Vampire Survivorskeeps surprising its fan base with constant updates, new characters, new items, and even new PowerUps. Considering how relatively small the game is in scale, many who initially enjoyed the game quickly managed to max out all the PowerUps and were confident they wouldn’t need to worry about grinding coins again.
But, the developers keep doing stellar work and adding more content, so there’s more to spend that precious currency on. It’s worth taking a brief look at some of the different PowerUps inVampire Survivorsand talking about which ones are likely the best to level up first.
Updated on July 24, 2025, by Jeff Drake:The globalPowerUps in Vampire Survivorsare one of the best ways to improve a character’s survivability. These PowerUps improve the stats of all characters and are the main reason players should attempt to accumulate as much gold as possible. There have been a few PowerUps added to the game; however, most of the original PowerUps should be prioritized over the new ones. PowerUps should also bepurchased in a specific orderto save gold, which should be used for Golden Eggs. Now that the game is out on the Switch, here’s an updated list of the PowerUps players should prioritize.
23Seal I And 2
Allow Weapons And Passive Items To Be Banished Before The Run
The Seal 1 and Seal 2 PowerUps allow the player to remove a weapon or Item from the pool. They will not be offered during the run upon gaining a new level. They work similarly to the Banish PowerUp, with the only difference being when this PowerUp is used.
The player can change which item or weapon is sealed away from the Collections menu. This PowerUp saves the player a couple of Banishes while playing; in other words, two extra attempts to get the desired item or weapon.
22Skip
Let The Player Avoid Picking A Weapon Or Item They Don’t Want
When going up a level, the player is given four random weapons or items from which to choose. Sometimes, none of these weapons or items are desired at the moment. That’s what Skip is for; it lets the player skip the selection process. Unlike Banish, it keeps the weapons and items in the pool.
Using Skip also gives the player a small amount of free experience. Use Skip early in a run to get the desired weapons or a passive item that is required for a weapon evolution. Use Banish instead if a weapon is offered that works against the intended loadout.
21Defang
Causes Some Enemies To Be Unable To Deal Damage
There are a couple of PowerUps that giveenemy creaturesa stat boost or increase their numbers onscreen. This gives veteran players a more challenging experience. Defang is meant to make the game a bit easier. There are two major uses for this PowerUp.
Defang can be used by beginning players to make the game less difficult until they unlock more content. It can also be used to test a new character build; by weakening the enemies, it increases the odds of being able to survive long enough to fully level a build.
20Charm
Influences The Number Of Enemies Onscreen
This PowerUp is like the Curse PowerUp; it’s intended tomake the game more challengingfor those who think the game’s gotten too easy. The Charm PowerUp does this by increasing the number of onscreen enemies. Enemies are increased by 20 per rank, and there are five ranks.
When combined with the Curse PowerUp, Charm allows for rapid experience gains. With the increase in enemies, it is important to get strong crowd-control weapons - like La Borra or Summon Night.
19Recovery
Recovery Affects Health Recovery
Recovery affects how fast a character regenerates health. At Recovery’s normal setting, it is hard to see the health bar move. That’s how slow health regeneration is at default. There are a few passive items that increase Recovery, like Pummarola, but none of them synergize well withother weaponsand items. This makes purchasing the Recovery Powerup even more important.
It may start slow, but with a little boosting, the character’s health regeneration can get to Wolverine levels of efficiency, with health being restored to maximum seconds after taking damage.
18Duration
Duration Affects The Duration Of Weapon Effects
Purchasing this Powerup increases the duration of the character’s weapon effects. There are many weapons that are unaffected by increases in duration; however, the weapons that can benefit from an increase in duration become incredibly powerful when this Powerup is maxed out.
Some of the best weapons, like Santa Water and the King Bible, become significantly more effective with boosted durations. In some cases, the duration can be made to extend passed the cooldown time of the weapon. When this happens, the weapon effectively fires continuously.
17Projectile Speed
Weapon Projectiles Travel Faster
At first, the thought of making projectiles travel a few percentage points faster doesn’t sound like much of a bonus. Weapons like Runetracer travel through enemies and bounce off solid surfaces. These projectiles last for a few seconds then they fade away. By increasing the projectile speed, these projectilescan hit more enemiesbefore the duration expires.
The La Borra (evolved Santa Water) creates zones on the ground that slowly move to envelop the character. With a boost to projectile speed, these zones can be made to quickly merge around the player. The overlapping zones create an area thatmost enemies cannot survivein for more than a second or two.
16Move Speed
Moving Faster Helps Avoid The Enemy Swarms
A lot of the characters inVampire Survivorsmove painfully slowly. This makes avoiding concentrated groups of creatures quite challenging. By spending a little gold purchasing this Powerup, every character will move a little faster. This is especially useful with characters like Dommario, who begins with a negative to Move Speed.
A faster Move Speed lets the player get to the stage items much quicker. Also, there are a handful of weapons whosedamage scales with Move Speed. These weapons are:
15Armor
Increasing Armor Reduces The Damage Inflicted By Enemies
Armor is an almost forgotten stat. Many players assume all this stat does is lower the amount of damage taken from enemies. Those players are right, that is what the Armor stat does, but other aspects of the game are affected by Armor.
Some weapons, like Eskizzibur and Night Sword, have theirdamage scale with increases to Armor. The Divine Bloodline arcana increases the damage of some weapons if the Armor stat is increased. This is one of thebetter arcanas, and when combined with a maxed-out Armor PowerUp, it makes many of the weapons incredibly overpowered.
14Area
Larger Projectiles Greatly Increase Weapon Efficiency
In the early days ofVampire Survivors, Area wasn’t the most important stat to boost. Making weapons bigger onscreen, or increasing their effective radius, wasn’t as useful as increasing Amount or Might or decreasing Cooldown times. Having the enemy horde hit the outer radius of one’s weapons a fraction of a second sooner just wasn’t a priority.
Things have changed. For starters, there are few weapons that aren’t affected by Area. This makes Areaone of the more user-friendly statsto increase. When Area is boosted to the upper limit, some of the newer weapons (likeSummon Night) become strong enough to use by themselves.
