Mana Spark – Item and Effect Guide

I would like some kind of Guide for this game’s items but couldn’t really find one, so I made one myself. I am sadly not a native English speaker and bad at calculating damage values and similar stuff, so this guide is not all that good. I hope it’s still helpful to some.

Poison, Slow, Petrify, Freeze

Let’s start with some effects. Poison deals a bit of damage over time for a short duration. Slow obviously slows enemies and lasts indefinitely. Both are great to keep enemies away and to avoid direct combat. Petrify stops enemies completely until they take damage the next time, including the damage from Poison. Freeze stops enemies as well and ignores damage, typically for 4s, but is sadly canceled out by Petrify.

There is an Active Item for each effect (not listed here) and various Passive Items, a Skill and an Orb.

  • Your attacks poison enemies (Wolfsbane Flower)
  • Your attacks slow enemies (Spider Touch)
  • Your next attack petrifies if you don’t attack for some time (Guard Skill: Virtue of Patience)
  • Your attacks have a chance to freeze (Conic Dessert)
  • Petrifies with a projectile (no damage) shot to your back each time you attack (Fossilized Scorpion)
  • Poisons enemies that hit you, +1 Heart (First Sip of Milk)
  • Petrifies all enemies nearby if you are hit (Blessing Finger)
  • Petrifies all enemies on the screen if a Stone Orb breaks (Orbs: Stone Orb)
  • Small Fairy, circles you and shoots a freezing spell at nearby enemies (Graceful Egg)

Important Note: Since Petrify cancels Freeze while Virtue of Patience’s effect isn’t that useful anyway, It is highly recommended to not unlock the Guard Skill.

Important Note: The second boss-fight will drag on quite a lot while the boss is slowed, it’s bearable but very annoying. You might prefer to avoid Spider Touch because of this.

Active Items & the Blacksmith

Active Items can be selected and upgraded at the Blacksmith. To unlock more Active Items, buy them in Peculiar Rooms. ‘Try your luck’ gives you one of your unlocked Active Items, so you might prefer to not unlock some of them, I for example hate the Thorns Bomb, Potion and Turret. You can have only 1 Active Item at a time and they have a cooldown that limits their effectivity.

The Bear Trap deals a bit more damage than your attacks and can inflict Slow. The damage is static though (Passive Items have no effect) and some enemies (including bosses) ignore the Trap. The Sticky Web reduces the movement of enemies, Poisons them and completely stops Slowed enemies (they still attack). The Web is ignored only by very few enemies and has also a very short cooldown, it’s my favourite.

The Freezing Bomb (~12s CD) Freezes enemies (and you, if hit) in a small area for 6s. The Thorns Bomb (~8s CD) shoots Petrifying thorns that also deal a bit of damage either at close enemies or, if no enemies are close, in all directions. They will hit you as well. It also gives you immunity to Petrify. Aiming with Bombs is a bit tricky since you also have to adjust the range.

The Health Potion heals 2 Hearts up to three times, it refills in Peculiar Rooms and you can also buy one for 1 coin to heal yourself and then change back to your previous Item. The Amulet of Invulnerability makes you invulnerable for 3s with a 15s cooldown. The Revenge Ring doubles Damage, Attack Speed and the damage you take for the Warrior, it also removes the small pause after the 3rd attack.

The Turret is my least favourite Active Item, it fires arrows at your enemies, but some are ignored, the arrows easily miss fast moving targets and the arrows will damage you as well if you stand between the Turret and an enemy.

The Dead Eye (15s CD) allows the Hunter to slow down time for 5s to shoot three arrows instantly in three directions marked during these 5s. You also can shoot a 4th arrow directly afterwards. Trigger Happy (15s CD) allows the Guard to shoot multiple arrows for 4s

Peculiar Rooms & Altar Rooms

In Peculiar Rooms you can buy Passive Items with Coins, the price increases each time during a single run. 3 Items are randomely generated, you can choose one of them and there is a chance for the Gambler’s Hand to appear which has no effect on it’s own but will generate 3 new Passive Items for free after taking it.

