Overview
A short summary of what the Relics do
The Relics
Based on whatever Version of the game is January 1, 2021. May update with more patches.
You already know what the relics do, it says their skills right on character creation…
but what does it MEEEEAAAAAAAN; that’s why you’re here. If you don’t know the skills already… go play the game, derr
Of note, every relic has a Basic Attack enhancer that affects one weapon type (Staff for Bane for example)… they also affect your class weapon; Bows for Sharpshooter, Railhammer for Railmaster, Digitus for Dusk Mage and poop for Forged.
Bane
What do you get out of Bane?
—–
Bane, your poison relic, is more about minions and minion damage. It does this pretty well since minions are hella bad in this game because as monster move speed increases your minions become increasingly incapable of landing hits at all… having a dozen or so spiders really helps via indirectly immobilizing enemies (or directly if you have immobilize/blind on your weapon).
Poison is the strongest DoT since it’s the only one that stacks, but there’s a problem here… the Bane relic does not passively apply poison
Venomous Maw is your striking skill (Striking skills are the ones that are compatible with Egg of Mayhem or Ancient Ember gloves). If you are building for minions it’s pretty hard to take this, which is kinda sad since this is one of the stronger abilities dealing 210% contact damage and 210% DoT for 4 seconds… however, your minions can hit very rapidly for poop damage to let you get lots of these off with Ancient Ember gloves
Bane favours stacking ‘defense’ since both the Shield and Rage skill boost the defense stat
Sharpshooter can use Goblin Legion+Reload to spawn large goblin armies which in turn summon spiderlings if you have a poison weapon. Dusk Mage can use Spirit Well to bring in netherlings to do much of the same. Railmaster has the train and Forged can get the hell out of my party.
Ok, I don’t mean to be mean to Forged… while he doesn’t have any valid minions, he does have the very good Poison Dart skill for triggering Bane skills while providing 65% pet damage. This is rivalled only by Sharpshooter’s Scout Bones.
Blood Drinker
Your blood relic
Unlike Bane, Blood Drinker’s passive actually does apply bleed. This does stack with bleed on your weapon, so your application chance will probably be high enough for the most part… stack bleed damage.
Spinning Blade is your Striking Skill. Its Tier 1 bonus lets you cast it for free when struck, but these free strikes do not proc Ancient Ember gloves or Egg of Mayhem.
The Basic Attack enhancer affects Swords (and your class weapon). It’s also among the better Basic Attack enhancers since it actually hits things
The Ultimate is also amazing, filling your entire screen with spinning blades that have good percentages on them and can multi-hit.
Blood Drinker favours stacking Max HP due to the amount of percentile healing skills available.
All the skills have good Tier bonuses as well, making picking skills somewhat challenging. Blood Drinker demands your attention. Between Spinning Blade and Drain Drain is the stronger attack, but you also want the Spinning Blade Tier bonuses… but Tier 3 Drain is one of the strongest skills in the game and it can be rapidly spammed. To confound this even further, Blood Drinker has the best Rage skill in Blood Seekers so you kinda wanna save your relic energy to just keep Blood Seekers up… while it’s up and you have at least Tier 1 you are pretty much invincible due to massive healing. Even if you like to keep your distance and rarely get hit… they’re HOMING missiles and have a huge range, being able to kill things you leave behind or destroy shelves/pots/boxes off screen.
Living Shield is an amazing 1 point wonder, being essentially a free potion.
Combos:
Blood Drinker is mostly melee focused due to the short range aoe nature of the skills so a class with a melee defense modifier is useful (Blasting Charge Tier 2 for Railmaster for example). Sharpshooter Heartseeker is one of the most reliable ways to apply bleed for procs, but for the most part you can rely on your weapon passives
Blood Drinker needs lots of love and attention so playing a class that doesn’t rely too heavily on their class skills is helpful (such as Forged)
Coldheart
I made this guide to complain about Coldheart
…it bad
Ok, lets redeem this a little. You can passively apply chill with every hit or even when hit. Chill is a rather valuable status effect since few enemies resist it and it scales well in the higher dungeon levels.
