Of all the multitudes of items in Risk of Rain 2, there is one that stands above all others. An item that does insane amounts of damage, works with basically every other item, and can infinitely scale (unlike most items). What item am I talking about? The ATG missile, of course.
Why is the ATG so good? Well, for those who are new to the game I’ll give you a brief explanation of what it does, and for you more advanced players, be patient, I’ll explain my thesis after.
Table of Contents
What does the ATG do?
The ATG missile is a simple damage item in Risk of Rain 2 that does a tremendous amount of damage (300% per stack)! Now, this is accompanied by a 10% chance to proc said missile, meaning you really get around a 30% damage boost, but that is still more than enough. Also, keep in mind this is TOTAL DAMAGE, a very important designation.
Total Damage, for those who don’t know, is simply the amount of damage you do in a single hit. So, if you hit an enemy in ror2 and it did 200 damage, your TOTAL DAMAGE would be 200, meaning an ATG proc would be 300% of 200. Why is this important? Isn’t this how damage from items is calculated? Sadly, no.
Damage from items in Risk of Rain 2 comes from two different sources. One of which we just discussed, Total Damage, takes the exact damage you do (200) and calculates its proc from that number. The other, base damage, takes your character’s base damage as the number for the calculation. You can check out each survivor’s base damage on the wiki, but basically, it is just another stat that increases with levels like HP.
You might already be seeing why it is far better to have total damage rather than base damage, but if not, keep reading. I’ll make it abundantly clear soon.
What makes a good item?
So now that we know what the ATG does and how it uses total damage, we can move onto why this all matters.
In Risk of Rain 2, you don’t really get that much more powerful over time. Sure, you can go on super long runs and end up a literal god, smiting everything in your path, but you aren’t really that strong. Instead, you are leaning heavily on your items.
Got garbage items? GG, go next.
Got amazing items? You’re literally one-shotting bosses and making Mithrix give you his lunch money.
There is little give or take here. Some runs you feel godlike, some runs you feel handicapped and barely (if even) hobbling over the finish line. That’s because your survivor doesn’t get exponentially stronger like the enemies you face. Even the top survivor with the highest damage increase per level, Acrid with 3 per level, can only do so much, not only because 3 damage per level is pretty low, but also because it gets harder and harder to level in Risk of Rain 2 (just like most leveling systems in any game).
So, obviously, we should be focusing on getting the best items in the game. And what would the best items be? Well, they should 1) have good stats, 2) work well with other common items, 3) be easy to acquire. If an item has bad stats, it will be a plain bad item, also, if it doesn’t work well with a majority of your items, you can’t use it to its full potential, and finally, if an item can’t be acquired easily, you can’t rely on it. Thankfully, ATG has all of these (with some leniency for #3).
Example of Survivors Using the ATG
Certain survivors, like Commando, who has high attack speed, will benefit greatly from the ATG. One of the many reasons is, compared to other survivors, he doesn’t have high damage abilities. Without ATGs, Commando can’t proc the two bands (Runald’s and Kjaro’s) without frag grenade (which in my opinion is bad). However, with two ATGs, he can.
Another example of the ATG being good with survivors is high-damage survivors multiplying their damage with just a single ATG. Loader, for example, does 2100-2700% damage with her punches. Simply multiply that number by three, and you see why an ATG might be good. Also, because items can multiply each other’s damage, you can add certain items, like the Crowbar, for some insane damage numbers.
So, ATG has great stats, works well with other items, and is relatively easy to acquire. Let’s focus on #2 since we already talked about #1.
Combo time
When it comes to item combos, few are as simple as the ATG and the bands. The Kjaro’s and Runald’s Band are items that require a survivor to do a total of 400% damage for them to proc their main effect. That effect, doing upwards of 300% total damage, is incredibly powerful, but usually out of the reach for some survivors like Commando who lack and ability that does 400% total damage in one hit. Something fixed with two ATGs.
Although giving a survivor access to items is nice, that isn’t the best part. Since both of those items do Total Damage, they feed on each other’s strengths. Remember, doing 200 damage in a single hit means that an ATG will do 600 damage (200*3) and if we now add the Kjaro’s or Runald’s band, that 600 turns into 1800 damage. Seems pretty broken now doesn’t it?
In other words, Total Damage items are insanely powerful together.
Easy to get?
On the third trait (easy to acquire), the ATG kinda fails. By Risk of Rain 2’s own definition the ATG missile is uncommon, ala, not easy to acquire. That, however, isn’t the full story. Realistically, you aren’t going to be finding ATGs all over the place, it just isn’t going to happen, but there are a few places where you might just push the luck in your favor.
Stage 4, out of all the stages, is the best stage in the game for increasing your strength. This is because, on all of the maps that encompass stage 4, all the item shops (the little 3 item displays that you can choose from) are uncommon items. None of them can be common items. Also, they usually have a higher concentration of green items, although I have never looked into this myself. A mere anecdote.
So technically, at least on stage 4, the ATG is more common than not.
Why the ATG is the best item in Risk of Rain 2
Basically, the ATG is the best item in Risk of Rain 2 because it works well with nearly every item in the game, has incredible stats with Total Damage, and can be found (somewhat) easily in certain areas.
Does this mean you should be dropping all of your items into an ATG printer? I’d say yes, but honestly probably not. I merely wanted to highlight why I think the ATG is so strong and include some interesting facts and tidbits about the ATG while I did it.
For anyone saying “you are wrong, X is the best item!”, don’t worry, this is simply my opinion. Hopefully, this helped/entertained more than anything. Thanks for reading!
