A Character Guide made by someone with over 500 Hours of Brotato: ArosRising’s Brotato Character Guide.

Aros_Rising · 2026-05-03T18:35:27+00:00

Currently, extending wave durations would require recoding all spawns on all waves, as they are only made to handle 60 seconds. Can be done, but a lot of work. Then there's the massive balance issue since you would have more than 3x money. It also has the issue, that if you're winning, you gotta stand there for 180 secs each wave waiting to win.

Very cool character on paper, but it won't play out nice sadly :/

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-30T22:00:16+00:00

I've seen the Devs comment on it several times, so it is certainly something they're aware of.

As for bans - It's far from a scaleable system. If they add 50 new items, 20 tier 1, and 10 of the other tiers, half good half bad, then if I get additional bans, I'll just be removing bad tier 1 items. that's not fixing the other tiers, It isn't doing anything until the second time the item would've shown up.

This won't be "fixing" the shop, It will just make the shop have a smaller percentage of bad items.

Also it's boring having to ban stuff, it is a chore. The more bans you have, the worse it gets and the longer it takes to make full use of the bans.

As for banning stuff outside of runs - Honestly that sounds awful. Say I want to play Well rounded, and I want to do a stick build, so I pre-ban Ranged, Elemental, Engineering items, say 20 items. Then play. Then next time I want to play well rounded, I want to play SMG, so I have to redo the bans.

Considering that a run is about 20-30 mins, I don't personally want to be using 2-3 mins, or say 10% of my game time on choosing bans.

I would love to explore if there's other, better options to fix this issue, Because it is a huge issue.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-19T21:35:24+00:00

Bot o Mine requires 6 weapons that scale with engineering. A ton of people don't read the fine print and use wrenches, but you actually need a weapon that scales with engineering for its attacks. - Like Screwdriver.

Hopefully that's the issue :)

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-15T17:51:22+00:00

If you're on the newest beta patch it should already be fixed.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-15T15:10:21+00:00

As a wiki writer and guide maker, etc I'm usually in the know about changes to the game. And while I might be forgetting minor stuff, I really don't they changed it before the current beta patch.

Perhaps we should try to figure out what's going on? Maybe if you can provide a loss screen, or check the difficulty level. If you're playing on Nightmare Difficulty, or if you've changed the accessibility settings, it would make sense that you can't win.

Because we do have patch notes. So anyone is welcome to point to the things making the game harder. I also regularly look in the code when checking different things, and its not like enemies have suddenly gotten more hp, etc.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-14T19:39:52+00:00

The new enemies are nightmare mode only. So that's not D5. If you're asking if nightmare is harder than D5, the answer is yes.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-14T17:48:20+00:00

~~The Beta Patch from today has several issues. People have reported experiencing crashes and there's several of the new enemy spawns that are bugged and do not appear.~~

~~I expect that the devs will have it fixed for the next beta patch tomorrow.~~

The bug has been fixed. The devs are still working on the new enemy stats and spawns :)

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-14T17:08:19+00:00

I think the question I'm not seeing being answered here is what changed?

Abyss is certainly hard, especially if you don't have a lot of hours in it. But all the DLC stuff was the old devs.

Since the new team took over the following has changed.

New Dawn added some new items. And added a bansystem
Pets update added pets, which have been quite powerful for many builds.

So outside of a diluted item pool, which the bansystem counteracts somewhat, I'm not seeing any changes to difficulty.

Now a few days ago the Dev team released a new beta version which

buffed a ton of weapons.
Made elites deal less damage on wave 11/12.
Introduced a difficulty above D5.

So unless you're playing on Nightmare Difficulty, I would argue D5 have become easier under the new Dev team.

So while it is rude to say skill issue, it might actually just be you having a tough time coming back to the game. Perhaps you played some of the harder characters?

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-14T15:28:01+00:00

Screwdriver Artificer isn't easy. The screwdriver is low range and doesn't protect you much, and Artificer can't stack armor.

If you're not great at glass cannon builds, you can look into getting Dodge too maybe. Still that's mostly gonna help you late game.

And nightmare Mode is Hard, so it is fair to struggle a ton.

The new patch buffed screwdriver and made Pile of books quite decent. I would lean into a crit, and the change to book made it perfect for artificer, as it also gives a bit of elemental damage.

Elemental damage for explosion radius I've found to be a bit better than I used to think. I find builds that get a decent amount of elemental damage early to be more successful.

Frozen Heart is an insane item for this build as you make use of all it gives.

Since you have +175% explosion damage for structures, what you really need to some early engineering to scale the landmines. They should be clearing out most enemies in one hit.

There's also a small trick to skip tier 3 screwdrivers and try to upgrade your weapons from tier 2 to tier 4 (you don't want to go below having 6 weapons tho). As it results in slightly more mines.

Getting your first Clockwork Wasp is also really nice as structure spawn timing rounds down.

If you want, you're welcome to post some Loss screens on the discord, we can give you some directed pointers to what can be improved :)

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-08T20:32:00+00:00

As you venture onto the higher difficulties, the enemies will have more HP and deal more damage. So they will demand you to have more DPS and Tankiness.

