Vampire Survivors gives players the chance to wield plenty of impressive weapons, ranging from defensive scents and book barriers to whips, knives, doves, and other bombardment projectiles. With so many paths to take on any given run, it’s hard to know which weapons to add to your arsenal on any given run. That’s why we’ve compiled a tier list, from the worst to the best weapons in Vampire Survivors, for combatting hoards of the undead.
The Full Tier List for Vampire Survivors Weapons
C-Tier Weapons
With so much variety available in Vampire Survivors weapon selection, it’s impressive that so many are viable. Any of the C-tier weapons can put down some solid cover fire and with the right combination could be elevated higher on the tier list. But these items are all notable for their average and functional base of operations.
Magic Wand: The Magic Wand is one of the weakest weapons in its starting form, taking out one measly enemy at a time. The Magic Wand becomes more useful with an upgrade allowing for more machine gun fire-style projectiles, though its lack of intentional aiming makes it outclassed even in its evolved form by most other projectiles.
Bone: The Bone feels like another of the weaker of the projectiles. It’s not as heavy-hitting as the Knife or the Axe, but its evolved form, especially with the Candelabrador item, can prove pretty useful. It also functions fairly similar to the Cross, though its ability to ricochet around is slightly more helpful.
Cross: The Cross, similar to the Bone, can cut through a group of enemies, though it does so in a more boomerang fashion. While this can make early aiming a bit more difficult, its ability to cut deeper into legions of monsters puts it slightly above its femur competition.
Axe: The only reason the Axe isn’t listed higher is that its parabolic arc aiming can get a little bit tricky when managing crowds, especially on more sidescrolling levels like the Library, but it still packs a punch and at higher levels can shred through groups of lower enemies.
Whip: The Whip is a solid base level weapon with a good mix of damage output, as well as some defensive capabilities, attacking in front and behind your core area of movement. Because it triggers slightly less frequently, we’re keeping it in C tier, but it is still a good early-game pick.
Clock Lancet: The Clock Lancet packs a major punch, sending a beam of energy through enemy squads, freezing them in time, making it arguably the most powerful weapon of C tier. Due to its slow-firing nature and diminishing returns as you face stronger foes though, it just barely misses out from the B tier.
B-Tier Weapons
Knife: Some might consider the Knife placed a bit high in the B tier of Vampire Survivors weapons, but the ability to choose its aiming direction, as well as the impressive flurry of projectiles in its evolved form, makes carving out a path significantly easier near the end of a run. And that improved mobility can be both a lifesaver in sticky situations and a game changer in targeting bosses or getting to key item drops.
Fire Wand: This is another weapon that ascends to B tier for having an impressive final evolved form. At its most basic, the Fire Wand is still a shotgun blast of flamethrower brilliance, and at its best it’s an instant summoner of the Dungeons & Dragons classic spell Fireball. It’s fun, effective, and brings the heat to battle.
Garlic: Garlic is one of the most overpowered starting items in the game, shredding lower-level enemies just by getting within a small radius around your character, but unfortunately it doesn’t age very well against stronger enemies. Even so, this can be a great item to pick up in early runs as you learn the game.
Cherry Bomb: The Cherry Bomb brings some explosive crowd control to your arsenal that at high levels can not only get hordes off of you, but get some good early damage on the incoming army to weaken them so they’ll be less of a threat for your close-combat items.
Carrello: Firing a series of bouncy spinning discs of doom, Carrello can wipe through enemies in tight spaces with ease, lasting for an impressively long time. Its biggest weakness is that it can be pretty ineffective in larger stages, which keeps it in the B tier for all Vampire Survivors weapons, but in tighter corridor missions, the weapon could easily be bumped to A tier.
Lightning Rod: The Lightning Rod is another greater crowd control weapon, raining down electric bolts in the outskirts of your attacking range, and at its most evolved form it lets the player feel like Thor calling down a thunderstorm’s worth of fury for some impressive crowd control. Even so, the effects are a bit too isolated to bump this to A tier.
Peachone and Ebony Wings: These doves bring the heat, providing a circular path of cover fire that can set up a solid defensive barrier around the player, creating a circle of pain for incoming monsters. It does suffer from being slower, especially at the start, and is outclassed by a few other defensive projectiles, but it can still be incredibly helpful, especially in its evolved form.
A-Tier Weapons
Runetracer: This might be our most controversial high-tier weapon pick in Vampire Survivors, but the Runetracer’s ability to bounce around the screen slicing through enemies is only really improved upon once you evolve it and have many of them bouncing around the battlefield. It combines crowd control with effective damage output and killing power, all while being visually pleasing and colorful. What more can we ask for?
Song of Mana: Song of Mana feels like a significantly improved version of Garlic, shooting a dusting of magical particles on the vertical axis at first, improving to incorporate the full surrounding 360 degrees around the player. Its reset time is slightly slower, but it is more powerful in the long term.
Santa Water: This holy water projectile is strong even at its early stages, leaving puddles of saintly death for monsters to drown in. But at its highest evolved form, Santa Water is just as effective, dissolving nightly creatures in their tracks. It barely misses the S tier because of its less predictable aiming, but it’s still one of the best weapons in Vampire Survivors.
S-Tier Weapons
Pentagram: The Pentagram has the capability to wipe the entire screen of any incoming enemies and monsters. The tradeoff here is that at lower levels it will wipe away any XP gems, which can make leveling up slower, but at higher levels you increase the percentage of being able to maintain or even gather higher levels of XP gems. And frankly, being able to team-wipe your opponent and then massively level up with a flash of a symbol is delightfully OP and deserving of S tier.
King Bible: Another religious symbol on the S-tier weapon list is the King Bible, which blends the defensiveness of Garlic with the damage output of Peachone, creating a buzzsaw of the holy word around the Vampire Survivors player. At its highest level, the King Bible will make it nearly impossible for a goblin or ghoul to even be able to get within 10 feet of your character, making it S-tier-level effective.
Phieraggi: In a game filled with holy symbols, steel weapons, and ancient runes, it’s funny that the best weapon in the game is still just a really awesome gun. Phieraggi is the evolved form of Phiera Der Tuphello and Eight the Sparrow, meaning you won’t get this until late in a level. Phieraggi brings laser blaster energy to the battlefield, firing four heavy-damage lasers in a circular motion across the battlefield and adding some futuristic flair to this old-world monster-hunting adventure. With this, your enemies will have brought claws and teeth to an S-tier gun fight.
And that’s our tier list for all the weapons in Vampire Survivors! To learn more about upgrades, armor, and other items, as well as other Vampire Survivors tactics, we have you covered. For instance, check out our list of all the different weapon combos.