There are also up to three small tables from which you can buy either MeatOrbs or Active Items. Buying an Active Item costs typically 5 coins, the Trap, Potion and Web cost less. You also can reequip your original Active Item for free after buying another one. There is also a bed you can use to save an pause your current run. Sometimes there are spikes that grant a coin if you are damaged by them (damaged Orbs don’t count).

After you did progress far enough in the game (?), you have the chance to encounter Altar Rooms. You can step on Spikes in there and if your health is reduced to 1 Heart or less, including Orbs, 3-4 (?) waves of enemies are summoned. If you survive, you can bind a single Passive Item that you currently have to your current character. Binding another Item to the same character will replace your previous Item and won’t add another one.

Important Note: If you bind an Passive Item to you that reduces or increases your amount of Hearts, this part of the Item’s effect is ignored if you ‘Try your luck’. Judgement Nail for example increases your damage but you have -1 Heart, but with ‘Try your luck’, only the damage is increased.

Important Note: The Passive Item Heartless revives you with full Hearts on death and then vanishes, but the Item will be given to you at the entrance of every floor if it is bound to you.

Orbs

Orbs can be bought in Peculiar Rooms, gained from Passive Items and from a Skill. Each Orb counts as a Heart, but if you would only take damage worth half a heart, the full Orb still breaks. Armor Orbs are the exclusion to that and will absorb a single package of damage of any value. Stone Orbs will petrify enemies around you, if they break, Glass Orbs break without effect.

There is a rare chance for a Skull Orb (?) to appear. If that one breaks, the enemy that damaged you will die, even if it was a boss.

  • 1 Armor Orb (2 coins)
  • 1 Armor Orb at the entrance of every floor (Plate Armor)
  • 1 Armor Orb after killing 3 enemies without taking any hits (Clever Metal Ram)
  • 1 Armor Orb after defending at the last moment or hitting a lever (Warrior Skill: Steel Reflexes)
  • 1 Stone Orb (12 coins)
  • 1 Stone Orb after killing 3 enemies without taking any hits if you have none (Clever Stone Ram)
  • 4 Glass Orbs (2 coins)
  • 4 Glass Orbs at the entrance of every floor (Rogue’s Cape)
  • 1 Skull Orb (2 coins)

Important Note: To unlock the Naturalist, you need a Skull Orb and one will appear in the Wolfsbane Woods each run until you unlocked the Naturalist. You may decide to just ignore the Naturalist to get one Skull Orb each run.

Important Note: The Clever Metal Ram and Steel Reflexes will only give you an Armor Orb while you have none and the Rogues’s Cape will not increase the number of Glass Orbs if you bought additional Glass Orbs with coins.

Other Passive Items

I did organize them rather by effect, sometimes twice, and the ones listed above are missing here. I recommend Boots of HasteMettle Crystal, Thief’s Dagger (for the Warrior), Delusion of Life/Judgment JailSharp Feather and Twin Leaf Sprout as the Item bound to your Character

Attack Speed

  • Attack Speed up (Right Glove)
  • Attack Speed up, Movement Speed up (Boots of Haste)
  • Attack Speed way up, Damage a bit down (Big Sip of Coffee)
  • Doubles Attack Speed when you are hitting enemies without missing (Precise Strike)

Coins, Food and Runes

  • Coins Luck up (Goblin Ear)
  • Meat collected with full Health gives you Coins (Gourmet Knife)
  • Meat collected with full Health gives you a Rune (Gourmet Spoon)
  • Food Luck up, +1 Heart (Gourmet Fork)
  • One free Food on each exit room (Lunch Bundle)

Healing

  • Meat heals 1 Heart (Enemy drop, Peculiar Room: 1 coin)
  • Meat heals 2 Hearts instead of one (Pork Head)
  • Recovers 1/2 Heart after killing around 2-5 (?) enemies (Drain Bite)
  • Drainer Bat, chance to Recover 1/2 Heart, see Eggs and Monsters

Important Note: Pork Head will not increase the Healing from Drain Bite.

