Uninformative Risk Of Rain 2 Tier List

Potor10's Terrible Item & Class Tier List For Risk of Rain 2
All rankings are based on subjective opinion from playing the game.
Certain rankings are subject to change in the future.

Introduction

Currently updated for Scorched Acres.
Note: This is not updated for Skills 2.0, I am currently very busy and don't have much free time to grind out and test everything in this new update immediately. Updates to this list will come eventually, but also intermittently. Thanks for understanding :)

Hi, welcome to WALL OF TEXT Potor10's Risk of Rain 2 Tier List

For a new player to the series, Risk of Rain can be a extremely complex game due to the large amount of items available. With so many items available, it can be confusing to figure out what to purchase out of a multishop terminal or when to use a 3d printer.

This guide aims to provide new players with a basic overview of information so that they can:

• Obtain a basic understanding of the general rankings of each item
  
• Develop a sense for the items to go for in a run
  
• Have a better time completing runs and challenges when playing the game

Although more experienced players may know the general hierarchy of items better than most other players, they may want to check out other viewpoints to broaden their knowledge.

Thus this guide aims to offer experienced players these factors:

• A fellow player's interpretation on what it means to be a certain tier
  
• An in depth explanation on why each item deserves its tier

This guide is not endorsed by any group, but I would like to thank the official Risk of Rain 2's discord[discord.gg] for datamined equations and the Risk of Rain 2 wiki for the images used in this guide. Of course, the placement for everything in this guide is based on subjective opinion. If you are looking for an objective opinion on what items to go for, this page[riskofrain2.fandom.com] is your friend.

I would also like to thank RobinValentine's guides for providing detailed information on the top three most difficult to play classes. (Huntress, Artificer, and Mercenary). I certainly learned a lot from these guides when picking up these characters so you should read them all too.

As a final reminder, I would like to say that this tier list is all speculation. You are free to have your own opinion about any item. Some people take tier lists too seriously and treat them like gospel. If you are one of those people, don't do that. You're much better off just playing the game and figuring out what items are your favorites through experience.

The characters and items that YOU are most comfortable with will always be YOUR best.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy reading this long guide!

Classes

Introduction

As of right now, as of the Scorched Acres update, seven classes are available for non-modded clients to play. These classes include:

• Commando
  
• MUL-T
  
• Huntress
  
• Engineer
  
• Artificer
  
• Mercenary
  
• REX

Although each class may have its own unique strengths and weaknesses, I will be ranking each class based on how strong they are relative to surviving rainstorm and monsoon difficulty runs.

I would also like to make it clear that each of these classes is rated in their performance in single-player as I do not have anywhere near enough time in multiplayer to make a sound judgement on all characters.

Ranking

Every character is powerful in their own unique aspect and none are necessarily "stronger" than the other. But reaching the end-game is often more challenging (requires more knowledge or skill) for some characters than others. Therefore I will be categorizing characters by this system:

• S: This character has few struggles even when built poorly.
  
• A: This character preforms above average even when built poorly.
  
• B: This character fares decently and preforms well with a good build.
  
• C: This character preforms extremely poorly unless they have a good build.

Classes: S Tier

Huntress

Huntress has an impressive arsenal of AOE options and can do a significant amount of damage quickly to a boss if played right. Thus, her placement in S Tier is due to a variety of factors that enable Huntress players to stomp during early/late game. Despite her strengths, Huntress is not without her weaknesses. Her homing gimmick can seem useful at first, but this can impede her ability to deal damage to bosses when enough adds spawn. Additionally, her base HP is also lower than all other classes. With such a low hp pool, one shots from early game bosses are extremely common. Tread carefully as a huntress.

Huntress deserves S Tier because:

• Her low base hp means that she can quickly be taken down from one mistake.
  
• Blink is an extremely powerful mobility and repositioning tool but it has a relatively long cooldown for what it does. One bad blink can spell disaster. Good blinks can consistently keep you out of the reach of any enemy.
  
• Her ability to sprint while firing means that Huntress begins with an edge in mobility over other classes during combat. Unfortunately, her homing targeting means that she has to get exceptionally close to the boss in order to target said boss. Doing this without practice in a actual game would be suicide. Thus, Huntress tends to draw out boss fights by focusing adds first. This can be worse for the late-game as drawing out fights will give bosses more opportunities to one-shot.
  
• Laser Glaive and Arrow Rain are great for general AOE DPS, but it becomes clear that Huntress lacks a good single target DPS in the mid game. Therefore, her best chance at chunking bosses is through glaive spam. Not only does her glaive have an excellent proc chance (for how much it bounces), but it also deals amazing damage. This means that falling behind on cooldown reduction and backup magazines will result in pitiful mid and late game DPS.
  
• Though Huntress suffers in the mid-game due to her lack of consistent single target DPS, her ability to deal crazy amounts of damage skyrockets as the player heads into late game. Because her Laser Glaive has amazing scaling with all forms on proc effects, late game Huntress can stay safe in the distance whilst mowing through enemies with Laser Glaive.
  
• Arrow Rain is great for its AOE, but late game the damage from this skill can be lackluster. Because it has a poor proc for on-hit (0.2 proc coefficient), it doesn't scale as well as her Laser Glaive. Arrow Rain can also easily get you killed if used in an improper time as it puts you into the air (instant death against multiple Stone Titan lasers). It should be considered additional utility in the mid-late game for both an area-control slow and the blink dodge.

Classes: A Tier

Artificer

Artificer seems to have everything in her kit, and her lack of a utility skill is compensated by here extremely powerful jetpack passive. Her ability to utilize burst DPS, strong AOE, high damage flamethrower, and even execute enemies is quite amazing in its own right. Unfortunately, the fact that her one and only defensive tool (Snapfreeze) cannot block boss projectiles means that she is subject to a quick death in the late game if positioned poorly. Given enough speed boosting items, a good Artificer can avoid deadly situations by carefully kiting. Thus she deserves to be in A tier as she has excellent bossing and mobbing abilities but can get caught in an unfavorable position if played poorly.

Artificer deserves A Tier because:

• Now that Flame Bolt and Snapfreeze have proc coefficients of 1, they are amazing skills for putting out heavy amounts of damage. Assuming it is lined up properly, Snapfreeze can hit 12 times against a single boss. Flame Bolt's updated proc coefficient means that Artificer can build on-hit items effectively and consistently. This change is immense for Artificer and it enables her to scale powerfully into the late game.
  
• Her kit is extremely powerful for DPS. The Nano-Bomb is Artificer's bread and butter skill for amazing damage and it is rightfully so. With a charge doing up to 1200% damage, she can obliterate smaller spawns and chunk bosses.
  
• Her ice wall from Snapfreeze can execute enemies and do good damage to bosses. Despite its positives, Snapfreeze is terrible for defense as enemies can attack through it. This makes close range encounters and flying enemies difficult to deal with. Artificer must solely rely on sprint for escape and repositioning.
  
• Flamethrower is an excellent skill to weave in between attacks as you wait for your cooldowns and ability charges. It is a very versatile skill and can be used to take down bosses faster or clear adds. It is also a very dangerous skill to use, and in the late game you often won't have the time to cast it to completion. According to Xgpmcnp, the 1700% total damage the skill says in the ingame description is actually incorrect. You can read more about this in his guide here.
  
• Artificer builds will always favor Backup Magazines, Crowbars, and Energy Drinks due to the current nature of the class. With her new proc coefficients, however, she can easily build on-hit items and succeed.
  
• Although she used to be weak during the mid-game (where there are not enough items to compensate for difficult teleporter battles). Her new passive makes it much easier to kite around enemies and survive.
  
• I also find that during the late game, the cooldowns and charge time on her abilities makes it a bit difficult to effectively chain them together.

REX

REX provides an impressive array of tools in his kit. The fact that he is able to weaken and amplify damage against priority targets is one of the strengths that makes REX an A Tier character. Combined with his current animation cancelling bug (using Seed Barrage immediately after DIRECTIVE: Inject will allow you to immediately cast DIRECTIVE: Inject again), REX has the best DPS in the early game. His high DPS comes at the cost of health, however, and REX players must maintain a balance between doing damage and going too low in health. REX is also the only class that has built in self-sustain, and he can keep himself healthy during difficult fights.

