Risk of Rain 2: Best Builds For All Characters [Tried & Tested]

Risk of Rain 2 builds to make the game fun and take the thrill to another level. In this article, I will be exploring the most insane builds you can create.

Risk of Rain 2 Builds

In this section, I will be talking about different popular characters of Risk of Rain 2 and the specific builds required for them. All Items are also mentioned, and you can go through our Item Tier list to get additional data. 

Stats for all the builds in Risk of Rain 2: 

Also, If you haven’t unlocked all these characters, go through our Risk of Rain 2 Character Unlock guide as well.

1- Commando

• Playstyle: It’s the best character for both team play and solo play because it is a well-balanced character. Offering moderate firepower that can penetrate through the opponents to keep you going.
• Gasoline: What an enormous item it is that burns the combatants and as they vanish, it spreads widely. A perfect item for double-tap shots.

Commando is the first character that you have access to when start playing the game. Its playstyle is straightforward You can aim and shoot the opponents and use the abilities it comes with. But the problem is that its abilities are too limited and bland.

The area of effect abilities are a must in Risk of Rain 2 but Commando has no excel to them. Moreover, the worst utility skill also makes it the weakest character of this game. All other characters outdo Commando, so when you unlock them, there is no reason to use them.

See Our Commando Build.

Builds

If I talk about its builds, they make the commando move in different directions conveniently. If you are a beginner, focus on those items that can provide you with more DPS (Damage Per Second). So, you can survive for long.

The builds you must strive for are critical hit chance, attack speed, Ukulele lightning, Gasoline, and Kjaro’s band. Stun Grenade works quite well with the Suppressive Fire for keeping the threads passive until you are able to kill them.

2- Captain

• Playstyle: Though the Captain is not that easy to unlock once you unlock him, you can destroy the enemy troops within no time. Playing him is great fun because of his efficient optimization of the items.
• Sticky Bombs: With sticky bombs, you can deal 180% damage to the enemies. A 5% chance of attaching sticky bombs on each stack can take your performance to another level. 

The captain is the most challenging character to unlock. But if you get him once, you can tackle all the situations with ease. All becomes possible due to his effective defense and strong destructive potential. With a little practice, you can use the Captain perfectly and kill any enemy without any difficulty. The Microbots of Captain protect him against all the projectile attacks of enemies. 

The Captain’s skillsets make him the strongest character of the Risk of Rain 2. His primary weapon shotgun helps you to kill the opponents nearby. The secondary weapon Power Tazer fires quick tazer which ensures 100% damage. If you bounce it, this weapon can go farther to hit your target fast. Furthermore, the Orbital Probe, Defensive Microbots, and Orbital Supply Beacon empower the Captain and make him the hero of the game. 

Our Risk of Rain 2 Captain Guide.

Backup Magazine Build

To save your armor, use the secondary weapon Power Tazer. It will be suitable for efficiently combating the enemies’ crowd surrounding you. Use the shocking status effect against your opponents until their 10% HP goes away. This one of the builds is much more beneficial when you come across an Elite Monster. To get your weapon you need some time, so shock him and get something to hit.

Anti-Charging Build

The enemies causing channeling or charging damage are a great hindrance to your progression. By using the Orbital Probes, you can astonish the enemies by causing charging attacks. It’s better to use Orbital Probes with Shocking Beacon because this combination will make your defense strong. After the Deicide Challenge, the Shocking Beacon will unlock which becomes possible when you defeat the Elite Boss.  

3- Artificer

• Playstyle: Putting Artificer down is too hard because she can cause faster destruction. Developing useful strategies will lead the gamer to experience tremendous triumphs.
• Paul’s Goat Hoof: No doubt faster mobility is the key to survivability. That’s why Paul’s Goat Hoof makes the movement speed 14% rapid. 

Artificer is no doubt a challenging character because handling the cooldown of her entire abilities is much more demanding. But once you understand exactly what her abilities are, and make strategies accordingly, then it becomes easy to manage. Artificer can astonish you with her incredible bursting if you use her abilities efficiently to reduce the cooldown delays and increase the high damages. 

Read our Risk of Rain 2 Artificer Build Guide.

Defense and Mobility Builds

To enhance the Artificer’s slow mobility and defense, consider these builds based on your playstyle. Begin by addressing mobility and defense early on. Incorporate energy drinks, Wax Quail, and Personal Shield Generator for a potent character.

Prioritize mobility items like Paul’s Goat Hoof, Energy Drinks, and Hopoo Feather initially, then focus on defense items as the game progresses. Tougher Times is ideal for blocking potential attacks.

