A simple, quick guide for Chicken (Small update as of U99)

So I have 1.5k hours into Nuclear Throne and most of it is from playing Chicken. I also tend to make solid scores in the dailies despite the mutation pool (When I don't job so horribly), so I think now's about time to share some of my knowledge. This guide will not focus on getting to the throne and sitting on it. Nor will it focus on THAT boss. It's focus is on playing Chicken during the loop and pushing yourself as far as possible.

Blood Weapons and Medkit Chests

Blood Hammer, Blood Cannon, and Blood Launcher. I'm sure most people here are familiar with these weapons, especially Blood Hammer. People think Blood Hammer is a ♥♥♥♥ weapon, and I'm inclined to agree. It's not a good weapon. But what it is for Chicken is an amazing tool. Tool. You see, big medkit chests have a 50% to spawn when below half HP. Half HP is, by the game's standards, 5 HP (with Rhino), or 3 HP (without Rhino) (The game does not take into account how much max HP you have left. 5/7 max health with Rhino is still counted as under half). Then when you touch the big medkit chest while you have missing HP, you will gain back one max HP.
Blood Cannon and Blood Launcher can have the same effect but at a much much slower rate.
If you cannot for the life of you find a blood weapon or an explosive weapon (When you have boils), toxic weapons can suffice as well. Just not as well as the bloods.
Important notes for using weapons to hurt yourself:

• Blood Launcher takes 1 ammo per shot and 1 HP damage per shot when you have 0 ammo left
  
• Blood Cannon takes 4 ammo per shot and 2 HP damage per shot when you have 0 ammo left
  
• Blood Hammer takes 1 HP per missed swing
  
• All Toxic weapons all do 3 damage with one toxic cloud touching your character

Remember to throw your blood weapons into the portal with you. They're extrodinarily important tools for Chicken to utalize during your run.

Mutations

What mutations you choose will all depend on what your playstyle will be. But the "meta" so far in Nuclear Throne looping is Rhino Skin, Strong Spirit, Trigger Fingers, Bloodlust, Rabbit Paw, Long Arms, Scarier Face, Laser Brain, Boiling Veins, Plutonium Hunger, and Stress.
They're all very good mutations for just about any character. And Chicken loves every single one of these mutations for one reason or another. But there are some mutations Chicken can use other characters don't really enjoy as much, and some of the meta mutations take priority over the other meta mutations as Chicken likes some more than others. So let's go over that real fast.

Chicken likes Rhino Skin over Strong Spirit.
Yes, I know some people will argue against this, but the fact remains that Chicken's passive is both a weakened and strengethed version of Strong Spirit already. If you can take both, then take both. But if not, take Rhino over Spirit. More max health for Chicken means she can get her head blown off more often.

Stress and Trigger Fingers are about even on the playing field.
A lot of people will disagree here and say that Stress is much better for Chicken because she's the only character that can live on zero percent of health for a while, letting her get the max boost stress can give; eighty percent. But in reality that's just a fun gimmick for her. As cool as her passive is, you still don't want to have your head blown off often. It's minus two max health every single time that happens. There are so many enemies during the loop it's seriously not funny. And the lower your health is, the higher chance a medkit will spawn for chicken. So unless you're extremely careful, your headless run won't go on for very long. Triggers and Stress are still amazing mutations in their own rights and choosing one over the other in the end depends on the playstyle of the player. But I'd recommend choosing Triggers over Stress any day of the week.

Rabbit's Paw is better than Bloodlust in theory.
Alright I know that sounds like a cop-out but here me out. This is what happens when you take Harder to Kill over Determination. If you take Harder to Kill you can live for quite some time, just as long as you keep killing. Now imagine that in this situation, you become headless because you went too deep in. It's not that much of a problem because you take no damage and you can easily clear out a room with no effort just as long as you don't gain any health. Welp you took bloodlust, it unexpectedly healed you, and then you're suddenly shot because you're trying to clear out the place and now you just lost four of your max HP.
That's why I consider Rabbit Paw over Bloodlust. However, Bloodlust is possibly one of the safest mutations in the game since you can kill everything from a large distance away and heal back to full health (Depending on your weapons and other mutations).

Open Mind is the least viable mutation for Chicken. But it's still a viable mutation.
As garbage as Open Mind is for a lot of characters, Chicken is probably the one that's hurt the least from it. If you have to take a mutation from a bad mutation pool (Something like Lucky Shot, Early Game Bolt Marrow, Open Mind, and Sharp Teeth), I would personally pick Open Mind. Why? Because you get a much higher chance to regain max health with it of course. And you need as many chances to get medkit chests within the loop as you can get.

Last Wish will refill all of Chicken's lost maximum HP.
Exactly what it says. Take it and go to the loop jungle you pansy. Why loop jungle exactly? Because the mutation pool resets once you hit Level Ultra. So if you didn't see any mutations you wanted at all, Loop Jungle will give you that chance.

AS OF UPDATE 99 FIXING THE CHICKEN GLITCH WHERE WHEN SHE THREW HER WEAPONS COOLDOWN CARRIED OVER TO THE NEXT WEAPON
Determination is now better than Harder to Kill
Do I really have to explain this one? Sure Thronebutt and Determination can be fun as hell, but it can only carry you for so long (Unless you have Impact Wrists, but good luck having Impact Wrists carry you in the palace lol). Harder to Kill is just an overall good mutation and will help you in many more situations than Determination ever will. If you're worried about ammo that much, just take Rabbit Paw.
Edit note as of Update 99: Determination is now better than Harder to Kill.
With the biggest bug that's been squashed about Chicken's right click (Reload times transferring to your secondary weapon after throwing your primary), Chicken's Right Click is now much better for when you need to get rid of cooldowns for any weapon ASAP without having to worry about accidentally throwing your weapon into a crowd and being unable to retrieve it. Harder To Kill, is, in theory, better than Determination in a lot of aspects. But those aspects will not be achievable thanks to the ever looming presence of human error.

Black Sword and You

Alright I'm sure we all know what the Black Sword is. If you don't, ditch your sword in 1-1 Loop 0.
But how does it fair up against the other melee weapons?
It's better than Sledgehammer as it has a much faster natural reload rate. It's arguably better than Shovel for the same reasons. It's better than wrench as it deals more damage and is faster too. It's better than Golden Wrench as it's just as fast and deals more damage. However, it's not better than Energy Sword. Especially with Laser Brain. Even though Energy Sword takes ammo to use, the ammo is fairly worth it for the damage output and speed it has.
If you don't have Long Arms, take Jackhammer instead of Black Sword. Jackhammer is a deceptively good melee weapon. But not as good as Black Sword or Energy Sword. HOWEVER, if you don't have Long Arms, Jackhammer is the second best legal melee weapon you can get.
And of course, the best legal melee weapon Chicken can get is Ultra Shovel. Extremely fast and hits like a train.
Overall:
Wrench < Golden Wrench < Sledgehammer < Shovel < Jackhammer (Long Arms) < Black Sword < Energy Sword < Jackhammer (No long arms) < Ultra Shovel.

The other melee weapons are memes or are on equal footing with similar melee weapons. And I suppose I should mention that whenever Chicken is headless Black Sword does 80 damage (As much damage Nuke Launcher) and has a much wider swing arc. But if you've been following along, you don't really want to be headless in the first place. Sure it's cool but it's a gimmick at best.

The End

Good luck lol

[Wandering]

Thank you for the guide, i have been thinking about being main Chicken and this tips help a lot.

[baf]

Awsome Guide

[Mercury]

chicken is decent