Guide to Ultra Mutant

This guide will serve as a catch-all for most unlock achievements that do not need their individual pages, as well as strategies for unlocking crowns quicker.

Ultra Mutant requires getting 100% of unlocks which includes anything that counts towards the stats screen. As of update 100 this includes having all 13 characters unlocked, all 13 B-Skin and C-Skins, a golden weapon on each character and all 12 crowns on each character. This totals 26 character skins and 156 crowns.

Unlocking Ultra Mutant is not about getting every other achievement. Unstoppable, Frog Zone and Good Riddance have separate achievement pages and are not required here. Anything related to secret characters (Frog, Skeleton, Big Dog) do not count towards Ultra Mutant.

As there are a lot of crowns it's easy to forget what is unlocked along the way. For that reason a tracker can be found here, though requires a Google account to make a copy.

Character Skin Unlocks

This table will run through every character skin achievement and give tips on unlocking all of them. Achievements in each category will be sorted by rough difficulty of obtaining it, to give a general idea of when every achievement should be gone for. Every character page has tech and general strategy guides to help understand each characters strengths and weaknesses.

Before beginning: When doing runs that require beating the Throne or looping, consider bringing a preloop crown with you to start unlocking them alongside other achievements. In preloop Crown Vaults spawn on 3-2 and 5-2. Crown of Curses is very easily unlocked once cursed weapon downsides are understood, and Crown of Haste and Crown of Risk are fairly easy unlocks that have downsides easily mitigated by Plutonium Hunger and Bloodlust respectively.