The shield skill is also good, it’s a little weaker offensively than Bane but grants 3 layers of shielding that protects from any damage.
That’s the problem, ish, the other passive, Frost Skin, protects against 1 layer of damage every 70 seconds (35 at rank 5)… why block 1 layer of damage every 35 seconds when you are already blocking 3 every 20 seconds? Furhtermore, the other other passive Breaking Point boosts the pitiful damage on the NOVA effect of Frost Skin. It does apply a Freeze, which is stronger than chill and about on par with Stun… but many many MANY things are immune to Freeze.
Basically, 2 of the passives are completely wasted outright.
The striking skill Frost Blast is a little underwhelming visually, it’s just a simple icy blast… but it is among the stronger ‘just straight damage and who cares’ striking skills so it’s never unwanted and its Tier 2 bonus ALSO applies freeze, making Breaking Point even more useless. Why would you want to Freeze an enemy every 35 seconds for 10 points when you can do it every second you can mash the button for only 6 points (and for 10 points you can get the Tier 3 which lets you spam it more)
Frost Blast is so spammable it’s a good contender for Egg of Mayhem.
The Basic Attack enhancer, Large Bores, is the worst of them all – you have a chance to trigger a small frost blast for 40% weapon damage. I think it might fire 3 of them, totally 120% weapon damage… but that’s still very low. Bane debatably might be worse since the summoned staff doesn’t do much, but you typically don’t basic attack with poison since you want to use more skill spam to apply more poison
Ice Golem is bad… As I mentioned in Bane the problem with minions is that they have a hard time keeping up with faster monsters (which is ALL monsters in the end game), and Ice Golem is UNIQUELY slow. His Tier 1 chill aura is about as small as his punching range……. AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM!!!! As soon as he starts to punch an enemy they already walked out of range and will never get chilled since they have to be within the chill aura when it pulses. The Tier 2 bonus is underwhelming since the increased radius is… nothing, and there are better sources of freeze. The Tier 3 bonus, on the other hand, is actually decent.
The Rage skill, Snowstorm, is kinda decent. It has an ok damage profile at 100% per second in a medium radius (after the Tier bonus). The Tier 3 bonus is very hard to capitalize on, the best source being Frost Blast spam.
The ultimate, Cold Front, on the other hand… might be the best ultimate. It has a per-hit damage of a good 330% and it just fills the screen with chaos and icicles (at Tier 3 at least).
Electrode
Best relic
Shock is a weird DoT since it doesn’t do damage to the target, it does damage to everything else… but that does matter because Electrode has the best striking skill in the game, Chaotic Strikes.
It’s pretty much mandatory to itemize Egg of Mayhem and Ancient Ember gloves since it’s so strong it can be pretty much the only skill you use.
Chaotic strikes, in isolation, would be a 400% weapon damage hit… which is already the strongest strike, POSSIBLY comparable to Bane’s Venomous Spider if you count the entire DoT duration or Flaming Destroyer’s Blaze Pillar if the target stays in it for a long time (but it costs 50 relic energy tho). But this isn’t in isolation. In addition to that 400% hit… which is actually 2 hits (800%), the Tier 1 bonus is an extra bolt (3 hits, 1200%)… the strike continues to move and strike a few extra times! If you can get your target stuck in a wall somewhere you can hit them with each segment of the strike for THOUSANDS of percent of damage. Also, the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bonuses are great too. Stun isn’t the best due to immunities and short duration, but since it’s a very high 50% chance and it strikes a huge area and hits multiple times…. yeah
Also, it casts instantly with no cooldown. Take FD’s Sword for example, you have a rather sizable delay. Frost Blast has no cooldown either, but it has a small casting animation. Chaotic Strikes has neither of these so you can just 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 and the planet is dead. (assiming you have Chaotic Strikes set to the 1 key)
…
Lets ignore that for a second.
