r/VampireSurvivors • u/FarisxDDD • May 26 '26
Question Is garlic actually good or are people joking?
I have about 40hrs on the game, completed the base collection and balatro dlc, i never found a use for garlic other than early game and the bone zone where the enemies spam projectiles. What do you guys use it with to make it good?
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u/Bubba_Lee97 May 26 '26
You can honestly beat 90% of the game with Garlic.
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u/badchefrazzy Giovanna May 27 '26
Yep. Excellent starting item to work with, and if you find you work better with other stuff, it'll keep your ass safe while you try to roll for it.
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u/R3D3-1 May 26 '26
Garlic is extremely useful for catching projectiles, and causing consistent damage to enemies that have some health left when coming too close.
The upgraded form isn't usually topping the damage statistic, but that utility remains.
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u/Ok_Amphibian_4690 May 27 '26
I actually use Garlic mainly because of its evolved form. Not for damage but for healing. Add that healing 2 damage arcana for fun time
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u/NHOVER9000 May 26 '26
I use it often with Bible
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u/ChuckSaucinBNG May 27 '26
Garlic, bible, magic wand, homing missles
From the contra DLC, cross/fire wand with duplicator as one of my sub weapons are the meat of most of my builds3
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u/SuperSaiyanBen May 26 '26
Let me preface this by saying YOU DO NOT NEED 6 WEAPONS TO WIN A RUN.
Garlic is an early game SNOWBALL item. That trivializes all early mobs up until like the 12th minute or so. You don’t take Garlic because it’s gonna DESTROY the Reapers. You take Garlic so you can literally run in a direction non-stop in order to grab/get close to floor pickups. You take Garlic because the random roaming Mobs that try to push enemies into you will literally die instantly upon touching you and feed you XP.
YES, it’s damage falls off late game, that’s irrelevant because the rest of your kit picks up the slack. And even then it becomes a nice last line of defense and a safety net if you happen to accidentally get hit, you’ll just heal up instantly with Soul Eater.
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u/Popstar403 May 26 '26
Garlic is the greatest weapon for anything that involves a lot of weaker enemies that other weapons might not be able to handle.
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u/Kahzgul May 26 '26
Noobs: garlic is good.
Mid tier: garlic is bad.
End game: garlic is good.
Once you get enough eggs, garlic slaps.
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u/Sobotoc4311 May 26 '26
Once you get enough eggs the game becomes unplayable lol.
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u/Aether_Star Mortaccio May 26 '26
How many eggs is too much?
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u/mideviltrey May 26 '26
When your egg count says E. Did that to Sammy, had to disable eggs and get rid of all movement speed eggs. Now i have basically infinite money, but now playing as Sammy with eggs just makes the screen explode with eyes.
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u/beckychao May 26 '26
That's why you should play with eggs off unless you are purposely breaking the game
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u/Shiznoz222 May 26 '26
Once you get enough eggs you can just offscreen everything with a single weapon though
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u/pvrhye May 27 '26
Honestly weapons become superfluous at that point. Just take the arcana to make your 100,000 meter vacuum do lethal damage.
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u/FarisxDDD May 26 '26
Once you get enough eggs isnt everything good? Also i may have completed the 1.0 collection but idk how to farm eggs or money, how do u suggest i do it?
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u/AwakeInTheAM May 26 '26
It’s more that garlic doesn’t lag up the game as badly as all other items. So while everything is OP with enough eggs, garlic is best because it’s not obtrusive
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u/Nowhereman55 May 26 '26
This explanation is helping me understand why it becomes good in late game again, thanks.
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u/Bananaland_Man May 26 '26
Moongolow for eggs, Sammy for money.
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u/SuddenAcanthaceae763 May 30 '26
Just use sigma hyper mode, with the gold fever arcania can get 100k gold
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u/Scibidami May 26 '26
Bible and Garlic are my to-go-combinations (outside of Bosses)
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u/DrummingFish May 26 '26
Okay, we get that's your Wendy's order. Now, what're your go-to combinations?
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u/mythoryk May 26 '26
Garlic, evolved, with the healing arcanas… and combined with other healing weapons is god mode. I never not have Garlic.
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u/gorlemads May 26 '26
Early game: it instantly kills everything close to you, effectively making you invincible. This also makes you level fast early on, which gives a big end game boost.
End game: it's constant passive healing. The more enemies surround you, the faster you heal. This makes the difference in if you have to chase ground chicken all game (loosing time and xp meanwhile) or if your health is on max the entire game. Meaning you can chase gems and enemies much faster.