Color Legend:
Novice Skill | Intermediate Skill | Professional Skill

B-Skin Unlocks
	MMMMMMHMMM!	As Eyes, take any explosive weapon and blow up the manhole cover on 2-1.
	Crystal Can Shield	As Crystal, take Crown of Curses in the 3-2 Vault, and if a cursed chest spawns on 3-3 then pick up its weapon before entering 4-1.
	6e 69 63 65	As Robot, eat any weapon with hyper in the name of it. Hyper Rifle spawns the earliest, Hyper Launcher and Hyper Slugger also count.
	Round And Handsome	Carry 3 Golden Weapons as Cuz. Y.V.'s Crib is visited upon hitting ultra which usually has enough, taking Open Mind can help guarantee this.
	Verified	Unlock a golden weapon for every character. If not wanting to rely on RNG for Screwdriver drops, then golden weapons can be stored in the Proto Chest and then retrieved for other characters.
	Blood Blood Blood	As Plant, defeat the Nuclear Throne in under 10 minutes.
Defeating the Throne in under 10 minutes is actually relatively easy. The quickest strategy is to use Oasis skip which cuts down on time. The timer can be enabled in settings and allows for pausing. Move through levels at a moderate pace trying to minimize downtime, rushing is not necessary. Prioritize damage mutations (Scarier Face, Throne Butt) and healing mutations (Bloodlust, Rabbit Paw). The game can be paused during mutation selection if needing time to think.
	Forget The Old Days	Defeat Mom as Rebel. Healing mutations go a long way to help her active, general strategies apply otherwise.
	Fish Can Roll	Loop as every character. This can be unlocked naturally as other achievements are obtained.
	Way Of The Chicken	This run has a prerequisite of unlocking Hardmode by reaching loop 2 as any character. Once unlocked Chicken must simply reach 2-1 in this mode which is far less challenging. The Good Riddance survival tips for Desert applies here if having trouble.
	Thriller	Defeat Hyper Crystal as Horror. Anomaly is a very powerful ultra in loop 1, especially paired with Scarier Face. Make sure to utilize rad beam offensively after reaching ultra.
	Science	Defeat the Technomancer as Steroids. General strategies apply here; try having a weapon that's decent at crowd control, with the other that's good at handling high HP enemies and elites.
	Never Look Back	Defeat Captain as Rogue.
Rogue has the rarest B-Skin on Steam because she plays quite differently than most other characters. Some good resources to understand her gameplay includes the strategy guides on her character page, and some tips for entering IDPD HQ. Rogue can enter IDPD HQ as soon as 1-1 L1, or can delay it if she does not have suitable weapons yet (or wishes to run a loop crown as well). Need extra help? The crown section below gives detailed tips on dealing with Captain.
	Everything Hurts	Defeat the Nuclear Throne with Melting without choosing Rhino Skin or Strong Spirit.
Melting's B-Skin is one of the most difficult unlocks as it acts as a (nearly) no-hit run. Mutations that give defense are especially important here (Boiling Veins, Euphoria, Hammerhead), while most healing mutations can be passed up on aside from Rabbit Paw. Damage mutations such as Scarier Face is as important as ever, and can be paired with Gamma Guts to prevent most contact damage enemies while less helpful during boss fights. When fighting the Throne utilize the common strategy of standing on the red carpet until it charges up its laser beam and then quickly stepping to this side, as this is the easiest attack to avoid. As Melting is at 2 HP he can find a lot of use in Crown of Risk, as he can only survive damage from a few sources to begin with. Need extra help? Boiling Veins can easily be leaned into for an explosive build as Melting is always below 4 HP in this state; any explosive weapon can be used in close range. Bolt weapons are very good at dealing with enemies at long range, especially with bolt marrow. One suggested strategy is to run Crown of Life as this will prevent HP pickups. Melting can then purposefully take 1 damage and run the Stress mutation, which will give him a permanent 50% boost to firerate. Any Maggot enemy deals 1 contact damage, other sources later on include Salamander fire and Lil Hunter's landing fire but both are dangerous. (Blood Hammer too if one happens to drop.)
C-Skin Unlocks
	Biggest Bandit	Defeat 1000 bandits in total. This is spread across every run with any character, and will be unlocked automatically upon starting a run as Rebel once the requirement is met. This does not have to be actively worked towards.
	63 72 75 6e 63 68 79	Eat the Rusty Revolver as Robot, which spawns in the Proto Chest. If not wanting to lose the contents of the Proto Chest, play a daily as they will always default to a Rusty Revolver.
	Forgiveness	Don’t defeat Lil Hunter as Rogue, which involves killing every enemy in the level except for him. Killing IDPD is optional, just focus on constantly moving through the level away from Lil Hunter.
	Molten	Have 12 mutations as Melting. 8 Mutations are given by default and the Detachment ultra gives 3. Patience counts as a mutation as well (unsure if bug), otherwise the extra mutation can be taken with Crown of Destiny. Running Destiny from 3-2 to 5-2 is suggested to avoid getting a random ultra pick.
	Crystal Can Handle This	Survive over 100 damage as Crystal over the course of a run. This is fairly easy to do by playing a standard loop run. Be sure to take lots of healing mutations to shrug off most damage.
	HHMMMM!	As Eyes, defeat the Nuclear Throne while only using melee. Either start with a Golden Wrench or Golden Screwdriver or restart a run until a standard one appears in the 1-1 chest. Energy melee and Jackhammer also count towards this achievement. Long Arms will be one of the most important mutation, while all other weapon mutations can be passed up on (except for Laser Brain, if the drops allow for it).
	Appreciate Revolvers	Reach the Nuclear Throne without picking up any weapons as Steroids, which allows for any golden starter weapon. Take any weapon mutations that helps Steroids' starters that he's stuck with. Picking up weapons can be unbinded in settings to avoid muscle memory inputs during this run.
	KILL KILL KILL	As Plant, be running three blood-related things whether it's Bloodlust, Crown of Blood and any combination of the blood weapons. This is pretty RNG based. Crown of Blood can either be taken in the loop Desert Vault or a run started with it. If issue persists start a singleplayer co-op run and take the Blood Bond ultra, which also counts.
	Drama	Reach the IDPD Headquarters with 3 or fewer mutations as Horror. This does not require defeating Captain. Get to level 4 as soon as possible and then for the rest of the run hold down RMB to avoid leveling. If the mutation choices are particularly bad then little time is wasted in restarting a run. Entering HQ tips.
	Thanks Gun God	Defeat a Gun God.
As Cuz, defeat Y.V./Gun God in Y.V.'s Crib after destroying his television. It is useful to be familiar with his attack patterns. Cuz has infinite setup time and has two giant weapon chests to choose from before starting the fight, Open Mind can even be taken for four giant weapon chests instead. Attacking Gun God in close range is typically a really bad idea. Not known if this will be patched, but entering the car at the top of the level will instantly kill the Gun God if he's active, earning the C-Skin automatically.
	Retirement	Unlocked upon obtaining every B-Skin.
	Strapped	Carry 6 cursed weapons as Cuz.
Cuz requires the Arsenal ultra to let him carry 6 weapons at a time. Keybinds can be toggled in the settings file which helps greatly with weapon swapping. Weapons will be uncursed upon entering the loop portal, meaning that the weapons all need to be gathered in a single loop; Crown of Curses is the best crown choice here. Cursed Crystal Caves while a very difficult area will provide 3 cursed weapons, possibly more with Open Mind. Need extra help? Running any cursed weapon that appears can be a hinderance to Cuz's build, consider taking Open Mind as it can cause multiple cursed weapon chests to spawn in a single level. Keep the first two weapon slots uncursed with reliable weapons until he can swap both of them out at the same time, minimizing risk.
	Amateur Hour Is Over	Defeat every boss with the Black Sword.
Chicken's Black Sword will appear on 1-1 L1 if she leaves her Chicken Sword starter on 1-1. In a normal run she will need to kill every boss in loop, entering HQ in Loop 2 in order to kill Captain. The Black Sword does not have to be specifically used, so long as she is carrying it. Standard strategies apply here otherwise, just running a weaker melee. When fighting Captain, Chicken can deflect her orb attacks back into her face for massive damage. Full strategy outlined in the next section with an example gif. Need extra help? Chicken can also store her Black Sword in the Proto Chest. Any character can then use it to gain the achievement instead; if it is taken out from the preloop chest then Throne and Throne II can be defeated in L0 and L1 respectively, allowing the character to enter HQ during 6-1 L1. Loop 1 HQ will lower the chances of Elites spawning in clusters, and Captain has significantly less HP than she does in Loop 2.

