Viking

## B-Skin

Unlocked by having the max amount of armour

## C-Skin

Unlocked by killing 8 enemies with a single Armour Strike

*Viking is a character focused on damage negation and high damage output, having Armour which she gains at the start of each level, which can either take a hit without letting health be affected, or used as a high damage, straight line blast of damage, which scales in damage as you level up.*

## Features

Viking's weapon is a medium ranged melee weapon that deals 12 points of damage per swing.

You gain one armour at the beginning of each stage, which will negate one hit, no matter how much damage it does.

Viking's starts with the Viking Axe.

## Special

Viking can use one of her Armour pieces offensively, dealing huge damage to the enemies in the direction of the cursor. The damage done scales with level, and can easily kill most bosses. It can hit enemies multiple times. The Strike homes, making it very useful in loops.

* The damage per tick for Armour Strike can be calculated with (Player Level)\*5
* This means at Level 1, Armour Strike deals 5 damage per tick, and at Level 6, Armour Strike deals 30 damage per tick.

## Throne Butt

Viking's maximum amount of Armour is increased from 2 to 3, and gives you one free Armour Strike per level. This means that once per stage, you can take out a large amount of enemies or deal big damage to a boss for free.

## Ultra Mutations

 Armour Up |  | Gain one extra armour each area.
 Cold Heart |  | Armour strike freezes enemies and deals more damage.
 Blank Armour |  | Whenever you lose a piece of armour, you clear all projectiles and deal a 24 damage to all enemies on screen.

## Gameplay

Viking plays very well as a melee character, allowing her Armour to soak up hits for her and being guaranteed to get her Viking Great Axe upon reaching Loop. However, a more risk-reward playstyle focusing on her Armour Strike is also possible.

## Unlock Method

Unlocked by regaining Strong Spirit four times in a single run.

## Tips

### Melee Build

A melee build with Viking focuses largely around the Rage mutation. the Rage mutation provides a reload speed and drop rate increase with an accuracy decrease every time an enemy is killed. Normally, this bonus is lost when your character takes damage. However, with Viking the Rage bonus is only lost once she takes health damage. This allows her to be hit multiple times per level without losing the bonus. Along with that, the reload speed bonus provided by Rage greatly increases the rate at which you can swing melee weapons, allowing for her to deflect almost all enemy projectiles that near her. The reload speed bonus also provides a considerable increase in damage output, making up for the low fire rate of most late game melee weapons. Once Viking enters Loop, she will also find the Viking Great Axe where she spawns, guaranteeing her a strong melee weapon.

#### Useful Mutations

* Rage - Integral to the build, providing a large increase in drop rate and fire rate once enough kills have been gained. Due to the fixed nature of melee, the accuracy debuff is also negated on all melee weapons except Shovels, where the spread of the 3 arcs is increased.
* Throne Butt - Gives her a free Armour Strike every level as well as increasing her max armour to 3. This makes it easier for Viking to maintain her Rage bonus while also increasing her overall survivability.
* Long Arms - increases the range of all melee weapons, allowing her to dispatch enemies from further away and reflect projectiles in a larger area.
* Euphoria - Slows all enemy projectiles and provides a short period of invincibility after getting hit. This makes it easier to reflect enemy projectiles and help prevents losing armour and extremely quickly to rapidly firing enemies
* Trigger Fingers - removes 40% of remaining reload time on both weapons every kill. Allows an additional increase in fire rate. Also helps Viking regain her Rage bonus should it be lost.
* Sharp Stress - Increases reload speed the lower the user's health is, while also dealing damage to all enemies on screen equal to twice the hp lost. While useless as long as the Rage bonus is maintained, it makes it easier to regain it should it be lost.
* Scarier Face - Allows melee weapons to kill stronger enemies in fewer swings, decreasing the risk towards the player.
* Impact Wrists - Melee weapons hurl enemies with considerable force when they die, damaging and even killing enemies far beyond the range of the actual swing.
* Laser Brain - while this provides no benefit to some melee weapons, many of what are commonly considered the "best" melee weapons benefit from it. These include the Laser Sword, Energy Screwdriver, Energy Sword, Energy Hammer, Energy Shovel, Lightning Screwdriver, Lightning Hammer, and Lightning Shovel, as well as possibly the Trident. For all of these, the damage and range of the weapons are increased.
* Extra Feet - Allows Viking to close the distance between her and distant enemies quickly, reducing the amount of time those enemies have to fire at her.
* Hammerhead - Allows her to "burrow" into walls if needed to avoid attacks from enemies whose projectiles she cannot deflect.
* Back Muscle - provides additional capacity for the large amount of ammo generated by the increase in drop rate from Rage

#### Suggested Ultra Mutation: Armour Up.

* Armour Up - allows Viking to regain an additional armour every level as well as increasing her max armour by 2. This provides additional survivability and makes the Rage bonus harder to lose.

