Risk of Rain 2 Tougher Times: Things You Should Know

In Risk of Rain 2, you need to have the best loot items so that you can defend yourself. So, if you want to block most, if not all, attacks, we think you should eye for the Risk of Rain 2 tougher times defense item.

Tougher Times is a returning item from the first Risk of Rain. However, the first version was titled ‘Tough Times’. The second game’s item is a derivate of the first one, indicating a greater reliance on the item in Risk of Rain 2. You can use the item on all survivors, and it scales well with each one of them except for Mercenary. More on that later here.

Things You Should Know About Tougher Times Item

• Tougher Times in Risk of Rain 2 is a common, defense-oriented item.
• It spawns from loot chests after completing the ‘Learning Process’ challenge (dying five times).
• The item provides a 15% chance to block incoming damage, with a stacking effect.
• When triggered, the item displays “Blocked” and emits a distinct sound.
• It serves to defend against various attacks, from small hits to heavy strikes

Times When ‘Tougher Times’ Does not Work

1. Mercenary: While playing with this survivor, using his utility skills, which involves dash attacks, does not trigger the block damage perk of Tougher Times.
2. Void Reaver: The spawn from Hidden Realms lands a death implosion attack which instantly kills anyone caught in it. Since it does not directly hit damage, the ‘Tougher Times’ item does not block this kind of attack.

Times When ‘Tougher Times’ Work

• Equipping ‘Tougher Times’ benefits Rex by blocking damage during skill attacks.
• Void Fields in the Hidden Realm apply a permanent ‘Suffocate’ modifier, slowly draining health.
• ‘Tougher Times’ is useful in Void Fields, blocking damage for survivors.
• Hellfire Tincture ignites a 15m radius but ‘Tougher Times’ provides temporary hit defense.
• Shrine of Blood deducts health when activated, but ‘Tougher Times’ blocks incoming damage.

How Stacking Tougher Times Works

• In Risk of Rain 2, the Tougher Times item theoretically provides a 15% chance to block incoming damage.
• However, stacking Tougher Times doesn’t work linearly; it functions in a hyperbolic way.
• With one item, the actual chance is around 13%, and with two stacked items, it’s nearly 23.1%.
• Building a 90-100% block chance is challenging due to the hyperbolic nature of stacking.
• Acquiring multiple Tougher Times items and finding a 3D printer is impractical and time-consuming

Our Analysis

Based on our playthrough while managing to find and equip 10 ‘Tougher Times’ items, we think it is straight-up a solid loot item to hold in your inventory. We were getting a 60% rate of a chance to block incoming damage. Even though this may not seem a significant number, the frequent triggering happens on the fly while you remain engaged in encounters. The early stages proved more valuable than near-to-end game environments. It is because as you progress further in Risk of Rain 2, the difficulty increases. So, that is when you start to notice that no matter how many stacks of ‘Tougher Times’ item you have, they are not much helpful. But hey, it is still a relief to block a heavy attack of Elite Lemurian like Kjaro or Runald or a Twisted Scavenger while farming lunar coins.

Now that you know everything about the Risk of Rain 2 tougher times item, are you going to do a test run with it? Let us know more about it in the comments section here below.