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FAQs, tips and tricks for beginners

By KungFusion

Given a number of streamers have picked up the game recently, which will hopefully see a large influx of new players joining - I have consolidated a number of tips and tricks from various posts and my own playthroughs. Please feel free to add more in the comments.

Thanks to the following from Reddit for extra tips and updates: rubberturtle, WolfPhoenix, Levitupper and a bunch of folks from the discord as well.

Some of the mechanics are unconfirmed, so if you've discovered more accurate stuff through testing - let us know!

EDIT (01/21) - Hey all, thanks for all the awards and points. Unfortunately the guide is pretty dated now as I've been burnt out playing GR in the early versions. As you all are probably aware, the developer has been great at providing new features and updates but it makes updating a guide pretty tedious. I'll be back whenever 1.0 is out for an updated version! However if you want to add your own tips and tricks in the comments, i'll be sure to add them :)

Award

Created by

KungFusion
Offline

Category: Characters, Classes, Gameplay Basics, Maps or Levels, Multiplayer, Walkthroughs, Weapons

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

13 Jun, 2020 @ 5:18am

27 Jan, 2021 @ 6:43am

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239	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Damage

Scrolls & Interactions

Weapons

Weapon Inscriptions

Movement

Cat

Dog

Bosses

Vaults

Multiplayer

Talents

Other

Comments

Damage

Elemental Damage types (Corrosive, Fire, Lightning) are different from the Elemental Effects they have a chance to proc (Decay, Burning, Shock). Make sure you read scrolls properly to understand which of the two they impact
Lightning has bonus damage against shields (blue health bar), Corrosive against armour (yellow health bar) and Fire against normal HP (red health bar)
The fusion system lets you proc additional damage types when enemies are under the effects of 2 elemental effects.

◘ Decay + Shock = Miasma - A very strong DOT that can shred enemies, and can have multiple stacks (up to 9). It is also an AOE with a wide range that has weaker procs on surrounding enemies

◘ Decay + Burning = Explosion - Causes a single tick AOE on proc.

◘ Shock + Burning = Manipulation - Confuses enemies and makes them fight their allies. The AI for this is a bit wonky, e.g Archers hitting as melee instead of ranged
Fusion damage types and elemental effects can be triggered by a variety of mechanics:

◘ Weapons - Can apply Decay, Burning, and Shock

◘ Weapons - Can also directly trigger Miasma, Explosion, and Manipulation through the "Shared Weapon Damage" Gemini inscription

◘ Weapons (e.g. Launchers) - Triggers Explosion

◘ Cat Grenade - Applies Decay

◘ Cat Energy Orb - Applies Burning when Fire Elemental Damage is levelled to Tier 3

◘ Dog Grenade - Triggers Explosion

◘ Scrolls - Can modify the chance/ability to proc certain effects and damage types
Critical Strike - In this game, a critical strike only procs whenever you hit the weak spot on an enemy and shows up as a Yellow number. Usually the head but on some enemies, it may be elsewhere (e.g the x mark on the back of Dark-faced bandit or the mouth in phase 1 of the 2nd boss)
Lucky Shot - This is calculated separately to Crit and can proc on any enemy hit (like a traditional RPG crit). It can be stacked over 100% resulting in additional procs which you see as different coloured damage numbers (Tier 1 <100%, x2= Orange, Tier 2 <150%, x3 = Purple, Tier 3 >150%, x4 = Red). Lucky Shot can proc on the same hit as a Crit as well.

Scrolls & Interactions

Advanced Depot + Aura of Venom - The weapon’s alternative fire with this scroll essentially means you can empty your reserved ammo with one right-click
Preemptive Strike + Prism / Golden Bow / One-shot snipers
Snow Boots + scrolls with negative movement impacts (e.g. Decay Enthusiast or Heavy Shield). Snow Boots are generally a really good pickup as there are many enemies that proc slow effects later in the game. Especially the final boss where getting slowed can mean the difference between dying to or dodging the artillery strikes
Triple Comeback - The shield and HP reduction are removed once all 3 stacks have procced
Dual edge - Increases Damage dealt AND Damage taken by 1% and 0.2% respectively (i.e. if you kill 50 enemies you will deal 50% more damage but also take 10% more damage)
Brutal Gloves - Usually an instant drop unless you have a build that can use it (Launchers or Lucky Shot). Crit damage is a huge DPS boost and shouldn't be sacrificed for a flat damage increase
Air Bag + HP loss scrolls - Air Bag constantly drains your HP to 1, meaning scrolls like Berserk Soul and Persistent will very often be at maximum potential even while you have full shields. This build pairs well with Paranormaility
Elemental Cube + No-reload weapons / infinite ammo scrolls - The game doesn't consider weapons like Prism and Golden Bow to technically ever reload, meaning they will never reset the element chosen by the Cube. You can re-roll the Cube to the correct element with the pistol (you can see which element is currently active based on the small buff icon), and then it will keep that element forever if you use one of these weapons. This also applies to infinite ammo builds like Laser/Thunderclap Gloves + Genesis/Bloody Ammo/Advanced Depot.
Improved Clip + low magazine weapons - Because the ammo is added directly into your magazine, if your magazine is full or just very small in general you will get almost no ammo back when you pick up an ammo box, causing you to run out of ammo fairly quickly. This also applies to Against the Flow, since 10% of a small magazine is often 0 ammo return.
On The House - If you buy On The House from a peddler, your next purchase from that peddler will be free.
Elemental Shards - Shards are good in certain situations like the Fire Shard + Fire Enthusiast combo which enables massive self-healing with a Fire build, or if you are able to get all 3 through shared drops from teammates
Devils Covenant - The HP reduction is a one-off reduction in current HP and not a max HP reduction. You can heal back up after picking it
You can drop scrolls by holding right-click hovering over the scroll icon in the Backpack menu

