Artifacts Guide
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Artifacts are some of the most powerful upgrades in the game. Many of the most powerful artifacts are absolutely run defining and there’s an enormous gulf between the worst and the best. Because of this, I’ll often reroll for artifacts 3-5 times in a run and it’s not particularly uncommon to use all 6. Any artifact that is giving you +20% or more to your overall damage output should be happily taken. Anything that can give you +50% is phenomenal and you should be ecstatic to take it as long as you can tolerate or compensate for any downside.
5 Leaf Clover:(+15 luck, gives an additional +20 luck for 5 seconds whenever you reroll anything, epic) Phenomenal early, but falls off a bit later. I think many beginning players don’t fully grasp just how powerful luck is. At 50 luck, you stop seeing common upgrades entirely. This artifact gets you 4/5 of the way there by itself. A stage one 5 leaf clover basically means that every level up will probably feature at least one upgrade that’s a tier higher than before. That’s absolutely run defining. It’s worth noting that time is frozen in the shop, so the luck bonus on reroll doesn’t expire there. If you’re picking up a ton of xp all at once (maybe from a magnet) it’s very tempting to reroll the first level up a time or two so the luck bonus carries over to all the subsequent levels in that burst. There’s no cap to how much luck can be gained this way.
Ammo Rig: (+50% fire rate, -15% move speed, epic) situationally excellent, but you won’t take it very often. Great if you’re running all projectile weapons or if LMG turrets or leadbursters are your primary damage source. The move speed debuff is a pretty big downside, so don’t take this unless you benefit heavily.
Ancient Knowledge: (gain 3 levels, rare) Solid, but generally unexciting. 3 levels adds more power than you might think. Even if you low roll and have to take 3 uncommon level-ups that’s still probably about as good as taking one legendary level-up. If you high roll on this, it’s way better than that. Early on, this helps you get to your weapons faster. In the late game, it gives you level-ups when they’re otherwise scarce.
Armor Grease: (+5% move speed, increase dodge chance by 2% while moving, stacks up to 5 times, lasts for 3 seconds, rare) Decent. Since you’re moving most of the time, this will usually be at the max dodge chance of 10%. That probably equates to 30-40 extra health in most runs. That’s not bad, but it’s never great unless the dodge happens to save you from a dreadnought hit. The extra move speed is nice, but it’s nothing game breaking. Goes up in value on the recon scout since dodge stacks so well.
Barley Bulb Juice: (gain a temporary move speed buff when standing still, +5% move speed for 3 seconds, stacks up to 5 times, rare) Solid. +25% move speed would be extremely strong if it were always on. As it stands, this gives you a big move speed buff after you finish mining something. I often end up standing still for a moment as a matter of habit while evaluating when to make my move and this makes darting through enemy formations far easier once an opening appears. Has decent synergy with the popup tripod.
Belts (FRZ/Brn): (+[cold/fire]10% damage, knockback and slow/fire nearby enemies when you take damage, 30 second cooldown, rare) Among the weakest artifacts in the game unless you happen to have multiple weapons of the appropriate element. The interrogator driller often has heavy fire builds, so the fire belt can be decent there.
BLT Ration Pack: (+70 max hp, +2 health regen, epic) Very good. The extra health makes it quite a bit easier to use your health as a resource, and don’t underestimate the value of the extra health regen. To find out how much you heal on each regen tick, take your health regen number and cut it in half. That’s the percent of your missing health you heal every 10 seconds. If you’re missing 100 health and have the max meta upgrade health regen (12), the extra 2 regen will mean you heal for 7 instead of 6. That extra 1 health doesn’t sound like much, but consider that most runs last 20-25 minutes of in-game time. That means 120-150 ticks per run. If you average 100 missing health throughout such a run, then a stage 1 BLT would probably give at least 100 extra healing over the course of the run. And if you tend to be low on health, it will do even more.
Chemist Kit: (+15% potency, +15 status effect damage, rare) The value depends completely on how much you rely on status effect damage. As a general rule, if you have 3-4 elemental weapons or if your main carry weapon relies on status effect damage, this is pretty decent. On the interrogator driller, this is the best rare artifact in the game. If you have no elemental weapons, this does literally nothing.
