Risk of Rain 2 – Huntress Guide

Guide for one of the most controversial survivors…

Risk of Rain 2 Guides:

• Unlocking All Characters.
• Mercenary Guide / Overview.
• Newt Altar Locations.
• Engineer Guide.

Summary

Note: Credit goes to RobinValentine

Huntress is the hunted early and a world demolishing beast late. Laser Glaive scaling with items INSANELY well makes her one of the hardest carries in the game. If you can learn how to survive her early, well bois and gurls you’re in for a treat. Learning how to utilize her insanely long cooldowns can be frustrating, but i promise you it’s worth it.

Throughout the guide I am going to be talking about Huntresses early, mid, and late game. Early game refers to when you just start out and are focusing on itemizing out your flaws. Mid game is when your flaws are covered and can start working on your scaling, it plays exactly like early game but you are tanky enough to be able to invest in late game. Late game is when you’ve got your scaling and are just a MONSTER.

Strafe

Early Game

This is your bread and butter. Because your other skills have such a long cooldown they aren’t going to be reliable in the early game so learning how to use Strafe well is important.

Late Game

What is Strafe? Once you’ve itemized, Laser Glaive is where it is at. Really you just use Strafe to pop squishies if your Glaive is down.

Strafing

Don’t point your crosshair on your target. You have auto aim for a reason. If you are on keyboard hold on to forward (W) and a direction (A or D) at the same time. Then have your crosshair be a little bit a ways away from your target. You will auto lock onto them making it so you can sprint and attack at the same time. Keep in mind that the cone that you can lock on is pretty small and something you are going to have to learn.

Why Bother Strafing?

It is the most reliable way to hit a target and sprint non-stop. This allows you to be incredibly mobile while simultaneously opening item synergies up that glide you through the early game. Sprinting and juming is the best way to avoid attacks.

Laser Glaive

7 second cooldown

General Info

• Can hit the same target multiple times.
• Always jumps to the closest target to its current target. Sometimes this is behind you.
• Can be used for scouting. The targeting often finds an enemy you didn’t know existed, watch where it goes, especially early, to get an idea of what’s around the corner.
• Try to predict where the glaive will go, later bounces do more damage so if you are throwing it in a crowd, try to get it so that last hits hit the tanky targets.
• Cancels sprint. Make sure you hit sprint again after using (WHYY HOPOOO WHYYYY)

Early Game

Laser glaive is powerful at every stage of the game, but with a 7 second cooldown it isn’t reliable early. It can instant pop groups of wisps and does pretty good against other soft targets like lemurians. You can also use it to clear tanky enemies if there isn’t a big group. This is because it will bounce between the same targets multiple times.

Late Game

To be fair all early game applications still apply, but now you can use it whenever you feel like it. Watch as everything dies.

Blink

7 second cooldown

This is a pretty straightforward skill. Teleport in the direction of your crosshair. However it can be used for some pretty cool things! You can move in any direction, including straight up, when used in conjunction with Arrow Rain, you can do some pretty crazy acrobatics. Lastly, when you Blink, you lose all enemy aggro. This means they will target something else if something else is available.

Arrow Rain

14 second cooldown

The main use of arrow rain is it’s jump. It does not proc on-hit effects very well making it’s damage rather sub-par as you progress through the game. However, it can very effectively deal with groups of squishy enemies. If you feel like you are being overwhelmed at any stage in the game, this is a good panic button.

A small thing to point out is, typically when you jump you stick in the air for a small amount of time. However when you use Arrow Rain, you immediately fall. This is good to keep in mind if you want to Blink after using Arrow Rain, you have to do it fast.

Item Guide

I am separating this into tiers going from top to bottom and talking about how every item works with Huntress. The higher tiers are what in multiplayer you absolutely need to get early and in single player what you should pick if you have a 3D printer or option of 3. As they get lower they are better to pass up and give your teammates and a lower priority for your personal selection. I also want to make a disclaimer on legendary items: EVERYONE WANTS THEM. Communicate if one drops and spread the wealth. Unless you are playing with douchey randoms who aren’t showing you the same respect, be a good person.

Early Game

For all intents and purposes, these are core items. It’s just that Huntress has 3 very distinct phases and I wanted to make it clear what you should be going for in this phase.

