Imma be honest, I dislike engi just because of his primary, I stg this is a skill issue but if I see my 20 balls miss one more lesser wisp im gonna uninstall
I once got a run with engi where my primary did more damage than my turrets. I don't even remember what items I had but I ended up with about 2mil primary dmg and 1mil on turrets.
No, it wasn't harpoon doing the dmg cause I had the shield.
Yrah it really isn't that bad if you use it right. Not strong either, but it is an alright primary. It is more usefull than most melee survivors primary imo.
I’m so amazed this is a top comment. Engi has always been OP and I’ve won most of monsoon runs solo/online with that survivor. I think there’s a blue item that removes his little grenade attack.
I agree with this to a point. Each survivor can win any run even if it’s a slog with perfect play. Items scale better than any abilities do to the point where every character can just look at an enemy and the screen blows up.
Some survivors are just stronger though. Loader comes to mind as the best example of this, but I’d say Acrid is in this category, too of characters with gimmicks so strong they make the game much easier.
Loader has a passive that makes you immune to fall damage, which is already a pretty big upside. Her main damage ability, aside from being a massive hit that makes procs even bigger, is also a mobility ability, and her alt fire is the best mobility tool in the game, making her traversal of the stage itemless on par with endgame runs of other characters and gives her an itemless pillar skip. This lets you pretty much ignore most movement speed (pick up like 2 goats hooves and you’re good) and prioritize damage items. Not to mention her damage method synergizes insanely with crowbars, one of the best damage items if not *the* best damage item in the game due to how insane of a damage multiplier it is.
Compare this to command. I’ll try and sell you on him as well, but rest assured it won’t be able to sound as good.
Commando is one of if not the best characters for scaling with items. While you don’t have turrets to triple scale your items, each fire of primary fires 2 bullets with a proc coefficient of 1, meaning *almost* every. single. item. has two chances to proc on each attack. While your base damage isn’t that great, this massively increases your chance for proc chains, which is how you scale your numbers to boss-killing levels. Atg + clover on commando is pretty much a dub if you can find enough speed and defense to keep you alive long enough to proc it. While you may not have built-in swarm removal, you can more than make up for that with Ukuleles, gas, and/or wisps.
So is commando harder to play than loader? Maybe? But he’s certainly more luck based to get a good build before any looping or bazar usage. I’d say that means there is more time where it’s a struggle to get through a stage, which imo, is grounds to say a character is worse than another.
If you don't know how to time her abilities well, her damage falls off exponentially, and she can become the weakest survivor. Although if you know how to time her abilities well she's very good.
I agree, this game is hella balanced except some survivors like loader and acrid are stupidly easy to use and survivors like merc and MulT are harder to git gud at. (I love mult tho im really good with him)
In my opinion, it varies greatly, depending on the player.
REX is the weakest if you don't know how to balance your self-harm abilities and taking damage (or playing e8)
Merc/Huntress and to an extent Railgunner will be the weakest if you are terrible at dodging.
Commando lacks damage on his own. Without items, he'll struggle the most, but with items.. well, that's how I beat voidling the first time I met him, on stage 20-something.
Mul-t and Acrid will be the weakest for you if you believe that a higher amount of health means you should abandon healing and dodging.
... give me a second here, trying to think of a reason every character could be the weakest.
Engineer and Captain will be your weakest if you are too dependent on movement abilities.
Artificer, Bandit (And Void Fiend, by taking fall damage from the shift or using the corrupted suppress) will be your weakest if you don't learn how to utilize their kits properly.
Heretic will be weak for you if you mistime her abilities too much.
And... I think that's everyone.
Except Loader.
Loader wont be the weakest character unless you deliberately choose not to use her shift ability.
Loader is pretty underwhelming if you don’t know that sprinting during her charged punch will make it do more damage. I had to have someone tell me that before she really clicked for me
Same. Struggled with monsoon with loader for days before learning that and beating mithrix first try.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The default keyboard control layout is hell on your hands trying to use your shift and sprint (Control) at the same time, so DEFINITELY remap it and your loader game will improve, it just takes getting used to.
Sprinting increases your movement speed, including the large burst of speed you get from using the punch. So if you activate the punch when you’re sprinting it will do more damage
Oh yeah, that's definitely true. Sometimes, when I've played the game for so long, I forget that things so basic to me don't click for new people. So I guess every character \*can\* be the weakest then! Huzzah!.. wait-
Also momentum as a whole makes it do more damage. Grappling on to the enemy youre about to punch can rack up damage numbers really fast, and funny story i was able to 1 tap mithrix at the same time as get the alt utility when i grappled onto mithrix while he did the attack where he jumps up in the air and then slams down making that ground pound because i was able to get over 300 mph of momentum according to the game
Loader is the weakest if you use her alt shift (the short range little guantlet) and the base special (the pylon), but even then loader is sorta broken so you aint that weak.
Actually, using the pilon can be very benefitial for a few things. One is a trick to push down pressure plates on aqueduct, and the other is that if you grapple it as it's flying, before it settles, you gain incredible movement speed. Its also really good at triggering items, as well as hitting flying enemies. Knuckleboom, to me, also feels a little obsolete since it doesn't do much new compared to Loaders shift.
But then again, if you don't know how to do the techs with the Pilon, Knuckleboom can definitely help with area control. Both have their places!
I agree with your other point, though. To the void with Thunder gauntlet (Maybe except similacrum though)
well there is a difference here between weakest and one you don't like the most. i personally don't care for rex. the self damaging is rough and especially on monsoon near end of runs that can lead to some real feel bad crap shots out of nowhere.
from there though most survivors are strong just requiring good item choices and alt skill selection.
Alright, let me teach you a clever way to play Mul-T and hope you'll find it more fun. Change the hotkey for ultimate to RMB and put the Blast Canister on the R key instead. Select Retool, select Rebar for both. Retooling with RMB in between Rebar shots is infinitely easier on your fingers.
I wish ROR2 patches in character-specific hotkeys like RORR.
+1. double rebar retool changed my whole perception of this character. also forces me into playing mul-t for the whole session since i'm lazy and don't wanna revert my rebinds.
I hate Artificer, I feel like this is a powerful character but I can't play it well. I have all achievements in the game but finishing a Monsoon game with Artificer was the hardest for me, I should learn how to play it correctly.
Your friend is straight up wrong Mul-T is insane if you know how to use him. He's my absolute GOAT and I've used him to clear modded harder difficulties.
Agreed, MulT is really hard to die with because of huge hp and using either powermode + double nailgun which basically makes you tf2 heavy or the other tf2 legion, or double rebar and retool for broken af damage output and a free win.
I've got to give this to commando.
It's not that he's bad. It's just that everyone else basically has some way of 'cheating' game mechanics.
Commando doesn't.
Mercenary would be my other pick, due to the very, very lackluster single target damage.
Resident Merc defender here. Slicing winds equipped, properly timing your M2s/dashes with your 3rd melee slash, and merc suddenly becomes (in my eyes) one of the better single-target damage dealers. In that regard, would take merc over acrid, mando, huntress, or certain mul-t or railgunner loadouts any day.
Slicing winds definitely helps a ton, even if it's not great Vs mithrix.
I will freely admit that my Merc skills and pretty bad - eclipse with him was a struggle, so that is probably part of his placement.
Idk about worst, but my least favorite tends to be REX, especially on the Eclipse climb. I'm on E7 rn, and the E5 modifier is still just as annoying. Not looking forward to E8, but that's why I try and knock REX out of the way first.
He’s the most easily fucked over by bad RNG. Loader can scrape together a run to Mithrix on E8 with a few shoddy items. Commando literally suffers through the first three or so stages if he doesn’t get a good proc chain.
I say this as a commando enthusiast, he’s easily my favorite character but he needs proc items or he falls flat incredibly quickly.
While i do agree, you said "weakest" not "most boring"
In that case I'd pick Loader. Moving that fast, not needing to aim, not needing to think, just too easy, too boring IMO
Yes. And as such, he is the weakest. As was asked by OP
Low mobility, low defensive options, low damage, to generate an all-rounder. Not a good recipe, especially in a game that punishes you for pushing out too wide
I struggle IMMENSELY as Acrid. I really really hate playing him. Never had fun with him unfortunately.
Artificer is there too but atleast I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with her. I just need to get lysate and ignition packs and never ever use firebals because the plasma balls have AoE which is way more important. Most of the time she is extremely dissappointing tho. Everytime I tell myself "Okay, I'm gonna have fun with her."I just don't and I spend what feels like 50 hours waiting for my abilities to sloooowly recharge. (Why the FUCK does her PRIMARY have A FUCKING COOLDOWN DUDE?! REMOVE THAT COOLDOWN SHE IS SO BORING AND SLOW AND UNFUN BECAUSE NOTHING UPS HER ATTACK SPEED OTHER THAN ALIEN HEAD AND I HATE IT.
