Risk Of Rain 2: Every Lunar Item & What They Do (2024)

Risk of Rain 2 offers over 100 items to augment your survivor over the course of your run. Common items, uncommon items, rare items, boss items, and with the Survivors of the Void DLC, even Void items. However, there's one tier that can make or break your run: Lunar items. Lunar Items are signified by their blue outline and are usually found in Lunar Pods, strange silver flower pods that spawn across Petrichor V. In exchange for one Lunar Coin, which have a chance to drop from slain foes, you can open the Lunar Pod and receive a Lunar Item in exchange. The Lunar Items often have powerful effects, but that power can come at a price. Every Lunar Item has a strange and exotic effect with an equal drawback to balance it out. Think twice before picking up a Lunar Item, as it may spell disaster for your run.

RELATED: Risk of Rain 2 Survivors of the Void New Character, Items Explained

Lunar Items can be found and purchased in the Bazaar Between Time, a hidden realm accessed by a Blue Portal at the end of a stage. The Bazaar Between Time is host to the Newt, a mysterious newt-like being that offers Lunar Items in exchange for Lunar Coins. You can trade Lunar Coins in for one of the four Lunar Items for sale — and if you don't like what the Newt has in stock, you can re-roll its wares with a nearby totem and some extra coin. Otherwise, Lunar Items can be found in Lunar Pods or through the use of the Command Artifact.

Lunar Item Breakdown

The standard items you'll obtain from Lunar Pods. These items can be traded in to a Cleansing Pool for a Pearl — or, if you're lucky, an Irradiant Pearl. Pearls boost your health, with Irradiant Pearls boosting all stats, and can be used as scrap for Boss-tier printers. If you have too many Lunar Items, convert them into Pearls!

Beads Of Fealty

Seems to do nothing... but...

The Beads of Fealty do, in fact, do nothing. They have no effect on your survivor whatsoever, but what they do affect is the ending of your run. Should you reach stage 7 or beyond and take the Celestial Portal to A Moment, Fractured, you can obliterate yourself at the Obelisk. While this would usually end your run, carrying Beads of Fealty causes something peculiar to happen. Rather than fading into non-existence, you instead materialize into A Moment, Whole, an endless white void containing nothing but you and a Twisted Scavenger.

The Twisted Scavenger acts as a hidden final boss; defeating it will reward you with 10 Lunar Coins and a Fate Unknown ending. Of course, defeating the Twisted Scavenger is easier said than done; the Twisted Scavenger comes in four unique flavors, each with their own set of items to wield in battle. Be prepared for a tough fight before obliterating if you pick up Beads of Fealty.

If you don't plan on obliterating, however, Beads of Fealty can be very useful for farming Pearls at Cleansing Pools. Cleansing Pools require a Lunar Item to activate, and will give you a Pearl or Irradiant Pearl, which will boost your health and all of your stats, respectively. Of course, finding a Cleansing Pool can take some time, and carrying around a Lunar Item with a potentially deadly drawback can put you in danger. Thankfully, Beads of Fealty has no effect outside of obliterating yourself, so make sure to pick these up if you're looking for a Cleansing Pool.

Brittle Crown

30% chance on hit to gain 2 (+2 per stack) gold. Scales over time. Lose gold on taking damage equal to 100% (+100% per stack) of the maximum health percentage you lost.

The Brittle Crown is a strange item. You gain a 30% chance to gain a small amount of gold (relative to your progress) per hit, but you also lose gold equal to damage you take. The Brittle Crown is best picked up earlier in the run — at that stage, enemies will not spawn in the numbers they do later on, so finding the money to open chests with can be difficult. The Brittle Crown can help with this, provided you're good at dodging — that being said, it falls off hard as you make it into the endgame.

Money becomes less and less of an issue as you progress, and if you decide to loop, it will be hardly an issue at all. In fact, the Brittle Crown may even prove to be a detriment, as you can lose gold just by being scratched by a Wisp's attack. It may not kill you, but it will certainly empty your wallet just as you were going to open a Legendary Chest. It's just not really worth picking up unless you're really hurting for cash.

Corpsebloom

Heal +100% (+100% per stack) more. All healing is applied over time. Can heal for a maximum of 10% (-50% per stack) of your health per second.

