Vampire Survivorsby poncle is an interesting game; it’s one of those titles that feels simultaneously familiar, yet unique. This game has been describedas a roguelikecrossed with a reverse bullet-hell shooter, orSmash TVwith aCastlevaniatheme. As players fight their way through the timed (30 minutes) levels, they will find additional weapons and accessories. These weapons and accessories, for the most part, can be upgraded – or leveled up.
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Picking the right accessory during a playthrough is crucial to surviving the full 30 minutes. It’s also important to remember which accessory a weapon requires to evolve. This list ranks the accessories inVampire Survivorson a general basis, since the usefulness of most accessories varies depending on which level is being played and what weapons were chosen.
Updated on November 14th, 2022, by Jeff Drake:There have been a lot of changes to Vampire Survivors since this article’s publication. In fact, accessories aren’t even called accessories anymore. They now go by the title “passive items”. There are six new passive items in Vampire Survivors. A few of them are awful, but there are a couple that player’s will almost always get if it’s made available. Four of these new items - Metaglio Left, Metaglio Right, Gold Ring, and Silver Ring - can be found for free on nearly every stage, but they each have a very tough guardian that will chase the player until it’s defeated.
20Skull O’Maniac
In general, never get this passive item when it’s offered. The Skull O’Maniac can get to level five, andincreases the character’s Curse level by 10% per level. When fully leveled, this will make enemies 50% faster, stronger, healthier; it also increases the amount of enemies onscreen and their spawn frequency.
Get this item ifthe Song of Mana is selected, as it is needed to evolve the weapon. The Skull O’Maniac is fun when a player wishes to test their skill, but when getting it for the Song of Mana new players might want to Banish it at level two.
19*Gold Ring And Metaglio Right
These two passive items are being lumped into one entry due to their powers being identical. Both of these itemsincrease the player’s Curse level by 40%when fully leveled. This isgreat for a challenge, but in general players should avoid picking-up these items. Just defeat their guardians, collect the Golden Eggs, and move on.
The Gold and Silver Ring evolve the Clock Lancet into the Infinite Corridor. The Metaglio Left and Right items are needed to evolve the Laurel into the Crimson Shroud.
18Stone Mask
TheStone Mask increases the amount of gold a player finds while playing a level. At level one (of five) the bonus is 10%, and this increases by 10% per level. This substantially boosts the coins earned per playthrough, and it improves the gold found in chests too.
Gold is nice, but ultimately it has only two uses inVampire Survivors: purchasing power-ups between playthroughs and new characters. The power-ups are nice because they affect all the characters for every playthrough.The Stone Masksimply allows the player to purchase these a little faster.
17Pummarola
Pummarola increases a character’s health regeneration by 0.1 per second. One would think an item like this would be preferable in a game where enemies can literally fill the entire screen and the player can have their health depleted in seconds. Unfortunately, this item is just kinda meh, and its effects aren’t that noticeable.
Plus, there are candle stands and braziers scattered around the battlefield that can spawn healing when destroyed. This is usually all the healing that a player will need. Only get this accessory to evolve the Garlic into the Soul Eater.
16Armor
The Armor accessory reduces the damage the user takes by one, and it goes up to level five. This damage is lessened by one for each level-up of the accessory. This combines with the purchased Armor power-up bonus. In general, it’s hard to argue against picking an item that reduces damage, but inVampire Survivors it’s hard to argue in favor of picking this accessory. There are too many better accessories, and only six can be selected (with exceptions).
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If the player picks the right weapons and accessories, and levels them up smartly, their character won’t have to worry about taking damage.
15Hollow Heart
The Hollow Heart increases the character’s maximum health by 10%. It has a maximum level of five, and the bonus health increases by 10% per level. More life is useful as it helpsget the characters to the 30-minute mark.
The thing is, though, that there are much betteraccessories inVampire Survivors, and it’s not difficult to find healing on the battlefield (represented by a piece of meat). If a character is using the Whip then the Hollow Heart is necessary to evolve it into the Bloody Tear.
14Metaglio Left
This itemdoes the work of two other passive items, but not as well as either. The Metaglio Left increases health recovery and maximum health. The Pummarola is a little better at boosting health recovery, and the Hollow Heart is over twice as good for improving maximum health.
Even though it’s not as good individually as either the Pummarola and Hollow Heart, it stillgives two bonuses rather than one. This item really helps during the difficult parts of a run by keeping the character alive.
13Attractorb
The Attractorb allows a character to pick up items on the ground from further away. This is handy for those times when the screen is filled with enemies and there’s a patch of experience crystals nearby that is desperately needed. This is also great when the character is nearly dead and some healing is halfway across the screen.
This would be rated a little higher if the Gorgeous Moon, andthe Mad Groove arcana, didn’t pull all the experience gems on the floor to the player. With a high enough Luck score the player will usually get plenty of Vacuums, too.
12Wings
Vampire Survivorsis a type of shoot’em-up, and one feature present in nearlyevery game in this genreis a speed power-up. Starting off, the character is quite slow. This can lead to players being surrounded by enemies, and in the early minutes of the game, this spells doom.
The Wings increase the movement speed of the character by 10%. Its maximum level is five, and the bonus increases by 10% with each jump up. Being too slow makesVampire Survivorsa lot more difficult. Being too fast also makes this game more difficult.
11Candelabrador
The Candelabrador increases the area of effect forVampire Survivors' weapons. The increase is a lot more noticeable for some weapons like the Cross, Ebony Wings, and Peachone. Increasing the area of effect helps clear the enemies from the screen with fewer attacks.
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This accessory works well with the Axe since that weapon’s area scales more than other items. This accessory is also required to evolve the Axe into the Death Spiral.
