Path of Survivors WikiLoading…

Getting started

Path of Survivors is a survivors-style dungeon crawler. You move; your skills fire on their own. Play solo or in co-op with up to four players.

Each run is one procedurally generated dungeon: fight through its rooms and kill the boss at the end. In a run you gain levels (the party shares them, and every kill's XP goes straight to everyone), and each level offers a choice of skill gems: a new skill or a level for one you have, with a flask once there's nothing left to offer. You can carry at most 3 skills in a run, the one you start with included; after that, level-ups only make them stronger. Support gems come from gem caches instead. Each level takes more XP than the last, so levels come quickly at first and slow down later. That progress lasts only for the run.

What carries over is your character. Runs earn character XP, and each character level adds life and damage and gives a passive point for the passive web. Clearing a dungeon unlocks the next one and unlocks a new gem, and gem caches can unlock more. Gear drops during runs and is kept for good; items you don't want sell for gold.

Area attacks, yours and the monsters', stop at walls: a pillar or a corner shields you (and the monsters). What you see is what hits: blasts, rings, auras and warning circles are drawn only as far as they reach.

Controls: WASD or the arrow keys to move (or drag on a touch screen). Skills cast themselves. Space hops (just for fun), Tab shows the big map over the play area, P opens the passive web, Esc opens the menu, and 1 2 3 pick level-up cards. A solo run pauses while you choose an upgrade unless you set Choosing an upgrade (solo) to Keep playing in Settings; co-op runs always keep going. Sound effects and the boss-fight music each have a volume setting (Settings, from the menu). Your ping (the round trip to the server, in the US east) shows under the timer: green is great, yellow fine, red slow.

Your account also levels up from every run, across all your characters. An account plays one character at a time, in one browser tab: open the game in a second tab or window and it's turned away while the first is in use. A tab that's been closed, or left in the background for half a minute, gives way to the new one. If your connection drops during a run (or the game stops hearing from the server for a few seconds), it says Reconnecting… and puts you back where you were. If your connection has dropped recently, or your ping is over 200 ms, the game keeps two connections to the run at once, so a single cut usually goes unnoticed. While nothing is coming in, your character stands still with the world, and Reconnecting… only shows if getting back takes more than 3 seconds. Your place is kept for 30 seconds: a solo run waits for you, and in co-op your character stands where you left it while the others play on. Quitting from the menu still ends your run. Co-op: one player hosts and shares a five-letter code, or invites friends from the friends list. A party can only go as deep as its least-progressed member has unlocked: the host still sees their deeper dungeons, greyed out, with who hasn't unlocked them yet. When the host starts a run, everyone gets a ready check; if anyone isn't ready, it's called off and the host can ask again a few seconds later. A fallen ally comes back if you stand next to them for three seconds. They come back shielded: nothing can hurt them and monsters ignore them, but they don't attack either, until they walk away or the shield's bar runs out (six seconds).

When you go down, the game tells you what did it. The end screen shows a death recap: the killing blow, and everything that hit you in your last five seconds, by source, so you can tell one big hit from being worn down.

The town

After you pick a character you arrive in town: a small, foggy place of slate roofs and green-burning lanterns, and everyone online is in it with you. (If a town ever fills up, the next arrivals get a town of their own.)

You walk about town the same way you move in a run, and you see everyone else in town walking about too, each with their name over their head, followed by their faith if they keep one ("Mira · The Hollow"). Names show over everyone in a run too, your own included. The square in the middle is where you arrive, beside the waystone. Four streets lead off it: the chapel to the north, the graveyard to the west, the shuttered market to the east and the old well to the south.

The notice board stands on the north side of the square. Walk up to it and press E (or tap the prompt) to read it: that's where you pick a dungeon and go, solo, as a co-op host, or joining a friend's code, and where each dungeon's fastest clears are posted. Your gear, passive web, gems, friends and settings are on the buttons along the top of the screen (P opens the passive web), and Characters takes you back to choose another character.

When a run ends you're back in town, with the run's results over it until you close them. A co-op party stays together on the results screen (the host can start again from there) until each of you heads back into town.

