Knowing how to beat Red Death is important in Vampire Survivors. Ordinarily, a run has a hard cut-off point at the 15- or 30-minute mark, when Death shows up to cancel your Christmas. Here’s how to fight back.
How to Kill the Red Death in Vampire Survivors
By the Numbers: Red Death Stats
When Red Death spawns, the boss has 655,350 HP multiplied by your character’s current level. It’s immune to knockback (i.e. Garlic), and a single melee attack from the Red Death inflicts a base of 65,535 damage.
The boss is immune to the Rosary’s explosion but can be frozen by the Clock Lancet, Orologion, or the Jail of Crystal Arcana.
If you survive a single Red Death, a new one spawns every minute afterward, up to four. Stages may also have specific hazards after the 30:00 mark, such as Gallo Tower’s meteor shower/Drowner combo.
The Best Way to Beat Red Death: Crimson Shroud and Infinite Corridor
Screenshot by GameSkinny
The best way to beat Red Death in the current version of VS is with the Crimson Shroud and Infinite Corridor weapons.
How to Get the Crimson Shroud
Crimson Shroud is the evolved form of the Laurel. It requires the Metaglio Left and Metaglio Right accessories at max rank. With Crimson Shroud equipped, the damage you receive from one hit is capped at 10, and any enemy that touches you takes high retaliatory damage.
When struck with Crimson Shroud, the Red Death loses 1% of its current max HP.
How to Get the Infinite Corridor
Infinite Corridor is the evolved version of the Clock Lancet. It requires the Gold and Silver Ring accessories at max rank.
The Corridor periodically sweeps around your character with a clockwise beam that freezes enemies. When the beam completes a full rotation, every enemy still on screen loses half its current HP.
Using both the Corridor and Shroud at once virtually guarantees you can kill Red Death. The boss can barely scratch you, takes 1% damage any time it tries, and gets its health cut in half every few seconds.
How to Kill Death for Beginners
Neither the Shroud nor Corridor are on the drop tables for “shortcut” evolutions, such as the Super Candybox II Turbo. The only way to get them is the hard way.
The recommended steps are as follows:
- Complete the Moongolow challenge stage for the Yellow Sign Relic.
- Get the Mad Groove Arcana.
- Take and upgrade the Laurel and Clock Lancet.
- Find the Gold Ring, Metaglio Right, Metaglio Left, and the Silver Ring.
- Manage Treasure Chests to fight minibosses and get Evolved weapons.
Complete the Moonglow Challenge Stage for the Yellow Sign Relic
The first step is to run the challenge stage Moongolow. Defeat the special boss at the end to reach the Holy Forbidden, where you’ll find the Yellow Sign Relic. Our guide on how to beat Holy Forbidden provides more tips.
Get the Mad Groove Arcana
It takes a lot of travel time in any stage to get all four Yellow Sign items. This can be difficult on complicated maps such as the Dairy Plant or Mt. Moonspell.
You can bypass that with the Mad Groove Arcana. This is unlocked by surviving to minute 31 in the Mad Forest. With Mad Groove, every interactive object on a map is attracted to your position every two minutes, including the 4 hidden Yellow Sign relics.
The drawback, aside from losing an Arcana slot, is that you need to be careful about your positioning to avoid running into a relic that you might not want to take yet. This isn’t mandatory, but it does simplify your run.
Find the Gold Ring, Silver Ring, Metaglio Left, and Metaglio Right
With the Yellow Sign in your inventory, you can find and collect 4 new relics on most maps, which are found far to the north, south, east and west of your original starting point. All four relics max out at Level 9.
- The Gold Ring and Metaglio Right both increase your Curse by 5% per level.
- The Silver Ring increases your Area and Duration by 5% per level.
- The Metaglio Left grants 0.1 Recovery and 5% max HP per level.
Screenshot by GameSkinny
Getting close to any of the Yellow Sign relics spawns a powerful Masked Guardian. A dead Guardian drops a Golden Egg, which permanently increases one of your current character’s stats by a small amount.
Evolve the Laurel and Clock Lancet
Both the Laurel and Clock Lancet are weak early choices, but you have to take them to evolve them into the Shroud and Corridor. That, in turn, limits you to 4 slots for direct DPS, and you’re forced to end the run with at least 90% Curse.
From this point, you have to pull off a peculiar balancing act. For maximum firepower, you’ll want to grab 6 passive relics before you pick up the 4 from the Yellow Sign.
Further, you’ll need to have enough damage output to protect yourself before you start burning upgrades on the Laurel, Lancet, and Yellow Sign relics. In practice, you generally won’t see the Shroud or Corridor before the 18-minute mark.
Don’t try to do a Red Death run on any of the 15-minute challenge stages. These generally have some gimmick to keep you from surviving past the time limit.
If you have the Legacy of the Moonspell DLC, it’s worth mentioning that Megalo Menya Moonspell has an unusual passive ability. She’s immune to damage, but simply peaces out on her own at the 30:00 mark, which prevents her from challenging Red Death at all.
Manage Your Treasure Chests to Get Evolved Weapons
You have to carefully manage treasure chests on a Red Death run, as those are the potential spawn points for evolved weapons. I’ve lost Red Death runs because I ran out of minibosses to kill before the 30-minute mark.
Fortunately, the contents of treasure chests in Vampire Survivors are determined when you open them, rather than when they spawn. Let them stack up over time and only open one when you know there’s an evolved weapon in it.
This is complicated, but with practice, you can go into the Red Death fight with the two weapons that were designed to kill it.
Red Death Boss Rewards
Upon the Red Death’s demise, you’ll receive up to 4 Golden Eggs. If multiple Deaths have spawned, they all die once one’s killed. Unfortunately, your run will end seconds afterward, due to the appearance of the invincible, untouchable White Hand.
As an additional reward, you’ll unlock the hidden character Mask of the Red Death.
That’s how to beat Red Death in Vampire Survivors. For more tips, check out our dedicated VS guides hub.
Featured image by GameSkinny.