Weapons

Some weapons have an alternative fire that is extremely useful (e.g. The Porcupine alternative fire can be spammed along with the primary fire)
Weapons can also have a secondary effect that can be found in the description. E.g - Thunderclap Gloves have an AOE while Laser Gloves do increasing damage to the same target
Elemental weapons usually have a fixed elemental type (e.g Prism = Corrosive, Fire Dragon = Fire) but normal weapons have a small chance to drop with an elemental type as well
A low damage high fire rate weapon can be used with the Bounty Hunter talent to amass large amounts of copper (e.g. Gloves). You can then go for a 15+ level weapon through Enhancements with your sizeable bank. This strategy pairs well with an early Devil's Covenant or Copper Miner
There are maybe 1-2 weapons that are "bad" but most weapons are useable given the right inscriptions. I have seen people skip over some really good weapons and it is hard to make a tier list as it is very roll/character/scroll dependant. Experiment and have a play with all the weapons - this is a roguelite - you're going to die a lot anyway!
Once you have decent levels and can progress comfortably to the third stage, the craftsman is usually saved for later given the better drops with Gemini inscriptions. However, if you have a decent starting weapon drop with good modifiers feel free to upgrade early
Your starting pistol will synchronize its level with the lowest level out of the other two weapons

Weapon Inscriptions

Weapon Inscriptions have tiers. Tier 1 / Normal = Green text, Tier 2 / Rare = Blue Text = Tier 3 / Exclusive = Orange text.
When a chest offers to upgrade a Normal inscription, it will only upgrade a Normal inscription. If you have no Normal inscriptions on the weapon, it will do nothing. The inscription it replaces is random. When it offers to replace all inscriptions, this does have a chance to roll for higher level inscriptions as well. Additionally, if you re-roll all inscriptions after upgrading a weapon to +5 or higher, it will always give it a Gemini inscription as one of the replacements (if you have Gemini inscriptions unlocked).
Exclusive inscriptions are a bit misleading, as they are not always exclusive to the individual weapon but can be available for multiple weapons in a weapon type
+0.2 projectiles translates to a guaranteed extra projective every 5 shots
You need to have Gemini inscriptions on both weapons to activate the inscription effects. The inscription text will turn purple when activated

◘ Shared Crit Gemini - Adds the crit between the 2 weapons. Lets you crit with launchers that usually have 1x base critical damage

◘ Shared Weapon Damage Gemini - Lets you proc Fusion elemental effects with a single weapon

Movement

Weapons enable different movement speeds. Example - Prism lets you have a faster movement speed compared to a Tiger Cannon. You can use your starter pistol during jumping puzzles in vaults to hit those tricky long jumps
Dash has some initial dodge frames so you can skip through traps or enemy projectiles with it
The boulder vaults actually have an initial pattern than you can make through in one go. The 2nd (or is it third?) set of boulders in the first path of the Act 1 vaults can be slipped through in the gap between them

Cat

Elemental Build - Centred around Elemental Damage. Tier 3 +x% elemental damage is great but usually getting 1-2 tiers for 2 elemental types is fine for the late game as you are looking for the shared damage Gemini inscription to proc Fusion effects
Sniper Build - Centered around Energy Blade

◘ Core Ascensions: Energy Blade, Acid/Pyro/Electro-dominance, Power Source

◘ Core Scrolls: Hawkeye

◘ Optional Scrolls: This is a pretty flexible build, bunch of options are available that help one-shotting enemies. Preemptive Strike, Bluff, Elemental Power, Ninja Invincibility, Rock-hard Determination, Penetration Bullet, Deadly Curse + defensive scroll,

◘ Weapons: Elemental Sniper. Golden Bow works well with Preemptive Strike. Multiple projectile inscriptions are great for hitting those high damage numbers
Hot Stuff Build - There's a bunch of ways to play this. If you like running around like a pyromaniac with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r32LcBqiv7I in the background - use a Fire Dragon. Alternatives are Laser Gloves, Justice or really most other weapons rolling with Fire elemental damage.

