Vampire Survivors – An Alternative Build Guide

A build focused on knockback, regen, and lots of projectiles. Spoiler warning for unlockables.

Guide to Alternative Build

All credit goes to thefallinglink!

Introduction

This build was tested for Hyper Inlaid Library, and was the first build I got to actually work after several dying mere seconds from success (seriously, 2 seconds). Most guides I have seen emphasize Unholy Vespers (evolved King Bible), Death Spiral (evolved Axe), Hellfire (evolved Fire Rod), and often Heaven Sword (evolved Cross) due to their high DPS and total damage count.

In my experience though, they don’t work so well together in the last minute where it matters most. Most of the damage is too concentrated too far from the player to overcome the extreme crowding, and Unholy Vespers is insufficient after the FPS/projectile speed patch.

The Build

Character

Mortaccio, for the bone and 3 extra projectiles.

Weapons

• Bone: this will bounce off enemies in your immediate vicinity, helping maintain a buffer even when you are completely surrounded.
• Runetracer: lots of projectiles lasting a long time covering the whole screen, excellent damage at range.
• Cross -> Heaven Sword: excellent concentrated ranged damage in the endgame with a high level of control before evolution to carve through the mob.
• Fire Wand -> Hellfire: highly concentrated endgame damage, scaling with so many extra projectiles.
• King Bible (non-evolved): this also helps maintain a tight perimeter. Multiple projectiles moving quickly in a tight perimeter, improved by minimizing area of effect. I went for Attractorb instead of Spellbinder so I could not evolve it, but at most I had 1 second of downtime per minute which never caused any issue
• Whip -> Bloody Tear: the whip has a lot of knockback, which is crucial in the endgame, and the health regen of Bloody Tear can absolutely save you in the last minute.

Items

• Duplicator: with this, Mortaccio, and the global duplicator upgrade, you’re looking at 6 additional projectiles for every weapon, which is especially useful for the King Bible and the Whip
• Spinach: straight power buff, and for the evolved Fire Wand.
• Clover: generally helpful, and for the evolved Cross.
• Hollow Heart: for the evolved whip.
• Bracer: increased speed massively improves the Bone, Runetracer, and King Bible.
• Attractorb: generally helpful in leveling, I chose this specifically to help collect experience in the last minute when you can’t move anymore and might rely on Floor Chickens from levels (which you will get several of down to the last second). You could likely forego this for Spellbinder to scale most of the weapons and evolve the Bible, but I found it unnecessary.

Then, once you have those, head left for a while to also pick up the Empty Tome.