Corpsebloom is usually not worth picking up, full stop. Corpsebloom will increase the amount of healing you receive, but it will cut it into little bits and drip-feed it to you over time. What could be a large, bulk heal becomes a lengthy heal-over-time. Stacking the item decreases the amount of health you can get per second, lengthening the time you spend healing.

There are some scenarios where Corpsebloom can be useful — in fact, pairing it up with Rejuvenation Rack, a blatantly superior item, can be quite a combination if you choose to pick both of them up. Rejuvenation Rack not only doubles the total amount of health restored alongside Corpsebloom, but every tick of health you get back will be doubled as well.

Because of this, you can be constantly restoring health, making it so any attack that lands on you is quickly removed. That being said, it's often more useful to get your healing in bursts, rather than over time.

RELATED: Risk Of Rain 2: Best Items In The Game, Ranked

Defiant Gouge

Using a Shrine summons enemies (stronger per stack) nearby. Scales over time.

If the prospect of turning every Shrine into a Shrine of Combat excites you, pick up the Defiant Gouge. Otherwise, avoid it. The enemies spawned by the Defiant Gouge scale both in accordance to how many Gouges you have, but also with the ambient difficulty. The enemies you will have to face can quickly scale beyond what you can handle, and the money you get from killing them just isn't worth it. Hard pass.

Egocentrism

Every 3 (-50% per stack) seconds, gain an orbiting bomb that detonates on impact for 360% damage, up to a maximum of 3 bombs (+1 per stack). Every 60 seconds, a random item is converted into this item.

This item is part of the Survivors of the Void DLC.

Egocentrism is an interesting item that can easily become the center point of builds. Egocentrism will spawn orbiting bombs that home in on nearby foes and damage them for a modest amount of damage. Ego's bombs can't proc Kjaro's or Runald's Bands, but they can proc other items. Egocentrism's main drawback is that it will convert one of your items into itself every 60 seconds. Thankfully, unlike Benthic Bloom, Egocentrism will only deduct one item and not an entire stack of items.

Provided you can keep a steady income of items to keep Egocentrism fed, Ego can provide a wicked source of damage that can easily rip apart bosses in seconds. Every stack of Egocentrism halves the time it takes to spawn another bomb as well as increasing your bomb cap. Given enough items and time, you can easily have a galaxy of bombs orbiting around you, ready to bombard any unlucky Lemurian that wanders into your instant-kill range.

Another benefit of Egocentrism is that it provides a limitless cache of items to use at Cleansing Pools. You can even get rid of it completely if you find yourself overwhelmed by Ego's hunger.

Essence Of Heresy

Replace your Special Skill with Ruin.

Dealing damage adds a stack of Ruin for 10 (+10 per stack) seconds. Activating the skill detonates all Ruin stacks at unlimited range, dealing 300% damage plus 120% damage per stack of Ruin. Recharges after 8 (+8 per stack) seconds.

Essence of Heresy is one of the Heresy Items, a special set of items that replace one of your skills and have a unique effect once gathered. These items are very much dependent on what survivor you choose at the start of your run, as these items will replace one of your skills until you remove the item through a Cleansing Pool. Essence of Heresy gives you access to Ruin, which replaces your special skill. While Ruin is off cooldown, all of your attacks will apply a stack of Ruin to an enemy.

Ruin doesn't do much on its own, but activating the skill will "detonate" all stacks of Ruin, dealing damage dependent on how many stacks are applied. Ruin counts as a debuff, so it counts towards the Death Mark item, which can massively multiply your damage output once its requirements are met. Also, keep in mind that you cannot apply stacks of Ruin while the skill is on cooldown. Stacking the item is not recommended; by default, a stack of Ruin lasts 10 seconds, which is incredibly generous.

Stacking Essence of Heresy increases the duration of Ruin by another 10 seconds, but also increases its cooldown — thus, you may want to hold back on stacking this item as the benefits hardly outweigh the lengthy cooldown.

Eulogy Zero

Items have a 5% (+5% per stack) chance to become a Lunar item instead.

This item is part of the Survivors of the Void DLC.

Eulogy Zero makes it so every time an item is spawned, there is a 5% chance for it to become a random Lunar Item instead. If you like Lunar Items or want to fill out the Logbook, pick this one up — otherwise, it's not really recommended. Lunar Items are powerful indeed, but there are many other items that provide useful boons like increasing your movement speed and proccing useful effects to up your damage output. Gathering too many Lunar Items is like building a house of cards — impressive, yes, but a single well-placed blow can bring your run crashing down.

