Noita: All Perks With Ratings

There are lots of potential uses and interactions for and between perks. This will not be an exhaustive exploration of them, just a quick and summarized note of each perk and how “good” I find it to be. Your mileage may vary, though if it does vary a great deal from MY mileage, then you’re clearly not the ridiculously esteemed, cultured patrician that I so obviously am. Harumph and good day, sir!

Perks are ranked as follows:

• S: amazing, a must-have if it shows up
• A: very good, a good choice the majority of the time
• B: it’s okay. Take these if it fits in with the “build” you’re going for.
• C: not great, but not awful. Better to take other options if available, but no dealbreaker.
• D: either bad, or highly specific. Don’t take these unless they fit a particular niche of synergy with your other perks.
• F: terribad in general, avoid other than for sharts and giggles.

Perks that I deem partway between two grades will have a plus next to them. Electricity isn’t as good as a B, but it’s not as bad as a C either. I will try to use such ranks sparingly. In addition, some perks are just not great in general but are far more useful for exploratory reasons, and their ranks change accordingly. These perks will have an [EX] notation to denote they get far better for exploration purposes. Finally, some perks become progressively less useful the deeper you go; these will have a [PROG-] notation.

It’s just excellent. You take slightly higher damage from shots, but very little can touch you. The only exceptions are fast shots, which normally are bullets or accelerated shots from a long way off. Otherwise, this does a much better job than an actual shield. The Lich can’t touch you other than at long distance or with explosion radius. None of the specters in the Temple can touch you. The Boss and its minions can’t do anything to you. In addition, this makes your own projectiles shoot faster, as your field now pushes them in addition to their flight speed. You can now move Giga Black Holes by pushing them. This perk is borderline “gg ez” material. You need to play very, very sloppily to die with this, or you have no protection from elements or explosions. Still watch out for melee enemies though.

[PROG-]

50% chance that all perks remain behind after you select one. Its potential for insanity is simply too high to not take this, unless you’re already deeply into a run.

It’s pretty good. It isn’t amazing, certainly not S rank amazing, but absent everything else, it does a good job of extending your lifespan and protecting you from various potshots. It won’t protect you from stains or stata or effects, it won’t protect from melee, anything that pierces soft material will cut through it like butter, it can only block one shot at a time and so an onslaught will hurt you about as much as it otherwise would. But in the battle of attrition over your healthbar, it’s a big help over time.

This is always a good choice because it never lessens in importance. There’s fire in the Mines. There’s fire in Fungal Caverns. There’s fire in the Base (lots of it). There’s fire in the Vault (oh my ♥♥♥♥ing god, is there ever fire in the Vault). There’s fire when you fight the Boss, and when you go to Hell. There is fire EVERYWHERE, and every second that you don’t need to be dousing yourself in water from your flask is another second you spend taking down the enemies attempting to exploit your momentary weakness. Thanks to Mossy Steel in the Vault, this is an incredibly helpful perk to have, especially if you have Electricity, since it ignites everything you touch.

Not much needs to be said. There are explosions everywhere too, and unlike fire, these can strike instantly at almost anytime. You can get nuked from offscreen, or a Holy Bomb can go off on the other side of the wall from an enemy using a wand. This is a perk that also never stops being useful.

[PROG-]

Very useful if you can snag it early on in the effort to help create a specific build for your Noitadude. This pairs well with Greed (an otherwise lackluster perk) for more frequent rerolls.

There’s no doubt this is a strong perk. If you’re sticking to the dungeon, you can avoid “wasting” a slot by using the polymorph trick, or teleporting, or breaking the Mountain, but even then it’s a perk of convenience that prevents you from needing to trek all the way back. This is even better when out exploring, far from the Mountain checkpoints, assuming you haven’t cemented your current wands as invaluable.

[EX]

So basic, and yet so necessary. Exploration is pain without this, and even in the dungeon, this allows you to much more easily avoid vertical shots and get places quicker, making backtracking far less tedious. S Rank for exploration purposes.

Lower spread, higher recoil. No damage boost despite appearances to the contrary. Excellent for either exploration in the absence of more suitable perks, or for tightening the cone of spells that would otherwise spray, an indirect buff for any spells whose balancing is based around being inaccurate. Try magic bolts and shotgun blasts with these and snipe away.

[B+]

Can’t go wrong with more common crits. And by “more common” I don’t just mean slightly, they pop up noticeably more often. Keep in mind that such a perk is diminished if your wands are built around using status effect to crit 100% of the time. Otherwise, you can stack this perk with multiple crit mods on a wand and get them almost always.

In a game where reliable performance and a war of attrition over your health bar is the order of the day, Glass Cannon is a gamble. It’s not bad by any means, but you’re rolling the dice pretty hard, assuming you aren’t complimenting it with appropriate perks or spells. If you get this, for example, you’ll definitely want All Seeing Eye or its counterpart spell. You need to play it safe, no surprises, and pray to god no explosions either (definitely get explosive immunity). If you’re good enough to win with Glass Cannon most of the time, then you’re good enough to win most of the time without it, too.

