weapon upgrades and unit double team selections

advice on selecting or utilizing upgrades in the game

up front intro

I did no theorycrafting or math for this guide, a lot of these are my personal judgments and a little bit of info from the game wiki. I have played this game more than a few times now, including having recently played some multiplayer as all three factions.

here is a link to a guide that has actual stats from the game files: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1407382730

even so, I based some of the ratings on my judgments which I stand by, because the game really does not tell you much about how many of it's mechanics work and in some cases it's clear that some abilities are more useful than others. additionally, while I might rate some units as being weak, that tends to be specifically about their double team use, there really aren't many bad units in the game.

Axe Treatments

Razor's Edge
effect: raw damage increase
rating: ok
it's one of the first upgrades for the axe available, and it does a flat damage upgrade. the only real strength is that it's available early, because otherwise the damage increase is nearly unnoticeable by itself. again, not knowing the actual numbers it's hard to say how much of a difference this even makes, but it's clearly an axe treatment for the start of the game.

Eternal Fire
effect: sets enemies on fire
rating: ok
it looks cool, but otherwise the only real strength is that it is available at the same time as the previous upgrade. it's up to you if you want to damage enemies a little bit more over time, you could conceivably deal more damage by hitting a large number of targets one by one and letting them burn, but it won't ever be for much damage.

Bloodlust
effect: increase damage per kill for a short duration
rating: weak
against single large targets there isn't much use in this treatment, so it's best against chopping up as many weak targets as possible, which sucks when trying to do overslaughter quests or picking off individual enemies.

Chain Lightning
effect: each strike arcs lightning to a nearby enemy
rating: very good
against everything but individual targets, this is a great weapon. unlike bloodlust, the effect of this treatment is always active, and it's pretty significant. similarly to eternal fire, it looks really cool when applied to your axe. the only downside is the price which is 120 points, a lot more than the starter treatments but well worth it.

Soul Sucker
effect: steals enemy health when you hit them
rating: good
it does no extra damage, but against tough enemies you can heal without having to run away. I usually prefer to constantly hack away at everything without blocking so I enjoyed using this a lot. however, it is expensive and unlocked about halfway into the game.

Black Tear
effect: temporarily reduces enemy damage when you hit them
rating: ok
similar to eternal fire, this could be useful when supporting your army by switching targets often. otherwise it's the same concept as soul sucker but for babies. your call but any treatment this situational should be avoided.

Steel-Quilled
effect: enemies explode on death if you hit them with this
rating: weak
you are required to complete all the overslaughter hunting quests first to get this (invalidating the ability to summon laser panthers with the call of the wild solo), and the damage it deals only works when an enemy dies near another enemy. it probably also damages you when they explode, I don't know because I don't care enough to test it. chain lightning easily beats this.

Blade of Ormagöden
effect: cosmetic
rating: ok
it's a free cosmetic available as soon as you get to a motor forge. it does look good, but that's it.

Guitar Strings

Brawlers
effect: increased damage from combo attacks
rating: good
one of two upgrades for combo damage, this is the weaker one but is available much earlier. again, unsure of the exact numbers, but combo attacks do a lot of extra damage, so increasing that is always helpful in every situation.

Destroyers
effect: larger increase to combo damage
rating: great
costs a bit more and available later in the game, but a more powerful version of brawlers. if you don't do many combos then other strings might be preferable, but you should learn to do combos.

Super Shakers
effect: increase to damage and radius of earthshaker
rating: ok
depends on how much you enjoy using earthshaker. the radius was only slightly larger, and the damage amount was unnoticeable, but during stage battles doing area of effect knockbacks can save a lot of your troops. if there is one clear benefit to these, it's the knockback distance, which is much higher so it's good crowd control.

Shredders
effect: reduction in solo cooldowns and heat buildup
rating: weak
the point of solo cooldowns is to let you do other fun stuff like firing your car weapons or double teaming, so the real effect here is just using your guitar to zap things more often. that can be helpful but it doesn't prevent all heat buildup, so I recommend other strings.

