Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips for beginners as well as for anyone who struggles with certain aspects of the game

General tips

• For most weapons, Sharp Shot is better or on par with all the other rare damage mods while also having no drawback at all
• Relics can be very useful especially in early game since relic chests can contain extremly broken items like Coral Amulet or Ring Of Parrying and you should generally try to go into one or two relic portals as soon as possible
• You can unlock not only weapons, but also a ton of new perks at the key totem, when you unlock them they also stay with you for one run to try them out
• If a melee attack kills an explosive enemy, you will not take damage. This makes melee an extremely valuable tool, especially during the early game
• Damage is generally more important than health and often you will be able to kill your enemies before they can even hit you if you focus on damage before survivability. You should still not completly ignore health as this could resort in a quick death
• Keep in mind the range your weapon works best in, and ways to help your weapon perform better at ranges it doesn't work best in. For example, auto shotgun and dual shotgun are much better at close range, but struggle at long range. Fast Shot and Grip Tape help control the distance and spread of the bullets to allow them to be better at long range. Likewise, while weapons like crossbow and orb launcher have longer range, they tend to struggle with accuracy at those ranges, so pickups like bouncing shot, aura shot, or big shot can help make them easier to hit with
• If you are struggling against bosses/elites there are a couple of perks and perk combos that could help you out a ton Poison shot: With every stack of poison that is applied you deal more damage, this quickly builds up into insane amounts of damage. Ice shot: This can help you simply focus on damaging the elite as much as possible while they are frozen. However this does not work for bosses as they are immune to freeze. Crit in general is amazing for single target damage, so going for an increase in critical hit chance is always beneficial, especially if you can get Mega Crit or Crit explosion. Reload Arc: Simply a huge amount of burst damage, can be scary to use as you have to be close to the elite/boss, but the damage is still very good
• In co-op runs, you can trade your weapon mods/grenade mods/perks with other players by dropping them. Other players will be able to pick them up. This really helps with inventory management, since players can stack the upgrades that they already have, and drop lvl 1 upgrades that other players already have
• If you find no rewards you want in a chest, don't scrap it immediately. Take one for later as the scrapping value of mods increase depending on which island you are on, so only scrap something when you need it that moment
• Hard Target and Bulletproof also affects Spike Chests and Totems (unclear if true)

Dodging tips

• Maybe a bit obvious, but always keep moving!
• Enemies in this game tend to track your direction rather than your current position, so if you're used to just circle-strafing around enemies from other games, try to make sure to vary your speed and direction to throw them off
• Having even one level of Stamina can be a run-saver. The ability to dash more than once in mid-air can let you fully reverse your inertia which can actively be used to throw off the aiming of enemy shots if timed correctly
• The "bullet time" you enter when aiming while in the air can also give you an extra dash! Holding bullet time for a moment will also let you dash in the opposite direction, no perks needed.
• Air dashing immediately after getting hit by something that knocks you up significantly lowers your chances of being combo’d into another shot. It will still happen sometimes though and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. This happens because most mobs calculate your inertia into their aiming, so they’re insanly good at chaining shots together if you aren’t constantly fighting against the inertia

Achievement tips

• In regard to flawless (no hit) achievements, you also can't get damage from totems that take away your hp, as well from spike chests. you can get your max hp lowered tho, like in the case of health totems, gold totems or greed perks like glass cannon

Long run tips

• If you're going for a long run, Perks that consistently bump up your damage are a must have! The most important perks are Gemstone, Checklist and Assassin. The earlier you start scaling them the better. % damage increase gets you diminished results further in the run, so it's important to always remember about them and focus on always scaling them. Always. Don't sit in the corner on those Horde islands and try to mow those crabs in bulk for that small 1% increase
• Power Armor and Money is Power - friends of those Perks above, but don't scale as well into late game
  
• Coral Amulet makes you practically immune to fire damage if you keep dashing while burning which
• Regenerating Armor is one of the best legendary perks for survival as armor is the strongest way of dealing with incoming damage next to Bulletproof
• Poison Shot/Poison - the melters needed when all other damage sources start falling off. It's the buffer that will keep you going further than ever, just try it out
• Care Package, Coral Amulet, Faulty Chests, Big Chests - if you go for those, your scaling will speed up drastically, but your progress and GPU will tank. Consider what's more important for you (tip: it's always scaling)
• Level Up: alternative to the pack above. Much less annoying, but also slower
• Any of the damage increasing weapon mods: The way damage calculates is your flat damage is increased by any of the weapon mods, then multiplied by your global damag - so everything that gives you bonus scales nicely with all of the above. That does include things that spawn additional thingies, like Mace Shot or Firework Shot but they usually stop being useful at island 30
  
• Critical - more damage for your damage. It calculates weirdly to be fair, but there's not much else to add - slap Sharpshooter, Power Punch and Mega Crit and you're good to go
• If your not considering a pure or hybrid Ability/Grenade build, equipping an Ability like Ice Blast, Black Hole or the Grappling Hook can be better for their effects rather than their damage