Brotato: Beginners/Achievement Guide - How To Win As Every Character (+D5…

Steam Community guide by AdamsIdeas (SquashMyMouse).

Contents

Read These Important Notes Before Starting!

Brotato is a complicated game. I am emphasizing here that this guide is more of an outline for how to beat the game with each character, not a strict solution. No guide can possibly give you a straight forward solution. You will need to adapt!
I am here to push you in the right direction if you need it, but I strongly recommend trying/developing your own strategies too. In Brotato, there is absolutely no straightforward strategy!
The strategies/items I give are based on runs from me and others, from videos and the Brotato Discord. The outlines are also intended to be easy to follow for beginners, although should all work for Danger 5 runs and completions too.
You could also think of winning with each character as a tutorial for how to win as other characters, as each one teaches you how to play a certain way/concoct a specific strategy to play around other characters' stats and abilities.
For example,
Engineer teaches you how to play better with turrets,
Speedy teaches you how to play around with the Speed stat,
Sick teaches you how to play around losing 1 HP per second (which teaches you how to play around the Blood Donation/Bloody Hand items and when it is a wise idea to get them.)
By winning with characters with bigger handicaps than others, you can learn how to exploit their strengths and weaknesses to implement them when playing other characters in a certain way.
As you can see, the game is set up so that the more you play and think about your own strategies, the more you'll learn. I suggest using this guide as an outline and still creating/changing the strategies a bit. However, there is more information if you're having trouble and I do explain enough to make it easier if you need it. Don't be shy, we all need help sometimes!
During the guide, I will cover:

• How to, and the easiest way to unlock each character
• Build type (Gun, Precise, Medieval, etc.)
• Which stats/weapons to focus on
• Tips for when you’re stuck
• Wave 10 builds for each character, to give you a sense of direction
• A successful build at Wave 20
  Remember that the screenshots and items I listed are guidelines/recommendations. Don't expect to get all the items I did (you'll get completely different items too). Buy any other item you can find that's in line with the recommended stats!
• Items to avoid or target
  This is pretty straight forward, however. I will not write down many items, only the most relevant ones. Buy other upgrades based on the build's Main Stats! For example, if we are aiming for HP Regen over Life Steal, I wouldn't say to avoid Bat, to avoid cluttering the guide. You'll learn what to buy based on what stats we are aiming for.
  Note: In many of the runs in this guide, I actually avoid many items that can make the guide an easy win to make it as easy as possible to follow. As you are obviously not guaranteed the same items that I am. But don't let this stop you from getting the items yourself!
• Difficulty of each character
  This is largely based on how consistent a character is; that is to say, how much RNG is involved in a successful run. Additionally, how complex a character’s mechanics are to understand is also factored in. This is a completely subjective rating, so don’t let it scare you off playing a character that seems interesting.
  Remember that this guide Is only a guide! Some things may work for you and some may not! We all play differently and there are SOO many ways to play Brotato! I am just highlighting what worked for me and the community, and I’m hoping it helps you too!
  If you need to find a certain character, check on the right side for the table of contents. You can also use CTRL+F to find exactly what you’re looking for.
  As said above, if anything is difficult to understand or you're having trouble at all, let me know. I will try to help and fix the guide so others won’t have the same problems!
  To make this guide easier to follow and understand, I also reset my save file. This is so that you can follow along easier since I will be using weapons/items you would only receive from some of the characters before.

Complete Beginner & General Tips

Complete Beginner Tips

Weapons

You will always want to get 6 your desired weapon ASAP (on most characters), simply ignoring items and going for weapons until you get all 6 is most desirable as it gives you bonuses and more damage!
Also do not forget that when you're upgrading weapons, you will still ALWAYS want to have 6 weapons! So don't upgrade weapons together until you have another weapon in the shop to put in its place after you've fused together the weapons!
When upgrading weapons, you typically want to upgrade the lowest tier weapons first. For example, if you have 2 tier 1's, 1 tier 2 and 3 tier 3's, you will want to start with upgrading the 2 tier 1's to make a tier 2 rather than making a tier 4 with 2 tier 3's, then buy another weapon to put in its place from the shop! You'll get a hang of this the more you play!
One last thing about weapons you should know about it that they all have a class (or 2), meaning that you get a stat bonus for using more than 1 weapon from the same class, this is to incentivize using more of the same weapon/weapon class!

