Originally posted by k1rey.exe:

This is the English version of my guide. I apologize in advance for any errors or inaccuracies. English is not my native language, so some phrases in one language may have different meanings or even be meaningless in another (these are idioms). I would be grateful if you could point them out so I can check and correct them. Let's create the guide together!

Even an experienced player will find something new here.
Megabonk is a seemingly simple game. But if you start to get to grips with it, you might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of mechanics, features, characteristics, and so on it offers. For a player unfamiliar with this genre, that's certainly true. That's precisely why this guide was created. Even I initially wanted to create a guide based solely on the game's mechanics. But explaining one thing forces me to explain another. The result is a veritable Bible on Megabonk.
There's a lot of information here because I want to cover every aspect of the game. For your convenience, please use the sections in the table of contents.

Anything that can be interacted with.
When capturing a Sanctuary, the hero is given a choice of three stat boosts. Rare boosts can be found even without luck. Occasionally, a Golden Altar will appear, granting only Legendary stat boosts. Luck can grant a rarer stat boost. The Wrench allows you to capture the Altar faster and increases the percentage of stat drops. The Beacon transforms the Altar capture zone into a "healing zone" and increases the number of Altars on subsequent floors.
When activated, you can choose one of three items. A rarer item may be offered without increasing Luck. Luck increases the chance of the offered items being rarer. A legendary head with three legendary items may drop (for example, from the yellow merchant), but this statue is visually indistinguishable.
When activated, several elite mobs spawn. Killing the last one yields a free crate. The type of mobs and their number vary depending on the map.
Attracts all experience shards lying on the floor at the time of activation. No hidden meaning, everything is simple and straightforward.
When activated, +1 boss appears for the remainder of the floor. Previously activated statues do not count towards the next floor. So, if you initially activate three statues, there will be four bosses on the current floor (at the 7th minute, the 2nd minute, and when you activate the portal), but when you enter the portal to the next floor, the boss counter resets.
They are distinguished by the color of their hats. They have a chance of selling a rarer item. For example, even a regular merchant can sell a legendary item without increasing your luck. Yellow merchants always sell only legendary items.
You can clone a specific item. For example, you can make more keys or forks—any item. When activated, you select an item, and an item of the same rarity will be randomly removed from your inventory. It's important to understand that to clone an item, you must already have another item of the same tier. If you have one rare blue item and find a blue microwave, you won't be able to make more because the microwave has nothing to take from you in exchange. To clone an item, the microwave's rarity must match the item's rarity. For example, you can't clone a rare red card in a regular white microwave because it requires a blue one. You can't clone wrenches in a legendary yellow microwave. As with the color of merchant hats, microwaves of different colors indicate their rarity. Gold is consumed upon use. Each white microwave allows you to multiply three green items, the blue and purple ones allow you to multiply two items, and the yellow one allows you to multiply one item.
When activated, increases the difficulty by 5%. Grants a small amount of gold (depending on the "Gold Gain" stat).
When activated, they break. They drop experience shards or gold. They may also drop a power-up. Pots come in small and large sizes. The difference is in the amount dropped. Clay pots grant either experience or gold. Silver pots always grant experience. Don't ignore vases; it's always useful to break them (especially the large ones) while running around the map. Depends on the "Experience/Gold Gain" stat.
There are regular paid and free gold chests (always in short supply). The price of regular chests increases with each opening, from a starting price of 30 gold to several million (infinitely). Gold chests can always be opened, even if you have no gold. Items drop randomly, and their rarity depends on your luck. Any standard item can drop. You can also get a legendary chest using regular luck. The chance is very small, but not zero. The price to open the next paid chest is always visible on the screen to the left of the hero's level (this is convenient, as most players zoom out in the camera settings, making the chest price unreadable or requiring careful inspection).
Dropped by mobs. The buff multiplier increases the duration and damage.

• Shield — Grants invulnerability
  
• Clock — Stops time
  
• Gold — Temporarily grants extra gold for killing mobs
  
• Rage — Increases damage and attack speed
  
• Magnet — Attracts all experience shards on the map
  
• Nuclear Bomb — Explodes mobs in a large radius

Activates the main boss on the floor. It drops a chest and activates the experience magnet effect. Killing the boss allows you to teleport through the portal to the next floor. The teleportation occurs with a two-second delay, but you are invulnerable. The final portal on the 3rd floor does not spawn the final boss, but instead teleports you to a small empty map next to it. Chests do not drop there. The final boss mechanics are described below.
Rocks, stone beams, and crates serve no practical purpose. They are purely decorative elements of the area, moved by you or mobs.
The tornado in the desert lifts you into the air. To unlock the Birdo hero, you need to kill 100 enemies with a tornado weapon while in the tornado's flight.
Haystacks in the desert provide experience. They are required for several achievements that unlock weapons; there is a chance they will unlock.