Chat: press Enter, type, and press Enter again (on a phone, tap Chat). What you say appears in a bubble over your head for a few seconds, and in the town's chat history in the bottom-left corner. Everyone in your town sees it, and someone who walks in shortly after can catch up: the history keeps the last 50 lines. Esc puts the box away without saying anything. Chat works the same way during a run: everyone in your run sees your bubble and the line, in a log in the bottom-right corner (in a co-op run on a phone, tap Chat beside the menu button). Each run starts with an empty log, and you stand still while you type, so pick your moment. A line can be up to 120 characters, and saying more than 4 lines in 8 seconds gets you asked to slow down.

Press Space in town to hop, just as in a run; everyone in town sees it. In the square's bottom-left corner a campfire burns, and a party of four sits round it, ready to go down: they look like players but they're townsfolk, so they only talk (and some of what they say is good advice).

In the square's bottom-right corner stands a carved sign, With Thanks, with the names of the playtesters who helped shape the alpha: CoffeeCup, Stealthheart and Cognas. Walk up to it and it reads itself out.

Tamsin, the pedlar in the market, sells gear by the slot. Walk up to him, press E, pick a slot and pay, and he hands you a random item for it: the commoner the rarity, the likelier. His goods are the item level of the deepest dungeon you've unlocked, and the price rises with it. The item goes in your bag; there are no refunds.

Brother Ansel, at the chapel, offers a faith from character level 5. A faith goes with that character into every run, like gear, and its name shows after theirs over their head. Choose one of two; the first is free, and turning to the other costs a tithe of 100 gold.

A few townsfolk stand about. They don't do much yet: walk up to one and they'll say something, a different line each time you come back.

Classes

Three archetypes. Each starts with its own skill gem and small built-in bonuses; any class can use any gem it unlocks. Once a character has unlocked more skill gems, they can start runs with any of them instead: choose on the Gems screen (from the character list, in town, or in a co-op lobby). The class's own gem stays the default.

Skill gems

Skills fire on their own. Level-ups offer new skills (up to 3 in a run, your starting skill included) and levels for the ones you have. New skill gems of the same element as the one you started the run with (fire, cold, lightning or physical) are offered 2.5× as often as any other one, so a run leans toward your starting gem's element without ruling the others out. Only the starting gem counts, not skills you pick up during the run, and supports aren't weighted (they have no element).

Tags

Each skill's tags say what kind of skill it is, and supports link only to skills with a tag they fit. proj skills fire projectiles, chain skills leap between monsters, area skills hit everything in a space, orbit skills circle you, strike skills land on monsters after a warning, trap skills throw mines, and spell or attack says how it's made. Duration skills leave an effect that lasts a while after they're cast. Summon skills summon something to fight beside you (and are always Duration skills too, since what they summon lasts only so long). No support links by Duration or Summon yet.

Totems

Rime Totem summons an icy totem where you stand once a monster is within 260 px of you and in sight. The totem stays put and pulses a freezing ring (105 px, chills) as it appears and then every 2 s; Quickened and other faster cooldowns make it pulse faster, Resonance adds a second pulse a beat after each one, and Widening makes the ring larger. It has 25% of your maximum life, and monsters treat it like a player: they chase it, hit it, shoot at it and slam it, and a boss goes for it if it stands inside the arena. It lasts 8 s, and goes sooner if its life runs out or yours does. Each Rime Totem gem keeps 1 totem up at a time: the next one comes a cooldown after the last is gone. Its pulses follow the usual rules (they stop at walls, don't hit monsters in the fog, and don't cross a sealed boss doorway), and the damage counts as yours.

Ailments

Hits can leave a monster with an ailment, shown on it while it lasts:

• Ignite (fire hits): 50% of the hit's damage every second for 2 s. A new ignite replaces a weaker one.
• Chill (cold hits): slows it by 40% for 1.5 s.
• Shock (lightning hits): it takes 25% more damage for 2 s.
• Knockback (physical hits): pushes it away from you (not bosses).
• Bleeding (Barbed Volley's arrows and Grenade Trap's shards): each bleed deals 25% of the hit that caused it, spread over 4 s. A monster can bleed up to 3 times at once, shown by red pips beside it, and each new bleed starts every bleed's 4 s over. Once it has all 3 (the pips turn bright), hits add nothing and don't refresh them: it can't bleed again until all of its bleeding has run out.

