.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=120&h=80&dpr=1.5)
Vampire Survivors keeps surprising its fan base with constant updates, new characters, new items, and even new PowerUps. Considering how relatively small the game is in scale, many who initially enjoyed the game quickly managed to max out all the PowerUps and were confident they wouldn't need to worry about grinding coins again.
10 Games That Switch Up The Vampire Survivors Formula
While Vampire Survivors basically created a whole subgenre of games similar to it, not all of them are 'carbon copies', such as these games.
But, the developers keep doing stellar work and adding more content, so there's more to spend that precious currency on. It's worth taking a brief look at some of the different PowerUps in Vampire Survivors and talking about which ones are likely the best to level up first.
Updated on January 15, 2024, by Jeff Drake: The global PowerUps in Vampire Survivors are one of the best ways to improve a character's survivability. These PowerUps improve the stats of all characters and are the main reason players should try to accumulate as much gold as possible. There have been a few PowerUps added to the game; however, most of the original PowerUps should be prioritized over the new ones. PowerUps should also be purchased in a specific order to save gold, which should be used for Golden Eggs. Now that the game is out on the Switch, here's an updated list of the PowerUps players should prioritize.
23 Seal I And 2
Allow Weapons And Passive Items To Be Banished Before The Run
The Seal 1 and Seal 2 PowerUps allow the player to remove a weapon or Item from the pool. They will not be offered during the run upon gaining a new level. They work similarly to the Banish PowerUp, with the only difference being when this PowerUp is used.
The player can change which item or weapon is sealed away from the Collections menu. This PowerUp saves the player a couple of Banishes while playing; in other words, two extra attempts to get the desired item or weapon.
22 Skip
Let The Player Avoid Picking A Weapon Or Item They Don't Want
When going up a level, the player is given four random weapons or items from which to choose. Sometimes, none of these weapons or items are desired at the moment. That's what Skip is for; it lets the player skip the selection process. Unlike Banish, it keeps the weapons and items in the pool.
Using Skip also gives the player a small amount of free experience. Use Skip early in a run to get the desired weapons or a passive item that is required for a weapon evolution. Use Banish instead if a weapon is offered that works against the intended loadout.
21 Defang
Causes Some Enemies To Be Unable To Deal Damage
There are a couple of PowerUps that give enemy creatures a stat boost or increase their numbers onscreen. This gives veteran players a more challenging experience. Defang is meant to make the game a bit easier. There are two major uses for this PowerUp.
Defang can be used by beginning players to make the game less difficult until they unlock more content. It can also be used to test a new character build; by weakening the enemies, it increases the odds of being able to survive long enough to fully level a build.
20 Charm
Influences The Number Of Enemies Onscreen
This PowerUp is like the Curse PowerUp; it's intended to make the game more challenging for those who think the game's gotten too easy. The Charm PowerUp does this by increasing the number of onscreen enemies. Enemies are increased by 20 per rank, and there are five ranks.
The 3 Best Things About Vagante (& The 3 Worst)
A niche roguelike, Nuke Nine's Vagante has a lot of awesome elements, along with a few things that are less great.
When combined with the Curse PowerUp, Charm allows for rapid experience gains. With the increase in enemies, it is important to get strong crowd-control weapons - like La Borra or Summon Night.
19 Recovery
Recovery Affects Health Recovery
Recovery affects how fast a character regenerates health. At Recovery's normal setting, it is hard to see the health bar move. That's how slow health regeneration is at default. There are a few passive items that increase Recovery, like Pummarola, but none of them synergize well with other weapons and items. This makes purchasing the Recovery Powerup even more important.
It may start slow, but with a little boosting, the character's health regeneration can get to Wolverine levels of efficiency, with health being restored to maximum seconds after taking damage.
18 Duration
Duration Affects The Duration Of Weapon Effects
Purchasing this Powerup increases the duration of the character's weapon effects. There are many weapons that are unaffected by increases in duration; however, the weapons that can benefit from an increase in duration become incredibly powerful when this Powerup is maxed out.
8 Best Games Similar To Vampire Survivors
After completing Vampire Survivors, some players might be looking for a similar experience, and these games may be just the thing.
Some of the best weapons, like Santa Water and the King Bible, become significantly more effective with boosted durations. In some cases, the duration can be made to extend passed the cooldown time of the weapon. When this happens, the weapon effectively fires continuously.
