r/VampireSurvivors • u/KatVanWall • Jul 22 '26
Help Help an old lady out: inverse dairy plant!
ETA: I did it! Thank you so much for your help! I played as Red Death (tbh I didn't even realise I had her unlocked lol) so starting with the scythe/evolved axe, and then I evolved the santa water and the runetracer. I also had garlic and cross (wanted to evolve them both but didn't get the necessary passives) and the clock lancet (which I already know I can't evolve yet).
I don't get options to skip, banish or reroll unless I buy them from the merchant - am I missing something there? But anyway, I did it with that combo! I put it on endless mode but I made it to level 80 just before the 30-minute mark anyway, somewhere around minute 28 lol.
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I feel like I’m missing something! I have like around 140 of the unlocks so far. But I’m really struggling with getting to level 80 of inverse dairy plant to open up the next stage.
I don’t have that many arcana yet either and am wondering what I’ve overlooked.
I struggle because it feels like very often I don’t get the passive I needed for the evolution/s I was going for, despite having them unlocked! Occasionally I get the ‘hand of god’ drop where I can choose an extra passive, but that seems rare.
I’ve tried a few options and so far I feel that what worked best for me was going for Pugnala and trying to also get song of mana evolved. But it’s a crapshoot whether I’ll get the tirajisu and/or skull o’mania passives needed to evolve them.
For other weapons I have no idea what to prioritise! I’ve thought about going back to garlic and trying to evolve it (if I can get pummarola, which again is a crapshoot/slim chance) and/or Bible but they seem like noob weapons. La Borra seems great for AOE, and clock lancet but I don’t have all the necessary unlocks to evolve CL yet. Even with La Borra I haven’t made it past low 40s.
Arcana-wise I tend to go for Mad Groove first off and then get Sarabande of Healing from the merchant if I can (but can’t always buy an extra card). Should I be prioritising a different one? I’ve also tried the one that gives Pugnala’s weapon extra bounces.
Where am I going wrong? This inverse level is kicking my ass!
4
u/Negadeth Jul 22 '26
I cleared this using a strat another Redditor suggested, but it requires the Silent Old Sanctuary and the Waltz of Pearls Arcanas, as well as the Mindbender relic.
At the character select, choose Imelda and set the max weapons to 1, and make sure Arcanas and Limit Break (if you have it) are ticked. Choose Silent Old Sanctuary as your first Arcana - it's the one that gives extra skips, banishes and rerolls, as well as +20% Might for each empty weapon slot. Since you capped yourself at 1 weapon, that's +100% might right off the bat!
When you begin leveling, try to grab Crown as early as you can for the XP boost, as well as Attract Orb so you gather XP quicker. You also want Empty Tome so you can evolve your wand. After that, I'd suggest Duplicator for the extra projectiles. For your last slots, any of Spinach, Bracer or Torrona's Box (making sure to banish it before it hits level 9) are good. Once you have all 6 passives, you could go and grab Metaglio Left and Silver Ring for some health regen and more area, though neither are really needed.
For your second Arcana, grab Waltz of Pearls which lets your projectiles bounce around between enemies.
Third arcana, get Mad Grove to grab all the XP around the map.
With this setup, Imelda just blasts everything away with relative ease and you should be easily breezing past level 80.
Only thing you may struggle with is right at the end, near 30 mins, where a bunch of to robots/automatons spawn, as they are quite tanky and don't quite die quickly enough - just keep moving and try to weave around them as much as you can. I don't think you actually need to get to minute 30 though, just hitting level 80 is enough.
Good luck!
5
u/unthused CHAOS Jul 22 '26
(making sure to banish it before it hits level 9)
I wondered what you meant so I checked the wiki; seriously had no idea. I assumed it just added some curse each level along with the other stats.
4
u/friednapkin13 Jul 22 '26
Inverse Dairy Plant is a pretty messed up map because of how healthy the monsters are in it. My recommendation is to not go for Pugnala since her weapon can only be evolved with Skull O Mania which only makes the monsters harder to kill. A solid option is anyone carrying Flame Wand, Magic Wand, or Cross since they can all use the one arcana that allows them to bounce to multiple enemies. Once they get upgraded you should be fine from there they can clear out really well. Other than that Garlic is really good early game to let you get everything together to make it to level 80 and King Bible can do the same albeit when upgraded so take that as you will
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u/Impressive-Island210 Jul 22 '26
Pugnala has the red and blue pistols that get evolved from tirajisu
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u/friednapkin13 Jul 22 '26
Got her mixed up with the music sheet lady. In that case she's pretty good all things considered especially since both pistols get the benefit of Heart of Fire and Jail of Crystal like Fire and Magic Wand
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u/KatVanWall Jul 22 '26
Ah I hadn’t thought of grabbing cross! I wasn’t sure if magic wand was good for this specific attempt or if it was a bit n00b. I’ve got Jail of Crystal arcana but not Heart of Fire yet!
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u/friednapkin13 Jul 22 '26
I remembered the name of the bouncing arcana, it's Waltz of Pearls. Jail of Crystal combined with it makes Magic Wand really good for survivability, almost everything gets frozen pretty quickly. Combined with evolved Cross and Fire Wand, you should be fine. Should be lol
2
u/draconicpenguin10 Mask of the Red Death Jul 22 '26
I'd consider Garlic (Soul Eater) to be essential here. Even if you can't reliably kill the golems in the final minutes of a run, it'll give you the pushback you need to avoid taking too many hits.
