This guide will go over how to get all 102 achievements in Megabonk. Most can be achieved through normal gameplay, but some require challenging runs or certain builds to complete. This is what this guide is for. Even though the game has descriptions on how to unlock everything, it's not always clear what's the best way to do it. I'm not pretending to know everything about the game, I just want to shed some clarity.

I'll only be focusing on 100% steam achievement completion, and I'll be categorising these by unlock method, not as the unlocks appear in-game. That does mean that character unlocks are intermixed with weapon unlocks, but I know you're not here to find the best way to "kill 15,000 goblins" or whatever. This is more intended for those harder achievements, while also encompassing everything else.

I will be updating this guide as I get feedback saying that there have been changes made to the game, or if new achievements get added. But as I won't be checking on the game now that I've gotten all achievements myself, I appreciate the feedback about the game if the information I've said no longer is correct.

Note: Quin's Mask is an unlockable in the the game, but not an achievement on Steam. It's something the developer might have overlooked, in either case, it's excluded from this guide as stated before this guide only focuses on steam achievement completion. Confusingly, it's the only unlock that doesn't have a corresponding achievement, so I expect it to get added some time.

These are ones you can ignore since you unlock them as you progress through the game. Information about how to complete tier 3 levels are later in the guide.

CL4NK - Complete Forest Tier 1

Robinette - Complete Forest Tier 2

Ninja - Complete Desert Tier 1

Vlad - Complete Desert Tier 2

Refresh - Complete 20 quests

Weapon Slots - Complete 25 quests

Skip - Complete 30 quests

Tome Slots - Complete 35 quests

Banish - Complete 40 quests

Weapon Slots 2 - Complete 45 quests

Tome Slots 2 - Complete 55 quests

Dicehead - Complete 100 quests

Toggler - Buy 40 unlocks

While you don't need to beat all challenges (thank god), you do need to beat six. There's overlap with at least two other achievements with these challenges, but you don't need to min-max these at all, as most tier 1 challenges are very easy. Just pick the ones you'd like to do, and do at least six.

Tony McZoom - Complete 2 challenges

Anvil - Complete 3 Challenges

Spaceman - Complete 6 challenges

These will be unlocked when you kill a certain amount of enemies with a certain weapon. Obviously these are easier to do with the character who has the weapon in question by default, the sword being a good example. Also note that "rockets" is referring to rockets from both the slutty rocket as well as the slutty cannon. i.e. kills from both count towards the same thing.

Revolver - Kill 7,500 enemies

Blood Tome - Kill 12,500 enemies

Idle Juice - Kill 500 enemies while standing still

Calcium - Kill 1,000 Skeletons

Ogre - Kill 15,000 Goblins

Axe - Kill 2,000 enemies using the Sword

Brass Knuckles - Kill 5,000 enemies with the Sword

Dexecutioner - Kill 12,500 enemies using the sword

Joe's Dagger - Kill 10,000 enemies using the Dexecutioner

Ice Crystal - Kill 50 enemies with the Frostwalker

Dragonfire - Kill 4,000 enemies using Fire damage

Lightning Orb - Kill 3,000 enemies using Lightning damage

Grandma's Secret Tonic - Kill 3,000 enemies using the Sniper Rifle

Cannon - Kill 5,000 enemies using Rockets

Mines - Kill 7,500 enemies using Rockets

Toxic Barrel - Kill 2,000 enemies using Poison damage

Birdo - Kill 100 enemies using the Tornado weapon while carried by a tornado on Desert
^(unlocking the weapon is harder than doing this; easier than it seems)

These are the achievements that are easy to do if you're just aware of them. Like microwaving a certain item 3 times in a row, or picking an item because of what it can unlock. This list also includes those that are hard to avoid, like breaking pots or having a weapon work X amount of times.

