Risk of Rain Returns Survivor Tier List

It’s time for me to put the official, unabridged, completely accurate, and backed by the United States government survivor tier list for Risk of Rain Returns.

Now, to preface everything, this is my first impressions list. I have beat Providence on every survivor AND completed the final Providence trial on every survivor. So, I do have quite a bit of experience to speak on.

I’ll even be a cool cat and show you the games I played on the survivors when I made the first list (this one has been changed since then).

For some reason, Providence trials aren’t counted toward the games played. So, these are without any of those trials included.

You might notice that Artificer is taking up a large slice of that pie there. Ya, she sucks—a terrible survivor.

Anyway, let’s get into the tier list and what I think about every survivor in Risk of Rain Returns.

The video below will cover similar things, although I will go into more depth here. This article isn’t just a transcript 👍

Best Survivor in Risk of Rain Returns

Let’s start this out the right way with Drifter.

Without a doubt, the best survivor in Risk of Rain Returns is the new survivor, Drifter. She has everything in her kit with no downsides other than being a melee character.

1. An execute
2. FREE ITEMS
3. High damage secondary
4. Crazy combo attack

Drifter definitely got the LOL treatment, aka, making the new character broken so everyone plays them.

One Last Thing

I’ve noticed that some people have the “IGN” issue with tier lists. That is, when you rate something, if it isn’t 9/10 or 10/10, it’s the worst game ever made. For tier lists, people apply this attitude to everyone who isn’t in the S or A tier.

Let’s avoid that by having me explain everything beforehand.

S-tier survivors have many different things that make them exceptional. Drifter, for example, has an execute, high damage abilities, and can spawn items.

A-tier is above-average survivors who aren’t as broken but have quirks. Engineer tripling item efficiency is one example.

B-tier is good, with average survivors that are well-balanced. If your favorite survivor is here, they are good. Anything below here is when they are weaker than average for one reason or another.

At the D and F-tier, you start to have bad survivors. Characters that are outclassed by the rest of the cast. If your favorite survivor makes it down here, you can yell at me for being a scrub or having a skill issue.

Does that clear it all up? I’ve seen too many people think that when I put survivors at B-tier, I’m trying to say they are the worst survivor in the game and unplayable dog sh*t. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. Only one (ok, two) survivors are that bad.

*cough* Commando *cough* Artificer *cough*

S-Tier Survivors

I’m sure we’re all gamers here. We all know how the tier system works. S means they are broken beyond belief, and F means you shouldn’t even waste your time playing them.

In the S-Tier, we have:

• Drifter
• Huntress
• Miner
• Mercenary

Drifter

Nothing better than the Drifter.

Forewarning: this is my absolute favorite survivor in Risk of Rain Returns, so if I sound biased, I am. That being said, I haven’t found a single person who thinks that the Drifter isn’t the best survivor in the game. But if you find them (idk why you’d be digging in my backyard tbh), let me know.

What makes her broken?

Her special skills:

Salvage, the default, allows you to spawn 4 temporary items. With a duplicator, you end up doubling that number. With an amethyst, you can refresh the cooldown on this skill and get even more items.

Recycle, the alternate special for Drifter, allows you to re-roll any item you want as many times as you want. Got a bad red item on the first stage? Recycle it until you get what you want. Your only limit is scrap and time.

I have difficulty choosing which skill is better because they are both so good.

More temp items or a more curated build? Your choice.

Her utility:

Why Hopoo decided they needed to add a 20% execute with a 7-second cooldown on Drifter is beyond me. Regardless, they did, so we have to deal with the repercussions of their actions by looping until you pass out in your gamer chair.

By the way, this execute works on everything. Bosses, elites, and even Providence himself. Nothing is safe from being converted into SCRAP!

This is canonically the prologue to Wall-E.

Huntress

No offense to anyone reading this, but Huntress is literally baby’s first Risk of Rain Returns survivor. On a difficulty scale, Huntress would be in the pacifier tier.

Every ability she has is strong and requires no brain power. Hold down M1 and use the other skills once they come off CD.

Boom. That’s all you need to know to beat the game.

