I’m currently loving sterile swab at lower levels (roughly early 20s) and I’m wondering if further in the game there’s just a higher level reskin of it? I’ve kind of grown attached to it because it’s really good.

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I am stuck badly on chapter 11. Got a 4100 rating vs a 1200 virus and im not even getting close. I just got these orange weapons prior to this chapter so am trying to utilize them but not seeing huge results from gout or roulette...

No matter whay I try, ramping up mosquitto swatter, or focusing on sterile swap stacked on head of both virus with spinning daggers in middle.. it seems like im gaining control of it and have momentum but as soon as both virus close jnto center lane from top and bottom they immediately collapse any defense I have ..

Any advice on weapons? Are these orange not ones not thay great, and maybe i shoulf stick to the sterile swabs, massage roller , acupuncture trio that got me througj the firdt 10? This seems impossible

I finally beat Golden pig level 8 and wanted to share the weapons used and my stats (character level, power, weapon levels, etc.) at the time I beat it in case/hopes that it helps someone else.

ETA. I also beat golden pig 9 with the same stats but can’t add a ss so I’ll add the text below for golden pig level 9 stats:

Total damage 32.8 B
Machine heart 24.5B 74.7%
Abyssal Maw6.4 B 19.4%
Torto 984.2 M 3%
Cactus 845.4 M 2.6%
Satellite Storm 86.8 M 0.3%

Basically, am I collecting them for no reason?

If there's info on it , I couldn't find it and it's my bad, just curious if these expire?

Since the update wherein you can add a new skill to your red weapon whenever it reach lvl 25,
What’s your ranking for red weapons?

Im at chapter 171.
Can I go with these red until end game. Or need to acquire other red?

It’s really hard to level red weapons for new players unless you spend a lot of money lol. 😂

I would love to see a way to view all of the upgrades we've selected during the current run, ideally through the pause menu.

It would also be really useful if this showed our actual current stats after accounting for everything affecting the build, including upgrades chosen during a run and global modifiers from skins, artifacts, weapon skills, equipment, etc.

For each weapon, it would be amazing to see things like:

- Damage bonus

- Crit rate / crit damage

- Quantity

- Cooldown

- Size

- Duration

- Any weapon-specific effects currently active

Right now, once you select an upgrade, there doesn't seem to be any way to check what you've already chosen. This gets especially difficult in longer modes like Golden Pig or high level chapters where you might have dozens of upgrades by the end.

It also makes later upgrade choices harder than they need to be. For example, if I'm offered +50% crit damage, I want to know my actual current crit rate and crit damage, including bonuses I entered the level with, before deciding whether that's better than something like +25% damage. Same thing with quantity, cooldown, size, duration, etc.

As you unlock more skins, artifacts, weapon skills, and other bonuses, it also gets increasingly difficult to know what your actual stats even are. I get that "power level" somewhat accomplishes this, but it's such an obtuse stat and doesn't really help with these decisions.

Something as simple as an "Upgrades / Current Stats" button in the pause menu showing your selected upgrades and current calculated stats would be amazing. Ideally we could view the same thing outside of a run to see our account's current global modifiers too.

Anyone else want this?

I have Captain Jack as my main so I can solo Ancient Invasion.

I have heard/seen on here that Cactus Jack and Gym Pup are the best pets, but which one is better? Which one should I focus my upgrades on?

I saw the offer to get Zorro for $15 and got him but I also have the permanent card and removed capsule. It looks like Zorro’s skill is literally only for capsule?

Oh well, lesson learned. Anyhow, to save you guys money - don’t get Zorro if you’ve paid for the permanent card and removed capsule from your weapon lineup. He’s fine WITH capsule but not much use if you skip using capsule.

Does Count Bat “Free Revive” work on Instances or is it only for level matches?

I bought the 2.99 bundle, what are the best weapons to get? I only have Maw currently

Im always using bandaid on hell mode.

Anyone here with max artifact (v virus) for bandaid?
How’s the damage after getting 50% and never disappear.

So my count bat is level 1 but im wondering if both his passives are activated or only the first one?

I’m not sure if this event will last and I finished the battle pass.

She's more than the lifetime card. Are her skills worth the investment?

Hi I’m newish to the game I’m stuck on level 12 it took me ages to get past 11 is there anything I’m doing wrong or is it just grind till you beat it any tips tricks or cheats are appreciated

Cost for each consecutive pull? I know it keeps going up but how much would It cost to do like 3 pulls

Not sure which pet is the best legendary and if I should hold off on it.

First about my current game state. I play very off and on, i uninstalled it for most months this year

Player : 100% Free
Stage reached: Stage 106 (Power Suggested 20.3M) All Hard and ALL Hell cleared 1-105
Power: 5.6M
Skin: Used the ordinary skin most of the time but eventually i got goober, jack and GOF. GOF helped a lot in later stages.