Forbidden Juice - Crit 100 times

Quantity Tome - Fire 5,000 projectiles

Aura - Don't take any damage for 2 minutes

Key - Purchase 25 chests

XP Tome - Break 20 pots in a single run

Golden Sneakers - Break 150 pots

Attraction Tome - Use Shrine of Succ 8 times

Demonic Blade - Heal for 350 HP using Lifesteal

Demonic Blood - Increase Max HP with Blood Magic 400 times

Chonkplate - Get Max HP to 500

Thorns Tome - Block 250 attacks with Aegis

Sucky Magnet - Complete every single Charge Shrine on the map
^(always 15 shrines on the map without the beacon)
Tornado - Charge a total of 5 Charge Shrines during Sandstorms on Desert

Frostwalker - Freeze 1,000 enemies with the Ice Cube

Kevin - Obtain 3 Leeching Crystal in a run

Noelle - Use a Microwave to duplicate Ice Crystal 3 times in a row

Poison Gloves - Use a Microwave to duplicate Moldy Cheese 3 times in a row

Amog - Poison 50,000 enemies with Moldy Cheese

Cursed Doll - Die 10 times

These are easy to spot, and the description makes it clear what you're looking for. But do note these things:
1. For "Monke" you need to find two things: The cage and the key.
2. As long as you interact with each boombox you find, you're bound to get the achievement.
3. Bush and Bandit appear on all stages of their respective zones and they scale up accordingly, so just beat the ones in stage/tier 1.
4. The hidden items you can find can get collected despite your slots being full, resulting in 5 weapons for that run! In other words, you can keep playing as normal to find them.

Bananarang - Find the hidden Banana

Monke - Find and release Monke in the Forest

Boombox - Find and activate all the boomboxes on Forest

Bush - Find and defeat Bush in the Forest

Bandit - Find and defeat Bandit in the Desert

Katana - 5% chance to find upon breaking a Tumbleweed on Desert Stage 1

Shotgun - 5% chance to find upon breaking a Tumbleweed on Desert Stage 2

Luck Tome - 0.01% chance to drop when killing an enemy

These are all the achievements that you can get from upgrading weapons and tomes to a certain level. A general hint that might help here is that you can use the toggler, if unlocked, to restrict what you can find. However, the toggler only allows you to disable unlocks you've gained, not the stuff you've had since the beginning of the game. Having said that, these are all still easy to do without it. You just need to be aware of what tomes/weapons still need their upgrade unlocks

Battery - Upgrade Cooldown Tome to Level 5

Turbo Socks - Upgrade Agility Tome to Level 5

Turbo Skates - Upgrade both Cooldown and Agility Tome to level 5 in a run

Megachad - Get the Damage Tome to Level 7

Shattered Knowledge - Upgrade Attraction Tome to Level 8

Leeching Crystal - Upgrade Regen Tome to Level 8

Echo Shard - Upgrade XP Tome to Level 8

Athena - Get the Thorns Tome to level 9

Black Hole - Get Knockback Tome to Level 10

Sniper - Get Precision Tome to Level 10

Blood Magic - Get the Bloody Tome to Level 12

Dice - Get Luck Tome to Level 12

Duration Tome - Upgrade Axe to level 10

Wireless Dagger - Get the Lightning Staff to Level 15

Unlike the other achievements, these can only be gotten with a certain character. They're mostly just about killing enough enemies, or getting them to a certain level. The hardest part then, becomes unlocking these characters in the first place.

Desert - Teleport to the 2nd stage on Forest Tier 2 as CL4NK

Space Noodle - Complete Desert Tier 2 as Tony McZoom

Aegis - Block 500 damage with Armor as Sir Oofie

Dragon's Breath - Kill 1,000 Wisps as Fox on Desert

Gas Mask - Kill 5,000 enemies using amog

Armor Tome - Kill 5,000 enemies as Sir Oofie

Eagle Claw - Kill 10,000 enemies as Birdo

Rockets - Kill 15,000 enemies as CL4NK

Demonic Soul - Reach Level 30 as Calcium

Bloody Cleaver - Reach Level 50 as Vlad

Most of all of these achievements have some relation to beating the first stage boss, and they're easy enough to be grouped together. I'll add a little comment after each one though. Pretty explanatory achievements, but they need to be listed anyway.