One of the key strengths of the Huntress is her ability to maintain movement while attacking. Her primary skill, Strafe, allows her to fire arrows at 120% damage while moving at full speed. In Risk of Rain Returns (as well as Risk of Rain 2), being able to kite enemies and do damage is one of the most valuable parts of her kit.

Both her secondaries, Glaive and Cyclone, give you lots of AOE damage. Glaive will bounce to nearby enemies and keep increasing its damage with every subsequent bounce, making it powerful against large groups of enemies.

The alternate, Cyclone, is a glaive you throw out that will attempt to return to you after you throw it. If you keep moving and hop over it when it tries to return, you can continuously damage enemies that come in contact with it. Essentially, it is 100x better than Artificer chakrams.

Her utility skills give her two different options for mobility. Blink gives her a quick horizontal escape, allowing you to dash in and out of large groups of enemies—it pairs well with the Cyclone skill.

Warp Dart gives you an aimed teleport. You can shoot it up in the air to get some vertical movement and access areas you normally wouldn’t be able to.

She only got one special—cluster Bomb. You shoot an arrow that will drop bombs for some wittle bitty damage. Gives you both some AOE and some single target. What more could you ask for?

Miner

Least violent coal miner.

One of those survivors that I initially thought sucked but ends up being broken. My first run with Miner was me trying out the skills and seeing how everything worked. I ran up to things and swung my little pickaxe, and when they didn’t die in one hit, I would get smacked back for half my HP.

Like any good gamer, I blamed the game, at least at first. But, after getting some one-on-one coaching with Steve, I queued up again and became an unkillable methed-out diamond miner.

You see, my stupid ass was not utilizing the TWO invulnerability abilities that the Miner has. Drill Charge and Backblast both make you unhittable. Chaining this with melee attacks means getting all the heat you need to become Scorching without taking any damage.

Brief Explanation of Heat and Scorching for Miner

Scorching is an effect that is exclusive to Miner. Once you get enough “heat,” which is generated and spent through various skills, you become Scorching. When you are Scorching, you do more damage, and certain abilities are buffed.

For example, Drill Charge has no cooldown while Scorching.

Make sense?

Miner Skills

You will use Miner’s primary as the main way to gain heat. Without Burnout, the alternate utility, there is no way to gain heat otherwise.

Beat the crap out of enemies for heat -> become Scorching, -> intertwine Drill Charge and Backblast in between hits to keep your Scorching active -> repeat

If you need to get across the map, get as much heat as possible and hold down Drill Charge. You will go flying off into the sunset like the brightest star in the night.

That’s really all there is to him.

The one problem with Drill Charge, especially during loops, is that it is affected by your movement speed. This causes you to overshoot your targets like crazy. To deal with this, I usually push enemies to a wall and hold down Drill Charge until my heat runs out.

Mercenary

Weebs rejoice. I don’t know how I ended up with three melee survivors in the S-tier, but here I am.

Mercenary in Risk of Rain Returns is 10x better than his Risk of Rain 2 variant. Even though they have a nearly identical kit, a 2D game is easier to play as a melee survivor. No pesky wisps or annoying flying enemies you can’t reach without wasting a CD. Well, not as many, I suppose.

Why is Merc so broken? Much like his buddy, Miner, blood has three different i-frame abilities. I-frames, for the uninitiated, are invincibility frames.

Let’s go over all these i-frame abilities real quick.

Focused Strike is one of the most broken abilities in the game. Basically, you stance up (hold the button down) and wait for an enemy to attack you. If you release the button right before the attack lands, you get an I-frame and do 1000% damage.

If you miss like a scrub, don’t worry! You still get to deal 500% damage to every nearby enemy.

Apparently, I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, you can also use this ability to block damage from health shrines. That alone is enough for me to put him in the S-tier.

Blinding Assault is just like it was in Risk of Rain 2. You dash through enemies, stunning them and gaining I-frames. Successful hits allow you to dash up to two more times (a total of three dashes).

You can use this offensively, defensively, or as a little bonus mobility. Versatile AF, as they say.

Eviscerate is also nearly the same as in RoR2. You attack an enemy for several hits and are invulnerable for the skill’s duration.