◘ Core Ascensions: Pyrodominance

◘ Core Scrolls: Fire Enthusiast, Flesh and Bones

◘ Optional Scrolls: Advanced Depot, Lucky Shot scrolls, Flame Shard, Defensive scrolls as you will be up-close if using a fire dragon

◘ Weapons: A good fire dragon can carry you till the final boss. You can then swap to another fire weapon or entirely different element with a shared weapon damage gemini inscriptio
You can proc the Miasma fusion effect with a lightning weapon and the Decay effect from the corrosion grenades
"ROF" in the Wildfire ascension refer to "Rate of Fire"
Hex smoke is really powerful, it’s a great defensive and offensive ascension skill
Acidic Explosion is also great for speed-clearing out enemies in the 1st stage where they are often grouped up (is it fixed damage or enemy HP based?)

Dog

Iron Man Build - I Am Iron Man

◘ Core Ascensions: Twin Gunner, Lucky Ammo, Battle Tested

◘ Core Scrolls: Advanced Depot

◘ Optional Scrolls: Other Ammo-based Scrolls (E.g. Against the flow) if you can't get Advanced Depot, Fire / Lightning Enthusiast, Flesh and Bones and Bloody Ammo if going Fire Enthusiast, Damage Scrolls

◘ Weapons: It's in the name! Laser and Thunderclap Gloves. Try to grab the Spore Gemini inscription later on if you can.
Oww Bai Bai Build - Why dual wield when you can yeet a whole gun. Credit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgbw76MR4ws
◘ Core Ascensions: Mad Bomber + all the other explosion ascensions

◘ Core Scrolls: + flat damage scrolls, Lucky Shot scrolls, Bullet Bank, Ammo Belt

◘ Optional Scrolls: Hawkeye + Deadly counter if you want to go for the 3m+ Shot. Deft hands is useful as well

◘ Weapons: Concealed Ammo + Big Hippo with shared magazine and any increased magazine inscriptions. Concealed Ammo's secondary fire scales with magazine size
Dog Nuk'em Build - Each of the porcupine pellets can trigger an explosion with the fusion system

◘ Core Ascensions: You can mix and match between explosion and dual wield ascensions depending on what comes up

◘ Core Scrolls: Pretty flexible here. Deft Hands or Advanced Depot helps with reloading, especially if you want to rock a dual shotgun version (Fire Wild Hunt / Illusion + Porcupine)

◘ Optional Scrolls: Airbag + Beserk Soul is a fun variation

◘ Weapons: Porcupine + High burning proc weapon
Launcher Explosion Build - Dual-wielding 2 launchers, having one as a bone dragon helps group up enemies. One of the few builds that can utilise Brutal Gloves as launchers usually have a 1x Crit Damage stat
Elemental Explosion Build - Using a combination of a Decay and Burning procs
Double Rainbooooow! Build - Getting a corrosive and fire rainbow can be a bit of lottery playing solo, but in a team game this build is great. Getting the exclusive inscription with the secondary arcs makes this an insane room clearer
Double Hippo Build - Dual-wielding 2 Hippos with the spores Gemini. Works with any other high-fire rate weapon. It's a good way to overcome RNG weapon drops using the explosions with spores for any auto weapons that drop in the 3rd stage
You can’t use secondary fire when dual-wielding so weapons like Justice and Rainbow Arch don’t work as well
Prism works well with the Last Shot ascension
You can cancel dual-wield by swapping to the default weapon

Bosses

1st Boss

If you're just starting off - having a lightning weapon is useful to remove the shields and fire damage helps shred the red hp. Once you've leveled up a bit, you'll find it easy to beat him with any weapon. Miasma procs with a lightning weapon and your corrosive grenades as Cat are also very useful
You can use the 2 pillars to absorb some of his attacks, but don't stand too close as some of his attacks will AOE you or he'll explode the barrels near them
Depending on your position, some of his attacks can only be dodged with a backward dash, especially his flying smash

2nd Boss

The mouth is the weak spot in the first phase and the so is the tail in the second phase
To dodge the laser, you should dash in the opposite direction AFTER it starts Kamehameha-ing
It's easier to tell when to dodge by standing still when the boss is in the mouth blast animation
It doesn't do damage while travelling through sand and is targetable
You can shoot its green globules out the air in the 2nd phase. With the right timing, you can also burst all of them right as it shoots them out. You can also do this with Energy Orb, or even a grenade toss. It's also quite easy to do with an extremely high fire-rate weapon, especially the gauntlets or a Fire Dragon