In later stages, consider defensive builds like Personal Shield Generator, Old War Stealth Kit, and Medkit for effective damage mitigation. Boost Artificer’s health with Infusion for prolonged survival. For added firepower, combine Primordial Cube with Backup Magazine’s Nova-Bombs—a powerful addition to the Artificer’s arsenal.

4- Mercenary  

• Playstyle: Strikes swiftly and consistently with no compromise on speed. By attacking rapidly, the Mercenary can devastate a huge number of enemies in seconds.
• Rose Buckler: The armor increases by 30 at every stack when you sprint. Causes 25% damage reduction instead of damage negation. 

Mercenary is the melee-based character that saves himself from any potential attack due to his rapid mobility. To unlock this character, you have to consistently combat the rivals and stay alive.  

Mercenary has a unique technical playstyle. You’ll love using this character as his abilities make him deal with lots of damage. If you are above average in playing this fantabulous game, only then you’ll be able to use him easily. To use the Mercenary properly, make the appropriate strategy, otherwise, he can die rapidly. The beginners should practice more for their efficient usage.

Our Mercenary Build guide.

Speedy Boy Build

The speedy boy build can let you attack speedily and cause more damage to enemies. To achieve this build, you must have the following items for fast mobility and your defense. 

• • Rose Buckler and Tougher Time items will expand his damage ability.
  • The Backup Magazine provides more whirl hand to the Mercenary.
  • For dealing with high proc harm, you can increase his attack speed through Soldier’s Syringe.
  • Bandolier gives Mercenary high mobility and more strength to tackle damage.The 
  • Mercenary heals himself and gets extra life from Foreign Fruit and Dio’s Best Friend.  

Invincible Build

This one of the Risks of Rain 2 builds will help you play for longer using the Mercenary. You will become unconquerable and invulnerable to almost all attacks. 

• Alien Head helps the Mercenary to deal with high air damage and you’ll become indestructible. 
• Predatory Instincts take your attack speed to another level. 
• With Dio’s Best Friend build, you get an extra life if killed with a single strike. 
• Bandolier lessens the cooldowns of every item to make you move fast.

5- Engineer

• Playstyle: The Engineer’s versatile skill set makes him a highly desirable character. Turrets cause 50% damage while TR12 Gauss Auto-Turret takes this figure to 200% damage.
• Dio’s Best Friend: This item is quite useful when you have been put to death. Within 3 seconds you can get back to life. Moreover, reviving the turrets using this item is more than easy.

Engineer is one of the interesting characters that Risk of Rain 2 comes with. It proves to be an amazing in-game character if the player uses it wisely. The remarkable skill set of the Engineer makes him superior to other characters in many manners.

The Mines, Turrets, Bobbing Grenades, and Air Pocket Shield are his phenomenal skills. Along with shooting, Turrets can duplicate things and take aggro of the enemies. Moreover, when you are busy selecting items, turrets can kill the enemies in your place. So, that’s all that makes it highly unique. Now let’s talk about its builds.  

Read our Risk of Rain 2 Engineer Guide.

Builds

Different characters use their “god builds” but Engineer is more specific about his builds. And the Clamoring Fungus N’kuhana build is his fantastic combo that no other character can use. 

• Caffeinated Drinks make you run faster and consistently.
• Consistent running may cause any harm to you but Rose Buckler will lessen the harms of rapid running.  
• By using Dio’s Best Friend, your turrets will receive one extra rez.
• As the elites reach a particular HP edge, the Old Guiltoine will kill them on its own.
• Tesla Coil amazingly stuns the nearby enemies. 
• By decreasing the CD and with the help of two additional charges the Hardlight Afterburner provides 100% uptime to your shield.
• Red Whip is what makes this character quicker but out of battle.

6- Bandit

• Playstyle: He is a fast-paced character who is capable of using his abilities skillfully. Ruthlessly killing the monster when the opponents are out of range while fighting the nearest enemies is not horrifying for him. 
• Harvester’s Scythe: Gives 8 (+4 per stack) health and 5% (+0% per stack) critical to Bandit. Using this item, you can live long on the battlefield as it is one of the lifesteal items. 

Bandit has made his place among others due to his higher versatility and mobility. He can easily reset the cooldowns of his abilities which adds more meaning to his uniqueness.

Bandit is a fantastic survivor who focuses on utilizing all of his abilities instantly and then becomes invisible to cool down. Purity, Shatterspleen, Brainstalks, Crowbar, Harvester Scythes, Bandolier, and Backup Magazine are excellent items to build Bandit.   