#### Useless Mutations:

* Boiling Veins - Viking's Armour completely nullifies the damage of explosives, and usually when she has armour she is also at full health, meaning it is usually inactive.
* Eagle Eyes - Melee is fixed, meaning it is unaffected by the accuracy bonus.
* Lucky Shot - most melee weapons do not use ammo, leaving the ability without purpose. Rage also generates a very large quantity of ammo.
* Rabbit Paw - Rage generates more than enough ammo, and most runs end too quickly once it is lost for the increase in health packs to be of use.
* Recycle Gland - Rage generates more than enough ammo for most weapons, largely negating the usefulness of this mutation.
* Bloodlust, Rhino Skin, Second Stomach, Strong Spirit, and Tough Shell - once health damage has been taken and the Rage bonus is lost, most runs end very quickly due to the loss of the player's main source of both damage output and defense. This leaves these abilities with little benefit.

#### Armour Strike

In theory, you could also make a build meant to fully utilize Viking's Armour Strike, allowing for frequent use in order to clear large swaths of enemies easily. This build would focus around taking advantage of Viking's Cold Hearth Ultra Mutation to allow for Armour Strikes to be done using HP instead of Armour, and then making ample use of mutations like Bloodlust and Second Stomach to restore any HP lost.

### Useful Mutations:

* Bloodlust - would allow Viking to easily restore her HP, possibly even allowing her to fully negate the HP cost of her Armour Strike.
* Boiling Veins - as Viking would be spending a considerable amount of time at low health and without armour, this is necessary to prevent being killed in a single shot by explosives
* Euphoria - the invincibility period this provides helps nullify the dangers of enemies who fire extremely large quantities of attacks in a short time, and also makes it easier to avoid enemy projectiles, helping keep Viking's HP up.
* Insomnia - Viking will often be entering levels with less than full hp, leaving her at considerable risk to enemies near the spawn point. This will give Viking a chance to clear herself some "breathing room" and possibly even heal herself back to full health through the use of other mutations like Bloodlust.
* Plutonium Hunger - the range of Viking's Armour Strike is quite large, meaning the majority of the rads and drops from distant enemies will fall too far away from her to be collected easily. This will allow her to collect a larger quantity of Rads, Ammo, and HP restoratives before they disappear.
* Rabbit Paw - increases the quantity of HP and Ammo dropped from enemies, allowing for more HP to be restored and Viking's Armour Strike to be used more frequently
* Rage - the increase in Drop Rate provided by Rage will increase how many HP pickups spawn, allowing Viking to restore her HP easily, allowing more frequent use of her Armour Strike. (While Rage is normally lost when damage is taken, it is not lost when HP is spent in order to activate a character's ability; this allows the bonus to remain even when HP is spent to activate her Armour Strike.)
* Rhino Skin - increases Max HP by 4, allowing for Viking to make additional uses of her Armour Strike before reaching a health level that puts her in considerable danger.
* Second Stomach - doubles the amount of HP that is restored by HP pickups, allowing for 2 uses of the Armour Strike for each pickup rather than one.
* Sharp Stress - whenever Viking spends HP to use her Armour Strike, she will also deal 4 damage to all enemies on the screen. Along with this, she will frequently be at relatively low HP, allowing her a boost to her fire rate.
* Strong Spirit - frequent use of her Armour Strike will leave her at lower HP than normal and leave her without Armour, meaning that she is at a much greater risk of death than usual. This helps mitigate that, and due to the fact that she gets Armour every level, she gets a few extra hits should she have to proceed to the next level without having been able to restore much HP; This greatly increases her chances of survival.
* Throne Butt - Increases the amount of Armour gained every level by 1 and increases her Armour max to 3, allowing her to use her Armour Strike twice per level without it costing her HP.
* Tough Shell - decreases how much damage is taken from enemies, allowing for a few extra hits to be taken from enemies without dying.
* Trigger Fingers - Due to that fact that a well placed Armour Strike can easily kill a large quantity of enemies, every use of the ability will almost completely reload both of the player's weapons. This allows for Viking to make frequent use of any weapons she has that have an extremely high Reload Time.

#### Required Ultra Mutation: Cold Hearth

* Cold Hearth is necessary in order for this "build" to work. It causes Viking's Armour Strike to freeze any enemies it hits, and also allows her to use her Armour Strike even when she is out of Armour, instead costing 2 HP. This allows her to make repeated use of her Armour Strike, as long as she has the HP to do so.

### Unlocking Character

The easiest way to regain Strong Spirit four times is with characters that have low health or can heal easily. Crown of Life completely trivializes this when combined with Melting or Doctor, who can self damage at the end of a stage to clear Strong Spirit.

### Unlocking B-Skin

This unlock requires you to have Throne Butt and the Armour Up ultra mutation for a max of 5 armour. Then, you need to beat a level without taking damage or using an Armour Strike.

### Unlocking C-Skin

You can either use a well-aimed Armour Strike or use Crown of Blood or Crown of Apocalypse.

## Trivia

* When you loop as Viking, the Viking Great Axe will spawn, which is a stronger, broader, and more forceful version of the Viking Axe.
* Viking's unused race\_back is "Armour now gets taken when suffering lethal damage".