High Voltage
effect: increased range and damage of shocker (basic guitar attacks)
rating: good
blasting enemies at long range is definitely helpful, especially in stage battles where you want to stun enemy units out of range of your axe. damage increase was again unnoticeable but it's nice to know it's there.

Pyromaniacs
effect: increased damage of fire based guitar attacks
rating: weak
a less useful brawlers/destroyers since it only applies to the 2 attacks you can do that are fire based. the supposed "major damage increase" is probably only about 20% more anyway.

The Love Giver
effect: your charged fire attack is a different color and eddie says some different voice lines during them
rating: weak
they are another free cosmetic available at the start of the game, but you might find eddie's yammering a little annoying every time you free a bound dragon while trying to listen to the music.

Guitar Solos - Universal

Summon Flag
effect: places rally point for new units during stage battles
rating: good
it can be helpful to already have your fresh troops part of the way closer to the enemy while you are busy chopping people up or running them over. the solo only needs to be played once to plant the flag, and then can be quickly picked up and dropped. the solo can be a bit slow so you do want to make sure this is done early in a battle.

Fan Tribute
effect: constructs merch booths so you can gather fans needed to build your army
rating: the best
obviously you will need this, and it's the first solo you learn specifically for stage battles. used whenever you see an open fan geyser, but locked if there are enemies nearby.

Rally Army
effect: directs all your forces to your current location
rating: ok
every once in awhile it can be helpful to make sure every last soldier is coming to you while you are in front of the enemy base. otherwise, this won't be getting used. it's not bad, it's just very situational.

Summon Vehicle
effect: summon the faction specific car
rating: great
necessary for the single player of course. in online battles or single player stage battles, summoning your car only helps a little, but it does protect you as long as you are driving it. online battles do not allow your car to use weapons and ramming can be very pointless, but we're all playing for the single player campaign anyway.

Guitar Solos - Ironheade

Relic Raiser
stage level: 0
effect: reveals hidden treasure during single player
rating: great
no use against an enemy army, but you will need to use this to raise motor forges as well as unlocking some new music in buried metal. that always helps, spiritually.

Anvil of Burden
stage level: 1
effect: locks enemy leaders to the ground for a short time, slowing their movement and preventing flight
rating: ok
obviously only has the one use, and killing an enemy leader unit helps a bit. essentially the weakest anti leader solo of the three factions.

Facemelter
stage level: 2
effect: single shot of massive damage in an area around you
rating: good
can instantly kill some basic units, and does heavy damage to large ones and leaders too. vehicles take less damage. a great way to start a fight when both sides meet up.

Bring it on Home
stage level: 4
effect: a burning zeppelin crashes and explodes like a bomb above you about 5 seconds after you complete the solo, also burning the ground near impact for awhile
rating: very good
the solo is a bit long, and you learn it late in the single player game or a max level stage online, and the blimp has a bit of a delay before it hits, but there's no denying the effectiveness. I like flying to an enemy stage immediately and launching one of these, just to make them suffer.

Battle Cry
stage level: 1
effect: all nearby friends get a damage increase for a little while
rating: great
you learn this early and it has a very short cooldown (default is 30 seconds). the effectiveness is significant, since the range is large. use this as much as you can, just keep in mind it doesn't work on your character, but it does work on your car's weapons.

Rock Block
stage level: 2
effect: enemy stages are locked and prevented from building units
rating: very good
it's almost like cheating. kill a bunch of the enemy army and then prevent them from reinforcing it. the cooldown is fairly long tho, at 5 minutes.

Call of the Wild
stage level: 2
effect: summon friendly animals
rating: insane
free units just by playing music. what's not to love? even at low levels, you can at least summon some meat shields, but depending on the part of the overslaughter single player quest you completed (or your stage level in online), you can willingly summon laser panthers or hextadons. game breakingly powerful.