Clipboard of Grudges: (+10% to xp gain, gain xp when you take damage, rare) Pretty weak unless you’re on magma core, hollow bough, or you’re using the juggernaut. It gives a pretty relevant amount of xp in the early game, but that falls off hard later. The +10% xp gain makes it a decent take in stage 1-2, but it’s atrocious after that.
Company Issued Magnet: (spawns a magnet at the end of each stage that collects 50% of the XP left on the stage, rare) Decent early, worthless late. If you can get this on stage 1, it’s probably going to give you an extra level or two per stage, but that will depend heavily on how much pickup radius you have and how much you leave xp behind. The biggest problem with this is that it only picks up 50%. That means when it gives you three levels at once, you’ve left behind three more. If you’ve done a good job of picking up all the xp on the stage before leaving, this really doesn’t do much for you.
Diver’s manual: (+10% damage, +10% reload speed, +5% crit chance, +15% crit damage, rare) Quite solid. This one’s never bad, but it’s never run carrying either. I’m always happy to take it, but I’m never ecstatic either. Arguably the best rare artifact in the game and certainly the one I take the most often.
DRG Coupons: (-20% to upgrade prices in the shop, rare) excellent early and useless late. Let’s say you save all your gold and nitra, manage to mine out everything on the stage, and don’t reroll for anything. That should give you about 150 gold and 60 nitra. That should buy you about 8 uncommon/rare upgrades in the shop, less if you’re taking higher rarity stuff. That means your DRG coupons probably give you about the equivalent of 2 extra level ups per shop. That means the optimal case for these is about 8 levels of power over the course of the run. That’s really good, but you have to balance that with the fact that they give you nothing right now and their payoff comes only very gradually.
Energy Bars: (+1% damage and -2 max hp for every player level, epic) Amazing! This is one of the most consistent artifacts in the game and I’ll basically always take it unless the loss in max hp seems too risky (which is very rarely the case). An artifact that consistently offers 20-50% or more to your damage output is absolutely phenomenal, and you’ll usually be able to completely mitigate the downside by taking a few hp upgrades. Don’t sleep on this one.
Gold-tipped Bullets: (+1% to damage for each 5 gold you have, epic) One of the strongest artifacts in the game. Each stage has about 150 gold in it, so that’s +30% to your overall DPS per stage if you hold onto the gold. It’s not uncommon to have several hundred gold hoarded by the end of the run. Once you have this artifact, I’d recommend never spending gold on anything but weapon rerolls, the absolute best shop upgrades, and only as many shop rerolls as are necessary to allow you to spend your nitra. If you have this, you should basically never reroll weapon level ups. In the shop, taking a rare general damage upgrade with this artifact will usually slightly decrease your damage output, but taking an epic one will slightly increase it. Doesn’t work particularly well with the pay2win console, but it’s still often worth taking both as long as you’ve rerolled enough times.
Huuli Bait: (spawn 4 huuli hoarders, epic) Amazing most of the time. This is an auto pick as long as you can hunt down the huulis. When you high roll on this, it’s one of the strongest artifacts in the game. Just don’t take it when the elites have already spawned and you don’t have a build that’s good at efficiently killing the huulis. It’s still often worth it even if you can only hunt down 2 or 3 of them. Still, you’ll often have to leave behind a decent amount of gold and nitra because you spent so much time hunting. Use your discretion about when it’s worth it.
Jet Boots: (boosts you into the air when taking damage, 20 second cooldown, epic) Solid on magma core and hollow bough, mediocre outside of that. One of the easiest ways for a run to end in DRGS is for you to get surrounded and overwhelmed. Jet boots will give you a get out of jail free card on that, but it’s usually better to just boost your damage output so you can kill the bugs before you get surrounded. On hollow bough and magma core though, it’s possible to activate this almost at will, making it quite useful for fast mining and efficient pathing around the map.
