Army of Ruin is a VS-inspired 3D Bullet Heaven Auto Shooter Action-Roguelite (oof!) from Milkstone Studios[www.milkstonestudios.com].

AoR has recently released in early-access and is undergoing rapid changes. You can expect that some of the information might be slightly out-of-date.

Army of Ruin Resources:

• Discord[discord.gg]
  
• Reddit

December 13 -> Changed a few values of the most recent patch. Started getting the new weapons, will update the guide this weekend.
November 26 -> Moved info into tables.
November 27 -> Added some game stats.

My guide is missing characters, as well as some changes and the additions of charms to the game. u/Eunomiac has shared a complete, up-to-date-as-of-writing, list of abilities/characters/charms which can be found in his thread here.

To unlock evolutions:

1. First unlock the weapon evolutions Feature by earning Five Stars.
   
2. Unlock the Evolution for the Weapon itself by leveling the base weapon to level 5.

Then upon starting a new game:

1. Level up the weapon to level 5.
   
2. Make sure you have a trinket with the 1st required element.
   
3. Make sure you have another trinket with the 2nd required element.
   
4. Open a chest, randomly awarding one of the evolved weapon you meet the requirement for.

Damage. Applies to all Attacks.
Size. Applies to all Attacks.
Fire Rate / Cooldown. Applies to all Attacks except Toxic Stench and Promethean.
Duration. Applies to weapons with an "X" in the charts below.
Projectile / Bullet Speed.
Knockback. Mostly doesn't apply to AoEs except for Wolf's Fang.

Attack are Weapons... it's a largely interchangeable term.
Skills are the Activated abilities unique to each character.
Trinkets are mostly passive boosts but a very few of them can also do damage.

Note that while those trinkets (those which do damage) are great when you first unlock them... they scale very poorly compared to weapons as you unlock more upgrades and trinkets slots to properly boost your weapons while not boosting your damaging trinkets.

Skills and Trinkets do not benefit from most stat bonus and upgrades. Exceptions apply when noted explicitely.

All Weapon and Trinket reach max level at 5.

Skill damage scale on character level.

Character max level is very high (at least over 115 120).

Trinket damage bonus (and malus) are additive. Seal of Purity might be multiplicative.

Projectiles can shotgun which means that at close range or standing directly inside enemies all projectiles hit and do damage.

Purple damage numbers = The attack didn't kill the enemy.
Yellow damage numbers = This attack killed the enemy.

High luck upgrades are generally worth in in that more time is spent running from one chest or powerup to the next. If you have nothing offscreen to run toward, you may need more luck.

Luck increase chance of bonus chests through the Exploration Feature.
Chests in turn give more bonus weapons and trinket upgrades with higher luck.

Gold drops are fixed and unaffected by luck, as is the proportion of coins, goblets and crowns. Luck (among other things) increase the chance of powerup drops while taking away the chance of food drops.

Enemies don't seem to have defense / damage reduction beside entire immunity.
Normal enemies don't drop items but Elites do.

Some statements from the devs[docs.google.com]