Character Overview

Chicken is the ninth character in the game and is unlocked by reaching 5-? (Jungle) as any character, which is reached via the Ice Flower prop. Her starting loadout includes her Chicken Sword, an ammoless melee. Her B-Skin is unlocked by reaching 2-1 as her on hardmode.

Chicken A Sprites
	Icon	Chicken B Sprites	Icon	Headless Sprites	Idle
	Idle		Idle		Walk
	Walk		Walk		Death

Abilities

• Using RMB will cause Chicken to throw her held weapon in the direction of her cursor.
• Weapons must be picked back up manually unless if running a specific ultra. Throwing weapons will reset their cooldowns.
• Throws deal 24 damage at base, and will gain 2 additional damage per level. Caps out at 42 damage at ultra.
• Enemies killed by a thrown weapon will take substantial corpse knockback.
• Thrown weapons will bounce off walls upon contact, and will also have a slight bounce off of enemies.
• Shields can deflect thrown weapons which can then harm Chicken.
• Cursed weapons cannot be thrown. Running two cursed weapons will restrict Chicken's active entirely.
• Weapons can be thrown into range of a portal, bringing them to the next level.
• During the Throne II fight weapons thrown out of the arena cannot be retrieved until the fight is over.
• Non-Beta Bug: As thrown weapons are counted as projectiles, if a portal opens while a weapon is actively moving it may be erased. This is fixed in the Betas.

• Chicken will become headless if she ever reaches 0 HP.
• Strong Spirit being consumed will always take priority over going headless.
• Any time Chicken goes headless she will lose 2 max HP. Any time a health chest is opened it will give back 1 max HP, while Last Wish will return her to full.
• She will regain her head if health is obtained in any way.
• A five second timer will start regardless of max health, killing Chicken if no health is retrieved in time.
• The timer will reset to five seconds if Chicken exits the level in time.
• While headless the camera will focus in on Chicken's head rather than her body, which can be limiting to movement.
• Chicken's head counts as a corpse and thus can be 'revived' by a Necromancer or Popo Freak. This will then cause the camera to focus on her body instead.
• Common ways to heal include collecting a health pickup, Bloodlust proc'ing, or walking over a health chest.
• Uncommon ways to heal include taking Last Wish/Rhino Skin from a level up screen, running Crown of Protection, or entering a new level with Crown of Luck as it sets HP to 1.

• Thrown weapons will now pass through enemies regardless of their HP instead of stopping.
• After each enemy hit the thrown weapon will slow considerably.
• Able to damage larger targets multiple times as it slows down, however Thronebutt also causes thrown weapons to respect enemy iframes.

Ultra A: Harder To Kill		Ultra B: Determination

• While Chicken is headless, any enemy killed will add 1 second to her headless timer.
• Will never exceed 5 seconds on the timer, so spacing out kills is beneficial in some situations.
• Destroying props do not count as kills and do not give extra time, while destroying Vans will.
• As Throne and Throne II do not count as kills, they will not give extra time.

• After weapons come to a complete stop it will teleport back to the players secondary slot.
• Weapons will not return if they enter a portal, or if Chicken picks up a new weapon during this time.
• Only having one weapon will just bring it back to the primary slot. Throwing both weapons will teleport them both back.
• If more than two weapons are thrown at a time, only the first two that stop will teleport back. (Unless if RMB is continually spammed.)

Chicken will start with a Chicken Sword, an ammoless melee. If this is left on 1-1 L0 (not dragged through the portal), a Black Sword will spawn on 1-1 L1. Same applies to 1-1 H1/1-1 H2 in Hardmode. Black Sword has a secret attribute.

Weapon	Fire Type	Reload	Damage
Chicken Sword	Single Swing	0.60 sec	6
Black Sword	Single Swing	0.53 sec	12 Secret: 80 while Chicken is headless

Regaining HP Guide

Chicken can only regain her max HP by either taking Last Wish which isn't usually applicable, or walking over health chests which will give her back 1 max HP at a time.