Cursed Tome - Beat the Stage Boss in under 5 minutes
(You can do the "Speedrunner+" challenge on forest tier 1 to get this)

Speedboi - Complete a stage with at least 2 Boss Curse activated
(Boss curses stack, so for this you'll have three bosses to fight. Good luck)

Boss Buster - Defeat a Stage Boss in under 30 seconds
(30 seconds from within boss spawn to death. You'll get this without even knowing it)

Tactical Glasses - Defeat a Miniboss in 25s
(Not the stage boss, but you get the idea. Turn Chunkham into a chunk of ham)

Poison Flask - Kill Scorpionussy on Desert 3 times
(Self explanatory. For reference, Scorpionussy is the Chunkham of the Desert)

As you can surmise, most of these can be described with the age ol' saying "git gud", but that's true. These are achievements you're either getting very soon after starting the game, or later once you get stronger. The first two can double as challenge completions, and as long as you remember to use two boss curses on a good run, you're getting all of these no problem.

Noelle - Use a Microwave to duplicate Ice Crystal 3 times in a row

Poison Gloves - Use a Microwave to duplicate Moldy Cheese 3 times in a row

Kevin - Obtain 3 Leeching Crystal in a run

All of these achievements need you to use the microwave. Kevin less so, but it was the only way for me to get 3 leeching crystals in a run. These achievements are self-explanatory by nature, but here's some extra information if you're unclear on the details. And let me be clear, exact details is not what I have, I haven't looked at the code or anything, this is just what I know:

The microwave is an interactable you can find in the game, both in the Forest as well as the Desert. White microwaves allow you to copy common items for a gold fee, and it also will remove one of your other common items at random. Blue microwaves allow you to copy a rare item for you for a fee, and remove one of your rare items as an additional price for duplication, etc. You can use the same microwave up to three times, either duplicating the same item, or something else. You'll find epic and legendrary microwaves too, but they behave slightly differently. Epic microwaves only allow two uses, and legendary microwaves only one (correct if I'm wrong). Luckily though, you only ever need to use the white microwave (except for Kevin), so you only need to find one microwave per achievement.

To unlock Noelle, you need to find an ice crystal, and use up an entire microwave on it. You can maybe use two separate microwaves to do it, but I wouldn't be too sure. Either way, the ice crystal is a common item, so you can duplicate it with the white microwave. However, you need to have it enabled with the toggler, as it's an unlockable item you can get by killing 50 enemies with frostwalker, and to unlock that, you need to be lucky and find an ice cube and freeze 1000 enemies with it. It's a whole thing. You can use the Fox or the Luck tome to grind out some legendaries, and hope you get it. From what I could find, the ice cube was one of the more common legendaries, so it shouldn't take much time at all.

For the poison gloves, you need to do the same thing. You just need to find some moldy cheese, and hope you find a white microwave to use it in. Personally moldy cheese is one of my favourite items in the game, so I was able to do this many times over, and moldy cheese is an item you have by default so you don't need to go on a similar diatribe on that as you did for the ice crystal. You're very likely to encounter some moldy cheese and a microwave in a run, just accept all moai offers as he does give common items pretty regularly, and open chests. Same applies for the ice crystal, pretty basic stuff. One important note is that you cannot interact with any microwave unless you have enough of the needed rarity. For example you need some other common item aside from moldy cheese to sacrifice for the duplication, which for three duplications means three other common items. This applies to all microwaves.

Now, as for Kevin, you can find three leeching crystals either by finding them naturally, or using a blue microwave like I did, which is the reason I grouped him here. And like the ice crystal, leeching crystals need to be unlocked, and you do that by getting a regen tome to level 8, but unlike the ice crystal, leeching crystals are from the rare rarity set, so they're harder to come by. That's why you should pick up any you find, in the hopes that either you find two others, or a blue microwave. If you're trying to get this achievement and missed your chances naturally, fret not, one Saigremor has a very good guide for this unlock specifically, so go show them some love here:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3585237423
Good luck on these. I know these require some luck, but your chances increase the more runs you do, so it's really just a matter of time and knowing that these exist. Just keep an eye out for the Ice crystal, the moldy cheese and the leeching crystal, and don't just dismiss them like you could otherwise.

