Before you read, know that I am totally down to hear your opinions on some of the stuff in here, but if you start an argument just for the hell of it or are just rude, I'll delete your comment and no longer interact with you at all, and you'll have to sleep at night knowing that you're a complete loser. ffs think before you type.

hi! you might know me from my other guide "How to not be awful to your teammates", in which I explain how to not be an a**hole in ROR2 multiplayer.
this guide is similar; an extremely unprofessional guide on how to build characters in caveman terms, because I am unprofessional caveman.

i won't go into too much detail because i both don't have the energy for that, and also don't know details - it'll be a quick yes/no list of items for each character that i've played.
(this means that heretic won't be included simply because i've never played her before! apologies in advance.)

fair warning that none of this is based off other guides, it's all just my opinion and based off what worked well for me. if you have items to add or opinions, do tell! i'd be happy to add or change info.

edit: PLEASE look into the comments, there's a few people down there giving their own tips and they're really nice to read!! thank you to everyone contributing their thoughts.
edit 2: FINALLY UPDATED TO INCLUDE RAILGUNNER SORRY IT LITERALLY TOOK ME LIKE 3 YEARS LMAO

ok now as i said, i won't be covering every item in the game - i'll only be writing down GOOD items and items you want to AVOID. Good items are chosen by how helpful they are, and bad items are chosen by how unhelpful they are.
(This means that bad items don't give you negative effects - they just aren't very helpful.)
if it's not listed down, that means its just kinda ok overall... or i forgot to add it lmao


Since Commando has a high rate of fire, the ability to stun, AND pretty valid mobility, he can use most items fluidly!

• Soldier's Syringe: Like, 15 of these and Commando turns into a turret.
  
• Sticky Bomb: Extra damage go brrrrrrrrrrr
  
• Stun Grenade: He already stuns with his skill, but who's to say stunning with his normal attacks isn't allowed?
  
• Tri-Tip Dagger: Bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed!
  
• AtG Missile Mk. 1: Missiles good, damage good
  
• Leeching Seed: Every hit he heals, and he hits fast, which means fast healing, which means those enemies are f*cked.
  
• Harvester's Scythe: Same as leeching seeds, but only good if you have crit rate.
  
• Predatory Instincts: Only works if you have crit rate, but more attack speed is always good.
  
• Ukulele: Commando doesn't have the best AoE, so the Uke helps.
  
• Charged Perforator: mmmmmmm lightning
  
• Molten Perforator: mmmmmmm magma
  
• Shatterspleen: Bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed, EXPLODE!
  
• Shattering Justice: Yo, f*ck that armor
  
• Brilliant Behemoth: Do you want exploding bullets? Yes, yes you do.

• Kjaro/Runald's Band: As pointed out by Gondal below, Commando is more of a DoT DPS rather than a burst DPS, meaning it's almost impossible to proc these unless you have the Frag Grenade ability, which is... pretty bad.
  
• Purity: Lowering cooldowns is nice, but Commando shines at being able to proc lots and lots of on-hit effect items, and Purity cuts that dps in half. Not great.

bayu bayushki bayu lol

She has a good damage output, but she also has like, negative defense, so that needs to be helped with items.

• Infusion: This b*tch needs some HEALTH
  
• Tougher Times: Please she's so squishy she needs protection
  
• Rose Buckler: She sprints a lot, so... sprint armor good!
  
• Energy Drink: She sprints a lot, so... sprint speed good!
  
• Little Disciple: She sprints a lot, so... sprint wisps good!
  
• Lens-Maker's Glasses: If you're using Huntress' Flurry attack, oh. oh man. the damage. its so sick.
  
• Predatory Instincts: My favorite Huntress build is the attack speed one dude
  
• Soldier's Syringe: LONG LIVE THE ATTACK SPEED BUILD
  
• Genesis Loop: You're gonna be at low HP a lot.
  
• Old War Stealthkit: Useful when paired with the Genesis Loop!
  