7- Mul-T

• Playstyle: It is a highly versatile character with 200 health and 12 armor. You can choose from any of the four primary weapons to strike with full might.
• Wax Quail: For letting the character get out of threats it gives a sudden acceleration. Jump during the sprinting will take you 10m forward.   

Mul-T feels too frustrated at the beginning because of his limited mobility. The Transport Mode helps you quickly get out of some critical situations but 6 seconds cooldown is a bit slower if enemies are all around. The interesting thing is that its Retool skill allows you to switch between the equipment slots and primary attacks.   

Mobility Builds

There are various mobility builds that make Mul-T super-fast than its opponents. Hopoo Feather is one of these builds that provides an extra jump at every stack. 

• Goat’s Hoof speeds up your pace up to 14% per stack.
• Energy Drink to get a 30% improved sprint speed
• Wax Quail will let you jump 10m ahead when sprinting. 
• Old War Stealth Kit which makes Mul-T invisible for 3s and increases by 40% movement speed on taking more damage.

High Primary Ability Damage

Other than mobility items, the damaged items include Will-O’-The-Wisps, Leeching Seed, Len’s Maker Glasses, and Sticky Bomb. All these builds overpower Mul-T to handle all the super-intense situations efficiently. 

8- Huntress

• Playstyle: Expect a High damage output, timing attacks, and lots of dodging. She is a self-sustaining survivor who reduces the enemies’ health and is highly mobile.
• Solider’s Syringe: It takes the attack speed 15% higher and lessens the intervals of individual attacks. The animation speed of every skill also becomes too fast.

Huntress is one of my favorite characters because she is easy to use and comes with impressive mobility. This glass cannon character with high DPS and low HP can perfectly deal with single target damages. The impressive mobility and dodging capabilities let her excel easily.

Speedy Girl Build  

The Risk of Rain 2 lets you make combinations of various skills and items to create builds. So, you can use different builds for this character also. The speedy girl’s build with high DPS makes the huntress move faster than her enemies. Such rapid speed will protect you from attacks from opponents and help you to strike back at the same time. 

For this build, you need items like Rose Buckler, Soldier’s Syringe, Cautious Slug, Harvester’s Scythe, and Lens Maker’s Glasses.  

Gaze of Death Build

With the arsenal of the huntress that is her strongest item, you can make a glass cannon. You have to depend on the unlockable equipment Royal Capacitor which is a powerful weapon. Lessening its cooldown is not difficult if you use other items. 

Spinal Tonic or Royal Capacitor: It is one of the fantastic builds that deals 3000% damage to the targetted monster by striking lightning on it. Also, you can conveniently stun the close monsters using this build. 

Multiple Fuel Cells: It decreases the Royal Capacitor’s cool-down time to almost 4s from the 20s. 

9- Acrid

• Playstyle: Melting tanky enemies with his highly powerful poisons is the entire fun of using this character. No matter what the situation is, you can sustain by utilizing his special abilities.
• Will o’ the Wisp: The special characteristic of this item is that it spawns a 12m radius lava pillar at spawning with 350% base damage.

Acrid is the poisonous subject that was a real survivor of the previous Risk of Rain. He is quite beneficial at times when you are playing as a team. If you have played Risk of Rain, you’ll be aware of how interesting it is to play Acrid. And the same fun goes on in Risk of Rain 2 because he defeats the enemies without much difficulty. He utilizes poison to burn his opponents. You can become an expert in playing Acrid with a little effort. 

The fact is that Acrid can’t kill enemies but proves to be the best choice for boss fights. One of his deficiencies is that his mobility is too low, so don’t indulge yourself in melee combats much when using Acrid. Check out our Acrid Article for more information.

Builds 

• The best items for Acrid are AOE and DOT. One of them is the Tri-Tip Dagger which causes 240% base damage to the enemies and 15% damage at every attack. 
• Will-o-Wisp, Gasoline, and Backup Magazine are incredible builds working well with Acrid. 
• If the Elite Monsters have up to 20% health you can kill them within no time using Old Guillotine. 
• Another best item is the Ceremonial Dagger which brings a massive change into the game once you kill an enemy. 

10- Loader

• Playstyle: This big and beefy bruiser character is slow but a remarkably powerful beast to play with. Destroys everyone that comes across him and makes the battle memorable with his amazing moves.
• Crowbar: Causes 75% damage to an enemy having 90% health. It can pose massive damage to the combatants.

