Vampire Survivors Starting Tips

Like a lot of people lately, I’ve gotten a little bit hooked on the excellent indie shooter/character-builder Vampire Survivors. Over the course of a half-hour players fend off swarms of creatures of the night with a growing and customizable arsenal of vampire-slaying weapons. The whole affair is very Castlevania-inspired in theme, but by combining so many genre elements that fit so well together, it successfully becomes its own thing.

I have not unlocked all of the upgrades and so on in Vampire Survivors, and I doubt I will for a while. But, and not to toot my own horn here, I had the game pretty much figured out after my first run. So I thought I would offer some fundamental tips for anyone who might be struggling to get their first win.

(Forgive my screenshots; I neglected to take any when I was actually in the early game.)

Attack the horde

In Vampire Survivors, you are the vampire. Not thematically, but mechanically. You are extracting XP from monsters to get stronger to kill more monsters. Because you’re being timed, and because the monsters appear on a schedule, the best strategy is to attack aggressively.

Think of those swarms of bats that show up every so often and run down the middle of the field menacingly. Are they an obstacle to be avoided or an opportunity to deal damage and collect XP? They’re an opportunity. Attack the swarm!

Concentrate on attacking as many monsters as you can kill as often as you can, so that you can create as much XP for yourself as possible. It’s a matter of efficiency and of building up power. The absolute best place you can be is right in the middle of a swarm that you’re simultaneously cutting down. By contrast, the worst place you can be is escaping, thus not killing, thus not creating XP.

Though leveling up is a priority, don’t go too far out of your way chasing XP jewels. It’s better to create lots and lots of XP as fast as you can than it is to stop creating XP to pick up jewels that have already dropped. Jewels don’t disappear, and if you’re playing right, you’ll find the down time to grab them.

We want to get stronger as fast as possible. Don’t escape; dominate. If you find yourself running away from the crowd, it means your build is too weak to compete. Running away reduces the time you’re spending killing monsters, which reduces the XP you’re pulling out of them, which means you’re only going to get weaker as the monsters get stronger.

On the other hand, if we can attack and kill continuously, we gain that much more XP and the balance tips that much further in our favor. We can even outrun the game’s schedule and level up faster than the enemies do, eventually leading to an optimal state where we’re slicing through the horde like a meat grinder and constantly breathing in XP jewels. On a really good run, you’ll feel the balance shift to your favor.

Again, attack aggressively! Be attitude for gains.

Character building

Don’t spread yourself thin. Decide what your “main” weapons are going to be early on— one to three of them-- and concentrate on upgrading them every time they show up on the level-up screen. Grabbing too many different weapons too soon, or taking too many passive skills over weapons, means you won’t be able to handle the larger waves that start to attack at about ten minutes in.

Starting out, you don’t have the benefit of all the upgrades you can make on repeat plays. So as your arsenal’s foundation, I recommend simple, strong weapons that give you close coverage, like the Cross, the King Bible, and the Magic Wand. With these weapons you can control the area around you, keep yourself alive, and decide which enemies you kill by walking up to them.

The long-range magic weapons are relatively inefficient when you’re starting out. They do good damage, but they don’t necessarily attack where you need them to. On the other hand, with close-range coverage, you’re both protected from damage and doing continuous, heavy damage at all times. A nice close-range setup will continuously shred the enemy horde into a fine mist.

I’d definitely go so far as to say close-range is easy mode and playing exclusively long-range is hard mode. Worry about doing fancier builds once you have your between-game upgrades: it’ll be easy then.

Exception: Garlic, which creates a damaging field around you, is an attractive option in the early game. But it by the end its damage is negligible against the stronger monsters you’re up against, making it a bad overall investment especially when compared to the powerful King Bible.

This is an offense game, so don’t worry about defensive skills. You shouldn’t be getting hit; at least, not enough to be killed. Instead concentrate on the passive skills that boost your attacks. Attack speed, lower cooldown, raw damage, they’re all good. Don’t take them over your main weapon upgrades, but do take them over a new weapon that you don’t want. An upgrade that enhances all of your weapons, including your best, is better than an upgrade that only enhances one of your weak weapons.

Exception: Duplicator, which adds another projectile to all your weapons, is king of the passives. Always grab Duplicator no matter what.

Between-game upgrades

You probably don’t need a single upgrade to win, but obviously it helps. As in the regular game, just worry about offense for starters. Leveling “Amount” should be your first priority as soon as you get that many coins (the “reset skills” button is free, so just use it!)

Complete all the offense upgrades and the game should be a breeze with any build you want.  The meta shifts from “can I win?” to “how fast can I win?”. At this point you can start messing around with stuff like aiming to evolve weaker weapons, or combining the two bird weapons. Another really cool thing about this game is that it doesn’t get stale when you become overpowering: it just becomes a game about trying something else.

But at that point, you won’t need me anymore! Happy hunting!