[B+]

Invisible as long as you’re doing nothing but moving and breathing. No stains, no attacks, nothing. This ranks at a B because in order to really shine, it requires other perks; namely anything that prevents stains, like Freeze Field or Repelling Cape, which is most often paired with it. Even then, ghosting things has its drawbacks, namely lack of gold, as well as the ability to unwittingly put yourself in a trap. If you’re going along, bypassing enemies, and accidentally get 2% of a stain on you and become apparent, suddenly you have nowhere to retreat to (incidentally, teleportatium pairs well with this for escapes). You CAN still throw things, if you want to Emerald Tablet cheese everything, so there’s that.

Takes your health bar and multiplies it by 1.5x. Bog standard. Not bad, but might not be the best choice depending on your other options.

Not quite as useful as fire or explosive immunity, this still greatly assists your run, especially if taken early or paired with Repulsion or Shield. It’s great for Fungal Caverns (which are all over the place), you laugh at worms, half the things in the Vault can’t touch you (literally)…it’s simply far more useful and helpful than you’d otherwise think, and you won’t feel that usefulness until you’ve really run this perk through its course. Just watch out for the Tentacle Balloons, their tentacle hits count as both melee and ranged and will bypass both shield and this immunity.

[PROG-]

Great if taken early. Not great if you haven’t grabbed it within the first couple Mountains. Unlike Extra HP which just multiplies your pool by 1.5, this doubles the health of every heart, making them give +50.

Lets you fly for double the time. It’s practical and useful, but most of the time I have something better to spend my slot on. It isn’t great for exploring, because it’s simply your standard levitation amount doubled; it isn’t fast, or more maneuverable, or greatly increased. I rightly think this probably warrants a C or C+, but I know some people swear by it. There are far better ways to get around.

Very handy. No surprises. Not terribly necessary, but frequently is the best option of the three if you’re not rerolling. Quite important if you’re going Glass Cannon.

[B+]

Better than Oil Blood because it has no downsides. You bleed slime which puts out fires and slime no longer slows you down. In addition, there’s a 50% damage reduction against projectiles, and most importantly, you can drink slime to regain health if you have Vampirism. The only advantage Oil Blood has over this is that there is no Slime Trail spell, so Oil Blood + Vampirism is infinite health as long as you have an Oil Trail. However, slime is easily found, especially in Fungal Caverns, and it’s a trivial task to fill a flask or two of the stuff. Almost an A rank.

Homing Shots are a mixed bag. For slower projectiles with a respectable duration, like Firebolts or the green bouncing projectile, this perk is pretty great. For faster spells, not only is it garbage, it actively throws off your aim. Try taking Homing Shots and fire off some of those laser beams; each time the shots will be significantly off the mark, neither firing at your cursor nor even directly at an enemy. Additionally, this removes a degree of control from you, as homing shots will pick their own targets, and oftentimes this will be the closest enemy, even if that enemy is on the other side of a wall. There are various situations in which this is anything but a plus. It gets significantly “better” (read: more crazy) if you also have Bouncing Spells perk with you.

[C+]

You constantly discharge electricity, though you’re immune to its effects. This brings with it a slew of consequences you may not want to deal with: exploding metal canisters, shattering any flasks that are sitting in liquid, igniting oil and Mossy Steel, etc. It’s a perk that’s hazardous on its own, and requires either very careful play, or an assortment of other perks to offset the hazards. Taking this perk into the Vault, with no other protection, is a particularly bad time. Now, sure, you can instantly kill anything submerged, you can zap a robot just by standing on the same metal floor it is, and you can’t get electrocuted by any means, but you need to carefully consider whether these benefits outweigh the side effects during your run.

Honestly I don’t know if Rats belong here; my experience with them is limited, and it didn’t seem particularly engaging. They can be quite powerful, but for the moment the game seems totally unstable with them, because they can cause a domino effect that ultimately winds up crashing the game. Due to this I’m ranking it a tentative C, but will adjust depending on what changes are made to this, since it seems like a work in progress.

[C+]

If you die, you instantly get 100 health once. It’s a nice safeguard, and if you’ve been rolling with Perk Lottery for a while and are stacking up the perks, this is a good addition to the repertoire as a safety net. If your perk “budget” is tight, however, it may be better choosing something else, depending on how well you’re doing. It’s really a play-it-by-ear perk based on your current health, your wands, and whether your run is going badly or not.

The Revengacle. It’s fun to see, but just like Electricity, it can quickly get annoying or sometimes dangerous. The tentacle strikes anytime you’re hurt, and that includes from things like freezing vapor. Its damage is respectable, but these pull things toward you. That could be an exploding enemy, or it could miss (as it often does) and yank a barrel on its way back, or snag some burning item as a considerate gift with which it wishes to tenderly smack you in the face. Point being, it’s a “fun” perk, but there are too many others that are simply better choices.