Lingering makes ailments last longer (bleeding for longer at the same rate, so it deals more); Focus stops them. Damage over time follows the same rules as hits: none lands on a monster hidden in the fog, or across a sealed boss doorway, and it counts toward the skill that caused it in the damage meter.

Support gems

Supports come from gem caches, not level-ups. They link to a skill gem (up to three per skill) and change how it works. Each one fits only skills with matching tags. When a support card fits more than one of your skills, picking it asks which skill gets it. On strike skills, Splintering and Cascade pull different ways: Splintering adds a strike on another enemy, Cascade adds aftershocks around each strike you already have.

Traps

Trap skills (Storm, Blast, Glacier, Inferno and Grenade Trap) don't hit anything when they fire: each one throws a mine toward the nearest monster in sight, up to 190 px away, landing just short of it in its path (and short of any wall or a sealed boss doorway). A mine blinks for 0.75 s while it arms, then glows steadily; once armed, it goes off as soon as a monster comes within 40 px of it. One that nothing walks onto is dismantled after 10 s, and a skill can have at most 12 of its mines out (throwing another dismantles its oldest). With nothing to throw at, a trap skill waits, so stand where monsters will walk.

• Storm Trap calls lightning down on four random monsters near the mine (if fewer are near, the spare strikes land on them again).
• Blast Trap explodes in a ring around the mine.
• Glacier Trap sends three bursts of ice, one after another and each larger than the last, out toward the monster that set it off. (This is not the Cascade support, which adds aftershocks to strike skills.)
• Inferno Trap spills eight embers that wander near the mine for six seconds, burning what they drift through (each ember burns one monster at most twice a second).
• Grenade Trap bursts into eight shards, along the four straight and four diagonal directions. Each stops at the first monster it hits and makes it bleed (see Ailments). Its shards count as projectiles, so Splintering, Impaling, Ricochet, Detonation and Velocity work on them.

Mines follow the usual rules: their blasts stop at walls, they can't hit monsters in the fog, and nothing they do crosses a sealed boss doorway. Three supports fit only traps. Chain Trap: when any mine goes off within 160 px (in sight), this skill's armed mines go off with it, and theirs can set off more; your linked mines are joined by faint dotted lines. Cluster Trap throws two more mines each time, scattered round the first. Singularity Trap keeps only one of the skill's mines out at once: it waits for that one to go off or be dismantled before throwing the next. Cluster and Singularity pull opposite ways, so a skill with one is never offered the other. Area supports (Widening) make mines' blasts larger; Resonance throws a second mine for spell traps; Splintering adds shards to Grenade Trap only.

Passive web

Every character level after the first gives one point to spend on the web. Points spread out from the center, so each node must connect to one you already have.

Six sectors surround the start (fire, lightning, cold, life, physical and swiftness), each with small nodes, notables and a keystone at its rim. Between sectors sit bridges and crossroads. Beyond each bridge is a camp cluster of plain global bonuses (movement, cooldowns, life, armor, pickup radius); camp nodes can only be taken between runs, from the character screen or a co-op lobby. You can rearrange the whole web between runs for free.

Keystones

Notables

Gear

Items drop during runs and go straight into your bag: a small popup in the bottom-left corner shows what you found (while you're choosing an upgrade it shrinks to a line of names above the cards, out of their way). You keep them between runs and equip them from the character screen or a co-op lobby.

How items drop

How items roll

Slots and bases

Every item has its slot's built-in (implicit) bonus, plus any mods. Better bases unlock at higher item levels; two-handed weapons take the off-hand slot too.

Mods

Magic and rare items roll mods from this list. The first mod's word names a magic item (a "Cruel Rusted Hatchet").

Legendaries

Hand-made items with their own names, flavor and stronger mods. Only bosses drop them.

Gem caches & secrets

Gem caches

A gem cache is the small gold chest a rare monster drops when it dies. Walk near it and it flies to you and bursts open.