3rd Boss

Defensive scrolls are very useful here. Spirit Feline and Deflection Shield are a bit too OP and there are many situations where I and other people have soloed with these skills after 3 teammates have died.
Just like the 2nd boss, you can actually shoot his projectiles in the second phase. And just like the second boss, if you target the tip of his nose with a gauntlet they will all be destroyed instantly as he shoots them.
Eyes are the weak spot in the 2nd phase

Vaults

Vault Portals are random, unconfirmed if they are Pseudo-RNG (i.e higher chance when you have several rooms without vaults)
There are 4 types of vaults

- Enemy clearout (Act 1 only) - Clear basic enemies and contains 1 chest

- Boulders (Act 1 and 2 only) - Dodge boulders and contains 2 chests. The bonus chest is in a slightly hidden spot: Near the fire trap at the end of the Act 1 vault and near the penultimate boulder spawn in Act 2

- Parkour (Act 2 and 3 only) - Platforming challenge which contains 2 chests. 1 of the chests is only available when the secondary, harder path is completed in the time limit. The time limit only begins when you initiate this harder path.

- Elite clearout - Clear basic + Elite enemies and contains 1 chest but the elite can drop items/scrolls

Multiplayer

Enemy HP scales to the number of players in the game. It's 7x when there are 4 players present
High projectile weapons sometimes lead to de-sync and “lag” for multiplayer games. Prism is a prime candidate for this. It’s not the only cause as the net-code is not super optimised but all those prisms bouncing around will sometimes spike your teammates to 999 ping. Somewhat fixed in 12/06 patch
All drops (Scrolls and Weapons) are initially for yourself only. You need to “flip” them (pick-up and drop) for other co-op players to see them. This should be common practice for you when playing multiplayer lobbies!
You need to be level 10 to use the game auto-match to play with random teammates, but can party-up with friends at any level
If you are assigned host for random matchmaking the game will end for other players when you quit
You should drop scrolls for teammates when they can really accentuate the builds they are going for. E.g. no point holding on to Fire Enthusiast if you are going corrosive and someone else is going for a Fire Dragon build

Talents

Each Talent point increases your Level by 1. Focussing on Tyrant Leader and Heavenly Essence helps boost your levels quickly but you need to spend points elsewhere to meet the level requirement. You can aim to spend on the cheapest talents to help achieve this but will, of course, be initially sacrificing other talents that may make progression easier.
Skilled Craftsman allows you to have 3 instead of 2 upgrade uses per Craftsmen.
To hit 120, you need to level both of the Hero trees for Dog and Cat (5 Talents each)

Other

This is a roguelite so ascension skills and scrolls are not persistent for the next playthrough. Talents are persistent however and can only be levelled at the end of a playthrough and not from the main menu even if you have reserved souls with the Dimeson Pouch talent
You may be going into runs with a set build or OP setup you've seen elsewhere. As with many other roguelites, the best way to play the game is to go with the flow and slowly flesh a build out depending on the drops
There is a save system between levels. Using the well in the transition stages will save your progression at that point
There is an option in the Game Setting to remove the default weapon from mouse-wheel scrolling selection
Elite mode is unlocked once you beat the final boss in normal.
Yes, the English in this game is translated weirdly - Devs have already said this will be fixed in the future

8 Comments

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muggedCat 13 Sep, 2022 @ 8:09am

thanks for the great guide! I'll study it in depth, from now. So helpful. May I just ask a noob question? I just want to make sure I really understand - the inscription on a weapon is always active? Or only if I use the weapon?
Like, I have +50% elemental dmg to enemy, when does it apply? Am I missing something?
Any help would be amazing! Thank you!

OBCTed 8 Dec, 2020 @ 6:26pm

What are the long terms plans for the game?

GhanaChocolate 18 Aug, 2020 @ 6:05am

if multiplay whit friend, Some internet in Korea cannot be enjoyed in a pleasant environment.
Please make improvements.

Night_Sniper 31 Jul, 2020 @ 8:22am

Thank you very much. That was very interesting and informative for a newbie. Spent quite some good time reading.

Borgoz 4 Jul, 2020 @ 12:56pm

Thank you for guide.
P.S.
Russian translate is more weirdly.

Vires 3 Jul, 2020 @ 9:12pm

uhh so I'd like to add that I have an Aura of Venom with 25% chance to kill enemy on crit (normal enemies only) and Deft Hands. Right clicking is a beautiful thing. If I kill an enemy with right click it just keeps firing rapidly without consuming ammo for the duration of Deft Hands.

Doot Doot 21 Jun, 2020 @ 7:13pm

Teamwork bois! drop the stuff u dont use and flip the weapons! im still surprised they censrored have...

AnimeCarebear 21 Jun, 2020 @ 4:48pm

thanks! this helped clear up some things that the game didn't explain too well

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