Hey all. I was somewhat surprised to find that there aren't really any decent steam guides in English for this awesome game (at the time of writing), and I felt like I could address it. The game is fairly simple on the face of it, and you can learn the deeper ins and outs on your own, but the purpose of this guide is to speed up that process (i.e. the guide is aimed at quasi-beginners). I'm going to assume you know the basics already, and that you are familiar with Chiming Tree upgrades, and have unlocked the essentials. Read on for some advice on utilizing these mechanics that the game doesn't spell out immediately. Mild spoiler warning: the final section gives away some late-game enemies and a smidge of story.

Using this correctly can make a key difference in combat effectiveness. If you're still getting upgrades, I'd say prioritize the ones for this (bullet reflection, increased effectiveness after regular slashes, and increased wall stun). Here's the things it can do:

• stun: smash is mainly a crowd control tool, not damage - it's one of the main ways to defend against the more lethal enemies (various laser prisms, for example). Smashed enemies get stunned, and more importantly, if you smash them when they have the "!" over them, the effect is more powerful. This is especially important against bosses, most of which are immune to stuns, except when they get the "!" symbol - interrupting these attacks can save you a lot of trouble, and give time for some free dps.
  
• knockback: Smash also does big knockback to enemies (although bigger enemies are "heavier"). Smashing enemies into walls, or even better, other enemies, will increase stun duration (and stun both), and this effect is vastly increased if you build up basic sword strikes on them (and have the upgrade). You should absolutely abuse the hell out of this mechanic on pretty much all but trash enemies, because it will keep multiple enemies stunned, rather than shooting at you. Scourgebringer pretty much becomes a game of baseball once you get into the groove of hit-hit-hit-smash. Bonus points also for smashing enemies to the floor, then dashing down for the extra ground-dash damage.
  
• bullet reflection: self-explanatory. Knowing which enemy to prioritize, what attacks to pay attention to is something that just comes with practice. The "bigger smash" blessing is really good, by the way. Also note that if a reflected projectile has additional effects (exploding into clusters, spawning more projectiles, etc), those will also be friendly to you. Reflected projectiles also stun.
  
• enemy "reflection": some enemies do kamikaze attacks or have on-death effects. Similar to reflecting bullets, a smash kill "converts" these effects to your side. Smash them while they glow red, or kill them via wall-hit, and you don't have to worry about them.
  
• dragon punch: a dash with all of the effects of smash, but with a longish cooldown. Be conservative with it, so you have it when you need it to avoid damage - when too many bullets are about to hit you, when an enemy is charging up an attack and is out of reach, etc, because it's also good for stunning at range (remember bosses and their interruptable attacks?) Also note that it shares its cooldown with normal smashes in a weird way: you can't dragon punch immediately after a smash, but you can smash after a dragon punch.

• Basic slashes in midair will keep you pretty much floating. Your dash cooldown is roughly as fast as two quick slashes. The result of these two facts is that you can basically fly and go as high as you want, and this is actually pretty important to remember against certain bosses (bileranha's vomit, for example, can be trivialized by simply staying above him)

• dash linking: if a dash is a killing blow, you can press dash again immediately (it's a very brief time window) to do a linked dash, which can cross pretty much an entire arena. Great for quickly taking out trash enemies, if the geometry allows. One hit enemies are the following:
  
  • Flies
    
  • Slugs in zone 1
    
  • Small bats
    
  • Small blue jellyfish
    
  • Drilly fall-bots, before they start falling
    
  • Small splat-flies
    
  • Toxic wasps
    
  • Saw-bots
    
  • Blood-flies
  If you memorize the health of other enemy types, you can do it so that a dash is the final blow (the small red devils in the first zone, for example, can be killed with a dash after two sword hits). These breakpoints can change as you get damage bonuses though, so don't focus too much on them.
  
• dash knockback: Kyhra will sort of carry dashed enemies with her. This, alongside smashes, is a key tool in corraling enemies together into clumps, and comes in very handy once you upgrade dash to do a shockwave when going down into the ground - you can land this basically for free even if the enemy isn't quite on the ground (and, as mentioned earlier, smashing downward is also a great setup for this). However, this can also be detrimental when trying to get distance from a boss you were hitting. Doublejump or just let yourself fall in these cases.
  
• dash as a defensive tool: as a beginner, you might forget that dash is not just for gap-closing and damage. On paper, well timed smashes are enough to protect you in most situations, but in actual practice, you might find yourself in some tight spots with your smash on cooldown - always remember the option of dashing to dodge or get into cover. Especially important against undeflectable laser attacks, explosive attacks, and a lot of the bosses.

• Hitting an enemy with your sword, dash, or smash; or deflecting a projectile resets your double jump. You'll basically have it ready at almost all times in a fight. This is good to keep in mind if you want to juke away from, say, a big miniboss attack without dragging the enemy with you with a dash.

• Enemy armor: Certain enemies are armored (to varying degrees), and projectiles (including lasers) can bounce off, the chance depending on how armored they are (with the piercing mod improving the chance to penetrate).However, the splash damage of explosions will hit armored enemies, so shooting a nearby enemy or wall can be a useful tactic (if your projectile explodes on impact)
  
• Damage bonus on stun: don't forget to abuse this chiming tree upgrade (a whopping +50% gun damage against stunned enemies) against beefy, high value enemies.
  