The Basic Attack enhancer is kinda decent, affecting maces and your class weapon for 3 strikes of 60%, much much higher than the PITIFUL Coldheart, but still the next worse. Unlike frost though, shocked enemies are good to hit multiple times to get more shocks off.
Tingling Sensation adds shock chance to your weapon as well as increased bolts… this is really really good (well, if you like shock) The application rate is bad at only 10% (rank 5), but the added bolts is the reason to get it. If you don’t have Shock Chance on your weapon already you can skip this, otherwise this is mandatory.
Conjure Electrode? No… why use anything that isn’t Chaotic Strikes
The Rage skill, Localized Storm, is on par with other rage skills, striking a random enemy for 270% every second. But that pales in comparison to CHAOTIC STRIKES. Save your Relic energy
Lightning Strike, deal a 125% damage hit when you strike a shocked enemy… and you’ll be shocking every enemy. The proc rate is a little low, but compared to its contemporaries like Rupture or Spread of Death it’s above average.
The Ultimate is a mixed bag, the damage is unremarkable at 700% (well, for an ultimate), but it grants attack and cast speed for a few seconds as well as increased relic energy generation (at tier 3), which makes it so you can cast MORE CHAOTIC STRIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…
In the unlikely event that Chaotic Strikes is nerfed to Ice Golem levels of usability, the other shock skills are pretty decent and provide a good deal of AoE via shock and as such favours classes with strong single-target dedication such as Basic Attackers and Forged.
Combos:
Due to Chaotic Strikes being so overpoweringly good, any ability to proc is it via Ancient Ember gloves welcome. This includes pets (train, goblin legion, spirit well), as well as incidental proc effects … which ironically makes poison a good main-weapon element to have thanks to its stacking.
Flaming Destroyer
Fire Fire!
Flaming Destroyer provides support for stacking evasion… neat. Burns tend to have a small duration so you may need increased proc chance or duration to secure the best uptime.
The striking skill is Sword Smash, which is welcome when you get it for free on someone else via Egg of Mayhem, but when you manually cast it has such a long casting time it’s not really worth it… and it’s easy to miss with it!
Alternatively is Blazing Pillar, which does cost 50 relic energy instead of 25, but actually hits things… can trigger any weapon proc you have, and can somewhat follow enemies around. It can be difficult to use against fast enemies, even with its strong 50% slow (Tier 2) but it is almost always welcome against both groups and bosses.
The Rage skill, Cloak of Fire… is ok. Throw it in the bin with all the other rage skills that aren’t Blood Seekers.
The Shield skill is a weird one. It only deals 125% damage twice, but it gives you 20% evasion and if you evade during its VERY small 6 second duration you’ll trigger additional novas. Combined with the Rage skill and the Passive you should be able to evade frequently, but this also means enemies have to actually be hitting you and not just ‘missing’ due to you walking out of their weapon range.
The Basic Attack enhancer, Giant Swings, is pretty dang cool – dealing a strong 125% hit in a small fireball directly in front of you. It’s tricky to capitalize on since Great Weapons don’t have a high attack speed to proc it, but you can also use your Class Weapon (Bow/Digitus/Railhammer) and as long as you are equipped with such a weapon, Blazing Pillar will also trigger it even though its not a Basic Attack…
…Ice Golem used to do that :V
Firestorm is the worst added effect passive. It’s only a 10% proc (less than Rupture), it’s only 40% weapon damage (less than Rupture) and it also has a COOLDOWN. lame. However, since added Ranks only add damage and not chance, it’s an ok 1 pointer.
The Ultimate is crazy. High damage, blows up the screen, sets everything on fire (including your PC if you have Post Processing and Shadows set to high). It applies a 725% burn… Yes, a 725% DoT on top of a very strong regular hit, plus the Tier 1 bonus lets you randomly cast one such sword. It’s reaaaaaaaally goooooooooo
Colatin’ the Relicatin’
So, which do you pick and why?
