Risk of Rain 2: Item choices, Lunar items, and the Bazaar Between Time

Risk of Rain 2 has a plethora of items for you to obtain during each run. These include legendary items, boss items, equipment, the new Lunar items, and more. You’ll also be able to obtain some of them in the Bazaar of Time. Here’s our mini-guide to help you out.

Note: This guide is intended for the game’s early access stage. For more information, check out our Risk of Rain 2 guides and features hub.

Risk of Rain 2: Item types and using Artifacts

Items are often found randomly while doing your runs in Risk of Rain 2. However, a select few do have unlock requirements. You can find these neatly listed in Risk of Rain 2‘s Fandom wiki page. We’ve added some tips to help you with ideal picks.

Now, because of sheer randomness, it’s highly unlikely you’ll find what you need each time. The goal, therefore, is to enable certain Artifacts prior to starting a game. Examples such as the Artifact of Command (allows you to choose items) and/or the Artifact of Sacrifice (enemies often drop items but chests are disabled) will help you obtain what you need. These can be very helpful when completing challenges to unlock new characters or acquiring additional skills and loadouts.

Note: Because the Artifact of Command only lets you select from items that you’ve already acquired or unlocked, you won’t obtain those that you haven’t found yet.

Common (white) – These are the most basic items you’ll find in Risk of Rain 2. They’re plentiful and often found in chests that you open using gold. They can be very powerful if you stack a lot of them.

• Armor-Piercing Round – Increases damage to bosses per stack.
• Crowbar – Increased damage versus enemies with high health/90%.
• Lens-Maker’s Glasses – Adds +10% crit chance per stack.
• Monster Tooth – Killed enemies spawn a healing orb.
• Personal Shield Generator – Gain a shield equal to a percentage of your max health.
• Soldier’s Syringe – Increases attack speed.
• Topaz Brooch – Gain a temporary barrier on enemy kill.
• Tougher Times – Chance to block incoming damage.
• Warbanner – Whenever you level-up, spawn a banner’s aura that increases movement speed and attack speed.

Uncommon (green) – Despite the name, uncommon items are still quite plentiful and they can be very handy when you’ve got a lot of stacks. Here are some good picks:

• ATG Missile – Attacks have a chance to fire a missile.
• Bandolier – Kills have a chance to drop an ammo pack that resets all cooldowns.
• Berzerker’s Pauldron – Killing three enemies in a second causes frenzy (duration increased by stacks); frenzy increases movement speed and attack speed.
• Fuel Cell – Gain an additional equipment charge; reduce equipment cooldown.
• Harvester’s Scythe – Gain increased crit chance; crits heal you.
• Hopoo Feather – Gain an additional jump.
• Old Guillotine – Instantly kill elite monsters below 20% health.
• Squid Polyp – Activating an interactable (ie. chests/drones/turrets) summons a Squid Turret; counts as a minion and is helpful for those looking to complete Engineer challenges.

Legendary Items (red) – Legendary items are extremely rare. Some can be found fairly late in your run, though you can get guaranteed drops from Bazaar of Time turn-ins, the Alloy Worship Unit (which is how you unlock Loader), and the Void Fields challenge (which is how you unlock Acrid). Here are some good ones:

• 57 Leaf Clover – Increases chances for a favorable outcome for random effects. This is essentially your “luck” and having more of these ensures successful procs of certain effects.
• Alien Head – Reduce skill cooldowns by 25% per stack.
• Frost Relic – Each kill surrounds you with an ice storm that deals damage over time (seen below).

• Dio’s Best Friend – Consumed on death so you can return to life with a short period of invulnerability.
• Hardlight Afterburner – Gain +2 charges of your utility/dash skill; reduces utility skill cooldown.
• Unstable Tesla Coil – Lightning arcs hit three or more enemies (increased based on stacks).
• Happiest Mask – Killed enemies have a chance to spawn their ghost; counts as a minion (seen below).

