Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood: Ultimate Cheese Build Guide for Newfriends

This guide is for people who, like me at the time of writing, have invested less than 10 hours into the game and who want a guide to get started and win more or less consistently even if you’re drunk or severely sleep deprived (as I myself tend to be one or the other much of the time). This doesn’t take most of the unlockables in the Shop or more advanced gameplay mechanics into play.

This also assumes that you’re going to be playing as Renfield and practicing one particular playstyle (mine), and it doesn’t mean that all of the perks I list as bad for this build here are necessarily bad for every build.

Before you’re likely to see results from this build (or any build), you’ll need to have played a few rounds and invested some coins in the shop.

The first and most important thing in any potentially successful run is the Coffin, which is an inexpensive but expendable resource that revives you after death with half health, potentially extending your run by 33% or more. Don’t leave home without one. You don’t unlock this until you’ve died a few times, though, so the first thing you’re going to want to invest in are various stats.

The first and most important stat is Movement Speed. You need this maxed out as quickly as humanly possible or you’re dead, every single time. The most important thing in the entire game, even more than dealing damage, is avoiding damage, and while Health and Armor are almost as important, Speed will let an experienced enough player win effotlessly without them, while that same player doesn’t stand a chance without a maxed-out Speed stat.

You’re going to want at least 2-3 points invested in Reroll, which allows you to get the perks you need when you need them during gameplay. Since this build revolves around certain perks, the more rerolls you get, the better, but I only have two points in Reroll at the time of writing, myself, so you don’t necessarily need all five right out of the gate.

The other important stats are Health, Power, and Armor, roughly in that order, although you’re likely to be leveling them unevenly since Armor is cheap, Power is expensive, and Health is very expensive. (Cooldown is also important to a lesser degree.) At least a couple of points invested in Power should be a primary goal, as this allows you to one-shot early game basic mooks even with your terrible unleveled base Shadow Claw attack. After that, level them as you will every time you come out of a match.

Once you’ve played a few rounds, you’ll also unlock the ability to buy new weapon perks. For this build, I’ve found Severed Head and Limb Spears to be the most helpful, as you get them super early and they’re cheap and powerful.

The core of the build is the weapon perk Fleur-De-Lys. It’s a very common perk that’s already unlocked when you start the game, and it’s also extremely underwhelming until it’s fully leveled, but becomes downright busted when it’s maxed out. For levels 1-8, it does a measly base 3 damage (which can, at most, be extended to 5 or 6 even with full Power stat boosts from the shop and ingame perks) every 24 (at level 1) to 18 (at level 8) seconds to every enemy on the screen. This isn’t very good, especially considering that investing in it will dramatically lower your DPS compared to what you could be doing if you’d invested those points in other weapons, but makes up for it at level 9 by maximizing the critical rate of all damage done by the perk (from 0% to 100%) and again at level 10 by increasing the base damage to 17 (meaning that, with power boosts, you’re doing 60+ damage to every enemy when it hits, and without power boosts, the 35 or so damage that it does is still enough to kill damn near anything).

Because enemies are constantly spawning in at uneven rates, this means that, at levels 1-8, it’s killing roughly 25%-33% of enemies every 60-90 seconds depending on various things, but once you get to level 10, everything on the screen (save bosses and extremely rare special enemies) dies at once every 20 seconds, like clockwork.

At that point, the perk is just playing the game for you, and your only goal is to avoid projectiles and collect XP.

The second most important part of the build is Entomophilia, which increases the power-up spawn rate by 1% every time you level it up. Most of the power-ups in the game can be done without, but the little Kissing Bug is the only way to replentish your health, which becomes extremely important if you make even the slighest early-game mistake.

You also need to pick 2-3 other perks to focus on that do a decent amount of damage with projectiles. I usually pick Severed Head and Limb Spears because they’re both common, they both do reasonable damage at low levels, they’re both very good at high levels, and they’re both strong enough to win with even on their own. Other perks like Purple Bat and Plague Rat also have their benefits.

Oh, and don’t forget to bring you a Coffin.

As we’ve establisted, your goal is to get Fleur-De-Lys to level 10 as quickly as possible. If you see it when you level up, grab it. You can often get it to level 10 by the third or fourth wave even if your luck isn’t great. Once you get it to level 10 and get a crown, you can use the crown on it, which gives all enemies a 3% chance to drop double XP, but you’re already going to be swimming in XP by that point. If you don’t have anything else at level 10 by the time you get a crown, take it just because it’s taking up a third of your potential perks every time you level up, but if anything else is at level 10, take that instead, because other weapon perks’ crown abilities are much better.

If you don’t see Fleur immediately, focus on levelling your other two chosen perks. Prioritize one over the other so you can get one to level 10 quickly. If you see Entomophilia, which I’ve never seen early game and doesn’t seem to spawn in some games at all, grab that instead.

If you don’t see any of the three main perks or Fleur early game, fill up your remaining perk slots with anything that does ranged damage. I personally like Purple Bat (being a smart projectile that does not care which way you are facing, meaning you can do damage while you’re running, and using this build effectively requires a good bit of running).

If you don’t see any of your three main perks and you also don’t see anything that shoots projectiles, grab Love Yourself (Health) or I Am Enough (Power) power-ups. Also, one stack of Set Your Boundaries (pushed back enemies when you take damage) is a lifesaver if you’re a clumsly player like me and occasionally get trapped in a corner surrounded by 800 mooks. Progress Not Perfection (Armor) and I Deserve Happiness (Cooldown) are also just okay if you’re out of rerolls and you don’t have anything else.

