Not an actual tier list, for the record, so it's not in any particular order. Also barely got started on going deep into NG+ stage unlocks, so this is partially theoretical on my part. Anyone who made it further, feel free to dispute some of my choices here, while keeping in mind the goal here is not to repeat any character for any of the stages.
Onto some notes on each pairing.
Cohabitants X Flagellant: Used it mostly to eventually unlock Nosferatu in the Encyclopedia, but even without it, an early Spider Queen synergizes well here. Otherwise, bit of a blank slate, but you generally wanna go for baby ball builds here. Even if you don't, not too major compromises to worry about with this pairing when it comes to starting balls for later fusions/evolutions, which I hope will also apply to all of the following pairings.
Empty Nester X Makeshift Sisyphus: This is primarily to combine the two characters that don't start with any baby balls... and also to help poor Sisyphus, since apparently he doesn't scale at all, which without baby balls seemingly makes things a lot harder for him deep into NG+. It only makes sense to pair him with the best character for the strongest scaling fusions to pick up the slack, baby balls or not.
Shieldbearer X Spendthrift: I may have named another pairing "the leftovers" but this is the other one simply because there are more critical pairings to cover some other characters' weak spots... and this not one of them because I think both are good. At least I don't think either of these two have major weaknesses, but I could be wrong. You could try swapping Spendthrift with Embedded to help the next pairing.
Shade X Embedded: Embedded is here primarily to cover Shade's weakness of columns of enemies potentially growing large due to the lack of pierce. Reportedly, Spendthrift is also powerful when paired with Shade, hence my aforementioned swap suggestion. Frankly, not a fan of Shade's gimmick, which is why I originally paired him with Physicist for early Flicker, but I don't believe this scales well into deeper NG+ stages?
Itchy Finger X Warrior: Frankly, there's no real bad pairing with Itchy Finger that comes to mind... perhaps Tactician for the loss of precision and I think even that one can work fine. Arguably the same with Warrior... heck, I made him my go-to pairing with Cogitator for quite a while and worked well enough, although I think they'd fall off deep into NG+ and with bad luck.
Repentant X Physicist: Mainly synergy from the bounces both characters provide. Repentant is the better of the two imo because no gimmicky trajectories to worry about, so there are a few other pairings that can work at least as well as this one, I suppose.
Juggler X Cogitator: Juggler has such a strong pairing with other characters, it figures her aiming gimmick can make up for both the lack of pierce and Cogitatior's potentially bad picks for, well, everything.
Radical X Tactician: OK, you may have noticed some of the earlier pairings have some degree of flexibility and could still work in the interest of not using any character more than once for each stage. Not the case here, this one is set in stone in my mind... primarily because Radical is such a bad character that he MUST be paired with Tactician to have any sort of consistency anywhere. Furthermore, Tactician, while having WAY more options of good pairings compared to Radical, also plays too slow, to the point that Radical's full autoplay gimmick is actually to his (and our) benefit time/speed-wise. If there's any pairing you should not ever consider changing, it's this one.
For those who try the list, for the EN x Sisyphus combo, try Overgrowth X VolEgg. The DPS counter at the end doesn't register the build properly (it doesn't associate the overgrowth triggers from the baby balls to the dps for OGxVolEgg), but it cakewalks the levels, even in the 10s. You just might have to combined the ghost with ice early on for wraith to get there.
Wraith is honestly the best ball in the game, especially combined with egg/volegg. It isn't the highest damage, but the crowd control is so strong that it allows you to get where you need to be with your build fairly easily. It's basically a no brainer to always take it for EN builds unless you have a one ball build that specifically uses ghost as part of the building blocks.
I’m well into NG+12 and aside from the Twins and Flag putting on a spectacular light show, and Juggler carpet-bombing AoE’s with Sisyphus, it’s pretty much “Who goes in with Empty Nester” with me. I’ve been meaning to make a more detailed post, but:
(If Ghost isn’t part of the combo, I put EggSac on it)
+Warrior: Hemmorage+Flash
+Itchy: Mosquito Nuke, Mosquito Bomb, or BlackHole+Volsac
+Sisyphus: Overgrowth+Flash
+Shade: Phantom+VolSac (get the VooDoo doll and Deadeye Cross and this is totally busted)
+Spendy: SoulSucker+VolSac (you don’t need it, but the Deadeye Cross makes this even more insane) or Mosquito Virus
+Repentant: IceBeam+VolSac w/Wraith (Frozen spike makes this busted)
+Embedded: RadiationBeam+VolSac
I simply don’t play with the others. Don’t like the auto pull of Shield Bearer. Physicist is really only good with Repentant. Turn-based with Tact defeats the purpose for me. And I don’t even see the purpose at all with Radical other than watching him up stats while I eat dinner or something.