• Titanic Knurl: please sir, may i have some more health?
  
• Backup Magazine: Get like 6 of these going and pretty much every teleporter enemy near the boss is just- dead.

• Focus Crystal: It's not completely worthless, but Huntress has a bow for a reason.
  
• Bustling Fungus: Bro, you stand still as Huntress and you die

it's high noon

Bandit is... a very strange character. He doesn't have the highest attack speed, he has to reload, his skills are hard to use, and he doesn't have very high max HP.
a very complex boy

• Soldier's Syringe Increases Bandit's attack speed increases his reload speed, which is SO nice.
  
• Rose Buckler: When you're running away with Smoke Bomb, it works surprisingly well to keep you from getting owned.
  
• Ukulele: Bandit has absolutely 0 AoE, so you're gonna need to fix that.
  
• Gasoline: More AoE help
  
• Will-o'-the-wisp: Even more AoE help (seriously, he needs it.)
  
• Warbanner: The movement and attack speed increase can literally be the difference between life and ragdolling into the void.
  
• Lens-Maker's Glasses: Hemorrhage hemorrhage hemorrhage
  
• Backup Magazine: Hemorrhage hemorrhage hemorrhage
  
• Focus Crystal: Close range fighter gets close range damage boost
  
• Crowbar: Let's go boys, get those Lights Out kills
  
• Infusion: More health please
  
• Red Whip: Useful for running away all speedy-like.
  
• Cautious Slug: Also useful for running away with Smoke Bomb!
  
• Medkit: Can work surprisingly well if you use Smoke Bomb properly.
  
• Brilliant Behemoth: You think I forgot about the AoE help? Perish.
  
• Hardlight Afterburner: Dude his Smoke Bomb is like his best skill
  
• Harvester's Scythe: These are only good if you're using his Burst/Shotgun ability - with the Blast it's kinda garbo.

• Leeching Seed: Low attack speed = bad sad boy healing
  
• Most on-kill items: Bandit doesn't really kill that often, he more often does big bursts of damage, which makes on-kill effects not as useful.

the man, the myth, the bungi

Engineer is mostly useful through use of his turrets, while he, himself, isn't the most helpful boy. (i imagine he probably has insecurity issues lmao)

• Bustling Fungus: You all knew it was coming.
  
• Soldier's Syringe: Turrets go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  
• Tougher Times: The turrets can't actually dodge, so this REALLY helps survivability.
  
• Razorwire: Again, turrets can't dodge, so this is just like a permanent "no u" to the enemies.
  
• Energy Drink/Paul's Goat Hoof: Engineer has the slowest f*cking legs, he needs to do some cardio
  
• Most/All on-hit effect items: The turrets actually fire pretty fast, plus there's two of them. And Engineer. That's like, x3 the chance of getting something to proc. Legendary.
  
• Aegis: Healing build go brrrrr
  
• N'kuhana's Opinion: Healing build go BRRRRRRRRR
  
• Rejuvenation Rack: HEALING BUILD GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  
• Hardlight Afterburner: If you have the Bubble Shield... those enemies are F*CKED.

• Backup Magazine: His secondary skill iiiiisn't the most useful thing, so this item really doesn't help much.
  
• Cautious Slug: Okay on him, but bad for his turrets.
  
• Crowbar: He doesn't deal big bursts of damage, Engie is good for DoT.
  
• Fuel Cell: Okay okay okay you CAN use fuel cells, but his turrets don't get equipment, so it's only useful for Engineer himself.
  
• Infusion: Every time you put your turrets back down, they'll have to rekill enemies to regain their health :(

"Loader", sorry I thought you meant thomas the tank engine

Loader can utilize punching enemies to both do damage and give herself shields to stay in the battle! (I once survived a monsoon wandering vagrant explosion by hitting it a lot lmao)

• Crowbar: One Punch Loader
  
• Energy Drink: Faster sprinting means harder punches!
  
• Soldier's Syringe: Faster punches means faster shield generation!
  