The game currently has two maps: "Forest" and "Desert." Each map consists of three floors. We start on the first and end on the third. The first floor is the largest, the second is smaller, and the third is the smallest. In each map, the final portal on the third floor teleports us to the map's final boss—an empty microlocation.

Floors in the game are procedurally generated using pseudo-generation. This means that locations are always unique, but there is a certain pattern to their generation. Simply put, floors will almost never be the same in different playthroughs, as they are generated randomly, but this generation follows a set distribution. For example, the placement of trees is randomly generated, but there is a law stating that two trees cannot be generated in the same location. This is good because sometimes a player will have to restart the game simply due to bugs with chests or statues that didn't activate due to other textures. This isn't unique to Megabonk. Any game that features procedural map generation, for obvious reasons, 100% implements the mechanics described above.

Essentially, the game on each map is divided into three stages: early, mid, and late. For convenience, the stages of the game can be compared to floors. The first floor is the beginning of the game, the second is the middle, and the third is the late game.
The first floor is obviously the most important, as our potential for the next two depends on its start.
The second floor is the mid-game. This is usually where the greatest build expansion occurs, as well as the acquisition of missing items and stats, depending on the build. The third floor is the culmination of leveling up the hero, weapons, and books. Weapons reach level 40, and books reach level 99. The effectiveness and durability of your build are tested, as well as the impact of mistakes or setbacks on previous floors. And then comes inevitable death, a matter of time.

The base duration of the first floor is 10 minutes, the second is 9 minutes, and the third is 8 minutes.
The first boss spawns at 7 minutes, and the second at 2. On the 1st and 2nd floors, you need to activate a portal for the final boss of the floor to appear. On the 3rd floor, you need to activate a portal to teleport to the final boss of the map.

Always spawn at 7 and 3 minutes. There are a lot of mobs. We need gold and experience. After the main time ends, an infinite timer starts, releasing endless waves of flying mobs (the final swarm), which also become stronger depending on the time.

I don't think there's much point in discussing each mob individually. Mobs with higher health and damage gradually appear. Elite mobs (with a crown above their head) are even stronger than their regular counterparts. Any mob can drop a bonus or a chest, which is affected by the "Drop Chance" stat. Gold and silver skeletons drop a lot of gold and experience, respectively.
I'll describe some of their interesting features:

• The first elite mob killed on the first floor is guaranteed to drop a chest.
  
• The "Desert" map has scorpion mobs, and the boss is a scorpion. In addition to their normal damage, they inflict a poison that "ticks" and deals damage over time.
  
• Some mobs fly instead of walking. This doesn't seem to matter. However, there is an item called "Eagle Claw," which deals 60% more damage to air mobs. Besides the obvious flying mobs that spawn after the main timer, you can encounter bees in the Forest, and fireballs in the Desert.
  
• The "steroid pig" boss (the dreaded Chankham) not only deals damage with its red attack but also slows your movement for a couple of seconds.
  
• "Zombies" in the Forest move faster. Their counterparts are the round bone balls in the Desert.

They appear at the 7th and 2nd minute, as well as when the portal is activated. You can increase the number of bosses on each floor using the "Boss's Curse" statue. Increasing the difficulty level increases their health and damage. After defeating a boss (except the last one), a free crate drops, which attracts all experience (magnet). On the 3rd floor, after activating the portal, the boss doesn't appear immediately like regular bosses, but teleports you to a small empty area. Final bosses have their own mechanics, consisting of three stages. After dealing a certain amount of damage, the boss becomes invulnerable, and altars appear that you must capture to start taking damage again. Here, you lose three weapons, except your primary weapon, and all your books. This is the first stage. Then, some weapons and books are returned, and the boss becomes vulnerable. You also need to drain some of its health to activate the second stage. Then you capture the altars in the same way, and then the third stage. Here, you already have all the weapons and books. All that remains is to finish it off. After killing it, there are no more chests. You can either wait for the mobs to kill it, or jump into the portal and end the game. Important information:

• You can kill him in one hit, without any additional stages (provided you deal enough damage);
  
• Life steal doesn't work when the boss is invulnerable (it's better to have HP regeneration);
  
• While the boss is invulnerable, he heals slightly;
  
• If you fall outside the map, you'll simply be teleported back to the center (a waste of time and an inconvenience, nothing more).
  
