Summary
Vampire Survivorsis a game thatallows players to experiment in countless ways. New players can create a build that can see them through waves of monsters from the get-go, and experienced players can up the challenge and still hold their own by using well-crafted expert combinations to assemble weapons and abilities that work together to fire screenfuls of projectiles. While some weapons are good choices for everyone, regardless of the build players are trying to achieve, some weapons work best with specific passive abilities. Their effectiveness can be maximized by cunning fans who see the potential. Similarly, some characters have very powerful passives that can be used in tandem with certain weapons to mow through the undead hordes.
Here are some of the best combinations of character and weapon that maximize both the character’s passive and the weapon’s damage to make for the base of a spectacular build.
8Arca Ladonna + Lightning Ring
Lightning With Cooldown Buffs
Arca Ladonna can be unlocked by leveling up the Fire Wand to level 4. This character can be a very early opportunity for players to stack buffs that will come in handy for plenty of builds. Ladonna’s most impressive feature is their stacking improvements to cooldown that scale with their level to reduce the time between every attack. The Lightning Ring, as a perfect complement to these perks of Arca Ladonna,causes areas of damage across the stage with quite a dramatic wait before it triggers again.
Reducing the cooldown and taking the Lightning Ring early can result in devastating effects. Evolving the Lightning Ring can lead to this build falling apart slightly, but while the weapon is in its base form, it’s a great start for a cooldown build that can fire all of its weapons as rapidly as possible.
7Reinhardt Schneider + Knife
Critical Damage To The Maximum
Reinhardt is one of the most unique and powerfulcharacters added in theOde to Castlevaniaadditional content pack. When players start a run with thisCastlevaniaprotagonist they will immediately be given the Knife, a projectile that is thrown in a straight line from the player to deal large amounts of damage. As the Knife levels up, it gains the ability to pierce enemies to cut through the horde and damage more individual enemies. More and more projectiles can be fired at once, allowing for flurries of blades to thin out the masses.
Reinhardt’s perk is quite different, giving players one of the Arcana cards from the very start. His Slash Arcana means that weapons can do critical hits, which works beautifully with the Knife. The Knife weapon deals six times its normal damage when combined with Slash and can quickly spiral into an unstoppable build.
6Pugnala Provola + Hellfire
Reach New Heights Of Piercing Damage
After players find the coffin in the Mad Forest, they will be able to play as Pugnala - easily one of the most powerful early game characters. As well as coming equipped with two gun items that fire in every direction and diagonal, Pugnala gains 1% Might with every level up, with no cap on this bonus. This means that leveling her up will give the player higher damage, making weaker weapons more viable and strong weapons supremely destructive.
The upgraded Fire Wand, then, is an easy choice for Provola. Evolving into Hellfire, a demonic flaming skull, players will send out burning rocks that pierce through countless enemies and deal huge amounts of damage.Paired with the Might increase, the massive amount of damage that is done to enemies more than makes up for the slow projectile.
5Porta Ladonna + La Borra
Capping Out Damaging Areas
For fans who get the Lightning Ring to level 4, the unlocked character Porta Ladonna may at first seem like a less powerful choice than some of the other options. His main draw is his bonus to the Area stat which can be very useful with some weapons and very ineffective with others. Having weapons strike a larger area is most useful when attacks damage everything within a damaging zone, and nowhere does this work better than with La Borra.
The Holy Water projectile leaves large circles that damage all foes inside and grow larger as they move toward the player. Making these areas even larger means that the damage La Borra deals can be dished out to whole swathes of enemies, making any additional increases to Area quickly spiral into a brutal build that can hit most things on screen at once.
4Space Dude + Paranormal Scan
Random Stat Bonuses Over And Over
After surviving for 20 minutes on a map that came free with an update, Space 54, players will have access to the strange Space Dude character. He fires a Phaser weapon that is unlocked through him and creates laser lines of damage ahead of him to hit enemies. His special passive, though, allows for weapons to sometimes go off twice, ignoring their cooldown. Boosting Space Dude’s cooldown will let this skill trigger more often. Taking full advantage of this, fans of potentially infinite builds should try out the Paranormal Scan weapon.
The special item, part of the Among Us DLC pack, has a very slow cooldown but gives the player a huge amount of healing and increases a random stat for the remainder of the run. With Space Dude’s passive, the stat boost will occasionally happen twice, meaning that players can have large boosts to Area, Duration, Cooldown, or base damage through Might, making any weapons good to add to this build.
3Giovanna Grana + NO FUTURE
Speed And Ricochets
Giovanna Grana is a strange character. Opening the hidden coffin in the Inlaid Library will unlock the witch and her feline weapon, but her passive can have a much stronger effect on other weapons. She gives a bonus percentage to projectile Speed every level with no limit to this ability; leveling her up quickly can see projectiles firing insanely fast and increasing the rate that damage is done across the screen. This pairs well with the NO FUTURE weapon.
An upgraded form of the Runetracer, NO FUTURE fires lasers which then bounce and explode off every surface including the edges of the screen. Increasing the Speed of these lasers, which pierce infinitely and so only ends in line with the weapon’s Duration stat. Giving the laser more bounces means the undead evils can be torn through by a laser that moves as quickly as the game will allow making this build a rapid-fire solution to any challenges a player might face.
2Je-Ne-Viv + Luminaire
Make Leveling A Brutal Breeze
Je-Ne-Viv is a very powerful character. First, requiring players to break a hidden seal to unlock her counterpart in Abyss Foscari - a DLC map - andthen asking players to defeat 100,000 enemies in a single runwith Genevieve, fans will be rewarded with this twisted creature who starts with the Shadow Servant weapon. Je-Ne-Viv has several new and creative abilities, most of which trigger when she levels up. A Vacuum sucks in all pick-ups with every level, and the World Eater ability triggers a Rosary with an invincibility period every 6 levels.
Players should attempt to prioritize leveling up quickly playing as this character. Luminaire becomes the perfect choice. Part of the same Tides of the Foscari DLC, the Luminaire deals a decent amount of damage to enemies while increasing the value of experience with every attack. This can quickly spiral into an overpowered build that levels rapidly with huge effects at every milestone.
1Poppea Pecorina + King Bible
Spinning Books Projectiles With Crazy Duration
Likely one of the first characters that players will unlock, Poppea Pecorina is in a hidden coffin in the Dairy Plant map. While at first her skills appear basic, her uncapped ability to increase Duration works well for almost every possible weapon and build. She has a lot of potential to set up very powerful combinations. Being able to have weapons last an excessive amount of time is especially beneficial for the King Bible. While its upgraded form can sometimes fail to hit enemies if it is spinning too fast, the King Bible suffers from having some downtime when its Duration ends.
While the books are spinning around the player they form a damaging shield around Poppea that hits any enemies that come too close. Extending the Duration that the projectiles spend around Poppea with her passive means that the Cooldown is unaffected. If players continue to build around Duration and projectile Speed, they will quickly reach a point where it is impossible for anything but the toughest monsters to get to them.