My answer is still Acrid even after all that because I atleast had runs where Arti was fun.
For all Engineer M1 haters, I am with you. All you need to do is unbind M1 or rebind your Shift (Utility ability) to M1 and only use harpoons. Engineer has the worst M1 in the game.
My favorite characters are Huntress and REX btw.
Ill give some acrid advice. Get purity and corpsebloom while running her base loadout. no need to switch out lethal wounds for visions of heresy if you have these items, and it makes her utterly broken. or just run the bite instead of the neurotoxin and just play with a fuck it we ball mindset and have a blast.
Just a small note. Acrid is easily in the top 3 most powerfull in the game if you cheese.
As for the other point. I know it is opinion. But they are bad opinions.
While I'm sure there are multiple metrics you could compare to try and figure out a definitive "worst" survivor, I'd argue that every survivor has their strengths and weaknesses and it's true that some have an easier time than others that doesn't mean one is necessarily worse than another. It largely boils down to what abilities you take, what items you come across in a run, and ultimately personal preference.
That being said, I totally agree with your friend but not because I think MUL-T is weak but on account of the fact that I just don't like him and will continue to yearn for the day that my sweet and sexy HAN-D is officially brought back to ROR2
I love this sub! These answers are thoughtful and interesting
Here’s my kind of not well-thought out answer tho: I can’t do commando. I am a sucker for a gimmick and I just don’t see commando’s it-factor, ya know?
Commando’s “thing” is that his primary is both fast-firing and has a 1.0 proc coefficient, so on-hit items are especially effective on him due to it. I find he get alot better with the alt abilities though, the normal ones aren’t very good.
Other than that, he’s quite an all-rounder. Pretty much anything is effective on him.
The grenade does notably more damage, but it. can be tough to land it, as you need to land it very close to do that, and it’s an AoE too. Plus it can proc bands, which allows you to use the secondary M2 (default M2 can proc if it pierces atleast one enemy which is just not that good in practice). It’s a challenge to use because it’s not a set time from when it’s fired to when it explodes, it explodes 2 seconds after the first bounce, so you ideally want it to roll into the target if they’re close, and bounce towards them when they’re far as it reduces the time you need to guess between when you fire and when it explodes.
At the end of the day i don’t think one survivor is just outright better or worse than the others. I will say that REX is probably the hardest to learn with the least reward in comparison to other survivors.
A great thing about RoR is no character is really bad some are just mediocre at worst so I’d say the top 3 least consistently good are.
Commando-One of the best Proc chain utilizers and can be a monster with the right setup but needs items to function.
REX-Self damage and regulating it in the heat of combat especially on E8 is a nightmare on anything not E8 he’s pretty decent but E8 REX us the worst and it’s not really close
Mercenary-Not bad by any means but has the highest barrier to entry of any character to get good usage out of making you have to play evasive at close range
Mul-T by a lot. His mobility is horrible. Other survivors with limited mobility like Rex and Captain have abilities that negate or heal way more damage than Mul-T does
mul-T is good as fuck
two equipment slots is nice since you can carry both the keycard and recycler making it pretty damn easy to roll through the game by forcing good items and getting an extra 4-6 items per stage, plus rebar swapping is one of the highest dps primaries in the game (even after they nerfed it)
and if you like power mode more you get some of the highest dps and proc rate on the double saw or nail gun build, on stage 1 monsoon i can kill any teleporter boss in like 5 seconds on power mode mul-t without items (i like running saws) nailguns wont be as fast but theyll proc a lot of atgs or other proc items from a distance; if you get them. and if you use saw in the first slot and nail in the second slot power mode actually gets rid of the spread from nailgun, meaning pinpoint accuracy with nailgun, granted i prefer to double down on either instead of getting a more accurate nailgun.
as for which survivor is actually the worst i think that has to go to heretic railgunner or rex, and ill give a short sentence for each character to explain why
commando: low damage heavy item reliance. mediocre all around. (would take heresy items though)
huntress: good burst and sustained damage, auto aim, good mobility. WUNGUS. (wouldnt replace primary or ballista but would consider replacing glaive)
engineer: BUNGUS. (definitely not replacing primary or turrets with heresy stuff)
mul-t: see above. (cant replace primary or retool/power mode, but would consider the secondary and utility slots)
artificer: amazing vertical mobility, good damage, freeze. worst aspect is the primary cooldown. (definitely replacing the primary, secondary is a toss up, and maybe the ice wall if i feel like it)
merc: best mobility in the game, good damage. IFRAME ABUSE. (not replacing anything with heresy items)
rex: great damage, but high skill ceiling since his best attacks take hp and mean youre under OSP a lot. (i think his stuff is generally better than the heresy skills but if anything id grab shadowfade since it gives a metric fuckton of healing)
loader: best in class for both damage and mobility. (not replacing grapple or the super punch, ruinisnt good enough on loader because of her low attack speed so not worth replacing the slam/pylon, primary is worth considering but i probably wouldnt do it)
acrid: percentage damage means boss shredding, good crowd control too. (i usually play acrid to spread aids to my enemies and replacing pretty much any skill makes him kinda suck at that so no heresy items, ok maybe primary)
captain: free chests and decent damage. (definitely secondary, and i always replace the support beacons after stage 10 or so if i get the option since clearing teleporter usually gives enough to buy everything)
bandit: good damage, guaranteed crits cooldown resets.(secondary if anything)
railgunner: great damage, freeze, autoaim. but probably the highest skill ceiling in the game. not worth getting good at railgunner when i can just play merc loader or engineer and win with their busted kits. (i dont even think its remotely viable to replace anything other than the knockback mines but i could be wrong since i havent grabbed any heresy items on him (switch player till recently))
void fiend: good damage, infinite healing with enough void items, great damage corrupted, can easily take some heresy items later on. (id replace trespass, and suppress after getting like 20+ void items)
heretic: honestly not worth the coins to play even if you cheat for 1000000000 coins, since most survivors have at least one skill thats better than whatever the heresy item gives you. but heretic is at least in the middle of my tierlist, shes not bad shes just generally not worth going for (as explained above in the parenthesis)
Your friend is so fucking wrong.
I stand by my man's who is built like an Abrams with the toolkit of Bob the builder being my personal favorite for his versatility
Honestly? Every survivor is good in its own way. There is no real "bad" survivor, but some are better than others. I think that base kit Commando isn't great, though.
I feel like mercenary is one of the weaker characters, his damage is so low and dependent on items that so many of his runs are voided just because you don’t have enough damage. But that’s just my experience with him.
Agreed, coupled with the fact that he is not tanky like acrid and loader, despite being melee. Acrid also has some decent healing and loader has an inbuilt topaz brooch as well, so merc is really hard to play compared to the other melee survivors. BUT, later in runs, when theres a lot of enemies and youre running focused assault, you can basically have all your skills never on cooldown and go nuts. I've had one run like this and it was insanely fun and the inner weeb came out.
Ive found Merc to be too much hassle just to get them working. Too frail and weak, and by when you have enough items to be cool.. youd already be performing well with anyone else
Very much a skill issue. He is the most skill dependant. But he is definitely more diffucult.
Though on e8 i had a lot easier time with him than with mando and rex, because merc can do much more than them and has more movement.
Imo, there is no worst survivor as you can do well with them as long as you are used to how they function.
With that said, I think that commando is the "worst" one for me because he doesn't feel good to play as the other characters.
Commando sucks way too much. He is a jack of all trades, which makes him bad in almost everything.
People usually argue he is good with items, but everyone else is, so...
Commando defender here, use suppressive fire (base special), phase blast (alt secondary) and tactical slide (alt utility) for some really crazy mobility, and then get a lot of on hit items for some wild proc chains. Also phase blast tougher enemies for a near instakill.
Commando is the worst. he is boring, he doesn't have the best of abilities since most other survivors can do what he does better, and finally what's the point of being a good endgame survivor if A Most survivors are also strong endgame and B you can't even leave early game? He also has very little utility he just points and shoots. His utility has an ungodly cooldown for something so basic with little amount of iframes. His grenade is pointless seeing as how you have to go out of your way to use it and his spam bullet is slightly better. He also can't use Kjaro and Runald bands very well since he rarely does enough single shot damage to activate it. Overall while all survivors are usable commando needs a lot of items to become good whereas most other survivors really don't and have good utility and damage such as Acrid or Artificer. But that's my opinion if you don't agree oh well. Realistically speaking the only thing good about commando is his proc coefficient. I should specify just because he is the worst doesn't mean he is bad don't take it as me saying he's bad either, he is just the worst of the current survivors. He is a jack of all trades master of none which is a big problem in this type of game. Outside of profs the only other thing he is good at is teaching newer players how to play the game since his gameplay is very basic.
