Vampire Survivors - Castlevania but You Are the Bullet Hell

[ShakeWell]

I saw the Reaper! Skelly Boy is my favorite character so far, for sure. I like Old Man Garlic, too, but since the Bone is only available as him and once it's leveled up, it's pretty fuckin' sick. Got all the cheevos, really enjoy Mad levels more, the pacing is faster, but man, three bucks.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

Skelly Boy was my first win too, he's like Knife Guy, but trades a much weaker start for a much more powerful late game.

I'm still struggling to unlock Hyper Woods

 

[Alixsar]

NEW CHARACTERS

Edit: Did a Hyper Library run to get 5k in one run to get the priest (best run so far; level 120, 4+ million damage on 3 weapons, 2mil and one mil on 2 others). The priest has -40% movement speed but +40% duration and projectile speed. Guess it makes sense that the priest would be great with the bible (which he starts with). This actually makes Wings valuable too since it'd counteract his weakness.

The other character seems kinda bad; health regen and increased max health, starts with Santa Water. Like Porta they get a temporary bonus to counteract the weirdness of their weapon, and Santa Water is great, but having more health and regen doesn't help kill stuff.

Edit x2: Well the Priest kinda sucks...even on hyper mode he's slow as hell. He's got normal mode movement in hyper mode, essentially...but I still beat Hyper Forest with him so I guess he doesn't suck TOO much. I haven't tried the new map yet but the idea of enemies having +50% health seems kinda wild lol

 

[Pajaro Pete]

Had a winning Hyper Library run with the Priest, since my laptop struggles during the last three minutes of any map my strategy usually involves setting up a meat grinder so I can stay put (Gay Rights Bird, Satanic Verses, Holy Water, Lightning, Magic Wands), and his gimmick lends itself to that kind of play.

 

[Alixsar]

I got to 29:31 on Hyper Green Acres with the Cleric. The health regen actually helps a lot since incidental damage is hard to avoid early on when you're ramping your DPS up, but I'm also wondering if I had had the same loadout with a different character if the increased DPS from their abilities would've meant I cleared it. Feels bad to get THAT CLOSE and lose. Part of me also wonders if I had held out for Cross instead of taking Lightning Ring if I would've made it. I had the defensive core loadout going (IMO, Bible/Garlic/Axe/Santa Water) and I had Fire Wand and Lightning Ring for damage, but I feel like if I had managed to get Fire Wand/Cross it would've been enough to get through. I would've had to have NOT taken Tome though so I could have space to upgrade the Cross...idk how that would've worked out DPS-wise. I think the Priest would've done it...extra duration on Holy Water is bonkers.

Edit: Hyper Green Acres down! Weird combination too...Garlic/Runetracer/Axe/Santa Water/Bone/Whip. But hey, it worked.

 

[ShakeWell]

So... there's a hidden character? To unlock input the Symphony of the Night Luck Code on the title screen (x-x1viiq), because apparently the luck stat is pinned to 100%. I'm was going to be done now for the night, but I guess I need to check this out.

 

[JBear]

The library has new music now and it's a bop.

Also, they put a dumb hat on the green Orlox sprite and it's super incongruous and love it very much. "I resemble but am legally distinct from Orlox!"

 

[Paul le Fou]

The health and regen one makes the early stages really easy, but the difference doesn't really amount to much in the latter parts (though I didn't try a run where I stacked more regen and max health on top of that, but without the whip and/or garlic evolutions on top of it I don't see it making much difference anyway.

Gonna try that priest on hyper, though inherent slow movement is like, ugh. I had the same reaction with exdash, who at least is a cute funky ghost that starts with a bird (I did still clear a run with exdash to be sure I could). Better invest in the attractorb for that run too or picking up enough experience is going to be a pain in the ass.


I saw someone who used the early-levels cooldown increase to stay at level 3 or so and get through a run by hiding in a corner so runetracers made an infinity-bounce wall around him, so anything that makes it through the lightning ring gets zapped once they approach. (I think it also required booking it to the left in the library to pick up some cooldown books - I guess they only last a little while before they disappear? I've only found one or two before.) I wonder if anyone will figure out a way to similarly abuse the temporary increased area buff.

 

[Paul le Fou]

OK Dommario whips ass. I did a hyper woods run (30.1k killed and level 106), and the main takeaways are Speed 110% and Duration +120%. With his passive boosts to both and the items stacked on top of them, everything was so fast and lasted so long. And of course, getting faster cooldowns pairs beautifully with longer duration. (And then I had +Area too because it's good.)

Before I evolved the Bible I had reached a point where every trigger overlapped so I had significant time periods with two sets out. The Vespers don't have cooldown or duration to benefit (much to my consistent annoyance), but with all that speed up they were a literal buzzsaw. They were moving so fast it affected the animation's frame rate draw at times. 2.4m damage, 2.4k dps.

Runetracer stacks with speed and duration so well (not to mention cooldown and area), it's no wonder that it outdamaged the Vespers despite my only having it for 9 minutes instead of the Vespers' 16. 2.7m damage, 4.8k dps. (The DPS count was helped by its being the new weapon after I evolved Vandalier, so it went 1-8 in a very short time. But yeah, it massively outperformed two evolved weapons.)

