Is rushing the teleporter the only way to play?

[Spitfyre37]

So I've been having a blast with RoR2 lately, but I'm trying to make actual progress now and am starting to run into a bit of a wall. I've unlocked every character except Mercenary and Captain, and I really want to get Merc right now. I recognize that I'm not very good at this game (I've made it to the moon ONCE and died to the first totem event) but I'm beginning to wonder if my personal playstyle is not a good fit for RoR2. Playing on Rainstorm, I usually loot most of each stage prior to teleporting, and usually spend about 8 minutes per stage for the first four. I've been consistently completing the Void Fields, so I always have at least one legendary, but I'm still barely able to survive for more than a few minutes in the later levels. Once the difficulty hits the "hahaha" stage, I always spend my entire time per stage fleeing from everything, and usually dying in two or thee shots. I'm not trying to complain about the difficulty here, but I feel like I'm missing something. Do I HAVE to rush the teleporter on every level, or can I spend some time looting as well?

Bonus question - How do I survive the loop more consistently? I just lost a 200 minute long run to Rallypoint Delta on loop 1. I spend probably 30 minutes of that run on the stage prior, Wetland Aspect, because there were two different scavengers guarding the teleporter alongside four of the Wandering Vagrants. I was playing Artificer and spending most of my time in the air, and I was constantly having to run away because of the sheer number of elite Brass Contraptions. I have no idea how you could possibly survive on the ground, with all the AoEs and number of enemies, yet obviously it's possible if people are able to loop multiple times in a single run. What am I missing?

[Ittrix]

8 minutes is actually pretty standard time spent for rainstorm. You want a nice pace in order to spend gold on chests and not finishing the stage with excess- blurring through teleporters nonstop won't help you much.

The schtick is, unless you get a really really specific build there's always going to be something in the game that will nigh one shot you. The real goal is to recognize what those things are and avoid and kill them first.
And also never stop moving ever.

People survive loops by essentially practicing good looting habits to get a very good chance at getting an item mix to absolutely destroy everything. Though, they'd likely still get one shotted if something lasted long enough to blast them.
I love my girl Arty but she has the least consistency with hitting the god run since she struggles with scaling.

[Lorenzo[FR]]

grab the artifacts : Command + Sacrifice
and once you are before the last stage, stay there as long you want to get the best items ^^
the last stage will be easy even in hard, you can have as much life as you want, with this items you can't be kill :
Tougher Times+Armor Plate+Infusion+Steak+Shield Generator

[Spitfyre37]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

8 minutes is actually pretty standard time spent for rainstorm. You want a nice pace in order to spend gold on chests and not finishing the stage with excess- blurring through teleporters nonstop won't help you much.

The schtick is, unless you get a really really specific build there's always going to be something in the game that will nigh one shot you. The real goal is to recognize what those things are and avoid and kill them first.
And also never stop moving ever.

People survive loops by essentially practicing good looting habits to get a very good chance at getting an item mix to absolutely destroy everything. Though, they'd likely still get one shotted if something lasted long enough to blast them.
I love my girl Arty but she has the least consistency with hitting the god run since she struggles with scaling.

Wow, thank you. That actually helps a ton, I feel much better. I assumed there was some sort of "meta" I needed to progress, but if it's just about practice, I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and eventually I'll get it, right?

Also, I'm curious, what do you mean about Artificer struggling with scaling? I'm still pretty new to the game and I don't quite understand what makes one survivor better than another aside from playstyle. I usually play Bandit, but seeing as I'm quite enjoying Artificer right now, does she have some hidden downside or something that I should know about? (aside from being absolutely trash at dealing with airborne targets, that is.)

[Ittrix]

Welll that one's a loaded question. Every character has something about them that makes them worthwhile except Commando. The community does seem to agree Loader and Bandit are up there in terms of good.

What makes Arty unique is that all of her skills have cooldowns. This means attack speed will help her drop all her attacks quickly, but not her damage.
There's a handful of other items like that too. Not to say she isn't viable or anything. Just a bit whackier with her scaling.

[Ninja Zyborg]

top tier classes - mult, loader, captain, rex. never heard anyone mention bandit before.

[[AN] Mad Scientist]

i would like to do some runs with ya and help you do some unlocks in RoR2 if you are down for it

[Chaoslink]

One trick that might help is to focus on looting chests away from the teleporter first, then go activate and fight the boss. Use the money from the boss fight to open the chests near the teleporter before moving on. This way you don’t have that leftover money. Takes time to get used to the pacing, but it can save that precious scaling time.

