Character Overview

Skeleton is a secret character that can only be played mid-run. If Melting dies in a Necromancer's circle then he will become Skeleton, having his mutation level reset to 1.

As Skeleton cannot be unlocked this means that any golden weapons or crowns gotten by him cannot be used in later runs. In base NT he does not have a B-Skin, either.

Skeleton Sprites
	Icon
	Idle
	Walk
	Death

Skeleton can be unlocked on Nuclear Throne Together (NTT) by transforming into him. He then appears on the character select screen with his own crowns/golden weapon unlocks, with Rusty Revolver as his default starter. He is also given a B-Skin unlock if he fires the Gun Gun.

Transformation Tech

Before going into Skeleton's abilities, this section will focus on all the mechanics of transforming. If looking for advice for transforming into Skeleton & hitting ultra, please see the Unstoppable guide after reading this section.

Melting needs to take a lethal amount of damage in a Necromancer's revive circle to become Skeleton.

• This is a short window (NOT frame perfect), if Melting is too late he will just die normally.
• Strong Spirit will block lethal damage, meaning it must be consumed before transforming is possible.
• In preloop transforming can only be done on 6-1, while in loop this also includes the Frozen City.
• If successful Melting will transform into Skeleton with 1/4 HP.
• Skeleton has brief iframes after transforming to not instantly die, but wears off quickly.

Skeleton's mutation level will be reset to 1, losing all his mutations. There is an advanced guide explaining ALL of his mutation mechanics in-depth. A brief summary of this is:

• Skeleton will see the same sets as Melting, although he can take a different mutation path.
• On Non-Beta (u99r1), if Melting visits Jungle before becoming Skeleton, this will cause him to start from set 2 instead of set 1, skipping the first set that Melting saw.
• On the Betas, Jungles are now fixed sets so this no longer happens. If Melting visits Jungle then he will see the Jungle 1 set, if Skeleton visits Jungle he will then see the Jungle 2 set, meaning they will be different.
• Also on the Betas, if Melting takes Patience right before transforming then it will cause Skeleton to see the Patience set as his first set, and then see the first 7 sets normally. Still only receives 8 mutations.
• Patience can then be taken a second time which will let Skeleton take a second mutation from the same set.

If Melting is running a crown it will be kept through transformation. Crown of Destiny has its own tech, as a summary:

• On Non-Beta (u99r1), Destiny will NOT grant an extra mutation. It only gives the downside.
• On the Betas this is fixed, granting Skeleton an extra mutation.
• Melting sees sets 0-7 normally, and a special Destiny mutation upon taking the crown.
• Skeleton will instead see sets 0-8 while running this crown, skipping the Destiny mutation entirely.
• If Melting takes Patience right before transforming it will still cause him to see the Patience set first, and then sets 0-7 instead.
• ('Set 0' is just the first set seen in the Betas, which is numbered like that for daily/weekly scouting.)

Any weapons and ammo levels will be kept through transformation.
While mutations taken as Melting are lost, some of their effects still linger:

• Jungle Flowers spawns if Melting enters a 5-1 on loop with Last Wish, so if he transforms then Skeleton can enter Jungle instead. This nets Skeleton an extra mutation.
• Scarier Face & Open Mind applies upon level generation, meaning that Skeleton can benefit from them on that specific level.
• Back Muscle's extra ammo will not immediately be removed, only upon collecting ammo in any way is it brought down to normal max levels. Little impact in a real run.
• Non-Beta Bug: Any hammerhead tiles unused as Melting when transforming can instead be used as Skeleton, including in any following level. The tiles will never refresh themselves upon entering a new level without retaking the mutation, meaning that Skeleton only gets 20 tiles max. This is patched in the Betas.

Abilities

(Active/Passive descriptors are from NTT.)

• Pressing RMB will let Skeleton fire his weapon without using ammo, at the chance of taking self-damage. Normal reload times still applies.
• Similar to Y.V.'s popping, RMB cannot be held down to use automatically, even if it's for automatic weapons.
• On the Betas, blood gambling ultra weapons will not consume rads. Gambling them on Non-Beta will.
• Ammoless melee cannot be blood gambled, which includes Ultra Shovel regardless of version.
• Blood gamble has a chance of self-damaging Skeleton for 1 HP, which can be lethal.
• The chance of self-damaging is based on the amount of ammo the weapon uses proportional to the ammo pickup worth. The more a weapon costs to fire, the more likely it will damage him.
• The odds are X/32 for Bullets, X/8 for Shells, X/7 for Bolts, X/6 for Explosives and X/10 for Energy.
• X is the amount of ammo a weapon used, found here.
• If a weapon's ammo cost is equal to or above an ammo pickup's worth, it is guaranteed to damage Skeleton.

• Skeleton is the only character without any passive upsides.
• Starts with 4 max HP, which is more than Melting. Taking Rhino Skin will bring him to 8 max HP.
• The default character speed is 4, while Skeleton's speed is at 3. Taking Extra Feet will increase his speed to 3.5.
• (These speed values are based on the games code before friction is applied, which is slightly different in practice.)
• Normal characters have an accuracy of '1', while Skeleton's is at '1.5', which is a bit better than Steroids.
• Eagle Eyes sets normal character accuracy to '0.3', while for Skeleton this is brought to a '0.45'.

• Any time a blood gamble would damage Skeleton, he rolls a 1 in 3 (33%) chance to not be damaged instead.
• This includes weapons that are normally guaranteed to damage Skeleton.

