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This is a work in progress. I will try to keep it updated as new content is added to the game.
Tips and Strategies
1. When starting out, get to 30 gold and buy the damage upgrade in the shop. This will make normal enemies at the start of the round die in one hit (50 damage). Otherwise, try to get to 50 damage through leveling to kill normal enemies in one hit.
2. Getting gold: raise your infamy through normal play then play the 2nd game mode (nightmare escape). You’ll earn a lot more gold here for the time invested. Higher infamy = more gold. Infamy 9 is a good start as it is still 1 heart damage from enemies (it goes up to 2 hearts at level 10 and 3 at 15). Dailies are also a good way to get gold if you find an easy one which you can complete at high infamy.
3. Easier achievements: play the dailies, they do not block achievements and can be repeated if you find one that is easy. This makes hunting them much easier (like the Legend one) due to the static seed and thus consistent leveling/rng.
4. Master “tap moving”. This is where you move, stop briefly to fire once, then move again. At later difficulties, this becomes very useful for managing large groups of enemies without becoming surrounded.
5. To manage groups of enemies and avoid being surrounded, run in large circles, using tap movement to pick off enemies following you. This will also allow you to collect exp and chests as you loop around. A benefit of this strategy is that chargers and shooter special enemies will have a hard time hitting you.
6. There is only a 0.5s invincibility when hit (at higher infamy levels), which means you can easily die if surrounded by enemies or standing on a boss. Enemy damage goes up at infamy 10 and 15, so adjust your max hp accordingly so you don’t die in 1 hit. (I aim for 5-7 hp at infamy 10-14 and 7-10 hp at infamy 15+)
7. Prioritize damage first (because many chest upgrades rely on base damage), then attack speed. Movement speed and cooldown are good too. Radius and dash are useful with specific builds. Crit chance has a few nice chest upgrades but I wouldn’t plan a build around it unless you get one of those upgrades early on. I wouldn’t invest in more than 1 bounce and/or 2 pierce (since you cannot manually aim, most bullets will leave the screen with bounce/pierce counters remaining) UNLESS you get the “bullets bounce off side of screen” chest upgrade, then get as much bounce/pierce as you can. Always get the “extra choice” upgrade if it appears.
8. Hit boxes are weird. Avoid standing above bosses (especially the 2nd boss). Projectiles can damage you if they are close to your feet (without touching them). Dynamite won’t damage you if the center of your character is outside the explosion radius (ie. your feet can be inside / overlapping).
9. When playing the 2nd game mode (nightmare escape), at level 1 and 10, ranged specials won’t spawn, so if you have good damage and attack speed then you can stand still and “afk farm” normal enemies for a while, then grab the exp to gain multiple levels quickly.
10. At higher infamy, I suggest getting the items that slow nearby enemies and create two shields that block projectiles (both are normal rarity). These items add a lot of survivability. The projectile blocking item can be used on both bosses, but the 2nd boss it is very useful against dynamite when you stand below and slightly to the left or right of the boss.
11. As far as I can tell, there is nothing interesting on the map. It goes on endlessly and eventually becomes all desert tiles. ie. try steamboots with high dash count and cooldown, then just spam dash in one direction.
12. For the character/item that causes your weapon to return to you: radius increases the distance of the attack.
Builds
A few item synergies that work for most characters/dailies.
1. (Items: steamboots + dynamite on dash + dash damage / cooldown) + (Upgrades: large radius + low cooldown + more dashes + damage) = overpowered invincible dashing machine. Add the lightning movement and ground smash abilities for more fun. Avoid the other dash items (damage at start/end of dash) as they have knockback that scales with radius and will push enemies away from your dynamite. Try dashing in a line, back and forth, overlapping your dynamites.
2. (Items: screen bounce + any pierce/bounce items) + (Upgrades: bounce + pierce + damage + attack speed) = overpowered killing machine. Add abilities that increase your projectile count to help lower your FPS (works wonders in endless).
3. (Items: lightning movement + any damage increasing item) + (Upgrades: as much damage as you can get + move speed) = run around and kill stuff. You don’t even need to fire your weapon! Lightning does the same damage as you, so with high damage and move speed (and dashing), you will kill things very quickly. Steamboots work well too with this item. Don’t worry about items that lower your attack speed or other penalties since you will be rarely shooting. The ground stomp item is useful as well, but you’ll need radius upgrades to make it useful. Watch out for gluttony if you don’t have enough move speed to offset the slow debuff, which might end your run.
4. (Items: the big cactus projectile (play Ollin or find it in a chest) and/or the big bullet projectile + triple shot and/or 3 projectiles on hit) = lots of high damage projectiles. This synergy is really noticeable with the big bullet item.
5. (Items: projectiles return to you (play Nigel or find it in a chest) + slow projectile speed + slow nearby projectiles + big bullet) + (Upgrades: move speed + dash) = endless big bullet. The big bullet has infinite pierce and will only expire when it returns to you, so with slow projectile speed, you can kite the bullet(s) to follow you while dashing through enemies to cause the bullet to hit them.
Achievements
Tips for harder achievements.
1. Achievements can be obtained via dailies. This makes some of them really easy if the daily has ideal modifiers (like 10 object/item rerolls or increased experience gain).
2. Legend (Have a win streak of 3 with an infamy level of 15 or more): find an easy daily and repeat it 3 times at infamy 15.
3. Loner (Win a game): prepare some chicken tendies and an energy drink; wear a wizard robe and pray to warlizard (try his gaming forums); set your phone/friends list to do not disturb; don’t stream on twitch; make a vague tweet like “I have a huge obstacle in front of me that will be hard to overcome. I hope ♥♥♥♥ Goblin will help me through this difficult time.”; then load up cheatengine and set your max hp to 999.
4. Burning Feet (Use steamboots with 8 dashes): this is rng because steamboots are purple rarity, making it harder to find. Try using Roger on infamy 0 to make it easier to find the item, while also getting items/upgrades that increase your dash count. Or try a daily that gives you lots of object rerolls.
5. Fearless (Use reckless rush 20 times in a single run): similar to steamboots, purple rarity, so use Roger/dailies to make easier to get item. Play low infamy and “farm” heart drops from enemies. Then dash and collect a heart 20 times. Don’t get the healing boots as it will make the cooldown longer and you might not get 20 dashes before killing the 2nd boss.
6. Hero (Win a game with an infamy level of 15): find an easy daily.