The BEST Items in Risk of Rain Returns!

Guardian’s heart is super useful on Glass runs, especially since they nerfed Infusion. You get 60 extra health, no reduction whatsoever.

I know this may seem small, but thank you so much for putting the deadbolt soundtrack in the background, deadbolt is one of my favorite games with one of my favorite soundtracks by Chris christodoulou and I don’t seem to see much of it on the internet. Thank you for that

Nice Family!

is barbed wire still absolutely broken? (if you stacked more than 30 anything close to you would die in a few seconds, and after stacking 100... you wouldn't even see any enemies)

I ask because although I loved risk of rain 1... I play on ps4/vita so I haven't played returns yet

Thank you grandpa

For me it is the Umbrella, (you gain 15 seconds of invincibility after activating the teleporter, increases time per stack).
It is absoluty busted to just stay inside bosses and monster hordes and press the attack button.
Combine that, with the artifact of prestige and you dont need to look for items anymore because the amount of bosses spawns will drop enough.

I totally agree with prophets cape, the no damage run for commando would not have took me so much longer to do

I had a ghost wandering vagrant. Don't know if it's different with that boss but ehh.

ProCape is definitely the best item in the game.

I'd like to personally shout out heaven cracker, because while with 1 stack it's only 1/4 basic attacks, with a little attack speed it's still really great, like, piercing is so worth it for big crowds of enemies. Also, the fact that it has the ability to make melee survivor's basic attacks ranged is pretty sick imo. (Also, if you can somehow get 4 stacks, so that every basic attack pierces, it's just amazing, good luck seeing that without command though)

I totally disagree with Ceremonial Daggers on 4th place. That item is TOTALLY busted. The most time in the game you're playing against hordes, and that item makes those fights completely trivial, even more playing with the Glass Artifact :P

wrong

Please make a video ranking the abilities of Survivors like saying which ability is better for each Survivor

Prophet's cape should be a red item, just buff the way it stacks a bit and it'll fit right in. 8 honestly don't know why it's in green to begin with.

Snake eyes are overpowered if you have more than one that crit saves me multiple times

As for best equipment, Unstable watch, its is bar none the best equipment in the game

Love

hi, uh, risk of rain 1 veteran here. infusion is one of the strongest items in the entire game. period. you get hundreds of points of additional health, and at later time points, you break the game over your knee just due to the sheer amount of enemies you end up killing. tough times is also incredibly broken because it's a percentage-based damage reduction and if you have two along with a single infusion, you've basically broken the game. for longer runs, grabbing a few clovers will also give you ludicrous amounts of item health as, eventually, you'll be fighting enough elites and bosses to provide a near-infinite amount of sheer stuff. it's been super cool to see newer players figure out YE OLDEN METAS, and i hope that my AGED KNOWLEDGE can come in handy.

other notes, uhhhhh, ATG still good, ATG mark two good, foreign fruits and mirror are the best equipment items don't @ me, overall a lot of focus when it comes to the endgame in this one is placed on player survival, and not through player damage output. everything is more cramped, and there will be situations where you have to take hits thanks to the way it's built, so items like the egg, meat cube, vial, and infusion become sort of vital to runs.

also, guardian heart provides oneshot protection, but it's still shit compared to a single tougher times because it provides oneshot protection too. it's better if you can have both together, but i would take an infusion over either on early stages, then tougher times, then guardian heart. overall though, for a green slot, i would rather have something like a hoopoo feather or a scythe so i can build movement or crit. it's strong. it's very strong. but it's not as good as items that keep you alive.

not much of a tip here, you probably already know this, but healing drones can heal damaged drones. always been a thing, always important to pick up for your drone health. if you're building arms race, you'd want to bring a drone repair kit along with the rest of your build, just so your little buddies can stay alive. drones are really strong, but you've gotta keep 'em alive! so, healing and repair kit can both help out a lot with that.

royal medallion is very strong. this is. the entire thought. it stacks. on miner it's stupid. ceremonial and happiest are insane. ifrit horn is super not amazing because of its low chance of activation, actually, and how difficult it is to get. it's good, but it falls into the realm of being So Not Worth It, because ifrit only spawns on one stage, and it's one of the worst stages to fight on because of how hard it gimps survivors like huntress and sniper. melee survivors are fine, but everyone else Is Super Not Fine.

legendary spark is better than ifrit horn because more consistency means item better wowie who knew

laser turbine is actually kind of dog ass because it doesn't contribute to your build whatsoever. it gives you a big number, sure, but for a red item it would probably be better to have a heaven cracker or a wicked ring or a hit list or a hyper-threader or classified access codes. heaven cracker's insane on melee survivors and on ranged survivors because it's literally attack piercing, wicked ring is COOLDOWN REDUCTION ON CRIT, hit list is MORE DAMAGE, hyper-threader is on paper Less Good, but it ends up being 120% damage per basic attack and i might be wrong but i think it procs crit, so if you have a wicked ring and maxed-out crit it's THREE SECONDS OF COOLDOWN REDUCTION ON HIT, AND PROCS SCYTHE THREE TIMES PER ATTACK, *AND* GIVES THREE CRITS TOWARDS PREDATORY. a lot of original risk of rain is focused on character strength, not individual item strength.

prophet's cape is a strong green item, but again, you need to focus on character strength, not item strength. grab a tougher times over it. it'll help you more out in the long run. it'll help you more out period.

as a final note, uhhhh. command isn't as broken in this game as it is in risk of rain 2? it's still weenie hut junior mode, but the 2d nature and overall chaos of the cramped environments means that learning how to menu quickly enough to get the item you want without literally actually dying is a genuine skill that takes time to learn. unless you play with risk of rain 2 controls. which is cool, but also, if you do, you're a total weenie.