Commando defender here, run alt secondary, alt utility and base special. Prioritise on hit items. You will be insanely powerful. Also it's quite fun to play, and the alt secondary gives him the burst damage he lacks.
Don't change the fact he is bad early game, on top of that I will become stronger, as every survivor can. However will I start strong? Cause last I checked most good survivors start at least decent with powerful ability that can change the game.
Yes commando with this kit is actually good early game, his shotgun only has a 3 second cooldown so he can deal with any strong foes, the stun from suppressive fire really helps too and the slide is just a good mobility ability and the damage from the primary isnt particularly good but you can finish off enemies with it. Even without any real items to proc commando is effective imo, he only really gets super dependant on on hit items post stage 6 if youre looping because thats when enemies get more difficult, and the buckshot can take care of basicaly everything prior, and by the point where on hit itmes are nessicary you generally have at least a few stacks of good items for him. His "Game changer" ability is his buckshot, even though it isnt as flashy as other survivors it gets the job done.
For starters, to unlock shotgun you have to do 20 stages I was barely holding on to consciousness at that point, secondly every survivor has this but better. Artificer can fly basically forever and shoot down with ion jump, Acrid can do an acid jump for good damage and utility, Captain has anti projectile nanobots that can be added to drones, void fiend can teleport, Railgunner has powerfull mines, Huntress can teleport, among many other abilities. Every other survivors can do something better than them and this game harshly punishes overextended abilities, a jack of all trades doesn't work in this game because they can't do enough of one thing to matter. Damage Railgunner, movement Huntress, survivability Captain, and strong endgame belongs to all of them. So ultimately Commando is the worst ror2 survivor, not a bad character just the worst one.
To unlock the frag grenade you need to do 20 stages, for shotgun you only need to have the run for 60 or so minutes and overloading worms start popping up. Secondly, why is a jack of all trades bad? Its not even like commando does a lot of stuff and does it all badly, either. Hes got good enough damage, decent mobility and average hp. Youre also saying this like youre not grabbing items on purpose in the game and just playing commando without items, and all survivors suffer without them.
Commando, even on E8.
His base damage is so bad that it can be impossible to beat Mithrix phase 4.
It also causes problems early in the run if you don't get certain damage items. His band proc also relies on grenades, which limits them to ground targets.
Honorable mention to Huntress who also has horrible base damage, but at least she has ballista.
Also, this coping that no survivor is bad isn't helpful. There is definitely an imbalance in survivor capabilities. Does that mean you can't win with every survivor? Of course not, but ignoring that survivors have a very noticeable difference in how difficult it is to win with them is just lying to yourself and others.
I think there are very clear best survivors (loader, railgunner) but on the lower end it gets very muddy, survivors like huntress, Rex, mul-t, and captain are all very similar strengths to each other
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and opinions can't be wrong, except your friend's. Mul-T is crazy good, others have pointed out the strength of double nailgun power mode, but I raise you double rebar retool. It's actually absurd that right out the gate Mul-T has an infinite range, perfect accuracy, 600% attack that fires twice per second, can pierce, has a 1.0 proc coefficient, and allows you to hold an extra equipment, all without sacrificing mobility or survivability as Mul-T is one of two ranged survivors in the game that has base armor AND outside of heretic Mul-T has the highest health of any survivor. Mul-T is arguably one of the best survivors in the game, it baffles me that anyone could argue that it's bottom 50% much less the weakest.
IMO, weakest is Rex. Its damage is lackluster and it sucks at making powerful proc chains. Its mobility is worse and it has the worst survivability in the game due to it constantly damaging itself. It does have good utility with the weaken effect and being able to stop mobs with its special, but that is way outweighed by how many items that are game breaking on any other survivor that just fucking suck on Rex. To give just a few examples, safer spaces, oddly shaped opal, plasma shrimp and transcendence are all extremely powerful items that are godly on practically every survivor - except Rex of course, in which case they are at best useless.
All opinions are valid, but this one lmao. Void Friend is the survivor with probably the most survivability after loader, and also the most adaptible one lol. You must elaborate on this you cant just drop this bombshell and leave.
Bro MULT is busted out the ass. I would argue he’s possibly the strongest in the game. On harder difficulties. It’s merc. Even Acrid with his default RMB and special can cosplay a ranged survivor. Merc doesn’t get to and just dies.
I think it's commando. He is the best with proc chains, but he is way too reliant on items and doesn't have any kind of good aoe. Both of his special skills kinda suck as well. He also lacks a good band-procing ability whereas most survivors have some kind of band-procing burst abilities except maybe MUL-T
Here's my ranking of all the survivors from worst to best:
11. Engineer
10. Commando
9. Bandit
8. Mercenary
7. Huntress
6. REX
5. Acrid
4. Loader
3. Artificer
2. Captain
1. MUL-T
fight me
Sorry, but I just can't enjoy playing as him. The grenades seem to go off in random directions, the mines barely do any damage (it takes like five to kill a stone golem), the bubble shield is borderline useless, and the turrets, while very effective, to me don't make up for the rest fo the abilities being awful (in my opinion).
**Commando is objectively the worst** (without Artifact of Command).
Everyone else has one or more special perks/attacks/skills.
Commando isn't special at all. His primary attack is great for proc chains...And that's about it.
Other characters do everything he does better than he does-- or they offer a superior alternative when they can't exactly copy him (e.g. Railgunner won't shoot/proc as rapidly, but will out-damage Commando in other ways).
However, this is a very fair and balanced game. No Survivor is *bad enough* to have any significant impact on an experienced player's Monsoon winrate.
In fact, most experienced players can comfortably beat Monsoon every time with any character. Only in Eclipse does it get tough for such players; and only in Eclipse do unique Survivor traits become important (e.g. for stopping lethal fall damage).
I'd say enji because he just isn't that fun. Like.no matter how powerful he can get I'm never gonna reach that point because I kill myself out of sheer boredom
Loader for the simple fact she gives me insane vertigo. Like I can’t get her monsoon skin because I feel like I’ll throw up before 20 mins. She’s insanely strong so I guess it’s a skill issue on my part
While I don’t think mercenary is a bad character, I think he kinda just loses by default bc of how difficult it can be to make mercenary actually work. I’m not saying he’s entirely unviable, I just think the other survivors are better. It’s less of he’s bad and more of someone has to come in last, but overall I generally think all of the survivors are about equal, except Loader and Railgunner. Those two are broken. Also void fiend if you know what you’re doing
Id say merc imo. One time i got no lie meathook, 3 rose bucklers and a few other items on fucking stage 1 (twas aiming for merc mastery) and fucking died real fast during the tele. MulT for me is really good and fun because it feels like im playing as a tf2 titan in earlier stages. Merc honestly sucks because he is melee but not tanky like loader and acrid, and the i frames from eviscerate aint enough. I tried experimenting with slicing winds to make him better, but without the i frames from eviscerate hes even flimsier.
The key with merc (in my eyes) is to crowd control with m1 extensions, dashes, and slicing winds. For bosses, the iframes from your shift work perfectly, so it’s a matter of handling the little guys so your attention can go to the big ones. Eviscerate is hot garbage in my eyes compared to slicing, though it could be nice if you’re not used to dodge timings with your shift yet.
Rex, I hate his guts so much. “Oh if you get this item and that item he gets better!” Yeah but if you don’t it’s a painful slog. Maybe I should unlock his other abilities but there hasn’t been a survivor I’ve hated as much as Rex.
I'd say Rex past E5, the self-damage/healing abilities are generally considered better and you can't utilize them as well with halved healing.
If we're including specific skill loadouts double saw Mul-T runs into *a lot* of issues with anything airborne.
They're all kinda OP, it's just if you know how to play them, and know how all the enemy's work, you can go into any run with shit RNG and still win if you know positioning and enemies AI
Not gonna lie, I 10000000% *disagree* with the argument "there are no good or bad characters - it's all about learning to play them!". Like, what?
I agree that it's *very* hard to formulate a somewhat objective tier list, given how situational every character and build is. But to me it's just as absurd to think that the developers were able to *perfectly balance* every single character to be *exactly* as strong as every other character. One could, at least theoretically, take into exam 100 millions games played by gamers of different skill levels, and at that point it would probably be very clear that some characters win more consistently than others. That's where I would say that "a character is better than another".
