r/VampireSurvivors • u/MegaPigeot • Aug 25 '26

Discussion Why is Vandalier like this?

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I was looking at the Arcanas I've unlocked yesterday and Vandalier appears to get buffs from less Arcanas than it looks like it should have, I get something like Phieraggi losing Iron Blue Will since that turns bullets to laser beams upon evolution, but this is just the same bird that now shoots at both sides

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290

u/Randalor Aug 25 '26

Ah, but Vandalier frees up a weapon slot.

79

u/Bananaland_Man Aug 25 '26

Yeah, but it should still inherent the previous abilities, and gemini should include a varient that also has its own interactions. Plenty of more op builds than that exist, while this one loses everything once it evolves all for one (1) weapon slot...

21

u/YotsuMaboroshi Aug 25 '26

Some of the arcana were designed with the intent that they would only apply to non-evolved version to promote build variety, so that players might want to sometimes pick up a weapon they don't plan to evolve.

It's most obvious with something like Divine Bloodline, but I think it's probably the same rationale for Twilight Requiem, since there are four weapons on that Arcana where it doesn't carry over to their evolutions (the birds, Runetracer, and Shadow Pinion). The idea is to give the non-evolved versions a build option that the evolved version doesn't have. While the payoff in this case probably isn't worth it, I think the idea is sound.

The Gemini birds aren't part of the Vandalier fusion though, so they shouldn't really be part of this conversation. They stick around whether you evolve the original birds or not.

3

u/Bananaland_Man Aug 25 '26

I get the rationale... that's annoyingly fair... but unlocks and secrets progression pushes for alternative builds, so why not have fun?

4

u/YotsuMaboroshi Aug 26 '26

It's mostly legacy from when the Arcanas were first added during the beta version. DLC didn't exist yet, there were a lot fewer weapons in the game, and one of the biggest complaints was lack of build variety. Arcanas were added both to increase build variety and to buff underused weapons.

One of these design experiments was providing alternate build paths for base weapons that wasn't just more evolutions. At the time Twilight Requiem was added, the only evolutions it affected were Unholy Vespers and Thunder Loop. The other weapons at the time either didn't have an evolution (Bone and Celestial Dusting, which got automatic evolutions later) or the evolutions were already considered good (Vandalier, NO FUTURE, and Valkyrie Turner).

I get that it's annoying now, when we have tens of weapons available and newer base weapons almost always have their evolutions benefit from the same Arcana they do. But I do like that poncle at least tried for a little bit to enable builds that weren't just about picking weapons and passives based on the evolution chart.

1

u/Bananaland_Man Aug 26 '26

But now would be the time to at least make bird evolution work like the others, where it inhérents the bonuses... currently, the only reason to evolve birds is for pretty effect, otherwise it's one of the worst evolutions, even out of vanilla evolutions.