Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde is a roguelite bullet hell game in the same vein as Vampire Survivor. You run around, trying to avoid the titular Infinite Horde, all the while upgrading your abilities and using them to eliminate your foes.
The game is in early access at the time of writing, so there are only a few characters, but they’re already quite unique and play in different ways. There are also more on the way, judging by the empty frames in the character selection screen. As it stands, the differences between the available characters mean that some are simply better than others, so here they are, ranked.
4 Maxine The Red Witch
Best Starting Synergy: Grand Hex
The Red Witch zips along on her flying broom, her 156 movement speed making her the fastest unit in the game, 30 percent faster than the next fastest units, Vivian and Magnus who are both tied at 130. Her starting synergies tend to focus on high cooldown reduction, either by giving her abilities a percentage of cooldown reduction or starting off with a few ranks bought into the cooldown reduction upgrade of the ability.
Though these sound like a great combination of skills, they come with a terrible cost– namely that she only has a quarter of the health on average of the other characters. While ideally, she could use her fast movement to dodge foes and the quicker firing rate of her abilities to send ‘em packing, the truth of it is that the cooldown upgrades aren’t enough to keep enemies at bay.
On top of that, there are some situations that you just can’t outspeed, since enemies can sometimes spawn surrounding you, leaving you with nowhere to run. This is especially common on higher difficulties. While other characters can tank hits until their abilities buy them an opening, her abysmal health pool makes this a non-option for Maxine.
3 Vivian The Sorceress
Best Starting Synergy: Vines
Vivian’s ability set focuses on Blue Souls, which allow you to level up, improving abilities or acquire new ones. Her unique ability increases the size of her Soul Magnet by five percent every time she levels, meaning that she can grab Blue Souls from further away as she levels. Her starting synergies tend to have a focus on increasing Blue Soul drops, either by a percentage of kills or by outright guaranteeing them.
Her most notable starting synergy, however, is with Vines, which gives them a size boost every ten levels which can make them gargantuan if you invest in them. The Sorceress is a good starter character since she has a decent health pool and movement speed - and her tendency to level faster with all the Blue Soul drops means you’re likely always ahead of the curve. Alternatively, you can just go ham on the Vines and watch everything die in the embrace of the thorns.
2 Magnus The Dark Mage
Best Starting Synergy: Orbital Fire
Magnus is the other starter character and it shows, since his abilities, while not impressive on paper, are surprisingly useful at keeping him in the game. His unique ability is that he gets back ten health on a level-up, which will happen less and less often as the costs of leveling scale, but pretty much guarantees that you survive the early game.
His starting synergies tend to focus on healing, either by healing on cast or a chance to drop a heart on kill– sometimes both. His starting synergy with Orbital Fire allows finer control over when he heals, granting ten HP whenever you upgrade it.
Overall, Magnus is a fantastic pick when you’re learning the game as his survivability combined with a decent HP pool and movement speed makes him very forgiving to play. These skills also scale nicely when you get into the harder parts of the game as well.
1 Conrad The Knight
Best Starting Synergy: Cleave
Conrad is a big, beefy brute of a knight, packing not only a gigantic health pool but +2 damage mitigation as well– something the other characters don’t get unless they invest in the Chicon Rad pet, which only gives +1 per rank. This goes with the relatively mild drawback of moving at a snail’s pace. His starting synergies tend to focus on increasing the size of his abilities, though a few also bolster his already monstrous survivability by providing a heal upon casting. He also has a powerful one for Cleave, which triples the knockback on an already powerful ability.
Though it might be annoying to be so much slower than the other characters, Conrad is worth it. You’re still fast enough to avoid all but the fastest enemies and if you get surrounded, you’re more than capable of bulling your way through them. He can walk all over the Normal difficulty, though you’ll require a bit of finesse in the higher difficulties, where his survivability is blunted by the damage scaling on enemies.