Health chests have a 50% chance of replacing the rad canister in a level if Chicken is under half health when entering the level. Being on half health is based on original HP, meaning that Chicken needs to be at 3 HP or below normally, or 5 HP or below while running Rhino Skin.

Given this knowledge, Chicken can force health chests to spawn by self-damaging herself at the end of a level before going through the exit portal. The most common way is to use weapons, although one enemy could always be kept alive until it damages Chicken enough (and hope for no health pickups from it).
Some of the best weapons for self-damaging are:

• Blood Hammer: Damages for 1 HP for every missed swing. (Most recommended)
• Toxic Bow & Toxic Launcher: Damages for 3 HP for every toxic cloud. (Recommended)
• Blood Cannon: Damages for 2 HP every time Chicken is out of ammo, which requires emptying her entire explosive ammo. (Only use if no other option)
• Blood Launcher: Similar to Blood Cannon, dealing 1 damage every time Chicken is out of ammo. (Only use if no other option)
• Disc Gun: Deals 6 damage a hit and is risky to use in anything except an open field. (Only recommended if HP is high enough)
• Any explosive weapon: Deals 5 damage twice for 10 damage. Trying to take just half damage is very difficult and risky. (Not recommended unless if sacrificing Spirit out of desperation, or if at 11/11 HP and the weapon only causes a single explosion.)
• If running Boiling Veins, it will only set Chicken low on HP enough if also running Rhino Skin. (Recommended under this condition)

Health Chests do not spawn on 7-3 or 0-1, so Chicken shouldn't bother self-damaging on 7-2 or 7-3.

Preloop Strategy Guide

Chicken is a good character in preloop as her active/passive are very helpful, although she only really shines as a higher tier character by loop.

She will start any run with the Chicken Sword, which does the same damage as a Screwdriver but with bigger range and deflects. This is a decent melee start but can easily be traded off early on for other weapons.

Active Rating: (Text)
Chicken can throw weapons at any time which acts like an extra form of free damage, although this can leave her more vulnerable. For this reason it's usually best to only ever throw one weapon at a time, keeping her second weapon to use while trying to recover the other. Throwing is usually best to use on mid to larger sized enemies who have more health, although if they don't immediately die retrieving a weapon may be difficult. Throwing weapons will be a lot less useful option against hordes of smaller HP enemies. If any weapons drop that Chicken isn't planning to use, she can quickly swap to it to throw it at a nearby enemy, picking back up her regular weapon.

A perk that's unstated in-game is that Chicken can throw weapons into portals, so she could always bring weapons she finds useful to the following level. For example if a Minigun drops on 5-3 but Chicken is already running two good weapons, she can throw it into the exit portal to help clear 6-1 as they sometimes have nasty spawns, then returning to her original weapons to fight through Palace with. Similar approaches work with bringing extra weapons specifically for boss fights.

Passive Rating: (Text)
Being headless is mostly meant as a safety net to give Chicken the chance to comeback, and should be avoided as much as possible just like normal dying. Regaining health can actually be difficult during preloop as enemies are fairly spread apart and more sparse, so it's important not to panic and to try to focus in on any enemies that can drop health. It's useful to be familiar with enemy droprates, as for example if Chicken goes headless in the Frozen City, Wolves only drop rads while Snowbots/Snowtanks can drop pickups, which is where she should prioritize to have the best chances of regaining her head. Pausing the game to think where to push next instead of panicking is also really helpful.

Thronebutt Rating: (Text)
This allows Chicken to damage multiple enemies at a time or multi-hit larger targets, but this comes at the cost of her weapons ending up much further away. It's best to use this Thronebutt with any weapons found on the floor instead, anything that limits active usage should probably be skipped though.