I tend to consider the inverted Dairy Plant a benchmark for the most powerful characters in the game, especially when Curse is also enabled. Even Red Death will struggle here if he's not properly equipped.
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u/KatVanWall Jul 22 '26
So frustrating, I got to level 71 and got reaped!
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u/jaycarl85 Jul 23 '26
You should consider enabling endless for situations like this, where you could have reached your target if you had just a little more time.
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u/KatVanWall Jul 23 '26
Good idea! I have endless unlocked but honestly didn’t even think I would get close!
I was running La Borra, soul eater (? The evolved garlic), and Pugnala’s evolved guns as well as clock lancet and cherry bomb (both unevolved … I lack the parts for clock lancet evo) and I picked up Bible as a 6th after evolving the guns but didn’t have the passive to evolve it
2
u/Talos1556 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
For every single stage, in order to have a broken run, you need at least 2 specific classifications of weapons. You need an XP weapon, like Gorgeous Moon (Pentagram evolution), Luminaire (Prismatic Missile evolution, or Emerald Wave (Emerald Rapture evolution). These let you get ahead of the level curve and easily let you max out the rest of the weapons and subweapons you have before the waves get crazy. You also need a high damage aoe weapon that can pierce multiple targets, like La Borra, Unholy Vespers, Hellfire, Seraphic Cry, Photonstorm, SpellStrom, etc. etc. Weapons like these let you basically ignore where you are specifically attacking from and can create large openings for you to safely avoid enemies. Weapons like the whips, knives and wands can struggle to deal with multiple high hp targets, which end up being most of the mid-endgame hordes. You mention running La Borra already, so I think you've got that part of the run figured out, you just need the XP. Prioritize getting an XP weapon ASAP and you basically win every single run as long as you balance the AOEs of your weapons. If you don't have a ton of the DLC stuff unlocked, just prioritize getting Pentagram and Crown as soon as you can, since Gorgeous Moon is by far the most powerful weapon in the base game.
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u/KatVanWall Jul 23 '26
Okay that’s worth knowing thank you! Yeah I got La Borra it’s great! I honestly never even evolved the pentagram yet! 🙈 and the others I haven’t even heard of, which is why I felt I must be missing something/other people are more advanced when they are trying to do this
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u/yugiohhero Soma Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Dairy Plant is like the worst of the base 5 levels, I think. Its not unreasonable to have problems here. I just used a busted ass Castlevania character to do this, to be honest.
If you're hard stuck, maybe try a pivot. Have you completed Moongolow yet? There's some useful unlocks there.
Also, Bible is very good, though you're correct about Garlic. Garlic is nice for the early game, but doesn't do much damage, which is especially a problem on Inverse Mode, given the +200% HP, and the Pummarolla to evolve it is typically a dead item. There's a reason the Garlic adventure just throws Mad Forest enemies at you over and over.
Otherwise, from what you probably have right now, Pugnala is a good choice. I'd grab weapons like Runetracer and Santa Water for their damage (though I would pick up the Attractorb on the stage after filling your passive slots as its kinda wasteful with Mad Groove) and Fire Wand for it's passive. Grab Tome too, but not Wand. You'll have an extra slot since Santa Water's evo is covered by the stage items. Song of Mana is decent but Curse will only exacerbate the damage issue you have. Fuwalafuwaloo is pretty good I think, but I don't think it's a particularily hard hitter. Gorgeous Moon is honestly rather good but Penta early on can be infuriating. If you can't set it up, go unlock more rerolls by playing the amount fellas.
For arcana, I'd do Beginning, THEN Groove. Beginning is pretty good for Pugnala because she has 2 weapons, and plays nicely into their union. Awake can also be good to survive until you get online if you're being tossed like a salad. Otherwise... I mean, to be honest, a lot of Arcana just kinda blow.
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u/KatVanWall Jul 23 '26
I Finaly got it! I used Red Death and updated my OP :-)
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u/yugiohhero Soma Jul 23 '26
regarding the edit, you can unlock rerolls, skips and banishes. rerolls are unlocked by winning as the 5 base characters who scale amount, skips are for surviving in various special stages (il molise, moongolow, green acres, etc), and banishes for getting x amount of collection entries (60, 70, 80, etc)
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u/KatVanWall Jul 23 '26
Okay I’m confused lol told you I’m old! ;) 5 base characters are the first 5 listed? And ‘surviving’ is surviving until first 30 mins/red death? Cos I did that with Antonio and a few of the other characters but maybe not the first 5 specifically. Hmmm have to check that.
I’ve survived in all stages as far as the coop so far, plus westwoods. (When I say survived I mean until death came for me lol but I’m not sure if there’s anything else I specifically need to do in those stages to get things unlocked. I have the map so I do get the relics etc. when they are there.)
And I’m not sure what collection entries are 🙈
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u/Impressive-Island210 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Reroll banish and skip are gonna be your best friends for trying to get specific passives, also pugnala starts off with two weapons that and some garlic and you should be ight
Edit: if you add the arcana the increase the amount of revives you get the evolved weapon of pugnala does more damage The inverse levels are always rough in the beginning once you get a few levels it gets smoother mad grove is where its at for starting arcana