• Slashing and shooting simultaneously: Hitting shots massively increases dps, obviously, and this especially comes into play against bosses, where you don't really need to worry about overkill or missing. Get into the habit of just using both attack buttons against bosses, the two are independent of each other.
  
• Unsettling mod and ammo refills: this is a pretty nice mod, and the cool thing about it is that the HUD shows you which shots will do triple damage. Whenever you find an ammo refill pickup, check your mag: if it has regular shots at the top, empty these (or the whole mag if it has lots of regular shots), and pick up the refill. With some luck, you'll get more 3x shots. This is especially relevant with low-mag weapons. If you get lucky and, say, get a crossgrenade mag with two 3x shots, consider taking on a miniboss/boss early and just nuking it.
  
• Replacing mods: if your mod slots are full, pay attention to the bottom left of your HUD when standing on a mod pickup. You'll see your mods turn white in a cycle: the one that is white when you grab the pickup will be the one that gets replaced.

• Your combo meter only gets reduced if you lose health - getting hit with shields on lets you keep the combo. Consider going for high payout stuff (i.e. challenge rooms and minibosses/bosses) when you have a high combo and shields.

One of the chiming tree upgrades makes the fury attack give ammo back for each destroyed enemy projectile (this happens automatically as soon as you cast it), with a small chance for hp. This makes it well worth learning which enemies attack with lots of projectiles, so you can use fury to heal pretty consistently. The best enemies for this are:

• crab-bot miniboss of zone 1
  
• red jellyfish, if there's like 3+ of them
  
• big jellyfish, but you have to let them spawn minions that'll fill the area with bullets if they see you
  
• candlemask's big "!" attack when he goes to the middle and extends his candles
  
• bileranha, especially his green orb attack
  
• the giant mushroom miniboss in zone 4
  
• the death explosion of the living bomb miniboss of zone 5
  
• the "!" attack of the prehistoric brown demon miniboss of zone 4/5
  
• the "!" of nightweaver
  
• most of the attacks of the boss of zone 5
  
• The Twilight Devil's homing barrage
  
• most of Greed's attacks

Remember, however, that you cannot use Fury if there is no enemy on screen. The death explosion of the living quantom bomb miniboss of zone 5 can be tricky (leave a minion alive), and nightweaver also leaves the arena for his rain attack.

• Early gun: Shops are most likely where you'll find different guns. Prices increase as you progress through the zones (although so does blood gain), so try to find a weapon you like early, preferably a high-tier one with mods.
  
• health upgrades: shops usually sell a health item. It's a good idea to reroll this into a max health increasing item, especially early on, because you might not find that many of them otherwise
  
• buying max health with health: some vendors require hp as payment. Buying a max health heart from these will not give you its healing.
  
• "Keep Rolling" blessing: this effectively lets you buy higher grade items with a huge discount. When possible, wait with rerolling shop items until you find the blood altar in the zone: if you get Keep Rolling from it, you can save money.

Every zone almost always has a secret room, sometimes two. These are a big deal, because they contain a free item. They are likelier to spawn where they have multiple neighboring rooms, and the way to find them is to look for "sweating" walls/floors/ceilings: little grey dust particles fall from them slowly. Your sword cannot destroy these secret walls, but bullets, enemy wall-hits, and the fury attack can. Sometimes, there is a very conspicuous "hole" in the map: it's worth doublechecking adjacent rooms in these cases. It's almost always a secret room. Note that not all secret rooms can be entered from all 4 directions, and taking too long looking for them might result in you missing Peppy.

• Peppy rewards you with a high value item in each zone if you complete the previous one fast enough, i.e. it's not your total run time that counts, instead you have individual timers in the zones (it still helps to turn on the run timer in the options menu).
  
• The first zone must be completed in 7 minutes, the others in 6.
  
• Even if you miss Peppy for a zone, you can find him in the next one, as long as you complete the current zone fast enough
  
• Note that if you change the game speed in the options menu, Peppy takes it into account (it won't affect the run timer on the top of the screen, however)

• Buff caps: The items you find during a run can increase max health, sword damage, gun damage, fury recharge, reload speed, and damage to stunned enemies. However, these cannot be increased beyond a certain point (but max health hearts will still heal you), so if you happen to reach the cap, sell excess items.
  
  • Max health cap: 20
    
  • Fury recharge speed cap: +70%
    
  • Reload speed cap: +50%
    
  • Sword damage cap: 100%
    
  • Gun damage cap: 100%
    
  • Damage vs stunned cap: At least 100% [probably 100%, currently being researched]
• Sword damage value: Sword damage also increases the damage of dash and Fury (and the teeny-tiny damage of smash)
  
• Blessings: Blessing effects can get you above the buff caps from items. They are additive, not multiplicative.

This is not a list of all enemies, with essays written about each. These are enemies that have a distinct tactic or two that can be used against them that isn't particularly obvious the first few times you face them. I am happy to add anything I may have missed. Oh, and MINOR SPOILERS.

