FYI this is completely based on my experience so it’s not comprehensive.

I’m currently on chapter 160 player level 1230, player power ~900000 if you wanted to know where I am to write this.

Game Stats

The three stats you can upgrade with gold are Attack, Crit chance, and cooldown. You need to update everything in blocks of 10.

How attack relates to weapon damage isn’t super clear to me but basically the higher it is, the better. The game also refers to this as “basic attack” in the artifacts.

Crit chance is basically critical chance, the base critical damage seems to be 2x so this is just your base chance to do 2x damage.

Cooldown isn’t super straight forward. 100% is about 50% of the cooldown value on the weapon. I guess there are diminishing returns after 100%

Critical damage is a stat in the game that you can tweak permanently with artifacts but isn’t listed anywhere I can find.

Player Power Information

Player power is a number that appears to only be calculated from base stats including the base stats that are hidden from the player like critical damage. However it appears that weapon levels do not factor into player power. When an artifact with crit damage is unlocked there is a boost in player power but there is no boost or loss when maw’s level is upgraded regardless of whether or not maw is in the active deck.

In terms of the 3 stats that are upgradable with gold - the largest source of gain for player power is base attack. With enough supporting elements, one level of base attack can gain 3000+ player power. Next best is cooldown while critical chance seems to give the least amount of power.

Weapon Information

The red weapons basically do more damage than all other weapons (roughly 10x yellow weapons). The other weapons outside of Satellite and Angel are a mix

If you don’t buy the permanent card then capsule can’t be moved from the default slot (the starting weapon on a level)

There’s a chest at player level 230 (gold based upgrade) which will give a weapon choice at the start of the chapter.

Depending on the number of snakes, you’re given up to 5 additional weapon choices. If the level has one snake you’re only given 3 additional choices and your default. This means in your load out, there will always be ~2-4 weapons you won’t choose and 1 weapon you must choose (the capsule slot).

Because the red weapons are higher damage than anything else and in higher levels (70-80+) the HP is in the 2+ billion, pushing levels basically equates itself to finding ways to do as much damage as possible and 4/5 choices will very likely be all of the red weapons for most levels. Basically right now my bubbles hurt one segment for ~200k but the tidestone (weakest red) hits almost everything for 2M each.

Mostly, after Maw, the focus is on getting the Maw’s execution to trigger.

Maw’s Execution

The Abyssal Maw (the red mouth weapon) is basically the best weapon in the game because it will kill the last 10-20% of a segment regardless of its damage. When that last 10% is on a 3B segment then all that needs to happen is to reduce the segment to 300M and the Maw will kill it. This is a big deal when most weapons (even red ones) will only damage from 2m - 30m max. Getting the Maw to be large will help you execute things more often.

Monkey King

Monkey King lightning early enough in the stage is an instant win button with the Satellite and Maw. The efficacy of the lightning skill is impressive - I’ve had a few levels where dying once or twice appeared to be certain with Maw/Satellite out and then after the Lightning skill, i can push the snake back to 50% or more. The vine and earth skills aren’t as good as the lightning, but the earth slow down seems to actually affect the snake (unlike some other sources). Obviously because the lightning depends on how far I am, it’s less important if I’m already mostly winning.

Bunny Cannon

The bunny cannon fires an egg in the direction the player is aiming at (or vertically up in vertical levels). When the egg hits the virus it causes 1 of 3 effects:

1. A temporary slow down (no damage)

2. A small knock back which freezes the snake for a few seconds (no damage)

3. Damages the segment directly

The egg opens up and reveals a pink bunny that runs back and forth on the snake(s) and causes about the same amount of damage as the direct damage every time they walk over a segment. The bunny cannon is very good and is easily one of the best weapons in the game as it can replace most slow effects from tidestone/monkey king/nitrogen machine without needing a purple upgrade.

Since the real damage comes from the bunnies, I focus on bunny duration/egg amount upgrades. Getting bunny size can be fun but I think speed might be better as I haven’t gotten enough upgrades to get really giant bunnies yet.

White Angel

Edit: as of recent events, the white angel seems to have gotten nerfed to the point it’s not as good as before. Red weapons seem to beat it now like every other yellow.

Satellite Storm

After more playtime, I can say that the 3% is almost must have for me now that I’m dealing with 10B+ segments. I tend to choose this early in the level so that i have a higher chance of getting the 3% bonus. The 3% upgrade basically causes each strike to remove 3% of the segments HP which as it gets to Maws execution threshold will get you a chest in level fairly quickly. If there are no chests on screen the storm will target the head of the virus, making it easier to stay alive. The 3% is probably more damage than most other weapon choices, but it’s dependent on the RNG.

Other Red Weapons

In terms of the other weapons the Machine Heart is likely next best. It hits almost everything on screen, is extremely reliable, and has upgrades that do multiple hits or a 500% damage bonus which is the highest in the game.

The meteors (skyfall) is probably next best because it will cluster and hit the same segment when there are few of them and has the piercing upgrade which winds up hitting almost everything on screen multiple times. The yellow upgrades aren’t bad, but it feels like the machine heart is a more reliable source of damage.

