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|---|---|
| Crown of Blood | |
| Area | Loop Vaults |
| Pro: | More Enemies |
| Con: | Fewer Rads |
| Sprites: | ||
| Selection | Idle | Walk |
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Tech
- More enemies will spawn on each level.
- The exact science varies, but a summary is there is 150%-200% (1.5x-2x) more enemies in a level.
- Fully explained: Enemy generation always runs twice while generating a level, and Blood runs it a third time.
- First check: Spawns the initial amount of enemies.
- Second check: Sees if the enemy count meets the requirement for current difficulty, adding more enemies if not.
- Third check: Blood spawns in enemies similar to the first check.
- In other words, at lower difficulty (earlier on) the Blood modifier is closer to 200%, while at higher difficulties (much later loops), the number is closer to a 150% increase.
- Enemies that are spawned partway into the level are not effected, such as IDPD or enemies spawned from bosses.
- Fewer rads will be dropped.
- This is a flat 1 less rad per enemy. Enemies that drop 1 rad will now drop 0.
- Non-enemy sources will not be effected by the crown.
- This means that rad canisters and props will drop the same amount of rads.
- Similarly player-caused sources such as Ultra Grenade Launcher, Rebel's allies and Plant's saplings are also not effected.
- Melting's passive gives a flat 1 more rad per enemy, which cancels out in this situation.
Strategy Guide
While at face value having more enemies sounds like a downside, it directly can work towards the players benefit. Mainly with;
1. Level sizes remain the same, so there is greater enemy density as they're squished together. Any weapon that can damage multiple enemies at once is more effective, and any high-damaging weapons that may be overkill in some situations are much more effective overall.
2. More enemies means more pickups, so even with less rads per enemy there are far more overall.
With these two factors in mind many weapons and builds are much more viable. One of the core mutations to this will always be Trigger Fingers to best utilize any high reload weapon. This basically creates a feedback loop - Blood spawns more enemies, and more enemies can be killed at a time to proc Trigs even quicker, which allows for the weapon to be fired again even sooner. All the while the extra pickups fuels even more weapon shots.
On preloop runs, such as with weeklies, Blood starts will be notably difficult as preloop will have very high enemy spawns while running subpar weapons/mutations. One of the biggest factors here can be starting loadout, as any bad weapons will cause a new run to go at a snails pace while any good weapon can let the player fly through the earlier areas. Loop generation will usually generate 'safe spawns' where the player is more guaranteed a safer level start, however this does not occur in preloop, so be prepared for some levels to immediately have an overwhelming amount of enemies.
If just trying to unlock the crown in preloop from a weekly challenge, a good combination can be Gamma Guts + Scarier Face to handle most enemies that do contact damage, as it's easy to get swarmed in preloop. This strategy falls off quite a bit for loop play, however.
For loop runs, it's particularly easy to be swarmed or overwhelmed without proper weapons. For that reason single target weapons can struggle immensely to clear on their own (particularly any shell weapon), any weapons that have any decent crowd coverage is recommended here. A single-target weapon is still good for handling Elite IDPD/Bosses, but the secondary weapon should be able to adequately handle the mass of other enemies.
Common examples of weapons that are particularly good at crowd control are Plasma Cannon, Super Flak Cannon and Super Crossbow. Some respectable choices would also include Devastator or Super Bazooka, with their own limitations. One of the best builds in loop would include Energy Sword + Super Plasma Cannon (normal Plasma Cannon also works), as it guarantees ammo pickups and is the most effective at handling both crowd control and single targets, especially with Laser Brain.
The downside of 'less rads' is mainly there for ultra weapon usage, as most players are at level ultra by the loop Crown Vault. The extra rads in a level can easily fuel rad weapons, helping increase their viability. All ultra weapons can range from good picks to the best, dependent on build. (Ultra Shovel and Ultra Crossbow being the best two in particular)
For meta play (loops 3+), Crown of Blood is considered to be the best crown to run and is used for any record-setting run in the game. There is an entire dedicated meta guide around this as a whole, so does not have to be covered here.
Character/Mutation Notes:
- As mentioned above, Trigger Fingers is a core mutation to make high-damaging weapons viable.
- In addition, mutations such as Plutonium Hunger, Scarier Face and Rabbit Paw suits high-damage weapons particularly well.
- Many character active and ultra abilities can directly benefit from the excess enemy spawns, thus will not all be listed. Crown of Blood is worth taking on every mutant provided they have acceptable mutations and weapons.
- The only ultra that is negatively effected is Horror's Anomaly which only procs based on enemy HP left in the level, requiring a higher % of enemies killed in a level before proc'ing. This turns one of the best ultras (in loop) into just a great one, which is still worth taking.