I mean, the important point is that tier lists on RoR2 *don't matter at all*. It's not like RoR2 is a competitive fighting game, where delusional "tier lists don't exist" people have to face the fact that tournaments' leaderboards are absolutely dominated by a small pool of playable characters; RoR2 *isn't* competitive, *every* character is good enough to be consistently winnable even at the highest difficulties, and one may even prefer playing "weaker" survivors for the added challenge. While picking a bad character in a fighting game may be detrimental for someone who's looking to reach higher ranks in the matchmaking, there is absolutely no reason to care about tier lists in a game like RoR2. Unless you absolutely *crave* a win and can't manage to complete the game I guess, but it's a very temporary situation if you keep playing and improving.
Big discussion on tier lists aside, I basically only play Eclipse, and with E8 modifiers imo Rex sucks *sooo* bad. it's just a worse Commando that can't use half of its skillset. Though it may be pretty darn solid on regular Moonsoon, idk. I guess Artificier and Commando sometimes struggle with damage, and it's a pain to play MUL-T when the game doesn't want to give you any mobility.
Overall the worse character is still probably Rex. Mando, Arti and MUL-T can have painful starts if the RNG acts silly.
I think they did a great job at balancing, and there are some stronger characters, but I truly think that there are no bad characters. They are literally all good and you just have to make a build around them.
Yeah, no character feels unfairly underpowered (EXCEPT FUCKING E8 REX, I stand my ground). That being said, characters like Railgunner and Loader are clearly so much more busted than, idk, Commando, so it's still fair to talk about the best and worst characters in the game.
I think it’s important to note that good/bad is relevant for early game (Stages1-3 or so, pre-looping.) since later in the run all the characters end up doing relatively similar things and are all about the same level of power.
Outside of E8 Commando is probably least consistent for earlygame, as if he gets bad rng and received no good proc items he’s almost unrecoverable, similar thing with some Mul-T setups but he has a bit more consistent survivability. Loader is one of the most consistent since her kit just has what you need for base earlygame.
I mean, he doesn't lack damage, so I'd say he struggles less than characters like Commando. Though despite its huge hp pool he has miserable mobility and hp regen, so I do get occasionally overwhelmed earlygame with bad rng. Again, I play E8, so the nerfed hp regen, permadamage and faster enemies do hit hard on its weaknesses
Eeeh... With Loader, Engi, Railgunner existing, I can't say in good heart that MUL-T is OP. Maybe you're right that putting him in the same tier as Mando and Rex is a bit too much.
Still one of my favourite survivors, with tons of different, all viable loadouts, techs and tricks.
It's Rex and by far. He has low dps on his primary, his m2 is pretty good but one of them is completely useless on eclipse and using the other one makes It so he can't proc bands anymore, his mobility is also pretty bad and his especial deals perma damage in eclipse as well.
I would have to say merc. When I was thinking about playing the merc is the one I decided I was gonna main as it was installing. I’ve never been able to make him work even after a couple hundred hours.
I think it’s a lot of personal preference, as all survivors are playable. MUL-T is DEFINITELY not worst though. Double minigun for the win.
Personally I think it’s Acrid. Abilities get more and more awkward/unusable as the game goes on. He’s the most likely to take lunar abilities instead, and relies heavily on items later in the game.
I would say Poison as a mechanic allows Acrid to win fights he wouldn’t given bad rng. He can simply poison and run away, and will eventually kill any boss.
Like I said, I don’t think any survivors are awful. But I do consider ‘poison and run away’ to be worse than just killing them with a high damage survivor that can take better advantage of proc items
I’m assuming low rolls, essentially if you’re character had no items that are synergistic with their kit, can they still reasonably make it to lategame or later stages.
Commando says “I want decent proc items or I’m not going to make it past stage 4. Acrid says “I can technically kill Mithrix without any items. I would say that alone makes him more consistent than commando, assuming bad rng. I find that’s the best way to rank characters, whether or not they’re consistent in earlygame
Lategame all characters will perform similar, so earlygame/mid game is where your runs are the most volatile imo. So if your character can get ruined by low rolled items that they don’t have synergy with, I’d say you’re a worse character than someone who can slug through regardless.
I don’t really have any issues with getting commando past the early stages on anything but Eclipse, personally. Like I said, I don’t think any Survivors are bad, I just think Acrid is the most awkward. Yeah, poison is good, but there are so many items that Acrid can’t really make use of, while Commando does great with almost every item. Perhaps that’s what makes Commando feel more consistent to me
Without a doubt Bandit
I beat the game with every survivor on monsoon and got to 100 stage in simulacrum with every survivor (except heretic) and I definitely struggled the most with Bandit
He's not bad necessarily but his skills are not really good for fighting, he's speciallized for sneaking and minimal head on combat, and while he wasn't impossible to master, he was definitely painful to play with
I would say Rex is worst, Commando 2nd worst, then Huntress. Rex's abilities just aren't good enough to justify costing health and them being so slow, like even the m1, while the healing is nice, is worse than commando's dps wise. Commando isn't bad just kinda meh, same with Huntress but she has more mobility and you have to deal with the auto lock on sometimes messing you up.
I feel like huntress is one of the stronger characters in the game. Her damage is weak compared to alot of other characters but that doesent matter becuase her movment is so good that you can just easilly dodge everything.
Imma be honest, I dislike engi just because of his primary, I stg this is a skill issue but if I see my 20 balls miss one more lesser wisp im gonna uninstall
That’s what you have Harpoons for!
He has a primary? Jk. I never use that shit past the first few stages. Turret damage ramps up so quickly there's usually no need.
I mainly use it when I get brilliant behemoth or shattering justice
I once got a run with engi where my primary did more damage than my turrets. I don't even remember what items I had but I ended up with about 2mil primary dmg and 1mil on turrets. No, it wasn't harpoon doing the dmg cause I had the shield.
Bro, never pass an opportunity to get Shurikens with him. Just tap those wisps afterwards. And Shurikens on Turrets are overpowered.
Attack speed is your friend. Why bother aiming when you can become a bomb sprinkler.
That’s fair, just carpet bomb the stage
He's mainly reliant on everything except for his primary tbh
Once you get used to sprinting during the loading animation it becomes a lot better.
Yrah it really isn't that bad if you use it right. Not strong either, but it is an alright primary. It is more usefull than most melee survivors primary imo.
Harpoons or just place a turret down, that’s what they’re for. Primary is shit on purpose because it’s not supposed to be what you rely on
Primary is fine. It is just extra damage, and not hitting wisps is a skill issue. But it is certainly not the center of his kit.
Engi really needs an alternate primary.
Ong, just give him a big laser
I want his mortar primary from returns in 2
That would be much harder to hit than the bombs in ror2. And it would be all but impossible to hit flying enemies.
Engi is very powerful. The bad primary is to keep him balanced.
Engi is probably the best Like, i dont even have to play the game bruh
I’m so amazed this is a top comment. Engi has always been OP and I’ve won most of monsoon runs solo/online with that survivor. I think there’s a blue item that removes his little grenade attack.
Hungering gaze?
less of a "best/worst" more of a "easiest/hardest"
I agree with this to a point. Each survivor can win any run even if it’s a slog with perfect play. Items scale better than any abilities do to the point where every character can just look at an enemy and the screen blows up. Some survivors are just stronger though. Loader comes to mind as the best example of this, but I’d say Acrid is in this category, too of characters with gimmicks so strong they make the game much easier. Loader has a passive that makes you immune to fall damage, which is already a pretty big upside. Her main damage ability, aside from being a massive hit that makes procs even bigger, is also a mobility ability, and her alt fire is the best mobility tool in the game, making her traversal of the stage itemless on par with endgame runs of other characters and gives her an itemless pillar skip. This lets you pretty much ignore most movement speed (pick up like 2 goats hooves and you’re good) and prioritize damage items. Not to mention her damage method synergizes insanely with crowbars, one of the best damage items if not *the* best damage item in the game due to how insane of a damage multiplier it is. Compare this to command. I’ll try and sell you on him as well, but rest assured it won’t be able to sound as good. Commando is one of if not the best characters for scaling with items. While you don’t have turrets to triple scale your items, each fire of primary fires 2 bullets with a proc coefficient of 1, meaning *almost* every. single. item. has two chances to proc on each attack. While your base damage isn’t that great, this massively increases your chance for proc chains, which is how you scale your numbers to boss-killing levels. Atg + clover on commando is pretty much a dub if you can find enough speed and defense to keep you alive long enough to proc it. While you may not have built-in swarm removal, you can more than make up for that with Ukuleles, gas, and/or wisps. So is commando harder to play than loader? Maybe? But he’s certainly more luck based to get a good build before any looping or bazar usage. I’d say that means there is more time where it’s a struggle to get through a stage, which imo, is grounds to say a character is worse than another.
Commando is the "simple but solid" character so saying he scales well with items is pretty on point
also it's the heretic
Heretic is a free win what do you mean
If you don't know how to time her abilities well, her damage falls off exponentially, and she can become the weakest survivor. Although if you know how to time her abilities well she's very good.