Boss items (yellow) – With the exception of Pearls and Irradiant Pearls exchanged in Cleansing Pools, these items are only obtained from specific bosses, and they aren’t guaranteed drops either. Here are the ones you should look out for:

• Genesis Loop (Wandering Vagrant) – Reaching low health causes you to explode for massive damage; more stacks lower the proc’s cooldown. This is quite decent for Acrid players trying to complete challenges due to skills that lead to a loss of HP.
• Halcyon Seed (Aurelionite) – Summon the boss Aurelionite during the teleporter event; additional stacks increase Aurelionite’s HP.
• Titanic Knurl (Stone Titan) – Increases maximum health and regen per stack.

Equipment and Elite Equipment (orange) – These are found randomly in Risk of Rain 2‘s maps via equipment boxes. They’ll take up the equipment slot and cannot be stacked, and they’re used when you press the “Q” button. Elite Equipment items, meanwhile, are sometimes dropped by elite mobs, and they have more passive effects. There are a few to watch out for:

• Fuel Array – Needed to unlock REX as a playable character.
• Milky Chrysalis – Provides you temporary flight (seen below); useful if you want to get to hard to reach areas, though there are obviously better choices for this slot.
• Preon Accumulator or Royal Capacitor – These two items are ridiculously powerful. The high-damage nuke is ideal for one-shotting bosses and elites.

Lunar Coins and the Bazaar Between Time

Lunar items and equipment are only obtained when you spend Lunar Coins. These are extremely rare drops in Risk of Rain 2, but there are a couple of guaranteed ways to obtain them:

• Completing a run/obliterating yourself via the obelisk in A Moment, Fractured (seen below) – +5 Lunar Coins
• Reaching A Moment, Whole, and defeating the Twisted Scavenger – +10 Lunar Coins

Unlike gold, Lunar Coins carry over with each successive playthrough, so you can always amass a lot of these until you want to use them down the line — such as when you enter the Bazaar of Time. We’ve already explained how to get to this Hidden Realm in our previous guide to unlock the Artificer, but the location does have a few more quirks.

Item exchange and dreams

You can exchange three common items to obtain the uncommon item that’s available. You can also exchange five uncommon items to obtain a legendary. Use this feature if you want to complete your collection or if you need a specific upgrade.

Similarly, you’ll be able to spend three Lunar Coins to “dream” of the next stage that you’ll spawn in once you use the blue portal to exit the Bazaar Between Time. This is helpful if you need to complete certain challenges.

Lunar buds

The pods have several Lunar items or equipment up for grabs, and they cost two Lunar coins each:

The Void Fields

If you jump down the chasm from where you enter the Bazaar Between Time, you’ll find yourself in a mineshaft that leads to the Null Portal:

This takes you to the Void Fields where you need to complete a challenge to unlock Acrid:

Lunar items and equipment

Lunar items and equipment can be a mixed bag because they come with both upsides and downsides. Take note that most Lunar items stack, but you can only have one Lunar equipment each time (and they also take up your equipment slot):

• Spinel Tonic (equipment/active slot) – Greatly increases damage, attack speed, armor, maximum health, and regen for 20 seconds; there’s a chance for your stats to get reduced once the tonic wears off. You can nullify this debuff if you have items that lower your equipment’s cooldown (Gesture of the Drowned/Fuel Cells/Soulbound Catalyst) since you can keep activating the item continuously.
• Beads of Fealty – Obliterating yourself via the obelisk in A Moment, Fractured will spawn you in a different location instead of ending your run. You’ll be in A Moment, Whole, and you can fight the Twisted Scavenger (seen below) to get 10 Lunar Coins.

• Gesture of the Drowned – Reduce equipment cooldown; forces equipment to activate whenever it’s off-cooldown. This is one of the best items in the game if you’ve got the Preon Accumulator or Royal Capacitor.
• Shaped Glass – Doubles base damage and halves maximum health. This turns you into a glass cannon, but it’s ideal for high-damage nukes.
• Transcendence – Convert all but 1 HP into regenerating shields; gain 50% max health. This is very useful due to the fast shield recharge rate.
• Strides of Heresy – Replaces your utility/dash skill with Shadowfade (seen below). Shadowfade has up to three stacks and it lets you become intangible, all while increasing movement speed and healing you.

Risk of Rain 2 is available as part of Steam’s early access program. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.