• Tougher Times, Monster Tooth, Personal Shield Generator, Medkit, Leeching Seed, Harvester’s Scythe, Infusion, Dio’s Best Friend, Rejuvenation Rack: Huntress is made out of wet paper and these help her not instantly die.
• Bustling Fungus, Cautious Slug: You have great disengage options, these two will allow ou to heal up once you get out of combat
• Goat’s Hoof, Energy Drink: Due to your ability to sprint and attack, these two give you the mobility to avoid attacks that you need.
• Chronobauble: This pairs very well with strafe in keeping enemies away from you.
• Rose Buckler: Much like the above, Rose Buckler is amazing in that it is permanent armor.
• Foreign Fruit: It does not matter how good you are you are going to die fast in the early game. Overcoming the early game is the biggest hurdle with Huntress and Foreign Fruit makes this a breeze. Once you get better survivability you can dump it for something else but this active is god sent and will carry you there with ease.
• Fuel Cell: This is only core if you got that early Foreign Fruit and even then you only need 1 Fuel Cell. If you can get those two by the second level you know you are in for a good run.
• Berserker’s Pauldron: If you can get this early this will make your mid game go smooth. However this immediately drops to bottom tier the moment Laser Glaive starts picking up in momentum.

oMg MiNe (Core items)

• Bandolier, Backup Magazine, Alien Head, Brainstalks: These are the items you NEED to hard scale. All other items are irrelevant in terms of getting you to the late game. Don’t deprive a Artificer or Mercenary of at least one Backup Magazine however, they need at least one to be able to maximize their kit.
• Crowbar: Maximizing the damage your glaive does is huge. Crowbar lets you burst down enemies so that you don’t have to clean them up with Strafe.
• Hardlight Afterburner: Provides great mobility
• H3AD-ST v2: You have fantastic vertical mobility that you are regularly using making this item amazing on you.

Lovin’ It

These items are the most ideal for you. They aren’t core, but they are the most preferable picks.

• Gasoline, Will-o’-the-Wisp, Ceremonial Dagger, and Happiest Mask: Netting a kill off of a kill makes it so that your glaive can spend it’s time seeking out more targets instead of hitting the same one multiple times.
• Hopoo Feather, Old War Stealth Kit, Wax Quail: Mobility is key in combat and these four bring it in spades. You really only need one of each, but more is always welcome.
• Len’s Maker Glasses, Brilliant Behemoth, Tri-Tip Dagger: You you are a terrible candidate for on-hit items that don’t scale in percentage. I will explain why in the tier these items are in. Instead you scale much better with items that each stack increases the chance they will proc or that always activate.
• N’Kuhana’s Opinion: You are going to get a decent amount of healing making this a sizable damage increase.
• Gnarled Woodsprite: This is a good replacement if you can’t find a Foreign Fruit. It also doesn’t require Fuel Cells.

Acceptable

• Frost Relic, Unstable Tesla Coil: On-kill items are great for you, But this one demands you get up close which is not so great. Tesla is in the same department though it’s not an on-kill item.
• Bundle of Fireworks: These do a surprising amount of damage and if you have been building on kill items it can start some nasty chains. However, it is relatively inconsistent and cannot be used in boss fights making it fall dramatically in usage.
• Red Whip: No one doesn’t want this but no one really needs them either. Good for cleaning up the end of a level or speed running. If you do the later these may shoot up on the list.
• 57 Leaf Clover, Wake of the Vultures: No one doesn’t want these but no one really needs them either.
• Disposable Missile Launcher, Primordial Cube, Ocular HUD, The Back-up, Preon Accumulator, Royal Capacitor, and Radar Scanner, Milky Chrysalis, The Crowdfunder: All decent actives once you no longer need the survivability actives

Don’t Want It

These are items you don’t need to worry yourself with. Just pass them off to someone else who can use them more. And if they don’t want them just take it without a second thought. Keep in mind in singleplayer there are no bad items so if it was from a chest or shrine it’s not a terrible thing. A buff is a buff. But don’t consciously pick them until you are solid on everything else.

• Soldier’s Syringe, Warbanner, Predatory Instincts: With terrible range, damage, and attack speed. Strafe is actually trash. There is no reason to go out of your way to buff an attack that is just going to get out classed by Laser Glaive. It’s an item that can be much better utilized on someone else.
• Sticky Bomb, ATG Missile MK. 1, Runald’s Band, Kjaro,’s Band, Sentient Meat Hook, Ukulele, Stun Grenade: Strafe and Arrow Rain don’t have good proc chances making these items bad. Laser Glaive does have an incredible proc chance, however the items are just better off on anyone other than Artificer.