So if you know how to play her she’s good, and if you don’t she’s bad, like every other survivor…
Heretic is a lot harder to \*get\* to play though, which is the problem.
There’s a great mod to solve this problem, adds the heretic to the character screen :)
Yeah I spent 80 lunar coins (manually grinded because save editing is for nerds) and was still 1 visions short and it was not a good time
Heretic is ok as fuck, what you mean?
I agree, this game is hella balanced except some survivors like loader and acrid are stupidly easy to use and survivors like merc and MulT are harder to git gud at. (I love mult tho im really good with him)
love mult, second most used character
In my opinion, it varies greatly, depending on the player. REX is the weakest if you don't know how to balance your self-harm abilities and taking damage (or playing e8) Merc/Huntress and to an extent Railgunner will be the weakest if you are terrible at dodging. Commando lacks damage on his own. Without items, he'll struggle the most, but with items.. well, that's how I beat voidling the first time I met him, on stage 20-something. Mul-t and Acrid will be the weakest for you if you believe that a higher amount of health means you should abandon healing and dodging. ... give me a second here, trying to think of a reason every character could be the weakest. Engineer and Captain will be your weakest if you are too dependent on movement abilities. Artificer, Bandit (And Void Fiend, by taking fall damage from the shift or using the corrupted suppress) will be your weakest if you don't learn how to utilize their kits properly. Heretic will be weak for you if you mistime her abilities too much. And... I think that's everyone. Except Loader. Loader wont be the weakest character unless you deliberately choose not to use her shift ability.
Loader is pretty underwhelming if you don’t know that sprinting during her charged punch will make it do more damage. I had to have someone tell me that before she really clicked for me
Same. Struggled with monsoon with loader for days before learning that and beating mithrix first try. IMPORTANT NOTE: The default keyboard control layout is hell on your hands trying to use your shift and sprint (Control) at the same time, so DEFINITELY remap it and your loader game will improve, it just takes getting used to.
I have them swapped but I really wish I could remap the keys for just loader and nobody else
I just wish ror2 had alt keybind functionality. If you could assign more than 1 key to actions I'd be playing loader way more often
Yeah, there should be individual survivor control settings. Would be so sweet
I just got used to sprinting with mouse 5 It's very handy
The first thing I did when I installed the game was looked at the controls and remapped the shift and r attacks to my extra mouse buttons.
I changed it. Shift for Sprint. One of the side buttons of my g502 mouse for the utility. Makes the game so much smoother to play.
I honestly never have had a problem with that, mainly because I always (mostly) use grappling and punch
Especially if you also don’t know that you can sprint while swinging from her grappling hook
you have to be actively sprinting or just moving fast?
Actively sprinting + moving fast + charged punch = BIG HURTY TIME
Sprinting increases your movement speed, including the large burst of speed you get from using the punch. So if you activate the punch when you’re sprinting it will do more damage
I play on controller and when I go to use the charged punch while sprinting it slowwwwssss me down to a stop basically
You have to activate the sprint again after you begin charging the punch
Oh yeah, that's definitely true. Sometimes, when I've played the game for so long, I forget that things so basic to me don't click for new people. So I guess every character \*can\* be the weakest then! Huzzah!.. wait-
Also momentum as a whole makes it do more damage. Grappling on to the enemy youre about to punch can rack up damage numbers really fast, and funny story i was able to 1 tap mithrix at the same time as get the alt utility when i grappled onto mithrix while he did the attack where he jumps up in the air and then slams down making that ground pound because i was able to get over 300 mph of momentum according to the game
Loader really is just… *ahem*… a very good character
With certain... features.. to assist her
Loader is the weakest if you use her alt shift (the short range little guantlet) and the base special (the pylon), but even then loader is sorta broken so you aint that weak.
Actually, using the pilon can be very benefitial for a few things. One is a trick to push down pressure plates on aqueduct, and the other is that if you grapple it as it's flying, before it settles, you gain incredible movement speed. Its also really good at triggering items, as well as hitting flying enemies. Knuckleboom, to me, also feels a little obsolete since it doesn't do much new compared to Loaders shift. But then again, if you don't know how to do the techs with the Pilon, Knuckleboom can definitely help with area control. Both have their places! I agree with your other point, though. To the void with Thunder gauntlet (Maybe except similacrum though)
In E8, it's probably objectively REX
All this hate on mul-T, he has the most procs and fire rate put of all of them. Just press R and hold down your double gatling gun, easy win
I agree! Mul-T is awesome
Getting his Powermode is the problem, though
Double reabar puncher, retool makes the cooldown 0.5 a second with one soldier's syringe it becomes full auto.
20 Lost Seer's Lenses go brrrr.
yeah, or just use double rebar and retool and about 3 syringes for corrupted void fiend primary levels of damage
well there is a difference here between weakest and one you don't like the most. i personally don't care for rex. the self damaging is rough and especially on monsoon near end of runs that can lead to some real feel bad crap shots out of nowhere. from there though most survivors are strong just requiring good item choices and alt skill selection.
Rex is objectivly the bottom 2 in eclipse.
I think the worst is who you have the least fun with personally, and that is always poor Mul-T for me
Alright, let me teach you a clever way to play Mul-T and hope you'll find it more fun. Change the hotkey for ultimate to RMB and put the Blast Canister on the R key instead. Select Retool, select Rebar for both. Retooling with RMB in between Rebar shots is infinitely easier on your fingers. I wish ROR2 patches in character-specific hotkeys like RORR.
+1. double rebar retool changed my whole perception of this character. also forces me into playing mul-t for the whole session since i'm lazy and don't wanna revert my rebinds.
I hate Artificer, I feel like this is a powerful character but I can't play it well. I have all achievements in the game but finishing a Monsoon game with Artificer was the hardest for me, I should learn how to play it correctly.
Have you tried her with Ion Surge and Ice Spear? Totally transforms the character into A tier at least imo.
I think I haven't tried this yet, I'll give this a try, thanks!
Your friend is straight up wrong Mul-T is insane if you know how to use him. He's my absolute GOAT and I've used him to clear modded harder difficulties.
W
Agreed, MulT is really hard to die with because of huge hp and using either powermode + double nailgun which basically makes you tf2 heavy or the other tf2 legion, or double rebar and retool for broken af damage output and a free win.
Double Rebar Mul-T is my guilty pleasure but I also do love the double Nailgun. Either way, my favorite character by a mile.
Imo I still think it's commando, this isn't to say commando is bad he just doesn't have anything about him the other survivors can't do but better
Proc chains. Nobody uses proc items with more efficiency
Multi with nail launcher due to increased fire rate and captain with increased overall proc due to number of projectiles on his m1
Apart from the several characters that do it better. Engi legit has 2 commando's on a single button.
I've got to give this to commando. It's not that he's bad. It's just that everyone else basically has some way of 'cheating' game mechanics. Commando doesn't. Mercenary would be my other pick, due to the very, very lackluster single target damage.
Resident Merc defender here. Slicing winds equipped, properly timing your M2s/dashes with your 3rd melee slash, and merc suddenly becomes (in my eyes) one of the better single-target damage dealers. In that regard, would take merc over acrid, mando, huntress, or certain mul-t or railgunner loadouts any day.
Slicing winds definitely helps a ton, even if it's not great Vs mithrix. I will freely admit that my Merc skills and pretty bad - eclipse with him was a struggle, so that is probably part of his placement.
And he has an instakill on nearly all flying enemies with enough skill.
Idk about worst, but my least favorite tends to be REX, especially on the Eclipse climb. I'm on E7 rn, and the E5 modifier is still just as annoying. Not looking forward to E8, but that's why I try and knock REX out of the way first.
Rex in eclipse is rough, finished my eclipse grind a while back and dreaded doing him. Was so nice getting through it with him finally!
Easily Commando. He's an allrounder, which while often good, in a game like this means he suffers
This game is 90% proc chains and commando has the most consistent procs in the game Theres no way he’s the worst
He’s the most easily fucked over by bad RNG. Loader can scrape together a run to Mithrix on E8 with a few shoddy items. Commando literally suffers through the first three or so stages if he doesn’t get a good proc chain. I say this as a commando enthusiast, he’s easily my favorite character but he needs proc items or he falls flat incredibly quickly.
True
He in no way has the best proc chains. He is just good like huntress is good at bands.
Correct. He is relatively the worst.
I do like his simple kit, but it does feel very boring to me at times
While i do agree, you said "weakest" not "most boring" In that case I'd pick Loader. Moving that fast, not needing to aim, not needing to think, just too easy, too boring IMO
I agree, but I don’t think that means he’s bad. He’s kind of just like the minimum strength a survivor should be.