REX deserves A Tier because:

• Currently, he has some of the best DPS in the game and can singlehandedly mow down bosses without a need for a lot of items.
  
• REX has his own methods to heal himself, and can survive teleporter battles that would have otherwise been impossible.
  
• He has one of the best utility abilities in the game. DIRECTIVE: Disperse has a relatively short cooldown, can push REX very far in any direction, weaken enemies, and can even push smaller elite enemies off of cliffs.
  
• Although his self-damaging abilites makes a few items (such as Topaz Brooch) worse, it also makes other items (such as Tougher Times, Medkit, and Old-War Stealth Kit) vastly better.

Classes: B Tier

Engineer

Although dashing and kiting around hordes of enemies can be fun, Engineer uses an alternate strategy in staying put and utilizing the shield to block deadly attacks. Because Engineer has access to turrets that effectively triple the effectiveness of his stacked items, this makes him an absolute threat in teleporter battles. He does suffer in terms of a lack of mobility, but movement items can quickly overcome this loss. With the rework of ice elites and the introduction of malachite elites, Engineer falls down on the tier list as sitting still and not being careful is a one way ticket to a quick death.

Engineer deserves B Tier because:

• He has access to a shield which he can use to block game ending hits from blazing bosses.
  
• Mines provide big bursts of DPS when necessary; they are perfect for quickly getting rid of the monsters that get under your shield.
  
• Having 2 turrets can split aggro between mob and boss spawns resulting in less pressure overall.
  
• 2 turrets will amplify the strengths of Engineer's buffs for extreme dps output lategame.
  
• He has the most consistent healing out of any class due to his natural synergy with Bustling Fungus.
  
• Ice elites are one of Engineer's biggest threats, as the ice bomb can easily freeze Engineer in a bad position. Engineer, however, is the best class to survive the freeze with (due to healing from fungus). Similarly, with a few movement items, Engineer can easily outrun the ice bomb.
  
• The existence of malachite elites make surviving the late game as engineer much harder than before. During a hectic fight, it is very easy to get tagged by one of these elites and lose all healing. Additionally, your turrets can get tagged and taken down almost instantly.

MUL-T

MUL-T sits at B Tier for a good reason. His amazing utility, high damage output, and tankiness makes him an excellent all-rounder class. Although he is quite simple to play and scales well with on-hit items, his close range nailgun is what limits his effectiveness in the late game.

MUL-T deserves B Tier because:

• His natural tankiness allows him to take hits that would normally leave others dead (It also allows for the safe inclusion of shaped glass in a build). This bonus significantly falls off in the late game where most hits will be extremely dangerous.
  
• The ability to hold two items is extremely powerful. Why choose between a nuke and a healing item when you can have both.
  
• His transport mode is possibly the best all encompassing utility. It can be used to escape, stun enemies, and supplement DPS.
  
• Blast canister and its bomblets can provide amazing AOE and boss damage at every stage in the game.
  
• His nailgun is extremely powerful in terms of DPS, but has a lower proc coefficient compared to other classes. This makes healing items such as Leeching Seed and Harvester's Scythe harder to stack effectively. This issue is compensated by the existence of Foreign Fruit and Gnarled Woodsprite, but blazing bosses still can make MUL-T runs difficult.
  
• The fact that MUL-T needs to get up close to the boss to use his nailgun effectively means the player has to play carefully. Done right, his DPS will easily melt a majority of bosses. The fact that he needs to get close, however, is what lands him in B Tier. Though he is tanky enough to easily survive the early game without worry, late game hits will easily take him out.

Mercenary

Mercenary is the only melee class in Risk of Rain 2 and quite an flashy one too. With his ability to dash, slash, and eviscerate enemies out of existence, Mercenary is quite an amazing class to watch and play as. That being said, Mercenary ends up in B Tier as the recent change to his eviscerate significantly improves his survival (especially in the late game). Combined with the nerf to blazing bosses in the previous patch, Mercenary is without a doubt a very viable character.

Mercenary deserves B Tier because:

• His mobility the best out of any class, but this comes at the cost of being melee. Without range to engage a boss at a safe distance with, Mercenary is put in more dangerous game-ending situations than any other class. This is compensated by the fact that he is the only class with iframes.
  
• Blinding assault can be used up to three times if the first two hit. This skill is critical, as it is necessary for staying in the air and interrupting enemies. However, it does not provide good dps on its own and is often followed by a whirlwind for damage.
  
• Although he gets a significant amount of iframes from a Eviscerate, enemies can still lock on to his location. If unlucky, a shot immediately following an eviscerate can end the run. This makes items such as Alien Head, Bandolier, and Brainstalks great on Mercenary as they can reduce the downtime where he is vulnerable. A skilled mercenary can time his cooldowns and utilize the zero end-lag skills to their advantage.

Classes: C Tier

Commando

Commando sits in C tier because of his extremely poor early game. Although he has one of the best potential scalings with on-hit items, his weak early game can make playing commando extremely difficult. Additionally his utility skill does not give iframes, but it still is serviceable as it can be used to dodge most attacks. Commando's DPS can get pretty crazy late game, but he falls behind the other classes early. One example would be in clearing adds. Compared to the AOE capabilities of all other classes, Commando's phase round doesn't quite do enough during a hectic bossfight.

Commando deserves C Tier because:

• His ability to create crazy on-hit builds leads to an immensely powerful late game damage dealer who obliterates bosses from a safe distance.
  
• The Tactical Dive utility skill has a short cooldown and is excellent for mobility and positioning. It what make Commando a safer pick in the late game when dodging game ending hits is key. Despite this mobility, the Tactical Dive doesn't move you very far at all and you will end up dying if not careful.
  
• Suppressive fire is quite impressive for supplementing DPS and can be used to stun in a pinch. This skill combos wonderfully with Brainstalks.
  
• Phase round is decent at cleaning up adds when lined up correctly. In the late game AOE items will take over.
  
• Commando is relatively mediocre in his ability to deal with hordes of enemies. Using the phase round and suppressive fire on bosses leaves you vulnerable against adds. This means that not finding any Will o' the Wisp and Gasoline can quickly end your run. Because of his terrible waveclear and inability to quickly deal with bosses, Commando ends up with the short end of the stick in most runs.
  
• The fact that commando has damage falloff at long ranges makes him extremely tough to play as in the early game. In order to deal good DPS, the player needs to be relatively close to the boss and in the midst of all mobs. Additionally, this makes a lot of items extremely weak on Commando, as their damage might be based on the damage of the hit that procced the item.
  
• Commando needs a great early game on-hit build in order to scale since he is so heavily item reliant. Thus, he deserves C tier.

Items

Introduction

Items in Risk of Rain 2 are divided up into a multitude categories. There are currently five categories of items currently in risk of rain. These categories include:

• Common
  
• Uncommon
  
• Legendary
  
• Equipment
  
• Lunar

Each category consists of their own set of unique items. While it could be said that there is some overlap with Lunar and Equipment (since Lunar equipment exists), I decided to group them in separate categories because of the uniqueness of Lunar items almost always makes them a situational pick.

While it can be said that every item in Risk of Rain 2 is beneficial to the character, this type of thinking is actually false. It is true that almost every item in Risk of Rain 2 provides universal positives that work on any class, but certain items (notably Lunar items but also a couple legendaries) can actually have negatives. This does not mean that a item with negatives can't be high on the tier list, but this does mean that I will factor in every aspect of an item in relation to its application in game (not just the ideal scenario).

Ranking

Because of the divide between the appearance rates of the rarities, I have decided to split up the tier list based on rarities. A common will show up much more often than a legendary so it is safer to assume that the player will encounter the common more to get a decent stack.

With each item in their respective rarity slot, it will be easier to make judgements based on the item quality relative to their peers. Thus, I will be categorizing items by this system:

• S: This item has a universal bonus that will significantly strengthen any class. Getting high stacks of these items are highly desirable and make your character much more powerful. Sometimes, having a single copy of this item is enough to make a run a lot smoother.
  
