Introduction to Meta
The Most Effectice Tactic Available, or Meta, is something well explored in Nuclear Throne as there are over a hundred players who have crossed the Loop 10 mark while the original intention of the game was for players to reach just Loops 2 or 3, with the global world record stretching all the way to Loop 25. This guide will serve as an explanation on both how meta works, and to give you the resources to personally enable yourself to start reaching deeper loops of the game.
As a guide portion of the wiki a reminder that this is explanations provided with subjective advice on what is tried and trued - it is not a list of rules on the 'right way' to have fun in Nuclear Throne, and should not be treated as such.
How it works
The game can be viewed in simple terms by splitting it up into three sections. Preloop, in which only normal IDPD appear and is generally low risk while the player tries to make a mutation set and find good weapons. Loop, in which the player must deal with hordes of enemies and oppressive elite IDPD units and the majority of runs will end here. Deeploop, in which IDPD Freaks take over and the true limits of the game and the player can both be tested. Vans will also explode in L3 onwards, which adds to the chaos and insanity in a level.
Normal IDPD Appears in Loops 0-2 |
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Elite IDPD appears in Loops 1-2 |
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Mutated IDPD Appears in Loops 3 onwards |
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The reason why meta is able to work so efficiently in the first place is because of IDPD Freaks. While they were initially added by the devs as a sort of 'hardwall' to players to stop progress past Loop 3, they instead had the reverse effect where they immensely help a run specifically because they drop radiation upon death. Upon reaching level ultra rads are no longer useful for leveling, but rather are used in part as ammo for the six ultra weapons - and given that IDPD Freaks drop rads, and also have the ability to revive, they now become fuel sources to reacharging your rad meter moreso than they are obstacles.
The Ultra Shovel (ushov)
The first tool here is the Ultra Shovel, which does 30 damage and requires no normal ammo - just 14 rads in order to swing. While the damage is fairly respectable, its reload time is over twice as fast as a normal shovel and provides necessary coverage from enemy bullets. When running meta mutations this makes ushov efficient at providing constant defense for the player from most damage sources, while also providing good offense to any enemies immediately nearby.
IDPD Freaks takes one ushov swing to kill in L3-L5 if running Scarier Face - otherwise they always take two swings. Upon death they drop 23 rads(with CoBlood) which acts as fuel for the ushov. Getting through Loops 3-5 is easier than getting through Loop 2 with meta weapons because IDPD Freaks can be easily killed in one swing and bosses are not a huge problem at this point in the game, though the difficulty will ramp up more later. Once they take two swings to kill, it costs 28 rads to swing twice where one will only give 23 rads back. This is a small rad deficit, but with how clustered together enemies and IDPD freaks usually are multiple will usually be killed in a swing.
(Without Face they take three swings in L21+, but that's not something to worry about.)
The Super Plasma Cannon (SPC)
SPC is the other vital weapon that works in tandem with ushov - it is easily the strongest weapon in the game with the highest damage potential by far for a single shot. But this comes at a cost; 24 energy ammo which is nearly half of the normal ammo capacity, and 8.67 seconds to reload SPC normally. Both of these are multiple times higher than any other weapon in the game which makes the weapon easy to disregard unless you take mutations specifically around it, which meta does. At a fully built meta mutation set, SPC can be fired repeatedly into crowds of enemies as the rate of ammo gained will often be as quick as new shots are able to be fired, similar to how quickly ushov can be swung at the rate of rads gained. This is excellent for killing the majority of bosses in the game swiftly, and clearing entire swathes of enemies with very little effort.
Crown of Blood (CoBlood)
The other tool used during the run to make things so efficient is CoBlood. At face value this can be confusing as the crowns downside is enemies now drop less rads, and more enemies means more threats to kill. However the amount of enemies added to a level will far outweigh the number of rads lost per. enemy killed, primarily because enemies are increasingly clustered together which makes rads not a problem. So rather, the crown is taken in order to increase enemy spawns which can help with better rad intake, but primarily will add more enemies to die to SPC which will proc Trigger Fingers which will then in turn allow for SPC to be shot even sooner, thus resulting in a constant snowball effect.