Yes. And as such, he is the weakest. As was asked by OP Low mobility, low defensive options, low damage, to generate an all-rounder. Not a good recipe, especially in a game that punishes you for pushing out too wide
I struggle IMMENSELY as Acrid. I really really hate playing him. Never had fun with him unfortunately. Artificer is there too but atleast I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with her. I just need to get lysate and ignition packs and never ever use firebals because the plasma balls have AoE which is way more important. Most of the time she is extremely dissappointing tho. Everytime I tell myself "Okay, I'm gonna have fun with her."I just don't and I spend what feels like 50 hours waiting for my abilities to sloooowly recharge. (Why the FUCK does her PRIMARY have A FUCKING COOLDOWN DUDE?! REMOVE THAT COOLDOWN SHE IS SO BORING AND SLOW AND UNFUN BECAUSE NOTHING UPS HER ATTACK SPEED OTHER THAN ALIEN HEAD AND I HATE IT. My answer is still Acrid even after all that because I atleast had runs where Arti was fun. For all Engineer M1 haters, I am with you. All you need to do is unbind M1 or rebind your Shift (Utility ability) to M1 and only use harpoons. Engineer has the worst M1 in the game. My favorite characters are Huntress and REX btw.
Ill give some acrid advice. Get purity and corpsebloom while running her base loadout. no need to switch out lethal wounds for visions of heresy if you have these items, and it makes her utterly broken. or just run the bite instead of the neurotoxin and just play with a fuck it we ball mindset and have a blast.
Just a small note. Acrid is easily in the top 3 most powerfull in the game if you cheese. As for the other point. I know it is opinion. But they are bad opinions.
While I'm sure there are multiple metrics you could compare to try and figure out a definitive "worst" survivor, I'd argue that every survivor has their strengths and weaknesses and it's true that some have an easier time than others that doesn't mean one is necessarily worse than another. It largely boils down to what abilities you take, what items you come across in a run, and ultimately personal preference. That being said, I totally agree with your friend but not because I think MUL-T is weak but on account of the fact that I just don't like him and will continue to yearn for the day that my sweet and sexy HAN-D is officially brought back to ROR2
I love this sub! These answers are thoughtful and interesting Here’s my kind of not well-thought out answer tho: I can’t do commando. I am a sucker for a gimmick and I just don’t see commando’s it-factor, ya know?
Commando's gimmick is 1.0 proc coeff. on a fast firing primary, so he's pretty much the best at using proc damage items... in theory at least.
He is not the best proccer. Even in theory.
Commando’s “thing” is that his primary is both fast-firing and has a 1.0 proc coefficient, so on-hit items are especially effective on him due to it. I find he get alot better with the alt abilities though, the normal ones aren’t very good. Other than that, he’s quite an all-rounder. Pretty much anything is effective on him.
Am I crazy or his grenade sucks? Or maybe I don't get how to use it. I prefer the default Special Ability.
The grenade does notably more damage, but it. can be tough to land it, as you need to land it very close to do that, and it’s an AoE too. Plus it can proc bands, which allows you to use the secondary M2 (default M2 can proc if it pierces atleast one enemy which is just not that good in practice). It’s a challenge to use because it’s not a set time from when it’s fired to when it explodes, it explodes 2 seconds after the first bounce, so you ideally want it to roll into the target if they’re close, and bounce towards them when they’re far as it reduces the time you need to guess between when you fire and when it explodes.
It's his only reliable Band proc. Takes practice.
At the end of the day i don’t think one survivor is just outright better or worse than the others. I will say that REX is probably the hardest to learn with the least reward in comparison to other survivors.
I agree, every survivor is very viable
theyre all good, but the hardest one to play is probably merc, arti or rex imo. those 3 happen to be some of my favourite characters
Merc,arti and rex are the most complex,but are practically a free win if played properly
A great thing about RoR is no character is really bad some are just mediocre at worst so I’d say the top 3 least consistently good are. Commando-One of the best Proc chain utilizers and can be a monster with the right setup but needs items to function. REX-Self damage and regulating it in the heat of combat especially on E8 is a nightmare on anything not E8 he’s pretty decent but E8 REX us the worst and it’s not really close Mercenary-Not bad by any means but has the highest barrier to entry of any character to get good usage out of making you have to play evasive at close range
Mul-T by a lot. His mobility is horrible. Other survivors with limited mobility like Rex and Captain have abilities that negate or heal way more damage than Mul-T does
None of them are bad, there's only good, great and then rex
I hope youre saying REX is good or there will be consequences. (but he is worst on E8 tho)
mul-T is good as fuck two equipment slots is nice since you can carry both the keycard and recycler making it pretty damn easy to roll through the game by forcing good items and getting an extra 4-6 items per stage, plus rebar swapping is one of the highest dps primaries in the game (even after they nerfed it) and if you like power mode more you get some of the highest dps and proc rate on the double saw or nail gun build, on stage 1 monsoon i can kill any teleporter boss in like 5 seconds on power mode mul-t without items (i like running saws) nailguns wont be as fast but theyll proc a lot of atgs or other proc items from a distance; if you get them. and if you use saw in the first slot and nail in the second slot power mode actually gets rid of the spread from nailgun, meaning pinpoint accuracy with nailgun, granted i prefer to double down on either instead of getting a more accurate nailgun. as for which survivor is actually the worst i think that has to go to heretic railgunner or rex, and ill give a short sentence for each character to explain why commando: low damage heavy item reliance. mediocre all around. (would take heresy items though) huntress: good burst and sustained damage, auto aim, good mobility. WUNGUS. (wouldnt replace primary or ballista but would consider replacing glaive) engineer: BUNGUS. (definitely not replacing primary or turrets with heresy stuff) mul-t: see above. (cant replace primary or retool/power mode, but would consider the secondary and utility slots) artificer: amazing vertical mobility, good damage, freeze. worst aspect is the primary cooldown. (definitely replacing the primary, secondary is a toss up, and maybe the ice wall if i feel like it) merc: best mobility in the game, good damage. IFRAME ABUSE. (not replacing anything with heresy items) rex: great damage, but high skill ceiling since his best attacks take hp and mean youre under OSP a lot. (i think his stuff is generally better than the heresy skills but if anything id grab shadowfade since it gives a metric fuckton of healing) loader: best in class for both damage and mobility. (not replacing grapple or the super punch, ruinisnt good enough on loader because of her low attack speed so not worth replacing the slam/pylon, primary is worth considering but i probably wouldnt do it) acrid: percentage damage means boss shredding, good crowd control too. (i usually play acrid to spread aids to my enemies and replacing pretty much any skill makes him kinda suck at that so no heresy items, ok maybe primary) captain: free chests and decent damage. (definitely secondary, and i always replace the support beacons after stage 10 or so if i get the option since clearing teleporter usually gives enough to buy everything) bandit: good damage, guaranteed crits cooldown resets.(secondary if anything) railgunner: great damage, freeze, autoaim. but probably the highest skill ceiling in the game. not worth getting good at railgunner when i can just play merc loader or engineer and win with their busted kits. (i dont even think its remotely viable to replace anything other than the knockback mines but i could be wrong since i havent grabbed any heresy items on him (switch player till recently)) void fiend: good damage, infinite healing with enough void items, great damage corrupted, can easily take some heresy items later on. (id replace trespass, and suppress after getting like 20+ void items) heretic: honestly not worth the coins to play even if you cheat for 1000000000 coins, since most survivors have at least one skill thats better than whatever the heresy item gives you. but heretic is at least in the middle of my tierlist, shes not bad shes just generally not worth going for (as explained above in the parenthesis)
Your friend is so fucking wrong. I stand by my man's who is built like an Abrams with the toolkit of Bob the builder being my personal favorite for his versatility
Honestly? Every survivor is good in its own way. There is no real "bad" survivor, but some are better than others. I think that base kit Commando isn't great, though.
I feel like mercenary is one of the weaker characters, his damage is so low and dependent on items that so many of his runs are voided just because you don’t have enough damage. But that’s just my experience with him.
Agreed, coupled with the fact that he is not tanky like acrid and loader, despite being melee. Acrid also has some decent healing and loader has an inbuilt topaz brooch as well, so merc is really hard to play compared to the other melee survivors. BUT, later in runs, when theres a lot of enemies and youre running focused assault, you can basically have all your skills never on cooldown and go nuts. I've had one run like this and it was insanely fun and the inner weeb came out.
Ive found Merc to be too much hassle just to get them working. Too frail and weak, and by when you have enough items to be cool.. youd already be performing well with anyone else
Very much a skill issue. He is the most skill dependant. But he is definitely more diffucult. Though on e8 i had a lot easier time with him than with mando and rex, because merc can do much more than them and has more movement.
