Gessie's guide for newbies

Introduction

If you're new to Roshpit Champions and would like a short introduction to get you started, this guide is for you. Want to just learn how to win? Skip to the end and copy a build. You might ruin part of the game's experience for yourself, however.

Roshpit is best described as a classical PvE survival RPG with a loot and inventory/stash system, added skill trees for the (custom) heroes and saving/loading. Compared to modern RPGs, Roshpit is intended to be more challenging. If you think Diablo 3 is hard, buckle up.

[WARNING]: This guide is outdated, especially the builds (general advice should be fine). I currently don't have time for Roshpit and, despite several attempts, have been unsuccessful in finding collaboration. I invite you all once more - please maintain this guide as a community. It's what a Wiki is all about.

- Gessie

Essential tips, must read!

• If you're having trouble connecting, or the game stutters/crashes, lower your graphics settings. Shadows especially can make a large difference (these can use 1gb+ RAM at Medium in Roshpit), often the rest can be left at max.
• Your first game should be in normal mode, the lowest of the three difficulty settings. Do NOT press the "Play Game" button without changing the map to "Normal" first! "Map", in Roshpit, means "difficulty".
• Remember to SAVE and STASH your loot. You can and will lose progress if you forget this.
• Join the Roshpit game chat. Builds, speedruns, item trading, tantrums about server downtime; all can be found there.
• When looking for a party in the Roshpit chat, here are some good examples to follow:
  • "Lvl1 looking for friendly players to start with"
  • "Lvl 60 Omni LFP, need boost in Leg. Tanari" *LFP = Looking For Party
  • "Lvl 112 Drow LFP, giving boost in Elite World 1"
  • "[Join Lobby] Tanari Normal"

What you can expect from this game

You'll be leveling, looting and designing builds while powering up your heroes throughout the difficulties. Special items, called immortals, add new abilities to your hero, whether passive or triggered during the use of a skill. These combined with runes (part of the skill tree system) allow for a large range of customization and experimenting.

Roshpit WILL punish you if you don't think about your build. Thankfully, the game isn't too complex to understand mathematically. Everything you calculate works exactly as you predict it to. There are no surprises. Everything stacks. If you can theorize a build, it will work as you intended.

Early gameplay tips

• Different maps have different item drops, so you'll eventually want to know them:
  • Tanari Jungle has many powerful, single creatures with high drop rates and plays like a dungeon, focused on combat.
  • "World 1" (should be changed soon; the "old" map) is more story-driven and plays like a wave-survival game, with hordes of enemies. It is also much older and more finely balanced. For the best first impression of the game, choose this map.
• Get high armor and health for your hero! This fixes the main newbie problem in Roshpit. With the high values of bonuses that drop on items, you can get 99% physical damage reduction on a single item (1700 armor (there doesn't seem to be a cap, more does help)). Add 5000 block to that, which is calculated AFTER armor, and you can now take 500,000 damage without seeing your health bar move. Math!
• Get a weapon with good rune bonuses. This is extremely important; it strongly defines your build.
• Do not hold on to immortal items (the "best" drops) for too long. They're good, and your build will eventually require at least one or two immortals which you'll never swap out, but anything that's not build-critical should be swapped for higher level items. A Mythical item which is 10 levels higher with a good attribute roll is typically better than an immortal for general purposes.
• Once you're strong enough to finish the last Act 2 dungeon on the normal map (harder than starting Act 3), save your gold. For 25k you can buy a random immortal helmet there, which will sometimes roll very high stats.
• Understand how runes scale, and calculate their effects at higher level. Level 100 makes the math easy. For example, Starstorm is a famous 1-click boss killer, commonly used by newbies (Astral Ranger/Drow). This works because every point in the rune adds 180 damage, but also another instance of damage (more stars). The growth is exponential, every point adds more damage than the last. Getting 500 in Starstorm would result in 180*500*500 = 45,000,000 damage. The Red General (Axe) has a similar skill (Cyclone Storm) with a shorter cooldown, but it's very hard to target. This can also cause the game to stutter a bit.
• Get a hero that suits your playstyle. Paladin for example can deal damage by taking damage, and he's arguably the best tank. Trapper is a stealth-oriented hero who works very well solo, able to 1-hit most bosses without taking damage. Unfortunately, Astral Ranger (Drow) seems the most popular newbie pick, because of Starstorm. While effective, Drow is currently not competitive at higher difficulties (meaning: A lower level Elemental Warlord is just as powerful and requires less grinding).