Vandalier was moving so fast, for each cast it made 3 full rotations (which means each side got 6 passes) before fading out, and faded back in less than a second later. 6.4m damage, 11.3k dps.

I also had Heaven Sword (2.2m damage, 2.4k dps) which performed better than I expected considering I didn't have duplicators on.

Santa Water did 2.9m over the entire run instead of from activation, so only 1.7k dps, but that's still pretty intense damage - Even with 16 minutes, the vespers couldn't pass it up.

(Also the most redundant garlic ever, since it never stretched past my bibles. I know garlic is low, but it only did 42.2k damage. That's 28 dps. )

Anyway, this guy has two inherent passives which is good. I'd only play as him on hyper to counteract the slowness, but still, dang.

 

[JBear]

Edit x2: Well the Priest kinda sucks...even on hyper mode he's slow as hell.

Hard disagree.

OK Dommario whips ass.

Hard agree, lol.

He's easily my new favourite character. I just won my very first try of Hyper Green Acres thanks to him. I had only one evolved weapon (Holy Wand), and it wasn't even that important to the kit. By the end, nothing could even manage to get through the Santa Water & Crosses & Runebinders to get close enough to get hit by his Bibles, which were constantly buzz-sawing around him thanks to Duplicator + Bracer. I explicitly didn't take the spellbinder because I figured the evolved bible would be a downgrade for him (and similarly didn't evolve Cross because I hate Heaven Sword, but that's not unique to Domnario), and I still suspect that's the case.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

can't wait for the update where the runetracer gets an evolution with duplicators

 

[Paul le Fou]

can't wait for the update where the runetracer gets an evolution with duplicators

neither can I

 

[Alixsar]

Hard disagree.

Hard agree, lol.

He's easily my new favourite character. I just won my very first try of Hyper Green Acres thanks to him. I had only one evolved weapon (Holy Wand), and it wasn't even that important to the kit. By the end, nothing could even manage to get through the Santa Water & Crosses & Runebinders to get close enough to get hit by his Bibles, which were constantly buzz-sawing around him thanks to Duplicator + Bracer. I explicitly didn't take the spellbinder because I figured the evolved bible would be a downgrade for him (and similarly didn't evolve Cross because I hate Heaven Sword, but that's not unique to Domnario), and I still suspect that's the case.

I said I still beat Hyper Forest with him! Sheesh!

I like the idea of NOT taking upgrades though. Runetracer would absolutely rule with him

Edit: I tried Dommario again and had an absolutely bonkers run...which I had to abort (I was tired from working and literally fell asleep on my keyboard lol). But Bible/Santa Water/Runetracer/Double Birds were all fully powered up and nothing could get to me. I tried not evolving the Bible and took Wings instead to counteract his slow movement and while that was nice, I think evolved Bible would've been even better. With cooldown reduction and increased duration the Bible was BASICALLY out all the time, but there were tiny gaps, whereas Vespers is literally out all the time. Still even with that loadout I would've cleared for sure...uh, if I hadn't fallen asleep lol

 

[JBear]

So I hadn't actually poked my head back into Forest sine this patch went live (since why would I when Green Acres is right there?), but my SO was playing earlier tonight and I was surprised to discover that they've like, added terrain and shit? Dunno if it now has anything like the free mask and tome in Library, but it certainly seems possible!

 

[Violentvixen]

@Lumber Baron got this tonight and this is bonkers. Fun to watch though!

 

[ShakeWell]

Did a couple Hyper clears tonight. The Priest is good enough that I cleared the Hyper Library with him on the first try. I feel like I might be winding down on it, though, until they add more stages/characters/weapons/stuff.

 

[ShakeWell]

They added a new character, new evolution (Santa Water) and new accessory.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

I wasn't sure about the Santa Water evo until I saw you can basically just keep the 25 minute boss in it the whole time they're on screen

 

[Alixsar]

Upgraded Santa Water is NUTS. Santa Water was already crazy strong, but this is just...bigger and more damaging and faster. I just did 6.1 million damage with it. Dear Lord, if you could get rainbow bird and santa water in a run...you'd be unstoppable

 

[Pajaro Pete]

i guess it's just that the associated accessory isn't something i usually go for so it feels a bit wasteful.

new character is whatever, at this point their gimmick isn't something i want or need, but i guess maybe if they add a way to defeat death it might be necessary?

 

[4-So]

Yeah, Santa Water evolved is a lot of fun.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Yeah, I did a couple runs with La Borra and had pretty decent results with it. One slight downside vs other weapons is that if you're moving it really only covers behind you, little if any in front of you.

That said, I've thought the attractorb was really underrated for a while, and it's one of my favorite accessories. The leeway it gives you to pick up distant gems - very distant gems when combined with the passives - doesn't just make leveling up so much smoother and faster, it lets you focus more on just surviving since you only need smaller movements to get to more gems, instead of needing to dodge through mobs of enemies just to get any experience in the meantime.

