I think I broke Vampire Crawlers.
And I don’t mean that in the tee-hee, I’m exaggerating just a little bit way. I know that Vampire Crawlers is all about making crazy builds with stacking stat buffs and strong synergies that can clear encounters in seconds, just like Vampire Survivors. But I think I’ve cracked the code with what may be the best build in the entire game.
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Vampire Crawlers Mortaccio Build
Mortaccio is a skeletal Crawler that you can unlock by slaying a total of 444 skeletons. He starts with a set of Bone cards and a single armor card, and he boosts your Amount stat every time a blue card is played.
There’s a really simple game plan to dominate with Mortaccio. All you need to do is overwhelm your opponents with a barrage of Bones by padding your Amount stat whenever you can. That means playing a lot of armor cards, and equipping the Your Shield My Liege Arcana (which makes armor persist between turns) will make Mortaccio unkillable.
Once you start a run, the most important goal is getting a Spellbinder card in your deck. Spellbinder cards cost 0 Mana and increase your Duration by 2. Once Mortaccio is active, you don’t ever want him to leave. Duration-boosting gems can also help out here.
With Mortaccio active, you’ll add even more Bones to the pile every time you apply armor. Bones cost 0 mana, and they can combo with Golden Armor to seriously strengthen your defenses. Add in some Duplicator cards—which also combo with Bones—and you’ll crush anything in your path with a cascade of calcium.
This strategy needs upgrades to survive deeper dungeon floors, so seek out gems that increase Might, Area, and Amount to buff your Bones. If you can nab a Reverse Combo gem, apply it to Golden Armor so your Bone cards can benefit from combo bonuses and deal additional damage.
This build works best with plenty of re-rolls so you can specifically target what you need. The best overall gems for this setup are Decimate and Triple Damage, both of which can upgrade Bones to a serious threat. Triple Damage is self-explanatory, but Decimate makes a card deal a fixed 10% of the enemy’s HP as damage.
You’ll still need something for single-target encounters like bosses since your Bones won’t be able to bounce as much in those situations. Ideally, you should chase something that costs two Mana so you can combo with Golden Armor. The Holy Wand is a personal favorite of mine.
Other than that, just keep stacking gems like Echo or Copy that will let you unleash a comical amount of Bones each turn. A Clover card is another thing to look out for since its repeated Luck buffs will help you find stronger gems.
Top things off with a Bracer to increase your hand size and more blue Armor or Pummarola cards to trigger Mortaccio’s skill, and you’ll breeze through even the hardest dungeons. There may be another build out there that’s even better than this Mortaccio setup, but for now, I’m too bone-headed to try anything else.
