Item synergies

A list of item synergies to help better understand which items work best together.
[Updated with Artifacts 2.0 content]

Introduction

Risk of Rain 2 has loads of items with their unique effects and some of them make other items way more useful. In this guide I'll try to list some of the combinations that in my opinion work best with some added commentary to explain it.

NOTE: this guide is still WIP and will be updated with new stuff when I can! I'll try to list as much of the combinations as possible while also making sure they're working well in-game.

Synergies

Lens-Maker's Glasses/Ocular HUD

+ Harvester's Scythe
+ Predatory Instincts

Both proc on critical hits, meaning that Glasses and HUD increase their proc chances respectively. With Scythe and Predatory cap Glasses at 9 stacks since they both give you 5% Crit chance. Without them soft cap is 10 stacks, extra stacks will do nothing because you'll already be at 100% Crit.

Kjaro's Band

+ Runald's Band

If one of the bands procs, other immediately procs as well.

War Horn

+ Any equipment with low/reduced cooldown

Frequent (up to 100% uptime) +70% attack speed bonus.

Gesture Of The Drowned/Fuel Cell/Soulbound Catalyst

+ Any equipment (except Crowdfunder)

Reduces equipment cooldown. This also synergizes with War Horn, activating its effect more frequently. With 1 Gesture and 3 more Gestures or Cells (can be like 2 Cells and 1 Gesture) you can achieve 100% uptime on Spinel Tonic, giving you a significant boost to all your stats with no drawbacks (unless you unequip it).

NOTE: Crowdfunder has no cooldown, meaning that with Gesture it'll be active 100% of the time, immediately spending your gold. This can literally soft block you, especially early game!

The Crowdfunder

+ Ghor's Tome
+ Brittle Crown

Tome drops gold chunks on kills that give you a lot of cash. More cash = more Crowdfunder shooting. Crown gives you gold for every enemy hit, so if you don't get hit yourself too often, you should have almost non-stop Crowdfunder uptime.

Old Guillotine

+ Brainstalks

Indirect synergy. Guillotine allows you to kill elites much faster, activating Stalks. Especially useful later in the run when elites are becoming much more frequent.

Aegis/N'kuhana's Opinion

+ Any healing items

Most effective with Crit+Scythe and Bustling Fungus as those give you most consistent healing.

NOTE: Lepton Daisy works really well for those too, but it's only working during teleporter event, only at certain intervals and only inside the area.

Shattering Justice

+ Any attack speed increasing items/their combinations

Allows you to trigger armor reduction effect much easier.

Transcendence

+ Personal Shield Generator
+ Old War Stealthkit (5+)
+ Strides of Heresy (2-3)

+8% more shields with each new stack. Pretty straightforward. Stealthkit and Strides give you a period of time, during which you won't/can't be attacked by enemies, allowing shields to recharge.

NOTE: Stacking more than 3 of Strides is not recommended. Its healing will do nothing and you'll be outside of battle for too long.

Rejuvenation Rack

+ Any healing/regeneration items

Significant healing boost. Works perfectly with above mentioned Aegis and N'kuhana's Opinion.

Helfire Tincture

+ Razorwire
+ Tougher Times
+ Repulsion Armor Plate
+ Infusion

Burning effect triggers Razorwire, quickly attacking enemies in range. Basically extra damage on top of Tincture's.

Tougher Times can block Tincture's burning, Armor Plate simply reduces burn damage. Those two items help to reduce overall damage you'd take.

Infusion increases your maximum health. Since Tincture damage is based off of your health, this increases the burn damage you deal.

NOTE: keep in mind that Razorwire activates only if you take damage. Tougher Times can block incoming damage, so it reduces frequency of Razorwire effect.

Primordial Cube

+ Gasoline
+ Will-o'-the-wisp

Groups enemies together, alowing on kill effects to hit more enemies at once. Useful for activating Berserker's Pauldron effect.

Death Mark

+ Tri-Tip Dagger
+ Gasoline
+ Chronobauble
+ Runald's Band
+ Shattering Justice
+ Effigy of Grief
+ Wake of Vultures

Death Mark significantly increases your damage output if you can reliably apply four or more debuffs onto an enemy.

NOTE: if survivor is able to apply debuffs (like Acrid's poison, REX's weakness or Artificer's freezing) these debuffs count for Death Mark activation.

NOTE: each slowing effect is its own debuff! For example, Carbonizer turrets with Runald's bands and Chronobaubles will be able to cast three separate debuffs that count for Death Mark activation.

These are the synergies I could think of so far. I didn't include movement speed combos because usually it just comes to your character's skills and just collecting hooves, drinks and whips.

"Universal" Items

Unstable Tesla Coil

Can proc on hit effects, including Ukulele and Sentient Meat Hook.

Ukulele/Sentient Meat Hook

Just as Tesla Coil can proc on hit effects.

57 Leaf Clover

Increases the chances of on hit and on kill effects to trigger. Those include AtG Missile Mk. 1's rockets, crit, bleed, Sticky Bomb attaching, Bandolier boxes dropping, etc.

Above mentioned items can help with some previously mentioned synergies, or even improve them thanks to hitting multiple targets or increasing some proc chances. They are definitely items you might want to consider getting in your run. (I know 3/4 of them are Red items. But Bazaar exists to help, and sometimes it's worth trading 5 Green items for one of these)

End

I hope this mess of a guide helps at least someone. :P

If there's something I missed or isn't actually working, please tell me, and I'll try to edit it quickly then. Other than that, good luck! And let your run be successful and full of mayhem...

[green bean]

add shatterspleen to crit effects, more crit = more bleed more bleed = EXPLOSIONS!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

[Raven]

Transcendence and plasma shrimp is also a godly combo, as it makes essentially your entire health bar the requirement to shoot plasma shrimp, so you're shooting them with every single hit

[DBBEUR]

bungus + rejuvenation rack

[yes nooo same monke]

Highjinx you forgot the will of the wisp/void version

[Lolimboi]

soldiers syringe + leeching seed

[Highjinx]

AtG + Ceremonial Daggers + Ukulele

[TheKoolClay]

what about about sticky bombs and AtG missiles. since the sticky bombs do 400% base and missiles deal 400% total that's an occasional, auto-re-targeting 160,000% base damage. if they both crit then OOF.

[Motianwang]

Strides of heresy + Hellfire tincture + Gesture/Cells

With enough stacks you become a invincible bioball.

[Alespill]

I don't disagree with that, but unlike "90% of items in the game" it has a limited time frame during which you need to get enough of its debuff stacks in order for its actual effect to trigger. In other words, attack speed not just makes Shattering Justice better, but allows for actually much more reliable debuff activations, which can be especially hard on some slower attack speed survivors.

[v0id]

"Shattering Justice
+ Any attack speed increasing items/their combinations"
wow a cool synergy its not like 90% of items in the game get better with more attack speed