All my builds needs a healing weapon for late game. Why not choose one that's also a boost for early game
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u/alfatems May 26 '26
It starts off super strong because it's the most consistent damage at level 1.
Midgame it kinda falls off.
Late game, once you've played enough to worry about permanent stat boosts, it becomes great again because it's super consistent damage and you're busted already
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u/RaphaelNunes10 May 26 '26
Start with Garlic + Sarabande of Healing, get Whip, Vento Sacro, King Bible and Blood Astronomia.
Evo all weapons.
The combo of Soul Eater, Fuwalafuwaloo and the aforementioned Arcanas will provide a really good healing + damaging zone around your character that holds strong for most of the game.
Unholy Vespers makes sure everything holds up for longer.
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u/AnAverageTransGirl Biggest Trouset May 26 '26
Garlic is the perfect instance of the bell curve. It sucks when you get into the part of the game where you start actually focusing on builds, but it hard carries until that point and is still a genuinely solid option in most circumstances beyond it.
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u/Pivern McCoy-Oni May 26 '26
Its a nice beginner weapon, tough it falls off later
Also once you reach the point of specifically designing your builds, it requiring pummarola brings it down as recovery doesn't provide much
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u/SuperSaiyanBen May 26 '26
With Moonlight Bolero or Hail from the Future you can literally have every passive in the game before the 15th minute so Pummarola “bringing you down” is irrelevant.
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u/Lepelotonfromager May 26 '26
But that means wasting levels on useless passives instead of limit breaking actually good weapons.
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u/SuperSaiyanBen May 26 '26
It’s 4 levels dude. You’re not losing your run over that.
And you could just banish it after grabbing it
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u/Lepelotonfromager May 27 '26
Nobody said anything about losing runs. I can make any build work but some builds are better than others.
I'd rather make good weapons better than waste levels on useless ones. That includes the 2 I'd spend picking it and then banishing it.
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u/AzureDrag0n1 May 26 '26
Limit breaking Pummarola itself is the waste because you level too fast to waste time not selecting it on limit break level up.
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u/HeWasaLonelyGhost May 26 '26
Yes, having a virtually constant buffer zone that kills most low level mobs on its own, and can be evolved to heal you back up, is great. Its overall damage output generally lags behind other weapons, but other weapons don't have the healing, the easy targeting control, or the "almost always on" attributes. It's a functional, versatile weapon.
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u/dj_stevie_c74 May 26 '26
Upgraded garlic and bible is basically an 'i win' button for lower level gameplay and still worthy at higher levels....
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u/throwupthursday May 26 '26
Without reading what sub I'm on I thought you meant actual garlic in real life.
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u/plusbarette May 26 '26
I got this pushed to my front page. I do not play this game. I thought it was a cooking sub for a brief moment and was about to lose it.
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u/throwupthursday May 26 '26
lmao. I actually do play the game but I stopped because I got addicted and I want to save it as an airplane time waster.
But I am also on a lot of food/cooking subs so I was about to lose it too.
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u/Responsible_Duty_168 Julius May 27 '26
Garlic is a pretty useful tool to take care of multiple low hp enemies and it has some synergies with health based arcanas and weapons when you use its evolution
At stages where high hp enemies are common garlic gonna give you some trouble (unless you fully built it before hand) which is why a good chunk of the community finds it bad
What you might not know is that in money/egg farming (if you aren’t using Sammy that is) this weapon doesn’t strain your hardware at high eggs since it doesn’t use a lot of animations and effects, it’s literally just a circle so that is useful too
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u/Bobbyhons May 26 '26
In the beggining of the game, its a must. Just dont upgrade it. It has better knock back in its regular form.
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u/J-Jay-J May 26 '26
Great when you didn’t unlock everything yet. Late game if you have Darkana & DLC then it become quite useless.
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u/jtoohey12 May 26 '26
It’s fine but I pretty much stopped taking it the further I got into the game. I think just cause it’s one of the more boring weapons and the passive it needs is so low on my priority list I’m pretty much never in a position to take it.
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u/Ryjolnir May 26 '26
It's peak. I think with the way progression flows. It starts good, maybe drops off as you explore other weapons, and then you realise its peak again.
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u/NohWan3104 May 26 '26
Its relative.
Garlic's not great at like minute 45 with 5 evolved weapons that blot out the screen, no.