Don't Sleep On Luck, Harvesting and Armour

Every single character can benefit from early Luck (around 20-50+) This is because luck has a multitude of helpful traits. It increases the rarity of Items in the shop and Stats in the Level Up, as well as increases the amount of consumables dropped from enemies, and crates from trees! In general, it's usually a smart idea to get some amount of Luck on most characters, although it's never 100% necessary to win. Due to this, I won’t put Luck in the recommended stats section most of the time, since it’s universally applicable.
However, Harvesting is better on some characters than others, and will be mentioned when appropriate. Harvesting is also stronger the earlier you get it, and for most characters you may want to get Harvesting as your first level up choice to get an immediate increase in your economy!
Although don't waste materials on rerolls to get it, but i do suggest taking it if you get the option.
When it comes to Armour, its basically another way to increase your effective Max HP and i explain how it works a bit lower in this section.

You Will Improve With Time

This isn't much a game tip as a guide tip:
Remember, over time of playing the game and/or following this guide, you will learn about what Items will work with certain builds, based on what Stats we are looking for and avoiding. I will mainly outline in this whole guide the MAIN items that you want to look out for and get for each character, just because i dont list it, doesn’t mean you should avoid it!

ArosRising's Gameplay Guide

If you are completely lost in how the game works, or you need small things need to be explained, then please head over to ArosRising's Gameplay Guide[docs.google.com] (Separate To His Character Guide) as this explains everything needed for complete beginners and more! You will want to head over to the Game Information tab, and everything that I don't explain here, will be there. This can give you a great grip on the game, mechanics, settings and more! It also goes into great detail on Items, Materials, the Shop. It's all there in one place!

General Tips

Items To Consider

This list applies universally to any character - although as noted above, you should still take into account the factors of your run before picking up any given item.

Items to always consider

• **Cape ** - Cape gives you 20% Dodge AND 5% Lifesteal, with a very minor damage penalty.
• **Lemonade ** - Grants 1 more HP per consumable. With the introduction of Gardens, these have become even better.
• **Potato ** - Gives you a small increase in most of your stats.
• **Tree ** - More trees are ALWAYS helpful; they give materials, healing, and sometimes crates.
• Bag - Crates are already amazing, so getting 15 free materials when picking them up is a no-brainer.
• Coffee - Attack speed is almost always a net positive (even with Engineering builds, with the right item), so having it come with a very small damage decrease is quite beneficial for practically any character.
• Fish Hook - Check DLC Tips section for explanation

Items to consider before waves 17/18

• Coupon - Pretty much always a net positive in no time at all.
• Grind's Magical Leaf - Gives you free stats for no downside.
• Dangerous Bunny - Free rerolls will pay for themselves very fast.
• Anvil - Level up your weapons without any downside.
• **Crown ** - Unless you're skipping Harvesting, this gives too much of a bonus to pass up. As a rule of thumb, don’t pick this up after wave 15, and pick it up when your harvesting is 10x the wave number you’re on (e.g. at Wave 11, you should have 110 Harvesting).

Healing: HP Regeneration, Or Life Steal?

When it comes to HP Regeneration or Life Steal, it comes down to your play-style and what build and character you're using!
Usually when I am playing any type of fast attack speed or weapon or something with a good amount of Ricochet or Pierce, I recommend opting for Life Steal. Life Steal activates when you hit an enemy, so attacking more quickly or hitting more targets directly increases effectiveness. For most other scenarios, HP Regeneration is generally preferable and is very strong when utilized correctly!

Other Forms of Healing

For certain characters you will not be able to heal nearly as much from HP Regeneration or Life Steal. In these cases, I recommend healing from consumables more than anything else.

• Trees - These always drop consumables, plus materials.
• Lemonade - +1 HP from consumables.
• Weird Food - +2 HP from consumables.
• Cute Monkey - +8% chance to heal 1 HP when picking up a material (stacks linearly).Getting these can be very helpful for characters such as Chunky, who heal primarily with consumables.