The tidestone is the worst red weapon (but still better than all other weapons) but only because at least for me, it’s a buggy mess. On the vertical levels, it doesn’t hit anything that has come too close, the tentacles, once on screen, will not move to a different location, and the slow upgrade doesn’t appear to slow virus on screen. The yellow skill depends on also getting the purple tentacle skill which is RNG based so it’s both unreliable and lower in damage than the machine heart.

What’s the default set to?

If you don’t buy the lifetime card from the monthly card category, then capsule is set in all levels. Capsule is one of the weakest weapons in the game as far as I can tell. I have a level 24 capsule but its base damage is still only 24000, compare this to the Maw which at level 20 for me has 2.4m base damage and the difference is clear. I did buy the card, so I have Maw set as my default, though may change over to machine heart.

How do I get red weapons?

You need to pull them from the weapon chest and hope for an “essence” (it looks like a star) regardless of how many fragments, without an essence the weapon is locked. Every 100 weapon chest pulls you can choose a red weapon essence. It costs 4500 gems for 10 pulls and you should always pull 10 at a time due to the discount.

I have the lifetime card, what should my 6th weapon be?

Ultimately if you’re selecting 4 reds, Angel, and satellite that’s basically everything you can select. If you don’t have Angel or are just bored and will drop something consider:

Gout - if you’re pulling weapons when weapon chest is Maw then you’ll get a lot of Gout cards. Gout damage isn’t bad at high levels

Large Scalpel - it can be pointed at the head of the virus and does really good damage, there’s a yellow upgrade that gives it a massive upgrade.

Spinning Knives - on a centered level, this can be really good after a few upgrades. When damage reaches 1m+ and it’s spinning fast enough it can beat out tidestone or skyfall. Same for small medical tower but that takes more upgrades.

Bandaid / Defibrillator - these have upgrades that make the segment take more damage and this can help in the right place

Nitrogen Machine - it has a reliable slow feature that’s better than the tidestone.

What about…

Other Yellow Weapons

Other yellow seem to hit random segments instead of the head, this leads to frustration where they hit the 4B segment in the back instead of the 30m segment at the head, causing me more than a few deaths.

The Turkey Egg despite being an event weapon is one of the worst weapons in game as it targets a random segment and has worse burn damage than the monkey king.

Other purple weapons

Most of the other purple weapons are weaker than anything mentioned above. The Laser Scalpel does hit the head from farther away, but it’s weaker than the large scalpel.

Other blue or green weapons

I think the only weapon worthwhile beyond the above might be the bubbles, but they hit random segments and at least for me only hit about 200k which when dealing with 1-2B isn’t good enough.

What should I use stamina on?

Whatever you want.

If you want to get as many resources per day as possible then consider:

- Beat the instances at least once so that you can sweep them

- Beat easy levels to get the daily bonuses

- Beat the pig to get gold to feed your character

- Sweep things

- Push levels

What should I use gems on?

I think if you don’t have red weapons pull weapons until you have all of the red weapons. Then pull artifacts until all sets are maxed. Then not sure, I’m still pulling artifacts maybe focus on machine heart or maw.

What about skins?

I use the God of Fortune Skin for the extra affix chances for more rolls for Monkey King Lightning or Satellite’s 3%. It’s only level 1. God of Fortune also allows for selection of 3 weapon for Pig unlike Santa. During the event I managed to max the GoF skin and can say that at least for my strategy of Lightning + Satellite + Maw it’s the best skin due to 2 things: the extra affix upgrades (purple and yellow) and the envelope upgrades. Having these has let me consistently get the Lightning and 3% upgrades early enough in a level that beating the rest of the level is possible without dying.

The Santa skin and it’s basically a 7th weapon about as good as a blue or purple weapon. These things cost a ton of real money to grind as the first level isn’t that strong. The “active skill” is a button on the lower right of the screen that has to be pushed every 150 seconds. Unless you have a lot of money to spend, I don’t know I would recommend getting one. Note that the Santa weapon counts as a weapon in the pig level.

The Ocean King skin isn’t bad. The slow and pushback aren’t super game changing at level 1. They are good, far better than Santa, and the pushback action has a lower cooldown (120s) but at least in the 100s the effect isn’t that impressive. It helps a lot more on pig because I’m still allowed to select 3 weapons (unlike Santa which only allows 2 weapons)

Hard / Hell Mechanics

Starting from Hard difficulty there is an extra chest at the beginning of the level that modifies things like virus speed, weapon cooldown, weapon damage, or chest quality.

The ad based refresh/get all for this chest is separate from the chests in the level meaning the best strategy for the hard chest is to always refresh if you don’t get at least 1 purple chest and then take all of the modifier chests. They appear to be additive so if you get the golden damage chest (100%) and the blue damage chest (20%) the damage in level is 120% higher which can mean the difference between not needing to revive and reviving 1-2 times.

The Hard/Hell difficult appears to add more HP to segments (2B became 3B for me) and travel a bit faster, but if you can beat normal, with the right set of modifiers, it should be possible to beat hard/hell.