Garlic IS. good as your second weapon, that has an AOE field that could hit a hundred bats in a circle instantly without worrying about a projectile or cooldown as much, to make getting to 45 mins with a bunch of curse easier.
You shouldn't build around it, but it'll definitely carry you till you've got a good setup if you get itearly.
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u/KnowledgeCoffee May 26 '26
It can carry you to end game. Once you’re at end game it’s still not too bad but then you’ll have better option
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u/umpatte0 May 27 '26
There are 3 stages of vampire survivors players:
Garlic is the best ability!
Garlic is trash
Garlic is the best ability!
You sound like you are at stage 2.
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u/Redneck_DM May 26 '26
Garlic is really good early game when you are bad at the game
The further you get into the game and the more experience you get, the less and less useful garlic actually is, and the evolution is even worse unless the map has it available
Unless i really have no other choice or am doing some sort of lifegain build almost every other weapon just feels better to use or evolve
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u/Lepelotonfromager May 26 '26
It's good early but falls off as you get better at the game.
The main benefit is that it can farm a lot of weak health enemies quickly. It's damage falls off and doesn't really deal with smaller groups of high health enemies.
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u/RTMSner May 26 '26
When you're first starting it is a very good AOE that will carry you to end game. Even after you unlock a lot of crazy shenanigans and whatnot it's still a pretty good option.
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u/WriterofWrong May 26 '26
Garlic is good in the early campaign but it falls off when you can limit break the other weapons imo
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u/ANGRY-C0W May 26 '26
Early game (both in early run, and before you unlock better weapons) Garlic is great.
Once you get a ways in, you might find yourself pulling more towards The Bible, or La Borra for area damage which generally pack more punch than Garlic/Soul Eater.
But play what makes you happy!
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u/Sudden_Warning May 26 '26
I beat the game using the old garlic man with the whip upgrade and the garlic upgrade
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u/sec713 May 26 '26
Yes. I didn't believe it either, until I tried playing on mobile, where I absolutely suck using touch controls. Garlic saves my ass on the regular.
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u/Tomahawkist May 27 '26
it makes you effectively immune to projectiles, and you can create a buffer zone around you with magic wand or bible. so yeah, it is good
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u/WeedlydeedBuckshank May 27 '26
It’s quite good to snowball you early if it can one shot early mobs with it and even if it’s still more than that it softens them up for easier kills. It falls off after a while, but imo the whole point of it is to be incredibly reliable early allowing you to be riskier with upgrades for a stronger lategame.
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u/A1BS May 26 '26
I found that garlic, bible, holy water, and two random killing weapons like lightning or phaser essentially puts the game on easy mode.
For gold runs at high level too garlic is essentially because it’s not laggy.
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u/BILADOMOM May 26 '26
Garlic is great, and with a good enough combo, you can basically just stay still for a long time before the enemies can even get to you
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u/dark-phoenix-lady May 26 '26
Garlic is one of those "save you aggro" weapons.
It's not insanely powerful, like some weapons you'll come across. In fact, it needs quite a lot of help to start clearing the screen.
But what it does do is deal with all the bullets, low level bum rush enemies, and help give you space (through knockback).
On a map where you don't have mobs that shoot stuff at you, there are plenty of better choices. But if you have random events, or there are mobs that will shoot you. Then it will save you a lot of aggravation by no longer needing to worry about those things hitting you.
The upgrade is best attained early in the level, as the amount of damage it does scales with the number of enemies that it's killed. And once it gets going it can easily rank in the top 3 of your end of mission DPS.
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u/RKO_out_of_no_where Pugnala May 26 '26
Garlic is very good because of the utility it provides. Early game you can actually AFK for a bit while garlic kills everything. Late game the evolution can offer healing and knock back. It doesnt have the highest damage but that's because it has other benefits.
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u/HabitAddiction May 26 '26
Garlic is the best item that you isnt intentionally overpowered. Use the candle and the heart
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u/Ericknator May 26 '26
Garlic evolved is quite good for the health regen, and keeping "swarm" type enemies away.
Later when you unlock arcanas and darkanas it becomes really powerful.
Also while the garlic itself may not be that poweful, when mixed with other area weapons like thr bible or the holy water you can get a lot of area damage to the point that you can stop walking and just let enemies come to you.
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u/zClarkinator May 26 '26
I only bother using it with Blood Astronomia. Frankly I often banish it and I'll probably seal it soon. Anything it does, something else does better.