Since items are random, it’s very possible that some runs simply won’t have the right items to last you that long. For me, a 200 minute run would mean roughly stage 3 of the third loop. Each loop taking roughly 40 minutes each.

[Banana]

Originally posted by LorenzoFR:

grab the artifacts : Command + Sacrifice
and once you are before the last stage, stay there as long you want to get the best items ^^
the last stage will be easy even in hard, you can have as much life as you want, with this items you can't be kill :
Tougher Times+Armor Plate+Infusion+Steak+Shield Generator

Thats not even how the game is meant to be played. Its totally fine with you playing it your own way, but I do feel like those artifacts really make the game too easy

[Matty Knacker]

Also this is me but I aim to be on stage 3 before 10 mins. More chest spawn in the later levels so staying a long time in the first levels isn't good

[Hiroko]

Originally posted by LorenzoFR:

grab the artifacts : Command + Sacrifice
and once you are before the last stage, stay there as long you want to get the best items ^^
the last stage will be easy even in hard, you can have as much life as you want, with this items you can't be kill :
Tougher Times+Armor Plate+Infusion+Steak+Shield Generator

Shields are bad. They count as regular health for the purpose of one-shot protection. Barrier does not count as health, and has its own OSP - effectively giving you 2 hits you can take when at max hp/barrier. Armor Plate helps early on, but scales horribly very quickly - its not worth choosing.

Originally posted by Spitfyre37:

Do I HAVE to rush the teleporter on every level, or can I spend some time looting as well?

Bonus question - How do I survive the loop more consistently?

Aiming for the timed chest on rally point delta (open the chest within 10 minutes of a run) should get you to a good pace. You don't have to rush teleporter, but for the first couple of stages the spawn rate is terribad and you should - waiting around for spawns is not the right choice. You should be looting chests that you can along the way, abuse teleporter spawn rate for more income, get chests near the portal and leave.
https://riskofrain2.fandom.com/wiki/Rallypoint_Delta

Survival comes from experience and constantly moving in all 3 axis. Do you kill those beetles first or do you kill the lesser wisps? Do you kill the army of lizards or the single laser golem that alters your dodging needs? Prioritizing threats to reduce focus on dodging and allow you to spend more time killing is just another skill. Technically the game can be done with 0 items, but the better answer is that you want to stay ahead of the difficulty curve. This means speed - ultimately chests per difficulty unit. If you do happen to use command, offensive items and move speed help you farm faster, and you can worry about defense after you're way ahead of the curve.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Hiroko:

Originally posted by LorenzoFR:

grab the artifacts : Command + Sacrifice
and once you are before the last stage, stay there as long you want to get the best items ^^
the last stage will be easy even in hard, you can have as much life as you want, with this items you can't be kill :
Tougher Times+Armor Plate+Infusion+Steak+Shield Generator

Shields are bad. They count as regular health for the purpose of one-shot protection. Barrier does not count as health, and has its own OSP - effectively giving you 2 hits you can take when at max hp/barrier. Armor Plate helps early on, but scales horribly very quickly - its not worth choosing.

While you're not wrong as far as general advice goes, you are (somewhat) as far as this specific context. Though I will admit the author above got it wrong as you don't want to wait around in any stage with scaling when doing the Command + Sacrifice thing. You're far better off in the void fields where time stops scaling. In this context, armor plates work well since you can get literally as many as you like. 100 of them makes you basically immune to damage from even late scaled enemies with rapid fire attacks and shields start to offer vastly more HP than things like infusions or steaks can, once you've gotten enough. This allows you to get a vastly larger barrier using things like rejuv racks and Aegis.

Though this is also very much abusing the artifacts and breaking the game. It can still be fun for players looking to be ridiculously overpowered and just blast away.

[Spitfyre37]

Thanks everyone for the advice, it's actually helped a ton! I can already tell that I'm getting better at this game - not only did I unlock Mercenary, but I've already gotten all 3 of his unlockable abilities, too! The advice for clearing stages consistently in loop has been very helpful, and for the most part I think I actually have a shot at achieving that sweet, sweet 100% save file. I guess it really does just boil down to practice and experience.

[Suros:/#]

Time is difficulty, and early stages are murder for slow spawns and sparse chests. Do whatever you can to shave time while still grabbing as much as you can. Shrines of blood speed you up for a risk, and shrines of chance lose most of their value after the second try. Most drones have a hard time making their cost worth it too. As long as you can figure out what saves/eats time, that'll make a huge difference in how tough things will be.

[Ittrix]

Cheaper drones are totally worth it.
I don't care about their kills. Each one is an enemy not shooting at me.