• You have 10 minutes to kill the final boss.

At the time of writing, there are two secret bosses in the game: Bush on the Forest map and Bandit on the Desert map. They have high health and damage, which increases depending on the difficulty level. They have unique attack animations, like regular bosses, but they are more challenging. Killing them will reward you with a free chest. Don't activate them unless you're confident you can kill them quickly. Many have already died at the hands of secret bosses after a very good start. Killing them just once is worth it for the achievement. Killing them later for a single free chest isn't worth it, in my opinion. Only do it if you're absolutely sure you can kill them in 1-3 seconds.

There's no point in listing every item. Most work fairly clearly, as described in their descriptions. I'll cover the less obvious ones. There are also a few interesting item combinations.

Lamp of Transcendence
Many people wonder what an "on-hit effect" is. A simple example: you have cheese. Every time you hit a boss, it gets poisoned. This is an on-hit effect. And the lamp gives us +1 to the effect. So, if we have 5 cheeses, with the lamp we'll get twice the effect, as if we had 10 cheeses. For each hit with each weapon, respectively. Or the Ice Cube. It gives us a 20% chance to deal extra cold damage. With one lamp, the chance is 40%. 2 cubes and 2 lamps? — 80%. Lamps stack.

Soul Reaper
Killing a mob spawns two spirits that fly at the mob and deal damage. How to use this effectively: the more mobs near you, the faster they die. Killing one mob spawns two spirits that fly to the others. Usually, they die instantly and spawn new spirits. There's also a kill effect from your weapon. This is the Plague effect. It's useless if you're hitting a single target when there are no mobs around. When a swarm appears, this item's effectiveness is obvious. The horde disappears from the screen in seconds, the flying flies doing their job. To kill a boss quickly, it's best to keep as many mobs around as possible. Reapers stack.

Anvil
Weapon upgrades can provide +1 to stats. What does this mean? What stats do weapons have? - Damage, projectile speed/number/size, critical strike chance, critical damage. The exception is the aura, which only has damage and size. There are 6 stats in total. By default, upgrading a weapon grants 2 stats. The anvil itself adds even more stats when upgrading the weapon. Previously, it showed damage and projectile size, but now it shows damage, size, and number of projectiles. Anvils stack (all 6 stats are visible when upgrading a weapon). But in the item description, the keyword is "may have +1 stat"—or may not. So, for example, upgrading 4 anvils might give you a weapon with 2 default stats. Either way, it's a strong item. The probability of getting this +1 from each anvil appears to depend on luck.

Chonkplate
"Healing above your maximum health increases your overhealing by 75% and grants 20% lifesteal. The overhealing mechanic allows you to restore more health beyond your maximum, whether through health regeneration or lifesteal. It's like a shield on top of your base health. We have 100 health and 75% overhealing. With a sufficient source of health regeneration, our health will reach 175. Overhealing and lifesteal from items stack. They do not stack with items that provide something based on our health. For example, an epic ring provides 20% damage for every 100 health. Your base health will be calculated for every 100 health.

Wrench
"Sanctuary recharges 4% faster, bonus +7.5%." 4% is clear, but +7.5% raises questions. For example, an altar might drop with a stat that increases difficulty by 8%. With a wrench, it would be +8.6%, not the base 8% + 7.5% = 15.5%. The item description is inaccurate; it should read "bonus by 7.5%" and not "bonus plus 7.5%," then the description becomes clear.

Key
10% chance to open a chest for free. What's the mechanic? Five keys won't give us a 50% chance to open it for free. Just as ten keys won't let us open all chests for free. Pseudo-randomness is at work here. You have three keys—when opening a chest, the 10% chance of the first key is checked. If it doesn't fit, the 10% chance of the second key is checked; If it doesn't fit, a third key has a 10% chance of opening. If it doesn't fit, the chest is opened for money. The chances aren't cumulative; the number of attempts is 10% of the number of keys. Therefore, it makes sense to collect as many keys as possible. This information should be double-checked.