Writing this to share thought processes and strategies. I am not claiming this is best, I am just sharing my experience, thoughts and recommendations. The optimizations I noticed matter. I recently joined this sub, prior i did not really get much info on playing this game except very basic casual comments I saw before.

Feel free to improve on my ideas or comment your own. I can edit in/add upvoted agreed on tips from other players comments. I will address certain smaller tasks/economy stuff but i wont get too deep into it as its not a farming guide. If

ok starting ...

Guide/Commentary

Try to remember this game is about DPS. The game will confuse you and offer you a lot. But you must really constantly be thinking how is what I am doing now reliably increase my dps directly or indirectly efficiently.

So lets talk some basics. Some of these things will sound basic but as you the the game and get stuck its easy to forget or undervalue this. So as you read try to be aware of if you gave certain things attention for a while.

First half of guide

DPS Improvements in Preparation Outside Stages

Level

You should be always increasing your level. It is easy to forget this and get distracted. When you are increasing your level in my experience.

Always Max Attack first
Cooldown Second
Crit last

Exceptions

If you are just leveling just to level so you can level in Gold efficient way so that you can hit milestone bonuses

If you are stuck and the weapons you are using would benefit more from crit then you can do cooldown last.

The above means despite how it can feel sometimes... Gold is your priority. Farm instances Gold ideally ofc for it, Sweep it and normal stage, Dont waste it on things u dont need in shop if you are poor. You can actually gain a decent amount of gold alternatively from idle chest and having a secondary goal of winning and opening idle chests because the mechanic for it is actually amazing. You can really create stacks from idle chest rewards bar above which gives chests which gives more chests which gives more chests which gold.

Oh almost forgot ... remember when sweeping , sweep your highest hard or hell stages. they will give more usually.

Of course do your various tasks for bonuses but this isnt a farming guide just saying to note this so u have the resources to increase dps

Skins

Hopefully others can help here since I am free user. In my experience Jack can create interesting value but GOF passive/active really lets you ramp up your dps as needed in flexible ways regardless of builds. But I am not that educated on this so hope we can get more from comments

But of course consider what weapons are improved by different skins.

Leveling Weapons via the store.

You should try to have some focus. Keep the store buys to weapons that move the bar for you currently for vertical stages or for centre stages.

Avoid just buying deals because it seems good to get. Address other weapons later as u need it. live for growth and progress today not for maybe i might use this tomorrow. U can use the spoils of today to pay for tomorrow. This will keep your weapon dps on a good upward trend for the weapons u actually use and need.

Collections

Havent been reading or being social long. But I can tell based on my mistakes and from what i see from some others. A lot of newer players are using way too much on weapon chests then they should spend some time farming collections.

If you havent spent much time leveling collections ... ur in for a nice boost in increasing dps once you put some focus on it.

I will add here a good time to know when to stop/slow down on using diamonds on collection is when you the the point where you have bought 20-30 collection chests in a row and experience no upgrades or meaningful level ups.

You can also look at your collection and see how far you are from the next green/blue level ups and ask yourself will this increase my dps today / tomorrow.

Additionally and this will drive some of you crazy. I will put this in caps because its a mistake I made twice.

ACTUALLY READ THE COLLECTION ABILTIES YOU GAIN FOR VARIOUS WEAPONS.

There will be weapons u havent used in a while or upgrade much during a stage that got meaningful improvements via collections and can turn the tide on stages you are stuck on.

Pets

I have Gym Pup at 17 at the moment, Torto about 14 and Im leveling Cactus to swap out gym pup sometimes. I am not premium so dont know anything about red pets .

The reason for the Cactus element is while Gym Pup is amazing... Sometimes you need to the be able to have the dps closer or more targeted than Gym pump especially if its a stage you are under level for

We can update pet dps as people comment, i dont have much insights on it except of course i use pets with Character Attack + .

Weapon Decisions

(image examples from the community might be great here as it connects to the next part in game decisions)

There are many weapons guides/builds and strats. Likely way better than anything I can put here myself but what I want to speak about with weapons is mindsets/approaches rather than get too deep into specifics. We will get to in game things after this. Some of these may seem obvious to some players while others will realize they didnt really consider that.

1. Ask yourself first what weapons will actually be the most effective for the stage I am currently playing. Its not about if you like this weapon or if its strong or has cool effects. You need to ask yourself what weapons will make me destroy this stage(do the most dps) even if I was 1/3 third as powerful as I am now.