Crown Unlocks

The most difficult part of Ultra Mutant is unlocking crowns on each character. On update 100 this requires 78 preloop crowns and 78 loop crowns, totaling 156 crown unlocks needed. There are three methods in which a crown can be unlocked: sitting on the Throne, looping past it, and sitting in Captain's chair; thus the most efficient way to minimize run time is by unlocking a preloop and loop crown in the same run.

Similar to characters it is useful to be familiar with the tech of every crown on their specific page, and each page includes strategy guides.

One common strategy is to unlock a preloop crown by looping, and then not taking a loop crown until 7-2 L1. Only the Throne needs to be defeated and most crown downsides do not have to be dealt with, particularly useful for Crown of Blood and Crown of Luck. Be aware that only three Vaults may be visited in a run.

The other strategy is to unlock a preloop crown by looping, and then take a loop crown on 1-2 L1 and immediately enter HQ to fight Captain. This will significantly reduce the amount of time a run takes but is also a lot more risky, it is a risk worth taking in the opinion of this guide.

HQ will be swarming with IDPD and can even spawn elite clusters, so any weapon that is able to deal a moderate or high amount of damage will be a game changer here. It is useful to be familiar with common HQ entering strategies as well as IDPD mechanics. HQ does not have to be entered immediately after exiting the Crown Vault; waiting for good weapons and making sure ultra level is reached is useful. As IDPD do not drop rads normally, ultra weapons can be passed up on in most situations.

Captain is a very difficult roadblock early on because her attacks can kill the player very swiftly, however if her fight is mastered this can significantly reduce time on getting Ultra Mutant. She has three different attacks:

• Charge Attack: Charges across the screen making staying close range difficult. As she can teleport and then use this attack, always be alert and have her at the corner of the screen while always moving.
• Orb Attack: Fires out a giant orb that breaks out into a ton of bullets when making contact with something.
• Bullet Attack: Fires bullets in two different sprays, either can be dodged without melee once recognized.

The quickest way to kill Captain is with her orb attack. If it is deflected by melee and Captain tanks the full shot then she will take 12 damage from the main orb and 240 damage from each of its 80 bullets that do 3 damage each, totaling 252 damage plus however much from the melee. Captain has 1540 HP on Loop 1 (1232 with Face), and 2017 HP on Loop 2 (1613 with Face).

Deflecting orbs at close range is dangerous as Captain can quickly counter-attack with her charge instantly ending the run, practice makes perfect here to have the best game sense. Constantly be moving and ready to react quickly to maximize the amount of damage. Any melee weapon works, even a Wrench, with the exception of piercing melee; Jackhammer and Screwdrivers cannot deflect projectiles, although the fight is still very doable with them if no other melee appears.

Here is an example of Chicken deflecting two orbs in a row dealing over 500 damage, notice how Chicken backs away the moment after swinging her melee in case of a charge counterattack. The secret here is reacting to Captain's attacks, rather than just trying to damage her as quickly as possible.