Dread

The Dread is a deadly hunting bow firing bladed arrows, serving as the Stalker's signature weapon.

This weapon can be sold for.

The Dread cannot be purchased separately, but it is included in the What Stalker? bundle. Its blueprint can be dropped by the Stalker(Shadow) upon death or when he is forced to flee.

Characteristics
This weapon deals primarily damage.

Advantages:
 * High damage – effective against Infested, Flesh and Cloned Flesh.
 * Highest critical chance of all weapons, alongside the Amprex, Lenz and Synapse.
 * Can achieve orange criticals with a rank 4 .
 * Good base status chance, allowing it to make use of critical hits and status effects at the same time.
 * status effect benefits from critical hits, and can bypass armor and shields.
 * Silent.
 * Charged shots have innate Punch Through, allowing it to hit multiple enemies in a line.
 * Pinpoint accuracy when aiming down sights.

Disadvantages:
 * Reliant on its high critical damage potential, which makes it ill-suited against object-based health.
 * Low  and  damage – less effective against Shields or Armor.
 * Slow fire rate renders Dread ill-suited for close quarters.

Tips

 * Fire rate increases charge rate, so helps immensely. Alternatives are  or, and they all will allow you to charge your bow rapidly.
 * Dread can stagger Ancients on every hit, even with uncharged shots, helpful on long Infested/Void missions, where high level Ancients become hard to deal with.
 * and Multishot add a devastating AoE effect for fighting multiple targets.
 * If required, use the  mod to compensate for the low ammo capacity and regain lost ammo.

Trivia

 * The Dread is unique in that its 'string' glows. Light runs along the string towards the draw point.
 * This light glows reddish when it is drawn.


 * Unlike the other bows, the Dread, utilising primarily damage, uses arrows with a curved blade for a tip, as opposed to the pointed head of -based Paris (Prime), or the blunted mace-like head of the -based Cernos (Prime).
 * When drawing the bow, the arrow's blade rotates from a horizontal to a vertical position, meaning that fully charged shots are fired with their blades vertically. This clashes with the Codex description, which describes decapitating arrows, and a horizontal blade is better suited to decapitation.
 * The Dread has a cylindrical object installed near the grip. While its purpose is unknown; it is possibly a laser sight, rangefinder, or other form of optical assist.
 * Despite the Dread being referred to as the Stalker's calling card, it is strangely available for purchase with Darvo having stock. It is never explained where he obtained this stock of the Stalker's weapons, or where the Dread, Despair and Hate are produced.
 * When the Dread is being made in the Foundry, it has a chance to show the Mire as the floating silhouette that appears upon approaching the Foundry in the Orbiter.