Holy Book - Kill a first Stage Boss without taking any damage that run

Just as the description says, you need to kill a stage boss without damage that run. Just so happens, there's a challenge going by the same description: "Fragile" for forest tier 1. If you successfully do that challenge, you're able to get this achievement at the same time, and it also serves as a forced restart, so doing it is highly recommended for this.

Now, there's a lot of ways to take damage in the game, but I lost most of my runs to fall damage. You don't take a lot of damage when you fall, but any is enough to kill you. And while there is no consistent method to entirely negate fall damage between all characters, there are two ways to prevent it. Firstly, and this is also good general tip: If you slide before you land on a slope, you will always negate all the damage. Doesn't matter how long you slide, as long as you do, you negate it.

Secondly, there are characters that can fully negate fall damage, and they're Birdo and Tony McZoom. Birdo can negate fall damage with his hovering ability, while Tony McZoom just negates it outright. And because Tony is arguably easier to unlock, you should be better off using him, but if you want to spend more time in the air and avoid damage that way, Birdo is the way to go. It's a preference, and both are valid. The main distinction is that for Birdo to activate his hovering ability, you need to remember to hold the space bar down, whereas Tony negates fall damage no matter what.

As for weapons, Birdo starts with the tornado, which knocks enemies back. In the same vein, you shouldn't pick any melee weapons for this challenge. You will save yourself from unnecessary close encounters this way, and the auto-aim of ranged weapons lets you think more about where you're moving, and less about what you're killing. Also the stage boss is the last thing you want to die to, so making sure you have the mobility to avoid his attacks is advised, and melee weapons can limit that freedom.

That's really it. The rest comes down to situational awareness, evading from enemies and avoiding items that don't benefit you. Kevin especially, since he can and will kill you in this challenge if you pick him up. So use the toggler to disable him, as well as HP-benefiting items like the leeching crystal if you never want to see them. Similarly, don't take upgrades that increase health, shields, or lifesteal. This is one of the few runs where you can almost just purely focus on damage. Evasion works in theory too, but the only way to prevent dying from taking damage with 100% certainty is by not getting hit. And just a final reminder, do this alongside the "Fragile" challenge on forest tier 1. Good luck!

Gamer Goggles - Defeat a Stage Boss with less than 10% HP left

I thought this one would be difficult so I left it as one of the last things to do, however I was wrong. This is not as hard as it seems. 10% HP might not seem like a lot, but here's two key things: 10% HP at a max 600HP would still be 60HP. Meaning that the higher your health is, the likelier is that you can survive this. And the second thing is that if your damage output is high enough, it doesn't matter how low your health is, or at least it matters considerably less so.

The character I chose for this was Monke for that first reason. He gets max health naturally, and with the help of a HP tome you can scale it up even further. However, I didn't even find the tome on my successful run, all I did was manage to get such high DPS I killed all enemies before they could reach and damage me. I had to repeatedly climb and fall off a cliff instead. At that point you know you can melt the boss faster than it can inflict proper damage, which I did.

Knowing that, you don't need to worry about health per se. Higher max health and naturally a higher health amount at that 10% limit is a nice cushion to have, but not necessary for this challenge if you can just do enough damage. Though very importantly, you need to be able to keep that health at that point. The character has little to no natural health regen, so it will stay there as long as you don't pick any health regen upgrades or life steal. If you go over that 10% point in the middle of fighting the boss, it's going to be difficult to get back there again, and trying to get hit by the boss for it most certainly just results in death, so it's better to set it before the fight and make sure it stays there.

An alternative method as pointed out by one of the comments is to use Kevin, to do this. His "ability" is to punch you until you get to 1HP, and keep it there. However, he only does health damage, meaning that if you stack up on shields using the shields tome, you can have great protection while still applying for this challenge. Shields in general work for this challenge too, which is something I neglected to mention. Just your health needs to be below that 10% point. Also if you go this route and catch Kevin early, it's recommended to disable the "low health effects" in the settings so you don't need to listen to distorted music throughout the entire run.

Hero Sword - Defeat a Stage Boss without picking up any items, powerups or using shrines.

