Key Takeaways
- Lunar items in Risk of Rain 2 offer great rewards with a downside.
- If you want to know what Lunar items are worth acquiring, pick wisely based on your playstyle and kit preferences.
- We've picked the best Lunar items that provide powerful benefits but may require strategic play to maximize their effectiveness in combat.
While playing Risk of Rain 2, you may have come across these blueish lunar pods, taking one of your special coins when opened and giving you an item that promises a great reward in exchange for a certain downside. These things are called Lunar items.
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Lunars are essentially push-the-button prompts. Will you take extra gold at the cost of losing it whenever you get hit? Will you double the damage you deal if your health bar gets permanently halved? There are quite a few with awful downsides, but this list compiles the best that'll do you a lot of good while balancing out anything bad about them.
10 Visions of Heresy
Sharp Shootin'
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Fire tracking shards that deal 120% base damage. | Replaces your Primary, extra stacks increase cooldown. |
First, we have a replacement for your primary skill, Visions of Heresy. As a note for every Heresy item, stacking them is almost always detrimental, as it increases the cooldown and gives you fewer options, but just having one of Visions is generally decent.
This item's usage heavily depends on the character you're playing. It's incredibly good for Engineer, Acrid doesn't mind having it, and Mercenary can use it just fine. If you want to shoot a bunch of orbs instead of your primary, go for it, but if you're fond of your M1, then skip this one.
9 Strides of Heresy
Get Out Of Jail Free
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Become intangible, fly slowly in any direction, and heal for 18% total health. | Replaces your Utility, extra stacks increase cooldown. |
Yet another Heresy item, this one is slightly better for giving you a utility skill with full invincibility that lets you move around really freely but can't be canceled once started. Strides of Heresy is also character-dependent; It'll ruin Loader or Acrid, but others don't mind it.
This is another one where you'll just have to use your best judgment. If you find yourself struggling to use your shift and wish you could be invincible for a few seconds instead, then this will help out, but usually, your Utility has more utility than you might think.
8 Focused Convergence
Speedrunner's Delight
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Teleporter charges 30% faster. | Teleporter is 50% smaller in radius, only stacks up to 3. |
Onto items that won't replace your kit, Focused Convergence shrinks down the teleporter but makes it way faster. Everything from the stage teleporters to the pillars on the moon, and the deep void signals count for this item, so it's pretty great for going fast.
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The only issue is that reduction in size leads to around a 75% reduction in total area, getting even smaller, up to 3 stacks. Enemies don't stop spawning until you've charged the teleporter to 99%, and this small size is especially detrimental in Eclipse, so I'd only recommend taking one or two at most.
7 Purity
All Skills, No Luck
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Skill cooldowns are reduced by 2 seconds. | Every chance-based item is re-rolled an extra time, and favors the worst outcome. |
Back on the topic of build and character dependency, Purity is in theory a great item (and should swap places with Benthic Bloom, this has no business not being void clover), but it absolutely neuters proc-chain builds that depend on random chance items.
If you find you're getting most of your damage from things like Watches, Bands, Crowbars, etc. and you have skills with long cooldowns, you should pick up as many purities as possible. But, if your cooldowns aren't a bother, and you are using items like AtG, Sticky Bomb, or Ukelele, skip it.
6 Eulogy Zero
More Lunars Can't Hurt, Right?
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Items from any source have a 5% chance of being Lunar. | Can take priority over Legendaries, boss items, and Void items. |
As the rest of this list will show, Lunars are pretty good, and while you could just go to the bazaar and find an excessive amount, it doesn't hurt to find plenty of them on real stages, which is where Eulogy Zero comes in. This replaces any random items with Lunars, and I do mean any.
This can turn a legendary chest drop into a Stone Flux Pauldron, and while that may suck, finding a Shaped Glass printer or seeing a few Transcendences in a multishop can more than make up for it. You could skip this and just go to the bazaar, but it usually does more good than harm.
5 Essence of Heresy
Ruin Your Enemies
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Deal a burst of 300% damage to any enemy hit, 120% extra damage per Ruin debuff on an enemy. | Replaces your Special, extra stacks increase cooldown. |
Easily the best Heresy item, Essence of Heresy replaces your special skill with Ruin, giving you an incredible burst damage option that is even more effective on characters like Commando or REX that don't care much about their R. This pairs especially well with the void item, Lysate Cell.
This works better on DPS characters that can deal a bunch of damage quickly, but it's not particularly bad on anyone. This can proc bands, counts as a status effect for Death Mark, and works incredibly well with proc-chain builds. If you find you aren't using your special skill, grab this.
4 Shaped Glass
Can't Get Hit If They're Dead
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Double your damage, stacks exponentially. | Halve your health, stacks exponentially. |
Speaking of dealing damage, Shaped Glass presents a classic tradeoff. It'll double your damage, but halve your health. This comes in incredibly useful when combined with Transcendence, Topaz Brooch, and a full stock of movement items, and that damage is incredible.
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This is one of the few items in the game that stacks exponentially in a good way. The first gives x2 damage, the second provides x4, the third gives x8, and so on. If you're planning on never getting hit, go with a ton, but otherwise, only take one or two, it'll still be incredibly effective.
3 Gesture of the Drowned
...There's Supposed To Be A Downside?
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Reduce equipment cooldown by 50%, 15% for every subsequent stack. | Equipment is activated automatically. |
You probably understand that Lunar items should have great rewards with a downside, but Gesture of the Drowned genuinely doesn't have one. It'll heavily reduce your equipment cooldown and activate it automatically, which is what you want to happen with 90% of equipment.
The only equipment this is a detriment to are ones like Recycler, Eccentric Vase, or Volcanic Egg, but everything else it either doesn't affect or is really busted with. Pair this with a Missile Launcher, Blast Shower, Gorag's, Elephant, or really whatever you want. Bonus points for Bottled Chaos.
2 Transcendence
Who Needs Healing?
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Gain 50% health, 25% on subsequent stacks. | Convert all but one health into shield. |
Speaking of little to no downside, Transcendence doubles your health and turns all (but one) of it into shield. Shield can't be regenerated with healing items like Weeping Fungus or Leech, but it requires you to duck out of combat for a few seconds to regenerate it all in one quick burst.
This item allows you to scrap every healing item you have, stacks incredibly well for a Lunar, pairs with Personal Shield Generators, and is overall really great. Just be cautious of your health bar and get out of the way of danger when it's low, and pick up a ton of these, you won't regret it.
1 Spinel Tonic
Practically Cheating
Upside | Downside |
---|---|
Gain a boost for 20 seconds. | 20% chance of gaining Tonic Affliction, reducing all stats by 5%. |
|
Finally, we get to one of the best buffs in the game. Spinel Tonic offers a whole host of buffs to practically every stat, making many movement and damage items irrelevant. The downside is Tonic Affliction, but if you just keep Tonic on the whole time, you'll never be afflicted.
Grab a Gesture of the Drowned or two, plus a few fuel cells, then get Spinel Tonic, and you'll become a force to behold, never losing out on the benefits of Tonic. This build is so simple to get and makes the game so easy. I'd almost say don't do it because it'll be so simple you're not having fun anymore, but it is the GOAT regardless.
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