Sadly, it is weaker than the RoR2 version. It isn’t AOE and doesn’t scale with attack speed. Also, a minor point but still important: you can’t use it for mobility because it doesn’t dash you forward slightly like the RoR2 version of Eviscerate. Sad face.

My favorite way to use this ability is to dodge fall damage. Seriously. Jump off a cliff (in the game, please) and use this before you splatter on the ground.

A-Tier Survivors

The survivors that couldn’t make it into Harvard.

For the A-tier, we got:

• Sniper
• Engineer
• Acrid

Sniper

Sniper? More like DIAPER! Because ain’t no way the people who play this survivor are potty trained.

Have you ever wanted to play a mini-game during your Risk of Rain returns runs because the game wasn’t stimulating enough for your Adderall-addled Zoomer brain? Well, do I have the survivor for you.

Sniper has this super fun thing where every time you shoot your gun, you have a tiny bar underneath your character with light purple and dark purple zones. Light purple = 30% damage boost, dark purple = 60%. Boomers will remember this from Gears of War.

This shot will boost your damage on your next ability. So, if you charge up your secondary, it will do 60% more damage if you hit the dark purple reload zone.

Of course, you can spam the shoot button to quickly snipe enemies without worrying about the extra damage.

There are some interesting quirks with Sniper as well. For example, you can charge your secondary and then use your utility skill to move without canceling the secondary. You can also change Steady Aim’s direction with it.

Engineer

MY MAN

The Engineer is, to me, the perfect survivor. Not only do you have turrets that can shoot enemies around you without you needing to lift a finger, but those turrets also get all of your items—item efficiency king.

Got one ATG? Nope. That’s three ATGs because your turrets get them.

Besides his turrets, the Engineer has another great ability: Thermal Harpoons. These are heat-seeking missiles that can hit enemies from anywhere. It makes it much easier to deal with flying enemies or enemies on a different platform.

Plus, you can have near-infinite harpoons if you get something like the Wicked Ring.

The rest of his abilities are somewhat meh. His primary isn’t anything special. However, it is definitely better than the ror2 version, which was awful at hitting flying enemies.

Acrid

Dog

The ol’ spit n dip.

Acrid is a melee survivor in Risk of Rain Returns that focuses on poisoning enemies over time. That means your playstyle mainly revolves around using your special ability when it’s off cooldown and running around until it’s up again.

Like the RoR2 version, Acrid can kill almost any enemy given enough time. The only problem Acrid faces is the inability to take care of enemies quickly.

B-Tier Survivors

These are the average members of the survivor cast. They are not terribly broken, but they don’t suck either. Don’t mald at me if your fav survivor is in this tier.

Pilot

“No sign of intelligent life on this planet.” – Me when I see someone pick Pilot

Pilot is one of the new survivors with Risk of Rain Returns and has a unique-ish playstyle. Whereas most survivors in this 2D platformer are forced to fight enemies horizontally, Pilot ignores all that and can fight DIAGONALLY! Both up and down!

With Pilot’s secondary (and by being in the air or on the ground), you can shoot enemies that no other survivors can. This gives you more options when dealing with enemies. Are they two platforms above you? No problem. Press your secondary, and you can hit them without any risk of dying.

You might be wondering why he is so low on the list with such an ability. It seems like being able to kill enemies with little to no risk would be an A-tier, at least. However, the main problem is his other abilities aren’t strong, and he can’t use them in combination with each other.

For example, his primary shoots in a straight line (and the default one has a short range). This means it is hard, if not in some cases impossible, to use your primary and secondary on the same target. Same with his utility and special. They don’t combo well with anything, and I’m brave enough to say they suck.

Yes, wave-dashing sucks. Don’t @ me, punk ass.

His special has I-frames, though. That’s one bonus.

And, one last thing, his stats suck. He is exceptionally squishy, and even a single overloading enemy is deadly during loops.

Loader

Fun fact: Loader is a dude in this game. Proving once again that women are superior.

There are some crazy differences between RoR2 and RoRR regarding Loader. For starters, the Risk of Rain Returns Loader is much less mobile (and apparently has a dick). Secondly, Loadhim has a three-second cooldown on two seconds of invulnerability—crazy stuff.