17 Projectile Speed
Weapon Projectiles Travel Faster
At first, the thought of making projectiles travel a few percentage points faster doesn't sound like much of a bonus. Weapons like Runetracer travel through enemies and bounce off solid surfaces. These projectiles last for a few seconds then they fade away. By increasing the projectile speed, these projectiles can hit more enemies before the duration expires.
The La Borra (evolved Santa Water) creates zones on the ground that slowly move to envelop the character. With a boost to projectile speed, these zones can be made to quickly merge around the player. The overlapping zones create an area that most enemies cannot survive in for more than a second or two.
16 Move Speed
Moving Faster Helps Avoid The Enemy Swarms
A lot of the characters in Vampire Survivors move painfully slowly. This makes avoiding concentrated groups of creatures quite challenging. By spending a little gold purchasing this Powerup, every character will move a little faster. This is especially useful with characters like Dommario, who begins with a negative to Move Speed.
A faster Move Speed lets the player get to the stage items much quicker. Also, there are a handful of weapons whose damage scales with Move Speed. These weapons are:
- Celestial Dusting
- Shadow Pinion
- Vento Sacro
- La Borra
- Valkyrie Turner
- Legionnaire
- Vandalier​​
- Fuwalafuwaloo
15 Armor
Increasing Armor Reduces The Damage Inflicted By Enemies
Armor is an almost forgotten stat. Many players assume all this stat does is lower the amount of damage taken from enemies. Those players are right, that is what the Armor stat does, but other aspects of the game are affected by Armor.
Some weapons, like Eskizzibur and Night Sword, have their damage scale with increases to Armor. The Divine Bloodline arcana increases the damage of some weapons if the Armor stat is increased. This is one of the better arcanas, and when combined with a maxed-out Armor PowerUp, it makes many of the weapons incredibly overpowered.
14 Area
Larger Projectiles Greatly Increase Weapon Efficiency
In the early days of Vampire Survivors, Area wasn't the most important stat to boost. Making weapons bigger onscreen, or increasing their effective radius, wasn't as useful as increasing Amount or Might or decreasing Cooldown times. Having the enemy horde hit the outer radius of one's weapons a fraction of a second sooner just wasn't a priority.
Things have changed. For starters, there are few weapons that aren't affected by Area. This makes Area one of the more user-friendly stats to increase. When Area is boosted to the upper limit, some of the newer weapons (like Summon Night) become strong enough to use by themselves.
13 Banish
Remove Undesired Weapon And Passive Items From The Pool
Banish lets the player remove an item or weapon from the pool. This prevents it from appearing in the future when leveling up. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of getting the desired item or weapon in the future. Banish makes putting together a specific build much easier.
10 Best Pixel Simulator Games
Pixel games have grown in popularity, especially in the simulator genre, and these are the best examples of this amazing style.
Banish has another use. Certain items and weapons have curses that activate when they reach maximum level. Players can avoid these curses by using Banish on the item on the level the curse activates. Torrona's Box is a great passive item until it reaches max level, then it becomes one of the worst.
12 Reroll
These Give The Player Another Chance To Get The Weapon (Or Item) They Desire
Reroll wasn't that high of a priority when the feature first appeared in the game. Reroll allows the player to change the choices of weapons and passive items from which to choose upon leveling up. The pool of items and weapons was much smaller then. With all the DLC content, it is possible to never see a particular weapon during a run — or at the very least have the desired item not be given until the end of a run.
Having a surplus of Rerolls will allow the player to complete their build during the first half of a run. This will make surviving the second half of the run a much easier task.
11 Cooldown
The Better The Cooldown, The Faster Weapons Activate. This Is Good.
Not all the PowerUps in Vampire Survivors work with every weapon. Duration, for example, doesn't affect weapons like the Magic Wand or Whip. Cooldown, however, does work with all weapons. By purchasing the Cooldown PowerUp, the player can increase the firing rate of every weapon they use.
With this PowerUp maxed-out and the Empty Tome passive item, weapons can have their cooldown times reduced down to the point where they are firing continuously. The Phieraggi, in particular, can be boosted to the point of being game-breaking.
10 Amount
Improving Amount Increases The Amount Of Your Weapons' Projectiles
Amount dictates the number of projectiles for the player's weapons. The higher the Amount score, the more projectiles weapons have. Not all weapons use the Amount stat though. Weapons like the Pentagram, Garlic, Clock Lancet, and Laurel do not use it, but the weapons that can take advantage of this PowerUp are made quite a bit stronger.