Light of Dawn
stage level: 3
effect: enemy army cannot buff their units or debuff yours
rating: good
if you are up against drowning doom or tainted coil, this can be extremely useful, since they have some major vehicles dedicated to buffing or debuffing. I suppose cancelling an enemy using battle cry is also nice, but the cooldown on light of dawn is 5 minutes so you only get one shot with it.

Guitar Solos - Tainted Coil

Launch of Death
stage level: 4
effect: delivers a maximum power super unit called Bleeding Death from the stage to wherever your leader performs the solo
rating: very good
the problem is that you need to have the highest level stage, then spend the fans to build a bleeding death, then play the solo, then get out of the way so the launch doesn't kill you when it lands, and then the unit cannot take orders and dies on it's own after a minute. aside from that it is insanely powerful.

Summon Agony Boil
stage level: 1
effect: place a land mine that grows in power over time
rating: ok
aside from only costing a cooldown, the agony boil itself seems a bit weak. it will self destruct if not triggered after awhile, and the damage doesn't seem very high. worth using for helping to defend, at least.

Skies Afire
stage level: 3
effect: increase your army's damage based on how close they are to your stage
rating: ok
this apparently also has the added effect of preventing the enemy from using light of dawn or encompassing gloom as long as this lasts. otherwise, only helpful if your stage is being attacked, in which case you are already in trouble.

Chains of Hell
stage level: 1
effect: root nearby enemy leader to the ground for a short while
rating: good
compared to the other two enemy leader targeting solos specific to the other factions, this one is the most powerful, completely immobilizing and stunning them. does this only work while they are already on the ground? no idea.

Martyrdom
stage level: 1
effect: increase friendly unit damage at the cost of your leader's health
rating: good
kind of like battle cry, but it can be dangerous to your leader. usually worth it even if it kills you.

Curse
stage level: 2
effect: I don't remember. oh, it does damage in an area around you.
rating: ok
a weaker version of facemelter. maybe. it's hard to tell because the damage is done over time instead of all at once. your army will be destroyed before you benefit from this. still, it's a solo, so it's a big free aoe attack.

Summon Tick Choppers
stage level: 2
effect: like it says, summon a pack of disgusting monsters on motorcycles
rating: good
a weaker version of call of the wild, which is the best solo in the whole game, so this is at least useful. no, the problem is that they spawn in front of your stage and don't even move to the rally flag. that's also true of call of the wild, but with laser panthers you can afford to wait.

Guitar Solos - Drowning Doom

Silence
stage level: 1
effect: enemy leaders cannot give orders or play solos
rating: good
prevent eddie from melting your face or launching a megaton nuke on top of your head.

Black Tear Infusion
stage level: 1
effect: your army is healed in a large radius around you
rating: very good
it also heals vehicles, so as you can imagine that's pretty powerful. it doesn't last long so either start a fight with it or use it to help heal up after a fight. or use it in the middle of a fight. I guess it doesn't matter when you use it.

Shadow Blast
stage level: 2
effect: damage enemies in a radius around you
rating: ok
a weak facemelter. the wiki says it also reduces enemy outgoing damage, but I didn't notice. well, it's this or earthshaker as long as you want to goof around with packs of enemies.

Encompassing Gloom
stage level: 3
effect: enemy armies are prevented from constructing more troops
rating: good
as far as I know this is the exact same effect as rock block, but is considered a weather effect so it can't be used if an enemy already has one in effect.

Baleful Misdirection
stage level: 2
effect: create a useless copy of another unit you have access to
rating: ok
apparently this requires some of your supply to field. essentially a free meat shield, so you should probably make an organ. it's not terrible but it's hardly a life saver. at least it spawns the unit next to you instead of back at your stage.

Veil of Deceit
stage level: 2
effect: your army becomes invisible for a little while
rating: ok
remember that the enemy leaders can see your invisible units at close range, so this is more for a short term distraction.

Weeping Heavens
stage level: 4
effect: artillery strike from your stage, only damages the enemy
rating: good
like bring it on home but less accurate. the damage is alright.

