Build it if you’re under MR10 and want a real scythe without waiting on Reaper Prime’s mastery gate or gambling on a Kuva Lich for Hate. Outside Incarnon Form, it’s a mediocre, heavily Puncture-based melee that barely earns a slot on your bar. Inside that window, it’s a genuine Slash weapon, and that’s the entire point of the build.
Build combo to 6x, then land a Heavy Attack to trigger Incarnon Form. It lasts 180 seconds. Every slide attack in that window forces a 6-second Slash proc and adds 3m of range, turning a mostly-Puncture weapon into a bleed machine for as long as you keep sliding.
Anku is the scythe most low-MR players end up owning almost by accident. A Dojo and 15,000 Credits is all it takes. And it’s proof a cheap weapon isn’t automatically a dead one now that Incarnon Genesis exists.
The base numbers are nothing special: 80% Puncture, 20% crit chance, one of the lower damage totals in its class. Incarnon Form is where it actually earns a slot on your gear wheel. That’s most of what this page covers.
How to get the Anku
Anku is Dojo-only. It isn’t sold on the Market and it can’t be traded. Every copy starts in a clan’s Tenno Lab.
- Research the Anku blueprint in your clan’s Tenno Lab. Cost: set by your clan’s tech tier, dojo-only research.
- Buy the blueprint once research completes. Cost: 15,000 Credits.
- Build it. Cost: 20,000 Credits, 2 Gallium, 800 Salvage, 200 Circuits, 4 Morphics, 12-hour build timer, rushable with Platinum. Requires MR3.
Getting the weapon is easy. Unlocking Incarnon Form is a separate grind through Duviri’s Circuit.
- Run The Circuit in Duviri on Steel Path difficulty. Reward: Pathos Clamps, plus a shot at Anku’s Incarnon Genesis when it’s in that week’s line-up. The rotation changes weekly, so check Cavalero’s offer in the Chrysalith before you commit a run to it.
- Unlock the Incarnon Genesis from Cavalero. Cost: 20 Pathos Clamps, 70 Ueymag, 300 Ariette Scale. This automatically installs Evolution 1, the Incarnon Form itself.
- Skip steps 1 and 2 entirely by buying the unlock straight from Cavalero. Cost: 120 Platinum, once per account, installation resources included.
Evolutions 2 through 4 come from separate in-mission challenges tracked on the weapon’s upgrade screen. Each one is a pick-one choice:
- Evolution 2: more base damage and attack speed, or better heavy attack efficiency.
- Evolution 3: touches combo duration, movement speed, and wind-up speed. The exact split between the two picks isn’t pinned down well enough to state here.
- Evolution 4: more status chance, or more critical chance.
Stats
| Class | Melee |
|---|---|
| Mastery Rank | 3 |
| Attack Speed | 1.08 |
| Range | 2.8 m |
| Blocking Angle | 60° |
| Combo Duration | 5 s |
| Follow Through | 0.6 |
| Wind Up | 1 s |
| Slam Attack | 510 |
| Heavy Attack | 1020 |
| Critical Chance | 20% |
| Critical Multiplier | 2x |
| Status Chance | 10% |
| Riven Disposition | (1.46) |
| Damage | 170 total |
|---|---|
| Impact | 25.5 |
| Puncture | 136 |
| Slash | 8.5 |
Anku sits at 1.46x Riven disposition, the top tier for melee. A good roll pushes its damage and status further than most scythes can reach on stats alone.
Builds
This build leans into the crit and status hybrid Anku is stuck being outside Incarnon Form, then lets Condition Overload and the slide-attack Slash window do the actual killing. Reaping Spiral is mandatory. It’s the only stance scythes can equip.
Scythes
Melee
Melee
Melee
Melee
Melee
Melee
Melee| Mod | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reaping Spiral | Anku’s stance mod. Unlocks its combo list. There’s no alternative stance for scythes, so this slot isn’t optional. |
| Primed Pressure Point | +165% melee damage at max rank. |
| Blood Rush | Converts your combo multiplier into critical chance, up to +40% at max rank. |
| Weeping Wounds | Converts your combo multiplier into status chance, up to +40% at max rank. |
| Condition Overload | +80% melee damage per unique status effect currently on the target, multiplicative, at max rank. |
| Organ Shatter | +90% critical damage at max rank. |
| Primed Reach | +3m range at max rank. Stacks with the range bonus from Incarnon slide attacks. |
| Primed Fever Strike | +165% Toxin damage at max rank, rounding out the elemental combo. Some Anku builds run Gladiator Might or Vice here instead for more crit or combo duration. This slot is genuinely build-dependent. |
Arcane Fury, a chance on melee crit to stack a melee damage buff, is a common single-arcane pick for a crit-leaning build like this one. That’s general melee-arcane advice for this patch, not something specific to Anku.
Reviewed September 2026.
Pros
- Cheapest real scythe to unlock: MR3, dojo research and credits only, no Lich or Sister RNG and no boss grind.
- Incarnon Form gives it real burst for 180 seconds per activation: guaranteed bleed procs, +100% melee damage, +3m range and forced Slash on slide attacks.
- Maximum Riven disposition at 1.46x, the highest tier for melee, so a good Riven scales it further than most weapons in the class.
- One build-aggregation source lists it tied with Ether Reaper, Reaper Prime, and Tenet Grigori for the fastest attack speed of any scythe, which pairs well with combo-scaling mods like Blood Rush and Weeping Wounds. Take that one with a grain of salt: it’s a single source.
- Fully dojo-craftable. No Platinum purchase is required; the 120-plat Cavalero option is a convenience skip, not a requirement.
Cons
- Widely called the weakest scythe in the game. Reaper Prime and Hate are both considered straight upgrades once you have the MR or access for them.
- The base, non-Incarnon weapon is 80% Puncture with very little innate Slash, so outside Incarnon Form it’s a mediocre, heavily mod-dependent hybrid.
- Incarnon’s best effects depend on sliding roughly every 6 seconds to refresh forced Slash and the range bonus. That upkeep falls apart fast if you get interrupted or you’re fighting something ranged-only.
- Tier list placement is contested. AxeeTech’s September 2026 Incarnon list puts Anku at B-tier; GamesToUse’s puts it at D-tier the same month. No source calls it a top Steel Path melee.
Anku fits anyone under MR10 who wants a real scythe now instead of waiting on Reaper Prime’s mastery gate or grinding a Kuva Lich for Hate. It also doubles as a legitimate Riven project. That 1.46x disposition is as high as melee gets.
If you already own Reaper Prime or Hate, there’s not much reason to keep running Anku past the Incarnon novelty. For everyone else, it’s a cheap way to get a genuine Slash and bleed scythe on your bar. 180 seconds at a time.