agent86's guide to Vertical Drop Heroes

A quick guide for new players, or those frustrated by the grind. The most important lessons to learn early, as well as the fastest way to get strong enough to conquer the boss and get all the achievements!

General Gameplay Tips

There are a few things I wish I'd known when I started this game, and so I'm going to collect them to share with you.

• If you fall off a ledge without jumping off it, you can jump in midair. You can use this to grab coins or other items that are just off a ledge, but where you don't want to fall down because you'd miss other goodies or there's bad stuff below.
  
• The last character you used will always show up in the character selection screen, unless you quit the game (or even go back to the main menu...). If you roll someone you really like, Alt-Tab out when you need a break instead of quitting the game to preserve them!
  
• Keys can be quite valuable, as they open chests (which can contain money or recovery items), unlock new paths, and also free NPCs that will fight for you.
  
• You can skip any boss fight by paying 5 keys to unlock the end door, but this is a better strategy later in the game against some of the later harder bosses.
  
• New abilities and attributes can be bought from vendors you meet in the dungeon. The higher the dungeon level, the better the abilities you'll find.
  
• There are teleportation shrines scattered about, one on each level. You have to pay to unlock one in order for the next one to show up. If you don't have enough money, you can make a partial payment to the shrine, although this "breaks" the shrine, so if you want to make another payment you have to find it again on the next run.
  
• Your health & abilities completely recharge between levels.
  
• At the bottom of every stage, near the boss, there is always a teleporter to take you back to the top, and there's always an ability recharge shrine. These may be destroyed by attacks or by the boss if they are able to break blocks.
  
• At level up, your health completely refills. This is probably the #1 way to recharge your health, so level up often!

Pacifism

Pacifism is very important - with enough ranks in this, you can gain massive amounts of gold and XP by collecting orbs. (More on that later...)

• Most skills and any direct attacks that kill enemies break pacifism. It doesn't count unless it is a kill.
  
• Anything that dies still gives you XP, even though there are many ways for enemies to die without breaking pacifism.
  
• You can free other friendly NPCs, push enemies onto spikes or lava, and use certain abilities (clones, dwarf gunner) without breaking pacifism.
  
• Using shrines to kill enemies breaks pacifism.
  
• In the options menu, you can turn off automatic attacking, which is important if you want to maintain pacifism through an entire level.

Making Quick Cash

Pacifism is the way to make the most cash in the least amount of time. You want to drop as many ranks as you can into the panda monk so that the pacifism orbs count for more.

I suggest starting by getting all three of the vendors to level 10 - this will give you enough health and damage to survive at least the first 5 levels or so. Then start dropping as much cash as you can into pacifism.

When running for cash, try to pick abilities and traits that compliment this. I tend to focus on defensive skills (shield, for example) as well as traits like agility, which allows you to jump twice and move faster - both are good for getting orbs quickly. The "double cash" skill doesn't apply to orbs, so it's useless in my opinion.

Open All can be useful if you aren't yet strong enough to face the bosses. If you plan to skip bosses, try to keep keys in reserve as much as you can, since sometimes the game will scramble your skills for a level.

If you are missing a suggested skill or trait, don't worry - you'll find them and likely be able to afford them as you progress.

Run each level with the sole intent of grabbing orbs. Ignore everything else, except perhaps health shrines and picking up keys. Grabbing coins seems like it would help, but honestly it's not worth it - a high level pacifism orb is worth 50 or more gold, whereas gold coins can sometimes be worth up to 4.

If you get to the end of a level and feel like you can take the boss, do it, as the gems the bosses drop are worth a lot of money as well. Once you get to the bottom, you can kill whatever you want - hopefully you grabbed most of the orbs.

I can't prove this, but it feels like the orbs in later levels are worth more. There's a lot of variation in the value of the orbs, so it's hard to determine with 100% certainty. Thus, I'd suggest prioritizing survival over orbs if need be - don't go after an orb if you think you're likely to have a tough time grabbing it and still living to tell the tale. Of course, death is cheap in this game, so...

Playing to Win & The Final Boss

The final boss is the only enemy in the game that you must kill, although I suppose you could try to get him to suicide repeatedly... At any rate, there's no way to skip the final fight with keys, like you can with every other boss in the game. Thus, you're going to need high HP and good skills to survive.

I suggest having the Blacksmith and Apothecary at level 20 or better, assuming you don't want the fight to cause you too much trouble. Obviously, the higher these guys are, the easier things will be. By the time you've run the game enough to get the money needed for these upgrades, the 10 levels to get to the boss ought to be a cinch.

When picking skills and abilities, try to get high damage skills with a lot of charges. Ideally your skills should be ones you can hit with at range, or without having to aim, like Omnislash. Skills with less than 3 charges or which don't do decent damage per-hit are probably going to be a waste.

I suggest running each level once for pacifism orbs, then teleporting back to the top and fighting all the enemies you can. Hit all the alarms, activate all the shrines that spawn enemies, etc. Get as much XP as you possibly can. There's generally a fixed amount of XP you can gain before you hit the final level, and the more you can get the better off you'll be.

The final boss himself has several "lives." He will pick two random skills and use them against you on each "life." The fight is easier or harder depending on what skills he uses compared to yours. He can use his skills as much as he wants, so prepare to be spammed by his abilities constantly. Having something you don't need line of sight to hit him with, or things that do high damage are key.

Your skills will recharge every time he dies, so feel free to use your charges completely up. There are also two NPCs in cages that can be freed on each life. If you have abilities that damage floors, you can break through to the spikes and he will occasionally fall down there and not be able to get back up.

Conclusion

Vertical Drop Heroes is a fun game, albeit a bit grindy and luck-based. If you follow the tips in this guide, you'll have a leg up for sure.

Did you like this game? If so, you should follow my curation page!

Did you like this guide? Did you know I'm a professional game blogger? Come check out other stuff I've written![www.withoutthesarcasm.com]

[left]

Hey im at 4/5 unlocks and i don't know what the last one is or where to get it in the fireball/quick strike/Swap group is

[Austin]

Great rundown, when I accidently figured out you could jump after falling it was a big deal. Personally running in pacifism is my favourate part, taking your time and thinking about it more like a puzzle... Thanks for the tips!

[Zeigh]

Something to add: killing/hitting something in the back with the bone dagger does not break pacifism.

[Mateman]

Good guide!

[Grue]

Orbs increase in value by 1 gold per orb when you collect them without breaking pacifism. If you collect all of them, then spend five keys to enter the next level, they will still be worth even more because you have already built up a long chain of orbs. However, if you kill one enemy, they'll reset to their initial value. So if you pick up 4 orbs, they'll be worth 5 instead of 1.