Primary Weapons (for vehicles)

keep in mind all primary weapons auto track enemies to some degree.

Machine Gun
effect: sustained fire
rating: weak
it's the first weapon you can buy for your car. definitely the weakest, but it will serve it's purpose during the first bus escort mission as long as you stay in range of your targets.

Missile Launcher
effect: high damage high rate of fire autocannon
rating: great
one of my preferred weapons, admittedly weaker than many late game weapons, it is available early and cheap.

Eye of Sorrow
effect: grenade launcher with grenades in the shape of huge eyeballs
rating: ok
damage and splash radius are good, but the projectiles can be very slow especially during bus escorts. very useful for death rack missions.

Heat Seeker
effect: large explosive missile fires in an arc
rating: ok
powerful when it actually tracks enemies, which is not often. if you are too close or too far away it will just fly off.

Bolt Thrower
effect: a railgun
rating: great
slightly slower but more damaging version of the missile launcher. the shots do not chain to targets as far as I can tell, but they don't really need to. a bit expensive and available late game, but absolutely worth it.

Secondary Weapons (for vehicles)

Side Burners
effect: jets of fire from the left and right of your car, not to be confused with your nitro
rating: weak
actually very powerful at close range, but most enemies won't stay in place long enough during bus escort missions. your car will likely get wrecked during stage battles trying to use this too. it was useful for one or two hunting missions. the only selling point is that it's available as soon as all other car weapons. that and it looks cool.

Disgorger
effect: 6 directional blood spray for continuous damage
rating: ok
similar to the side burners, except 6 directions instead of only 2. it is also free and available at the same time, so the side burners are really kind of useless in comparison, minus the exact damage output which is nearly the same.

Mine Dropper
effect: drop a proximity explosive charge directly behind you
rating: ok
good for bus escorts, and the explosion radius is decent enough, but against anything else you might as well jump out and hit them with an axe.

Sub Woofer
effect: radial area damage that also knocks enemies back
rating: good
the only drawbacks are the long recharge time and the availability (late game high price). still the best secondary. unlike the side burners and disgorder, you can fire this off once and then return to firing your primary weapons.

Units and Double Teams - Ironheade

Headbanger
stage level: 1
double team: headbangers form around eddie and hit anything you run into
rating: meh
the damage is alright and knocking back enemies is useful, but this is one of the weaker double teams

Razor Girl
stage level: 1
double team: one razor girl hops on eddie's shoulders and her gun fires exploding shots
rating: good
a more powerful ranged attack, but slower than normal.

Thunderhog
stage level: 1
double team: eddie blasts an area that stops enemy units from taking any action
rating: great
it does almost no damage on it's own but it's still worth it to put a whole army of demons to sleep for a few seconds while you heal your friends. double teaming also increases the healing effect, which would have been nice to know ahead of time. you can also activate the nitro while controlling one.

Fire Baron
stage level: 2
double team: drag a path of fire behind you, which closes when formed into a ring shape
rating: weak
take forever being shot at so you can burn enemies slightly more than you would have if you just let the fire barons do their thing alone.

Headsplitter
stage level: 2
double team: directly control where the vehicle shoots
rating: meh
you can fire the arrows slightly faster than they normally would, but the vehicle is stationary while you aim. like the fire barons, might as well let these guys do their thing alone.

Bouncer
stage level: 3
double team: throw a bouncer into the air and have them impact the ground
rating: weak
a weak aoe with a short range, and you stop teaming with them when you throw them.

Roadie
stage level: 3
double team: create a shockwave of feedback
rating: ok
your double team pulls double duty of making you invisible as well as letting you do a large shockwave aoe attack. roadies don't serve much other purpose besides this.

Metal Beast
stage level: 3
double team: the beast breaths a cone of fire that roasts enemies
rating:ok
effective against packs of weak enemies, they tend to burn forever. against anything else, especially enemy vehicles, it's not very useful.