Chicken can go a lot of different direction in terms of what mutations to take. Rhino Skin lets her go headless more times before running out of max HP, Rabbit Paw/Bloodlust makes her more likely to recover while headless, and Strong Spirit can help prevent her from going headless at all as an extra layer of protection. Last Wish can always be taken to fully regain max HP, this is best taken before 5-1 so Chicken doesn't have to go to loop to reroll.

Loop Strategy Guide

Chicken is able to work very well in loop as health drops are more abundant making her passive a strong asset to the run. Another character taking lethal damage in a different run may just be an inconvenience to Chicken, although she will then need to put in work regaining max health. With how unforgiving loop is at times this makes Chicken a very strong character for having a great form of recovery and a modest amount of extra damage.

If Chicken leaves her Chicken Sword on 1-1 in preloop she will get the Black Sword, which does a modest amount of damage but won't really hold up in loop against any number of high HP enemies. The secret attribute of very high damage if headless is worth seeing, but obviously has its own limitations as going headless will cost Chicken max HP and risk dying.

Harder to Kill: (Text)
This ultra leans into Chicken's passive which allows her to be alive for as long as she can keep killing enemies while headless. This removes pretty much any chance that she will die before regaining health, although the ultra has two glaring flaws. The first of which is that the timer will cap at 5 seconds which limits how long it can be used for, unless if she spaces out kills for as long as possible. The other issue is that the camera is locked to Chicken's head, making it so she can rarely explore off-screen. Her ultra is best taken to avoid unlucky situations in which health drops are suddenly sparse, but it may not come in handy all too often.

Determination: (Text)
Chicken's throws reach their max damage (42) at ultra, which is very useful against most mid to large sized enemies. Her active is furthered by Determination as she can always carelessly throw one of her weapons at any enemy, knowing it will return to her momentarily. Some enemies this is particularly useful against are Jungle Flies, Elite Grunts and Elite Inspectors who are all killed in one shot on Loop 1, and Loop 2 as well if running Scarier Face. Weapons can always be thrown as a panic button as well while Chicken runs back towards her spawn, or if she ever runs out of ammo.

Another upside of Determination is that throwing weapons will reset its cooldown, meaning that if Chicken is running any weapon that has a high reload speed she could always fire them and then throw them, without having to wait for them to reload. This is particularly useful to any run without Trigger Fingers, although isn't the fastest method.

Determination or Harder to Kill?
While this guide is more harsh towards Harder to Kill, it is still useful in furthering Chicken's recovery capabilities and can even be paired with Black Sword gameplay. Harder to Kill comes into effect at important points of the run, while Determination is used across the entirety of the run, meaning taking either is worthwhile.

Thronebutt Rating: (Text)
Chicken's TB in loop is only really useful if used in a specific way, hurting Chicken's run otherwise. It should be skipped over for that reason.
With Harder to Kill: Taking Thronebutt is never worth it as throwing her active weapons could cause them to end up very far away, meaning she only should limit active usage to throwing weapons on the ground, which may also only get to be thrown one time.
With Determination: This causes weapons to take longer to teleport back to Chicken as it will pierce through enemies. It can be used for extra damage but many other mutations in its place would be immensely better.

Other mutations on Chicken is up to whatever the player finds the most useful as usual, although it should be overstated how useful Rhino Skin is with Chicken's passive (and as a mutation as a whole). Going headless once would put Chicken at 6 max HP normally, or 10 max HP with Rhino Skin, which is like night and day in terms of how much harder it makes the game. Another reason would be for the minimum HP thresholds for regaining health chests, Chicken would need to start a level at 3 HP normally or 5 HP with Rhino Skin, all the while taking 3 damage is one of the most common types of damage in the game.

Meta Strategy Guide

Note that this is an advanced guide, it is meant to be used by those primarily looking at loops 3+. This builds off of content shared in the meta guide.

Chicken is considered a higher tier character in meta loops, although she will be outshined by other top tiers (Crystal/YV/Eyes) in the very late game, before that point she is still a phenomenal pick.