• Focus Crystal: mmmm melee
  
• Fuel Cell: Lots of Loader's damage or mob utility comes from her equipment, so the more, the merrier
  
• Infusion: Tank Loader Tank Loader Tank Loader
  
• Wax Quail: Makes Loader even jumpier than she already is
  
• Ukulele: Helpful for dealing with those pesky wisps
  
• Resonance Disk: Loader kill enemies incredibly fast with her fists and skills, making the disk charge super quickly

• Red Whip: The whip only activates when you refrain from using any skills, and Loader requires you to use her skills to zoom around, meaning it becomes basically useless.
  
• Hopoo Feather: It's useful for mobility, but seeing as Loader doesn't take fall damage and she can just fly with her grappling hook, it's not a priority item.

good old bomberman (1993)

While Artificer has HELLA dps capabilities, she has no mobility and no health and dies so fast all the time - so you either need to dodge like a hare or just build her like a tank.

• Backup Magazine: It literally just gives the bomb lady more bombs.
  
• Crowbar: She already one-shots enemies, but you know... just to make sure.
  
• Paul's Goat Hoof: Speedy bomberman
  
• Stun Grenade: Many of Artificer's abilities require her to aim ahead of time, which can be hard to do, so being able to stun-lock enemies with a few dozen of these babies is probably the greatest thing she can do.
  
• Topaz Brooch: Helps with survivability due to Artificer's ability to just, bomb everything into obliteration.
  
• Infusion: Tank Artificer Tank Artificer Tank Artificer
  
• Kjaro's Band/Runald's Band: She commonly deals over 400% damage, so these will be activating nearly off-cooldown.
  
• Wax Quail: Movement items movement items movement items
  
• Alien Head: Lowering her cooldowns will also lower the cooldown on her basic attack!
  
• Resonance Disc/Ceremonial Dagger: She kills enemies real fast so this means she activates the death disk and death daggers real fast.
  
• Wake of Vultures: Again, she kills enemies fast, so.... elite powers go BRRRRRR
  
• Genesis Loop: Look, she's got low HP and is slow as sh*t. It's a nice backup.
  
• Purity: This one's a little more iffy - if you want on-hit effect items don't go for it, but otherwise, Purity Artificer is BUSTED.

• Soldier's Syringe: Artificer has limited bullets for her base attack, and having higher attack speed doesn't make her recharge her ammo any faster, so it's basically useless.
  
• Hopoo Feather: ONLY BAD if you're using Ion Surge. With Flamethrower, it's good.
  
• H3AD-5T v2: She can fly (sure you can use it for dps, but she... really doesnt need more dps.)
  
• Old Guillotine: Using her Snapfreeze and Nano-Spear abilities freezes enemies, and frozen enemies will immediately die when you get them below a certain threshold of health. I.E. she can already execute enemies without the guillotine, so it's not a priority.

basically robo genji

Due to Mercenary's ability to make himself invisible, he can dodge many killer attacks (such as Wandering Vagrant explosions), as well as being able to fly if you time his skills correctly.

• Soldier's Syringe: Swing that katana like it's literally just wind bro
  
• Focus Crystal: the melee class LIVES
  
• Gasoline: Good for AoE
  
• Medkit: Pairs well with Eviscerate, Mercenary's invincibility skill! (The invincibility lasts JUST long enough to activate the medkit - convenient for a quick heal!)
  
• Most on-hit items: Mercenary actually has a pretty high proc rate (1.0), meaning on-hit effects should happen often enough to be useful
  
• Infusion: He doesn't have that much health to start with, and being a melee, he's probably gonna need more
  
• Sentient Meat Hook: bro................ its roadhog.........

• Red Whip: I mean, you CAN use it? But Mercenary has two abilities that let him dash long distances, and using them deactivates the whip, so it's kinda the same problem with Loader.
  
• Hopoo Feather: He starts with a double jump lmao

pixar's WALL-E

High health and high armor make for a tanky little robot, but MUL-T is unique in that it can hold two different primary attacks and equipment, as well as being able to swap between 4 different primary attacks!