Rock Crusher
stage level: 4
double team: trap enemies in a circle of burning rocks and then drop a giant molten exploding sword on them
rating: good
the cooldown on the double team is somewhat long, and the other effects of the rock crusher are lackluster compared to the cost of building one. it's worth trying, but the rock crusher can be fragile considering it's size.

Units and Double Teams - Drowning Doom

Grave Digger
stage level: 1
double team: dig me but don't bury me, get submerged underground to explode upwards on command for splash damage
rating: good
for an early low level double team this is a decent one, but it can take a bit of preparation to get buried (naturally).

Frightwig
stage level: 1
double team: mind control an enemy unit permanently with tendrils of hair
rating: ok
you will have to sacrifice the unit in order to mind control, and it only takes control of a single unit so don't waste on a headbanger. not sure if it's worth the cost compared to allowing at least one frightwig to run free.

Bride
stage level: 1
double team: shoot lightning
rating: good
like a slightly more powerful guitar attack that has no heat buildup. it's alright.

Ratgut
stage level: 2
double team: command the rat swarm personally
rating: great
ratguts are already super strong damage dealers. the double team increases that damage, but you do need to personally command the rat swarm.

Lightning Rod
stage level: 2
double team: ride the lightning and call the governor, directly aim lightning attacks to chain to other enemies and charge them up for extra damage
rating: good
charging can take a bit of time but it's good damage, especially with the chain effect. again, you have to manually aim this, keep an eye out for when your crosshair turns red so you know it will hit an enemy, and do keep in mind you can aim with the left stick since the vehicle becomes stationary while being aimed.

Organist
stage level: 2
double team: mind control one enemy as long as you remain focused
rating: ok
similar to the frightwig but more temporary. the organist only does one other effect normally which is to reduce enemy attack damage, which it will while you mind control things, so that's helpful. otherwise, it's still one of the weaker double teams.

Brood
stage level: 3
double team: suicide carriage, drive and launch dead ahead to a target and mamakazi like a bomb
rating: ok
similar to the frightwig again, this costs the life of the vehicle, which will do it's work just fine on it's own.

Dirgible
stage level: 3
double team: lift off and drop urns of black tears, hurting enemies and healing friends at the same time
rating: very good
the damage is low but being able to also heal friendly units at the same time in a radius around the impact point is pretty useful. can be a bit hard to see around you while controlling this, as a result of the camera being locked on the crosshair.

Reaper
stage level: 3
double team: ride around scaring the enemy, as in causing them to run away in fear, and you can attack with a scythe
rating: good
the scythe does a lot of damage but is extremely short range. the fear effect doesn't seem to work on vehicles and high level units, not sure.

Tree Back
stage level: 4
double team: walk around and stomp things
rating: meh
without the double team, tree back attacks multiple enemies from incredibly long range, so this seems like a downgrade. the stomp attack does decent enough damage but you got a lot of other double teams and solos and regular attacks to choose from.

Units and Double Teams - Tainted Coil

Battle Nun
stage level: 1
double team: produce soul kissers and punishing parties
rating: good
the battle nun will also heal itself and do regular melee attacks.

Soul Kisser
stage level: 1
double team: living dart, throw them at enemies and they explode
rating: ok
the damage is high but it expends one of the units. I would rather chop them up while letting these run around biting people.

Punishing Party
stage level: 1
double team: rapid fire spears
rating: good
a much higher rate of fire, auto aiming. good for early game or when you need range.

Warfather
stage level: 2
double team: produce skull rakers, screamwagons, and pain lifters, as well as superior battle nuns
rating: very good
these also do ranged attacks and heal themselves. most especially, scramwagons and pain lifters are very powerful.

Skull Raker
stage level: 2
double team: directly command the flail so it is thrown where you choose
rating: ok
the main weapon of the skull raker does a lot of damage and knocks enemies around often. however, even with the double team, commanding the flail is very slow. probably worth throwing once and then switching to another unit.

