What is the best Vampire Survivors build? Every run in this roguelike plays out similarly: you defeat hordes of enemies, and amass new weapons and items to help you survive until the end. You can upgrade your items or take new ones at regular intervals, which helps you bolster your build each time you level up. However, in the heat of the moment, it can be hard to know which items give you the best buffs and which combos you should stack together.
When making the best Vampire Survivors build, you need to make two key decisions: which of the best Vampire Survivor characters to play as and which powerful Vampire Survivors weapon evolutions you want to aim for as you collect items.
Best money-making Vampire Survivors build
To unlock your true potential in Vampire Survivors, you’ll need to spend a lot of coin in the shop. Upgrading weapons and abilities isn’t cheap, but with this money-making build, you’ll have more gold than you know what to do with.
- Characters: Queen Sigma.
- Level: The Bone Zone in Hyper Mode with Inverse, Limit Break, and Endless mode enabled.
- Arcana: Disco of Gold (XV), Wicked Season (XIII), Sarabande of Healing (VI), or Silent Old Old Sanctuary (XX).
- Weapons: Greatest Jubilee, Victory Sword, Laurel.
- Passives: Torrona’s Box, Stone Mask, Clover, Skull O’Maniac, and Attractorb.
Best beginner Vampire Survivors builds
Here are our picks for the best Vampire Survivors builds:
- Soul Eater, Unholy Vespers, Phierragi build
- Holy Wand, Hellfire, Thousand Edge, Death Spiral build
- Vandalier, No Future, La Borra build
Soul Eater, Unholy Vespers, Phierragi build
- Characters: Poe, Pugnala, Red Death, or Dommaria
- Basic weapons: Garlic, King Bible, Phiera Der Tuphello, Eight the Sparrow, Axe, Magic Wand, Lightning Ring
- Items: Pummarola, Spellbinder, Tiragisú, Candelabrador, Empty Tome, Duplicator
- Weapon evolutions: Soul Eater, Unholy Vespers, Phieraggi, Death Spiral, Holy Wand
- Arcana: IV – Awake
This VS build gives you huge AoE damage, ensuring that enemies can’t get close enough to kill you. Prioritize getting the two pistols, as all weapons here will eventually evolve. You’ll want the IV – Awake Arcana, as it gives you three additional revives, increasing the damage of your pistols. Evolving these weapons also gives you a spare slot, as they merge into one, so you can take an extra weapon to bolster your offensive options.
All the weapons we’ve listed above have an AoE effect except for the Holy Wand. Its inclusion here is to take advantage of the evolved weapon’s ability to keep firing at the closest enemy – this is handy for killing strong enemies that somehow make it through the rest of your defenses.
Holy Wand, Hellfire, Thousand Edge, Death Spiral build
- Characters: Gennaro, Pugnala, Imelda, Arca, or Red Death
- Basic weapons: Phiera Der Tuphello, Eight the Sparrow, Magic Wand, Fire Wand, Knife, Axe
- Items: Empty Tome, Spinach, Bracer, Candelabrador, Duplicator, Tirigisú
- Weapon evolutions: Holy Wand, Hellfire, Thousand Edge, Death Spiral
- Arcana: VII – Iron Blue Will (priority for Pugnala, Red Death, and Gennaro), or XI – Waltz of Pearls (priority for Imelda and Arca)
Contrary to how you’d usually play Vampire Survivors, you shouldn’t evolve the two pistols when playing this build. Instead, you will maximize the number of projectiles on screen by taking a character like Gennaro, who has additional shots for every equipped weapon.
The rest of this build is relatively self-explanatory: get weapons that fire as many projectiles as possible. From this point onwards, the only significant decision is which Arcana to prioritize when you get your second and third choices. You should choose the one in the list above you didn’t get at the start of your run, and one of either XIX – Heart of Fire or IV – Awake. The former makes projectiles from fire-based weapons explode on impact, while the latter provides a few additional revives.
Vandalier, No Future, La Borra build
- Characters: Pasqualina, Imelda, or Clerici
- Basic weapons: Peachone, Ebony Wings, Runetracer, Santa Water, Axe, King Bible, Magic Wand
- Items: Attractorb, Armor, Duplicator, Spellbinder, Candleabrador, Empty Tome
- Weapon evolutions: Vandalier, No Future, La Borra, Unholy Vespers, Holy Wand
- Arcana: IV – Awake
This Vampire Survivor build takes a while to get going and leaves you somewhat vulnerable at the beginning of the run, thanks to the imprecise nature of the two avian weapons. However, other weapons, items, and weapon evolutions can help you survive until you reach level eight for both birds. Then, you need to grab a chest to evolve it into the Vandalier.
Once you merge Peachone and Ebony Wings, the two birds that infrequently attack specific spots become the Vandalier that consistently sprays the area around you with a hail of bullets. Provided you have the Spellbinder, Candelabrador, Duplicator, and Empty Tome maxed out, this new bird will quickly annihilate everything in the local vicinity. Unfortunately, no Arcana choice at the beginning helps you a great deal with your weapons, so our pick here is IV – Awake, as it gives you a few more bites at the proverbial apple.
Whatever your choice for the best Vampire Survivors build, it should keep you alive, even during the Vampire Survivors Ender boss fight, and help you unlock Vampire Survivors characters. Still, if you need that extra help with the popular indie game, we have instructions on using Vampire Survivors cheats and a cheat engine mod to unlock Red Death.