Secret rooms

Now and then a dungeon hides a small room behind a stretch of wall that's slightly cracked. Walk into the cracks: it's a passage.

Curios

Curios are secret collectibles found in secret chests. Your account keeps one of each; the character screen shows how many you've found (hover for their names).

Torches

Torches hang in mirrored pairs on the walls of every room and long hallway, burning in each dungeon's own colour. They're just there to light the way, like the rats scurrying in circles and everything else lying around.

Monsters

Base numbers for each kind. Every dungeon multiplies them (see Dungeons), and they grow deeper into a dungeon and with more players.

Monsters come in packs. Some are magic (a pulsing blue ring, one modifier) or rare (gold ring with two circling sparks, a name, and two modifiers; from dungeon 4 sometimes three, and from dungeon 9 always three). A rare always has at least one ability, so expect it to do something nasty, not just take longer to kill. Rare monsters drop a gem cache and are much likelier to drop gear.

Rooms and corridors you haven't reached are hidden under fog: a dark, drifting mist tinted to match the dungeon, always darker than the floor you've explored. It also covers the solid rock between rooms. Where there's floor under the fog (a room or corridor you haven't reached yet), the mist is a little lighter and blurry, so you can see roughly where there's space to explore, but not its walls, doors, monsters or loot. A secret room and its passage look like plain rock until someone finds them. When a room opens, the mist breaks up and clears in patches. A room appears when someone in your party gets halfway down the corridor to it. A corridor appears when someone stands in a room it leads from, or walks into it. The fog is shared by the party and never comes back.

The fog works both ways. A monster standing in it can't see anyone: it doesn't wake, chase or attack, and your skills can't hit or target it either (nothing aims into the dark). Once the fog lifts, monsters notice you as usual; one that wanders back into the fog loses track of you.

Monster modifiers

Dungeons

Sixteen dungeons, each with its own look, monster mix and boss. Clearing a dungeon unlocks the next.

Each is dressed for its name: puddles and chains in the Drowned Halls, ash and bones in the Ash Catacombs, frost, icicles and blue flames in the Frozen Crypt, glowing mushrooms in the Fungal Grotto, blood everywhere in the Blood Cistern, cracks of lava in the Obsidian Forge and Ember Depths, heaps of bones in the Bone Ossuary, standing water in the Sunken Temple, sludge and rats in the Plague Marsh, crystals in the Crystal Caverns, scorch marks in the Storm Spire, candles and purple flames in the Shadow Vault, scattered gold in the Gilded Tomb, rifts of void in the Void Rift, and silt and bones in the Silt Throne.

The boss sleeps in the last room until someone walks in. Then the fight starts and the arena seals: a wall of light glows across each doorway. Anyone inside can't leave until the boss is dead. Anyone outside can still walk in, but once they do, they're in the fight too. The boss only fights the players inside: its slams never land outside the arena and its bullets stop at the doorways. It works the other way too: nothing you do from outside reaches into the arena (your shots stop at the doorway), and nothing from inside reaches out.

Bosses fight in phases and switch every 9 seconds or so. As a boss changes, it flares in its colours and holds its fire for a moment. One phase is its bullet pattern (a ring or a spiral), best taken from a distance or between the streams. The other has it hunting you: fast aimed bolts, a few at a time in a tight fan, shot straight at everyone in the fight, often with slams or charges. Sidestep the bolts and you can stay up close, which suits a melee build. Some bosses call monsters throughout, and the last one has three phases. The Fight column below lists each boss's phases in order.

Each boss always fights in the same kind of room, chosen to suit what it throws. There are four, all the same size with one doorway in the middle of a side. Walls and pillars stop bullets (yours and the boss's), but slams land wherever you stand, and the boss walks round anything in its way, so there's no corner it can't reach. The Boss column below names each boss's room.

A run lasts 15 minutes at most. With two minutes left the timer turns red and counts down, and when it runs out the dungeon collapses and the run ends as a loss. (Pausing a solo run, by the menu or while choosing an upgrade, stops the clock.)

Changelog

Every update, newest first.