Combining fast-paced combat with rogue-like elements, Risk of Rain 2 provides an experience few games offer. A plethora of options are available for players to tweak before each run, including characters they use, abilities, and even level modifiers.
One of the most important decisions you must make before starting a run is picking your character. Each character in Risk of Rain 2 has a unique set of skills, each with strengths and weaknesses. There are no bad characters in Risk of Rain 2, but certain characters take the random items players find further than others. From slashing hordes of enemies to raining arrows from the sky, here are all of Risk of Rain 2’s characters ranked from worst to best.
Updated January 26th, 2021 by Charles Burgar: A lot has changed in Risk of Rain 2 since this article was first written. The game was released from Early Access, complete with a sweeping number of balance changes. A new Survivor, Captain, has also been released since then. To make sure this article is as accurate as possible, we have gone back and reranked every Survivor in the game, including Captain.
10 Commando
Being the first character players can use, it is not surprising that he is the most underwhelming member of the cast. That isn’t to say that Commando is bad, however.
With the inclusion of skill variants, Commando can alter his kit to deal more damage versus tougher foes and crowds. Frag Grenades and Phase Blast are the best skills that a Commando main could use, but that doesn’t change the fact that Commando is incredibly gear-dependent, more so than other characters. As a result, runs with Commando can vary from incredible to underwhelming.
9 Acrid
Spreading deadly poisons to enemies is both Acrid’s strength and ultimate weakness. This character can deal an insane amount of damage with his abilities in the early-game, but Acrid begins to fall off after a few stages.
This is due to his lack of rapid-attacking abilities and defensive mechanics. Acrid’s inherent life regeneration is nowhere near enough to keep him alive after the first stage, much less after a full rotation. Being restricted to melee attacks doesn’t help much either. With that said, Acrid is a solid early-game character that can demolish most enemies. If RNG is on your side, Acrid can be a fantastic Survivor. When you can’t get certain items to drop, Acrid can’t hang with the rest of the roster.
8 Mercenary
Mercenary has one of the most unique playstyles in Risk of Rain 2 compared to the rest of the cast. He is the only character that only deals damage through melee attacks.
Unfortunately, the 1.0 release patch for Risk of Rain 2 substantially raised the skill floor for Mercenary. Mastering animation cancels with his Laser Sword is mandatory to get anywhere with him. Even then, Mercenary is still reliant on certain equipment to truly shine. Other Survivors excel at what Mercenary does while being much easier to play.
7 Artificer
With how important items are in Risk of Rain 2, it is important to use a character that can take full advantage of them. Artificer’s high proc-coefficient on her abilities allow her to dominate the battlefield early-game with few items.
Most of her abilities have a very high proc-coefficient, meaning that they have a high probability of activating a condition-based item like the Ukulele. Her main downside is a lack of mobility, with no abilities in her kit allowing her to dodge or move quickly. She can float in the air, but that will rarely save you from the bullet-hell later stages turn into. Even if you can overcome that issue, Artificer’s reloading mechanic on her skills significantly limits her true potential at later stages. If you can play around both of those downsides, Artificer provides some of the strongest early and mid-game burst damage in Risk of Rain 2.
6 Rex
While underwhelming at launch, Rex has received some buffs that have turned him into a great Survivor with a high skill floor. His ability to leech health from damage dealt makes him a strong Survivor without any reliance on gear.
Rex’s abilities revolve around dealing damage to himself to gain life-steal on his attacks. Rotating between his abilities can mean a constant influx of health, allowing him to tank large amounts of damage at later stages. Both the utility and damage output of Rex’s abilities makes him excellent for the first few stages. His abilities also scale well with on-hit effects, but Rex does suffer from a lack of mobility skills. If you can find a few Wax Quails and Goat Hooves, Rex becomes an excellent pick for experienced Risk of Rain 2 players.
5 MUL-T
MUL-T is an underrated Survivor that has a much stronger kit than most realize. MUL-T has the largest health pool in the game, has passive armor which grants damage resistance, a primary weapon that can reliably active on-hit items, and can stun targets with Blast Canister.
There’s a lot going for MUL-T’s kit. The only thing lacking in his kit is mobility. Transport Mode is a solid ability for horizontal movement and ramming into targets, although that pales in comparison to abilities seen on Loader or Huntress. MUL-T can counteract this with a double Rebar loadout, although this is rather input-intensive. Overall, if you can find a few on-hit and movement items for MUL-T, you’re in for a good run.
4 Loader
If you want to get up close and personal with enemies, Loader is a fantastic choice. High-damaging fists are coupled with a high-mobility grappling hook to give Loader fantastic mobility.
She doesn’t rely solely on mobility, however. Her main attacks deal huge amounts of damage up close. If you swap some of her abilities, she can be morphed into a highly mobile assassin instead of a melee brawler, allowing for a multitude of playstyles few characters can rival. Her main downside is her slow attack speed, meaning that on-hit items aren’t nearly as powerful on Loader. Fortunately, that downside doesn’t impact her much since her abilities deal so much damage on their own. If you love speedrunning or melee combat, Loader is a hard Survivor to beat.
3 Huntress
Huntress is somewhat difficult to play if you’re new to Risk of Rain 2. She has a small health pool and a lack of damage absorption through abilities. She is far from defenseless, however.
Blink is a fantastic movement tool that lets Huntress get out of a hectic situation in a flash. Better yet, she is the only Survivor in the game that can attack while sprinting. Mobility is the cornerstone of Huntress’ playstyle. She also scales absurdly well with gear, thanks to how quickly she can attack targets. Huntress’ only downside is her reliance on Ballistia for early-game single-target damage, a skill that is incredibly hard to unlock for newer players.
2 Captain
Captain has everything a player could want from a Survivor. He deals excellent single-target damage, damage to groups, has an innate means of mitigating damage, and brings a solid chunk of utility to the table.
Arguably Captain’s strongest ability is Orbital Supply Beacon. It can summon two different beacons that provide excellent utility buffs, one of which reduces the price of nearby objects to $0. This works on chests, drones, Shrines, and even legendary chests! Captain can scale much faster than the other Survivors due to this feature, substantially reducing the impact of bad item drops.
Besides that ability, Captain also has one of the best ranged primary weapons in the game, dealing 8x120% damage per shot with a 0.75x proc coefficient per projectile. If that wasn’t enough, Captain can also shock and stun targets with his secondary fire and utility ability, respectively. Better yet, Captain’s microbots mean most projectile attacks are harmless throughout a run. For players that aren’t as skilled at dodging projectiles, this is a major blessing.
He might not pack as much damage as an Engineer or Huntress in the endgame, but Captain’s abilities and microbots will make sure that players can reach those stages at all. Captain is definitely one of Risk of Rain 2’s stronger Survivors.
1 Engineer
Items are the bread and butter of Risk of Rain 2, drastically buffing a player’s movement and damage output. Grabbing one Legendary is enough to turn a run around, but what about three?
The Engineer’s biggest strength is his turrets. These items output an obscene amount of damage and use any items currently on you. This means that as the Engineer scales, so too does his turrets. With a powerful secondary ability and impenetrable energy shield, no Survivor can anchor down as well as Engineer can.
While a lack of mobility is typically a major negative with Survivors, Engineer’s turrets somewhat make up for this. Players can focus solely on looting zones since their turrets will deal with the killing. Engineer’s primary weapon is indeed rather lackluster, but that doesn’t impact his kit much at all considering how absurdly powerful his other three abilities are. Engineer is arguably the strongest solo Survivor in the game and a great team player.
NEXT: Risk of Rain 2: Every Boss In The Game (& How To Beat Them)