Meta Muts
In order to make ushov and SPC work so efficiently in deeploop the proper mutations are vital to this. An optimized meta build is referred to as a 'Perfect X', where X is the number of meta mutations. Generally used mostly for Perfect 7, P8, P9. The mutations that consist of this is as follows:
The Core 4 | Part of P7 | Damage Muts | Healing Muts | ||||||||
In order for a set to be 'perfect' it will need these mutations in that rough order, split into categories. Some characters metas will differ from this as listed further below, this is sort of the standard meta guide.
The first is the Core 4 which is considered the bare minimum muts for the players survival and to make ushov/SPC actually effective weapons.
- Strong Spirit: This makes the game far more forgiving as a lethal hit can be potentially recovered from, especially when there are some insta-kill damage sources such as Vans.
- Trigger Fingers: Necessary to making SPC work, otherwise the reload time is too great to be considered viable.
- Long Arms: Necessary to making ushov efficient, as the extra range makes for a very effective boost to offense/defense options with the weapon.
- Rhino Skin: 4 more max HP is really important when the player is constantly close to death. Also makes health drops more common when low on HP over running without Rhino Skin.
Core 4 is the sort of basis for a build but certainly needs more mutations to increase success. A perfect 7 is generally the bare minimum a player would want to aim for if trying to push into deeploop, which includes Stress and Pluto on top of the Core 4, as well as choosing a damage mutation.
- Plutonium Hunger: Makes getting rads/pickups far easier which will directly benefit ushov/SPC alike.
- Stress: Very useful for ushov, when low on HP will let the player push towards health pickups or quickly escape danger.
- Scarier Face: Makes Popo Freaks free to kill L3-L5. Being a percentage(20% off enemy health) it will always be useful at any point in the game for ushov and SPC alike.
- Laser Brain: Gives a direct boost to SPC which can clear through enemy hordes even easier and decimate bosses.
A 'standard P7' usually uses Scarier Face in it, but Laser Brain is a very viable option too and is up to player preference. P8 can include either both damage mutations or one damage and one healing mutation, the best choices being:
- Bloodlust: The amount of enemies killed makes Bloodlust procs constant, and makes recovery from low health much safer by not having to run towards pickups immediately. Very helpful too if trying to recharge Strong Spirit at the start of a new level.
- Rabbit Paw: Gives even more opportunities to shoot SPC sooner, and being able to see health drops much more often will always be helpful for survival.
The true 'Perfect 9' includes both damage mutations and Bloodlust, but Rabbit Paw is a very viable pick that some meta players show strong preference for. Regardless the idea behind a P9 is to take mutations that give the strongest benefits to offense, defense and a mix between the two.
Other Mutations
TB | Very Viable | Somewhat Viable | ||||
These mutations largely can be viewed as good or decent 9th mutation options, while they may not define a build if a set includes them, it will still be an efficient set.
- Thronebutt will strongly vary on character, each TB is gone into detail on each character page. Eyes, Plant, Melting, Rebel and Skeleton have the best options.
- Back Muscle
- Stomach
- Boiling Veins
- Lucky Shot
- Euphoria
- Gamma Guts
Unviable | Potentially harmful | Harmful | |||
- Hammerhead
Weapon Mutations | |||
These weapon mutations should never be taken in an optimal set because by nature they do not directly benefit ushov or SPC, however that does not mean they are completely useless. During boss fights SPC can quickly be swapped out with a weapon that is under the effect of a weapon mutation to quickly exhaust its ammo then swap back to SPC. This never is worth taking these mutations alone for, but if a set so happens to have them:
- Bolt Marrow can actually be useful if a good bolt weapon drops near a boss level, particularly Super Crossbow. Very helpful during Mom fights, and can be a decent choice during Big Bandits & Throne 2.
- Recycle Gland can be slightly helpful if a Double Minigun drops during a boss fight, allowing for a slower ammo consumption, though much less likely to come in handy.
- Shotgun Shoulders can be momentarily helpful if a Super Flak Cannon drops but is very unlikely to come in handy during normal gameplay.
- Heavy Heart requires 3 weapon mutations to be taken and will then take up an additional slot, thus making half the mutation set just around that one mutation which is not worth it. It can give ammo boosts from energy weapons dropping from enemies, but that is instantly dwarfed by the boost from Rabbit Paw.