Bandit is the newest survivor in Risk of Rain 2 and has come out with the Anniversary update for Risk of Rain 2! He is a returning favorite from the original risk of rain and today, with this Bandit guide, I will be showing you how to play the Bandit in Risk of Rain 2. This includes an introductory guide to the Bandit, the Bandit’s best loadout, and item builds/synergy with the Bandit.
So without further ado here is the guide.
Table of Contents
How does Bandit Play?
Bandit is a hit-and-run type of survivor in Risk of Rain 2, with a large focus on using all of his abilities quickly, then going invisible while they cool down. You won’t be the in-your-face powerhouse like Loader, nor the I AFK while my turrets kill everything, Engineer. Although that’s not necessarily for the worst as the Bandit is still very strong (I’m talking one-shot bosses strong), you can check out my ror2 tier list to see where I put him.
That being said, there are two ways I think of playing the Bandit. One, the infinite cooldown Bandit, and two, the infinite damage bandit. I’ll go more in-depth and explain what I mean by these later, but to put it simply, a massive part of Bandit’s kit comes from his special ability rather than his primary, secondary, or even utility. Thus the main focus will be on that.
So, let’s go over what each of those does right now.
Bandit’s Abilities
Passive: Backstab
Backstab is a pretty simple passive. All attacks from behind are Critical Strikes.
In all of Risk of Rain 2, I think there is no better survivor passive than backstab. Yes, I know, I’ve said it about several other survivors too, the most recent being Captain, but seriously, being able to crit 100% of the time as long as you are hitting the enemies in the back is absolutely insane.
With this passive, I find myself not valuing crit glasses nearly as much. Why waste an item when you already have 100% crit? It’s like picking up OCULAR HUD with over ten crit glasses, it is pointless. Granted, you do have to be behind the enemy (which isn’t always ez pz), but my point stands.
Also, in terms of good builds, pairing backstab with a shatterspleen is an easy way to get a god run.
Primary: Burst & Blast
Bandit’s primary has two options, although, only one will be available from the start, the alternate, blast, will have to be unlocked through the classic man challenge.
I find the Bandit’s primary skill to be pretty lackluster. Essentially it is just a shotgun that doesn’t have the strength of one, I mean, comparing Burst to something like Vulcan Shotgun, Captain’s Primary, is almost like comparing a nerf gun to a missile. The low damage of 5×100% (which is only IF you hit all the pellets) paired with the abysmal proc coefficient of .5, means you will be getting low DPS and a low proc chance for your items. Not a great pairing.
That being said, Blast is no better. Blast is the rifle to the Burst’s shotgun, and by that, I mean, Blast is slightly more accurate with a single bullet that has a higher proc coefficient but suffers from lack of damage as well.
My main problem with these skills is that they function similarly to the Artificer’s primary, where you have to wait for them to “reload” before shooting again. This slows down the amount of damage you do drastically.
When choosing between the two primaries of Bandit of these, make sure to go for Burst over Blast. Trust me.
Secondary: Serrated Dagger and Serrated Shiv
Much like his primary, Bandit has two secondary abilities to choose from, with one being unlockable by completing the Sadist challenge. Now, there are a lot of arguments about which one of these two load-outs are better, so let’s go over each real quick.
First, Serrated Dagger, which has a 4-second cooldown and a 1.0 proc coefficient and does 360% damage. If you crit on your attack (or used backstab) you will cause a hemorrhaging effect which deals 2000% base damage over 15 seconds and it stacks just like bleed.
Now for Serrated Shiv. This ability has a 4 second cooldown and a 1.0 proc coefficient but does 240% damage. So basically, all it does is do less damage. However, that’s not the case. Serrated Dagger is a melee ability, while Shiv is a ranged ability. This makes a huge difference in how viable each one is.
Personally, I like to take Shiv because it is ranged and makes it easier to hit enemies from the back and apply the hemorrhage effect, which does crazy damage if stacked enough. Others like the Dagger because it has a small amount of AOE and higher damage. Honestly, just go with whatever you like, it doesn’t matter a whole lot.
Oh, and before we move on. You can actually prevent fall damage if you use one of these mid air. It will stop your momentum as you’re falling, so if you’re about to take a massive amount of fall damage you can just use either of these abilities, and then you won’t take any damage. Pro tip!