Every single one of Loader’s abilities is good. The only real downside of this survivor is the fact that they are melee and have no way of addressing that (other than the shield).

The M440 Conduit, Loadhim’s special, can be placed at two different levels to hit enemies in a rectangle. So, if you placed one of the conduits on the platform above you and one on the platform below you, you would shock everything inside the rectangle you created with the conduits. I wish I was high on potenuse.

Why B-tier? Certain enemies destroy melee survivors, and if you don’t have an answer for them, they one-shot you. Besides the conduits, Loader struggles with enemies like that. His higher-than-average HP and shield help, but a Blighted Parent will smash through that instantly.

In other words, take down the patriarchy. B-tier.

Bandit

He’s like Indiana Jones.

Bandit is one of those survivors that I didn’t expect to be so low on the list. I really like the Bandit from Risk of Rain 2, but the Risk of Rain Returns version doesn’t give me the same feeling.

His abilities are pretty similar: a semi-crappy primary attack, a decent secondary, an invisibility cloak utility, and specials that either reset cooldowns or stack damage—not much changed for these.

One of the major changes is that he doesn’t have a passive, which gives him 100% crit against enemies he shoots in the back. That’s a pretty good reason to shift him down. Also, his alternate special, Standoff, only stacks up to five times and gives Bandit 25% damage (on every ability) for up to 125% extra damage. Desperado stacked infinitely and didn’t have a timer.

Long story short, he doesn’t do as much damage, and it shows.

That said, when I first made this tier list, I hadn’t explored Bandit’s alternate abilities much. That was a mistake. I think the whip and flashbang are superior in most situations. You get more damage and more utility from those two skills. The one downside of the whip is the short range.

Do they change him enough to move Bandit up a tier? Nope. B-tier scrub.

Chef

LET HIM COOK

Chef is so much fun to play and a real fan favorite. A strong survivor can make it to Providence without struggling and can even loop without too much of an issue.

Chef’s Cleaver ability is a boomerang that does 5x the damage of Artificer (we will get to her eventually) and can be upgraded with his special ability to create a giant circle of death. It is also satisfying to use.

Sear is a good stun and knockback but is best used after glazing enemies with your utility. Oil Jar is the utility skill you will probably be using because it allows you to apply glaze without getting in melee range.

For his specials, Chef has Second Helping or Cook. Second Helping will upgrade one of your abilities and cause them to do more damage alongside whatever bonus effect they might have. An example of that is his primary ability, Cleaver, which will shoot in a circle around him.

Cook will turn slain enemies into a temporary meal item you can pick up and use. These meals can increase HP regen, damage, movement speed, etc. They are nothing too strong, but they are useful.

On top of that, Cook also has a hidden 10% HP execute that isn’t mentioned in the ability. It’s about half of the Drifter’s execute but still strong and seems to work against bosses.

C-Tier Survivors

Ok, here is where you can finally mald at me if your favorite survivor is down here. These are the survivors I think are below the baseline. They could use a buff, but they aren’t so bad they are unplayable.

Enforcer

Let me explain.

The Enforcer is a tanky short-range survivor in Risk of Rain Returns. His main strength comes from using his shield, which will block all damage from the front. You also get increased attack speed and decreased movement speed while holding up your shield.

If this list only considered how good they are at getting to Providence (no looping), then I would say the Enforcer is around B or A. Sadly, it isn’t a Providence-only tier list.

The problem with the Enforcer is that he functions like a melee survivor and struggles against the same enemies they do. His shield, the strongest thing about him, protects him from the front but can’t block anything from behind. Overloading and Volatile elites (and, of course, Blighted) can disregard the shield entirely.

My main trauma, and the real reason I put him this low, is because when I was looping with Enforcer on a god run, basically, I ended up spending twenty-plus minutes on a stage trying to kill an overloading vagrant. Because you have almost no mobility and all short-range abilities, you can’t close in on overloading enemies without getting hit by lightning. Plus, their attacks also have the lightning effect, meaning you have to dodge all the vagrant bubbles. I had to use my damage equipment to kill it. I died the next stage to a Blighted. So it goes.

Anyway, the Enforcer is strong until you finally take the gigantic leap to loop. Once you do that, his viability drops off a cliff.

