decapitation is also effective, as they instantly die if you actually succeed. Except for rare cases, where they figured out cockroach technology and can get their revenge without a head. They'll likely die with one more tiny hit.

Summary: Use your fists like fists, and hit hard. Throw hard objects lying around if you need or want to. Body parts on the ground can be hit around just for "fun". Decapitation of heads and right arms will have major effects, and for any other parts, only deals extra damage.

With those few things aside, we'll get to the fun part: improvising weapons. Well, some of them aren't even improvised, as you'll find 10 swords, but it's still fun.

I'm just joking. For now, we'll go over using those two tools in the map as weapons.

The kitchen knife, on the medieval picnic table, seems to have some expensive detail on it for being a $19 medieval 'weapon'. They aren't backwards-calculating inflation to find $19 USD
during medieval times, right? Because why would a steak be $40? Is it a different kind of dollar?

As a weapon, it does deal damage to flesh, unlike its inability to cut cloth, but it doesn't really seem to do much more damage than fists. What I always do is go up to an enemy, stab them once, and back away, which is likely a strategy that 100% of the rest of the player-base would come up with.

Don't confuse the map ax(e) with the Medieval Axe from the shop. Probably more realistic, suits the time period, obviously for cutting trees, looks less like a cheap & throwable axe...

For a melee weapon, you should prefer this over the Medieval Axe as it has a longer melee range. You can't store it in your backpack, though... (so, buy and use the Double-Sided Axe!) Unlike the Knife, it doesn't fit in a holster and deals great amounts of damage. What do you mean "you're I'm lying"? Are you hitting hard enough?

Why "Ax(e)"? Well, if you type "Axe", the autocorrect will tell you it's wrong, because it prefers "Ax"!
("[b]Ax[i](e)[/i][/b]")

Summary:help

The moment you've been waiting for. Time to IMPROVISE!!! weapons.

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Material information: Wood, glass, ceramic, cloth, (indestructible map?), weak metal, regular metal (strong/heavy metal)
Wood & weak metal destroy flesh and take damage, destroy extremely weak mats
Metal destroys flesh without taking damage, destroy everything else, destroy metal with damage
All others properly listed are weak and do little to no damage to flesh, don't use

Look at underlined text for a weapon's location and bold text for its combat stats

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""IMPROVISE!!!"" is not the right term here. A sword is a weapon. You'll spot two swords on a weapon rack if you look around for just a couple seconds after spawning.
It's a nice, trusty, surprisingly abundant weapon that will be there for you the entire game. Don't believe me? You do. But, being a sword, it's a very powerful weapon that will destroy enemies. If you hit hard enough. And don't miss.
If it hits the ground, it wont take much damage. One voxel's worth, to be specific. And, due to its high density of voxels, it won't lose any functionality. Same range, same damage, same unwieldiness. Once you start holding it with both of your hands, it becomes a death machine that lets you do anything you think of if you focus.
I usually just put one controller's handle--for a Quest 2--into the other's tracking ring for that. Got a Quest 3? You have no encumbrance to exploit, but you have no encumbrance. Just figure it out, mate.

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If you've played or watched Half Sword for long enough, you probably immediately went for this as soon as you saw it. You can find one anywhere. You know how good it is, right?
Well, it's... not sharp, but it does as much (heavy) damage. Use either side as you please, but be careful not to break it, or you'll have to...

IMPROVISE!!! again. In PZ, broken weapon parts can be used as weapons. My point? That applies here, too. Once your candlestick breaks, you'll be left with the broken base part which looks like a hammer.
I don't really remember, but it does almost as much damage as you would expect from a hammer, and also breaks quite easily.

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You can throw some haybales at your enemies. Pick one up with both hands, hold it above (or behind) your head, and throw it or hit with it. It does surprising amounts of damage and could even cause them to crush themselves... for some reason. I'm pretty sure they just crawl under and die, right?
Haybales are easily located. Look around the camp for 20 seconds at most and you'll find one. You still can't find them? The bundles of hay? Straw? Wheat?

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The Blacksmith (forge?) has a few items, and it's located left of the targets & dummies. There, you'll find a couple hammers.
The squared, hollow(?) one seems to be made of metal, and does adequate damage to enemies without breaking. The round, rubber-mallet-looking hammer is also made of metal, because it's the exact same as the squared one.

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This broken sword at the Blacksmith (forge) on the anvil is broken. There are 10 others just like it that aren't broken. Use those, not this.
I haven't used this one, but it would have decreased range due to its length, more like a machete. I just hope you're using the piece with the handle, not the broken blade piece...

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The rods are also at the smith, at the cubby next to the furnace. It looks like they are made of Weak Metal, but they aren't, because they do considerable damage to flesh and don't break. I have no clue how a product less-than-half-finished is 70% as effective as a Super Sledge, but here we are. Use it as you wish. Don't craft with it; it's perfect.

