Risk of Rain

In light of its recent popularity in our community, I figured it's high time for the indie game Risk of Rain to get its own thread on ZEJ. If you're a forum-goer who's never heard of Risk of Rain, it's an action roguelike computer game with elements of a platformer revolving around the perilous adventure of the last known survivor of the UES Contact Light-- a transport and cargo delivery spacecraft-- after it was wrecked by a mysterious being known as Providence, leaving its contents to rain down to the unnamed but monster-infested planet below. It was released on Steam on November 19, 2013 by a two-man indie development team after seeing a very successful funding campaign on Kickstarter. And this thread is for conversation about anything pertaining to it, be it intelligent discussion on strategy or just chatter about a great run you might've had.

 

Leaping into something I'd just like to have in this thread, here are some general tips for play:

• Your first priority is always finding the teleporter and activating it. Pausing to farm for some gold by killing enemies is generally needless, as all the enemies spawned during the teleporter event will usually give you more than enough gold to buy everything in each level.
• Always keep moving while in combat. Doing so will naturally help you take less damage by virtue of avoiding more attacks, and continuously jumping (especially if you have to walk past enemies) will help you avoid even more.
• Prioritize chests over shrines, and larger chests over smaller ones. Unlike shrines, chests are guaranteed to pay out, and larger chests are guaranteed to contain items of a higher tier than smaller ones.
• Don't die.

It's also worth noting, once you have become acquainted with most of the items in the game, that a large portion of items fall into the category of "on-hit proc", which means they produce their effects when you hit an enemy with an attack. On-hit items can be further subdivided into two different categories, which can help decide which items are better on which classes.

Spoiler: On-Hit Items

For the most part, on-hit items are segregated into two distinct families: instance-oriented proc and attack-oriented proc. The main difference between the two types lies in when the game decides the item's effect is produced. Instance-oriented items have their activation decided each time an attack hits an enemy. Attack-oriented items have their activation decided when an attack is launched. As an example, take Mortar Tube for Instance-Oriented, and Permafrost for Attack-Oriented, and use Commando's Full Metal Jacket as a case study. When Permafrost produces its effect, it produces it on all enemies hit by that attack (so that cast of FMJ freezes all enemies it affects), but when the Mortar Tube produces its effect, you don't see a mortar come flying out of the Commando for every enemy hit by FMJ. For this reason, Instance-Oriented items are generally better suited to classes which can attack quickly, while Attack-Oriented items are generally more useful on classes which have Area of Effect skills.

Instance-Oriented Procs:

• AtG Missile Mk. 1
• AtG Missile Mk. 2
• Mortar Tube
• Meat Nugget
• Telescopic Sight
• Plasma Chain
• Sticky Bomb
• Ifrit's Horn
• Legendary Spark

Attack-Oriented Procs:

• Boxing Gloves
• Rusty Knife
• Prison Shackles
• Concussion Grenade
• Thallium
• Golden Gun
• Crowbar (SP)
• The Ol' Lopper (SP)
• Permafrost
• Ukulele

Crowbar is a little special, however. Say you have three enemies in FMJ's range; in order, one with low health on whom Crowbar wouldn't activate, one at full health on whom Crowbar would, and another one with low health. FMJ won't deal Crowbar's extra damage to the low-health enemy in front, but it will deal the extra damage to the full-health one in the middle. And then because FMJ dealt Crowbar's extra damage on one target now, the low-health enemy behind the one who activated Crowbar's effect will take that extra damage. For this reason, Crowbar is classified as Attack-Oriented, but you could say its effect needs to be switched on for the rest of the attack to produce the effect. Critical hits, which can be classified as Attack-Oriented as well, function in this exact manner, which is why The Ol' Lopper is listed as being this same special case.

I want to leave this post as general and easy-to-find, containing strategy and useful information for convenience, so it will probably be expanded gradually, especially by ideas from other people.

 

I got bursted down in less than a second from almost exactly half my health by just a Blighted Mechanical Spider and an Elite Bighorn Bison and I almost screamed in frustration. I had survived some pretty close calls throughout the run, but so long as I could have a few seconds of breathing space, all of the health recovery coming in from Pandemic, Monster Tooth, and First Aid Kit usually kept me going. There were two Ifrits up above, too, that could have dropped one of the last Monster Logs I need...

I think Risk of Rain needs a few more items which provide health or armor. Infusion is practically the only way to gain health, since Bitter Root doesn't provide enough on its own. There's an absolute wealth of health regen items, but health regen doesn't help when you can get put down in less than two seconds by just two enemies. Infusion, Bitter Root, Tough Times, and Colossal Knurl are the only items which give you more effective health, and three of those can be hard to come by. I think it would be useful to have just one common item that gave a small amount of flat health or armor, even if those four items had to be adjusted a little to accommodate.

 

Spoiler: Godkiller Selfie

Hey guys, just a pic of me hanging with my good bud Providence (and his emo twin). Guy still hasn't learned how to pet me correctly.

Anyway, this is from a normal Monsoon run in which I got one Infusion early and decided I'd farm for Ifrit's Monster Log. An excess of an hour I spent on that bridge in the Ancient Valley, with nothing to show for it, and I must have killed at least four times as many Ifrits as Ifrit's Horns I had. It got to the point where I could stand still with no concern of being killed in the slightest, and the enemies died by just being near me. I just wanted Ifrit-senpai to notice me! (Don't even ask how awkward it became between me and him when I got enough jumping power to just fly over his obelisks)

As a warning to all, do not underestimate Providence or his shadow's delayed spatial attacks. I may or may not have actually gotten killed in the last second of the fight by thinking I could take the shadow's delayed attacks-- Fire Shield exploded and killed Providence, but I was left with a sliver of health. I had Dio's Friend (which was in the fourth row of items) so that could have been used, but I can't recall if I saw "REVIVE!" or not in the confusion. Either way, those things must do Percent Health damage-- Blighted enemies may as well, but at least theirs is mitigated by armor, since while farming Ifrit not even the Blighted Snow Golems were leaving a lasting impact on me.

 

Hopoo updated their blog on Risk of Rain recently, promising two new classes and ten new items for the game in the next patch! One of the new classes seems to have hydraulic arms, a grappling hook, and the ability to create... lightning rods? Either way, exciting news!

 

Something that just occurred to me that I thought would be super cool; imagine Providence as a secret playable character. He basically already has a skill set-- Z is a powerful cleave with his sword, X has him slam the sword into the ground and release that shockwave around him, C is teleporting above nearby enemy and diving onto them, and V is the delayed projectile attack. As a playable character, he would need to be sped up a bit (thus his X and V might need to be shorter versions of their boss battle representations), but he'd be a powerhouse, reminiscent of a cross between HAN-D and Mercenary, sacrificing the sustain of the former and invulnerability and mobility of the latter for pure wrecking power.

Most likely never going to happen, but it's cool to think about. Just ignore the fact he'd be fighting himself at the end.

 

That patch though oh my fucking god best.

 

Risk of Rain just received a patch which seems like it should fix a lot of troublesome bugs and errors. Maybe I can finally farm for Monster Logs without having to worry about the game crashing...!

 

Am always up 5 Risk of Rain