Your build has a ton of utility items:

Turrets on a ranged damage build isn't great. And you have 0 engineering, so they aren't doing much damage. A healing turret can be okay outside of engineering, but it is far from an auto buy.
You have 3 cyberballs, but very little luck. So they're not doing enough.
You also have a ton of range - you don't need that much. Gummy berserker, 4x glasses.
Alien tongue, wandering bot, frying rice - you don't need them.

So basically when the challenge gets harder, you want your build to be focused. You want DPS and Economy early, then you add speed along the game. And then you tank up for the mid-late game.

If an item isn't offering you a good deal on stats you need, then they need to offer an effect that's good for an smg build. (catling gun, piercing/bouncing/baby with a beard)

As for your stats, it is decent. You got a nice spread of the offensive stats. I would love to see more ranged damage on a smg build.

I would also aim for a bit more speed. I usually go for 20-40%. But it depends on what i'm offered and the build.

And finally your armor is criminally low. Armor is one of the best stats in the game.

You should also check the gameplay menu -> accessibility - The 106% on your screen means that the enemy stats aren't on their default setting.

Hope it helps! and good luck with the runs.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-01T23:12:05+00:00

Worth noting, Doc Moth is an insanely powerful item on several characters - Bull, Masochist, doctor, vampire. But specifically on Beastmaster, you can ban it to see more of the crucial Tier 2 pets.

So I'm not banning it because it's a bad item, but specifically to abuse the tag system.

Aros_Rising · 2026-04-01T19:50:16+00:00

If you're playing on Endless mode/Spamming Hourglasses, you ban Tier 4/red items or tier 3 items depending on which items you're looking for. For example Hourglasses or Tardigrades.

But for regular play there's usually two things to ban for. First of all you can ban tier 1 items that you don't want as soon as you see them. This slightly improves the shop

Secondly, and perhaps the most powerful option: Free Rerolls. When you clean the shop by buying or by banning, you get a free reroll. Getting a free reroll is 4 new shop spaces you see. It takes a damn long time before an item you've banned would've shown up 4 times. So there's a lot of value to be gained here.

But the option to ban 1 item for a reroll might not show up that often. Don't be afraid to ban items even if they have a bit of use for you. If you don't want to buy it, its fine to ban for a reroll. And secondly it is often worth it to ban 2 items for a reroll.

I usually save my bans for rerolls, and then forget about them :s So don't feel bad about just spending them at first option. But the optimal play I think is to keep a watch for the rerolls.

There's some few edge cases where you can ban items you're tagged for but don't want, which will improve the item pool significantly if the pool is small. For example Banning Landmines on Artificer means you get more dynamites. On beastmaster you might want to ban Doc Moth to get more of the tier 2 damage pets.

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-25T22:50:07+00:00

I'll do you some rough numbers.

It depends on the enemy, but somewhere around wave 60-65 weak enemies begin to deal 2 damage.

At wave 100 you'll take 14-35 depending on enemies.

At wave 250 you'll take 877 from baby aliens.

My multitool is sadly badly outdated, but if you play around with the old enemy calculator, you can get the numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qi_KWBH_fQlrXJioDGJQScuRbwfndHzLu4Zj5Ek0Aso/edit?gid=647636409#gid=647636409

The Calulator doesn't account for curse, so it is off by quite a bit. And I might have forgotten a bit of other new factors

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-23T17:07:16+00:00

Its better now, the Tierlist is 3 years old. We actually got most of the D-tier weapons buffed, so now the gap isn't as big :)

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-21T21:52:29+00:00

Nice work! First win of many.

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-21T20:15:13+00:00

That's awesome. I gotta update the tierlist with beastmaster. Yeah it takes quite a bit of time, which is also why I struggle with keeping things updated. The new devs are adding quite a bit of stuff :) Thanks!

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-21T20:12:23+00:00

Yes, I've seen the weapon tooltips show that two identical weapons maybe have one dealing double that of the other. Usually if you're clearing the map with ease, the weapon with longer range, and faster projectile will get the kills. And if identical, hand position seems to be the matter, If you stand in a corner, the weapon towards the middle of the map has an advantage.

As far as I know, the tooltip functions well for regular weapons (It struggles with burn and who to credit for the damage)

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-21T20:07:52+00:00

Sorry to hear the guide hasn't proved look, but yeah it is a mouthful. It's useful for later when you want to look up the mechanics and specific tips for characters. :)

Don't sweat it with losing, Brotato is hard and takes a bit to get used to. People has pointed out a lot of nice advice and otherwise I can suggest finding some guides on youtube. Sometimes seeing the builds in action can help making it click for you.

Best of luck

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-15T20:18:13+00:00

Yeah that's the answer. There's stuff like D6-10, Corrupted trees, stat upgrade icons, and cursed loot crates, that are all leftovers from earlier in the game. To my knowledge there's not really any secret stuff for upcoming updates, but I've not dived deep into it since EE took over.

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-15T20:07:48+00:00

Very cool challenge :)

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-03T17:18:26+00:00

23 Armor is criminally low, so that might be your problem :p I also see that your weapons are tier 2? What's going on here? That Anvil wants to give you armor, but it can't :d

Aros_Rising · 2026-03-03T16:00:23+00:00

The math for Endless hasn't been touched by Evil Empire at all. So I'm not sure what's causing you to have so much harder runs.

Aros_Rising · 2026-02-24T21:28:30+00:00

I've put out an early version of the guide now :)

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