Thank you for reading my guide. Please leave comments/feedback/questions below.

If you have any builds that you've made work at malice 77 to level 125, please share them in the comments below or post them on the game's discord and tag me (@♥♥♥♥ Goblin) so I can try them out and add them here.

This guide is a work in progress. I will try and keep it updated as the game is updated.

Last Updated: February 22, 2023

Info on things used in the builds. I will update this page to have more info soon.

These builds require all stat/character upgrades purchased. The unbound aura and mutations vary for each build, but a good rule of thumb is to max each aura that is used in a build.


HP: Health
ES: Energy Shield
DR: Damage Reduction (stat and aura)
Evolution: spell/aura level 4 perk.
Mutation: alternative evolution; requires purchase from the main menu.
Unbound Aura: increases max aura level; requires purchase from the main menu.
Regen: Health or ES natural regeneration. The green text next to your characters health bar is your current health regen.
Corrupt shrine: the shrines that shoot at you and spawn a purple chest when defeated.
Anomaly: a corrupt shrine reward; spawns 1 chest and 1 illegal merchant shrine.
Cull: using a game mechanic that instantly kills an enemy under a certain hp threshold. ie. Corrupt shrine perk "cull the weak" has a 25% threshold; double tap spell has a 20% threshold.



Time Compression: Removes all empty spell slots and spawns a chest and corrupt shrine for each one. Limit 1.
Drunken Confidence: Doubles dodge (max 95%) but every dodge you take 40% of the attacks damage. Limit 1.
Kinetic Charge: Gain your armour stat in energy shield when you dodge. No limit.
Lethargy: Slows enemies down by x0.8. It stacks and has no limit.




Early illegal smugglers ("time compression + anomaly" strategy):
1) Complete the first corrupt shrine. Reroll until you get Anomaly. Complete the spawned illegal merchant shrine.
2) Reroll illegal merchant until you get Time Compression.
3) Complete spawned corrupt shrines and reroll until you get Anomaly (or desired upgrade).
Warning/bug: Be careful when interacting with stacked chests (both gold and purple). There is a bug where you will "use" multiple chests at once but only get 1 reward. To avoid this, try approach each chest slowly from an angle where you'd only interact with 1 at a time. Don't dash over the chests.

Astral flower chest farming:
1) Click the link below for more info.
2) Ban your spells before they reach level 10 (ie. at level 8 or 9). Now when you pick up a gold chest (dropped by elites), you will get an astral flower instead of a spell upgrade since the chest won't level up banished spells.

See my other guide here: xxx

This build utilizes a high dodge, dodge mutation and energy shield gain on dodge to survive. This build works with any book but excels with Wolfe's Limit Break (+1 aura level). This build can also be used to afk farm astral flowers (see bottom of section).

Dodge: Max Dodge Aura + Drunken Confidence = 95% max dodge; Dodge Mutation (kill on dodge); Kinetic Charge (+ES on dodge)
ES: Max ES Auras; Max HP Reservation; Reclamation (50% of reserved hp added to ES); Discipline (ES regen not interrupted by damage)
Defense: Max HP/Armour Auras; Shotgun Mutation (projectile count added to armour; corrupted shrine); Max Damage Reduction Aura; Regen is useful but not necessarily; High Surplus/Cybernetics auras; Surplus Mutation (converts max hp to es)
Other: Max Clairvoyance (makes leveling faster); Max Buff Auras (makes leveling faster); String of Ears Mutation (increased buff effect; corrupted shrine; makes leveling faster); Enlighten (reserves HP, overlevel); Cull The Weak (kill enemies under 25% hp; corrupted shrine); Anomaly (spawn smuggler shrine and chest; corrupted shrine; allows us to get all the illegal mods we need); Time Compression (limits spell to 1 slot and gives us corrupted shrines which can be used with Anomaly to spawn smugglers to get our illegal mods); Max Deathbound (optional, makes leveling faster)


Don't get explosion/revengeance (not needed and will lower framerate / hurt your eyes/ears); freeze (normal or corrupted; not needed; will make killing slower); damage/crit/knockback/etc (not needed, can be banished); Samsara or anything that lowers max hp (affects max reserved hp which then affects our max ES when using Reclamation)
Avoid "Regen Breaker" elites early on which will lower/stop your regen. With high enough ES and several Kinetic Charges, low/no regen won't be an issue anymore.


You dodge enemies and they die. Normal enemies die instantly. Elites take a % of their max hp in damage. Every time you dodge, you take damage (drunken confidence) but you also trigger kinetic charge which restores your ES based on armour. You get many kinetic charge upgrades to restore a lot of ES on every dodge, which when combined with high armour and damage reduction, you will never die. Cull the weak triggers off your main attack. Dash over enemies to trigger dodge on them. Optionally, use deathbound to speed up enemies and kill elites faster.


1) First level should be your spell evolution (level 6) so that all chests go into leveling your starting spell. This will help with killing until you get the build setup. However if you wish to farm chests for flowers, you should banish your starting spell at level 8 or 9. While regen isn't needed, getting 1 level in the "regen on kill" aura helps early on.

2) Work on leveling up dodge, armour, DR and some ES. An early Drunken Confidence is useful, otherwise aim for time compression to limit your spells to 1 and get early Anomalies. Kinetic charges aren't useful until your defense is higher, but if you see a reclamation illegal upgrade, this will help in getting your ES higher early on. Get the Surplus mutation as well (max hp converted to ES), thus by raising your max hp/armour, you will also raise your ES. If chest farming, get a grim row illegal upgrade early on.