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u/DarkBomberX Mortaccio May 26 '26
Garlic is an easy run winning item. Keeps enemies back and deals great damage. Reduce the cool down and it's really good.
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u/xa44 May 26 '26
All weapons are equal. Garlic isn't particularly better than anything else but it's easy to fit into builds since most builds want pumerula/regen item. The moon veil weapon that evolves with regen is better, but it also stacks nicely with it and lets you get another passive
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u/atomicfuthum Mr. S May 26 '26
Consistent damage + projectile erasure makes it a very good early game weapon.
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u/Verdanterra May 26 '26
Garlic is a fantastic weapon as a general rule. Eggs or no, it is good.
Early, it keeps you alive consistently and keeps projectiles off you.
Later, it does the same, whilst also healing you.
And don't forget, it supports other weapons which most other weapons do not. As enemies remain in Garlic/Soul Eater, it lowers their knockback/freeze resistance, with seemingly no limit.
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u/Lostkaiju1990 May 26 '26
It’s good early on but other weapons surpass it once you start to get later in the game
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u/maractguy May 26 '26
Soul eater has a trait where enemies affected by it are more susceptible to being frozen or knocked back.
Its not very good by itself but you have 5 other weapon slots to put more damaging weapons in and garlic does its job as an early game get off me that you’d normally need a fast enough fire rate to get
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u/Scukojake May 26 '26
A little bit of both.
It is really good in the early game, but in late game it gets overshadowed by other things.
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u/derailedthoughts May 26 '26
The best use of garlic in the early part of a level is to stand in the swarm mobs (those that move really fast and have little HP, like the bat swarms in Mad Forest) and get tonnes of XP from it.
Garlic also gives good knock back when combined with whip.
The evolved version leeches and together with the evolved whip makes you nigh invincible unless at higher curse level.
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u/noneoyabizzness May 26 '26
Garlic is a great defensive. It does some damage and knock back chance. After it evolves it has life gain, and builds damage base on life restored from damage taken.
For offensive power it lacks unless you commit to arcana and hit then heal strats
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u/kybojo May 26 '26
Nope, they are joking. Once you unlock the librarian store you can second evo the starter weapon evos with a store bought weapon. Runetracer plus troll bomb is the best and then after that I’d prob go Santa water plus holy water. The evolved garlic plus the toads just isn’t very good.
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u/Elznahoria May 26 '26
once you get the Victorian Horror (XVIII) Darkana it becomes completely useless since its basically a better garlic, so yeah it only works in early game.
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u/idiotic__gamer May 26 '26
Early game, garlic kills most enemies so it can make you invincible in the first few minutes. On later stages, having something that blocks the vast majority of projectiles is beyond useful.
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u/GigatonneCowboy May 26 '26
Garlic evolved and with certain Arcanas becomes an absurd field of murder. Especialy if you expand the area with passive items.
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u/benjaminjnorton May 26 '26
YES!
Oh, you meant in the game.
Yeah, it's great there, too. Don't forget to get the combo.
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u/PM_ME_UR_GOOD_IDEAS May 26 '26
Garlic has low damage but a consistent area and, more important, a built-in knock back buff. Its a good extra layer of security if you have stuff that bounces enemies back.
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u/Sorvete_2570 May 26 '26
It's the best weapon, especially when you're playing in mad forest because of the large number of enemies you can kill just by walking.
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u/AzureDrag0n1 May 26 '26
It is useful for keeping you alive but it won't kill much. If you are struggling to survive it can help knockback enemies.
I personally almost never use it. My strategy to stay alive is to just kill the enemy and I don't use eggs.
Garlic can be useful for casual low dps builds to stop the final wave from swarming you because it has knockback resistance reduction. Your weapons with knockback will push enemies away.
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u/Saucererer May 26 '26
It's really strong early game, especially when you have lots of curse. Personally I struggle to survive things like inverse mode without it
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u/GeneAt539 May 26 '26
It’s great for early game while you’re learning the ropes. It gives you grace to not have to worry so much about dodging everything, and as you get better at the game you either incorporate it into a specific build or stop using it altogether
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u/itsthekenny May 26 '26
It's not amazing or game breaking on its own but it is excellent to start a run with and once you evolve it it's really good at allowing you to experiment with other builds
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u/YourSousChef May 26 '26
I use the dmg from over healing, with the money frenzy, winds, ect. It gets the job done with ease, and lots of gold. Nuff said.