Well, Bane is easily the best for minion focused builds with its +25% damage and spiderling spam which can help body blood the lighting fast deep dungeon monsters… but it’s also the best for passive damage due to poison being the strongest DoT and also stackable up to 3. It doesn’t provide poison on its own, (BYOP).
It is the LEAST useful for Basic Attack builds due to a crappy enhancer on a weak weapon type. However the shield and rage skills are decent. The ultimate is mediocre for its main effect, but pet builds will love the Spider Queen.
The Bane relic is a good all-rounder if you don’t care about your relic that much due to reliable passives on an already strong element. Builds that don’t have many points to spare (like Dusk Mage) will enjoy the relatively minimalistic demands of 5 points in Spiderlings, 1 point in shield and 1 point in Miasma. More points as desired.
…
Blood Drinker is the best for survival via healing, so you still need the defense to avoid OHKOs. Blood Drinker has the best rage skill via Blood Seekers and the best Shield 1-pointer as a reliable free potion. Blood Drinker also has one of the better Basic Attack skills since it reliably adds damage, but the ‘sword’ weapon requirement sets it back… luckily you can use your class weapon (except FORGED). It technically is weaker since you can’t proc more of them (like Electrode or Flaming Destroyer), but it makes better use of its high uptime… good for if you use ‘occasional’ basic attacks backed by more regular skill usage.
The bonus damage passive, Rupture, is also decent at 45% damage in a small AoE. Nothing to write home about on its own, but the high 25% proc rate means you can focus on single target and hope the AoE handles the minions.
The downside is that the Rage skill is so good you probably won’t get any value from the two actives. Luckily one has a tier passive.
The ultimate is also very good, the 2nd best.
…
Coldheart is easily the worst, but that doesn’t mean it’s also the blurst… Chill as an effect is very good and kinda hard to itemize for. The ulimate is also very good (albeit random) and the Rage skill has great utility if you don’t mind getting up close.
Coldheart also has debatably the best shield skill. It may not be the free potion Blood has, but ignoring 3 ticks of damage outright is good for breaking through unique boss mechanics. It’s also the most damage shield, on par with Bane, thanks to piercing and increased duration and your pet also shooting out icicles
Ice Blast is an ok striking skill. Very ok.
Large Bores is the worst basic attack enhancer next to Bane’s Staffing Up… adding very little extra damage.
So basically, Coldheart should basically just be used for free chill and a great shield. The rage skill is only average and the ultimate can be good, but its very random.
…
Electrode has by far the best striking skill and one of the better Basic Attack enhancers, being only weakened by low proc rate. Everything else relies on applying and maintaining the Shock status effect so if you aren’t Chaotic Striking your way to victory you’ll really need to go very hard dedicated into Shock effects.
Electrode has the weakest shield and the weakest ultimate (with the caveat that the ultimate can generate relic energy for more Chaotic Strike) and an above average rage skill.
…
Flaming Destroyer has the worse striking skill despite having the most damage on it due to poor accuracy and a high casting animation. The Rage skill and Shield are also middle-road, being better used for added evasion than their main effects.
That is offset by being the best Basic Attack enhancer. Great Weapon is a very slow weapon type, but you can use your class weapon (Bow/railhammer/digitus) and as long as you are equipped with one effects like Blazing Pillar will trigger your explosions. The 125% extra damage is on par with the other good Basic Attack enhancers, but since it has a much higher proc rate at 25% it really is the best.
The added effect modifiers are kinda weak, so Flaming Destroyer is probably the least pet compatible of the lot (doesn’t mean pets are bad here, just means they don’t add much). Having to crit or kill a burning enemy is asking a lot since burns have a short duration and aside from the main passive there isn’t any way to add burn…
Oh, except for the 10/10 amazing Ultimate which kills everything and is easily fueled by Blazing Pillars high uptime.