Multi Tool: (-25% reload speed, +5% reload speed for every unique [Tag] equipped, epic) Great with the right weapons. The usefulness of this one is completely dependent on what weapons you have and what weapons you plan to take. In a build with all non-stop reloading weapons, it’s not uncommon for this to represent +20-30% to your overall damage output. If you get this early, it’s worth favoring non-stop reload weapons or weapons that will add more tags to your pool. It’s even possible to pick overclocks to add one more tag to the pool. The weapon box goes up quite a bit once you have this.
The MoCap: (+1% damage for every 1% of hp missing, epic) one of the strongest artifacts in the game. If you’re using your health as a resource (and you should be) this will often give +50% or more to your damage output. Major synergy with salty pretzel.
Nitragenic Powder: (+.5% critical chance for every nitra you have, epic) excellent for anything except heavy status effect damage builds. The extra crit damage on the scout means that this is especially good there. Once you have this artifact, I’d avoid spending nitra on anything other than artifact rerolls and the occasional important weapon upgrade. Just ask yourself, “Would I rather have this weapon upgrade, or the amount of crit chance I’m losing by taking this?” Crit damage upgrades become far better alongside this.
Pay2Win Console: (+2.5% damage for each time you’ve rerolled, epic) One of the best artifacts in the game. It’s extremely easy for this to be providing 50% extra damage by the end of the run. The fact that it’s retroactive means that you’re basically always getting a decent benefit. Make sure to reroll at least a few times per shop even if it’s for no other reason than giving this more stacks. Is somewhat at odds with gold-tipped bullets, but it’s often worth taking both depending on how many times you’ve rerolled.
Pick Axetender: (increases mining range, -10% to mining speed, epic) Always quite solid. This increases your range by enough that the -10% mining speed doesn’t actually slow you down at all. In fact, you mine everything quite a bit faster. Once you have this, it’s usually trivial to mine everything on the map and you’re much less likely to get trapped while trying to mine an escape tunnel. If you get this early, scanners become much more attractive, especially on salt pits.
Pickled Nitra: (+2% damage and -.5% move speed for every nitra you have, epic) arguably the strongest artifact in the game as long as you can mitigate its downside. Once you have this, movement speed upgrades go massively up in value and should probably be taken as if they were about two rarities higher than they are. Low movement speed is one of the easiest ways to die to the dreadnought, so don’t fly too close to the sun, even if that means leaving some nitra behind on stage 5. I prefer to have at least positive move speed in order to safely take that fight. I almost never pass this artifact unless I’ve been hoarding nitra for nitragenic powder.
Piercing Projectiles: (+50% piercing, rare) situationally good. If you have all projectile weapons and all of them start with less than 10 piercing, then this is a good pickup. If not, then this is a bit lackluster. Goes up a bit in value on azure weald because you sometimes need the extra piercing to punch through swarms to damage wardens.
Popup tripod: (increase your rate of fire and reload speed when standing still, +2% fire rate, +2% reload speed, for 3 seconds, stacks up to 15 times, rare) seems better than it is. At max, this gives you +30% damage output, which would make it an excellent artifact. However, DRGS is a game where you’re strongly motivated, and often forced, to be constantly on the move. Standing still for very long is a good way to miss out on valuable minerals. Stutter stepping around the map is doable, but it’s very tricky and will pull a lot of your concentration away from other things. This has decent synergy with the barley bulb juice. Becomes a bit better if you have the LMG or leadburster since fire rate and reload speed don’t gate each other on those weapons. Gets a good bit better in class mastery because of the smaller map size. Becomes great in no movement dives!
Red Sugar Cube: (+2 to max hp for each red sugar consumed, rare) Another decent early, bad late artifact. Literally useless on azure weald. I haven’t counted how many red sugar veins there are in a stage, but I think it’s reasonable to guess that you can usually mine four of them per stage. 24 health per stage is pretty decent if taken in the first couple stages.