Don't underestimate the "Size" stat. A katana's size, for example, increases its hitbox. While its importance shouldn't be overstated, it's important to know and understand. The larger the katana, the larger its hitbox, meaning it will hit more mobs in a single hit. If a toilet grants 20% duration/25% health regeneration/15% size, I'd choose the latter at any point in a run.

The "Critical Chance" stat can be used above 100% (200/500%...). For more information, see the "Mechanics" section.

The "Overheal" stat allows you to restore more health than the base amount. For more information, see the "Mechanics" section.

The "Knockback" stat determines how far mobs are knocked back when damaged. This stat is currently useless.

Difficulty increases damage, health, and, most importantly, the number of mobs. More mobs means more experience and gold, meaning faster leveling. Of course, this needs to be balanced depending on the situation to deal damage to these stronger mobs. The maximum level is around 600-700%.

Pickup radius. This should only be done a few times and only when there are no other options. Increases the experience collection radius. Useful when you've killed a boss on a floor and are standing near a portal to level up a bit.

How does crit work? I think everyone knows. 50% crit chance? 50% chance to deal more damage with each hit.
Megabonk has an overcrit mechanic. So, if you have 101%, that means every hit will be 100% critical, and there's a 1% chance to deal another critical hit on a surface with 100% chance to hit. 1390% crit chance? The hit will have 13x critical chance, and 90% critical chance with 14x critical chance. Previously, many believed that crit chance had a cap, meaning increasing it to 100% was pointless, and that it was better to increase crit damage even more. Many didn't see the point in such precision, since getting 100% critical chance is easy with items and leveling up. But that's not true. It makes sense to increase both stats (if you're building your game around critical hits). This mechanic isn't fully understood yet.
You may have seen other players running around the map early in the game, constantly jumping long distances. This is exactly what bunnyhopping is. The idea is to approach, jump, and immediately push off the ground after landing, using the mouse to control the jump in the desired direction. Jump - turn - land - jump - turn - ......... Can be combined with crouching and pressing CTRL. If that doesn't work, you can find a bunnyhop tutorial on Google, even in Morse code. Bunnyhop was once a bug and was penalized, but it's now a mechanic.
Overheal = overhealing. Regenerating health at a higher level at the expense of HP. The Chonkplate item activates this mechanic. For more details, see the "Items" section of this guide.
This is most likely a bug, or it was set to zero for convenience of mathematical calculations in the game code.
What I'm saying is that luck is 0% by default. It's logical that we can't get anything higher than common rarity from a merchant/altar/chest. But! Without luck, an epic or legendary item drops from the chest from the very beginning. An altar can give not only common stats; a common merchant can offer one or even two legendary items, and a boss can even give three legendary items to choose from. And it's logical that luck isn't 0%. It's very low, too low, but not zero. If we take the "extra jumps" stat, everything is perfectly obvious. 0 means one jump, and that's always the case. With luck, it's the other way around, 0 is not 0. Or maybe all this is nonsense and the merchant, altar, head, and chest each have their own chance of luck that isn't indicated anywhere. One russian player suggested the following formula: TOTAL_CHANCE = BASIC_CHANCE * 1 ^ ((1 + LUCK) * CONSTANT)

Archer (Robinetta) currently has the strongest passive ability. More gold = more damage, infinitely. Combined with the Book of Gold and difficulty level, as well as certain items like Kevin and the Golden Shield, you can accumulate over 200 million gold and open every chest from the second floor onward.

Bandit and Cubehead also have decent kill potential.

Fox, Megachad, Ogre, Cl4nk, Bush, and Chadwell—in my opinion, they are still underrated and have potential for high-kill builds.

The remaining heroes are currently useless either due to their useless late-game passives or because they have reached their passive cap.

Completing all challenges. Can be completed with a single MegaChad. The build is described in detail here[www.megabonk.gg]

Helpful Tips:

• Any elite mob at the start of the game is guaranteed to drop a free chest.
  
• When landing from a great height, it's always best to crouch. We won't take damage from certain objects, such as rocks or ramps.
  
• Always level up your shield once, regardless of your build. A +5 shield often saves you from accidental, and especially lethal, damage.
  
• You can always restart a run by holding the R button. It's faster than opening the menu.
  
• It's always better to spend bans on items rather than weapons or books. Ban an unnecessary second magnet, etc. Any player, even in the top 10%, will confirm this.
  

