A list of item synergies to help better understand which items work best together. Updated with Artifacts 2.0 content.
Risk of Rain 2 Item Synergies Guide
Risk of Rain 2 has loads of items with their unique effects and some of them make other items way more useful. In this guide I’ll try to list some of the combinations that in my opinion work best with some added commentary to explain it.
Item Synergies
Lens-Maker’s Glasses/Ocular HUD
- + Harvester’s Scythe
- + Predatory Instincts
Both proc on critical hits, meaning that Glasses and HUD increase their proc chances respectively. Cap Glasses at 10 stacks (9 if you have Scythe), extra stacks will do nothing because you’re already at 100% Crit.
Kjaro’s Band
- + Runald’s Band
If one of the bands procs, other immediately procs as well.
War Horn
- + Any equipment with low/reduced cooldown
Frequent (up to 100% uptime) +70% attack speed bonus.
Gesture Of The Drowned/Fuel Cell/Soulbound Catalyst
- + Any equipment (except Crowdfunder)
Reduces equipment cooldown. This also synergizes with War Horn, activating its effect more frequently. With 1 Gesture and 3 more Gestures or Cells (can be like 2 Cells and 1 Gesture) you can achieve 100% uptime on Spinel Tonic, giving you a significant boost to all your stats with no drawbacks (unless you unequip it).
NOTE: Crowdfunder has no cooldown, meaning that with Gesture it’ll be active 100% of the time, immediately spending your gold. This can literally soft block you, especially early game!
The Crowdfunder
- + Ghor’s Tome
Tome drops gold chunks on kills that give you a lot of cash. More cash = more Crowdfunder shooting.
Old Guillotine
- + Brainstalks
Indirect synergy. Guillotine allows you to kill elites much faster, activating Stalks. Especially useful later in the run when elites are becoming much more frequent.
Aegis/N’kuhana’s Opinion
- + Any healing items
Most effective with Crit+Scythe and Bustling Fungus as those give you most consistent healing.
NOTE: Lepton Daisy works really well for those too, but it’s only working during teleporter event, only at certain intervals and only inside the area.
Shattering Justice
- + Any attack speed increasing items/their combinations
Allows you to trigger armor reduction effect much easier.
Transcendence
- + Personal Shield Generator
- + Old War Stealthkit (5+)
- + Strides of Heresy (2-3)
+8% more shields with each new stack. Pretty straightforward. Stealthkit and Strides give you a period of time, during which you won’t/can’t be attacked by enemies, allowing shields to recharge.
NOTE: Stacking more than 3 of Strides is not recommended. Its healing will do nothing and you’ll be outside of battle for too long.
Rejuvenation Rack
- + Any healing/regeneration items
Significant healing boost. Works perfectly with above mentioned Aegis and N’kuhana’s Opinion.
Helfire Tincture
- + Razorwire
- + Tougher Times
Burning effect triggers Razorwire, quickly attacking enemies in range. Basically extra damage on top of Tincture’s.
Tougher Times can block Tincture’s burning, lowering overall damage you take.
NOTE: Keep in mind that Razorwire activates only if you take damage. Tougher Times can block incoming damage, so it reduces frequency of Razorwire effect.
Primordial Cube
- + Gasoline
- + Will-o’-the-wisp
Groups enemies together, alowing on kill effects to hit more enemies at once. Useful for activating Berserker’s Pauldron effect.
These are the synergies I could think of so far. I didn’t include movement speed combos because usually it just comes to your character’s skills and just collecting hooves, drinks and whips.
Death Mark
- + Tri-Tip Dagger
- + Gasoline
- + Chronobauble
- + Runald’s Band
- + Shattering Justice
- + Effigy of Grief
- + Wake of Vultures
Death Mark significantly increases your damage output if you can reliably apply four or more debuffs onto an enemy.
NOTE: If survivor is able to apply debuffs (like Acrid’s poison, REX’s weakness or Artificer’s freezing) these debuffs count for Death Mark activation.
NOTE 2: Each slowing effect is its own debuff! For example, Carbonizer turrets with Runald’s bands and Chronobaubles will be able to cast three separate debuffs that count for Death Mark activation.
These are the synergies I could think of so far. I didn’t include movement speed combos because usually it just comes to your character’s skills and just collecting hooves, drinks and whips.
Universal Items
Unstable Tesla Coil
Can proc on hit effects, including Ukulele and Sentient Meat Hook.
Ukulele/Sentient Meat Hook
Just as Tesla Coil can proc on hit effects.
57 Leaf Clover
Increases the chances of on hit and on kill effects to trigger. Those include AtG Missile Mk. 1’s rockets, crit, bleed, Sticky Bomb attaching, Bandolier boxes dropping, etc.
Above mentioned items can help with some previously mentioned synergies, or even improve them thanks to hitting multiple targets or increasing some proc chances. They are definitely items you might want to consider getting in your run. (I know 3/4 of them are Red items. But Bazaar exists to help, and sometimes it’s worth trading 5 Green items for one of these)
