Uninstall Risk of Rain

If you care about your time and sanity, just uninstall the game right now before you pour in thousands of hours like me. If you are also an insane masochist like me, then proceed. Don’t act like I didn’t warn you.

Looting

The goal of Risk of Rain is to complete 5 stages, then head to the Moon and defeat the final boss Mithrix. Roughly you wanted to complete the five stages in about 10-12 minutes. The teleporter is always going to be on the other side of the map than where you start. Try to loot efficiently by pathing a way to the teleporter with little back tracking.  

On each stage, there is a set number of “director’s credits” which decides how many intractables will spawn on the map. Each interactable such as chests, shrines, and drones will take up a set number of director’s credits. If you see a lot of shrines and drones on the map, you can expect there to be less chests to loot from, so you know you can move quicker in the stage. Certain versions of maps have more director’s credits than others. 

In my opinion, it’s better to fully loot because even though the difficulty scales with time, you will quickly surpass the enemies with the amount and quality of items you get. It’s not all about rushing through the stages. How long you take on each stage is heavily dependent on the quality of items you have — do you have sufficient healing, mobility to run away and navigate through the stages, do you have enough damage to kill enemies?

Good Looting Habits

A good looting habit is to open equipment barrels first and exhaust all options of getting a credit card before opening the multi-terminals (Chance Shrines can also give you a Credit card.

An Executive Card allows you to buy all the items in the multi-shop and shipping request terminal, and cashback on all your purchases.

Leave bad reds on the ground in case you get a recycler. The extreme disappointment of opening a large chest just for it to be a Wake of Vultures or Happiest Mask can be assuaged by a smooth recycle into a Clover.

Finding The Teleporter

For the most part as you play the game more, you will learn all the different places it can spawn. The teleporter usually will be at the opposite end of where you spawn. 

If you are still having trouble finding it: there are tiny redish white particles coming out of it. You have to visualize the sphere of where the particles are coming out of.  If you listen closely enough, you can hear it makes particular sounds.

Try to loot efficiently by starting with the chests around the area where you spawned in and pathing your way to the teleporter. 

Scrappers & Printers

Although this game is heavily reliant on RNG, there are ways to make RNG on your side. You can scrap items that are less useful to your character, then utilize the better 3D printers on the maps. If you do not scrap, printers will take a random item out of your inventory. Instead if you use the scrapper, 3D printers will prioritize the scrap instead. Another way to make RNG on your side is finding a recycler where you can recycle items into potentially better ones. 

If you see a good printer on a map and no scrapper, leave good items on the ground while only taking the bad ones to use on the printer, then you can take the ones you left on the ground later.

Lunar Items & Artifacts

Some Lunar Items trivialize Eclipse’s modifiers such as Transcendence which turns all your health into shield, removing the Eclipse 5 modifier (50% - Healing) and lessens fall damage which removes the Eclipse 3 modifier (+100% & Lethal). Eclipse is supposed to teach you how to modify your playstyle; it’s better to avoid Lunar items if your goal is to improve at the game.

If you ask yourself: but doesn’t Head Stompers also make you immune to Fall Damage? What makes it different from Transcendence? The difference is that you are not guaranteed to see most red items in a given run, but you can pretty much visit the Bazaar between every stage and reroll the Lunar shop as many times you’ve written in your coins in Note Pad.

Same goes for Artifact of Command (choosing all your items): hence why it is not allowed in Eclipse. A big part of learning and improving at the game is taking what the game gives you and adapting your playstyle accordingly.

  • Gesture of the Drowned (Reduce Equipment cooldown by 50%. Forces your Equipment to activate whenever it is off cooldown)

  • Purity (All skill cooldowns are reduced by 2 (+1 per stack) seconds. All random effects are rolled +1 times for an unfavorable outcome),

  • Artifact of Command (Choose your items)

  • Transcendence (Convert all but 1 health into regenerating shields. Gain 50% maximum health)

  • Spinel Tonic (gaining a boost for 20 seconds. Increases damage by +100%. Increases attack speed by +70%. Increases armor by +20. Increases maximum health by +50%. Increases passive health regeneration by +300%. Increases movespeed by +30%)

  • Shaped Glass (Increase base damage by 100%. Reduce maximum health by 50%)

Damage Items

  • Crowbars (Deal +75% damage to enemies above 90% health)

  • Focus Crystals (Increase damage to enemies within 13m by 20% (+20% per stack)

  • Armor Piercing Rounds (Deal an additional 20% damage to bosses)

  • Delicate Watches (Increase damage by 20%. Taking damage to below 25% health breaks this item)

Items from the same source are additive. Items from different sources are multiplicative.

Combining items together instead of just stacking one item increases the damage to which they scale exponentially off themselves.

