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Pushing the limit of any game is like second nature to many who call themselves a gamer. However, Vampire Survivors has ways of forcing you to get creative with the weapons and items you can equip yourself with.
On top of that, surviving beyond the 30-minute stage limit is quite the undertaking. There are various ways for you to attempt and even succeed in this challenge. Utilizing a key game mechanic is going to be crucial to boost your odds of survival.
Evolutions And Unions Are Crucial
Certain weapons and items can combine to form Evolutions and Unions. Much like the Fusion dance and Potara earrings from Dragon Ball Z, evolutions and unions are superior forms of certain weapons and items. Evolutions and unions are permanent for the duration of your run.
Differences
- Evolutions involve a weapon and a passive item.
- Unions involve two weapons and another passive item.
You'll need to use these mechanics to survive the entire stage, not to mention the minute after that.
Recommended Items
Two items are essential to pick up, namely Clock Lancet and Laurel.
Clock Lancet freezes enemies in time, while Laurel protects you from damage while it's active. Using these items already puts you at an advantage, which will be especially handy after reaching the time limit.
Remember that you'll still have to deal with Red Death to survive up to the 31-minute mark and that more will spawn by the minute. This is why Clock Lancet and Laurel are important to pick up - one item stops them in their tracks while the other reduces their damage.
Keep Your Health In Check
To ensure survival, replenish your health frequently by either leveling up your Recovery powerup, picking up Floor Chickens, or using passive items like Pummarola and Metaglio Left.
Pummarola and Metaglio Left replenish your health every second by just a small amount when you're not taking damage. It helps when you're still waiting for Floor Chicken to spawn.
With the high number of enemies that will also make their way onto your screen, you'll need an additional way of restoring your health points. For this, you need the evolved form of Whip and Hollow Heart, also known as Bloody Tear, which deals critical damage and absorbs the enemies' health points.
Buff Your Armor Stats
While Laurel already does an incredible job at reducing a single hit's damage to zero, it's also deactivated after being triggered. Even with two whole charges when its levels have been maxed out, once it's not there anymore, you'll need a contingency ready to absorb some damage until it recharges.
That's where a passive item like Armor can be useful: it reduces incoming damage and is the catalyst for evolving Runetracer into No Future. No Future can also be combined with other items like Empty Tome, Bracer, and Spinach for a boost in its base stats.
Lastly, Crimson Shroud: the most effective defensive item in the game. Once you have Laurel, you can try and pick up Metaglio Left and Metaglio Right and then get them to max level. This will evolve Laurel into Crimson Shroud, which reduces all incoming damage to 10.
It's very effective against attacks from Red Death and makes it possible to survive beyond the 31-minute mark. You may even encounter the White Hand if you survive long enough.
Remember that the White Hand is not an enemy you can defeat. They are going to beat you and stop the run - no exceptions.
Dealing Damage
When using weapons to boost your chances of survival, your best bet would be to have a kit with an area of effect and some close-up melee. You can do this however you want, but utilizing your weapons like this is a good way of covering your bases.
Area Of Effect
No Future and La Borra are great picks. These weapons are evolutions of Runetracer and Santa Water, respectively, and still need their corresponding catalysts (Armor and Attractorb) to evolve. Regarding their damage, No Future can put out around 990 damage per second, while La Borra can deal a little more with 7,000 damage per second.
La Borra has a bunch of damaging zones that grow as they move toward you, and No Future still behaves like Runetracer normally would with the added explosion effect with each bounce.
Close-Up Melee
You're going to need something for melee or close-up. Some enemies can get past your Santa Water or La Borra due to things like their resistances and health points. Plus, every minute spawns a new wave of enemies, gradually growing larger as you progress. Weapons like Magic Wand, Whip, and Vento Sacro will be useful for wiping out handfuls of enemies at a time.
Magic Wand fires a burst of projectiles at the nearest enemy, and its evolution can be achieved with Empty Tome, creating Holy Wand. Holy Wand continuously fires projectiles at the nearest enemy and can do 1,600 damage per second.
Whip and Vento Sacro can unify to create Fuwalafuwaloo, which deals critical hits that have a chance to generate an explosion. This union can do 7,500 damage per second, but you need to evolve Whip into Bloody Tear first and then max out Vento Sacro. You can evolve Whip with Hollow Heart, which you can find in the Mad Forest north of your spawn point.
Objective: Survive
Finally, for the rest of your run, all you need to do is live up to the name of the game and survive. Grab all the items and weapons, level them up, and slaughter all the enemy sprites crawling after you.
Some evolutions and unions free up one space from your inventory, so try to use that to your advantage.
Since treasure chests are the sole way of evolving weapons, be sure to have the base items fully leveled before opening a chest to increase your chances of getting the evolution.
You can also make things interesting by using Arcanas, picking up Curse items, and even activating Hurry or Endless mode to really test your mettle.