• A: This item has a universal bonus that will strengthen any class. Getting stacks of these items are desirable but they may suffer from diminishing returns.
  
• B: This item has a universal bonus that is decent for any class. The resulting effect is lackluster when stacked, but having some of these items can always help.
  
• C: This item can provide a bonus that provides little and can even hurt your class. The resulting effect is poor when stacked and these items should be the ones that you are always looking to 3D print away.
  
• Situational: This item is too polarizing to be listed cleanly on a tier list. Because it can be top-tier powerful on one class and then absolutely useless on another, I will go in depth on the explanation for each and every one of my situational rankings.

Common Items: S Tier

Soldier's Syringe

Soldier's Syringe is another one of those deceptively strong late-game scaling items. Because it makes you attack faster, that also means that you are going to get more procs on your on-hit abilities. Enough Soldier's Syringes and you will become a late game nightmare, literally tearing through bosses and mobs with the insane amount of procs from other items. Plus, this item scales additively and will always provide you with more and more attack speed without cap.

Tougher Times

Tougher Times is one of the many items where the ingame description is completely wrong. Instead of a 15% (+15% per stack), Tougher Times actually has a logarithmic growth based on the equation of

1-(1/(0.15x+1)) = B

where x is the number of Tougher Times that you have. This means that you actually start with a block chance of 13% instead of 15%. Logarithmic growth is not multiplicative, so you may have heard it said that stacking Tougher Times is very inefficient. And this may be true to some degree. You will need 10 for 60% reduction, 50 for 88.23%, 100 for 93.75%, and 1000 for 99.34%. With this thought in mind, it might seem like stacking Tougher Times is a poor choice, since the percent increase significantly tapers off at high stacks.

This thought process is what I used to think as well but thanks to some new information and some reconsidering I found that there is another mindset for considering block chance and survivability.

In comes this equation

1/(1-B)=H

where B is the block chance and H is the average number of hits the enemy must make to land a successful hit. Since both equations are logarithmic, if we do some math and plug in one equation into another, we get

0.15x+1 = H

From this new equation, we could interpret Tougher Times as a linear scaling in which each additional Tougher Times increases the amount of hits on average necessary to take damage. This means that high stacks of Tougher Times actually are very good, especially against blazing enemies who deal damage in many ticks. The more Tougher Times you have, the more likely you are to block a tick of fire damage and the more likely you are to survive. You WILL still die to a one shot, however, so play carefully.

Author's Note: I would like to thank Blank from the official Risk of Rain 2 Discord's theorycraft channel for beginning the discussion about block chance and survivability.

I'm too lazy to get the icons for the new stuff

Old Guillotine

Although the ingame description claims that it will "Instantly kill Elite monsters below 20% (+5% per stack) health," this is not how it stacks. In fact, it stacks by the equation

1-1/(0.2x+1)

with x representing the number of Old Guillotines you have. Also visualized by this[docs.google.com] helpful spreadsheet. Even if the scaling is a much weaker than they claim, this item is still extremely powerful. Not only are elites are the most dangerous enemies in RoR2, but they also have some of the craziest health scaling. As the game goes later and later elites will appear more frequently, have vastly more health, and deal crazy amounts of damage. This makes Old Guillotine an insanely powerful item as it allows you to skip a significant portion of the health on these high-priority mobs. Additionally, Old Guillotine works against elite bosses which is simply absurd considering their monstrous healthpools. Don't skip out on the Old Guillotine, it's usefulness will only increase as the run gets longer.

Topaz Brooch

Topaz Brooch is exactly what Monster Tooth should have been. Although the barrier depletes quickly, the 20 health shield on kill is nothing to scoff at. Early game, the shield will save your life or make teleporter battles significantly easier. Late game, the shield can build to monstrous levels and prevent you from ever dying. Additionally malachite debuffs will have no effect on this shield and you will be able to continue stacking shield HP. Tougher Times is better overall and more consistent, but the Topaz Brooch is the second best item for survivability in Risk of Rain 2.

Common Items: A Tier

Lens-Maker's Glasses

Lens-Maker's Glasses is the necessary enabler for a large amount of builds in the game. Because it is one of the two items in the game directly modifying crit chance, it is exceedingly powerful for all characters. These glasses will literally double your damage output when stacked enough and they will allow you to utilize other items such as Beserker's Instincts and Harvester's Scythe. Make sure to pick up as many as you can early. Despite all the positives, the biggest issue with the Lens-Maker's Glasses (also why it earns A Tier in the tier list) is that it can only stack up to 10 (100% crit chance). This makes an additional stack's benefits go from all to none. If you do find a 3D printer for one of these bad boys, I'd make around 6 or 7. That seems to be a good place to stop at.

Paul's Goat Hoof

Paul's Goat Hoof is one of those items that provide a practically unnoticeable change at small stacks which grow into crazy bounce into skybox fast speed as the stack grows larger. This item can and will save your life during combat. Especially during late game, where the immediate danger of a Blazing Stone Titan can end your run, the extra movement speed can get you to cover fast. Because this speed is also available while walking, it can be useful for kiting enemies on classes that cannot attack while sprinting.

Crowbar

The Crowbar is a great item to pickup when burst damage is desired. It may seem like a poor pick for certain fast attacking low damage per hit classes such as Commando, but this is actually a misconception. Crowbar is crazy because it can set up deadly chain reactions on a single kill. A single Crowbar will amplify a will o' the wisp explosion by 50%. Keep stacking and soon you will literally see every single add die with ease. Don't forget your Crowbars, they are an excellent supporting tool for any class.

Tri-Tip Dagger

This item is similar to the Lens-Maker's Glasses except it isn't as strong and it has a lower max stack. Unlike crit, bleed doesn't provide any synergies with other items. Despite this weakness, bleed is very good at what it does and can easily provide a significant boost to any character's DPS. The Tri-Tip dagger stacks up to 7 so if you find a 3D printer, feel free to make 3 or 4.

Energy Drink

One might think that the Energy Drink is a glorified Paul's Goat Hoof (after all the Energy Drink only increases the movespeed of sprint), but that mindset is wrong. The boost that Energy Drink provides to sprinting speed is absolutely crazy. Compared to the +14% boost that Paul's Goat Hoof grants to movement speed, a single Energy Drink provides a +30% boost to sprinting speed. That is over two goat hooves worth of speed! With enough Energy Drinks, your sprint will be fast enough to quickly reposition in fights. This item is necessary for certain classes to function properly and is very welcome on all others.

Backup Magazine

Backup Magazines are great for one purpose: reducing cooldowns on the extremely powerful abilities of some classes (Laser Glaive, Whirlwind). Because of the extra charge that can be stored, these classes will have an extra use of their secondary skill while preforming their combos. An extra secondary skill could mean an extreme increase in burst DPS which is especially important when entering into a fight. Backup Magazine is a necessity on a variety of classes, but scales poorly when stacked high and is not very useful on Engineer.

Armor Piercing Rounds

Armor piercing rounds is one of those items that increase your damage against a specific type of enemy. By limiting the bonus damage to teleporter bosses only, Armor Piercing Rounds creates a unique case for itself where having a few is very strong but having too many makes you extremely weak. It's important to find a balance where you can comfortably handle adds and be able to nuke bosses.

Common Items: B Tier

Rapid Slug

While healing is necessary to survive difficult fights, I find the Rapid Slug to be relatively lackluster as a consistent late game healing option. It's mostly good for healing when traveling (or running) away from a fight, and it can be a very impactful healing item in the early game. At high stacks the health regeneration is like a shield and your health comes back extremely quickly. Is it worth it? not really, but it can't hurt to have one of these.

Personal Shield Generator

The Personal Shield Generator gives you a measly 25 extra health worth of shield per stack. This bonus is actually very lackluster as you head into the mid-game where chip damage begins to do much more than 25 damage. It can be good for early game survivability, but don't get too invested into the shield; it's much better to sustain off healing and lifesteal. Also, this item can interfere with One Shot Protection (OSP), as it counts the added shields as part of your "maximum" health. With your shields down, you could be subject to being taken down in one hit even with "full" health.

