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Salvo Knife Build

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2024-10-18 10:15:38
Salvo Knife Build

Introduction

Salvo knives can be tricky to get the hang of , unlike other weapons they require a specific playstyle and things you have learned while using other weapons might not be useful at all when trying salvo knives.

First off the basics , Salvo knives target enemies as you move , the faster you move the faster they target enemies , when you fire your weapon knives will be thrown out at each enemy that is being targeted. Fire rate and reload speed do not effect Salvo knives noticeably , movement speed is the main stat.

Also one of the Weapon evolutions , Wind Knife , increases your damage based on your increased movement speed , usually tripling your damage making movement speed even more important.

But without knowing this you might waste levels on Fire rate or Reload because your knives feel "slow" at the start , not realizing Fire rate and Reload do not effect Salvo knives and that instead you should be increasing movement speed to make them target enemies faster.

In this guide I will show you a Darkness 15 build that is easy to win with so if all you want to do is get the achievement check the TLDR section below.

If you want more details on how it works or why a certain upgrade or rune is recommended check the build details section.

TLDR The Build


Salvo Knife Build image 8

Alright let's cut to the chase , you need to beat darkness 15 with salvo knives , how do you do it ?

First take these runes

If you want to know why these runes are important check the build details section below.

Also keep in mind as soon as you get the chance evolve your Salvo Knives into Wind Knives , they will give you 30% movement speed and most importantly they now increase their damage based on your total movement speed which will be very high at that point. (usually tripling your damage)

Upgrade Priority List

Aero Magic , Eye of the storm (Very useful early on) , Windborne , Aero Mastery

Evasive , Nimble , Reflex , (tiny is low priority)

Haste , (Blazing Speed and In the Wind can be gotten later)

Power shot , Splinter , Double shot , (the rest can wait till later also ignore Rapid Fire and summon abilities completely Fire rate doesn't work with knives so these are not useful upgrades)

Frost Mage , Frostbite , Shatter (Ignore Ice Shards)

Soul Shield makes for easy life recovery along with your high dodge chance

Start getting the later upgrades you skipped before like Fusillade , Big Shot , Reaper Rounds , Blazing speed , In the Wind , any frost skills you missed or useful ones like Take aim to get Penetration for the +1 pierce or Light bullets to unlock the Death Rounds synergy.

Check the tips if you still have problems.

Movement Speed Is Overpowered

So Movement speed increases how fast your knives attack and after evolving your weapon , it increases how much damage you do but that's not all.

Movement speed also effects Dodge chance when you take the final dodge upgrade "Reflex" , which means by focusing on movement speed you get Damage , Attack speed , Dodge chance and of course movement speed itself which is very useful for avoiding enemies.

With the right runes your dodge chance will be as high as 75% making you very tanky.

There is also no cooldown on dodging , any time you would have taken HP damage you instead have a chance to dodge , consecutive dodges have a slight penalty but at 75% dodge chance you can go the entire run without taking any damage , combine this with a way to regen health or gain soul hearts and you become extremely hard to kill.

Movement speed also effects the damage of the Aero upgrade tree , this will be useful early on for killing enemies , it also increases the damage of Magic scythe if you take the "Windcutter" upgrade , and how often you Burn enemies with Blazing Speed Haste tree upgrade, these are not as useful but worth keeping in mind.

The best part about movement speed is that most of the previously mentioned upgrades GIVE you more movement speed while simultaneously increasing your damage or dodge based on movement speed , so it builds up very quickly and efficiently.

The Build In Detail

So why do we take these runes specifically ? Well because of how knives work a lot of runes are worthless for them, anything with Fire Rate or Reload speed specifically.

For each rune I've explained below why I think they are the best choice or in some cases why they are optional.

For Sword runes Mysticism gives you burn and freeze chance , mostly useful for the freeze,

Close Combat is the only useful rune here, Elemental barrage effects reload and fire rate but those two stats don't matter at all to Salvo Knives because Movement speed is what effects both instead and the Aftershock Rune won't trigger half of the time because you will throw 11 out of 12 knives and then instantly reload with no chance to use all your ammo.

Wild Magic is great , 25% chance to spread freeze to nearby enemies is a life saver.

Cadence is good and Ethereal bullets is pretty bad because even if your ammo doesn't run out you still need to "lock on" to throw so it ends up being less useful. Just remember Cadence works every 3rd time you pull the trigger , so make sure you are throwing it with lots of targets.