When this PowerUp is combined with the Duplicator passive item, weapons like the King Bible and Santa Water are strong enough to allow the player to survive with just those weapons. As a result, Amount is one of the best PowerUps in Vampire Survivors​​​​.
9 Luck
Luck Governs Many Important Aspects Of The Game
This is possibly the most versatile stat a player can boost in Vampire Survivors. Luck influences nearly every aspect of this game. Weapons are more likely to score a critical hit with higher Luck. Pick-up items are generally better too. Treasure chests have a higher chance of giving (improving) more than one item.
The Best Limit Break Builds In Vampire Survivors
Two of the newest features in Vampire Survivors are the ability to limit break weapons and limiting the number of weapon slots during a run.
A high Luck also provides the player four choices when leveling up rather than three. This gives the player greater control over their loadout. In addition to this, certain negative stage events have a lower chance of occurring with a high Luck stat. Players should max this PowerUp as soon as possible.
8 Omni
Omni increases Multiple Stats
Omni is one of the newer PowerUps introduced in Vampire Survivors and is definitely one that players should prioritize. This PowerUp increases the Area, Speed, Might, and Duration of the player's weapons. The bonus isn't as high as the individual PowerUps for these stats, but, when fully leveled, the Omni PowerUp gives all of them a 10% boost.
This upgrade makes the player's weapons hit harder and last longer while also making all of their projectiles noticeably faster. All of this will really help a player survive longer. This is easily one of the best PowerUps in Vampire Survivors as a result.
7 Revival
The Vampire Survivors Equivalent Of A 1-Up
When a player dies in Vampire Survivors, the game is over. There are no extra lives or continues — normally. This PowerUp revives a dead player and restores their health to 50% of the maximum. It is easy to get overwhelmed in this game. One minute a player is thinking the game is too easy, the next minute they are running for their lives from a swarm of enemies.
Revival gives the player a little extra time to get a desired, and effective, loadout put together. With this PowerUp, the Tiragisu passive item, and the Awake arcana a player can have six Revivals. The player needs to find the Tiragisu (which is rare) and use one of the three valuable arcana slots for Awake. The Revival PowerUp is there from the beginning of a stage without consequence.
6 Max Health
More Health = Better Odds Of Survival
This goes without saying, but the more health the character has, the longer they can survive. And, in the later half of a thirty-minute (or sometimes even longer)Vampire Survivors run, enemies can kill the player with just a couple of touches.
The more Max Health one has, the safer they'll feel running around in Vampire Survivors, and the more levels they'll likely accumulate in the first few minutes. Frankly, with topped-off Max Health, the first enemies in Inlaid Library take almost a full thirty seconds of constant damage to kill the player character, so it makes a pretty big difference.
5 Might
This PowerUp Increases Weapon Damage
Of course, Might would be one of the most important early-game upgrades for Vampire Survivors. First, it's a PowerUp that goes up to five like Greed or Growth, capping out at an additional 25% damage increase overall. Second, its upgrades are cheap in comparison to Greed or Growth. And third, outside of Antonio Belgaese (one of the easier characters), none of the other characters have innate damage buffs, so they'll all feel pretty puny until Might is capped out.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=422&h=268&dpr=1.5)
7 Beginner Tips For Ziggurat 2
Ziggurat 2 is a great game for fans of roguelikes. Here's what you should know before diving in.
Like Max HP, Attack Power is something that people always level up almost immediately in any game. This applies to Vampire Survivors as well. It's just a PowerUp that makes even the punier starting weapons, like Whip or Dagger, feel so much more impactful.
4 Growth
Experience Is Gained Faster With Increases To Growth
While Growth isn't the first thing that should be upgraded, it should absolutely be among the first few. The Growth PowerUp, like Greed and Curse, has five upgrade levels, with the number of coins required getting exponentially larger with every checked box. It starts at 900 coins and caps out at 6300 (if no other PowerUps have been bought yet), though compared to the Curse or Revival Upgrades, that's nothing.
Again, it's not recommended for players to pump every bit of their coins into getting Growth maxed out, but two or three are worth it early on for an extra six to nine percent bonus EXP permanently, especially if one likes playing on Hyper Mode.