As the description suggests, you need to defeat a stage boss without any items, powerups or shrines. Also according to an article from Gamerant[gamerant.com], this also includes challenge shrines, as well as boss curse shrines. This means you're limited to only weapons and tomes you're getting from level-up offers, as well as shrines of succ, which according to a comment on this guide is allowed, as well as pots for XP. This all means that you need to make the most of what you do have, so I would highly recommend unlocking all four weapon and tome slots before attempting this, and also buying all level-up refresh options since that's the only thing you can use. This is not a challenge you should attempt before having most of the unlocks already, as you will benefit from having better weapons too.

The weapons I recommend are ranged ones, so I would toggle off all near-range weapons that you have unlocked using the toggler. Also because you can't get any projectile count upgrades from anywhere but the tome, piercing for swarm control becomes more valuable, so good weapons are the bow and the sniper rifle. The XP book is naturally good for this challenge, as well as the cooldown tome. Really any tome you prefer that lets you prioritise DPS over health. The XP tome is a given, though. You can always try again, and you just need to beat the first boss.

That said, speed is key. You can get the XP tome and all the weapons you need before the first swarm at 6:00 starts, which is a good source of XP if you can survive it. However, swarms pose another challenge in the form of spawning powerups. Which, if you need clarification on what they are, powerups are everything aside from XP and gold that enemies might drop. This does include Health, Magnets, Rage and the Coin-thing. To be on the safe side, don't pick up anything aside from XP. If you pick even one up, you need to restart. That's why I recommend ranged weapons, so you're naturally further away from powerups as they appear. Just keep your distance from them, and try to survive. The swarm should give ample XP, enough for you to comfortably kill the boss before the second one starts.

This is not that hard of a challenge, all things considered. I beat it in a couple attempts, and my main issue were some powerups camping near the boss altar. If you can, kill the swarm away from where you're fighting the boss, just in case. Also it's fine if you accidentally step into the zone of a shrine, just don't let it fully charge. Even then, you can maybe ignore the offer, but I wasn't about to test it out. And while the description doesn't specify between Desert or Forest, the Forest has more escape opportunities and more forgiving enemies so I chose that.

Thanks to a reminder on the comments you can overlap this challenge with the "Sticks and stones" challenge on Forest tier 1, as it only disables chests. It could even be helpful, as it would prevent random chest drops from appearing, the ones that you can run into. I highly encourage you to do this, as it helps towards the Spaceman unlock. Having said that, everything I said before this does still apply.

Corrupted Sword - Get Cursed Tome to Level 20 in under 10 minutes

Cursed Gloves - Get the Cursed Tome to level 10

Skuleg - Obtain 40% Difficulty

I got these three achievements with the same run, but I did not discover how to do it myself. There already exists an amazing guide made by Arrowdfy 箭头 that tells you how to do it quite well, with screenshots and all that good stuff. Go there for the details, and find it here:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3576152923
However, here is what I can say about it. The guide says a lot of stuff about timing, but I don't think it's that important. The method they listed is already really good, so you don't need to worry about details like that. You just need a quick character, a quick method of getting XP, and a normal amount of RNG. It didn't take me long at all, but I too might have just got lucky. Either way, their method is better than whatever I could ever come up with.

Something they didn't mention is that you should toggle off all the unnecessary tomes and weapons first, just like with the other challenge-tied achievements. It lessens RNG, and makes restarting due to bad level-up offers a non-issue, especially if you can refresh the offers as well.

Chaos Tome - Charge every Charge Shrine on a Tier 3 run across all 3 stages without leaving the charge zone

This achievement is simple in theory, but there's still things you need to know. I followed a guide made by one Screampy, but you don't need one if you can already gather how it works. Here's the guide anyway, as it is very detailed regardless and I want to appreciate them for what they've made:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3576097811
Here it is in a nutshell though, if you want my explanation: Each map has 15 shrines, with 45 total across 3 tiers. This will always be the case, unless you pick up the Beacon item, which increases that amount by two per subsequent stage. So obviously, banish it if you can. Using that information, you can audibly count to 15 per map like I did, or have some other method of tracking like a calculator. If you're good at keeping track, it's impossible to miss any.