Reflex Calibrator: (+5% armor, increase your dodge chance when taking damage, +5% dodge for 3 seconds, stacks up to 5 times, rare) Extremely weak outside of juggernaut. This thing maxes out at a 25% dodge chance, but you’ll never get there unless you’re repeatedly taking hits. This gets a little bit better if you’re playing on magma core or hollow bough, but I just don’t think this will be worth it outside of juggernaut.
Salty Pretzel: (increases armor by 1 for each 2% of health missing, epic) Pretty solid. 10 armor is about the equivalent of having 15-20% more hp. That means that if you’re using your health as a resource (and you should be doing that), this gives you quite a bit more survivability. Major synergy with the MoCap.
Squint-ee Goggles: (-30% to damage, +30% to crit chance, +100% to crit damage, epic) Good in builds that don’t rely on status effect damage. If you don’t have any fire/electric/acid weapons, this should provide about a 20% boost to overall DPS. That makes it quite solid in those cases. If you have other damage boosting artifacts to cancel out the damage malus, the goggles become quite a bit stronger and will often give +30% to your overall damage or more. Note that the general damage malus will apply to status effect damage, so if your build is heavily dependent on status effect damage, it’s quite possible to reduce your overall DPS with this. Whatever you do, do not take this on the interrogator driller. The -30% damage passive from that sub-class will stack with the -30% from the goggles. You will not be happy with the result.
Scanners (XP/Gold/Nitra): (you get a small chance to find xp/gold/nitra when mining any kind of rock, rare) Among the weakest artifacts in the game if you don’t have some synergy, but actively good if you do. My testing showed that you’ll get less than ten nitra per stage with a nitra scanner if you don’t go out of your way to mine. While that’s worth something, it’s just too little to be worth taking scanners over the alternatives, even early in the dive. There are some things that make scanners more attractive though: mining overclocks, playing with foreman driller or on the salt flats, gold or nitra dependent artifacts, and the pickaxtender. If you already have one or more of these things, then maybe it’s worth taking a scanner, especially if it’s early in the dive. If you’re able to get a scanner/mining build going, it’s one of the most powerful things in the game. Just don’t take a speculative scanner in the hopes that the synergies will pop up later. The gold and nitra scanners are a bit better than the xp scanner since xp gain falls off in usefulness later in the dive. Scanners become far stronger in biome mastery because there’s so much more time for them to pay off.
Tactical Cookie: (heals 50% of your max health when entering the drop pod, rare) Usually not worth it. The hp regen in DRGS is based on how much health you’ve lost. This means that if you’re low on health you’ll usually be healing 15-20 hp every ten seconds. Between that and some red sugar, it’s usually trivial to get your health back up to comfortable levels during the peaceful first 30 seconds of the next stage. In class mastery, this is one of the best artifacts in the game because it’s the only way to get any healing at all outside of the shop heal.
Turbo Encabulator: (+3% damage, +3% reload speed, and -5% mining speed for each equipped overclock, epic) Good to excellent. I like to think of it this way, what if each overclock had “+12% damage and +12% reload speed” attached? Does that sound strong? Because that’s basically what this artifact does. It’s just spread across all four weapons. Most runs will end up with 6-9 overclocks. If you’re running a build with four weapons that reload non-stop, this can provide +60% overall DPS or more at its best. The loss in mining speed is a significant downside though, particularly when fighting dreadnoughts or when it forces you to leave minerals behind. But it’s usually pretty easy to pick up some mining speed upgrades to offset it.
Vita-Miner Pills: (+5% max hp, increases the healing on level up, rare) Ok early on, especially if you find yourself taking a lot of chip damage. Pretty much never worth taking later on in the run since 5% more hp isn’t really worth much. I’ve heard that a normal level up heals for 2.5% of max hp and this increases it to 7.5%, but I haven’t confirmed that independently, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.