Gasoline

Gasoline is an amazing early game AOE bonus for all classes. The burn is a very high value damage source and the AOE range scales extremely well for a common item. The biggest issue with this item is the fact that it does not directly increase damage output when stacked. Although each stack of Gasoline increases the total damage dealt, it doesn't increase the damage every tick. Each additional stack only increases the duration of the burn. While this interaction is pitifully weak in the late game, it is compensated by the fact that enemies can be ignited by gasoline multiple times. Thus, Gasoline earns a position in B Rank as a good early game AOE damage source, but it's much more wise to invest in better scaling items before turning towards Gasoline.

Stun Grenade

This item can be a lifesaver but its effect is mediocre at best. Because the ability to stun is limited to smaller monsters and not bosses, this item unfortunately does not fare well at any stage of the game. Small stacks can be taken in high attack speed builds to interrupt smaller adds during boss fights, but this item isn't anywhere as useful as a lot of other commons.

Bundle of Fireworks

Bundle of Fireworks is a fun item that actually provides a surprising amount of damage. If a teleporter spawns next to a Shrine of Chance, then the boss is in for quite the beating. The biggest and most apparent issue with this item, is the inconsistency as it is heavily dependent on items actually being within the vicinity of the teleporter. Also, it will only provide a one-time burst, which often isn't enough to make a large enough impact late game (unless stacked to impractical, crazily high values).

Sticky Bomb

Sticky Bombs no longer scale exponentially when stacked. Instead additional stacks will only increase proc chance. Sticky Bomb is good for adding some AOE damage onto classes without good AOE to begin with (notably Commando) but high stacks have nowhere near the power that they used to have. They are still a good option for on-hit builds, but no longer worth spamming the 3D printer for.

Rusted Key

The Rusted Lockbox is just too hard to see in some maps. I tend to only look for it in certain maps where it's dull pattern stands out in stark contrast with the ground. This item is actually pretty good, it always ends up giving me its value back whenever I get it in a run. It really is up to player preference and if the player is familiar with finding these boxes.

Common Items: C Tier

Monster Tooth

For what it gives, Monster Tooth just isn't worth it at all. The reason for its weakness revolves around three main points: its terrible scaling, the need to actually pick up the orb, and its requirement of killing a monster. Because it only gives 6 health per kill and +6 per stack, the Monster Tooth falls flat on expectations with high stacks. It hardly is enough healing to compare to the Foreign Fruit and Harvester's Scythe. But this aspect of the Monster Tooth is the least of its troubles. The fact you actually have to run into the dead enemy's carcass to collect the health can easily put you into a troubling situation. In fact, in a lot of circumstances, you won't have the opportunity to suddenly change direction to collect the health. Additionally, it requires you to actually take down enemies to regain health, which can often be dangerous if you actually need the health. Many safe healing options exist, Monster Tooth is not one of them.

Medkit

Medkit tends to be one of those items that I never pick up because of how quickly you outscale its effectiveness. The biggest issue with its healing is that it requires you to actually get hit. Now 10 health might be enough to carry you through the early game, but as soon as you hit mid-game the usefulness of this item disappears completely. Some may say that Medkit is a good option against chip damage, but the fact that the heal is delayed by 1.1 seconds can make this item pointless if you're constantly getting pelted by small fire. Instead of healing an extra 10 health from getting hit, it's a much more efficient strategy to block the hit entirely; blocking hits will scale as the difficulty increases and hits are more likely to one shot. This is why Tougher Times is in S tier, while Medkit is in C tier.

Common Items: Situational

Bustling Fungus

Bustling Fungus is a good pick for any class who will need healing (hint hint: all of them). Because this item heals you to full quickly, it's an excellent item for boss fights (when you get low run to a safe place to heal). Later on, this item wouldn't scale well as hermit crabs begin to be able to pelt you from far and their combined damage is no joke. If not for the existence of engineer synergy, I would give this item a B-Tier. This item, however, is absolutely godlike on Engineer. It's an absolute staple in any engineer build since engineer can obtain the healing from his turrets and enable his turrets to sustain themselves in battle. It really is the dream item for Engineer.

Warbanner

Although most would consider Warbanner as a trash tier item because of the infrequency and inconsistency of level-ups, I would consider it a situational pick for a few reasons:

• Staying inside the Warbanner field provides an immense boost to your attack and movement speed by +30%; this dramatic increase cannot be overlooked.
  
• There are some pretty significant uses for Warbanner in prismatic trial due to this attack speed buff; it will shave off a lot of time if used properly.
  
• I consider Warbanner to be one of the best "early game" survival items in the game due to how frequently they drop at early levels. It's not hard to keep track of your exp bar to make sure it drops in the place you want either. Maybe that's just from my experience of playing League of Legends though.

I will admit that Warbanners scale terribly into lategame and have absolutely no meaningful bonus when stacked, therefore it should remain a situational early game pick where all the commons have been abysmal and you're just waiting for a 3D printer with something decent. The DPS buffs from the banner will help you stay relevant against a lot of bosses.

Uncommon Items: S Tier

Will o' the Wisp

Will o' the Wisp is the best AOE item in Risk of Rain 2. Not only does it have an absurd amount of damage when it activates, but it has a good range and can easily start chain kills. This item stacks amazingly well: growing in both damage and AOE range with additional stacks. The amount of synergies this item can have is wonderful too. With Ceremonial Dagger, Gasoline, and Crowbar, Will o' the Wisp can literally create unstoppable chain kills. Used properly during a boss fight, these chains are the number one way to clear adds late game and can heavily damage the boss too. Always go for a Will o' the Wisp when available, just remember that (just like gasoline) this item does not immediately increase your available DPS.

Fuel Cell

Fuel Cell was a difficult S Tier placement for me. However, I decided to place it in S tier for a few critical reasons:

• Some equipment items are absurdly powerful. Having an extra Foreign Fruit can be the difference between life or death. Being able to hold multiple charges of Royal Capacitor means you can instantly nuke dangerous blazing bosses from a safe distance.
  
• Fuel Cells reduce the cooldown of equipment items. This means that multiple copies of Fuel Cells stack extremely well and end up significantly reducing downtime on your equipment.
  
• Although equipment items scale poorly into late game due to long cooldowns, Fuel Cells is one of the few items that helps your equipment remain relevant throughout the game. I'd argue that having enough Fuel Cells is necessary, as it effectively adds an additional "skill" to your arsenal.

Not once have I ever regretted having Fuel Cells in the late game. This item is one of the best supporting items in the game and can easily carry runs when stacked high enough.

Uncommon Items: A Tier

ATG Missile

ATG Missile is a relatively simple item that provides good single target damage. It grows by a consistent +300% damage when stacked and has a mediocre proc rate of 10%. In comparison to other uncommon items, the ATG Missile is just a solid option for bonus damage. My only complaint with this item (and the Disposable Missile Launcher) is that the missile targeting can be awful at times. But the missiles do serve their own purpose: during a boss fight they can clear out annoying lesser wisps without you ever noticing.

Hopoo Feather

Hopoo Feathers are great for any situation. Mobility is one of the most important fundamentals to getting far in Risk of Rain 2. It enables you to dodge hits, kite adds during teleporter fights, and avoid taking fall damage that could be crippling. These feathers are amazing, but once you have enough midair jumps getting more just becomes redundant. Therefore they only deserve A Tier.

Ukulele

Ukulele can be crazy against groups of enemies and it sports one of the best proc rates in the game (25% chance to proc on hit), but it stacks poorly. Instead of providing extra damage or proc chance per stack, each additional stack only adds more targets and range to the chain lightning. This means that getting one Ukulele is great for bonus DPS, but having multiple does a lot less for your damage. Some may argue that the increased amounts of targets is good for AOE, but there are already much better and efficient options covering that role. Overall, Ukulele earns its spot in A tier because it is a great item to have a couple copies of.

