Crown of Protection
Area Loop
Pro: Weapons Contain HP
Con: Weapons Do Not Contain Ammo

Tech

Weapon drops will give 1 HP instead of ammunition.
- Any weapon that normally gives ammo upon walking over it will give HP instead.
- Melee is not included in this, as it does not give ammo.
- Second Stomach does not effect the HP give, it will always just give 1 HP.
- This does not effect Robot's passive or regurgitate, they still give ammo/ammo chests respectively.

Strategies

Crown of Protection is a bit deceptive with how it presents itself. As there are 5 different weapon types that can give ammo, replacing those with HP seems like there's little drawback, however extra ammo gained from weapon drops is often overlooked this extra boost makes ammo a problem less often without the player noticing. However the extra HP is undoubtedly helpful as any weapon the player is sure they haven't walked over yet can be saved for when they get damaged to quickly recover HP. In general, ammo will need to be regained more often while health less often, but this can vary greatly on weapons/levels.

Playing preloop with CoProtection will be the most obvious in loss of ammo as any weapon dropped will immediately have 0 ammo, which can actually restrict the player to their starting weapon for a while, especially if having poor rng with present chest spawns. Weapon chests should be seen as a semi-reliable way to regain 1 HP quickly, though isn't guaranteed because of melee weapons not giving any HP. Because of more sparse ammo drops in preloop, Protection can be the most difficult here while trying to find a reliable weapon and mutations; leaning into melee is always a good choice when these sorts of situations are presented.

Within loop & deeploop Protection can be a more fair trade-off due to the higher frequency of drops and weapons, this crown is still largely just a passive bonus but will help keep the player at higher HP. Any higher ammo consumption weapons such as SPC may not get as many shots in during a level due to the helpfulness of ammo from weapon drops, so gameplay may be a bit slower. Investing in ammo mutations is strongly suggested to offset this downside for the sake of gameflow.

Character/Mutation Notes:
- Lucky Shot & Rabbit Paw can help offset any ammo lost, offsetting the downside of the crown.
- Healing mutations are always useful, but extra HP from weapon drops can mean that they're not as high priority in a set.
- Heavy Heart means more weapons to recover HP, though builds with this mutation are usually not optimal.
- Rebel & Skeleton are constant self damaging characters, so CoProtection can directly translate into higher DPS for both.
- Fish's Confiscate adds constant HP to be regained from weapon chests and offsets the crown with ammo chests, making this very optimal.
- Meanwhile Fish's Gun Warrant and Robot easily negate the downside of the crown and will have a very easy time with it.
- Chicken can regain her head from walking over weapons, which can be helpful in a pinch.