Dead Cells – Blueprint Hunting Guide

Guide to Blueprint Hunting

Foreword

A common misconception about blueprints is that their drop rates are per enemy, but in reality, it’s per biome. This makes farming blueprints by just slaying the same enemy over and over again borderline impossible and inefficient. You would have to clear a biome that contains the enemy you are looking for many times until you are lucky enough to find the blueprint you are looking for.

This takes ages and nobody has time for that! Yes, you could use seeds that have guaranteed blueprint drops, but seeds are always subject to change and nobody wants to keep updating all the known seeds with guaranteed blueprint drops when you can already use the Hunter’s Grenade that ignores drop rates altogether.

This guide will teach you how to farm blueprints most efficiently. Note that although this method is very efficient in hunting blueprints, it can get stale very quickly, so use it with this in mind.

General

• You will need to have the Specialist’s Showroom upgrade unlocked, the Hunter’s Grenade is what makes this strategy possible.
• To farm more efficiently, you should do the Blueprint Hunting in Custom Mode and enable these settings:
  • “Curse level on cursed chests: 000”
  • “Starting amount of gold: 50000”
  • “Increase the maximum number of mutations: 11”
  • “All weapons and skills are legendary”
  • “Health Fountain never breaks”
  • “Curses leave you at 1HP instead of killing you”
    • You will still die after getting hit a second time! The first hit will take away your One-Hit-Protection and the second hit will one-shot you, except if your OHP is ready again.
  • “Unlimited Ammo”
    • This might be useful depending on your main weapon; Requires 1BC win.
  • “Disable Malaise”
    • For the 5BC blueprints located after The Hand of the King.
  • “JUMPS: You can jump multiple times in the air”

How to Extract Blueprints

• Buy the Hunter’s Grenade from the Specialist’s Showroom in the Prisoners’ Quarters for 3000 gold.
  • If you destroy the golden door, you’ll receive a 50-kill curse!
• You can use the Hunter’s Grenade by throwing it on an enemy with a blue icon above their head.
  • This doesn’t work on elites or bosses.
• You then need to lower the HP of the enemy that has transformed into an elite to below 40%.
  • The elite enemy won’t have special powers, similar to the elite enemies created by the Malaise.
  • Some enemies don’t have an elite variant, those then transform into an elite zombie. The blueprint will still be from the blueprint pool of the original enemy.
• If its HP falls below 40%, you can use the Blueprint Extractor.
  • The Blueprint Extractor drops if the enemy has been hit by the Hunter’s Grenade and has transformed into an elite.
• If the extraction was successful, the enemy will disappear and leave a blueprint behind, but the Hunter’s Grenade will be consumed.
  • If you accidentally killed the elite, the Hunter’s Grenade will be dropped instead of being consumed.
• You then bring the blueprint to the Collector in the next passage/transition area, reset your run to grab another Hunter’s Grenade and repeat the same steps.

How to Hunt More Efficiently

• Equip the “Gotta Go Fast” Aspect in-game.
• During your blueprint hunting runs you can also look for Secret Zones that contain blueprints you don’t already have, check the wiki for each biome if you want to do that.
  • Some lore rooms won’t spawn when you use a seed in Custom Mode or have lore rooms disabled.
• To extract blueprints from dangerous enemies (e.g. Golems), you should bring a form of CC with you.
  • Skills are the most reliable source of CC, those help a lot (e.g. Ice Armor^RotG, Ice Grenade, Stun Grenade, Root Grenade, Wolf Trap, etc.).
  • Moving to a different platform forces the elite to teleport to you instead of continuing to attack, which gives you the needed time you extract the blueprint.
  • After lowering the HP of the elite to below 40%, you will have a short time window where said elite is stunned. Extracting blueprints without CC abilities during that period is possible if you time it well.
  • Don’t use any DoT (Damage over Time) such as bleed or poison, this might kill the enemy you are trying to extract from!
• Some weaker enemies might get one shot by your weapons, especially in the late-game. You might want to use your dive attack and the Homunculus Rune to chip away at their HP!
• Some enemies will spawn in later biomes on 0BC, you should check if that enemy can spawn in earlier biomes on higher difficulties!
  • For example, the Bombardier will spawn in the Clock Tower on 0BC, but on 3BC+ it can also be found in PotC. That can reduce the amount of time you need to find a Bombardier drastically.
• You can enable the setting “Enable Malaise” in Custom Mode and collect blueprints from enemies that would normally spawn way later! (This setting can now be enabled on any difficulty, it was previously locked behind a 3BC win.)
  • For example, you can get the Barrel Launcher from the Infected Workers spawned by the Malaise! There is no need for entering the Derelict Distillery if you can get this Blueprint in Prisoners’ Quarters. Enemies spawned by the Malaise won’t have an icon above their head that indicates a dropable blueprint, but you still can use the Hunter’s Grenade!
  • Having 4-5 Malaise is the most optimal amount when farming with this method! The spawn rates will be high enough, but you don’t run the risk of dying because of high Malaise.
    • Watch out, clearing 90% of the enemies will disable all the effects from the Malaise. You should aim to clear 60-80% of the enemies to slow down the Malaise increase but not disable it!
• Some blueprints can only be dropped/found on higher difficulties.
  • Below is a list of all the blueprints locked behind difficulties (doesn’t include outfits).

Builds

This section is for maximising how quickly you can hunt blueprints, but you shouldn’t feel forced to do exactly as I say. These are only recommendations if you really want to min-max blueprint farming (which might make a difference if you want to do it for multiple hours on end), but the general tips above are more than enough!

Starting Gear

• War Javelin^RotG
• Assault Shield (Assault Boost)
• Lightspeed
  • Not mandatory, this is just to reach the Recycling Tubes faster. You’re going to swap your starting gear with the items from the tubes anyway. If you don’t have that upgrade yet, then add the Wolf Trap to your starting loadout, you still can use the strategy with the legendary items named below.
  • Your entire loadout should be legendary to benefit from their legendary affixes, that’s why you should pick up the items from the Tubes. Some weapons have speed buffs that will help you traverse through biomes even faster!

Recommended Build

• Rapier, Assault Shield, Wolf Trap
  • Nerves of Steel (in the Backpack)
  • Use the Rapier to kill enemies during biomes, after 8 kills you’ll receive a speed buff which refreshes after every kill. When you crit, the legendary Rapier will provide you with another speed buff that stacks (that crit condition can be fulfilled by Assault Boosting with the Assault Shield).
  • Use the NoS for bosses. It has to be a ranged item because it isn’t possible to receive two melee/range weapons from one tube. If this is too complicated for you, then just use your melee weapon.
  • You don’t need a second skill because the Hunter’s Grenade will take up one of the spots, using one CC skill will be enough.
• Other possible melee weapons:
  • Flawless, Bone, Swift Sword & Bladed Tonfas^TQatS
• Other possible ranged weapons:
  • Blowgun^TBS & Magic Bow
• Other possible CC skills:
  • Ice Armor^RotG, Ice Grenade, Stun Grenade & Root Grenade

If you plan on using the builds I mentioned then use the recommended items and disable everything else! Only then you’ll get the same build every single time.