Focused Convergence

Teleporters charge 30% (+30% per stack) faster, but the size of the Teleporter zone is 50% (-50% per stack) smaller.

Focused Convergence is a great item if you're looking to speed through stages. It provides up to a 90% reduction in Teleporter charge time, but will reduce the size of the Teleporter zone by up to 87.5%. Focused Convergence is also one of the few items to have a cap, with its effects capping out at 3 stacks. If you're a speedrunner or are late into a run and just want to get through this next stage, picking up Focused Convergence can be very useful — so long as you don't mind working in cramped spaces.

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Gesture Of The Drowned

Reduce Equipment cooldown by 50% (+15% per stack). Forces your Equipment to activate whenever it is off cooldown.

Gesture of the Drowned is one of the best Lunar items in the game, and arguably one of the best items, period. There are very few instances where picking up a Gesture is not advised — such scenarios depend on what Equipment you currently have. Gesture will make it so that your Equipment has a massively reduced cooldown, but will automatically trigger as soon as its cooldown ends.

You might be thinking, "that doesn't really sound like a bad thing," and you'd be absolutely right. Most Equipment in the game will provide some form of passive bonus, such as maxing out your critical hit rate, healing you, or boosting your stats. In those cases, you can pick up a Gesture and have it activate without having to do so manually. That being said, there are a few Equipment pieces that are easier to use without a Gesture. Namely, Equipment that have some form of line-of-sight, such as the Preon Accumulator.

These Equipment pieces need to be aimed to get the most out of them, and having them activate in the middle of battle can make them less effective, if they don't miss out-right. Play around with various Equipment, and see which ones you find work better with Gesture.

Hooks Of Heresy

Replace your Secondary Skill with Slicing Maelstrom.

Charge up a projectile that deals 875% damage per second to nearby enemies, exploding after 3 seconds to deal 700% damage and root enemies for 3 (+3 per stack) seconds. Recharges after 5 (+5 per stack) seconds.

Hooks of Heresy is another one of the Heresy Items. Much like its siblings, Hooks of Heresy is heavily dependent on what survivor you chose at the beginning of your run. Ask yourself, "Am I using my secondary skill? Is it good, or do I need an upgrade?" If you think that your secondary skill is in need of some improvement, you can pick up Hooks and try out Slicing Maelstrom.

Slicing Maelstrom fires out a traveling area-of-effect that damages foes before exploding and immobilizing them. Charging up the attack will make it travel farther. Slicing Maelstrom hits many times over a short interval, so it pairs well with items that apply debuffs or weaker on-hit effects.

Light Flux Pauldron

Decrease skill cooldowns by 50% (+50% per stack). Decrease attack speed by 50% (+50% per stack).

This item is part of the Survivors of the Void DLC.

The Light Flux Pauldron is good for when you have a high attack speed — picking it up will slash your cooldowns in half in exchange for halving your attack speed. Of course, if you have a high attack speed already, picking it up won't have much of a drawback. You'll essentially halve your cooldowns for free! That being said, be careful of picking this up if you need the attack speed — you'll be left wide open between attacks regardless of your cooldowns.

Mercurial Rachis

Creates a Ward of Power in a random location nearby that buffs both enemies and allies within 16m (+50% per stack), causing them to deal +50% damage.

Mercurial Rachis is one of those items where picking it up is honestly up to your mood. Mercurial Rachis will place an area-of-effect nearby that powers up any character within, increasing their damage by 50%. This buff can also affect enemies, but simply dodging their attacks can eliminate that risk. If you're confident in your dodging skills, pick it up. If you want to collect some Pearls, pick it up. Bored, and want to introduce some risk into your rain? Pick it up.

Purity

All skill cooldowns are reduced by 2 (+1 per stack) seconds. All random effects are rolled +1 (+1 per stack) times for an unfavorable outcome.

Purity is a very interesting item. Picking it up will reduce your cooldowns by a flat amount, but will also make you unlucky, causing random effects to be skewed against you. A good rule of thumb for this item is considering how many you'd need to pick up to get the most use out of it; for example, Commando only needs three Purity to completely remove all of his cooldowns, save for his special.

