Risk of Rain Returns: 15 Best White Items

Highlights

• Life Savings is a vital item for the early stages of a run, allowing players to generate gold quickly and buy chests faster.
• Headstompers may seem undervalued, but they are effective at dealing high damage to nearby enemies when falling unintentionally.
• The Rusty Knife is recommended for its 15% chance to apply Bleed, a strong status effect that remains powerful across all Risk of Rain games.

Items are everything in the Risk of Rain games. Sure, depending on the game, be it Risk of Rain, Risk of Rain 2, or Risk of Rain Returns, the impact of items can vary slightly.

But, for the most part, items and how they’re used together make up the majority of the builds in these games. Risk of Rain Returns is a bit of a rude awakening for people who only played RoR2, as its difficulty is a whole different beast. So to help fans both new and old get used to this game, let’s go over which white items, in particular, are the best.

15 Life Savings

Fantastic Early-Run Economy

First up is an item that helps players get things started in a run so much faster. The most tedious part of any Risk of Rain game is the early parts of the first couple of stages where it feels like it’s taking forever for enemies to actually spawn.

With Life Savings, players won’t need to worry about waiting around as much and will be able to buy chests much faster. The item is a lot less useful as the run progresses, but it’s vital for the first 10-15 minutes of any run.

14 Headstompers

You’ll Be Falling A Lot Anyway & The Damage Is Shockingly High

Next up is Headstompers, an item that a lot of people who didn’t play the original Risk of Rain back in 2013 probably think is bad. They’re entirely wrong, of course, as any fan of the original RoR game knows that they’ll be falling a bunch unintentionally and that the damage that comes from Headstompers triggering is actually pretty absurd.

Characters like Pilot, Artificer, and Loader especially will make the most use of this item, but it’s pretty decent on just about anyone.

13 Rusty Knife

Bleed Remains As One Of The Strongest Status Effects In The Series

Bleed was the ‘go-to’ build for a long time in Risk of Rain 2, and it remains one of the stronger Status Effects across all three games as long as it’s in the right hands. Bleed builds typically benefit the most from a Survivor who can apply Bleed reliably and often, such as the Commando, Huntress, Pilot, Chef, Engineer, and so on.

With a 15 percent chance to apply Bleed from just one Knife, it’s an easy recommendation for players to look for at least one in their runs.

12 Mortar Tube

Stack Those On Hit Items All The Way To The Sky

Mortar Tube, Sticky Bomb, and ATGs have been a staple of overpowered builds across all the Risk of Rain games, but in Risk of Rain 2 especially. Granted, in Risk of Rain Returns, players don’t have quite as much agency over their build due to the lack of Scrappers and Printers, but that’s also why the benefits from items are a bit higher in exchange.

With the Mortar Tube in particular, there’s almost never a reason to ignore this item, and the more players stack, the more chances they have to proc on hit effects, and the more they’ll see their damage skyrocket.

11 Lens Maker’s Glasses

More Crit Chance = More Damage Overall

In some games, it is typically okay to ignore Critical Chance builds and just go for raw damage, but that is not the case (for the most part) in the Risk of Rain games. Because of the way damage is constantly calculated with percentages, Critical Strikes are a lot more impactful when they do happen, and a lot of on-hit items take the damage from a Critical Strike and apply that to the on-hit effect as well. So, needless to say, Lens Maker’s Glasses are a must-have on most characters, except for maybe someone like Acrid or Han-D.

10 Mocha

Half Syringe & Half Goat Hoof

Mocha is an item that was introduced in the new content updates for Risk of Rain 2 and was then added to the remaster of Risk of Rain via Risk of Rain Returns. It’s a half-and-half item that’s meant to put a bit less emphasis on players ‘needing’ to find a Goat Hoof or a Soldier’s Syringe in every run for their build to work.

Mochas work as an in-between, giving players a noticeable buff to both Movement Speed and Attack Speed, which should hold them over altogether or at least until they find the Hoof/Syringe they’re looking for.

9 Razor Penny

The ‘Mocha’ Of Crit Chance & Gold Gain

A lot of people are sleeping on Razor Penny, and it’s not entirely clear why. Just from the item description alone, it should be clear as day why the Razor Penny is so good. First, it gives Crit Chance (albeit not a lot). Second, it gives money on Critical Strikes.

Third, each stack of Razor Penny increases both of its beneficial effects. If a Survivor with a high fire rate such as Commando, Engineer’s Turrets, Chef, or Pilot gets a ton of Lens Maker’s Glasses, a single Razor Penny is enough so that they’ll never worry about Gold for the rest of the run.