Harvester's Scythe

Harvester's Scythe is basically what Leeching Seed dreams to be. Instead of a measly 1 health healed per hit, Harvester's Scythe heals 8 (+4 per stack). While the healing is significantly more powerful, Harvester's Scythe comes at a catch: you can only heal if the attack crits. If the healing wasn't powerful enough already, Harvester's Scythe also comes with a commonly overlooked bonus; it provides a 5% bonus crit chance (the bonus does not stack). This bonus crit chance is both a slight increase to damage and survivability, and the healing can add up to insane values after obtaining a few scythes.

There is often a debate between the placement of Harvester's Scythe and Leeching Seed. Some may put Leeching Seed in A tier because it's guaranteed healing but if we look at the numbers, Harvester's Scythe is almost always superior. At a single stack with a 5% crit chance, we are healing 0.4 hp on average compared to Leeching Seed's 1. But with a single pair of Lens-Maker Glasses this healing quickly surpasses Leeching Seed at an average of 1.2 hp per hit. Harvester's Scythe will keep scaling as more crit is built and it will also slightly boost damage output.

Infusion

Having more health is very nice. With the extra HP, you can heal more from a variety of sources and survive game ending hits. With each stack increasing the maximum HP that you can have by an additional 100, duplicates of Infusions can be very useful. The biggest limitation on this item is that it requires you to actually kill 100 enemies per stacks, which can make getting to the max a bit difficult if you print too many. All in all, this item is great for any class (especially the squishy ones) and can synergize wonderfully with many other items in Risk of Rain 2.

Berzerker's Pauldron

Some people would rate this item as lower tier because of the inconsistency of the effect, but killing three enemies in one second actually occurs much more often than you think. I've seen this item proc many times during a teleporter event and the bonus +50% movement speed and +100% attack speed is a very noticeable bump in DPS. In long teleporter events, you will eventually need to clear adds. This item will significantly boost your DPS against the boss afterwards. Even if you're not targeting the adds, it's not rare that one AOE ability wipes out 3 small enemies instantly. The only issue with this item is that it doesn't scale well. Additional stacks only increase it's duration instead of increasing attack speed or movement speed. In late game the procs should be getting more and more common anyways.

Kjaro's Band

For a uncommon item, Kjaro's Band provides an insane boost to DPS on any class. Although it has a relatively lackluster 8% proc chance, the 500% damage fire tornado is nothing to sleep on. This proc can and will chunk enemies. Having just a single copy of Kjaro's Band is more than enough to boost on-hit DPS by a significant margin. Although it has an insane amount of damage when proceed, the biggest issue with this item is the fact that it has terrible scaling when stacked. Having additional Kjaro's bands does not increase the low proc rate; it only increases the damage of the proc. But even if the stacking of this item isn't as powerful as some others, the boost it grants to DPS is still strong and should not be overlooked. Plus, the tornado acts as a minor form of AOE than can be devastating if used with primordial cube.

Wax Quail

Imagine having a extra dash on the kit of any character. Well, that's exactly what the Wax Quail does! The Wax Quail provides a significant boost to the horizontal velocity of any character when sprint jumping. This boost can be used to kite enemies, quickly reposition, and even dodge attacks that otherwise couldn't be avoided. Because it's available on every sprint jump, the Wax Quail is most likely the best mobility item available in uncommon rarity. I'm always glad to get one of these (especially on classes like Artificer, Huntress, and Commando).

Uncommon Items: B Tier

Leeching Seed

Leeching Seed is a consistent healing option that works on all classes. During a fight, its most important purpose is to outheal the constant chip damage so that you can remain healthy. By itself, this item will not be able to outheal spike damage, however, so make sure that you're still dodging the right attacks. On certain classes, this item scales extremely poorly. One example would be MUL-T. Because he has a 0.4 proc coefficient on his nailgun, you would actually need 5 Leeching Seeds in order to start healing 2 health per hit (5 * 0.4 = 2).

Predatory Instincts

Attack speed buffs are one of the strongest buffs in Risk of Rain 2, but the buffs from Predatory Instincts come at a catch. Bonus attack speed must be built up from critical hits. This item can do absolutely nothing for you if you have no crit, but it can be absolutely devastating on certain late game on-hit builds. Also, just like the Harvester's Scythe, the Predatory Instincts has a hidden bonus of giving +5% crit chance on the first stack. Because it's not that great early, has buffs that expire extremely quickly, and has heavy reliance on other items, Predatory Instincts deserves its spot as a B on the Tier List.

Old War Stealth Kit

Old War Stealth Kit can be amazing during sticky situations as the invisibility and movement speed bonus can get you out of danger fast. This item will save your life in a pinch in the early to mid game and it will even remove the burn from blazing bosses when the invisibility procs. Therefore, it deserves a B Tier because it can be useful and has a bit more impact in a fight than most players think.

Runald's Band

Runald's band is a great item to have a single copy of, but immediately drops off in effectiveness as multiple stacks are obtained. This is because (like Kjaro's Band) it has a measly proc chance of 8% which does not increase when stacked. There is, however, a few significant differences between Runald's Band and Kjaro's band that leads to one being A Tier and the other being B Tier. While Kjaro's Band provides 500% damage on proc (+250% per stack), Runald's Band only provides 250% damage on proc (+125% per stack). Getting an extra 125% damage increase per stack is abysmal for an uncommon item. Additionally the ice blast slow is actually quite nice and works against all enemies, but the slow doesn't scale with stacks. Like Ukelele, this is a good item to have a single copy of.

War Horn

The 70% bonus attack speed is very good, but the fact that you need to have an equipment to utilize it makes it a bit weaker than other uncommon items. Having this item makes a lot of the low-cooldown equipment (such as Gnarled Woodspirte and Royal Capacitor) much stronger in the early game. Unfortunately, additional stacks only add to the duration of the buff which matters less and less in the late game (due to the existence of Fuel Cells and Gesture of the Drowned).

Uncommon Items: C Tier

Red Whip

I don't like this item at all. It only provides a 30% bonus to movement speed (not a lot) out of combat. I would much rather have an Energy Drink over this garbage. One second you might be moving fast, but the second you step into combat you're a sitting duck. Mercenary's dashes will even cancel the movement speed bonus too. If possible, grab another uncommon.

Chronobauble

The slow from Chronobauble can be nice on a lot of classes, but it doesn't stack well or provide any extra damage. Although some people find this item completely useless, I believe having a single copy is great for locking down a single target during a fight. Having additional stacks only increases the time the enemy spends slowed, which isn't very good considering a lot of other uncommon items can provide more impactful effects.

Uncommon Items: Situational

Rose Buckler

Rose Buckler is one of those items that is average on all but a few classes. First of all, the bonus armor that Rose Buckler provides is limited to sprinting. Therefore classes that actually make efficient use of a sprint can also make efficient use of this item well. Rose Buckler is great on Huntress and Mercenary because it gives them almost 100% uptime bonus armor. Similarly, MUL-T's transport mode also is considered a sprint, so having a Rose Buckler can increase his tankiness during a escape or when charging through a mob of enemies. I'd consider this a B Tier item on all other classes though. This decision isn't because the bonus armor isn't enough (It is, just look at armor scaling here[riskofrain2.fandom.com]), but because the armor is limited to sprinting. Most people don't die during a sprint to begin with, though having more armor during the sprint is definitely nice.

Bandolier

Bandolier is one of those crazy items that is exceptionally good on classes that rely on their abilities to excel. A class like Huntress needs the Bandolier in order to maintain uptime on Laser Glaive spam. A class like Mercenary can use the Bandolier to reset Eviscerate for combo chains and increased survivability. Mercenary also benefits significantly from the bonus as he is melee and picks up ammo packs instantly. The droprate of an ammo pack based on stacks of Bandolier is wrong in the ingame description. It actually scales by the equation:

y=1-1/((x+1)^0.33)

Thus it is not wise to stack too many bandoliers, as the increased chance to obtain a cooldown reset becomes negligible at a certain point. Obtaining an ammo pack also comes at the requirement of defeating an enemy which makes it unwise to sacrifice damage for Bandoliers.