Random tips/Exploits

This game has no real exploits, but there are some mechanics which make things slightly easier/faster.

• Weapons gain XP in Roshpit. At lvl 0, the weapon will show you its base stats. These are multiplied as the item levels up, with higher levels causing a larger multiplication. Currently, max-level weapons can drop in the Tanari Jungle on Normal, so they're easy to get. Remember your weapon's lvl 0 stats, so you can compare the weapons you find.
• You can use your hero's movement skill to bypass terrain. This is fun and can cause unforeseen consequences. This can also be used to exploit Roshpit's map, while not causing serious balance issues (thankfully). Voltex is famous for being able to teleport almost anywhere.
• You can be leveled extremely quickly by joining a high level player in Legendary/Elite. This is likely a feature, not a bug, which causes high level players to teach newer players about the game. It also allows trading between items and favors: "Need Iron Colossus Helm 8000 Str, offer boost to level 80".
• Having a high level character allows you to farm items for lower level characters. Beware: Items have level restrictions (except for weapons).

Builds

My description of each build is loose, including only core necessities and synergies, and are therefore highly customizable.

Make sure your weapon has the first listed main rune on it. Getting this rune twice on a mythical weapon (Elite mode or higher) with strength is usually the best possible choice, though Trapper for example benefits more from leveling both main runes simultaneously, as the two synergize (exponential results).

- 1-hit Trapper
This build can solo almost anything, but depends on your skill to stay hidden and backstab from stealth. Very interesting and fun gameplay. Traps/smoke bombs are very powerful crowd control tools as a bonus.

Main runes: Lethal Blades, Veiled Strike
Secondary runes: Max out all stealth runes first, then movement, then max either bombs or traps (not both).
Main attributes: Strength, armor 
Main items: Helm of Iron Colossus (+5 damage for each point of strength), Galaxy Orb (pulls enemies towards you while you stealth or backstab). Healing is useful but not as necessary for the Trapper. Many new +% attack damage Immortals work great, I'm still experimenting.
Notes: Lethal Blades turns Backstab into an AOE attack, and also deals extra damage to the main target, which works well with Galaxy Orb's effect. Just get tons of Strength for your damage and survivability. Traps, when all four are placed in a single spot, are extremely powerful.

Side note: Swap Trapper with "any hero with <0.2 cooldown on W" and add the immortal item Ice Quill Carapace, and you've now got a very common Roshpit 2.0 legendary build (which works, but has been nerfed since its prime).

- Paladin Passive
This build is very passive and lazy. Also, if you die, you resurrect afterwards.

Main runes: Retribution
Secondary runes: Second Coming, Divine Aegis etc. (all survival-related runes)
Main attributes: Armor, strength
Main items: Rooted Feet (2x armor and 3x health regen while standing still), Lifesource Vessel (+0.3 health regen for each point of strength) and a ton of strength!
Notes: Pick any other source of healing for a general Retribution build, I went with regen for the ultimate lazy experience.

- Seinaru Synergized
This build is less "overpowered" (easy) than the last two, but very fun to play. You get to use combos and chain them up.

Main runes: Disciplined Strikes, Odachi Rush, Lifestrike (lifesteal)
Main attributes: Armor, strength, intelligence (less important)
Main items: Helm of Iron Colossus (+5 damage for each point of strength), Wraps of the Grand Arcanist (+?% damage for each point of Intelligence)
Notes: Because of your massive attack damage and 50% lifesteal you don't really need a lot of healing. Learning how to time Seinaru's skills is very important. Also note that the lifesteal does not work on Disciplined Strikes or Odachi Rush, so leave time in between skills to autoattack once.

- Voltex Phantom
This build requires good items to be effective. Suitable as a 2nd character, very fun to use. Imagine a ninja who teleports to enemies to slash them so fast you can't keep track.

Main runes: Avatar, Chain Lightning
Secondary runes: Anything that helps Volt survive.
Main attributes: Armor and strength, again. You get damage from Avatar and attack speed from the...
Main items: Blinded Glint of Oni (35% on attack to gain max attack speed for 0.8 secs and teleport to the enemy), Signus Charm (-40% cooldown on ultimate, +100% cooldown on movement skill)
Notes: Press R to activate Avatar and let Volt autoattack everything to death. It looks very nice once the helmet procs; she teleports. Add lifesteal to make this build viable late-game.