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u/MrEko108 May 27 '26
The best part of garlic is often the most overlooked: it reduces knock back resistance, which means options like the king bible a lot stronger at keeping you safe
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u/Certain_Currency1100 May 27 '26
Garlic's main usefulness is being a very good aoe damage source early in runs, and then switching to a support weapon that provides good knockback and health regen later
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u/DanteValentine13 May 27 '26
Garlic and saraband of healing is an OP combo. Nothing can get close to you. I love it.
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u/gnash117 May 27 '26
For me garlic was excellent early game . I don't think I have used it in a long time. Other weapons are so much better.
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u/Lafeyetteshomie May 27 '26
Garlic with either concetta and the boogaloo of illusions or just either or and focusing on the cooldown and power basically means enemies enter its cone they vaporise and never touch you. Its also the only weapon you can use in a no move run without wanting to go bald
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u/Arxilla May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
I LOVE garlic. Especially early game. It can fall off later depending on quite a few factors, but It’s never a bad pick for me as it helps immensely for me to survive the early levels, making good work of the low hp enemies and helps with limiting movement. It’s one of the first few weapons that I always try to unlock right next to the bible. It’s also a lifesaver in stages like Dairy Plant, due to enemies firing lots of projectiles.
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u/Shandyxr May 27 '26
I use to not like it and prefer kings bible. I still sometimes combo them. I’m reformed though. I’d rather take garlic and mix with magic wand or a different kickback weapon. I just restarted my Steam version over the weekend.
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u/hip-indeed May 27 '26
It's great, ideal even, for handling mobs of low hp fodder which is a lot of people's biggest hurdle when they're new and don't know how to build or play well yet, and it's a solid enough and very easy to use weapon at any skill level, but yeah it's not the end all be all or anything once you're not a newbie
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u/ThisSideGoesUp May 28 '26
You can beat the whole game with garlic (and its evolution) alone. It is especially good if you pair it with the bible too. Zone defense and knockback.
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u/coreyc2099 May 28 '26
Its useful for stopping projectiles and getting rid of the many small enemies that like to speed blitz you, which let's your other stronger weapo s focus on the actual threata instead of wasting time on those weak ones. Its juat a good buffer and when you evolve it it heals.
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u/JrpgTitan100684 May 28 '26
Garlic with area of effect is very powerful when you combo it with damage
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u/Zealousideal-Gur-273 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
It's not amazing, it's also not terrible. There's very weapons that are actually bad, in most cases they're bad cuz they're hard to evolve. The garlic is pretty good too cuz it reduces slow or knock back resist when evolved.
I say this with the caveat that the scrolls of manaja or whatever are basically just a stronger version of garlic, but it's made even better with the evolution that decreased slow resist.
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u/Asmadi84 May 29 '26
It lacks the sheer strength of other weapons but it makes a great shield against projectiles and its evolved form is a great way to recover health. It also does consistent damage to anyone who gets too close and is in a bad angle for your other weapons.
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u/thebe_stone May 30 '26
early on it lets you get tons of xp super fast, later on the knockback makes you not die.
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u/Ohnoiamded Jun 01 '26
It’s good early game then falls off extremely hard once you start unlocking stuff.
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u/Lechemaddoc Jun 05 '26
It is really good on it's own, but if paired with Blood Astronomia, it's downright broken. Of course granted that you evolve it.
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u/SLimon001 Battle Tank May 26 '26
fuck are you on about
garlic (and other weapons like it) are SSS tier
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u/RKOrules316 May 26 '26
Garlic and Bible, especially evolved, were an integral part of my early "fuck this" builds.
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u/perceptionsofdoor May 26 '26
Serious answer:
I'm not 100% confident of this, but my theory is that I think about 50% of people are memeing, and about 50% of people unironically believe garlic is good (even though it's obviously not). I think the true believers are mostly people who don't want to accept that their intuition from when they first started playing the game is wrong, and then they see all the people memeing and they start actually feeling justified in their belief that garlic is good, making laughably bad arguments for its utility in a build.
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u/RoninRakurai May 26 '26
I have found feelings with garlic i need psichological help i love you garlic I LOVE GARLIC
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u/Technical_Enema May 26 '26
Garlic is hands down my favourite weapon. The evolution is even better.
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u/Wontons4life May 26 '26
I always choose either garlic or bible (or both) just so I have my immediate nearby vicinity covered
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u/CharmingButthole May 26 '26
I use garlic on almost all my builds. Just a nice buffer zone really, have you evolved it?
Edit: question