If you see a perk that you’re absolutely never going to use, banish it and hope for Fleur to replace it.

If you don’t see any of the above, or even if you’re just several waves in and don’t have Fleur levelled up enough for comfort, go ahead and reroll.

Don’t invest in Renfield’s Shadow Claw at all. It’s horrible, and once you get to later waves in St. Louis Cemetery and epsecially even early waves of the levels after that, projectiles become your biggest concern, and you’re not going to want to engage crowds in melee combat for that reason.

Area of effect perks like Dark Aura and Snickerdoodle seem tempting, but they’re mostly wasted since, again, the dominance of projectile enemies late game means you’re going to want to be keeping your distance. The only one I would recommend (and maybe not even then) is Black Bat, as it does damage far enough away from you at an early level to almost be worth it and can help clear a path for you consistently when you need it most once you’ve gained a few levels.

Avoid Plutocrat if you’re trying to successfully beat the boss, as it has no useful in-game effect other than to slightly increase the amount of coins you get (and it can also apparently unlock a special crown perk in combination with Black Bat, which is completely useless in this build and which I’ve never bothered to try out).

Your ultimate goal here is to have full health, a fully charged or almost fully charged bomb, Fleur and your two other main perks at level 10 (and preferably crowned), a summoned Familiar, and boosts to power-up drop rate, power, and health (you should be between levels 50 and 60) by the time you get to the boss.

For the very first wave, patience is key. Your first level only requires the tiniest handful of XP bugs, so you’re going to be tempted to run at them the very first time you see them, but getting hit even a couple of times in the early game can doom your entire run, so don’t be overly excited. You should grab as many XP bugs as quickly as you safely can, because it’s easy to get one or two levels pretty much immediately, but if there’s any question as to whether it can be done safely, wait on it (and this goes for pretty much the entire game).

For now, try to get the majority of the mooks gathered into a single crowd and pick them off from the edges, staying mindful of stragglers coming from different directions and killing them as you see them (your first level is likely to come from killing a couple of these guys). You should have at least one level 1 projectile attack even if you’ve been having excellent luck with Fleur by the third wave, at which point dealing with the crowds becomes a little easier, but you still need to play it extra safe for the early game since you’ll be doing 40-60 DPS versus the 80-100 DPS you’d probably be doing in any other build by midgame.

Your first couple of waves in general are going to be tedious, because your DPS is likely to be low, and you may not have a projectile attack yet at all (in which case you’ve been getting Fleur every single time you’ve leveled up, which is great), but be patient and play it safe. Your power level gets downright ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nuts in just a few more waves, so just hold on until then.

For the first three waves or so, avoid challenge rooms altogether, as you’re likely to take amounts of damage that will hurt your ability to successfully complete the run since you’re investing as much as possible into Fleur. Once you’re two or three waves in, you’ll probably be doing a reasonable amount of projectile damage in addition to Fleur, so grab as many Treasure rooms as you can from there on out (more for the XP from the extra enemies than for the coins, although the coins won’t hurt).

You won’t be able to successfully complete a Familiar room early game with this build, because you’re just too weak for most of the game. Don’t even think about it until Fleur is at level 10, you have at least a couple of levels in other perks (preferably at least level 10 in one good projectile perk), and you have more than half health remaining. If those conditions are met, make it a priority. If you’re forced into a Familiar room before you’re ready by the RNG, focus on staying alive and not taking damage, as you probably won’t be able to kill everything before the timer runs out, and you’re likely to take a lethal amount of damage if you try.

PROTIP: Once you have Fleur-De-Lys, wait after the end of every wave until the perk gauge is half-full before moving on to the next round to maximize damage as as large amounts of mooks begin to spawn.

Once you’ve gotten into the later game, Fleur should be at level 10 and enemies will start hurling projectiles at you in large numbers, at which point your basic strategy should be to avoid crowds, stay around the edges of the map, keep moving excepting the occasional pause to turn and let your high-level projectiles hit them, and moving in briefly when Fleur’s gauge is about to fill to murder as many enemies onscreen as possible, at which point you grab as many of the XP bugs as you can get to safely without being touched (don’t take risks or be greedy – you’ll have plenty – but grabbing as many of the XP bugs as possible before you finish a wave guarantees at least an extra level or two before the final wave, so it’s important). Rinse and repeat. when you’re getting close to the boss, save your bomb so that you have it fully charged or almost fully charged by the time you get to the final room.

When you get to the final room, wait until Fleur’s gauge is half-full as usual and walk into the boss room so that the mooks (which are the biggest threat in this level, given that they spawn infinitely and you have to wade through them to get to the boss) are massacred in unison just as large amounts of beginning to spawn. Save your charged bomb for halfway through Fleur’s cooldown at a point where you especially need it.

From there, just move towards the boss and spam attacks while avoiding as many of his mooks and projectiles as possible (avoiding everything is not possible). If you have a Coffin left and a decent amount of health, you can kill him very quickly without having to worry too much about dying (I got the 50s boss kill achievement on my first successful run).

Note that Fleur is not useful enough in the final boss room to wait around for. You’re getting 2-3 uses of it maximum or you’re already too dead for it to matter, so keep it mind, but don’t base your entire timing around it like you did for the entire rest of the game.

And that’s it. You’ve just cheesed your way past the boss.