This item can be insane for cooldown reliant classes, but it's relatively mediocre for other classes. The need to collect the ammo pack can put one in a dangerous position for a reward that doesn't benefit the class as much as others. Therefore it obtains an S Tier for classes that need resets to function but gets a B Tier for classes that don't.

Rare Items: S Tier

Brilliant Behemoth

If the direct 60% damage increase to everything you do wasn't good enough already, now you also have AOE on everything. Although it stacks poorly (only +1.5m range per stack), it makes S Tier because just having a single copy of this item is enough to make a run a lot smoother. Plus, it's not likely that you'll get many duplicates of a rare item in a run.

Ceremonial Dagger

By itself the bonus damage from Ceremonial Dagger is quite impressive, but Ceremonial Dagger is one of those rares that you want as many stacks as possible of. Because each stack provides an additional damage (+150% damage to each), a stack of Ceremonial Daggers is many times stronger than a single one. This occurs because every enemy that dies (including ones that die to daggers) can release more daggers. Combined with the effects of Will o' the Wisp and Gasoline, it is possible to start completely unstoppable chains that will wipe the map in an instant. If it has no other targets to seek out, it can easily chunk bosses too.

Unstable Tesla Coil

The damage from this bad boy is just crazy. 400% base damage onto three nearby enemies is no joke at all. Having an Unstable Tesla Coil will make your life significantly easier as it can take out nearby enemies without your help. This item is especially powerful on Engineer (his turrets inherit the ability to make it three times as powerful) as it is a solid option for clearing out the small monsters that walk under his bubble shield.

57 Leaf Clover

Many people underestimate the power of the 57 Leaf Clover. Because it can reroll almost all random effects (proc chance and crit), it does a lot for you in the background. The equation to calculate the new proc chance with x amount of clovers and p proc chance is:

y = 1 - (1 - p)^(x + 1)

As someone who enjoys utilizing on-hit items to their maximum potential, this mechanic is simply crazy to me.

• Don't have enough crit with only 70%? Now you have 91%
  
• Ukelele proc chance too low at 25%? Now you have 43.75%
  
• Kjaro's Band needs a boost in occurrence? Now you have 15.36% proc chance
  
• Need Sticky Bomb to get even more devastating? You get the point

This is a rare item that scales in effectiveness as you get more items. The bonus DPS that this item grants you across all rolls is invaluable. Sadly the 57 Leaf Clover cannot reroll some of the most important dice rolls in the game (Chests, Block, etc), but this is good for balance. Even without these rerolls, I believe the 57 Leaf Clover is easily S Tier due to its significant DPS boost. Or maybe I'm just unlucky as hell.

Sentient Meat Hook

The Sentient Meat Hook can be used to setup combo kills against groups of enemies without the help of a Primordial Cube. Although the damage is relatively low (100% per hook), the effect can be devastating. The bunched up group of enemies will get shredded by the burn from Gasoline and Will o' the Wisp. Sometimes hooking enemies can pull them into a unfavorable position, but this result is uncommon. For the most part, the Sentient Meat Hook is an excellent rare for setting up combo kills which can be especially potent if done near a boss.

When stacking Sentient Meat Hooks, their hook-able targets increases by five and proc chance increases by this equation:

y = 1-1/(0.20x + 1)

Although the low base damage that doesn't increase with stacks the proc chance scales poorly, Sentient Meat Hook gets an S Tier because it significantly boosts the strength of any AOE build.

Alien Head

Alien Head is an all around powerful rare that will enable you to play more aggressively whilst being safer than ever before. For what you get, there are no downsides. Pick up one if you have the opportunity. You'll definitely notice the cooldown reduction.

Rare Items: A Tier

Soulbound Catalyst

Soulbound Catalyst is a powerful rare that will quickly reset the cooldowns of your equipment items in battle. I wouldn't underestimate how much this item can help you in a pinch, but it is quite reliant on other items in order to live up to its fullest potential. You'll need sufficient AOE from Gasoline and Will o' Wisp to get big bursts of cooldown reduction and you'll need Fuel Cells in order to store the charges you get back. Therefore I'd rank Soulbound Catalyst as A Tier.

Hardlight Afterburner

In most cases, due to good cooldown management, I don't find myself needing extra charges on my utility skill. But even if so, the Hardlight Afterburner is always welcome. Having an extra two charges of my utility skill means that I can have a backup in case something goes haywire. The 33% cooldown reduction is also quite significant and is very noticeable ingame.

Wake of Vultures

Now that the "lose half of your health" bug has been patched out, Wake of Vultures is actually quite powerful in its own right. Because you will be constantly killing elites, you should be constantly getting buffs. Each type of elite will give its own buff to the player and multiple buffs can be applied at one time to the character. These buffs include:

• Blazing - Adds a fire trail to the player, the bonus damage this trail provides is decent and can damage the enemies following the player. Also adds fire damage to the players attacks, which can really add up on on-hit builds. The effect is equivalent to the bonus Ifrit's Distinction provides.
  
• Glacial - Adds a slow to the player's attacks. It can be useful but it's mediocre at best. The effect is equivalent to the bonus Her Biting Embrace provides.
  
• Overloading - Makes half of the player's health shields and allows the player's attacks to attach lightning bombs to enemies. The lightning bombs are actually great for bonus DPS and the amount of health you get back when this procs is quite impressive. The effect is equivalent to the bonus Silence Between Two Strikes provides
  
• Malachite - Gives the player the ability to spawn the spines periodically and adds bonus damage to the player’s attacks.

With a good on-hit build, Wake of Vultures should not be overlooked since the buff from overloading enemies provides such a massive increase to DPS (Each lightning bomb does an extra 50% damage, has an amazing AOE range, and a great proc chance). Because of all these influential bonuses, Wake of Vultures deserves A Tier.

Rejuvenation Rack

This is nice item to have on any character. It doubles the healing from all sources and makes it so that you can keep your health high more consistently. Additional stacks will increase the bonus additively: increasing doubled healing to tripled, quadrupled, and so on. Healing items appear frequently in Risk of Rain 2 and in many cases a single Rejuvenation Rack is all it takes to significantly improve your survivability. Unfortunately a single Malachite elite can easily ruin healing builds, so approach them with caution.

Aegis

The extra healing being converted into a 20% max health shield reminds me of the Overheal rune in League of Legends (and judging by the icon, it's probably a reference to it). The extra health from the shield is indeed very powerful and can allow you to tank hits that would have otherwise left you dead, but the effect can be quite lackluster compared to the impact of other rare items. Nevertheless Aegis is still a great pickup for any character looking for more durability.

Rare Items: B Tier

Frost Relic

Frost Relic, while cool looking, is not strong at all. To begin with, the damage you get from it isn't very good. Doing only a total of 150% damage per second total, it fails to do any serious damage against enemies within its range. Which leads me to the second point, the range is tiny. Because the range is so small and the damage is so low, it has a hard time being properly utilized by anything other than Engineer's turrets and Mercenary. Finally, the biggest issue with Frost Relic is the need to kill an enemy to proc. The enemies that you'll end up killing quickly are the ones which the Frost Relic might actually have an effect on, which actually reduces the overall effectiveness of the item. This item could be used to supplement damage and has no downsides (aside from triggering explosive barrels without your permission), but its lackluster effect lands it in B Tier.

Rare Items: C Tier

Happiest Mask

While I do like the ghosts that are spawned from the Happiest Mask (and it can make copies of bosses too), I find that the main purpose ghosts serve is as meatshields to distribute aggro from many enemies. Because of its low proc rate (10% on kill), the only way to summon enough ghosts to make an impact is to kill a massive amount of enemies. Unfortunately, if you can do that then you won't even need the Happiest Mask at all. Getting this item during late game is an amazing quality of life solution as the ghosts will mop up adds without the help of the player. The fact that there is little to no impact when getting this item as a first rare, however, is what makes it C Tier.