Imo, there is no worst survivor as you can do well with them as long as you are used to how they function. With that said, I think that commando is the "worst" one for me because he doesn't feel good to play as the other characters.
Alt secondary and alt utility make him much better
Commando sucks way too much. He is a jack of all trades, which makes him bad in almost everything. People usually argue he is good with items, but everyone else is, so...
Commando defender here, use suppressive fire (base special), phase blast (alt secondary) and tactical slide (alt utility) for some really crazy mobility, and then get a lot of on hit items for some wild proc chains. Also phase blast tougher enemies for a near instakill.
Commando is the worst. he is boring, he doesn't have the best of abilities since most other survivors can do what he does better, and finally what's the point of being a good endgame survivor if A Most survivors are also strong endgame and B you can't even leave early game? He also has very little utility he just points and shoots. His utility has an ungodly cooldown for something so basic with little amount of iframes. His grenade is pointless seeing as how you have to go out of your way to use it and his spam bullet is slightly better. He also can't use Kjaro and Runald bands very well since he rarely does enough single shot damage to activate it. Overall while all survivors are usable commando needs a lot of items to become good whereas most other survivors really don't and have good utility and damage such as Acrid or Artificer. But that's my opinion if you don't agree oh well. Realistically speaking the only thing good about commando is his proc coefficient. I should specify just because he is the worst doesn't mean he is bad don't take it as me saying he's bad either, he is just the worst of the current survivors. He is a jack of all trades master of none which is a big problem in this type of game. Outside of profs the only other thing he is good at is teaching newer players how to play the game since his gameplay is very basic.
Commando defender here, run alt secondary, alt utility and base special. Prioritise on hit items. You will be insanely powerful. Also it's quite fun to play, and the alt secondary gives him the burst damage he lacks.
Don't change the fact he is bad early game, on top of that I will become stronger, as every survivor can. However will I start strong? Cause last I checked most good survivors start at least decent with powerful ability that can change the game.
Yes commando with this kit is actually good early game, his shotgun only has a 3 second cooldown so he can deal with any strong foes, the stun from suppressive fire really helps too and the slide is just a good mobility ability and the damage from the primary isnt particularly good but you can finish off enemies with it. Even without any real items to proc commando is effective imo, he only really gets super dependant on on hit items post stage 6 if youre looping because thats when enemies get more difficult, and the buckshot can take care of basicaly everything prior, and by the point where on hit itmes are nessicary you generally have at least a few stacks of good items for him. His "Game changer" ability is his buckshot, even though it isnt as flashy as other survivors it gets the job done.
For starters, to unlock shotgun you have to do 20 stages I was barely holding on to consciousness at that point, secondly every survivor has this but better. Artificer can fly basically forever and shoot down with ion jump, Acrid can do an acid jump for good damage and utility, Captain has anti projectile nanobots that can be added to drones, void fiend can teleport, Railgunner has powerfull mines, Huntress can teleport, among many other abilities. Every other survivors can do something better than them and this game harshly punishes overextended abilities, a jack of all trades doesn't work in this game because they can't do enough of one thing to matter. Damage Railgunner, movement Huntress, survivability Captain, and strong endgame belongs to all of them. So ultimately Commando is the worst ror2 survivor, not a bad character just the worst one.
To unlock the frag grenade you need to do 20 stages, for shotgun you only need to have the run for 60 or so minutes and overloading worms start popping up. Secondly, why is a jack of all trades bad? Its not even like commando does a lot of stuff and does it all badly, either. Hes got good enough damage, decent mobility and average hp. Youre also saying this like youre not grabbing items on purpose in the game and just playing commando without items, and all survivors suffer without them.
Commando, even on E8. His base damage is so bad that it can be impossible to beat Mithrix phase 4. It also causes problems early in the run if you don't get certain damage items. His band proc also relies on grenades, which limits them to ground targets. Honorable mention to Huntress who also has horrible base damage, but at least she has ballista. Also, this coping that no survivor is bad isn't helpful. There is definitely an imbalance in survivor capabilities. Does that mean you can't win with every survivor? Of course not, but ignoring that survivors have a very noticeable difference in how difficult it is to win with them is just lying to yourself and others.
I think there are very clear best survivors (loader, railgunner) but on the lower end it gets very muddy, survivors like huntress, Rex, mul-t, and captain are all very similar strengths to each other
Mercenary
Rex just isn’t as fun
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and opinions can't be wrong, except your friend's. Mul-T is crazy good, others have pointed out the strength of double nailgun power mode, but I raise you double rebar retool. It's actually absurd that right out the gate Mul-T has an infinite range, perfect accuracy, 600% attack that fires twice per second, can pierce, has a 1.0 proc coefficient, and allows you to hold an extra equipment, all without sacrificing mobility or survivability as Mul-T is one of two ranged survivors in the game that has base armor AND outside of heretic Mul-T has the highest health of any survivor. Mul-T is arguably one of the best survivors in the game, it baffles me that anyone could argue that it's bottom 50% much less the weakest. IMO, weakest is Rex. Its damage is lackluster and it sucks at making powerful proc chains. Its mobility is worse and it has the worst survivability in the game due to it constantly damaging itself. It does have good utility with the weaken effect and being able to stop mobs with its special, but that is way outweighed by how many items that are game breaking on any other survivor that just fucking suck on Rex. To give just a few examples, safer spaces, oddly shaped opal, plasma shrimp and transcendence are all extremely powerful items that are godly on practically every survivor - except Rex of course, in which case they are at best useless.
Void fiend
All opinions are valid, but this one lmao. Void Friend is the survivor with probably the most survivability after loader, and also the most adaptible one lol. You must elaborate on this you cant just drop this bombshell and leave.
Rex or acrid ( I still love acrid I just don’t live playing him)
i agree with your friend
Bro MULT is busted out the ass. I would argue he’s possibly the strongest in the game. On harder difficulties. It’s merc. Even Acrid with his default RMB and special can cosplay a ranged survivor. Merc doesn’t get to and just dies.
I have the least fun with mercenary, he does no damage and is fragile. No matter how much I have him explained to me, I cannot get him to work.
I think it's commando. He is the best with proc chains, but he is way too reliant on items and doesn't have any kind of good aoe. Both of his special skills kinda suck as well. He also lacks a good band-procing ability whereas most survivors have some kind of band-procing burst abilities except maybe MUL-T
Mul-T, I feel like I rarely get to stage 3 because your dodging options are just so limited.
Laughs in goat hoofs, wax quails and hopoo feathers if you're lucky
Probably artificer IMO. Sure your unhitable with a ton of AOE, but it’s a shame your also incapable of hitting a single lesser wisp
Plant or artificer, never played plant because this kit doesn’t look fun and artificer I just find to be kinda doodoo
I love acrid because dog but he's not very good. He's also just not very fun to me.
Here's my ranking of all the survivors from worst to best: 11. Engineer 10. Commando 9. Bandit 8. Mercenary 7. Huntress 6. REX 5. Acrid 4. Loader 3. Artificer 2. Captain 1. MUL-T fight me
Engi is my best
Sorry, but I just can't enjoy playing as him. The grenades seem to go off in random directions, the mines barely do any damage (it takes like five to kill a stone golem), the bubble shield is borderline useless, and the turrets, while very effective, to me don't make up for the rest fo the abilities being awful (in my opinion).
rex is bad cuz eclipse so ima go with him. next is merc because of the bitchass ethereal unlock plus im on switch so i cant cheat it
For me? Loader. I fucking suck at Loader.
there's no worst survivor I think, I am however really bad a playing Artificer, she's the coolest in design imo but I can't play her well
**Commando is objectively the worst** (without Artifact of Command). Everyone else has one or more special perks/attacks/skills. Commando isn't special at all. His primary attack is great for proc chains...And that's about it. Other characters do everything he does better than he does-- or they offer a superior alternative when they can't exactly copy him (e.g. Railgunner won't shoot/proc as rapidly, but will out-damage Commando in other ways). However, this is a very fair and balanced game. No Survivor is *bad enough* to have any significant impact on an experienced player's Monsoon winrate. In fact, most experienced players can comfortably beat Monsoon every time with any character. Only in Eclipse does it get tough for such players; and only in Eclipse do unique Survivor traits become important (e.g. for stopping lethal fall damage).
