Vampire Survivors – Pasqualina Character Spotlight

An overview of Pasqualina with some observations and tips to help play her.

Guide to Pasqualina Character

All credit goes to cuthla!

The Stats

Speed, also known as Projectile Speed, is Pasqualina’s bread and butter. she starts with a 10% bonus to Speed and gains 10% to Speed every 5 levels till she hits 30% at level 15, putting her at 40% on her own. This makes her the fastest weapon firing character, along side Dommario, till Giovanna is unlocked, who needs to get to level 41 to out bonus Pasqualina. Using the Bracer can get her up to 90% and lets her use slower weapons to make them far more effective.

The Weapon

Pasqualina brings the Runetracer to the run party as her starting weapon. It’s a slow moving diamond shaped projectile that has 8 levels and leaves a different colored trail behind it as it proceeds to bounce around the screen and various objects on the stage (trees, tables, walls ect ect). It has a small amount of knockback (1) but is the pierce weapon as it will go through enemies till its’ Duration runs out.

The Runechaser is a very versatile weapon as well. Though the Collections page says it works with Speed and Duration best, it actually makes use of any stat that affects weapons, making it one of the best weapons to use or to fill out a build if you can’t decide on a weapon to go with. Just toss Runechaser in and and your build will be much better for it.

Evolving Runechaser, with Armor, turns it into No Future. it loses the diamond projectile to become a cyan laser that explodes with every bounce. No Future loses amount and, to a lesser extent, Duration. but makes up for it with Speed and Cooldown. It also becomes a Retaliatory weapon, gaining a 10% explosion damage bonus per point of Armor, including from Power-Ups and leveling bonus (Divano LOVES No Future).

Why and Why Not (Pros and Cons)

Why Pasqualina?

She starts with Runechaser. Like any weapon, it sucks at the low levels. but when it hits level 4 and coupled with her Speed bonus, Bracer, and its’ own Speed it gets as it’s leveled up, it becomes a devastating weapon and is one of the few weapons that does fine whether you evolve it or not. And given Pasqualina’s 40% Speed bonus she gets just for being there, slower weapons, like the Ax, are better for it. Put a fast weapon in her hands, like the Knife or Magic Wand, and you have the makings of a decent Kills run.

Why not Pasqualina?

Pasqualina’s the definition of a ‘Glass Canon.’ All that Speed she has makes her ability to soak a hit much worse then other characters. Armor almost become necessary for her runs to help her in the survival department, as that’s where her best damage is and being able to take a hit due to the increasing amount of enemies on the screen becomes a bigger and bigger factor as the run goes on. Due to how much damage she takes, she gets quickly taken out and builds that don’t use Armor are much harder to complete with her

How to Get

Pasqualina is unlocked for 100 gold. I forgot to mention gold scaling when I did Imelda’s Spotlight. Gold scales as you unlock characters that use gold as their unlock condition. the number shown is how much the character costs at base price. so don’t be surprised to see your 10th or 12th character costing a few thousand gold to unlock

Tips and Builds

Tips

Speed being Pasqualina’s thing, get her as much of it as you can. Leveling up Runechaser and Bracer makes putting almost any weapon in her hands burst fire monsters, Runechaser befitting very well from her Speed as the Speed bonuses it gets from being leveled up puts Pasqualina over 100% (130% with Runechaser, to be precise). Getting No Future helps out with a build immensely with opening up 50%-80% Retaliatory damage (if you have full Armor from Power-Ups unlocked) as Pasqualina stops being a Glass cannon and becomes hard hitting, fast shooting, durable character backed up by 5 other weapons of your choice

Machine Gun build, Pasqualina edition

• Weapons: Runechaser, Knife, Magic Wand, Lighting Ring, Bone, Ax.
• Passives: Armor, Bracer, Endless Tome, Duplicator, Candelabra, Attractorb.

Pasqualina’s Machine Gun build comes to the table with blazing speed due to the bonuses to Speed her and Runechaser have already. By adding Endless Tome in, the build goes from burst to full auto fire for all the weapons, Duplicator giving you more firepower on top of that and Attactorb letting you get all that XP out of reach as Runechaser/No Future punches through and Bone bounces off the skulls of any enemies that get past the other weapons in the build all the while Pasqualina deals out heavy damage with the No Future explosion retaliates

Bounce Defense build

• Weapons: Runechaser, Cherry Bomb, Bone, Bible, Garlic, Whip.
• Passives: Armor, Spellbinder (1 level), Pummarola, Endless Tome, Hollow Heart, Attractorb.

Bounce Defense place survival at the forefront while allowing Pasqualina to better handle large groups of enemies in the later waves of a run. This build works better with less Duration. But going ahead to max out Spellbinder don’t hurt it any. Bible, Garlic, and Whip give her a great area defense and better survival chance due to the area they cover and when evolved, Unholy Vespers acting like a lawnmower while Bloody Tear gives some self healing and crit damage. Soul Eater acts as a middle ground between the others, also gaining some self healing and area defense while Bone and Cherry Bomb provide solid enemy clear with Runechaser/No Future punching through everything in the way and thinning numbers outside of Pasqualina’s defense zone. With the retaliatory explosion being that nice surprise to anything that does manage to get through.

In Conclusion

Pasqualina is a very fun character to play. Bringing Bounce builds to the table as well as befitting immensely when Armor was updated to include retaliatory, she’s a character that teaches patience is a virtue, but that virtue can be sped up some when she absolutely blows up with weapon evolves. Being a Glass Canon doesn’t slow her down any. Just makes her a little trickier to run. And she’s a very good choice for kill and level runs due to having some of the best pierce in the game right from the moment your run starts.

Pasqualina’s pretty fun with the right build and even experimenting with new builds works with her nicely. So don’t be afraid to let her in and take her for a run or two.