Damage

  • Damage up (Isaac’s Sorrow)
  • Damage up (Handy Anvil)
  • Damage up, enemies hit are pushed back further (Hammer Blow)
  • Damage way up, Attack Speed ‘a bit’ (this is really bad!) down (Iron Fist)
  • Damage way up, -1 Heart (Delusion of Life)
  • Damage way up, -1 Heart (Judgement Nail)
  • Damage Way up, Attack range (projectiles) is reduced to nearby (Short Term Memory)
  • Doubles Damage against nearby enemies (Thief’s Dagger)
  • Doubles Damage with charged up arrow (Hunter Skill: Breath Control)
  • Doubles Damage for each 3rd to 5th (?) attack with the Crossbow Guard (Charged Dart)

Health

  • +1 Heart, brief speed boost after eating (Bread)
  • +1 Heart, Food Luck up (Gourmet Fork)
  • +1 Heart, poisons enemies that damage you (First Sip of Milk)
  • +1 Heart, chance (?) to drop coins if you take damage (Spelunker’s Eggplant)
  • +2 Hearts* (Monster Meat)
  • +3 Hearts, you cannot grab Meat (Scarab Relic)

Important Note: Monster Meat deals damage equal to your Hearts above one if you obtain it, this can be used to get coins instead by reducing your Hearts with the Trap in a Peculiar Room. The damage will be reduced by orbs as well.

Roll/Dash/Shield

  • Short invulnerability after every roll/dash/shield (Mettle Crystal)
  • Drops a Explosive Plant Pod (only one at a time) after a roll/dash/shield (Clumsy Elephant)

Pojectiles

  • Every attack also shoots a simple bolt in the same direction (Bracer of Devotion)
  • Chance to shoot a fireball when attacking (Defiant Flame)

Important Note: The Defiant Fireball deals better but static damage while the Bracer of Devotion’s bolt deals the same damage as your attacks (I think). This means, that the Warrior can deal a high amount of damage with the bolts, though you can’t really aim your attacks. The Explosive Plant Pod (Clumsy Elephant) deals static damage as well.

Monsters and Eggs:

The Small Spiders and Drainer Bats (Entangled Egg/Drainer Egg and Naturalist Skill: Friendship Hurts) attack enemies you damaged. The Drainer Bat deals a bit less damage than the spider but has the chance to heal half a heart on hit.

The Spirit Demon (Creepy Egg, -1 Heart) and the Small Fairy (Graceful Egg) circle you, shooting projectiles at enemies. In both cases the projectiles often enough miss the target, making them quite bad. The Spirit Demon damages (?) enemies while the Small Fairy freezes them instead, the Fairy only attacks nearby enemies as well..

Other Effects:

The Hunter and Guard can obtain the Sharp Feather (-1 Heart, projectiles Pierce), each Twin Leaf Sprout adds an additional projectile per shot and you can get up to 2 of them.

Tthe Curse of Reflection (also for the Naturalist) enables your attacks to bounce for Double Damage, but you are damaged by it as well. Double Breath doubles the rush bar for the Guard.

The Warrior can obtain the Deflective Shield (Reflect projectiles with your Shield that deal twice your damage) and the Spiked Shield (Defending against melee attacks deals twice your damage to the attacking enemies).

Loyalty Chain enables your Attacks to deal damage to other enemies nearby. Heartless revives you once on Death. Human Tooth halfs your Active Item Cooldown. Rabbit’s Herb slows down enemy projectiles.

Important Note: I don’t really know what to say about the other classes, but the Naturalist is a real pain. She deals low damage and her attacks have limited range. The attacks of Biscar, your Bats and Spiders seem to be static as well, not increasing with Passive Items.

You can use Friendship Hurts to get a bunch of Bats that fight for you and heal you while you dodge and avoid enemies, making Health Passive Items a good coice, but the low damage the Bats and Biscar deal will result in longer fights the further you progress while the enemies can easily kill you because of your low health.

You can also just ignore Friendship Hurts and fight like the other classes, but your low range and damage gives you a huge disadavantage while Biscar’s damage is pretty much ignoreable on the deeper levels, making the Natualist the worst class later on…

Originally posted by ChrisZC

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