You can also use the shrine log on the pause menu to count how many shrines you've gotten, as it lists each shrine offering you've taken individually. However, depending on some shop upgrades, you will have some initial upgrade effects show up there from the start of the run, like your silver gain bonuses. So if you want to use this method, take note of how many bonuses there already are before taking any shrines as to prevent confusion later on. But if you're aware of this, you can use the log to get back to your count as you check your history, but naturally, this is not the recommended primary way of keeping track given that the list goes up to 45 (plus your initial bonuses).

As for completion, the character I used was Robinette. She's able to dish out a lot of damage with the right weapons, and she's agile by nature. With some speed upgrades and a jump upgrade or two, she's able to literally fly across the map within seconds. However, characters like Calcium or Tony McZoom are quick as well, so it's up for preference. Now, here's an important detail: There is such a thing as too fast. I lost two runs, one on stage 2, and one on stage 3 because I accidentally stepped away from the shrine. This is by far the biggest threat in this challenge. You always know if you're missing some if you're keeping track, but that doesn't matter if you can't stay in it anyway. Having said that, you can do this challenge in one go if you lock in, but it took me several due to negligence. Skill issues, if you will.

Cactus - Kill 100 cactus enemies with Thorns damage

This is by far the worst achievement in the game. It takes everything that is bad about the game, and combines it into a single achievement. It makes for a miserable experience, and one entirely relied on luck. The description does seem innocuous, but that is not the case. Leave this until last, if you can. Let me explain:

Cactus is a type of enemy found in the Desert, which if that wasn't bad enough, it's a type of enemy that isn't guaranteed to spawn. The enemy type that spawns changes every minute, or so they say. Personally, if I didn't find a cactus before the first swarm, they would not appear in the run at all. In any case, you need to get lucky to even encounter this enemy. It's not rare, but I had and I kid you not, five consequent runs with no cactus spawns. It's not bad, sure. Runs last only a couple minutes, but the fact that this can even happen is bad enough.

Then for the actual killing. Not every character has thorns by default, so it's mainly found from the Thorns Tome. And you guessed it, tomes are randomised as well. You're not guaranteed to get a thorns book before finding a cactus, and have an even lesser chance of finding both. The character that does have thorns is Athena, but Bush is the only one that can aim his weapon away from the cacti. This is all without even mentioning actually killing the cacti this way, hugging them to death, hoping that you don't die in the process. It's the antithesis of fun.

Now, I've since learned thanks to the comments that thorns may also trigger on ranged attacks, which means you can theoretically stand still and let the cacti shoot you, killing them in the process. I tested this as well, and I was unable to disprove it, so it does seem like to be the case. If you go for this challenge, try this if you get confident, as this would prevent unnecessary melee encounters. I would like some more confirmation if you do, because this would make this challenge a bit easier, but I'm still uncertain if this is the case. However, enough preamble, now for how I actually did it

First, refund both weapon slot upgrades and one of the tome upgrades. We don't need weapons where we're going, but we do need tomes. One tome slot is reserved for Thorns, one for Armor, and one for either Shields or Lifesteal. Something to get that health back. That extra weapon slot can be kept empty, or it can be filled with either of the two weapons that can be aimed. Those being the sniper and the shotgun, where the shotgun is better for swarm control.

This is best done in the "Hyper" challenge of Desert tier 1. It drastically boosts XP gains, and also enemy spawns. And while the latter is usually a challenge, the added spawns mean more cacti when they do appear. This is just the fastest method to do it, by far. But it being a challenge, you need to be careful to not get overwhelmed. That's why it's not a bad idea to restart when the timer hits 7:00 since that's the last opportunity for cacti to spawn before the first swarm, and your thorns build is not surviving the second swarm with any ease.

As for the character, either Athena or Bush work. I used the Bush for about 40 of the kills, the rest I did with Athena. I found that Athena is slightly better as it's devoid of aiming, so it makes brainless searching for the cacti that much more bearable, also Aegis killing the cacti isn't really an issue, because you can still do enough thorns damage to kill every third cacti with it, granted you never upgrade the amount of shields Aegis has. Also there's a lot of cacti to go around, but it will take more runs this way, where with Bush you can probably kill every cactus with thorns with some patience. Can't say for sure, since patience was certainly something I did not have.

