Must have skill tree choices?

[Cat Burger]

Love this game, but I'm lost on the skill tree. Nothing stands out as obvious choices, they all seem kinda... eh. Like in other games tree options add an extra projectile to all weapons globally, increase projectile size +20%, etc. Maybe I'm blind. What do you think are must-have skills to get first? I'm kinda of in a rut with the game and im not progressing any further. I make it past the second boss, and adding levels doesn't seem to help my survivability beyond that at all.

[smallneedle]

personality love statues, they are cool so it is a must have for me

more objectively destroy debris within radius feels the best for me, as those chances to get pick up are less likely to be missed

If you are struggling for the boss the extra 3 health+ black hole after beating one is nice, you will appreciate them if you lose tons of health on them

hope it helps, I havent tried every upgrade yet so it is just personal experience.

[HiburiNeko]

I would also recommend the 1% status effects and the 1% crit. 1% sounds pretty bad, but it adds up quickly. I went Black Atomization > Fast Core > Stack Overflow > Feeling Lucky first.
Salt the Wound > Battery Lick is also pretty good.
Later on, things like Reroll are helpful, too.

[Lightbolt]

Connect Call will save you a lot of time and guarantee level ups. And like mentioned above, Salt the Wound and Battery Lick make a world of difference. 1% Crit is also a night-and-day difference.

Hunting Season will make bosses a lot more manageable too.

Rainbowsplosions is also a great one because it helps clearing out hordes.

Another two good ones are Marathon and Exponential Expedition. The first will increase your movement speed temporarily on kills, and the second is a GUARANTEED movespeed increase depending on Mortality. It really makes the difference in running circles around bosses or spending all of your black holes to try and survive.

[ysyz]

Space Sticky Tape -> High Roller is great at scaling with your skill level. Less damage taken directly gives you free pickups, of which the floppy disk and black holes (if you don't grab Spaghettification, which fell out of favor the better I got. Spaghettification is a good grab if you struggle with several things about several bosses) are helpful.

Shocking Results + Connect Call = free levels = more survivability (the "everything dies faster" type)

Unsure of how worth Expert (+5%xp) and Blood Soaked Sword is. I grab expert because 5% feels like it'll have impact. Blood Soaked Sword is like High Roller, only considered if you can guarantee 3+ flawless kills. Especially after lowest difficulty, I don't think they're worth.

Salt The Wound feels obligatory, haven't figured out what 1% effect chance I like.

Drill can be really nice, but I've shifted to a more RNG-dependent build, so I don't have tons of rerolls to mess around with like before.

[Lucky]

Spending a few points each on re-rolls and item bans helps juice up your loadout really quick. These have a bigger effect on your run than you realize. But I can't call them must-haves since it almost verges on cheesing the game and some people may prefer not to use them.

[one-room survival]

Salt the Wound (and 1 status effect proc of your choice, if not more) - 10% damage is more of a DPS increase than anything else on the skill tree. Mostly picked it up with boss damage in mind.

Nitrous +1 damage has a lot of impact on certain weapons but generally you can't go wrong with taking it. (Same skill tree investment lets you acquire Hunting Season which is also top tier)

Hunting Season -20% Boss HP speaks for itself

Confidence - 15% movement speed for not getting hit is really nice, and the skills before it that it stacks with make you quite fast compared to normal which does a lot for certain scenarios. (I personally spec into Marathon>Gaiden/Expenonential Expedition/Confidence)

Space Lightning - Kickstart your run with a free level! Get rewarded after every boss. Feels good and is good!

Connect Call The quality of life and consistency you get from receiving all EXP from any given level is not replaceable.

If you want to spec into survival I'd recommend:
Meal To Go>Void Scream>Battery Saver>Chrome Plating>I Must Scream.

Statues/Drills can be great, that's up to you!

These are what I'd call the truly good skills. Re-rolls can let you cheese into the same OP build every run if you really want to for a flawless run or whatever. But that's no fun is it?

I run 1% crit but it's not actually a major impact, it's just fun to crit. 1/100 hits doing 3x the damage is practically nothing in the grand scheme of things if you do the math, so just wanted to point that out.

[Nersius]

Originally posted by Coolguymcdude:

Spending a few points each on re-rolls and item bans helps juice up your loadout really quick. These have a bigger effect on your run than you realize. But I can't call them must-haves since it almost verges on cheesing the game and some people may prefer not to use them.

Disclaimer: no overdrive clears, flawlessed all story bosses before

I'd recommend skipping bans and rerolls unless you are achievement hunting.

You can usually get a good build out of getting a mob weapon and a boss weapon, then continuing to choose weapons and upgrades based on what +stat effects benefit them the most.

Have yo-yo & flamethrower early on? battery + injection --> shuriken, bouncy balls
Have turret & headphones? digiwatch + battery --> core, missiles, core
etc...

[Nelle]

I feel heavily handicapped trying to dodge boss patterns with the speed less than 130%, so I would say speed related skills are must.

It's frustrating when you know exactly how to move to dodge a pattern only to get hit by it because you are not faster enough to execute the movements.

[RonaldKun]

The absolute must haves are the speed boosting buffs Exponential Expedition and Confidence. Cyl's base move speed is REALLY SLOW and almost all of the bosses movement speed and attacks are faster than you. Worm and especially Biker will steamroll you flat at default speed unless you have mad skills. Exponential Expedition and Confidence fixes that issue and also makes it to where you don't need to sacrifice a slot for Overcharged Engines, but all these three together will make pretty much all the bosses completely trivial (except Demon, since she teleports in front of you when you run away lol).

I would also put Collect Call in the Absolute Must Have category. A free magnet before every boss is a no brainer, you can very well end up missing out on experience without it. Space Lightning you could probably live without but anything that gives you more upgrades is worth it in my book, and it's on the way to Collect Call so you might as well take it.
Expert's +5% XP increase doesn't sound like much but it makes a noticeable difference in the time that it takes to level up.

Meal To Go and Spaghettification gives you guaranteed health and bomb pickups in a game that can be very stingy with them at times and at one skill point each they're shockingly cheap. Kind of a no brainer, although if you're planning for a no damage run or think you're good enough to get by without them you can save the points for something else.

Salt The Wound is free extra damage if you use anything with elemental effects, which I often do. The +1% elemental effect skills sound absolutely pitiful and not worth it but if you have weapons that hit things very very fast like Eye2 you'll actually trigger these effects more often than you think. Actually quite helpful with Worm and Biker as they'll be stopped and slowed by Shock and Freeze pretty often, and all four elemental effects are also free damage as well.

Statues and Drills add a little spice into your runs. Drills can actually be helpful if you don't have enough slots for something like cooldown speed or weapon size but have enough stats in something else to temporarily sacrifice for them. You can also just get straight upgrades that give you more max health and bombs with no downsides.

Lastly, Skips and Rerolls drastically reduce the effects of RNG. Going all in on them will let you bend the RNG over your knee and spank it until it cries for mercy.