Weapon Box: (equip an additional random level 6 weapon with a random overclock, epic) Generally good, but with a very wide range. On the high end, you take this stage one and get a good weapon with a good overclock. This doubles your damage output on the spot and the extra levels on the weapon box weapon mean that it’s trivial to get it to 18 so it can carry the run. In these cases, the weapon box basically solo carried your run. On the low end, however, are the cases where it’s stage 2, you have your build picked out, and you end up getting a weak weapon with a useless overclock. This new weapon will now dilute your weapon upgrade pool for the rest of the run. Often, it will also mean you start getting offered tag based upgrades that you wouldn’t have with only four weapons. On average, I estimate that you roll well enough that it’s worth it to take this fairly highly. Just be ready to deal with the variance. Great for adding extra tags if you have the multi tool.
Tier Lists
Here are some tier lists to help give more information on how the artifacts stack up against one another. First some caveats and explanations. I once attended a music arranging class where the teacher started the first day by making everyone stand and repeat after him, “I do solemnly swear, CONTEXT!” Artifacts are much the same. Most of them can go up or down at least two tiers depending on the context of the run, sometimes far more than that. Every artifact in the game has a situation where it will be at least decent and I sometimes have to pass even the strongest artifacts in the game.
Secondly, I heavily weighted consistency in the ratings. Something that is only good in a small subset of builds lost a lot of points, even if it’s great in the right situation (e.g. ammo rig). Something that is always solid regardless of context earned a lot of points, even if it’s never going to be phenomenal (looking at you diver manual). I also tended to favor getting a smaller benefit now over a greater benefit later, unless that greater benefit was much larger. If taking a weak artifact now means you die early, then you’ll never see that long-term payoff. A great many artifacts provide their benefit as a drip feed over the course of the run. These lost a lot of points because they’re so weak after stage 2.
Thirdly, this first list is focused on normal 5 stage dives. All artifacts are sorted within each tier, so if something is at the very top of one tier, it means I think it’s only a tiny bit worse than the bottom of the next tier up.
More details about how I view each of the tiers:
- S – These are the artifacts that can basically solo carry your run. Artifacts that consistently add 50% or more to overall damage output go here. These are excellent at all stages of the run and pay you off massively if you can manage their downsides. I probably take all of these 90%+ of the time I see them and it takes a very specific set of circumstances to make me pass on them.
- A – These are going to be the bread and butter of many of your runs. I probably take these 80%+ of the time since they tend to be good almost no matter the context. Artifacts that consistently add 20% or more to your overall damage output go here, as do the best utility artifacts.
- B – This is mostly the tier of high variance artifacts. Many of these are S tier in the right situation and F tier in the wrong one. Most of the time, it will be pretty clear if you want one of these or not.
- C – This is where we get artifacts that are either consistently decent or are good role-players in the right situation. I’m never overjoyed to take one of these, but I’m rarely disappointed either.
- D – These are artifacts that I take only begrudgingly unless the context favors them. Most of this tier is artifacts that are C, or even B tier, on stage 1, but are stone cold F’s on stage 5. Keep that in mind when evaluating them.
- E – Only worth taking in extremely specific circumstances. For instance, scanners have an abysmal output unless you have synergy. If you have a mining overclock or the pickaxtender, then scanners go up at least a tier. I just find that those stars only rarely align early enough in the run to be worth it.
- F – Please don’t ever take these unless you can’t reroll or have exactly the situation required to make them not terrible.
If I have nitra, I’ll usually reroll aggressively to find something in B tier or higher. It’s rarely a good idea to take the supply drop unless you have enough nitra for at least one reroll. +20% to overall damage output is usually my threshold between being happy and grudgingly taking something.
Here’s one for weapon mastery. The main things to observe here are that the weapon box goes right to the top of the list and anything that gives its benefit over time goes down by quite a bit since there are only three stages.
And one for Class Mastery. The cookie becomes actively great here because it saves you so much money in shop heals. Anything that relies on mining gets significantly worse since the arena is so much smaller. Also, anything that relies on stockpiling resources gets quite a bit worse because the shop is so much cheaper.
And one for biome mastery. The main thing is that artifacts which pay off over time become quite a bit better here. Scanners in particular become far better because there’s more time to set up the synergies necessary to make a scanner build pay off.
And finally, one for hardcore. I probably won’t do any for the other anomaly dives since they mostly don’t feel different enough to merit a separate list.