Passive Rating: (Text)
Chicken's passive is one of the main reasons on why she is considered so viable. In many characters' cases death is one bad misplay away, which makes deeploop very unforgiving - misjudging the timing of a Van, or playing a bit too aggressively with Bandits, or getting stuck in rapid Laser Crystal damage for examples could just instantly end over an hour (or hours) of work. In Chicken's case, she can usually come back from that and continue the run mostly as normal, although having to put the time in to regain max HP.

A large part of why Chicken is considered to be very good, but not a popular pick is because regaining HP does take extra time in a run that may impact the flow of deeploop. While she is undoubtedly a great character, she also may not be as fun as other characters. In other words - an acquired taste.

Chicken's passive also does not remain amazing forever as in very late game if she loses any substantial amount of max HP, recovering that may be near impossible, which just delays the inevitable. However this is pretty far into the game, making her an incredible option for anyone learning deeploop or wants the game to be a bit less unforgiving until that point.

One important part of Chicken's passive is the question of if her meta set would run Bloodlust or Rabbit Paw.
When Chicken goes headless she can ignore any damage as she is at 0 HP. However she doesn't have any invulnerability when regaining her head, meaning that Bloodlust could proc randomly, Chicken regains her head, and then immediately lose it again. For this reason some Chicken players prefer to run Rabbit Paw, as health pickups are very predictable. If Bloodlust is the preferred healing mutation then be extra vigilant when Chicken's head is lost.

Harder to Kill Rating: (Text)
Similar issues in the loop guide for Harder to Kill also applies here. In most situations health will be abundant, meaning that Chicken will usually regain her head in a very short span. The camera is also still locked to her head instead of her body, so she will usually be stuck to one spot. There are specific situations in which Harder to Kill will save Chicken such as if she happens to go headless at the very end of a level with very few enemies around, however these are uncommon occurrences which makes most players prefer to run Determination. Harder to Kill can always be run as an additional safety net.

Determination Rating: (Text)
Determination can benefit the run in multiple smaller ways which makes it useful to take. While Chicken's active is not nearly as meta-defining as her passive, this gives her active some extra utility as well.

Firstly Chicken's throw can deal 42 damage which can one-shot Popo Freaks up to L8 normally, or L15 with Scarier Face. Throwing weapons takes more of a backseat but can still always be used as some extra damage at any point against Popo Freaks/bosses while running Determination. Still be careful on Non-Beta as any weapons in motion at the end of the level can be erased, which could cause Chicken's run to be ruined. Throwing weapons is completely safe on Beta versions.

As mentioned in the loop guide, another useful perk is that throwing weapons will reset weapon cooldown. This can be used for SPC without having to rely on Trigger Fingers procs at any point, it will be the most useful during the Throne fight before any Guardians are awakened, and the Throne II fight to avoid having to walk to the center of the arena each time to hotswap. There's also some usage in Big Bandit and Mom fights, while really situational.

The last perk of throwing weapons that is understated is that if Ultra Shovel is ever thrown, it will give a 100% ammo droprate to SPC. For example on the Throne fight if Chicken destroys a generator and it drops ammo, Chicken can throw her ushov at the Throne right before collecting it and get guaranteed energy. This is obviously risky to throw ushov out haphazardly as it is her main form of defense, so some practice is important here to properly utilize in a safe manner.

Thronebutt Rating: (Text)
This is not an efficient use of a mutation slot in meta. It does not benefit Harder to Kill in any meaningful way, and it extends the time for weapons to return through Determination which can be considered a downside in some situations.

Extra Tips:
Chicken's active can be used to bring any weapons for specific boss fights through multiple levels, such as Energy Hammer for Big Bandits or Super Crossbow for Mom.
Even if Chicken is at max HP she can optionally self-damage before boss levels to make a health chest likely to spawn (exit a level at 5 HP or below if running Rhino Skin), in the event she goes headless here she could quickly regain one of those lost max HP.