Rare Items: Situational

H3AD-5T v2

This item is one of Mercenary's favorites. First of all, it completely cancels out fall damage. This means that an accidental eviscerate into the ground will no longer consume your entire health bar (bug has been fixed). Mercenary also tends to spend a lot of time in the air over the enemies so he can actually utilize the stomp effect for bonus damage during his combos. This stomp is also a great tool to engage with as it will put the Mercenary right over his target in perfect range of a Whirlwind or Eviscerate. I'd consider this item a A Tier item on most other classes as the increased jump height is one of the most consistent ways to escape an ice elite's freeze.

N'kuhana's Opinion

N'kuhana's Opinion is a strange item. Because it needs to store your healing in order to deal damage, it's only good on builds that have an insane amount of healing. This means that Engineer is the only class that can truly utilize this item to its fullest potential as he has the constant healing from Bustling Fungus. Additionally, Engineer turrets will also have a copy of N'kuhana's Opinion and will be able to fire their own skulls as well. The damage from the skulls are based on max HP, so taking Transcendence with this item is NOT recommended. As for other classes, I'd rate it a C Tier simply because they often don't achieve enough healing for it to be worth it over other rares.

Dio's Best Friend

What else can you do when you come across a blazing boss?
This item is actually amazing on all classes, but it's effectiveness really depends on how good the player is. I've seen some players die with this thing on the most preventable deaths.

Also I would like to note that Dio's Best Friend is crazy on engineer as it means that every turret he places (while he has the item unused) will resurrect (once for every copy of Dio). This occurs because each turret, when placed, takes a snapshot of the Engineer's current item inventory and copies it. Thus a turret's resurrection will not consume the Engineer's Dio's Best Friend, but it will consume the copy currently in the turret's item inventory.

Brainstalks

Just like Bandolier, Brainstalks is bonkers on classes that rely on their abilities for damage. No cooldowns is the enabler for Mercenary's perma eviscerate and Huntress' glaive spam. This often results in another elite kill which can easily snowball into an insane amount of damage overall. Brainstalks scales amazingly into the late game where elites are crawling around everywhere, but it's only good on the few classes that can make the most out of having no cooldowns. This rare can range from S Tier on cooldown dependent classes like Huntress and Mercenary to C Tier on primary attack focused classes like MUL-T.

Equipment

Introduction

Equipment are a subset of items that add an additional skill to the player's arsenal. Although they often come with extremely powerful effects, equipment items have very long cooldowns to compensate. Equipment items drop from their own chests and therefore deserve to have their own rankings.

Ranking

Because of the significant downtime between casts, I will be ranking equipment based on their impact in the overall tempo of a fight.
S: This item is exceptionally powerful and can easily make a difficult fight significantly easier. With Fuel Cells / Gesture of the Drowned / Soulbound Catalyst, this item becomes god tier.
A: This item is powerful and can support the player in a difficult fight. Good synergy with Fuel Cells / Gesture of the Drowned / Soulbound Catalyst.
B: This item is mediocre at best but can find some good uses in certain scenarios.
C: This item isn't very useful at all.

Equipment: S Tier

Foreign Fruit

A consumption of a Foreign Fruit will heal you by 50% of your max health. I cannot stress how important this is for prolonged fights. You WILL end up taking damage. This item WILL end up saving you. Because you can heal in any situation, the Foreign Fruit acts as a panic button for players of all skill levels.

Preon Accumulator

Although you need to charge for a few seconds before firing a ball of death, the Preon Accumulator is the number one way equipment for bursting down bosses. Dealing a total of 4000% damage on a direct hit to a boss (and lots of extra damage to the adds surrounding the boss), the Preon Accumulator can get rid of a boss before it has any chance to react. This item does fall out of favor over the Royal Capacitor (for boss damage) in the late game, but it still remains a top tier choice for it's ability to deal area damage (600% damage per second to nearby enemies). Out of all the standard equipment, the Preon Accumulator rivals the Primordial Cube at being the most efficient in clearing hordes of enemies.

Royal Capacitor

The damage from this item on single target is absolutely crazy. Not only does it deal 3000% damage on hit, but it also stuns nearby monsters, has unlimited range, and has one of the shortest base cooldowns out of any equipment. This item is just too useful in any situation. It can nuke bosses, take out dangerous elite spawns, and defeat difficult enemies from far out of their line-of-sight. The Royal Capacitor also scales the best with any sort of equipment synergy item. With enough Fuel Cells, your main attack can just become a Royal Capacitor lightning strike.

Equipment: A Tier

Primordial Cube

The Primordial Cube is an amazing item because it sets up AOE combos from items such as Sticky Bomb, Gasoline, and Will o' the Wisp. If done properly, the resulting chain explosion can severely damage the boss. Also, on certain stages, you can use the Cube to drag small enemies off of the map. I've found myself doing this once when there were too many adds and I lacked an AOE option. Which leads me to the reason why Primordial Cube is in A Tier: it's heavily reliant on the player having certain items.

The Back-Up

Imagine having an army of drones that cost no money to summon so it doesn't matter that they have terrible AI. With The Back-Up, you can summon your own horde to fight against the horde of mobs that spawn. Although the individual damage from each drone is relatively low, a few Fuel Cells can create a storm of drones that will melt through bosses in the early game. Despite this strength, The Back-Up falls off in effectiveness in the mid-game when bosses and adds get significantly tankier. The Back-Up still is a good option in supplementing damage and distracting enemies, however, and thus obtains a spot in A Tier.

Equipment: B Tier

Disposable Missile Launcher

If only the missile targeting wasn't trash
No, seriously the missile targeting in this game is just terrible. While they are able to properly seek out air enemies, the problem occurs if they target a enemy on the ground. As soon as the target dies, the remaining missiles proceed to charge into the ground.
The recent update has drastically improved missile targeting. Nevertheless, when fighting in enclosed spaces, the missiles will often hit nearby walls and do no damage. When this doesn't happen, however, this can be a great equipment for damage against bosses. It can also be a good cleanup equipment after the boss is down.

Ocular HUD

With an Ocular HUD, you get the equivalent of 10 Lens-Maker's Glasses on your character for eight seconds. This bonus is likely one of the most devastating early game as you can quickly plow through bosses with the double damage. Unfortunately, this bonus is also the most short lived and the Ocular HUD quickly falls out of favor over any other equipment as the player obtains more and more crit. Thus this item obtains a spot in B Tier as it scales poorly but has a definitive purpose for the early game.

The Crowdfunder

Because it costs money to use, The Crowdfunder is definitely the worst early game item by a significant margin. It begins to climb up in effectiveness, however, in the mid/late game when cash isn't as tight. The damage this item can do is great when firing and can be especially important on Mercenary as a safe way to deal damage from range. I've only used this item a few times and each time it's seemed relatively lackluster for how much I'm spending to fire it. But it does seem to have a set purpose and can be relatively powerful in the right hands in the right situation.

Gnarled Woodsprite

The Gnarled Woodsprite is especially good on MUL-T as the bonus regeneration supplements MUL-T's naturally high base HP. Additionally switching between equipment counts as "sending" the woodsprite to MUL-T which will heal you 10% of your max HP every switch. Now that this bug has been patched, it's relatively hard to find a good use for this guy in singleplayer. Sending him to drones is hardly ever worth it but it can be done in a pinch.

Equipment: C Tier

Milky Chrysalis

Although flight can be useful for early game fights, the Milky Chrysalis quickly falls out of favor in the midgame. While flying, you can still get hit by a lot of different attacks. Additionally, if you don't have a lot of Fuel Cells, the effect doesn't last long enough. If you do have the Fuel Cells to sustain flight for a while, it's just better to switch to a more effective piece of equipment.

Radar Scanner

The Radar Scanner could be good for clearing out levels, but if you're investing all your time in finding and obtaining every chest in the map your pacing is going to be pretty bad. Ditch this item over something that can actually help you against spawns. If you're playing MUL-T you could hold one of these to help find chests faster, but I personally don't find this item to be useful at all (since it doesn't distinguish between chests, 3D printers, and shrines).