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I can only assume that it's metal ore, since it has a hard metal core on the inside and a bit of rubber-looking stone debris on the outside as durable as a gummy worm.
Want to judge for yourself? A ton of it is inside baskets outside the smith. It's actually closer to 15 or 25 kilograms, which I'm pretty sure is 10-20 laptops. Well, I don't understand the Imperial (American) system either.
Enough trash talk, though, because once you throw these, it could become someone's replacement teeth, if you hit an enemy's mouth. It may cause death or serious injury. That's what that means. But that serious injury will happen to the ore piece itself if you miss and it hits the ground, leaving only 20% of it left, in 2+ pieces. (Destroyed on miss) (for the quick stat system)

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That's it for the blacksmith, but our next location is the table, which has a couple glass bottles. The pinnacle of IMPROVISE!!!-ation.
These glass bottles are not durable, but they deal moderate damage when used properly and kill 1-2 enemies before breaking.

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Still at the table, you will find SIX wooden plates.
Like I said with the Material Notes, Wood is not very durable, but hits hard. Therefore, this plate is not very durable but lightweight. Did I just recall the SE Light Armor Block description? It hits hard.

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Our next location is the red striped tent closest to the picnic table. I hope I remembered that part right. Inside, after you dig through all the swords, you'll find the hay in a needle stack: the SHIELD!!!
The shield is made of wood and has a metal frame around it. It might be weak metal, but I don't quite remember. All that I do remember is that it gets severely damaged when used to attack. Just block ranged attacks with it.
By the way, an object that's large enough can prevent archers from shooting you. If you're holding a shield that blocks their shot, they don't fire. This shield prevents archers from attacking.

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In the red striped house, you will find a map on the center table. You would think that it's made of cloth and gets shredded without dealing damage to flesh. But think again.
Whatever papyrus this map is made out of, it's pretty damn strong; it damages flesh like a (paper thin) sledgehammer and DOES NOT BREAK! It's also as large as that shield, so it will block archers from attacking. Another one of nature's miracles. Maybe it's made of tin. The failed medieval can design.

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I don't know what in the world these really are, but they're red & green, made of glass, and presumably round. Throwing these at enemies immediately destroys them (the ornaments) and does no damage. You should just act like they don't even exist. And yes, the tent is a house now, as of Strange Map.

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These weapons are nice... not you, Christmas Ornaments... and don't require crafting. Just grab them and go fight, or die...

IMPORTANT!!! You can NOT store ANY of these IMPROVISE!!!-d weapons in your backpack! They are destructible voxel objects. For weapons you can store, visit the shop on your tablet.

Summary: For quick summaries of each weapon, look at underlined text for a weapon's location and bold text for its combat stats

Sometimes IMPROVISE!!!-ation isn't enough. Unless crafting things is also improvisation(!!!), because that's what we're about to do.

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Tool notes: You can use weapons, like swords, as tools, if you used your axe to bind something together. The metal poles from the blacksmith will work, but as I assumed it was weak metal, I wouldn't like to think it's hard metal, either. Wood objects can be used on cloth, but you shouldn't be crafting anything with cloth... except fake shields.

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Here, the tool is used up by the crafting "recipe". You don't make tools, you use them as materials.

If you stick your knife into a candlestick, congratulations! You just enhanced it with a nice vertical grip! It's probably sideways, though.
It will hold for a while, and if it falls out, you can just stick it back in. It doesn't damage the wood, unlike the ax(e). With your new vertical-horizontal-grip, you can thrust your weapon with more force. The hand holding the knife-grip will have enhanced control over the weapon, for whatever reason. Probably because it's a knife. A tool. A weapon in itself. Hope this doesn't get changed...

When I realized the knife-grip trick, I also realized the tool-bind trick. Awkward, generic names...
Tools that can stab things and stick will be able to act like a bolt to hold two things together. The materials they can bind depends on what they can destroy. A knife can destroy (next to) nothing and can safely stab cloth and wood, and an axe destroys everything up to weak metal and can stab regular metal.
It's recommended that you use tools that can stab but not destroy the material, such as a knife for cloth/wood, and an axe for regular metal. Otherwise, the object is destroyed once the tool acting as a bolt slips out.
You aren't limited to the axe and knife; weapons from the shop will work, and swords will do a very good job with thicker voxels.
Anyways, you can do some fun things like bolt all the gates closed with swords and salvaged planks, sitting outside the camp as the enemies...... what would they actually do there?
I haven't tried much myself, so all weapons listed here are simply subtractive manufacturing (cutting things off).

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You remember the red-striped tent from earlier? We're calling it a house now, but it has a small banner next to it. It's bolted down.
So, use your axe (or sword) to to cut it down and you'll have yourself a solidified flag to fight with.