Alpha crab-bot:

Can be stunlocked without much issue, but another quick way to take him out is a dragon punch just as his sweeping barrage is approaching you. Creates a bunch of deflected bullets, and stuns him, if he's even alive afterwards

Original Crab-bot miniboss:

There's ledges on the sides of the arena where you can avoid his upward shots. Stun his "!", and do some free damage. Rinse and repeat.

Bodyboulder:

Jumping or dashing over his punch gives ample time to attack him. His attacks will create additional fireballs once he's below half health. This can be used against him, if you know what to expect

Fall-bot:

Has armor, and acts as a projectile when dropping, meaning you can no longer dash through it or shoot it. If you deflect it, its child-projectiles are also friendly. Probably better to prevent the problem by killing it before it attacks, but don't try to dash at it from directly below, because it'll be a projectile by then.

Omega Prism-bot miniboss:

Probably the first encounter where you'll find yourself needing to hover. Try not to knock him too far from the center of the arena, so there's room to fly ahead of his sweeping lasers.

Candlemask:

Hover/fly above his horizontal laser. Abuse hovering again and fly in a big circle when he sweeps the the arena, but watch out for his cheeky projectiles at the end of this attack.

Adult splat-fly:

The quintessential smash fodder. Four sword strikes stack enough to send them flying at mach speed with a smash, and the wall-hit will explode them instantly without being dangerous to you. The same happens if you smash them while they glow red.

Alpha sentinel-bot:

This guy's explosive shot is a high-value reflect for sure, but you're probably better off stunlocking him and killing him asap, because he shoots pretty fast.

Alpha Splat-fly:

Highly recommended to kill this via smash/wall-hit, to make its death cloud friendly.

Splat-fly nest:

The flies that come out of this have a short "fluttering" phase, during which they are immune to all attacks - except smash. Good to know if you really want to get rid of them quickly for whatever reason.

Plasma Saw-bot miniboss:

His projectiles are sticky mines which will fly at you again after a delay. Do your best to reflect some back at him, but otherwise circle and juke around the arena to avoid hits.

Bileranha:

There's small ledges on the side of the arena where you can avoid his vomit attacks. Additionally, you can hover above him to stay safe from his vomit while still hitting him (but do this carefully, because slashes will move you to his mouth). He is also unique in that his "!" cannot be stunned, the wall ledges are your friend again.

Weaver:

Take advantage of the permeable walls and shoot these guys asap, otherwise they'll cause a massive headache

Spore:

Is stuck to his platform, and therefore cannot be wall-smashed, but still worth stunning

Prehistoric deformed-devil miniboss:

You can reflect one batch of his bullets, but you'll need to be mobile to avoid/parry the rest. Can be encountered both in zone 4 and 5: in zone 5, the screenwrap is handy against his regular attack. In zone 4, being near the edge and running up the wall is a nice method. Try to stun his "!", unless you have fury, in which case eat it for hp.

Nightweaver:

You'll probably have to take it slower against this boss, because he likes to stay at range, rapidly shooting at you. Reflecting stuff is almost always necessary to get close. Watch out for when he shoots fast projectiles down at you: run sideways, with a dragon punch juke back. The windows to hit him are quite brief, so be ready to quickly evade (stunning his "!" wind-up helps, as usual, unless you have fury).

Saw-bot:

Can be safely dashed through even when it's spinning

Quantum bomb:

Smash fodder, much like the adult splat-flies. Two hits get it injured enough for a lethal smash.

Initial bomb miniboss:

Only has one attack, get a feel for its rhythm. Use double jump to get away from it, so you don't drag it with you with a dash. Explodes into loads of projectiles when killed, and they'll screenwrap, so it's highly recommended to save your fury for this (you'll probably get hp from it too) - however, fury will only work if there's enemies present, so try to leave one of his minions alive for the end of the fight. Otherwise, one of the corners of the arena is relatively safe from all the screenwrapping crap.

Primordial Ignis miniboss:

His green trail is harmless, the red one he leaves behind when enraged is what hurts.

Kriterion:

You can stay fairly safe by just being on the ground and reflecting projectiles. Only really need to watch for when he sweeps down and summons projectiles from the ground, and his "!" lazor attack (you don't get much time to interrupt it, even with dragon punch); and in phase 2, his downward barrage. You can use the screenwraps to your advantage in all cases (keep moving when he does the laser, the last bit goes through the yellow screen edge).

Black chaos sludge:

Can be made temporarily harmless with smash/dragon punch (the game only tells you this if you die to it)

Blood fly:

Since it's so fragile, if you just smash it, it will die with friendly death projectiles. It's kind of hard to tell, but friendly blood shots have a pure golden color (zone 6 has a number of enemies with dangerous suicide effects, by the way. Try to smash em).

Greed:

You can sit in a corner and play the reflect game fairly safely against his blood orbs.

Endmonger:

You'll need well-timed screenwraps against some of his attacks, what's more, you'll need to do it with a dragon punch if you don't want to take damage from the chaos