How to unlock and use the Defang Power Up in Vampire Survivors

The Power Ups you can purchase in Vampire Survivors are one of the few tools you can use to make permanent progress in its unforgiving world. While expensive both early and late, since their costs scale up as you purchase more of them, the stat boosts they offer to all of your characters are more than worth it in the long run. Defang is the latest addition to this lineup, coming alongside the new Chilling Update, and it’s one of the best we’ve seen yet. If you want to know how to unlock and use the Defang Power Up in Vampire Survivors, then read on.

How to get the most out of the Defang Power Up in Vampire Survivors

Defang has one of the more interesting effects we’ve seen on a Vampire Survivors Power Up to date. With each level you put into it, up to a maximum of 5, 3% of the enemies that spawn in will be unable to deal damage to you. When fully leveled up, this results in a significant 15% of all enemies being essentially free XP for you, since they can’t fight back at all. In practice you can tell if an enemy has been affected by Defang by its coloring: if the enemy is green, or more green than it should be, then it’s been affected and it won’t be able to damage you. 

This is a major boon, and one that pairs particularly well with the Curse and Charm Power Ups, both of which increase the volume of enemies in the stage. While not as much of a priority as the likes of Might or Cooldown, you should definitely add Defang to your arsenal sooner rather than later. To do so, however, you’ll first need to track down the Antidote Relic.

How to get the Antidote Relic in Vampire Survivors

The Antidote Relic can be found in Whiteout, the new Challenge stage added in the Chilling Update. If you haven’t unlocked it yet, then check out my guide on unlocking Whiteout for details on how to do so. Once you’ve got it, dive in to begin your search for the Antidote.

As with all the Relics in the game, the location of the Antidote is shown on your map. Bring it up, and you’ll see that it lies south of your starting location. It’s a long walk down there, so you may want to choose a character with high movement speed, or grab the Wings passive item, to speed up the process. Once you’re there, enter the cave and you’ll be able to grab the Antidote from the floor. From here, simply finish your run as normal, feeling free to pick up the new Glass Fandango weapon or unlock the new She-Moon character while you do. Once the run is over, successfully or not, you’ll be able to purchase the Defang Power Up from the Power Ups menu.

And there you have it: a full guide on how to unlock and use the Defang Power Up, and get the Antidote Relic that enables it, in Vampire Survivors. Every new Power Up you get makes your subsequent runs easier, and Defang is a big one in this regard, making some of the game’s trickier challenges much more doable once you have it maxed out.