Loader is a remarkable character with an enormous burst-damage technique. He can survive for a long and is highly mobile that’s why she is one of the best characters in my list. She comes with special abilities which makes using this amazing character great fun.

Her primary ability Knuckleboom is capable of causing 320% damage to close enemies with just a swing. Gripple Fist and Spiked Fist are the secondary abilities of Loader from which you can select any one of your choice.  

The M551 Pylon is the special ability of this amazing character that can destroy six opponents in your nearby location. This ability is special because it lets you get rid of aerial targets easily. Other abilities lack this power which gives Pylon a separate place among others. 

Suitable Items for Loader

Every character of Risk of Rain 2 uses different items to play efficiently. But Gasoline, Ukulele, Kjaro’s band, Focus Crystal, Paul’s Goat Hoof, Crowbar, Wil-o-Wisp, and ATG Missile are perfect items for Loader.

Builds  

Two Risk of Rain 2 builds can be used with Loader. These are One-Shot build and Attack Speed build taking the thrill to another level. 

1- One-Shot Build

For the One-Shot build, you need to have a utility-charged Gauntlet and the secondary ability Spiked Fist. The charged Gauntlet is better than Thunder Gauntlet because it scores higher than the latter.

Use Shaped Glass to make her more powerful. When using Crowbar, the gauntlet causes huge burst damage but that’s not for every target.

2- Attack Speed Build

For the Attack Speed build, you need up to 7 Lens Markers Glasses, and 2 Fuel cells among other items. If you combine 2 Fuel cells and 3 Gestures, that will be a perfect combo for making Spinal Tonic eternal. This way, you’ll not face any difficulty in unlocking the Loader’s skin in Monsoon. Another interesting fact is that War Horns provides a 70% bonus on your attack. To get that bonus, you must have 2 War horns and the Spinal Tonic must be activated constantly.

11- Rex

• Playstyle: He is a fascinating yet controversial character of Risk of Rain 2. Rex is different than other characters for the refreshing feel it comes with.
• Ukulele: It is a fantastic item whose primary attack is much higher as compared to the average proc chance. It is a perfect fit for Rex.

Rex is a very useful and improved plant-robot hybrid character of Risk of Rain 2. It is of utmost essential to have Rex if you are eager to use unique mechanics and phenomenal abilities. 

What makes Rex the most desirable character among others is his superb abilities. He applies debuffs to the enemies and heals himself on his own. The exciting news about Rex is that he gets HP equivalent to the amount of damage it poses to the opponents. But keep in your mind, you can get this benefit when using Rex’s primary ability for striking.

1- Agile Build  

One big issue with most of the Risk of Rain 2 characters is that they are not too fast in their mobility. Rex is also one such character with low moving speed. If you are eager to boost his speed, use Paul’s Goat Hoof to increase his speed to some extent. Along with that, you can take energy drinks for fast mobility.

Within a radius of 5 meters, you can give lots and lots of damage to your opponents by slamming down. Rex can remain aerial for an extended duration once he becomes highly mobile. 

2- Tech Savy Build

You should strive to get Soulbound Catalyst if you are interested in an equipment-oriented build. As you complete the Newtist Challenge, this feature will unlock. The equipment cooldown also lessens up to 4 seconds whenever you kill an opponent. Moreover, a 15% cooldown reduces every activatable item when using Fuel Cells for the equipment-oriented build.

12- Heretic

• Playstyle: Heretics is a highly powerful character that is not that easy to access. Once you unlock her, you will enjoy a remarkably thrilling and full of excitement game.
• Strides of Hersey: Strides of Hersey increase the entire HP recovered and the invulnerability’s duration.

Risk of Rain 2 has a secret playable character Kur-skan, the Heretic. It is impossible to select her through the character selection screen that appears at the beginning of a run.

But you can access her using the four Hersey items altogether:

• Hooks of Hersey
• Visions of Hersey
• Essence of Hersey
• Strides of Hersey

Other than such skills, she comes with more rapid mobility than others, the ability to triple jumps, and enormously high base health. The more base damage stat increases her importance but she has a downside also. The negative health regeneration doesn’t let her recover her health but keeps on losing it over time.

Final Verdict

Here I tried to describe Risk of Rain 2 builds which are a must-use with different characters. This is because, without these items, the characters can’t survive for long and are vulnerable to being defeated. But all you have to do is to be aware of which build is suitable for which character. Just practice a bit more if you want to use the builds efficiently and see a huge difference in your gameplay.  

Read the Risk of Rain 2 Review by Asad Ahmed to get more in-depth info.