8 The Toxin

The Perfect Damage Buff For Melee Characters

There are only a couple of true ‘melee’ characters in Risk of Rain Returns, with those being the Mercenary, Miner, and Loader. Sure, both Acrid and Han-D have the option of using melee, but their primary builds tend to rely on either waiting on poison to kill enemies (Acrid) or using Drones to melt enemies from a distance (Han-D).

However, on the melee characters that are going to be ‘in the thick of it’ so to say, The Toxin is a fantastic item. Not only does this item make it so that any enemy that touches the Survivor suffers for it, but it’s also one of the most helpful Support items in a multiplayer lobby.

7 Gasoline

If You’re Kiting Enemies Correctly, This Item Is A Miracle Worker

Out of all the iconic items in the Risk of Rain franchise, Gasoline may be among the top 3. This common item has just been so incredibly strong for a lot of builds in every RoR game. Granted, on a 2-D plane, it feels more helpful than ever since enemies have much less freedom to avoid the flaming terrain, but even in Risk of Rain 2 Gasoline is a build maker. Absolutely the best item to grab to immediately start melting mobs of enemies that, previously, were very hard to handle.

6 Hermit’s Scarf

Enemies Hit Hard & This Pairs Well With Prophet’s Cape

Again, people reading this who are coming from Risk of Rain 2 might be surprised to see that Tougher Times is now a Green item in Risk of Rain Returns instead of the White item it was in that game. Because of this, Hermit’s Scarf is now the go-to damage ‘reduction’ item to grab in the early stages.

Sure Topaz Brooch gives Barrier, but when players pair the Hermit’s Scarf with the Prophet’s Cape, they end up either avoiding or blocking (and then healing from) more than half of the damage coming their way. Plus, when players eventually do start using Artifacts like the Artifact of Glass, this item tends to help a lot in making those runs last longer.

5 Snake Eyes

Easy Stage-Based Crit Chance With The Bonus Of Possible Additional Items

A lot of people misunderstood this next item for the longest time, so let’s clear up the confusion. Snake Eyes is not an item that increases the player’s Crit Chance per Shrine failure ‘until they succeed’, rather it’s an item that actually gives players a net positive from failing Chance Shrines, something that was previously a waste of money.

For every failure (up to 6) players will get a sizeable chunk of Crit Chance for the rest of that stage, adding up to a whopping 42 percent Crit Chance for max failures, on top of the Crit Chance the player might already be getting from their other items.

4 Sticky Bomb

The Tried & True ‘On-Hit’ Item Of Mass Destruction

More recognizable than Gasoline, the Sticky Bomb is probably the top most well-known item for the Risk of Rain IP. This thing was actually broken in terms of power in Risk of Rain 2 for the longest time, and it’s always been a ‘gold standard’ sort of item to grab in any of the three games.

Sticky Bomb is by far one of the best on-hit items in the catalog, and it’s not even close. Any item that has a ‘total damage’ bonus instead of just a standard ‘percent damage’ bonus is an item that is usually stupidly strong.

3 Paul’s Goat Hoof

Mobility Is Everything In These Games

In the Risk of Rain games, mobility is everything. If players aren’t fast enough in Risk of Rain 1, they will die to the wave of enemies that’s constantly chasing them at all times. If they aren’t fast enough in Risk of Rain 2, they will get one-shotted by a Brass Contraption or the Large Lemurians the second they lose focus.

And in Risk of Rain Returns, if players aren’t fast enough, those flying enemies are going to shred through their health bars in an instant. So, in every run, in every build, at least get a bit of mobility, and Paul’s Goat Hoof is the best route for doing that.

2 Backup Magazine

Overpowered On Some Survivors & Useless On Others

Backup Mag is a bit of a unique inclusion here, as it is an item that varies wildly in strength depending on the Survivor using it. Survivors like Commando, Huntress, Miner, Sniper, Acrid, Mercenary, Loader, and Pilot all benefit immensely from even just one Backup Mag, while everyone else could take it or leave it.

It all depends on the Secondary Skill the Survivor has or the one the player is currently choosing to use for that Survivor. In general, players will only need one or two of these things too, as opposed to some other items where they only start showing their true worth at 3+ stacks.

1 Soldier’s Syringe

Faster Attacks = More Attacks Overall = Higher Damage Output

And last up is the Soldier’s Syringe. It’s not the best white item in the game, but it’s among one of the best in Risk of Rain Returns especially. Attack Speed may not seem that important, or at least not as important as damage items, but again that depends on the characters.

On someone like Bandit, Sniper, or Mercenary, basic attack speed isn’t going to make a huge difference, but on characters like Commando, Han-D, Loader, Enforcer, Huntress, and Miner, just a bit of bonus Attack Speed can completely turn a run from unwinnable to a cakewalk.