Vampire Survivors – Gennaro Character Spotlight

An overview of Gennaro with some observations and tips to help play him.

Gennaro Character Guide

All credit goes to cuthla!

The Stats

Gennaro is one of the better characters to start with. and that’s cause he prioritizes Amount as his stat of choice. Now I can hear some naysayers says “But +1? What good is that?” leans in some Your answer, dear naysayer, is Amount affects all weapons. Whatever weapons Gennaro gets his hands on is already a step up cause it’s firing two from the moment he picks it up. only a few weapons don’t get use from this (Pentagram comes to mind). But all the other weapons are fair game.

The Weapon

Gennaro weapon of choice is the Knife. This is another reason newer players will pick other characters over him. But one should not count the Knife out cause it’s got a weak starting game and it only fires in one direction. All weapons suck to start. Level 4 is where people really start seeing weapons showing off what they can do. Except the Knife. by level 4, it’s firing off 4 Knives and has a base damage bonus. By the time you get it to level 8, it’s firing 6 Knives with a 10 bonus to base damage and has 2 Pierce, making it a elite/boss killing weapon with it’s single target damage capability as well as for making escapes from certain waves, allowing Gennaro to drill through them anyway he wants.

Now the fun part, hehe. When evolved with Bracer, Knife becomes Thousand Edge, a nigh unlimited steam of Knifes with a massive reduction in cooldown and increase in Speed. even Elite/Boss enemies will practically be held in place due how many Knives they’re being pelted with. only enemies with high knockback resistance will not be slowed down.

This should be the first time you might have to worry about weapon pool limit due to how many Knives are being fired off. Thousand Edge has a pool limit of 70 on screen at a time. But most the time, they’ll be used up on enemies or the Knives are off the screen before that limit is reached. With Amount filled out in Power-Ups, Gennaro is throwing so many Knives at a time with a cool down so low he can get 60-70 on the screen easily. It’s not too big a issue. But if it seems like Thousand Edge is slowing down a little, that’s why.

A word on controls. whether you use a keyboard or game control don’t matter too much in the long run, Knife is a weapon that benefits controller support. With a keyboard, the Knife can only be fired in eight directions while a controller lets you fire it any direction. Both will work for everyone. but if you want some finer control where you put all those Knives being thrown, use a controller.

Why and Why Not (Pros and Cons)

Why Gennaro?

Gennaro, like Pasqualina, brings build versatility for runs. no matter what weapons you pick for him, he’s make the most of them with his innate bonus to amount. With the Amount Power-Up and Duplicator, he’s firing off 4 of any weapon that uses Amount right from the moment he picks it up, allowing for great level building early game. Toss Endless Tome in on top of that, and your build becomes even better with large amounts of clear going off 40% more often.

Why not Gennaro?

The Knife has one of the worse starting games around. Even starting with throwing two Knives, Gennaro has to play the ‘chase and be chased’ game to get his leveling started as you look for enemies to get in front of you till you get a decent sized crowd behind you to kill, then run around to kite them away from the xp jewels Gennaro needs so badly early on. this makes getting the Knife and other weapons harder to level up to 4 so you can take a breather while the weapons start to work for your build and you can address Gennaro’s other really big issue. Area coverage. Gennaro put Antonio to shame in the coverage department. with Knife firing in one direction, Gennaro is so unprotected, like 95% unprotected, that you have to keep a eye on where enemies are coming from, not only to make sure you know where they are but to also figure out how best to get them killed. Getting a second weapon ASAP is a priority instantly as Gennaro gets overrun fast the longer he goes without a second weapon.

How to Get

Gennaro costs 500 gold to unlock before gold scaling.

Tips and Builds

Get a second weapon for Gennaro ASAP. yes, his amount bonus is great. but in the early game, he’s hurting badly with the Knife being his starting weapon. almost any weapon will help him out immensely, as well as starting to utilize his amount bonus. Bible and Magic Wand are very good choices to use as Bible helps with his coverage problems while Magic Wand lets Gennaro have protection due to it targeting enemies closest to him.

Boss Killer build

• Weapons: Axe, Bible, Garlic, Magic Wand, Whip.
• Passives: Bracer, Candelabra, Pummarola, Endless Tome, Hollow Heart, Spellbinder.

The Boss Killer build allows for Gennaro to have good survival while utilizing positioning when Elite/Boss enemies show up. Bible, Magic Wand, and Whip help to keep enemies at bay while Garlic adds some knockback into the build. Axe and Knife, good for enemy clear normally with the other four weapons in place, become a devastating pair when evolved into Thousand Edge and Death Spiral, allowing Gennaro pretty much free reign to go where he wants as both have Pierce. But Death Spiral has unlimited Pierce, allowing for doubling up on damage with the two. And the rest evolved up survival with HP gain from Soul Eater and Bloody Tear while Holy Wand and Unholy Vesper put the hurt on anything trying to get close to Gennaro. When Elites/Bosses show up, target them with Thousand Edge and move into position where as many of the weapons are hitting them at once. will normally be 5. Sometimes Holy Wand joins in if the Elite/Boss is the closest target. with that many evolved weapons focused on them, Elites/Bosses won’t last long under the focused firepower even if they have knockback resistance.

Domination build

• Weapons: Ax, Bible, Runchaser, Santa Water, Pentagram.
• Passives: Attractorb, Armor, Bracer, Candelabra, Crown, Spellbinder.

The Queen isn’t the only one that owns everything. Domination allows Gennaro to crush the current run with coverage, Pierce, and retaliatory damage, if things get too close.

Domination does need to be leveled so you have all weapons ready be evolved at the 10 minute point of the run or to save chests if running a stage that allows for evolves sooner (Mad Forrest with the first chest drop and Dairy Plant come to mind). Pentagram needs to be the last weapon picked up to mitigate loss of xp and chests. Just head away from where they are and level up Pentagram quickly. It will go off 8 times as you level it, once picking it up and 7 more for each level gained, so being away from chests will help with not tearing you hair out. Once fully evolved, Domination lays waste to the current run with all of its’ coverage and piercing weapons while Glorious Moon nukes everything when it goes off. Elites/Bosses don’t pose any threat as they can be focused down with the combination of Death Spiral,Thousand Edge, and Unholy Vespers while No Future is having fun bouncing around outside of the kill area thinning number out and La Borra is there to be shuffled in.

In Conclusion

I run Gennaro from time to time to stay brushed up on dodges and threading the needle. He’s one of the more satisfying characters to run cause once he gets going, he runs like a finely tuned machine. He does a great job on level and kills runs with his single targeting with Knife and is so versatile for almost any build as long as they gain amount.

But like Bruce Lee said in Enter The Dragon, “Don’t looks at the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” Gennaro may have a bad starting game. but getting past it is well worth your time.