Credit: Disputed Origins

Healing Items

Healing items will be only half as effective on Eclipse 5 and becomes nearly useless by Eclipse 8 due to taking permanent damage. For healing, Cautious Slug (you only need one or two really) and Weeping Fungus are the most consistent sources of healing.

My advice is to not rely on healing items because the point is to learn how to dodge, strafe, and maneuver around enemies' attacks; not face tank damage. Sure, some healing is necessary but there's no real need to prioritize healing items over raw damage or mobility items. 

Best:

  • Weeping Fungus (Heals for 2% (+2% per stack) of your health every second while sprinting. Corrupts all Bustling Fungi.)

  • Cautious Slug (Increases base health regeneration by +3 hp/s while outside of combat)

Okay:

  • Monster Tooth Necklace (Killing an enemy spawns a healing orb that heals for 8 plus an additional 2% of maximum health)

  • Leeching Seed (Dealing damage heals you for 1 (+1 per stack) health)

  • Med Kit (2 seconds after getting hurt, heal for 20 plus an additional 5% (+5% per stack) of maximum health)

  • Bustling Fungus except Engineer (After standing still for 1 second, create a zone that heals for 4.5% of your health every second to all allies within 3m)

  • Lepton Daisy (Release a healing nova during the Teleporter event, healing all nearby allies for 50% of their maximum health. Occurs 1 time)

  • Harvesters Scythe (Gain 5% critical chance. Critical strikes heal for 8 health)

dAMAGE mITIGATION

Damage mitigation - That's why it's best to prioritize items that mitigate damage. Repulsion Armor Plate is a flat damage reduction and is great to prevent you from taking damage from Stone Titan's laser beam or the small wisps' attacks. It's best for attacks that deal damage over time. 

Opals and Tougher times stack hyperbolically which means that there are diminishing returns on each stack. Tougher Times is often an unreliable damage mitigator as it only gives you the chance to block damage, compared to Safer Spaces which is essentially a rechargeable shield that guarantees blocking the next source of damage every 15 seconds. This means, if you're playing a mobility challenged survivor like Captain or Engineer, if your shield is up and you fall off the map, you won't die from fall damage. 

  • Oddly-shaped Opals (Increase armor by 100 while out of danger)

  • Safer Spaces (Blocks incoming damage once. Recharges after 15 seconds. Corrupts all Tougher Times)

  • Rose Bucklers (Increase armor by 30 while sprinting)

  • Repulsion Armor Plates (Reduce all incoming damage by 5)

mOBILITY

Another way to prevent yourself from taking damage is simply running away from the enemies altogether which is sometimes what you need to do to survive. Goathoves, Energy Drinks, and for some characters, Mochas should be prioritized.

A Hopoo Feather, which gives you an extra jump, is crucial for some of the aforementioned mobility challenged survivors, allowing you to make certain leaps and not taking fall damage.

Red Whips is especially useful on Engineer because placing down turrets or using your harpoons doesn't put you in combat. Last but not least, the king of all mobility items is Head Stompers because it gives you immunity to taking fall damage, so you can jump off the map to your heart's content. 

  • Energy Drinks (Sprint speed is improved by 25%)

  • Mochas (Increases attack speed by 7.5% and movement speed by 7%)

  • Hopoo Feathers (Gain +1 (+1 per stack) maximum jump count)

  • Paul’s Goat Hooves (Increases movement speed by 14%)

  • H3AD-5T v2 or Head Stompers (Increase jump height. Creates a 5m-100m radius kinetic explosion on hitting the ground, dealing 1000%-10000% base damage that scales up with fall distance)

  • Wax Quail (Jumping while sprinting boosts you forward by 10m)

Crowd Control

Stacking Sticky Bombs only increases the likelihood of procing them, not the overall damage. 

Fireworks is a great source of crowd control, especially in the early game, and can kill nearby enemies when opening chests or any other intractable so open chests strategically when you have them. The damage is tripled with Pocket I.C.B.M.

Gasoline is especially useful for crowd control, especially the Beetle Guards piling up during a Beetle Queen boss fight. It synergizes well with Ignition Tanks.

  • Sticky Bombs (5% chance on hit to attach a bomb to an enemy, detonating for 180% TOTAL damage)

  • Bundle of Fireworks (Activating an interactable launches 8 fireworks that deal 300% base damage)

  • Gasoline (Killing an enemy ignites all enemies within 12m for 150% base damage. Additionally, enemies burn for 150% base damage)

Conclusion

Whether you want to fully loot or rush the teleporter depends on your playstyle; there’s a solid argument made for both sides. 

Fully looting & focusing less on time gives you more control over your runs as you can get all the items on the map and make use of scrappers & 3D printers. Remember, items allow you to outscale the increasing difficulty of the enemies in time.