The Reaper/Other Strategies (2024)

Below are old strategies used to kill Reapers, before the introduction of Infinite Corridor. They are no longer advised and may no longer work, but are still recorded here for legacy purposes.

Survival[]

Runs that aim to survive as long as possible are built around trying to keep the reapers frozen in time using Clock Lancet and prolonging your life with Laurel and Revivals. Cooldown is critical for the strategy, as it allows the Lancet and Laurel to proc more often. Duration is also important because it prolongs the freeze effect from Lancet.

Recommended characters:

• Arca
• Christine

Recommended items:

• Clock Lancet
• Laurel
• Empty Tome
• Spellbinder
• Tiragisú

Killing Reaper[]

Killing the Reaper through normal means is near impossible. Aside from his massive health pool (655,350 X player level) he has insane DPS - and more of them keep coming after you every minute.

However, the following methods are known to work:

1. Using Suor Clerici's initial +400% Area bonus.
   • You don't need to alter any game files for this method.
   • You need to place yourself somewhat "pixel-perfect" to pull it off.
2. Using MissingN▯'s potential to have invulnerability.
   • You do need to alter your game files (savegame, see linked article) to unlock this character, which some might consider "cheating".
   • No special placement is necessary for it to work.
3. Using Toastie's level 200 passive bonus, Awake Arcana, Tiragisú, Revival PowerUp, Armor (both item and PowerUp) and high damage weapon (e.g., Gatti Amari).
4. Using Mortaccio's Bone to kill the Reaper. Similar to Suor Clerici, you stay at low level.

Method 1. and 2. rely on the fact that the reaper spawns with "low" health with a low character level at the 30 minute mark; method 3. rely on the massive Health and Armor passive bonus Toastie gains at level 200, along with extra Armor stat which gains from PowerUp, item, full used Awake Arcana, to tank the Reaper's damage, then use high damage weapon to killed it.

Using Suor Clerici[]

1. First remove all Magnet upgrades from your character. Growth may also be removed to reduce the likelihood of hitting level 3 accidentally.
2. Start with Clerici in inlaid library
3. Collect the green XP gem on the table for your first upgrade.
4. If your first upgrade is not Runetracer, reset the run and try again.

   

5. Stay behind the chair and table where you found the gem. A good position has Clerici's belt above the floor line in the top of the two wooden strips, and the right hand (her left hand) on the same level on the x-axis as the left end of the wooden frame of the picture.
6. Do not collect any XP on the ground, so that the area of your Runetracer is bigger than your character sprite.
7. If you do not see a red XP gem on the ground by roughly the 5 minute mark, it may be advised to restart the run. The red gem will be off-screen in this case and you will have to guess where it is. It may also be too far away to pick up before it kills you. With the Revival PowerUp it can still be possible to reach it, however.
8. Stay inside your stuck Runetracer until the 30:00 min mark.
9. After it spawns (it must be "after", as Death's hit points are set based on your current level...you want that as low as possible so Death's hit points are also low), run towards the red XP gem on the ground to gain around 100 levels.
10. Items:
    • Get: Santa Water, Clock Lancet, Laurel, Runetracer, Bracer, Candelabrador, Spellbinder, Empty Tome
    • Optional: Tiragisú, Attractorb, Magic Wand, Knife, Duplicator, Cross, Bone, Spinach
    • Avoid: Lightning Ring, Fire Wand
11. Additional equipment might include Bracer, which can increase the DPS of Bone and Runetracer by making them bounce faster, and Duplicator, which further increases that DPS. Tiragisú may not increase DPS, but can help save the run if something goes wrong. It is also advised to avoid weapons that can hit random enemies like Fire Wand and Lightning Ring, and instead focus on weapons like Magic Wand and Cross to fill the last slots, as they hit the enemy closest to you. The reasoning for this is that additional spawns of it will likely get stuck on the library shelves. If they get hit by your weapons, however, there is a chance they will break free, because of death's negative knockback pushing him towards you. Having weapons with projectiles that stay close to you can help avoid this scenario.
12. Lead it back to behind the chairs and table. A good position is standing slightly above the right chair, with Clerici's belt roughly in line with the floor line, and a little bit away from the right bookshelf, to the point that your Laurel shield barely touches it.

• This was shown by the Reddit user RivenMarryMePls in a post on the Vampire Survivors subreddit and first confirmed in this video, Youtuber NeverNathaniel made a detailed video to explain how it works. This video insists that you must pickup and level empty tome to max before all other weapons; however as of February 19, 2022, a bug that caused empty tome's passive effect to not apply to leveled weapons has been fixed and this is no longer necessary.