Utility: Smoke Bomb
For the Bandit’s utility skill we have Smoke Bomb, a skill that allows you to become invisible and do AOE damage around you.
Smoke Bomb has a 6 second cooldown and stuns all enemies in the immediate area, dealing 200% damage, and another 200% damage when your invisibility breaks. You can break the invisibility by using any other ability.
Some interesting mechanics to note about the Bandit’s utility is the fact that he can propel himself upwards with it. If you jump up before using Smoke Bomb, you will actually propel yourself upwards, and if you cancel the invisibility by using another ability you will go even further up. This allows you to get into areas you normally couldn’t traverse or even allows you to juggle in the air much like a Huntress.
This is one of Bandit’s stronger skills and is one of the main reasons why he has a hit and run playstyle. When used with his special ability (next up), Smoke Bomb is incredibly powerful.
Special: Lights Out & Desperado
For Bandit’s final ability we have a choice between Lights Out and Desperado. Aptly named for sure.
Lights Out, the default special for Bandit, has a 4 second cooldown and does 600% damage which will also reset all cooldowns if you get a kill with this ability, and yes this includes Lights Out too! This is the infinite ability build I was referring to. If you’re wondering what the slayer tag means, basically, it’s bonus damage against low HP enemies, 3x damage I believe.
Desperado on the other hand has basically the same stats, but instead of granting a cooldown refresh, you instead get 10% stacking damage for each kill you get. Theoretically you could keep stacking kills endlessly and end up with infinite damage.
Now, before you go all crazy thinking about all the possibilities with these two specials there are a couple of things we need to touch on. First, although it might seem easy to get kills with these abilities, it really isn’t.
For starters, Runald’s band and other on-hit items, can actually “steal” your kill, meaning you don’t get credit for the kill and won’t get either a cooldown reset or the bonus 10% damage. It sucks, but it happens. Also, even though Desperado seems crazy overpowered with the 10% stacking bonus, it only stacks per stage, so once you move on to the next stage you won’t keep the progress. Sadly, no infinite damage.
Even with that being said, I highly recommend Desperado as it can carry you through the early game. Just try and get like 10-20 stacks on stage one (not that hard), and then roll up behind the teleporter boss. I guarantee you will nearly one-shot it even on the hardest difficulty. Not a lot of survivors got that kinda power.
Best Items for Bandit
This section is roughly what I would consider an item/build guide for Bandit in Risk of Rain 2. I’m basing this on my previous experience with Bandit and what I believe synergizes best with him. So here are the best items for the Bandit in Risk of Rain 2.
- Backup Magazine: More secondary abilities
- Crowbar: Perfect with your special
- Purity: Situational, but pairs with your low CD special
- Bandolier: You can run Desperado and still have CD with this
- Shatterspleen: All crits are bleeds and you crit all the time
- The Bands: Both bands work well with your special
- Brainstalks: Ever played Red Dead?
While there are even more items than this, I think these are some of the better synergies with the Bandit.
With Survivors of the Void DLC, there are even more good items to add to your bandit build.
- Lysate Cell – which will give you more desperado stacks (gives an extra ult charge)
- Laser Scope – doubles crit damage, great with bandit passive
- Lost Seer’s Lenses – converts crit into insta kill percentage (you still get crit from your passive so this is a win-win)
- Polylute
- Plasma Shrimp
Bandit Tips and Tricks
Here are a few tips and tricks for you Bandit players:
- Lower enemies with your other abilities before using your special. You can get way more stacks this way.
- You have many ways of dodging fall damage, either with your secondary or your utility skill
- While attack speed items aren’t very good on Bandit (because all it does is increase reload) you still need them to increase the animation speed for your special skill
- You can almost ignore crit glasses, as you already have 100 percent crit as long as you hit enemies in the back
- On that note, the best way to hit enemies from the back is by using your utility and sneaking behind them!
- Waiting until your gun is completely empty is best. if you don’t wait, you waste a lot of DPS
- Purity is strong if you don’t have lots of on-hit items and you can stack desperado fast. otherwise probably not the best idea
End
And that’s the end of this Bandit guide for Risk of Rain 2! I hope you enjoyed it and I hope that this guide has helped you in some way. Enjoy your future Bandit runs.