3) Improve your ES by working on your hp reservation and max hp (paired with Reclamation and hp reservation). Start adding kinetic charges as your DR approaches 50%+ (you might want to take the DR mutation to push your DR even higher). Aim for 200+ ES at this point by leveling surplus and cybernetics.

4) As your ES increases through #3, add more Kinetic Charges. Aim for 20+ armour and 4+ KC. The shotgun mutation from corrupted shrine helps a lot for getting lots of armour. Add in the cull the weak and sigma stance corrupted shrine buffs at some point to make killing elites faster.

5) Finally level up your buff and clairvoyance auras to make the end game go faster. Optionally, add in deathbound once your defense is high enough (500+ ES, 50%+ DR, 10+ armour, 4+ KC). If you are farming chests, make sure to get synergize to level 4 for the "spawn shrine when getting an astral flower" evolution.



This build can be used to afk farm astral flowers. You can increase the number of flowers by also choosing the book Wolfe with the perk that gives +1 max aura level as well as banishing the starting spell before it reaches level 10 which will cause all chests to give 1 flower when picked up. Maximize the synergize aura. Choose demonic rage for overtime to increase the amount of chest and flower drops from elites.

To increase the speed of afk farming, maximize the deathbound aura (to increase enemy movement speed). However this aura is quite expensive to fully unlock (~400 flowers in the upgrade menu).

If you want the 50 active buffs achievement, you can get this by not picking up any chests dropped by elites until you have maximized both the Synergize and Shrine Maiden auras. Banish your starting spell before level 10 as per above. Then pick up all the chests at once (the more the merrier) and complete the shrines they spawn (from the synergize evolution). Having the string of ears corrupt shrine aura maximized will also help.

This build utilizes stack slow upgrades and deathbound to kill enemies before they reach you. It has a high flower investment requirement (~400+ flowers to max deathbound; ~200+ flowers to improve other useful auras; 50+ flowers for rerolls at the illegal merchant).

Enemy Speed: Astrid's Time Dilation + Lethargy Illegal Mod stacking (slow down enemies); Max Deathbound aura (speeds up enemies)
Enemy Health: Sigma Stance (corrupted shrine, lower enemy health when spawned) + Max Deathbound aura (~18.2% damage per second) + Cull The Weak (kill enemies under 25% hp; corrupted shrine) + Explosion (corrupted shrine, at least 1 level)
Defense: Max DR/HP/Armour/Dodge Auras; High Regen (aura, illegal mods, cast mutation)
Other: Max Clairvoyance (makes leveling faster); Max Buff Auras (makes leveling faster); xxx Ear Mutation (increased buff effect; corrupted shrine; makes leveling faster); Anomaly (spawn smuggler shrine and chest; corrupted shrine; allows us to get all the illegal mods we need); Tim Compression (limits spell to 1 slot and gives us corrupted shrines which can be used with Anomaly to spawn smugglers to get our illegal mods)

Requires lots of Lethargy illegal mods, so depending on your luck at the illegal merchant, you should plan to have 50+ flowers for rerolls. (You'll earn more flowers throughout the run)
Deathbound does not kill enemies and will leave them at 1hp, so you still need to finish them off with your main spell.

Slow debuffs stack (ie. 0.75 x 0.8 x 0.8 = 0.48 = enemies slowed by 52%) but Deathbound speeds up enemies. We acquire many lethargy upgrades to make enemies slower even with max deathbound aura, causing them to die before they get close to you. We use culling, explosion and our main weapon to finish them off. We max armour, DR and HP (or ES) to help survive projectiles.


1) First level should be your spell evolution (level 6) so that all chests go into leveling your starting spell. This will help with killing until you get the build setup.
If you want more astral flowers, you can ban your starting weapon before it reaches level 10 (and have no other spells). This will cause all chests to give a flower instead. This works well with the synthesis evolution which spawns a shrine when you get an astral flower. See the screenshot section below for proof that this build is possible with a low level spell.

2) Do the time compression + anomaly strategy outlined earlier in the guide. Most of your illegal merchant upgrades after time compression will be lethargy, but you may find some upgrades useful to have (ie. convert mana regen to hp regen; choose a different spell) depending on your play style. One of the early corrupt shrines should be used to purchase the sigma stance upgrade (sets enemy hp to 66% when spawned but disables crit chance). Later on get cull the weak from a corrupt shrine to help finish off elites and explosion to deal with groups of enemies.

3) Level up deathbound, damage reduction, armour/hp and some regen (natural; hp on enemy kill; etc). You can do either an HP or ES build depending on what you enjoy more. Always get anomaly from corrupt shrines to get your lethargy count high as soon as possible.

4) Level up your clairvoyance to level 4 to help complete shrines. Consider getting the buff mutation to reduce shrine kill count. Dodge is very useful (even if only ~40%). Cast speed mutation helps with hp regen.
Tip: Since deathbound does not kill elites, you can "save them" at 1 hp and turn on manual aim (mouse/stick) on your spell (aiming away from the elites so you don't kill them), then kite an elite to a shrine and kill them, triggering clairvoyance evolution and completing shrines faster.

5) Work on maximizing your DR and armour to help with projectile damage later on. With 50% DR and 20+ armour (the Shotgun mutation helps), late game projectiles do under 30 damage. Improve your regen/hp/es to overcome this damage. With max defensive stats you can stand in one spot and tank the projectiles.

Examples of completing the game with a low level spell.



Example of saving chests to collect all at once for the buff achievements.