I initially followed a guide for this, but then I veered off that path as I started using Athena and shields for "regen". I'll still link the guide though, just in case you need some extra references. It's also made by Screampy, and I can sympathise with the pain they went through. Here's the guide:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3576062194
This achievement is just slow, painful and unnecessary. Absolutely leave it until last if you can. The unlock you get from it is not proportional to the effort of getting it, and it does change your perspective about the game a little bit. Leaves a sour taste, if you will.

Sir Chadwell - Complete Forest Tier 3

Energy Core - Defeat the Final Boss 2 times

The tier 3 of a run is the most challenging run to do on a map (aside from challenges), but it's the only way you'll be able to beat the final boss. It's my personal opinion that the final boss is unfair, unfun, and outright bad game design, but personal feelings aside there are some very good strategies you can employ to beat it. Do note that I have not beat the final boss of Desert, but the final battles of both maps are the same, with just a different boss that you can find across their respective maps. But because tier 3 completion of the Desert is not required, I recommend that you do both successful runs on the Forest.

Firstly, you need to know how the final battle works. At the start, the boss will take all of your weapons aside from your starting one, and you'll get them back as his health reaches 75%, 50%, and when he reaches 25% health, you'll get your last weapon back, which will be your fourth one if you've unlocked it. The boss will have about 8 million health, so getting to that first 75% point means that your starting weapon needs to have the damage to get there, as like with all the other maps once your time ends, the final swarm will start.

Secondly, every time the boss reaches one of those health milestones, he will spawn three beacons across random fixed locations on the map. As long as they're up, the boss will regenerate health and have invulnerability, so it's paramount you get rid of them quickly. And while all you need to do is charge them like you would a charge shrine, getting to them will be very difficult if you don't have 2+ extra jumps. Also you need moderate speed to reach the other end of the island, and to avoid the flying projectiles that home to your location. If you have bad mobility, these ranged things will be your greatest concern. Speed and extra jumps are very important.

One thing to note is that when the boss goes invulnerable, all of his status effects get nullified. This includes poison and bloodmark. Poison is still good to whittle his health down, but bloodmark is only useful for the last quarter, and you can't accumulate it throughout the entire battle like you could do with the other stage bosses. Having said that, poison is still useful, but keep in mind that it's not the solution.

As for your health regeneration, I found shields to be most reliable. You will get hit by one of those flying things, so you need to go into the battle expecting that. And while lifesteal or HP regen worked against normal enemies, these flying projectiles will stop your health regeneration for a moment, allowing only shields to work. And once the boss is invulnerable, you cannot use lifesteal to get your health back anyway, when in contrast even just 5 shields is enough to negate a single blast from one of those things. Naturally items like the Mirror that grant brief invulnerability are also very good, as you could get knocked against a corner, and be at the whim of those.. things. This also explains why mobility is useful.

And like I eluded to before, this battle punishes you for focusing on a single weapon. If you've invested all of your upgrade offers into the last weapon in your inventory, you will only be able to use it once the boss reaches 25% health. Naturally then, it's generally advised to either make your starting weapon very powerful, or make all of your weapons equally as powerful. Once you get more weapons back at those health stages, the battle will, in theory, go faster. The boss's attacks will increase more as his health gets lowered, so it's not easy, but it will be easier. What you won't lose at the beginning of the battle is everything else. This includes tomes, items and upgrades. It's just the weapons you need to worry about.

Now, there are some things that aren't good against the boss. Firstly, evasion. Evasion is only good against contact damage, and you will never be that close to the boss to trigger it, even with a melee build. Secondly, in the same vein, thorns. You should not cozy up with the final boss, and you want to keep your distance from it anyway to be closer to the beacons once they pop up. And lastly, a melee weapon like the sword with little to no size. If you go into the battle with Sir Oofie and only invested in the weapons that are ranged, you will have a very hard time chipping away health from the boss. I speak from experience on this one.

And I think that about covers it. Movement speed, 2+ extra jumps, smart damage distribution across your weapons, and shields. That's what I would recommend, but it's been a couple updates since I made my runs, so I'm up for other ideas down in the comments if you have them.

