Vampire Survivors Beginner’s Guide 2023

Despite its charmingly lo-fi appearance and seemingly straightforward, single stick idle shooter beats, there’s actually quite a lot going underneath the hood(cape?) of Vampire Survivors. So without further ado, our Vampire Survivors beginner’s guide will take you through the essential stuff you need to know in order to get started. To the coffins! 

Dying Is Great, Actually 

Believe it or not, being shoved six feet under in Vampire Survivors doesn’t just happen often, but it’s actually a good thing too. Rather than solely being an indicator that you’re a bit rubbish, dying in Vampire Survivors allows you to consolidate the knowledge you’ve gained on a given run regarding enemy attack patterns, item locations and more. Additionally, the level overview you get also provides a handy breakdown of your stats, the damage you’ve done and more, allowing you to refund power-ups and tweak your build as required.

Those Gems Aren’t Going Anywhere

When you’re off on a mad one and murdering your way through the undead hordes, you’re likely aware that there is a frankly massive quantity of uncollected gems (which you need to build your XP and level up), being left in your wake. Wonderfully, once a gem is dropped it’ll just stay there forever, meaning you can take your time and hoover up those shinies whenever you like. No pressure.

Focus On A Few Weapons, Rather Than Many

Though it can be tempting to collect a whole bunch of different weapons in the early going, it’s much better to zero in on a small handful of weapons, say two or three, and just focus on levelling each of them up to the max level. Not only can you become ridiculously powerful in a short period of time and thus get further in each run, but it also allows you to evolve those weapons into their ultimate form for massive damage when combined with other items.

How To Evolve The Fire Wand

One of the most devastating weapons you can pick up in Vampire Survivors is the fire wand, a massively powerful trinket that can shoot chunky fireballs at your enemies, racking up huge numbers of kills in the process. The fire wand really comes into its own when fully evolved into its Hellfire form though, resulting in an increase of meteor-sized projectiles which can now pass through other enemies to boot. To evolve the fire wand into hellfire, you need to fully level the fire wand and combine it with spinach. You won’t regret it.

Garlic Can Give You A False Sense Of Security

One of the most promising weapons that you’ll pick up early on (once you’ve collected five portions of floor chicken in any given run to unlock it), is garlic. Horrendously useful, garlic not only creates a field that knocks back enemies, but it can also completely destroy any lesser foe that happens to wander into it. The problem with using garlic earlier on in a run however is that because it only really eradicates weaker enemies, whenever you get an incoming swarm of low health mobs from the edge of the screen, those swarms will often push much stronger enemies through your garlic field, often causing huge amounts of damage or outright killing your character as a result. As such, garlic, like in real-life, must be leveraged carefully.

Holy Water Can Provide A Safe Haven 

When you first collect and start using holy water, its application can seem haphazard and erratic at best as the exploding pools of consecrated Evian seem a little less useful than they should be. However, as you start to level up holy water and see an increase in damage, frequency and area of effect, it becomes clear just how essential holy water is early on to your vampire surviving escapades. As you start dropping multiple holy water bombs on your enemies, you’ll note that the damage becomes so high that the affected areas where the holy water drops essentially become safe havens for you away from enemies. Particularly towards the halfway point of any given run where the screen fills up with all manner of high health enemies, having a safe area where you can take a breather and work out how to progress is invaluable.

Don’t Be Afraid To Spend Your Hard Earned Cash On Powerups

As you start amassing Scrooge McDuck amounts of cash, there’s no point in hoarding it unless you happen to be saving up for a particularly expensive powerup. Instead, just buy the powerups that appeal to you the most and then if you don’t like the ones you chose you can just refund what you’ve spent and start again. Simples. 

What Is The Best Order For Buying Powerups?

As a beginner, it doesn’t matter *too* much what order you buy the powerups from the main menu, not least because you likely won’t have the sizable piles of gold needed to purchase some of the pricier upgrades. However, as you start to make your way through the game, progression can be made smoother by knowing the correct order to purchase those powerups. Luckily, we’ve got the best order for buying powerups in Vampire Survivors listed below (but you’ll still need to amass the 200,000 odd gold coins needed to nab them all):

1. Amount – Gives one additional projectile with a maximum rank of one
2. Revival – Revives the player at 50% health with a maximum rank of one
3. Reroll – Change the shop options once per rank to a maximum of four ranks
4. Growth – Provides 3% extra experience for each rank with a maximum of five ranks
5. Curse – Increases enemy speed, health, quantity, and frequency by 10% for each rank with a maximum of five ranks
6. Luck – Chance to get lucky and gain extra weapon/upgrade options on level up increases by 10% for each rank with a maximum of three ranks
7. Might – Increases damage by 5% for each rank to maximum of five ranks
8. Cooldown – Reduces time between weapon effect activations by 2.5% for each rank to a maximum of two ranks
9. Area – Increases effect size of weapon attacks by 5% per rank to a maximum of two ranks
10. Speed – Projectiles move faster by 10% per rank to a maximum of two ranks
11. Duration – Weapon effects persist for longer by 15% per rank to a maximum of two ranks
12. Magnet – Pickup range of all items and gems increased by 25% per rank to a maximum of two ranks
13. Move speed – Character movement speed increases by 5% per rank to a maximum of two ranks
14. Greed – Collect more coins by 10% per rank to a maximum of five ranks
15. Armor – Reduces incoming damage by 1 per rank to a maximum of three ranks
16. Recovery – Regenerates 0.1 health per rank, per second to a maximum of five ranks
17. Max health – Increases maximum health by 10% per rank to a maximum of three ranks
18. Banish – Removes one chosen item from all future shops with one item removed per rank to a maximum of four ranks
19. Skip – Allows the player to skip the shop and gain experience instead with one skip per rank to a maximum of three ranks