A Note on the Range Stat

I suggest leaving the Range stat out of your builds almost all the time. It tends to be relatively easy to get additional range, and most ranged builds will have enough range to work with. This obviously does not apply when your character or weapon scales with Range, such as the Ranger or Crossbow.

Armour and How It Works

Armour is quite a misleading stat in Brotato on the surface. Basically, Armour scales linearly, so every point of Armour will scale just as much as the last point of Armour, even if it seems the tooltip says otherwise.
The reason it seems to scale less is because reduced damage is exponentially scaling. So going from 0% damage reduction to 1% damage reduction is a lot smaller/less significant than going from 98% damage reduction to 99% damage reduction (this essentially means you take 50% less damage).
The formula that the game uses to figure out effective HP is (1+Armour/15)*HP = effective HP.
So if you have 10 HP and 0 Armour, your effective HP is 10.
With 10 HP and 15 Armour, your effective HP is 20.
With 10 HP and 30 Armour, your effective HP is 30.
With 10 HP and 45 Armour, your effective HP is 40.
(etc)

How Range Works With Melee Weapons

Melee weapons have an interesting interaction with Range. The lower your Range, the higher your effective Attack Speed. This is because melee weapons have a travel time in Brotato, so by not attacking as far, their cooldown is refreshed faster.

The Speed Stat

Speed is quite an important stat, especially in Danger 5 for most characters. For this reason, i will not be putting Speed as a main stat in most cases, as it should be universally used! Getting above 10/15% Speed is a good amount to aim for, and will make your life when dodging enemies, and more importantly, Elites!

Brotato's Shop System & How It Works

The First Few Buy Phases

The first 2 Waves guarantee 2 weapons in the shop each reroll, so use rerolling regularly (especially as the first rerolls in the first few waves are very cheap) to get the weapons you want/need! Waves 3-5 guarantee 1 weapon, but after that, weapons are no longer guaranteed on each reroll.

Locking

If you see an item that you'd like to take or see a weapon that you can't afford, locking the item will keep it in your shop, no matter if you go into the next wave or re-roll and will keep its price from when you locked it!

Spend or Save

Unless you're playing a specific character (such as Saver or Streamer, or a character that requires you to buy certain items ASAP), or have a Piggy Bank/Padding (anything that scales with materials), use your materials! There is no need to save them! The more prepared you are for the wave the better!
But even though you should spend your materials, don't waste them on bad items that won't help you. Don’t spend too much on rerolling each Wave either, as the price increases each time you use it. The base price increases with each Wave, but each new Wave starts off with this base price.

Character and Weapon 'Tags'

Most items in the game have 'item tags' assigned to them (such as Bat -> Life Steal, or Black Belt -> XP Gain), and most characters have item tags assigned to them too (Chunky -> Max HP etc.). So if the character is connected to an item tag, all the items corresponding to the tags will be more likely to be seen in shops when using those characters. Items that match a character's tags are 5% more likely to appear in shops.
For example, the character "Mutant" is tagged with "XP Gain", meaning it is more likely to see items that are also tagged with "XP Gain", such as Black Belt and Scar!
This may seem overwhelming and confusing, but this whole thing simply shows what Stats/Abilities are aimed more towards a character!
For a full list of item tags and their associated characters (and a better explanation), please see the section on the official Brotato Wiki[brotato.wiki.spellsandguns.com] which shows the item tags that are linked to each character!

Which Character Should I Play First?

What Characters Should You Play First?
As you know, there are a lot of characters in Brotato, and you can play any of them in any order you'd like (as long as you unlock them first).
If you're not sure what characters to play, then the list below has good suggestions on to which characters that you should complete first. The items and weapons these characters unlock are very useful on main builds.
(These have been ordered considering both the helpfulness of the weapon/item, and the difficulty in completing the character.)

• Well Rounded - Potato
• Sick - Whetstone
• Speedy - Fin
• Arms Dealer - Anvil
• Masochist - Spiky Shield
• Soldier - Nuclear Launcher
• Lich - Tentacle
• Streamer - Community Support
• Cyborg - Improved Tools
• Engineer - Robot Arm
• Golem - Stone Skin
• Renegade - Fairy
  Let me know if you believe that this should be changed in any way or if a character should be added!