• Armor-Piercing Rounds: MUL-T doesn't have the best DPS output (at least at the start of the run), so these help a lot early on.
  
• Rose Buckler: MUL-T's transport mode counts as sprinting, so you can use that to make its transport mode even tankier
  
• Fuel Cell: You can hold 2 equipment as MUL-T, so having fuel cells just doubles what you already doubled - a REAL double value!
  
• War Horn: Double the equipment means double the use of war horn baby lesgooo
  
• Soldier's Syringe: These don't do much if you have the Nailgun or Power saw, but it really helps the Rebar Puncher and Scrap Cannon
  
• Crowbar: Only good if you have the Rebar Puncher!
  
• Focus Crystal: Only really good if you have the Power Saw!
  
• Most on-hit effect items: Only good if you have the Nailgun or Power Saw!
  
• Titanic Knurl: MUL-T already has hella hp and armor, but let's be real... you can never be tanky enough.

• Crowbar: Bad if you don't have the Rebar Puncher
  
• Focus Crystal: Bad if you don't have the Power Saw
  
• Most on-hit effect items: Bad if you don't have the Nailgun or Power Saw
  
• Wax Quail: I once had to close ROR2 because i couldn't obliterate at the monolith to end my run, because I was too fast with the wax quails and couldn't physically complete the parkour to get to the monolith. it was horrible.

pixar's WALL-E (plant version)

REX is a combined entity of a robot and a plant, able to chunk their own health to deal damage, all while healing themselves. A pretty stressful character due to being in a constant state of taking damage.

• Backup Magazine: Useful if you have DIRECTIVE: Drill, otherwise? Not the best.
  
• Infusion/Bison Steak: The more HP REX has, the better
  
• Soldier's Syringe: Faster attack speed means faster healing, baby
  
• Paul's Goat Hoof/Energy Drink: REX is slow as sh*t
  
• Tougher Times: This can actually block REX from hurting themselves, but won't inhibit the skill you use - free damage, basically
  
• Old War Stealthkit: REX is at low HP a lot, so hey - time to be a ninja
  
• Razorwire: This will actually activate when you hurt yourself with REX's skills, which means, again - free damage!
  
• Wax Quail: More movement items are always good
  
• Rejuvenation Rack: It was made for REX
  
• N'kuhana's Opinion: The healing build LIVES
  
• Genesis Loop: REX can force themselves to low hp in order to activate this item, turning you INTO the Wandering Vagrant itself
  
• Mired Urn: Not so good if you have friends, but it's KINDA dope
  
• Titanic Knurl: More hp? More regen? why thank you

• Transcendence: It turns health into shields, and you cant recover shields with healing, making REX's abilities virtually useless.
  
• Wake of Vultures: There's a certain elite whose health is entirely made of shields, and stealing its ability with this item can create the same problem the Transcendence has.
  
• Brittle Crown: Self-damaging yourself with REX's skills causes you to lose lots of money because this game is pain
  
• Shaped Glass: You'll literally just one-shot yourself with this lmao
  
• Cautious Slug: Damaging yourself counts as being in combat, meaning the slug will hardly ever activate.
  
• Medkit: It won't ever activate in battle because you're constantly hitting yourself
  
• ok well my best friend told me its good so maybe its good but i havent tested it im just trusting her here LMAO

a dog

Acrid is a melee fighter who can use poison to slowly deplete enemy HP, while its teeth and claws and regenerate its own lost health.

• Ukulele: Combo this with...
  
• Gasoline: and that with...
  
• Will-o'-the-wisp: this, and set it all off with Epidemic, and you've got yourself a crowd killer
  
• Soldier's Syringe: Acrid heals with its own basic attack, making faster attack speed very useful
  
• Focus Crystal: melee melee melee melee
  
• Energy Drink: Acrid's slow asf
  
• Tri-Tip Dagger: Combining this with poison will allow you to kill enemies without ever having to touch them. Just spit in their general direction and watch their health disintegrate!
  