With this, Commando can endlessly spam Phase Round and Phase Blast, and have an infinite double-jump by using Tactical Slide in mid-air. The luck debuff can be nullified by stacking an equal amount of 57 Leaf Clovers, but obtaining that many can be difficult when not playing on Command. If you decide to pick up Purity, you'll want to play with items that can have a 100% proc chance, such as Lens Maker's Glasses. Items with a 100% proc chance will always proc, regardless of luck.

Shaped Glass

Increase base damage by 100% (+100% per stack). Reduce maximum health by 50% (+50% per stack).

Veterans of Risk of Rain 2 will remember how powerful Shaped Glass used to be. It still is, arguably, but Shaped Glass is not what it once was. Shaped Glass is a very simple item; you deal double damage in exchange for half health. Stacking it will double your damage again, and halve your health again, exponentially. This can easily spiral out of control — provided you don't get one-shot.

See, there's a hidden mechanic in Risk of Rain 2 called one-shot protection; if you are at or above 90% HP, you cannot be killed by one instance of damage. Shaped Glass, however, reduces your health to the point that one-shot protection is nullified, and you can be killed quite easily. Of course, you can also kill enemies quite easily, so picking up Shaped Glass is dependent on how confident you are on putting down enemies before they kill you. And hey, if you pick up one, you may as well go all in and watch Mithrix fall to a single attack.

Stone Flux Pauldron

Increase max health by 100% (+100% per stack). Reduce movement speed by 50% (+50% per stack).

This item is part of the Survivors of the Void DLC.

Much like its counterpart, Stone Flux Pauldron is useful if you have speed to spare. In this case, however, Stone Flux Pauldron may be more useful. Movement speed is an important stat, as it lets you traverse the stage faster, as well as dodge attacks more easily. However, too much movement speed can make precise movement hard, and you might find yourself falling off ledges because you're just that fast.

In that case, pick up a Stone Flux Pauldron — your speed will be cut in half, and your health will be doubled to compensate. If you have too much speed, this can make controlling your survivor much easier.

Strides of Heresy

Replace your Utility Skill with Shadowfade.

Fade away, becoming intangible and gaining +30% movement speed. Heal for 18.2% (+18.2% per stack) of your maximum health. Lasts 3 (+3 per stack) seconds.

Strides of Heresy is a part of the Heresy Item set, and follows much of the same rules. Shadowfade, which replaces your utility skill, is a valuable recovery skill that makes you temporarily invulnerable and heals you for a substantial amount of health. Shadowfade also lets you hover, which improves your mobility and nullifies fall damage. Once again, picking this item up is dependent on your survivor; if their utility isn't very useful, try picking up Strides of Heresy and giving Shadowfade a whirl.

Transcendence

Convert all but 1 health into regenerating shields. Gain 50% (+25% per stack) maximum health.

For fans of Shield gameplay, Transcendence can't be beat. Transcendence boosts your max health and converts it all into shields, with one hit-point remaining. Shields behave differently from normal health but can be very useful if played correctly. Shields will automatically regenerate to full if you don't take a hit for 7 seconds; however, this is the only way they can be restored, as healing has no effect on shields.

If you have good enough mobility, this won't be a problem; you can simply avoid attacks and heal yourself back to full without worry. Transcendence also has good synergy with Survivors of the Void's Plasma Shrimp. Plasma Shrimp will cause all of your attacks to fire a missile if you have a shield up. Since Transcendence makes it so you always have a shield, Plasma Shrimp is a must-have.

Visions of Heresy

Replace your Primary Skill with Hungering Gaze.

Fire a flurry of tracking shards that detonate after a delay, dealing 120% base damage. Hold up to 12 charges (+12 per stack) that reload after 2 seconds (+2 per stack).

The last of the Heresy Items. Visions of Heresy fires a volley of tracking projectiles that will stick to foes, detonating after roughly a second. Visions of Heresy can be useful on survivors who need ranged attacks, such as Acrid or Loader. Visions of Heresy is also very good at proccing on-hit items; the initial hit where the projectile sticks to foes does a small amount of damage and is valid for proccing items independently from its explosion, which can effectively double your item procs.