Bugs

• Duplicate items through a merchant (patch 1.0.12). Find a suitable merchant (legendary, obviously). Make sure they sell the item you need. Stand next to them and wait for the upgrade. The trick is to click on the merchant before the upgrade window appears (for higher-level weapons/items). If successful, you purchase the item. The screen closes, the upgrade window opens, and you level up. The merchant doesn't disappear, but offers to buy the same items as before. The process is endless. It could be 100 Reapers or 200 Forks. The main thing is to click on them before the upgrade window appears. It's not difficult.
  
• In the very last area of ​​the final boss in the Forest, mobs appear that hover in the air significantly below the hero. This affects your kill counter. It may accumulate faster, but as a result, the number of mobs you encounter is reduced by about half.

The developer adjusts the transparency of projectiles. So you won't have to watch slideshows and epileptic nightmares on your screen. There's also a full-fledged map with fog of war. Hooray! We're waiting.

Set the FPS based on the screen refresh rate—anything higher is pointless and will be unstable. Graphics settings are maxed out, blur is disabled (I just don't like it). The 4070Ti runs great.

Of course, you need to unlock all bans, passes, and upgrades. Also, the troller, +2 tomes, and +2 guns are a priority.

Full leveling will permanently unlock 7 bans, passes, and upgrades. It's easier to level up, and easier to assemble the right build.

The list will likely expand in the future, as there's nowhere else to invest silver except in unlocking skins, heroes, weapons, and tomes. But that costs pennies.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Rarity. Game stats are classified by rarity as common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary. Items, merchants, and microwaves are classified as common, rare, epic, and legendary.

1.0.1 - time-stealing patch. 6-hour wounds, ugh.
1.0.12 - archer patch. Press R to restart :)

My Telegram[t.me] - memes, game news, and things not here
Official page[www.megabonk.gg] - some info, build builder, patch leaderboard history
Build site[www.bonkbuilds.com] - more convenient than the official one for now
Legit leaderboard[megabonk.fun]
Megabonk Wiki[megabonk.wiki]

At the moment, I don't see the point in trying to get into the top 10. Here's why:

• Cheaters. Although they get banned quickly, the developer knows about them and tracks them (judging by the logs). But still. They use more than four tomes and weapons. So getting into the top 10 is easy. And that's not all.
  
• Bug exploitation. Item bags are popular right now. I found a vendor for classic items and created as many as I wanted (described in the "Not a bug, but a feature?" thread). Although I like the developer's approach of not punishing bug exploitation, since it's an oversight (he wrote about it himself). Fair and logical.
  
• The current metagame is such that without bug exploitation, the only way to get into the top 10 is Robinette. It's a boring and dull build, a simulator of endless reloads until you find a green card, a key, and a reaper with a microwave.

It's better to think through and test your builds, study mechanics, life hacks, and so on. This guide has already covered a lot. In future patches, you'll have a better chance of getting on the leaderboards. Compared to someone who endlessly presses the R button in this patch (1.0.12).

What's missing in the game? Knocking on the developer's door with both feet

I immediately wanted to change the ability to see projectile transparency and what's happening on the screen, after over 60 minutes of slideshows and flickering. I wanted a regular, large map. I read that this will be added in future updates.

I'd like to be able to use microwaves regardless of item level. It would be better if the Epic Microwave could clone a regular microwave and a parka, and the Epic Legendary Microwave could clone items from any era. Essentially, these are low-level items, not high-level ones. That would be cooler. There are several of them, and they are of decent quality.

Vendors. Perhaps we should script their appearance so they're standing behind the counter in the first location. Black, blue, purple, and yellow. This will prevent the game from turning into a simulator restart. This will still happen frequently, but at least it will significantly reduce the number of attempts. + Everyone starts in practically the same conditions, and it's not just a single drop; there are no second rounds.

It would be worth adding a separate micro-location for testing builds. A training ground where you can immediately equip any books and weapons of any level. You can create one or more invulnerable enemies to assess damage. Whoever dominates, dominates.

Remove Burger King from the game. Okay, don't remove it, just need to make it useful. The developer certainly didn't waste a ton of time designing the icon or putting the neural network to work.

Adding skins, even paid ones. This choice will have a significant impact on the game's development. For example, would you like to play as Yoda from Star Wars with a lightsaber instead of Bandit? Give me two! There are many interesting things worth paying for. It all depends on your desires, imagination, and copyright. And frankly, it's worth considering regional prices. $1 in India is not the same as $1 in Japan.