• Hopoo Feather: Jumping dog
  
• Infusion: As a melee fighter, Acrid kinda needs to have hp, or it'll just like.. die.
  
• Old Guillotine: This allows poison to automatically kill elites, which is nice
  
• Wax Quail: weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
  
• Brainstalks: You get to jump around sporadically and leave poison puddles everywhere its GREAT
  
• Sentient Meat Hook: Melee melee melee melee
  
• Titanic Knurl: More hp regen please

• N'kuhana's Opinion: Acrid's health regen doesn't count as healing for the Soul Energy cap needed for the N'kuhana's Opinion to function, which sucks
  
• Aegis: Same problem with the N'kuhana lol

"look at me, i am the captain now"
"CAPTAIN, LOOK"
"thats gotta be the best pirate i've ever seen." "so it would seem"
im NEVER GOING TO STOP

Captain is a unique survivor, able to control the battlefield by shotgunning enemies in the face, blasting enemies with a f*cking laser from space, and also killing himself with his bigger d*cked laser that deals like 90x the damage.

• Armor-Piercing Rounds/Crowbar: Captain can use his orbital supply beacons to one-shot the boss in a single tick, given he has enough DPS
  
• Focus Crystal: Though Captain can condense his bullets to be more long-range suited, his main weapon is still a shotgun
  
• Soldier's Syringe: His little microbots block projectiles faster if he has faster attack speed - also useful for spamming shotgun blasts
  
• Paul's Goat Hoof/Energy Drink/Wax Quail/Hopoo Feather: He has literally no mobility, send help from the UES Safe Travels
  
• Most/All on-hit effect items: His shotgun sends out 8 blasts, each with a proc rate of 0.75, making it reliable for bleed, stun, etc.
  
• Ukulele: Same reason as before, 8 blast shotgun, 8 chances to proc the Uke.
  
• Infusion: He has low health and no armor and that's very bad
  
• Hardlight Afterburner: His Orbital Probe is arguably his most damaging skill, and having 3 of them is kind of dope

• ....uhhhhhhhhh..... I mean the rose buckler's kind of useless, but overall? Captain's a roundabout guy

SHE'S FINALLY HEEEERE

Railgunner is a slow, squishy survivor with the potential to 1-shot anything and everything... if you hit your shots, that is.

• Armor-Piercing Rounds: Getting rid of the boss ASAP is extremely valuable on Railgunner, moreso than any other survivor
  
• Backup Magazine: Let's you shoot a 2nd laser before reloading (NOTE: when using HH44 Marksman this is COMPLETELY useless, only get backup mags when using the M99 Sniper)
  
• Cautious Slug: Railgunner can play SUPER far back, so you get to see your little slug buddy pretty often :)
  
• Gasoline: Light those suckers up
  
• Energy Drink/Red Whip/Paul's Goat Hoof: Anything to get you the f*ck outta there
  
• Oddly-Shaped Opal/Tougher Times/Safer Spaces: you will NOT be blown up. i doth decree it
  
• Lens-Maker's Glasses/Harvester's Scythe: Railgunner's crit rate is converted to crit damage, so it's just like 'here, have a 10% damage increase :3'
  
• Predatory Instincts: ONLY good with the HH44 Marksman, the M99 Sniper can't make good use of the attack speed
  
• Kjaro/Runald's Bands: You proc this with literally every sniper shot
  
• Old Guillotine: if you weren't 1-shotting elites, NOW YOU F*CKING ARE
  
• Crowbar/Voidsent Flame: GET EM. F*CKING GET EM
  
• 90% of on-kill items: railgunner kills a loooot of people. yeah she's a murderer. yeahhhh
  
• H3AD-5T v2: uppy movement is very good, also helps you land cool trickshots >:)
  
• Laser Scope: i mean.. come on. this is literally a rifle scope. its MADE for her
  
• Shatterspleen: BLEED THEM, BLEED THEM!!!!