Eccentric Vase

I really can't find a good use for this item. Aside from using it once or twice to reach an unreachable newt altar, the fact that it takes up a potential equipment slot is what makes this wormhole so bad. I would definitely reconsider it's place if the cooldown was shortened by half, but currently it just seems like a prismatic trial/speedrun exclusive item.

Fuel Array

Making the run harder is always fun.

Lunar Items

Introduction

Lunar Items are a unique subset of items that are almost always situational and strongly dependent on player builds. Therefore I will be ranking these items under the assumption that the player understands how to use these items properly (with the right build).

Ranking

Lunar Items are items that come with both advantages and disadvantages, so I will be ranking the items based on
S: This item provides extremely strong advantages with mitigable disadvantages.
A: This item provides advantages with mitigable disadvantages.
B: This item provides advantages with unmitigable disadvantages.
C: This item isn't very useful at all.

Lunar Items: S Tier

Shaped Glass

Shaped Glass provides an insane amount of DPS boost for the cost of half of your max health. While it can be dangerous to play on such low health, there are many items to reduce the risk. Picking up Tougher Times, Personal Energy Shields, Infusions, and Transcendences can ease the burden of playing on a low amount of HP. In return, you'll also have significantly more damage than before.

Transcendence

By transforming your entire health bar into a larger amount of shields, Transcendence significantly increases your survivability. This does come at a cost, however, as you can no longer heal. In order to regenerate your shields, you must not take damage for 5 seconds. While the shields do come back extremely quickly when regenerating, the downside of no longer being able to heal is significant. A lot of items from every rarity exist simply to heal your character; those will no longer do anything at all. Therefore, its a wise idea to obtain Infusions and Tougher Times in order to maintain a large shield pool and stay safe. With careful play, the downside of not being able to heal can be mitigated.

Gesture of the Drowned

Although you'll always be casting your equipment whenever they come up, a 50% reduction in cooldown is extremely powerful. Combined with equipment cooldown reducing items such as Fuel Cells, Soulbound Catalyst, and more Gesture of the Drowned, you can begin spam casting equipment at an unstoppable level. Watch missiles flood the screen, feel the wrath of 10 billion drones (and 1 fps), and hear the nonstop cronch crunch of foreign fruit. Gesture of the Drowned is one of those items where the downside is mitigated by the sheer strength of the upside. Just be careful, the loss of choice in using equipment actives could be detrimental if unprepared.

Spinel Tonic

Drugs are fun! Take one sip of the Spinel Tonic and your character will instantly become addicted, losing stats when it wears off. With enough cooldown reduction on items, there is no downtime on the tonic and you will never feel the negative effects. Therefore Spinel Tonic deserves S Tier as it singlehandedly provides the strongest buff in the game at no cost at all.

Lunar Items: A Tier

Glowing Meteorite

Glowing Meteorite can be pretty dangerous if used without notice, but if used carefully with full health, it can do a great amount of damage to everything in a wide range. It's amazing for clearing out the adds in a boss spawn and the indicators are pretty noticeable on the ground so they are easy to dodge with enough movespeed or mobility. Be careful with picking up this item when when you have Gesture of the Drowned. You can easily kill yourself and possibly crash the game if the cooldown is low enough. Although it has some pretty deadly interactions, Glowing Meteorite deserves an A rank because it can be devastating to hordes of enemies at minimal risk if used correctly by the player.

Effigy of Grief

Effigy of Grief is actually quite a powerful item when used correctly because it significantly slows and decreases the armor of all characters in the area of affect, it can be set up on bosses in order to significantly limit their mobility and make them a lot squishier. To avoid the negative effects of the effigy, simply move out of the range of effect. This item can be especially good on classes with ways to exit the area after placing it. The equipment slot could be saved for better equipment, however, so only take this if you know you are going to play heavily around area denial and area control.

Lunar Items: B Tier

Brittle Crown

Brittle Crown's downsides makes it a difficult choice for a lot of players. On one hand, you have an opportunity to earn significantly more gold taking down enemies. This comes at a huge price, however, as you lose gold relative to the damage you take. This downside is unmitigable as the amount of money you lose can vary between the amount you are hit for or percent of health lost (whichever is larger). This means that this downside will always be a large concern throughout the entire run. Take this item at your own risk, I've seen some good players make wonders out of this item but I've seen others become completely incapacitated with it.

Corpsebloom

Although doubling your healing is great, Corpsebloom caps your max healing to 10% of your max HP per second. This is a drastic downside as you will no longer be able to immediately heal up when taking spike damage. This will make getting to low hp significantly more dangerous as you must survive for ten seconds in order to heal your max HP's worth of health. The bonus healing, however, is relatively potent and can certainly be a great supplement to certain builds that don't have anywhere near enough healing for late game.

It should also be noted that Corpsebloom stacks abysmally. Even if you get an additional 100% healing, your max healing per second drops by 50%. This means that multiple stacks of Corpsebloom cap your healing at a value so low that the bonus healing is completely worthless. If you are going to get one, stick with one.

Lunar Items: C Tier

Hellfire Tincture

Although the damage is pretty potent in the early game, Hellfire Tincture becomes significantly weaker as the game progresses. Considering that this item will take up your equipment slot and damage you for little benefit, Hellfire Tincture deserves C Tier. I’ve seen some Mercenaries use this item to support their damage (the only class that can actually make use of the pitiful range), but I’d always rather have a Foreign Fruit or a Preon Accumulator .There are much better early game equipment to use if you really need help in the early game (ones that don't cost lunar too).

Conclusion

USE SHRINE OF ORDER

Changelog

June 29, 2019

- Added Ranking on New Items
- Updated Ranking on All Characters
- Updated Ranking on Ukulele
- Updated Ranking on Sticky Bomb

April 17, 2019

- Updated Ranking on Huntress
- Updated Ranking on Wake of Vultures

April 12, 2019

- Updated Ranking on Harvester's Scythe
- Updated Ranking on Leeching Seed

April 11, 2019

- Updated Ranking on Gasoline
- Updated Ranking on Sentient Meat Hook

April 10, 2019

- Guide Posted

[Potor10]

Hey Woods! thanks for the supportive comment, but unfortunately I don't think I have enough experience in game to make a good updated tierlist for this new update. The guide will still probably remain on hiatus for now.

All in all, the guide was designed to be lighthearted, fun information, but I still don't want to intentionally mislead people into taking items when I personally don't have a lot of experience using them. I was playing the game a ton back in 2019; not so much now.

If you're looking for a good tierlist with nice information, I highly recommend checking out woolie on youtube.

There have been some significant changes since scorched acres so almost the entire list is obsolete.

[Woods]

can u update for anniversary update <3

[starry eyes]

I very much agree, wall of text.

[LordVollmilch]

you put the Sh!t Tier with Huntress before the other Tiers, was that on purpose?

[C DRIVE NOT FOUND]

guys

[Potor10]

Hey Zarklord,
Sorry that the Huntress rating is not to your liking. She used to be B Tier on the list and due to a better understanding of the game (and other player's opinions) I decided to move her up. I was relatively busy this summer and couldn't find much time to write up an entirely new description for her so I left it unchanged. Thanks for pointing it out though, I'll do my best to update it with proper reasons why she deserves S Tier.

[Zarklord]

bruh, you literaly put huntress at S tier, but failed to say literaly anything good about her.
you say that she suffers without good items.
she has low hp.
she has only okay mobility.
and she struggles against bosses when there are swarms of enemies due to auto aim.
FOLLOW YOUR OWN DANG TIER LIST RULES.

[Valkerion™]

@Liro yeah, I've done that lol. The one item that isn't reduced by shaped glass. It's only relevant to super min maxed builds tho, for people that likely edited files to give themselves unlimited coins, and are playing well past standard limits...

[Liro Raériyo]

it should be noted that shaped glass multiplies every time for both effects, meaning with 11 shaped glass your damage is increased to X2048, while your health is reduced to %0.09765625...

personal shields however are completely unaffected by shaped glass, so if you can stack 40 (thats 1000 shield) of that you will still have decent shields.

[Skenjin]

I must have read the patch notes wrong when they came out then, since I just checked the in game description and you are right. Shame, I thought it was made better than that.