Ghost - Survive the Final Swarm for 60s

Bob (Dead) - Survive the Final Swarm for 2 minutes

Soul Harvester - Survive the Final Swarm for 6 minutes

The final swarm starts when the timer on the top reaches zero, and it's expedited by the stage's boss dying. It increases in difficulty the more it goes on, up to the point where damage literally no longer matters since the enemies become quite unkillable, so you need to rely on execution methods. However, surviving for only six minutes does not get you to that point, but it's impossible to reach that time if you don't plan your run around it.

Firstly, these enemies only deal contact damage, so you can make a build to tank it. More specifically, armor upgrades allow you to take less damage, evasion levels decrease the chances of you getting hit in the first place, and Aegis prevents damage the same. Lifesteal is a great way to get any health you've lost back, but you need to have the damage output and rate to match it. It's all about mitigating damage, and getting any health that you might lose back fast. It's not necessarily about damage output, but it does help quarrel it.

Second thing to know is that the final swarm happens in all the stages, as well as after the final boss, so naturally it's not advised to try for this on the first stage, when you can wait until you become stronger. And if you can beat the final boss, chances are you're going to survive the final swarm. But if you don't want to beat the final boss for understandable reasons, you can go for the final swarm in stage 3 instead. Your character is not going to be stronger at the end of the final boss compared to the end of stage 3, so it does not matter. However, the location might.

You see, these enemies push you, a lot. You can use this to your advantage though, specifically on the map where the final boss is. When the enemies fling you to the air, that's time they cannot hit you. They might ping pong you around the map like some hellish sport, but you're actually far likelier to survive that situation than being pushed against a corner. And as anyone who has seen the final boss room can attest, the final map is mostly just void. Which, in theory, makes the final possible final swarm the safest option. That's where I got my 6-minute attempt, at least.

As I eluded to before, one very good method of survival is prioritising lifesteal. If your health is high enough and you're able to refresh that quickly enough, the enemies simply cannot kill you. And given that lifesteal is easier to build around compared to evasion which is mainly found in the tome, you should be able to have an easier time picking the items and upgrades that improve it. But you also need a lot of health if you go this route, as lifesteal is not going to help you if the enemies are able take out all of your health in one go. Lifesteal is meant for health recovery, not damage prevention. Important distinction.

In my successful run of this challenge I did have some lifesteal, but not a lot. It was just a normal run that got lucky. I had the XP, Armor, Cooldown and Evasion tomes, and I was able to eek out a 6:20 on the clock. Which is to say, is cutting it close. Had I had a lifesteal tome instead of an evasion tome, I might have been able to survive longer, but I would've also needed to have the health to make it work. The reason I know lifesteal works though is through various sources that claim it, and a comment on this guide that impressively, got a 15-minute run using that as its backbone.

The 15-minute run was done using Sir Oofie, with just the sword, bone and banana for weapons. Weapons I usually dismiss, but they were able to survive thanks to the Max HP and Lifesteal tomes, as well as some items they were able to pick up along the way that catered towards that setup. Mainly they also thank the chonkplate for doubling their health but it does show that if lifesteal can carry you 15 minutes into the final swarm on good conditions, a less optimal setup can do 6.

That is not to say that lifesteal is the definitive answer, but it can be a key part of your build. What you choose and how you play the game still ultimately decides if you're going to survive, so it might take a few attempts, maybe you get lucky like I did, or maybe and hopefully, you're able to do it faster due to this guide. Either way, I wish you luck.

I think I covered everything. If I didn't, or if I could've made something better, let me know. I'll improve this guide if there's any ways to do it, because I do want to make this easy to understand. I know my verbose yapping isn't often the way to go about doing that, but I still at least tried.

Just comment on this and say if there's something you'd like to change, improve or have any other questions. Though, try to be clear and direct with your feedback. I cannot do changes or add sections if I don't know what I need to do. You could ask about some achievements you found tough and think deserve extra attention in the guide, or some additional help with certain gameplay mechanics. Stuff like that. Thanks for getting this far though, even if you leave without a comment. Ultimately I just want to help with this guide.