The banner isn't very durable and sometimes doesn't even deal damage. It'll only sustain itself for ~3 kills.
Note: Don't use the large banners

You want a wooden beam? Why do you want a wooden beam? To fight with? Craft with?
Find a lookout tower and one of its horizontal wooden beams. You should use a sword for it if you can't reach, or climb the ladder a bit. I don't really remember how good of a weapon it is, but it's wood, so it isn't going to be durable. You can use it along with two swords (from the $hop) to barricade yourself outside (and the enemies inside) the (the?) camp.

No tools required for this one. Just start beating up a tent while trying to cut out a circle or rectangle. The result? A (fake) shield.
Your new cloth shield will make the archers quiver in fear -- and not shoot you. If you're blocking their potential shots. That's it. You cannot fight with it or it gets destroyed.

Not to be confused with a Tech Support Scam.
After you rip a tent apart for a playtime shield, find another tent and dig your axe into one of the beams. Cut a piece of it out. After it won't detach from the cloth, punch the cloth with your fists, not with a weapon. Now, you have a piece of weak metal. That's why the axe destroys it. It deals major damage to flesh but breaks easily.

Remember the Wooden Shield from the red tent? I thought it was a spare wheel, due to the shield resembling a wheel... or the wheels resembling the shield. Find a catapult, and one of its wheels. Your axe can't break regular metal, so unless your Medieval Sledge (from the $hop) does the trick, find a wheel that doesn't have a metal brace attached to it. If in doubt, find out the hard way.
Now, destroy all the wood on the beam that belongs to the catapult. After that, you should have a wheel that you can use as a shield. Just like the Wooden Shield, it's wooden, so it's very weak and should only be used to block archers.

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That's it for crafting weapons. Well, to the extent of this guide. You can craft whatever you desire... as long as it'll hold, and if a more practical $hop weapon doesn't exist.

Summary:It's the same 'quick stats' system as last time. Go back to IMPROVISE!!!. That's an underline, not a link.

There are exclusive, indestructible weapons in the $hop. They fit in your Backpack. Some just stink, and some are extremely powerful. Exactly 2 of them have a special use case that is impossible to nearly recreate, unless you figured out how to craft strings.
I forgot some of them. The ones I don't list are probably self-explanatory or extremely disappointing. Probably.

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While looking at the $hop, you probably misread that as "BeLter Bow", but yes, it does say BETTER BOW. I think BeLter Bow is more creative. That's fine, though...
The regular Bow noticeably behaves like a bow, and the arrows drop fairly quickly after firing. The Better Bow also noticeably behave like a bow, but the arrows barely drop for quite a while, and it operates more like a gun. It might be the only bow with attachments, if you play around in Sandbox.

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A Machete is simply a longer, larger knife that is always (90%) meant and suitable for combat. I already went over the Knife in Tools as Weapons, so I'll just focus on the Machete. Eh, never mind that, since the Machete doesn't have much going for it, except for its real combat capabilities as opposed to the Knife.

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The axe you find on the map, but smaller, and purchasable. I would advise against using it as a long-term primary weapon. It looks good for throwing, but every $hop weapon is quite hard to reliably throw. It's effectively the map axe but with less range.

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Want to be real disappointed? Then GO AWAY!!!
This thing is like an orbital strike beam against less than a quark. Buy it as soon as you can afford it, unless you prefer the Better Bow, because it's the sharpest knife in the world... that isn't one atom thick with a screwdriver blade.
It slices through enemies really easily, as if you couldn't tell, and lets you saw through them if you have the time. You won't, though, so stick to quickly chopping them. This lets you decapitate them, dismember them, or literally just kill them with one quick thought and one brief motion. I don't even remember how effective stabbing them is, but it's about 1, /divided by/ (amount of saw motions) as effective as sawing them.

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Do you like fighting with sledgehammers? No? Then this isn't the weapon for you. You could probably bash some enemy's skull so hard it leaves a head-shaped hole in their chest with no head or 1/5 of chest to be found. That was extremely descriptive, but the Medieval part doesn't add anything. If you aren't skilled with the sledge, stick to the Katana. Or turn on Easy Sledge in the $ettings. Or turn on Easy Sledge and use your fists the entire game.

You won't be going out into Arena Mode as an immortal laser-guided ninja; you don't have any experience... unless you do. Go ahead, try it all out. If you can't remember anything, then look at the summaries and weapon quick stats; they'll help you a little bit.

Like I said in Mechanics, I haven't really played much of Arena Mode to know of any greater enemy types or tactics, so this guide won't help you beyond the basics. Please share any guide errors, additions, tactics, or improvised/crafted weapons you may find with a comment. It'll help out a ton.

You are NOT allowed to copy entire parts of this guide (or the entire guide itself) in your own guides/content, but you absolutely can use any knowledge here in your own guides. You'll make a guide, right? Nobody makes guides here! Why?!