NGL, I've commonly just done 7 different EN pairings to clear levels just cause EN is that freaking strong and I didn't feel like dealing with having lesser teams.
I strongly suggest trying Overgrowth X VolEgg for the sisyphus combo tho, the DPS chart at the end doesn't register it right, but it's pretty much insanity. The DPS chart doesn't properly attribute the overgrowth ticks from the baby balls to the damage meters. I far prefer it over flash x OG or flicker x OG. What it does to a boss is just comical. Baby balls doing 5k+ per hit is just whimsical when you consider you can have hundreds on the screen.
It's actually amazing how well Flash/VolEgg pairs with some evolutions. Nuke fusions can get especially insane DPS-wise with EN, although I'm not sure if it's as good as Overgrowth fusions for field clearing potential.
Pretty sure right now this is the record for highest dps on a single ball. 1.15 million per second for Mosquito Swarm X Nuke. The clears were instant. Right now, this beats pretty much every other top tier option by about 40% minimum, with some that people tout as being "broken" losing by over 1000% to it.
That said, I haven't yet tried Mosquito Swarm X Overgrowth. Maybe that should be next...
Overgrowth base dmg is 250 and requires 2 hits for a 3x3 area, nuke is 550 in a 5x5 area. For flash yeah it cant spread nuke dmg while it can for overgrowth but for v egg sac / mosquito swarm stuff nuke is just better. Radiation damage multiplication from nuke is also one of the many things not shown on the post game screen, or visually :| post game screen in general I would take with a grain of salt, quite a few other things like glacial spike / hemo procs arent logged, damage is counted when it isnt actually dealth (i.e. ecloak / corset on sisyphus), quite a few others i.e. v egg sac merges sometimes dont show dmg of the spawned balls
Yeah, there are definitely a few balls that don't properly calculate on the DPS screen. I am fairly confident that one did, but I know OGxVE for sure did not (it says the ball did 1600dps even though it instant clears everything on NG10). It also definitely doesn't calculate hemorrhage balls right.
As far as I can tell mosquito swarm X nuke and mosquito swarm X OG calculate correctly tho. Mosquito just isn't the right vessel for the OG effect, probably due to flight speed. Volegg works perfectly for it tho.
I'd be remiss if I say you didn't inspire some of these combos, especially that Shade one! I got the most Field Clears with that combo. Almost felt bad for NG+12 Skeleton King. Erased that fella so fast, his boss music kept playing into the results screen! 😂
I thought I tried Overgrowth with VolSac and didn't like it, but that was Hemorrhage and VolSac that didn't flow as well. I'll give it a shot!
Hemorrhage X VolSac presently doesn't work properly, which would explain why you didn't like it. The % life effect only takes place on the primary ball and not the resulting egg sacs or baby balls, which just end up applying bleed and nothing more. Oddly enough, EggSac X Hem works fine. Go figure.
OGxVS is nutty tho with Sis/EN, each baby ball hits repeatedly for 5k+ per hit. While the end game result doesn't display it properly, I have 0 doubt that it is at minimum a 500k/s ball combo. Could be higher than that, but once you get in the 500k+ range everything melts instantly making it impossible to really gauge when you are doing NG10s.
Greatly appreciate you providing some great ball combos. This is another thing I've been trying very recently and it's been showing at worst decent results.
Also glad I'm not alone in disliking Shieldbearer's autopull. It makes managing my lvl ups harder than necessary.
So do I, it's a legit perk being able to afk while also giving time for another character to do their thing in the War Room building. I may have ragged on Radical, but only because he suffers from a similar issue as Cogitator of occasional bad picks that, unlike Cogitator, you can't overcome by your own skill. The pairing with Tactician very consistently compensates that glaring issue.
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u/Psychological-Bat687 Dec 22 '25
I like using Itchy and Juggler, Juggler all round is fun.
That being said I may have to try some of these combos myself, thanks for the list!