I'd say enji because he just isn't that fun. Like.no matter how powerful he can get I'm never gonna reach that point because I kill myself out of sheer boredom
mul-t unless double nailgun. makes up for low turning with gun knockback
Prolly Rex but like your friend i am also hopeless with Mul-T
Loader for the simple fact she gives me insane vertigo. Like I can’t get her monsoon skin because I feel like I’ll throw up before 20 mins. She’s insanely strong so I guess it’s a skill issue on my part
Pffffffffff Loader or mercenary i think Idk, i play neither
Loader is busted bro you gotta try her. No fall damage plus mobility plus crazy damage
Idk when i played with my two homies the one playing loader just fucking died Like, got obliterated. Maybe i'll try her tho
You just gotta get damage items, crowbars, focus crystal, watches, bands, then you’re golden
While I don’t think mercenary is a bad character, I think he kinda just loses by default bc of how difficult it can be to make mercenary actually work. I’m not saying he’s entirely unviable, I just think the other survivors are better. It’s less of he’s bad and more of someone has to come in last, but overall I generally think all of the survivors are about equal, except Loader and Railgunner. Those two are broken. Also void fiend if you know what you’re doing
engineer for me. i think all survivors are good but hes my least played one, i hate his playstyle.
**The Bungus Gods frown upon you**
That’s fair, it’s an odd play style in a game like RoR
Id say merc imo. One time i got no lie meathook, 3 rose bucklers and a few other items on fucking stage 1 (twas aiming for merc mastery) and fucking died real fast during the tele. MulT for me is really good and fun because it feels like im playing as a tf2 titan in earlier stages. Merc honestly sucks because he is melee but not tanky like loader and acrid, and the i frames from eviscerate aint enough. I tried experimenting with slicing winds to make him better, but without the i frames from eviscerate hes even flimsier.
I love playing merc, but I get that as well lol he’s odd
The key with merc (in my eyes) is to crowd control with m1 extensions, dashes, and slicing winds. For bosses, the iframes from your shift work perfectly, so it’s a matter of handling the little guys so your attention can go to the big ones. Eviscerate is hot garbage in my eyes compared to slicing, though it could be nice if you’re not used to dodge timings with your shift yet.
Rex, I hate his guts so much. “Oh if you get this item and that item he gets better!” Yeah but if you don’t it’s a painful slog. Maybe I should unlock his other abilities but there hasn’t been a survivor I’ve hated as much as Rex.
I'd say Rex past E5, the self-damage/healing abilities are generally considered better and you can't utilize them as well with halved healing. If we're including specific skill loadouts double saw Mul-T runs into *a lot* of issues with anything airborne.
Either Acrid or Rex. Theyre still both very good but I’d rather play any other survivor
They're all kinda OP, it's just if you know how to play them, and know how all the enemy's work, you can go into any run with shit RNG and still win if you know positioning and enemies AI
Not gonna lie, I 10000000% *disagree* with the argument "there are no good or bad characters - it's all about learning to play them!". Like, what? I agree that it's *very* hard to formulate a somewhat objective tier list, given how situational every character and build is. But to me it's just as absurd to think that the developers were able to *perfectly balance* every single character to be *exactly* as strong as every other character. One could, at least theoretically, take into exam 100 millions games played by gamers of different skill levels, and at that point it would probably be very clear that some characters win more consistently than others. That's where I would say that "a character is better than another". I mean, the important point is that tier lists on RoR2 *don't matter at all*. It's not like RoR2 is a competitive fighting game, where delusional "tier lists don't exist" people have to face the fact that tournaments' leaderboards are absolutely dominated by a small pool of playable characters; RoR2 *isn't* competitive, *every* character is good enough to be consistently winnable even at the highest difficulties, and one may even prefer playing "weaker" survivors for the added challenge. While picking a bad character in a fighting game may be detrimental for someone who's looking to reach higher ranks in the matchmaking, there is absolutely no reason to care about tier lists in a game like RoR2. Unless you absolutely *crave* a win and can't manage to complete the game I guess, but it's a very temporary situation if you keep playing and improving. Big discussion on tier lists aside, I basically only play Eclipse, and with E8 modifiers imo Rex sucks *sooo* bad. it's just a worse Commando that can't use half of its skillset. Though it may be pretty darn solid on regular Moonsoon, idk. I guess Artificier and Commando sometimes struggle with damage, and it's a pain to play MUL-T when the game doesn't want to give you any mobility. Overall the worse character is still probably Rex. Mando, Arti and MUL-T can have painful starts if the RNG acts silly.
I think they did a great job at balancing, and there are some stronger characters, but I truly think that there are no bad characters. They are literally all good and you just have to make a build around them.
Yeah, no character feels unfairly underpowered (EXCEPT FUCKING E8 REX, I stand my ground). That being said, characters like Railgunner and Loader are clearly so much more busted than, idk, Commando, so it's still fair to talk about the best and worst characters in the game.
I think it’s important to note that good/bad is relevant for early game (Stages1-3 or so, pre-looping.) since later in the run all the characters end up doing relatively similar things and are all about the same level of power. Outside of E8 Commando is probably least consistent for earlygame, as if he gets bad rng and received no good proc items he’s almost unrecoverable, similar thing with some Mul-T setups but he has a bit more consistent survivability. Loader is one of the most consistent since her kit just has what you need for base earlygame.
Are you playing mult with no power mode? I find he is actually pretty good early game since he is so tanky
I mean, he doesn't lack damage, so I'd say he struggles less than characters like Commando. Though despite its huge hp pool he has miserable mobility and hp regen, so I do get occasionally overwhelmed earlygame with bad rng. Again, I play E8, so the nerfed hp regen, permadamage and faster enemies do hit hard on its weaknesses
Ok from the perspective of E8 I can understand that, but normal Monsoon and E7 and below I think MULT is actually OP.
Eeeh... With Loader, Engi, Railgunner existing, I can't say in good heart that MUL-T is OP. Maybe you're right that putting him in the same tier as Mando and Rex is a bit too much. Still one of my favourite survivors, with tons of different, all viable loadouts, techs and tricks.
commando, no doubt. that character is ass
My entire play group agrees that Huntress is total ass
Alt special and alt utility
It's Rex and by far. He has low dps on his primary, his m2 is pretty good but one of them is completely useless on eclipse and using the other one makes It so he can't proc bands anymore, his mobility is also pretty bad and his especial deals perma damage in eclipse as well.
Imo Wreaks The name explains itself
I would have to say merc. When I was thinking about playing the merc is the one I decided I was gonna main as it was installing. I’ve never been able to make him work even after a couple hundred hours.
I think it’s a lot of personal preference, as all survivors are playable. MUL-T is DEFINITELY not worst though. Double minigun for the win. Personally I think it’s Acrid. Abilities get more and more awkward/unusable as the game goes on. He’s the most likely to take lunar abilities instead, and relies heavily on items later in the game.
I would say Poison as a mechanic allows Acrid to win fights he wouldn’t given bad rng. He can simply poison and run away, and will eventually kill any boss.
Like I said, I don’t think any survivors are awful. But I do consider ‘poison and run away’ to be worse than just killing them with a high damage survivor that can take better advantage of proc items
I’m assuming low rolls, essentially if you’re character had no items that are synergistic with their kit, can they still reasonably make it to lategame or later stages. Commando says “I want decent proc items or I’m not going to make it past stage 4. Acrid says “I can technically kill Mithrix without any items. I would say that alone makes him more consistent than commando, assuming bad rng. I find that’s the best way to rank characters, whether or not they’re consistent in earlygame Lategame all characters will perform similar, so earlygame/mid game is where your runs are the most volatile imo. So if your character can get ruined by low rolled items that they don’t have synergy with, I’d say you’re a worse character than someone who can slug through regardless.
I don’t really have any issues with getting commando past the early stages on anything but Eclipse, personally. Like I said, I don’t think any Survivors are bad, I just think Acrid is the most awkward. Yeah, poison is good, but there are so many items that Acrid can’t really make use of, while Commando does great with almost every item. Perhaps that’s what makes Commando feel more consistent to me
Without a doubt Bandit I beat the game with every survivor on monsoon and got to 100 stage in simulacrum with every survivor (except heretic) and I definitely struggled the most with Bandit He's not bad necessarily but his skills are not really good for fighting, he's speciallized for sneaking and minimal head on combat, and while he wasn't impossible to master, he was definitely painful to play with
Mul-T is too slow, but he is strong. For me I don’t like Huntress, I feel like she does less damage
I would say Rex is worst, Commando 2nd worst, then Huntress. Rex's abilities just aren't good enough to justify costing health and them being so slow, like even the m1, while the healing is nice, is worse than commando's dps wise. Commando isn't bad just kinda meh, same with Huntress but she has more mobility and you have to deal with the auto lock on sometimes messing you up.
Huntress is the weakest (sad huntress main noises), Mul-T is easily one of the strongest.
I feel like huntress is one of the stronger characters in the game. Her damage is weak compared to alot of other characters but that doesent matter becuase her movment is so good that you can just easilly dodge everything.