Screamwagon
stage level: 2
double team: change passive radial buff
rating: very good
by default, a fresh screamwagon automatically increases the defense of nearby friendly units, including yourself. you can then change this to a passive attack increase or build speed increase, both of which are particularly powerful. it's like a 3x build speed increase with the build speed buff. great way to waste a lot of peons so you can get the concept art for unit production.

Pain Lifter
stage level: 2
double team: personally guide the projectile, roll it where you please, and detonate on command
rating: awesome
on it's own, the pain lifter will ruin huge packs of enemies with it's enormous splash radius and heavy damage. the double team just makes all of that even more overpowered. the only downside is that the vehicle is immobile while firing. if you let me build a pain lifter, just ragequit immediately.

Superior Battle Nun
stage level: 2
double team: produces stronger versions of it's units
rating: very good
higher damage higher health soul kissers and punishing parties. make a superior battle nun and order your regular ones to go die in battle.

Tick Chopper
stage level: 2
double team: there isn't one
rating: good
summoned from a guitar solo, and costs no fans. however, you need to personally travel back to your stage to command them. they are similar to fire barons, minus the burning damage.

Overblesser
stage level: 3
double team: produce heart cutters and hate cages, as well as superior warfathers
rating: very good
an important piece of tech so you can make stronger units, necessary for superior warfathers and the superior units he creates, which then also includes divine battle nuns and their divine units. the overblesser is also a pretty useful damage dealer on it's own.

Heart Cutter
stage level: 3
double team: stab enemies with spikes from the ground
rating: meh
you have to manually aim the spikes, and their damage and rate of fire are mediocre. I think they can impale weak units which stuns them, but I don't remember because this unit isn't a pain lifter.

Hate Cage
stage level: 3
double team: stomp
rating: ok
would have been meh but the standard attack of the hate cage remains in effect while you control it, making it at least ok.

Superior Warfather
stage level: 3
double team: produce superior units
rating: great
divine battle nuns make some pretty awesome units. the superior warfather is more useful than a regular warfather.

Divine Battle Nun
stage level: 3
double team: produce divine units
rating: great
divine punishing parties can probably wipe out anything on their own.

Bleeding Death
stage level: 4
double team: doesn't have one
rating: very good
as explained in the guitar solos section, this unit is very costly and hard to deal with, but there's no doubt it is powerful. did I mention I killed myself once allowing the bleeding death projectile to land on me? I was at full health. pretty awesome.

[notsee zamby scrake]

no I uninstalled yesterday, I kinda consider myself done with the game.
played it when it was new back in the day, so it was really nice to revisit it. my brother helped me work on getting all the achievements. writing this guide was fun for me, but I also did a search and didn't immediately see any other guides about units or upgrades on the first page of results.

[B Dawg]

Description is wrong, just like the tour book is about Thunderhog healing not stacking (when it does). Or maybe the stacked damage applies after you kill, I'm not really sure since there's no way to activate any health bars/stats in game.

Are you on the multiplayer discord?
https://discord.gg/wN9YNR5

[notsee zamby scrake]

when I equipped the bloodlust treatment to personally test it, I only noticed the graphical effect activate after a kill
the description in game also says it's per kill

[notsee zamby scrake]

hm looks like I also forgot to mention some stuff like the thunderhog doing increased healing
it's a shame the game doesn't mention most of this because it would be really useful information

[B Dawg]

> Pyromaniacs
> effect: increased damage of fire based guitar attacks
> rating: weak
> a less useful brawlers/destroyers since it only applies to the 2 attacks you can do that are fire based. the supposed "major damage increase" is probably only about 20% more anyway.
It applies to one attack only (Guitar charge) and does triple damage.

[B Dawg]

I got a lot of info about units here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1407382730

[B Dawg]

I've looked inside the game files so here's some corrections:
> Bloodlust
> effect: increase damage per kill for a short duration
It's per hit, 4% per hit increase up to 100%, and you lose 2% every second.

Both Shadow Blast and Curse are stronger than Facemelter (Curse being the strongest, but taking the most time to do full damage).