• Focus Crystal: She is a sniper
  
• Leeching Seed: you do NOT deal damage fast enough for this to be of any use
  
• Razorwire: if this procs on railgunner, it probably means you f*cking died im gonna be real
  
• Stone Flux Pauldron: nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooo. no.
  
• Lost Seer's Lenses: Having this converts Lens-Maker's into it, which is absolutely not worth it

With all that, there are of course items that are good no matter who the hell you put them on, as well as items that are just bad.

• Lens-Maker's Glasses: Getting double damage is always good, no matter who you are.
  
• Tougher Times: Blocking damage outright? Yes please.
  
• Armor-Piercing Rounds: You just deal more damage to bosses. Dope.
  
• Hopoo Feather: What problem CAN'T be solved by jumping like, 14 times in a row?
  
• Old Guillotine: yo F*CK those elites
  
• Kjaro's Band/Runald's Band: Mmmmm tornado
  
• Dio's Best Friend: The only downside to reviving is that if you fight Mithrix he'll revive, but like... in every other possible case it is great.
  
• Genesis Loop: Enemies: Nearly kill you / You: (Charging Nuke)
  
• Titanic Knurl: More health always = good.

• Rusted Key: No no no no no no no no
  
• Bustling Fungus: ONLY good on Engineer, on everyone else it is garbage trash. Flaming garbage trash.
  
• Death Mark: I mean, if you can stack enough items that consistently debuff enemies, it's not the worst item. The issue is that it's nearly impossible to get the items required to make this POS work properly.
  
• Shaped Glass: There comes a point in ROR2 where you just CAN'T dodge stuff, so this item WILL eventually just get you killed if you're going for a long run.

• 57 Leaf Clover: If you don't have a lot of proc items (Tri-Tip Dagger, AtG Missile Mk 1., Sticky Bomb, etc.) it's not really that useful - but if you have a proc build, then uhhh yeah??? Get those bleed stacks baby.
  
• Predatory Instincts: Good if you have a good crit rate, really not that useful if you don't
  
• Harvester's Scythe: Same as above - only works if you have crit rate. Also not the best if you have a slow fire rate, but it's still pretty good overall.
  
• Purity: It's not the worst thing, but it makes you unable to proc anything, which can just delete a whole bunch of potential dps if you're not careful. It's dope on survivors that don't rely on proc items to deal damage, such as Artificer and Loader.
  
• Transcendence: Overall it's a pretty good item, but it makes ALL healing items completely useless, so you gotta watch what you've got before you grab it.

i hope that was at least an interesting read!

in no way in hell was any of this me telling you how to build characters - you can use whatever items you want on whoever you want.
in fact, i mostly made this guide for me so i could remember how to build characters because i forget at least once a month

maybe one of these days ill play heretic and figure out a guide for her, but for now i'm way too lazy and way too broke
(i spent an entire day compiling this guide please send help)

edit log:
> to everyone complaining about my thoughts on the purity, I have moved it from "Overall Bad" to "Overall Good but only with certain builds". :)
> added the Wedding Bands to Commando's "bad" items (thanks to Gondol!), as well as added examples of which survivors the Purity is good on
> Added the Ukulele to Captain's "good" items (thanks to granola!)
> Added the Shattering Justice and Brilliant Behemoth to Commando's "good" items (thanks to granola again!)
> Moved the Harvester's Scythe from Bandit's "bad" items to his "good" items, and added the Soldier's Syringe to his "good" items (thanks to Shady Business!)
> Removed the Mired Urn from Engineer's "bad" items since apparently the issue with it got patched! (thanks to hypno!)
> Added Purity to Commando's "bad" items, Backup Magazine to Huntress' "good" items, and Purity to Artificer's "good" items. Also edited the description for the Hopoo Feather in Artificer's "bad" items.
> Added a strike through Medkit on REX's "bad" items because, look i'm TOLD it's good but i haven't tested it so idk anymore xd
> ADDED RAILGUNNER