The difference between a good Vampire Survivors player and a great one largely comes down to their mastery of the game’s lineup of weapons.
Knowing which ones are the most useful, and how you can evolve them, is one thing, but knowing which other weapons you should pair them up with is something else entirely.
Some weapons flounder alone but blossom into truly devastating options when combined with specific others, meaning that the way you choose to fill up your 6 weapon slots is incredibly important. If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of weapons available, and unsure where you should even start, then read on to discover the best weapon combinations in Vampire Survivors.
The most powerful weapon combinations in Vampire Survivors
The Wall (Garlic + King Bible + Santa Water)
This is the all-time classic: the most reliable weapon combo for the early game stages, and quite powerful later on as well. The idea with this one is to create an impenetrable barrier around your character using three weapons that cover a similar area. The garlic surrounds a small circle around you, the King Bible orbits in a circle just beyond that, and the Santa Water, once properly leveled up, creates a continuous burning damage zone that encircles both.
The result is a three-factor security system that most enemies won’t be able to get past, meaning you’ll be able to just stand still and watch the hordes melt away before ever reaching you. Throw in the Area-boosting Candelabrador and the Mad Groove Arcana Card and you won’t even need to move to keep leveling up as the run goes on.
The Blademaster (Victory Sword + Night Sword + Eskizzibur)
Retaliatory damage is one of the more subtle and interesting mechanics in Vampire Survivors. Initially, it was present only on the Armor passive item and the Victory Sword weapon, but as more DLC packs have been added, more weapons that support it have been added too. This makes a dedicated retaliation build not just viable, but actually one of the best late-game options for any given stage.
The key pieces here are the Victory Sword, Night Sword, and Eskizzibur, three weapons that can all deal retaliatory damage when you come into contact with enemies. Factor in the extra retaliatory damage on the Armor passive item, which you’ll need to evolve Eskizzibur anyway, and you’ll essentially one-shot any enemy unfortunate enough to touch you. Make sure you choose the Divine Bloodline Arcana Card if you pursue this build, as it will keep you going by boosting your maximum health with every retaliatory kill you make.
The Machine Gun (Knife + Magic Wand + Flash Arrow)
Most of Vampire Survivors’ single-direction projectile weapons are underwhelming alone, but throw a few of them together, season with passive items that boost your Amount and Cooldown Reduction, and you can get yourself a very spicy build indeed. The best foundation for such a build is made up of the three best projectile weapons in the game: the Knife, the Magic Wand, and the Flash Arrow.
These three let you apply pressure in the direction you’re facing, which allows you to path your way through incoming waves. This is a riskier approach than hunkering down behind AOE damage weapons, but it lets you pick up XP much quicker, and thus reach your build’s power ceiling faster: a vital edge in the later, more difficult challenge stages.
The White Mage (Garlic + Silver Wind + Whip)
While avoiding damage tends to be the best strategy in Vampire Survivors, an alternative is to simply stack up so much healing across your build that any incoming damage doesn’t matter. This is where this build comes in, combining the potent healing powers of the evolved Garlic, the Silver Wind, and the evolved Whip to bring in a constant stream of extra health.
This is a tricky build to get going, since the weapons that make it up don’t do a huge amount of damage, nor do they reach their true healing potential until they evolve. Once you get there, however, you’ll find it extremely difficult to die, especially if you pick up the Sarabande of Healing Arcana Card for double healing and a tonne of bonus AOE damage.
The Quickstep (Shadow Pinion + Vento Sacro + Glass Fandango)
Among the 5 weapon combinations presented on this list, this one is the wild card. It brings together 3 weapons that are generally considered low-tier by most players, and tries to make them work by leveraging the shared bonus they gain when you’re constantly moving around. The result is a playstyle that feels distinct from the established ‘meta’ builds in the game, and one that will actually get you moving rather than just building up to a point where nothing can touch you.
Both the Shadow Pinion and Vento Sacro attack more frequently based on how long you keep moving for, while the Glass Fandango scales its damage based on your movement speed, which you’ll naturally want to invest in to empower the rest of the build anyway. While this setup demands more work from you than others, the results can be surprisingly effective, especially on high movement speed characters like Red Death.
And there you have it: a list of the best weapon combinations in Vampire Survivors. If you’re struggling to reach the 30-minute mark, then take your pick from this synergistic selection and soldier on to victory.