Elites and How To Deal With Them (1)

This section of the guide will focus on:

• Each Elite
• Their stats and how they scale per wave
• Their move sets/attacks
• How to deal with themA lot of the information here about the enemies is taken from the Wiki[brotato.wiki.spellsandguns.com], be sure to look there if you're curious!
  
  ㅤㅤRhino

Stats

Health = 1 + (+ 750 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Speed = 250
Damage = 1 + (+ 1.5 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Projectile Damage = 1 + (+ 1.15 per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Behaviour = Charges The Player

Base Elite (100%HP)

'Charges to the player every 2 seconds, shooting projectiles to its left and right during the charge'

Mutation 1 (60%HP/25 sec):

'Charges to the player every 1.33 seconds for shorter distance, shooting projectiles to its left and right during the charge, at the start of its charge fires extra 2 projectiles'
Melee/Ranged -
Both Mutations are quite similar, although Mutation 1 can give you more trouble. Rhino is constantly chasing you down in both phases but is not too difficult to dodge, although becomes scarier when having to deal with a bunch of enemies at once. Focus on it and its dash and you shouldn't have too many problems. Speed can be helpful here to run and avoid the dash.

ㅤㅤButcher

Stats

Health = 1 + (+ 750 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Speed = 200
Damage = 1 + (+ 1.5 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Projectile Damage = 1 + (+ 1.15 per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Mutation 2 Projectile Damage = 1 + (+ 0.75 per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Behaviour = Chases The Player

Base Elite (100%HP)

'Creates 4 slashes every 1.33 seconds around the player pointing to the player'

Mutation 1 (70%HP/20 sec):

'Creates 8 slashes every second in a random pattern around the player in a large area'

Mutation 2 (40%HP/40 sec):

'Creates 3 slashes every 0.75 seconds around the player randomly in a large area that deals 33% less damage'
Melee/Ranged -
The main course of action with dealing with Butcher is learning the patterns for their slashes and dodging them. If you're still learning the attacks, keep distance between you and Butcher, and focus on the slashes. After facing Butcher a few times, you'll get used to the slashes and they'll be easy to dodge. Once you can dodge them comfortably, the Butcher becomes super easy, as it slowly chases you around the battlefield.

ㅤㅤMonk

Stats

Health = 1 + (+ 700 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Speed = 350
Damage = 1 + (+ 1.5 Per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Projectile Damage = 1 + (+ 1.15 per Wave) (+40% for Danger 5)
Behaviour = Wanders Around

Base Elite (100%HP)

'Spawns 15 Slasher Eggs (3 every 1.5 seconds)'
Melee/Ranged -
Most of the time you'll want to focus on destroying the eggs, after 10 seconds Monk will stop spawning them and you can focus the Monk itself.

Mutation 1 (75%HP/10 sec):

'The Monk stops spawning eggs, but starts firing 6 projectiles in a spray towards the player every 1.5 seconds'

Mutation 2 (50%HP/30 sec):

'The Monk begins to Spawn 2 Tentacles every 2.4 seconds'

Mutation 3 (30%HP/40 sec):

'The Monk spawns a ring of 10 Projectiles around the player'
Melee builds may have more trouble here than Ranged builds, as it gets difficult to chase down the monk in some cases.
Melee/Ranged -
Your main course of action for the base Monk, is to focus on destroying the eggs.
In Mutation 1, focus on the monk while dodging the projectiles (you can usually fit in-between gaps in the spray of projectiles, the further away you are the easier it is to do so). You can also employ the strategy of running around The Monk to keep dishing out damage and avoiding the attacks.
In Mutation 2, its up to you whether you leave the Monk and focus on killing the tentacles it spawns. But if you have enough damage, getting Monk to phase 3 ASAP will make your life easier.
In Mutation 3, you'll need to learn and adapt to the pattern of the ring of projectiles, but ones you do, rushing Monk and dealing as much damage as possible isn't too difficult.

ㅤㅤCroc
Croc is probably the Hardest Elite in the game so far (and probably the scariest) thanks to its fast speed and hard to dodge dash. This is especially true for Melee Builds as its hard to dodge them and also deal with enemies at the same time.

Stats

Health = 1 + (+ 750 Per Wave)
Speed = 350
Damage = 1 + (+ 1.5 Per Wave)
Projectile Damage = 1