Ultra A: Redemption	Ultra B: Damnation

• Skeleton will transform back into Melting with 2 max HP and immediately be given full mutation sets to pick from, and then his usual ultras - Brain Capacity and Detachment.
• Melting can always transform back into Skeleton, meaning that they can change back and forth any number of times.
• Crown of Death will not remove max HP from Melting when transforming, but will give max HP back when swapping crowns out. This makes 7 HP Brain Capacity possible, and is another method to get 6 HP Detachment.
• What mutations seen is explained in detail on Skeleton's set tech page.
• As a summary, Melting will be given 8 mutations and then his choice of ultras.
• He is instead given 9 mutation choices on the 2025 Beta/NTT v100.
• (On NTT v100 if a run is started as Skeleton, it will only grant 8 mutations instead.)
• Bug: On Non-Beta if Melting takes Detachment it will let him pick his ultras a second time. Selecting Detachment a second time has no effect, while selecting Brain Capacity lets him run both ultras. This is patched on the Betas.
• Bug: If a run is started with Melting B-Skin and Redemption is taken, it will turn him back into Melting A-Skin instead. This is fixed on 2025 Beta/NTT v100.

• Using blood gamble will now reduce that weapon's reload time for 80% of its shot.
• Can be stacked with Stress or Trigger Fingers to fire even faster.

Loop Strategy Guide

The Unstoppable guide will be for strategies around skeleturning, preloop & early loop tips. This guide will focus on strategies unrelated to Unstoppable, focusing on post-ultra gameplay.

Melting has the option to turn into Skeleton on 6-1 which is recommended for Unstoppable and for easier early setup, or 5-1 L1 which is better for the long run.

If Melting takes Last Wish and enters 5-1 L1 and then skeleturns, Skeleton can then enter Jungle for an extra mutation. This means that he can get a set of 9 mutations in a run, which will be vital for later loops considering his number of drawbacks. With Crown of Destiny he can also technically get 10 mutations this way, however it would require insanely good RNG and only practical if running the grillskills mod on NTT.

Starting a run in mid-loop as Skeleton will be significantly more difficult. Elite IDPD can spawn in any levels and starting from Jungle there are multiple difficult levels with aggressive enemies. As Melting and Skeleton share sets, the best attempts will be ones with strong mutations in the early sets. Strong Spirit, Rhino Skin and Bloodlust are all ideal early choices to watch out for.

Similar to the Unstoppable guide, Melting should focus on bringing weapons that are strategically helpful for an unleveled Skeleton. Weapons with low fire rate aren't going to cut it for loop Jungle/5-3/Labs because of the volume of enemies will be oppressive starting out. Decent picks would be Auto Crossbow, Auto Flame Shotgun or Gatling Slugger. A great choice would be double energy (Energy Sword + Plasma Cannon), although may need strong mutations early on to compliment it. Another ideal pick would be Ultra Crossbow on the Betas as he can gamble shots without consuming rads and can easily dig into walls, best if taking Bloodlust as well. Be prepared to get swarmed in loop Labs, it can be unforgiving without any decent AoE weapon.

All Passives
Rating: Detrimental
For lower max HP, Skeleton will struggle in similar ways to Melting at constant risk of death in any close encounter. Rhino Skin is an obvious priority here, Elite IDPD and loop Palace will be the most difficult tests to the run.
His lower speed will make avoiding enemies really difficult, Extra Feet is around the middle in terms of priority as it can mitigate some of the issue.
Worse accuracy only makes some weapons unviable, and Eagle Eyes is not a perfect fix, so this can still be passed up on unless if the other mutation picks are awful.

Active Ability
Rating: Very Useful
Skeleton's Active will let him conserve ammo which is particularly helpful for any weapon that uses a lot of ammo per shot, although they will usually cost Skeleton 1 HP to fire. This active can be really useful as Skeleton's speed and max HP makes collecting pickups difficult. It's usually best to let Skeleton blood gamble at high health, then fire his weapons normally when at low health while seeking out pickups.

Redemption
Rating: Neutral
This only has limited utility for Melting runs and can be skipped in the context of runs focused on Skeleton.

Damnation
Rating: Meta Defining
This ultra will significantly boost blood gamble to one of the best actives in the game. Giving an 80% reduction of fire rate means that almost any weapon can be shot again pretty much instantly. The only weapon with a really high reload time is Super Plasma Cannon, which will still only take a portion of the time it once did. Damnation can be stacked with Trigger Fingers for additional benefit, healing mutations such as Bloodlust will be necessary to make this work though - Skeleton will basically be using his health as ammo. Any weapon with high ammo consumption can be used repeatedly given chances to heal back up, meaning that an optimal Skeleton build will make him a proper glass cannon.

Thronebutt Ability
Rating: Very Useful
This is easily one of the best Thronebutt's in the game as 1/3rd of times Skeleton would've been damaged, nothing happens to him instead. This is especially useful for weapons such as SPC that is guaranteed to damage Skeleton normally, he can instead get completely free shots.

Mutations
An ideal build on Skeleton would be something like Ultra Crossbow (ubow) and Super Plasma Cannon (SPC), especially on the Betas. Skeleton can fire his ubow any number of times into walls using blood gamble while only taking minimal damage, and then blood gambling his SPC which will help give a lot of Bloodlust procs from afar. Bolt Marrow can also go a long ways here to help clean up Elite IDPD, as SPC may be slightly less useful in close range than ubow would be. Other viable mutations here would be Laser Brain, Extra Feet, Plutonium Hunger, Trigger Fingers, Stress, and other healing mutations.

Summary
While Skeleton is at a very strong disadvantage he can actually have a pretty strong loop game given his overpowered ultra. While this does not compensate fully for multiple terrible passives, he can still lean in to a build that lets him fire shots very aggressively while worrying little about ammo management. If not wanting to run ranged weapons, having a melee primary for defense and a strong secondary to spam blood gambles with is still suitable for a run.

Meta Strategy Guide

Coming soon to a Wasteland near you!