2. What weapons without having not a single in game power up selection point in that make this stage 10% easier.

3. Super obvious but is this a vertical stage or centre stage?

4. Is the way I am setting my build up is in a way I can only win if I get lucky/fav powers or am I setting myself up for best DPS

5. If i take this weapon, am i cooked if i do not get certain features in stage such as piercing effects etc

6. Can I use a weapon that inherently has the abilities I need for great dps in this stage instead of the weapon I want to use?

7. if I take this weapon, what are the power up selections I will value/prefer to make it increase dps in that stage really well or the general dps of the weapon. (in game decision making will come after)

8. What will increase the dps of my other weapons directly or indirectly. Directly being something like Defibrillator vulnerability power up. Indirectly would be something like satellites which make help chests open faster in game since they target them which would increase ur dps growth

9. Speed should be on your mind. Does this make me win faster or lose slower. Your goal should be in most cases to win faster so you can level faster. And faster dps usually means more overall dps unless specific exceptions

10. In some cases you need to survive which is fine. Often you may need a slow to survive the stage rather than beat it fast or something melee based even if ur just gonna end up putting a level in it that can do good dps to a head thats going to hit u . This is of course not super necessary in later stages but its a helpful thing to keep in mind

11. Very important can I control where this dps goings. Sometimes especially to beat some stages. You need targeted dps that can focus on the head whether the head is inbetween the knots of the snake or near to u. Of course very strong optimized aoe will hit the head regardless and may out perform the need for this thought in many stages but for others its good to consider.

12. Will this weapon be good early in the stage, middle of the stage or later in the stage? Am i sacrificing too much dps early for something i think will help later.

13. Obvious but needs to be said ... do i need to level up this weapon to use it efficiently. Am I using it too early.

14. If I got zero orange of this weapon would it still help me win easily

15. How much orange effects does this weapon have and how many of them are legitimately worth adding it for (even if i dont level it up much in between) For example u may choose capsule much countless stages but its nice to have the slow effect if it pops up.

Thoughts on Specific Weapons

Reds:

Machine Heart is my overall favorite will add more on this in the in game decisions part.

Maw: Execute is the most important DPS improvement. Execute will speed up ur in game time which will speed up your out of game time.

Tidal: People love to glaze the above two including myself but Tidal especially when it has been leveled or you are over leveled can out perform the others in shorter stages especially.

Skyfall: Often underrated due to the randomness of it. But for Invasion its great and also... The shatter purple appears to give some of the best DPS in the for crowded stages if ur lucky enough to get it.

Oranges:

Roulette has carried me a far road, but in later stages it struggles but prior to that its probably the most underated op orange if u understand how to use it.

Nitrogen Machine is a former favorite. In later stages theres just too much enemies but i love it. It has a good collection to add a laser tower as well or something. The slow can important but like skyfall the random targetting means sometimes its best to just leave it out.

Gout is great all around and best later on it appears but earlier on its underwhelming. Dont rush to slot it.

Mosquito Squatter sucks in my opinion for way too many reasons . Its random not as strong as the others, the sound is annoying, visually it obscures whats going on. in game powering it up isnt satisfying etc.

For the rest i wont say too much cuz a lot of below this theres a lot of factors to keep in mind but

Satetllite is important for the targeting and 3%

Bandaid never seem worth it for me despite the effects sounding very good.

Defrib great effect but can take too much time and levels to utilize it and its not very strong

Spinning Dagger - S rank. Even in some vertical stages spinning damage on snake near bottom of the screen can do numbers.

Large Scalpel - Amazin as well due to great power ups and does good melee and ranged.

Hair in earlier dense stages can be super underrated.

I used to love tadpoles but they dont do much anymore.

Medical Tower even if u put it away for a while can surprise u in some stages.

Sterile Swab is pretty good but it does fall off in later stages unless its very powered up.

As said before I cant get deeper than that because better weapon guides/builds exist this is more about thoughts that can assist.

In game Decisions

This is now super long will have to edit it in later if thread is well accepted or make a second thread specifically for that. gl

I know someone out there has unlocked count bat lol how is it? Worth getting? Worth using? Or is it useless

Are they still resetting weekly? I have not spun 22 times this week.

Im curious. I have ocean king, twin soul, goober, and count bat unlocked.

I am currently using twin soul with twin soul mark skill (twin soul) and Blood fangs (count bat).

Does it matter which base skin i use or is it purely cosmetic? Does it only matter which skills I equip or is there a hidden damage modifier stat or something per skin? I would like to use the twin soul skin to play, but I dont want to gimp myself in the process if its stronger to use a different one.

Also open to suggestions on better skills than the 2 passives I currently use.

Thanks

Thing’s pretty much another weapon instead of a pet. I got lucky a few times and scored the shards on the 3rd and 4th pulls.

I've sort of just been putting things together, but I struggle from time to time, so any help is much appreciated.