—
Shorter summary:
Bane: Minions and/or personal poison damage, primarily for body blocking high speed enemies
Blood: Healing and AoE, primarily for immortality
Cold: Chill is good added effect, everything else sucks
Electrode: Chaotic Strikes, primarily for winning
Fire: Basic Attack and Ultimate, primarily for “winning”.
Class Combos
Bane doesn’t apply poison easily so relies on either weapon or class skills to apply it. Weapons are the best way, but the only class skills are Sharpshooter’s Scout Bones and Forge’s Poison Dart… OOOOPS Poison Dart doesn’t actually poison.
Scouts Bones. It’s really good for applying poison. Not only does the main skill apply poison, but your next few precision skills ALSO apply that same poison. This also means that +Scout Bones damage from items is particularly valuable if you go this route.
For minions, the Dusk Mage does have the Spirit Well. Individually they are weak – but summoning 4~6 critters (based on rank) which can each summon more spider lings helps. Sharpshooter can do the same with Goblin Legion+Reload to spawn some rather impressive armies, but will probably get better use out of Scout Bones since the enemy has to be poisoned first to get more spiderlings. The Railmaster’s train works much the same way.
…
Blood applies blood easily so you can tend to have good uptime with it so it ironically doesn’t synergize that well with class skills that apply bleed (like Heartseeker). Forge is particularly good at this thanks to Vortex Bomb covering pretty much all the weaknesses of melee and Blood seekers offsetting the weakness of the channelled melee skills Rapid Strike and Cyclone
…
Electrode is very self-reliant. Railmaster’s train can easily apply and exploit shock effects and Lantern Flash is one of the more punishing skills there is against stunned/blinded/slowed targets
…
Flaming Destroyer is pretty self-sufficient as well since the added burn effects are pretty weak (and one even has a cooldown) and the main damage effects don’t actually require the target to be burning. Forged and Railmaster are among the better Basic Attackers thanks to Vortex Bomb and Blasting Charge respectively granting better melee protection. Railmaster also has a 30% basic attack booster on Shocking Charge.
Sharpshooter can also run a basic attack lineup but it’s a tad tricky – Sacrifice to Goose and Shasta both amp damage and you can get a 50% basic attack boost from Tier 2 Scatter shot as long as your weapon is ranged… If you are using a Bow that works fine for Flaming Destroyer as it’s your class weapon. Guns would need to use Ice which sucks. However, the basic attack procs are relatively low range so you’d have to be using that bow in very short range. Sharpshooter can also go the Great Weapon route and be a Samurai, using only Heartseeker or Scattershot to trigger Adventurer bonuses and relying on your evasion and basic attack… but you miss out on that +50% from Tier 2 scattershot and you become highly reliant on Curse of Pi’pi to reduce incoming damage. I’d say stick to Railmaster or Forged.
Summary:
Sharpshooter: Bane thanks to Scout Bones, minions. Coldheart since chill is valuable for a ranged class and Sharpshooter can easily stack both chill+slow with Tight Grouping
Dusk Mage: Electrode or Flaming Destroyer due to Harmony greatly amping all damage for those massive ultimates
Forged: Blood or Electrode. Basic Attack builds can be strong, but it’s very hard to generate heat. As such, the Blood added effect having a higher up-time means one it’s proc’d you can resume skill based heat generation. However, since Forged doesn’t have a class weapon you are rather limited in weapon choices and will likely have to plan your entire build on what final weapon you plan on using if going for Basic attacks. If you don’t care about that, then Blood and Electrode both complement Forged’s rapidly hitting attacks with added Rupture or Shock procs.
Railmaster: Bane or Electrode. Even without +minion damage or serious investment the train is great at adding extra effects passively, which bane and electrode both capitalize on.
All: Blood’s rage skill and shield helps everyone. Frost has a niche on Hardcore mode where you might legitimately enjoy the 1 free hit every 35 seconds above actually kiling things.
Contact Info
Use the dang comment section bruh