Related: Risk Of Rain 2: Character Tier List

Lunar Equipment Available

Just as normal items have their own twisted Lunar counterparts, so too does Equipment. Lunar Equipment can drop from Lunar Pods as well and are also usable in Cleansing Pools. Equipment, much like other Lunar Items, have a drawback that can make most players think twice before picking them up. Of course, if you're willing to put up with their negative effects, Lunar Equipment can provide a huge benefit to you as you scour Petrichor V for a way home.

Effigy Of Grief

ALL characters within are slowed by 50% and have their armor reduced by 20. Can place up to 5.

When activated, Effigy of Grief places an area-of-effect that slows everything in its range and reduces its armor. You can have up to 5 Effigies place at once, with the first one placed being removed if a new one is placed. Effigy of Grief can be useful for grouping up enemies in preparation for a burst of damage, but is otherwise not very useful — after all, you can also get caught in its slowness field.

Glowing Meteorite

Rain meteors from the sky, damaging ALL characters for 600% damage per blast. Lasts 20 seconds.

The bane of all multiplayer games, Glowing Meteorite causes meteors to rain down from the sky and brutalize anyone unfortunate enough to get caught up in its fury. Glowing Meteorite can be useful if you want to clear out large amounts of enemies at once, but it falls off later in the game because its damage doesn't scale. Also, it affects your allies as well — repairing drones gets expensive, so make sure your allies can dodge the meteors!

Helfire Tincture

Ignite ALL characters within 15m for 12s. Deal 5% of your maximum health/second as burning as damage. The burn is 0.5x stronger on yourself, 0.25x stronger on allies, and 24x stronger on enemies.

If you can put up with Helfire Tincture's flames, this equipment can be quite powerful. When activated, you ignite and deal damage to yourself and anyone within close range of you. Enemies take more damage, but the Helfire's flames can affect allies, so be careful. Helfire Tincture's self-damage can be reduced with Repulsion Armor Plates, which reduces all instances of damage by a flat amount.

Since each tick of Helfire's damage is usually quite small, you can reduce the recoil down to negligible amounts while maximizing damage dealt to foes with items like Ignition Tank and Razorwire. Ignition Tank causes all of your burns to deal more damage (it also affects Helfire's self-damage, so be careful), and Razorwire will proc off of the damage you take from Helfire.

Spinel Tonic

Drink the Tonic, gaining a boost for 20 seconds. Increases damage by +100%. Increases attack speed by +70%. Increases armor by +20. Increases maximum health by +50%. Increases passive health regeneration by +300%. Increases movespeed by +30%.

When the Tonic wears off, you have a 20% chance to gain a Tonic Affliction, reducing all of your stats by -5% (-5% per stack).

Spinel Tonic is arguably the best of the Lunar Equipment. When used, you gain a potent buff to all of your stats for 20 seconds. That said, when the buff wears off, you have a chance to gain a permanent debuff that cannot be removed. The debuff, called a Tonic Affliction, reduces all of your stats... but only if you're not under the effects of Spinel Tonic. Spinel Tonic's duration is 20 seconds, and its cooldown is 45 seconds.

Through use of Fuel Cells and Gestures of the Drowned, you can reduce Spinel Tonic's cooldown to under 20 seconds and maintain the buff permanently. This way, any Tonic Afflictions you may have will be nullified. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that Tonic Afflictions will build up even if you have permanent uptime on Spinel Tonic. If, for whatever reason, the buff finally wears off, you may be hit with a large amount of Tonic Afflictions.

Secret Character: The Heretic

The Heretic is a secret playable character that cannot be selected at the beginning of a run. Rather, by collecting the Essence, Hooks, Strides, and Visions of Heresy items, your survivor will transform into Kur-skaan, the Heretic. Due to holding all four Heresy items, your skills will be that of the Heretic; Hungering Gaze for your primary, Slicing Maelstrom for your secondary, Shadowfade for your utility, and Ruin for your special. Kur-skaan also stands out for having an enormous health pool; a whopping 450, more than twice than that of MUL-T, who sits in second place at 200 HP.

That being said, Kur-skaan has a negative regeneration, causing her to lose HP over time rather than regain it. This can be mitigated through use of Shadowfade and other healing sources, as you can simply heal back the health you lose over time. That being said, be wary of boosts to your regeneration; multiplicative boosts will multiply your regeneration. While this would be fine on normal survivors, who have a positive regeneration, Kur-skaan will suffer from these and lose health even faster.

NEXT: Why Breaking Risk of Rain 2 Is So Much Fun