Not sure what the point of the new character is. I mean, trying him out, I did die once and revive, then go on to beat the run. Also, when Death kills you, each subsequent revival-then-death nets you an increasing amount of bonus coins. So there's that, I guess?

Adding the passive revive too just kinda pushed it over the top into "too easy" mode for me, too; I rarely die anymore, but knowing that I get a free one makes everything smoother. That said, I could continue what I was starting to poke at a bit ago - refunding my powerups and doing runs at a weaker level for added challenge. Those passives can make a pretty big difference!

 

[ShakeWell]

Alex is correct, Pride Bird+Santa Water is Unfuckwithable. I decided I wanted to get a clear without Garlic OR Bible, since every other completed run I've done had one or both. For some reason, I thought Hyper Green Acres was the place to be. For about the last ten minutes, the only time I needed to move (as in, to avoid damage, not pick something up) was when Big Flower Lady showed up. But for her, I could have walked away and recorded a win.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1490563967978254339

 

[Paul le Fou]

Hmm, yeah, La Borra is powerful but not really overwhelmingly so; definitely not as strong as Vandalier, but still very strong.

I've been doing runs without the first row of powerups - so no innate +damage, +armor, +HP and +regen, which has definitely added some challenge back in. Any damage that slips through is a lot more threatening so you have to be very careful. Although, I was doing a run in hyper library last night with Mortaccio and made it to ~20 minutes, when suddenly I just...died. Didn't see anything by my body, I just ceased to be. One of the suicide bomber banshees must have snuck through, but I had several maxed or evolved weapons by then so I'm not sure how? Ah well.

One way to make up for the lack of those bonuses is use the character that fills them, so I did a hyper forest run with the Cleric and made it through. +HP and +regen covered, and I ended up grabbing spinach too since I found myself with the fire wand. For an unplanned build grabbing whatever seemed OK at the time, I ended up evolving La Borra, Hellfire, Reaper axes, Holy sword, Unholy vespers, and maxed rune tracer. The only risk I was really in by the end was during the very last crush of glowing bats, when one-four of them might push through the Bibles and reach me, especially if I took a step in any direction. I'll be trying Mortaccio again next. Maybe then I'll try the reverse - Use the first row but skip the passive accessories for duration, cooldown, etc.

 

[4-So]

I haven't used garlic or bible in a quite a few runs now. The best defense is mass undead murder. If I have to pick up a defensive (or "defensive"), it's usually because the RNG gods did not smile but I have to pick something.

I've been insta-gibbed in the library a few times too; it's always the fire ladies.

 

[JBear]

New update. The new weapon evolution does a shit-ton of damage. I managed to bang out all of the new achievements added in one run.

 

[Alixsar]

It seems good, but Santa Water and Rainbow Bird seems better from a pure damage perspective. I'm curious how it'll do with Porta/Candleabra/Empty Tome, though. That seems pretty dang stronk

 

[ShakeWell]

New update. The new weapon evolution does a shit-ton of damage. I managed to bang out all of the new achievements added in one run.

Samesies.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1493013082259525633

 

[Paul le Fou]

I secured the new evolution and a build that got me to 30 minutes easily enough, but I only snuck the level 100 in under the buzzer in the last 30 seconds. I ended up with:
Thunder Loop doing the most damage, but only 3.5 million
Death Spiral doing just a bit less damage, 3.2m
Unholy Vespers not getting a lot of work since things didn't often make it far enough in
La Borra doing the most DPS by a longshot but less damage overall (as the last of my evolutions, towards the end)
Runetracer and bone pulling their weight quite respectably as always

I like the new evolution well enough, though it's definitely a long-range type, usually zapping across the outer edges of the screen to thin the herd. Seems like it outreaches Vandalier a little bit, though I don't know that thinning the herd/weakening distant opponents is really needed if you also have Van - which hits a pretty long range anyway. Seems like Thunder Ring would be another good pair with La Borra? I'll have to try it with Vandalier and see what happens. If things start getting in close, it'll presumably hit closer in as well and maybe fill that void...? I'm overthinking this.


What do you think about skip? Reroll is cool, but I'm not entirely sure why you'd skip - similar to reroll, there's nothing you want or you'd get locked out of something you're holding out for, I guess?

 

[Paul le Fou]

Obviously, ignoring DPS because I got Vandalier and La Borra very late:

I had Thunder Loop for 19 minutes and it did 2.7 million damage, total. Vandalier - which I didn't even get to level 8 until the last minute or two - did 4.1m damage in one-third of the time. La Borra was on track to pass Loop's total damage in 4 minutes. And I didn't even have the candelabra to increase La Borra and Vandalier's duration (and done nothing for Thunder Loop), which would have widened the gap. I wonder if Arca or Mortaccio would give it a bigger boost - but they'd give just as big a boost to Van/LaB too.

Dont' get me wrong, the Thunder loop did do a lot of heavy lifting throughout those 19 minutes and helped me a lot, definitely. But it looks like it just doesn't compare to Van/LaB.

I'm going to keep saying Van/LaB.