HAN-D

Pretty handy tbh.

Voted “most likely to get moved up a tier” by me. HAN-D seems pretty bad on the surface but is surprisingly GOATED with the sauce.

First off, melee. Gross. But, the alternate special, DISASSEMBLE (buzzsaw), is incredibly strong. It scales with attack speed, and gee golly, wouldn’t you know, HAN-D has two different ways of stacking attack speeds on top of each other.

His utility, Overclock, gives you an extra 30% attack speed, and you can increase its duration by continuing to attack. Pretty nice, but just like every Billy Mays commercial, that’s not all.

Using HAN-D’s drones, specifically the speed drones, you can increase your attack speed by 10% for each drone you shoot. You gain a drone for each enemy you kill and can hold up to 10 (more with every backup mag you get). Big boy attack speed.

He is also ungodly tanky. Might be the tankiest survivor in the game. You might not think that matters much, but it definitely does. HAN-D can take far more punishment than a Pilot, for example.

Not sure if he deserves a B-tier placement. Time will tell.

D-Tier Survivors

We all know what the D stands for.

Commando

Pic goes hard tho.

This is a bit of a meme placement. Commando in Risk of Rain Returns is pretty good. Has a piercing attack that gives you a good source of AOE and has good mobility with I-frames. Not much to complain about.

If I was being fair, I would say Commando is B-tier. Balanced without being super OP.

But, I’m not fair. I’ve been traumatized by RoR2 Commando, and I can’t let that slide. D-tier.

Artificer

Shartificer.

As the survivor with whom I have the most playtime, I can technically say Artificer is my “main.” As embarrassing as that sentence is.

The Artificer in Risk of Rain Returns is undeniably the worst survivor. I don’t know anyone, even those who love Artificer, who would argue that she’s better than any of the other survivors.

She is squishy *vine boom*, low mobility *vine boom*, and low DPS *vine boom*.

In Risk of Rain 2, Artificer has an execute, a mobility skill, and can float. In Risk of Rain Returns, she has one of these. And honestly, if you take the jumpy skill over the ice wall, you are smoking reefer. Her entire kit revolves around that ability.

Your basic rotation for Artificer is as follows:

1. Ice Wall
2. Chakrams (primary)
3. Flamethrower

You can throw in your secondary as needed.

Without Frost Barrier, you end up with zero distractions that allow you to throw out your garbage tier primary skill or use Flamethrower without being immediately murdered. The platform it gives can give you some nice cheese, but it is not worth it at all.

Speaking of Chakrams, this ability needs some buffs. It does less damage than Chef’s Cleaver, has a smaller range, and hangs in the air for a few seconds, which will reduce DPS when an enemy walks out of range. It’s a real problem.

And again, without Frost Barrier, the enemies will rarely stand still for you to apply the maximum damage.

I could go on, but just playing her once will illuminate why she sucks. Go experience it yourselves. Let’s trauma bond.

Affectionately referred to as “Shartificer.”

Robomando

The *secret* survivor of Risk of Rain Returns. Basically, Buzz Lightyear.

I don’t have this lil dude’s stats, but I’m sure they suck. Robomando isn’t terrible terrible, because with some good RNG, you can get a good run, but his skills themselves (except for his special) all suck.

All of these abilities are weak compared to any other survivor. Shooting once for 60% isn’t the DPS god you are looking for. The secondary isn’t half bad; it pierces multiple enemies but is short-range.

Of course, you got the meme dive. Face planting on the ground isn’t the strongest utility skill.

Also, remember that Re-wire only works on mechanical objects, so no shrine of chance or blood shrines. It’s great for quickly getting items without paying and getting an army of drones to blow through Providence, but past the first loop, it becomes pretty useless. And from then on, you only have bad abilities.

Plus, a little bonus for you: without mouse-aim, this survivor will shoot once and turn around, even if you hold down the fire button. This was enough to make me want to put him in D-tier alone. Thankfully, Hopoo released the mouse aim patch and saved him from being complete trash.

And that’s it. Congrats on making it this far. Got a problem with the list? Well, sucks to suck.

Jk. Feel free to drop an informative comment (APA formatted only) about why your survivor is cracked.