On the Shield side of Runes we Take Courage because with Salvo Knives you will be reloading very quickly and being able to push enemies back will save you from taking damage.

Agility gives dodge chance , you might be able to hit the cap without taking this rune , taking momentum is also viable but having the guaranteed +10% dodge early on is useful.

Premonition is a must have raising the dodge cap to 75%

Wind Shield prevents enemy projectiles from ruining your day , nice to have , the other 2 runes are also fine , choose whichever you prefer.

Character and Upgrade priority explained

For this build we pick Shana , being able to reroll is very useful and tripling a useful skill (evade , frost mage, double shot etc) is easy with this build. Hina , Luna and Yuki are also viable but you need more luck to get the right upgrades without rerolls.

When you play Salvo knives you need to move to target enemies and then press fire to throw knives at all enemies on screen , the easiest method is to just move in a small circle, this prevents you from bumping into enemies when you become surrounded , just remember to always keep moving.

Your First Priority is to get Aero magic and the other 3 upgrades that come after it , get Evasive Tree , Nimble , and most importantly Reflex , Tiny can be ignored until later.

Second priority is the Haste tree since movement speed improves everything else. Get at least Haste if you see it, get the other upgrades when they show up.

You Also want to get Power shot and Splinter and Double shot. These will make your knives much better at clearing groups.

(Later on once you have all your priority upgrades you can go for things like Split Fire , Fusillade , Big Shot and Reaper Rounds but Fan Fire is not important and can be skipped.)

Third priority would be Frost Mage tree , it helps if you can get this before the First Arena boss (in Forest and Pumpkin patch this would be the Tiger/Deer looking boss who charges at you)

Being able to freeze enemies will be very useful later on when you are being swarmed and if you can get Frost Bite and Shatter it's even better (you can ignore Ice Shard)

After this point you can start taking upgrades to increase your damage , like Big Shot , Reaper Rounds , Split Fire , Fusillade or get more movement speed , dodge chance or take Soul Shield to give yourself some life recovery.

Tips And Tricks

    Salvo Knives only target enemies while you are moving but sometimes you are surrounded or facing a boss that forces you into a small area , in these situations remember to move in small circles to make sure you are constantly moving.

    Like while facing Shoggoth (Big eyeball laser guy) you are forced to slowly move in a circle around him to avoid the lasers , but don't just move a step and stand still , move in circles while moving , this has the extra benefit of making you harder for enemies to hit with projectiles.

    Frost is extremely powerful , if you are struggling try taking frost earlier if you are bad at avoiding enemies , you might do less damage but being able to freeze enemies can keep you safe , and if you get the Frostbite and Shatter upgrades you will start doing decent damage with Frost even if you haven't upgraded your Salvo Knives yet.

    Try to let your Salvo build up before firing it, don't spam it as fast as you can pull the trugger, once you get pierce it is more efficient to fire lots of knives all at once to get multiple hits on enemies.

    Similarly to the previous tip if you are fighting a boss try to position a big group of enemies on the opposite side of the boss, when your Knives try to target the big group of enemies they will first hit the boss doing a lot of damage.

    Synergies are not very useful for Salvo Knives , either you need to waste too many levels to unlock them in skills you don't take or they increase Fire rate or Reload which doesn't work with Salvo knives best to ignore them until you have all your other skills , at which point Death Rounds (reaper rounds + Light bullets) can be useful for only 2 levels spent

    On the other hand because Fire rate doesn't effect knives you should take Tomes of power any chance you get , extra bullet damage and pierce are very useful and the reduced Fire Rate will not effect Salvo Knives. The other tomes are not very good , Tome of wind for 50% move speed is ok but not as good as Tome of power, your dodge should already be capped without Tomes of Wind so you only benefit from 50% damage increase but you don't get the pierce so Tomes of power are better over all. Only take wind if power isn't available , otherwise skip the other tomes.

     Sexterminator has a useful tip in the comments for people who prefer abby (or just really hate how Salvo knives work), Personally I like the aimed shots of salvo knives but if you don't like that playstyle you can totally change it , with abby's special move the knives act the same way most normal weapons do and fire randomly , you should play it the same way you would play abby with guns , with this mode you wouldn't want to focus on movement speed because the knives are only being used for abby's special ability so treat them like a normal weapon and be more careful because you won't have the high dodge rate.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196053093

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