Riskier Variant[]

This method is almost identical to the previous method, but involves picking up the Empty Tome as the 7th passive item.

1. Instead of grabbing the green gem from the table, head left towards the nearest Empty Tome.
   • This is easier with the Milky Way Map acquired from the Dairy Plant stage, as you may restart if desired until the tome is a reasonable distance from spawn.
2. Avoid experience gems, and ensure that you are at level 2 (with Runetracer) when at the Empty Tome.
3. Do not pick up the Empty Tome, but position yourself in the same location as in the previous method.
4. Wait until 30:00.
5. Grab the red gem like in the previous method.
6. Do not pick up the Empty Tome until you have finished leveling up, otherwise it triggers a bug where the level-up dialog gets frozen.
   • The Empty Tome should be leveled with remaining chests.

Using MissingN▯[]

TL;DR[]

Using MissingN▯, you must be invulnerable and reach the Experience Gem drop limit. Afterwards you can idle until the Reaper spawns.

Video[]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WT6XA-rjCE

Prerequisite[]

Unlock MissingN▯ as described in his article.

Rolling stats[]

Take a closer look at the randomized stats and how far their range goes. They are altered every time you press "START" in the main menu, which in combination with Escape (Esc on your keyboard) can bring up plenty of different versions of him within a few seconds.

• Max Health must be negative - this grants invulnerability!
  • The fastest method is therefore to eyeball the Max Health value while rolling stats, and only then consider the other stats.
• MoveSpeed, Might, Area, Cooldown, Growth and Curse should be in a range that makes the game behave at least somewhat "as usual".
• Aside from their DPS downside...
  • Close-to-0 MoveSpeed means it can take you up to several minutes to even pick up the exp gems after having reached minute 30.
  • Low Area exponentially increases your chance of mobs closing in, making you pick up exp gems.
  • High Cooldown also increases this chance.
  • Low Growth can grind leveling up at minute 30 way down or even to a halt. You still need to kill the Reaper!
  • Low Curse can drastically lower the amount of enemies that spawn.
    • While that sounds somewhat useful, while testing it even lead to zero red gems spawning in a test run.
    • There's one red gem dropping rather late that gives something around 75 levels at once, drastically increasing your DPS - missing that is just not advisable.

Stage settings[]

See Stage.

• Pick Hurry for a general speedup of the real world time you have to invest.
• Pick Hyper if you need to adjust your MoveSpeed (e.g. advisable if you rolled too close to 0)

Experience gem drop limit[]

Experience Gems have a limit on how many can be present at once. Once you reach this limit, rather than dropping a new gem enemies will increase the experience of the existing gem furthest away from you (becoming the "red gem" when its total experience gets high enough).

Once you reach this limit and the mobs cease dropping them, it's now safe to go idle until minute 30 without leveling up by accident.

Initial setup[]

MissingN▯ has a 50% chance to start with Death Spiral - in that case you don't need to move at all since all mobs will die way before they reach you.

Otherwise, you can either try to outmaneuver the mobs with Axe (starting weapon). Yet you will probably pick up one or two level ups worth of gems. In this case, prioritize getting a proper AoE-in-all-directions weapon like Whip or Garlic to put a stop to this asap! Depending on your rolls, King Bible, Santa Water, Runetracer, Lightning Ring, Phiera Der Tuphello, Eight The Sparrow, Song of Mana, Cherry Bomb and Carréllo might be valid alternatives as well. The remainders, like Knife, present quite a hassle and should be avoided.

Idling[]

Once the exp gem limit has been reached, there is nothing to do until the Reaper spawns.

Kill Reaper[]

After Reaper has spawned, pick up all Experience Gems. In general you should choose high direct-damage weapons like Whip, Magic Wand, Knife, Bone.

If desired, you can also try and "abuse" the bouncing effect from Runetracer in close quarters (somewhere around the table mentioned the first variant on this page). This requires special positioning though.

Depending on your DPS and level the first Reaper spawned with, you will diminish his HP to zero at some point. Even with very good rolls this is not going to happen before five, six or even more Deaths are present though. This means we require a method to check when we have reached our goal.

Determine if Reaper has died[]

Take note of the kill counter at minute 30.

Once the Reaper dies, it will increase by 1.

Note

The Reaper does not drop Golden Eggs or summon White Hand if killed without Infinite Corridor.