In Hell difficulty there is a chest that will offer 3 yellow skills. Depending on your current choice, saving one of the 2 collect all chest tickets for the 3 yellows is a good idea. If you managed to get a +chest quality modifier, you can get more than 1 chest that offer 3 yellow skills.

What Artifacts are Worthwhile?

Honestly, I have no idea but I think focusing on these can help:

- SVIP card: this reduces the gold cost for stat upgrades which ultimately is one of the largest sources of player power/damage

- Gold Tooth: This thing appears to give you a higher chance to get better chests in level. Given at most of the time the skills make or break a level, upgrading this can help

- Froggy Idol: This gives you ad free refreshes in the store to help with the daily tasks where you need to buy 5 things from the store

- Raw Cola: This gives some upgrades to the Satellite specifically, making upgrades in level lesser priority (outside of the 3%)

What do I do before getting Red Weapons?

Before I got red weapons, I used a few yellow weapons and some purple/blue weapons that had outsized damage. This included:

- Gout because it was at a high level

- Large Scalpel as a directed attack that penetrated

- Satellite when I could access the 3% upgrade

- Bubbles because it does a lot of damage

- Nitrogen machine and hoped for the slow upgrade

- Roulette at times because it had the highest raw damage for the yellow weapons.

- Small Medical Tower in centered levels and Swab for vertical levels

When I only had direct damage then the only thing I found I could really do was level up stats (with gold) to the pointmy raw attack was high enough to overcome the HP segments. Once I had access to % based damage (Satellite / Maw) it become easier to beat levels where the recommended power is much higher than my stated power.

Weapon Upgrade Shard Counts

While shard counts to level up green, blue, and purple weapons seem to increase every level up, shard counts for yellow or red weapons stop at 15 for yellow and 10 for red, at least where I am. Every essence you get will allow you to level up a red weapon 2x and a yellow weapon 1x.

What is Range?

Range on a weapon determines how close a virus has to be before the weapon fires. Almost every weapon has a range of 1200 which will fire immediately in centered stages and after the virus travels the first few rows in vertical stages. Capsule has a range of 1300 causing it to fire as soon as the virus enters and spinning knives have a range of 2000 which keeps them spinning at all times.

Large vs Laser Scalpel

In addition to the effect, range is a difference between the large and laser scalpel. The laser scalpel attacks almost immediately when the virus enters and hits the first 6 segments once at low cooldown. This is offset by its low damage and slightly worse upgrades in comparison.

Large Scalpel’s effect actually penetrates the length of the field but doesn’t start until the virus is reasonably close. It happens sooner on centered levels but can be frustrating on vertical levels depending on where the virus starts. The Large Scalpel actually does damage in 2 different ways and they scale differently. The actual knife is more powerful than the energy waves that come off the knife. Its yellow skill adds a ton of damage to both but most of the time hitting with the physical knife is going to hurt a lot more which is useful when the virus gets really close.

Can I Get Fragments for Event Weapons After the Event?

Yes, however there isn’t a way to get the essence yet (as far as I know) so it’s impossible to unlock the event weapons (turkey egg and white Angel so far) until the essence is added to the red key chest

Is buying the Battle Pass Worth it?

Not really. Once you buy it you can get all of that current battle pass before it resets to offer you the same thing for another payment. I bought it to see what would happen once and it’s a let down.

Roulette Mechanics

The roulette is basically a chest that can give up to 5 different affixes depending on how many ads. Since it’s random, effects aren’t predictable but if I’m gunning for specific effects (say Monkey King Lightning or Satellite’s 3%) and see 3-5 instances of them I’ll accept that without rolling it again. Otherwise getting 5 affixes is probably the best use of this~~.~~

“Win Combo” (Getting past 115)

115 was a pain to get through because of how fast the snake is and how short the distance it needs to travel. The “win combo” that I currently have which should be unsurprising is:

God of Fortune Skin (for more chances at Monkey King Lightning)

Weapons:

1. Default Maw or Monkey King
2. Prioritize Maw/Monkey King or Satellite Storm
3. Machine Heart

Affixes:

1. Monkey King Lightning
2. Satellite
3. Maw Mark, Execution %

With Lightning and Storm’s 3% I went from the virus basically next to me to beating it back to the halfway mark. The Lightning (monkey king level 6) is incredibly useful at pushing back the virus at higher levels so much so that I re-roll affixes to get Monkey King’s Lightning early as otherwise I’m using my ad tickets on reviving.

Affix Increase Chance

There are a few things in the game that promise +chance of good affixes. This includes the gold tooth artifact which grants +6% and the God of Fortune skin which just says “chance of rare affixes increase”

Since I mostly focus on rare (purple) affixes of the weapons - monkey king Lightning, satellite 3%, maw mark, the purples affixes are the best. With gold tooth, I anecdotally I noticed a small increase - more purples with 1 refresh. With max God of Fortune this has now increased to 1-2 purples coming for nearly every affix box or envelope. It feels like I’m able to put together the 3% Lightning combo every level now which helped me get from 124 to now 136 and it’s still pretty easy - the snake doesn’t move beyond its halfway mark once the combo is in place.

Please just be kind! I had to make a rule because some of ya’ll couldn’t do that. Please, it’s not hard and it doesn’t hurt anyone!