Can you do the worst 10 items? ;)

Love the deadbolt music

i have to respect your usage of the escapists music

I know you said you’re still learning the game but as someone with hundreds of hours in ror1, some of these gave me a good laugh.

Personally, I’d say

10. Heaven Cracker
9. Arms Race
8. Imp Overlord’s Tentacle
7. Colossal Knurl
6. The Toxin
5. Guardian’s Heart
4. Umbrella
3. Ceremonial Dagger
2. Hardlight Afterburner
1. Prophet’s Cape

It’s so nice playing a newer game that a ton of people play

They should add the items to the second game

great video.. just one suggestion.. refrain from ever saying "make me want to cream"

How did an 8% chance make it to #3? That's got to be the worst boss item.

The best feature of the dagger is that the on kill effects still proc if the dagger kills, so it can chain off itself

For people using glass, some of these items are not very good especially happiest mask and arms race. For glass runs, you're at the mercy of every enemy, most of them can oneshot you, and you want to have full focus on evading what is there, and if it's not clear and visible, you'll be evading the wrong thing and die.
Drones are also very squishy, arms race is not going to protect them.

What you should pick up though are (in my opinion the best items)
offense: crowbar, fireshield, toxin, ceremonial dagger
defense: guardians heart, prophets cape, topaz thingy
mobility: rusty jetpack, hopoo feather, red whip


The reason I put fireshield in there is because if you do survive a hit, the enemies around your player are gone, including bosses. In returns it works with guardians heart, so you get a free hit. It also works with crowbar dealing even more damage.

i have no idea how to play this game

I think he forgot about the war banner

I think Nematocyst Nozzle should have been on the list - Super short cooldown, good damage, targets things like an ATG, and Wandering Vagrants seem to pop up a lot in runs at times, making it the boss item I've gotten the most. (Or, at least, used the most.)

Could you imagine if killing providence give you a boss item, the prophets cape

Must be nice to have access to the Judgement trial.

I think a genuine contender for the Honorable mention category is Warbanner. It definitely isn't top 10 best items material or anything, but it serves such an extremely effective niche that I don't think it can be overlooked. RoR1/R is FAR more reliant on you moving fast through stages, especially on monsoon, compared to RoR2. You need to be finding the teleporter ASAP, and then using the time it's charging to actually look for items and get money.

What makes the Warbanner so good is that, 1, it's a white item so is quite common, and 2, it's a stage 1 enabler. It can be pretty tough to deal with some bosses with no items on several characters, and even just getting one or two items may not change that. The Warbanner though is 3 items in one, if not more, all suited to combat. It gives you a large 30% movespeed and attack speed boost, allowing you to dodge attacks and kill enemies faster, and also heals 1% HP per second, helping quite a bit with healing when you haven't gotten any good healing just yet. Plus, the effect lingers for a few seconds after you leave the radius, so you aren't confined to just the tiny bubble either.

Finding a Warbanner as a first item allows you to easily clear the stage 1 and 2 teleporter bosses, allowing you to spend more time exploring and searching for items, rather than waste it fighting the boss. As a run goes on, it definitely isn't as amazing as the items you've mentioned here, but on Monsoon whether a run even gets past the first few stages or not can be hard to tell, and Warbanner is a single white item that almost guarantees that you will make it far enough to tell if this is going to be a good run or not.

I don't if anyone else has motioned this but prophets capes can be even more busted specifically on engi with the prototype laser turret, as the turrets inherit all of your items they get prophets cape aswell. as the turrets self damage themselves while firing, prophets cape lets it not only block its on self damage but heal from it. the turrets are one of the most powerful things in the game but balanced by the fact they can only do a couple damage ticks before breaking but prophets cape and a few hermits scarfs let them stay immortal at enough stacks constantly blocking and healing themselves while doing the highest dps in the game,



prophets cape is so fucking broken

You probably won’t see this but you should make a video about your favorite items to stack in risk of rain returns

I miss how in ror2, items are shown on your character. Its sad that only the cape does that :(

I hear deadbolt music

Very informative vid, thank you disputed o7

Happiest Mask is partly so good just because it's 2D. What used to be your epic beetle guard of doom wandering like a lost dog on some random platform a mile away is a ror2 issue with such long range and 3d environments. In RORR, your ghosts are ALWAYS near you and ALWAYS near enemies. If they were around you this often in ROR2 the mask would be great in that game.

Spare drone parts is even better because if you find a drone to item converter you can recycle that drone and it’ll respawn next stage so it kind of serves as the regenerating scrap from 2

nice deadbolt music

I high key did not know that's how prophet's cape worked. wow. Kinda wish the brief description the game gives explained more, but this video was very helpful

Deadbolt music in the beginning of the video:
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