This used to be a powerhouse perk, and now it’s just one of convenience. Toxic as a status simply isn’t a big enough deal to warrant taking a perk dedicated to it. It’s not terrible, but it just isn’t the hazard it once was. The change to liquid stain registration (much needed, really) and the water flask make this unnecessary.

Much easier to get rid of stains. Like Homing Shots, this is a mixed bag. You can get rid of stains much faster, but that includes the beneficial ones, like blood or, the GOAT Hall of Famer, Berserkium. This is a good perk for new players still struggling with just trying to stay alive without getting distracted mid-battle by a negative stain, but for everyone else, the ability to hold a stain brings more benefits than it does detriments, and so this perk is a net loss. However, it’s very strong with (and often taken along with) the Invisible perk.

[EX]

Not terribly useful while in the dungeon; extremely useful while exploring. It’s always advised to try and take Concentrated Spells with this perk; it allows you far greater control. You’ll be far floatier, but you can zip all over the place by firing your wand in the opposite direction. Once you get good at this, you can dodge anything and everything, and you can move places quite quickly. However, without some assistance such as that perk, it’s lackluster on its own and can be more of a burden than a boon. S rank for exploration purposes.

[EX]

Liquids don’t slow you down. This sounds far handier than it actually is; rarely are you going to be in situations where you go “man, if only I could move faster in liquid, this bad thing could have been avoided.” It’s quite convenient, and you can actually dodge things while submerged, but you’re not often going to be getting into situations in which you’re suffering in battle due to sitting in liquid, anyway. Unless you’re directly attempting to use trails to smother everything, there are much better options. Sits at a B+ rank for exploration, mainly by being paired with Breathless for use of diving into the Lake.

Everything bleeds more. If you’re going with Vampirism, this is a good thing, but not terribly needed since you should have chainsaws or drills anyway. Without Vampirism, this is a “so what” kind of perk. You’ll more frequently have blood to stain yourself and get crits, but you’d only want to take this perk for that purpose if you plan on not having chainsaws/drills.

Another perk of convenience. They all fight each other so you don’t have to! Note this will diminish gold a bit. It’s not bad, but not really a huge benefit either. This will occasionally backfire when an enemy somewhere picks up a nuke wand or something and fires at another enemy, and you were in the vicinity.

You’re resistant to explosion damage and you bleed oil like the cold, heartless murder machine that you are. This does NOT make you immune to fire, which is why this sits at a C rank. With Vampirism you can drink oil to replenish health, and having an Oil Trail spell means infinite health, if you don’t mind turning into a decrepit senior citizen at your keyboard while waiting for that health bar to creep up.

Situational. Really depends on the kind of wands you’ve got going. Many times, there’s a different perk choice that’s a much better option. This does, however, become significantly more effective with Homing Shots. How do you think the Tentacle spell would work if you spammed it with Homing Shots, Boomerang Spells, and Bouncing Spells…? No for real, serious question I just thought about.

You take less damage as long as you aren’t stained. Which is almost never. This sits at a D because, like Invisibility, to really get the most mileage out of it you need to partner it with Repelling Cape or Freeze Field. With those it can be quite strong, but I’m ranking it based on its performance in a vacuum, which is poor. Even with an amazing player who avoids getting stained at all, this necessitates forgoing beneficial stains, just like Repelling Cape.

Such a pitiful show. Oh, the perk. Well, not much better. If your health would drop below 1 when it was over 1, it instead remains at 1, and resets when your health is no longer 1. Did you get that? On paper, this saves you from death repeatedly by preventing your health from hitting zero. It will keep protecting you as long as you manage to get your health back up over 1 after this kicks in. In practice, it’s almost useless, because health regeneration is few and far between in Noita, and whatever hit you that would otherwise have killed you will likely hit you again and fatally kill you dead a second time. So Grace isn’t very good at her job is what I’m saying.

Waste of a slot, really. The radius isn’t that big, the damage isn’t that great, it can trigger other things around you that you might not want it to, and in order to function as intended the enemy attacking you needs to be close enough to you to get hit. Which it shouldn’t be. There’s zero reason to take this, on its own, over Melee Immunity.

Like Electricity but worse. For one thing, electric damage is just so uncommon that you’re essentially wasting a slot. The one enemy that really throws lightning at you is dangerous because of the projectile’s explosive damage. And that’s it, one enemy, and potentially enemy possessed wands. Rarely will you ever get killed by being submerged with an electrical charge that wasn’t through some direct fault of your own. For another thing, practically every single electric spell has an explosive component; if you’re getting this to protect yourself, you’re going to want that as well. For a third thing, Thunderstones aren’t terribly useful, and you’re better off just getting Electricity.

[EX]

Simply not important enough to warrant a choice. Its main use is for exploring, such as the Lake, or for submerging everything with trails, which requires a collection of other perks to do properly. As I stated at the top, this ranks D due to its specificity; it simply isn’t very useful outside its niche. You aren’t going to need this to survive a metric ton of smoke or something.

[PROG-]

You just don’t need it. You get crazy amounts of gold, especially once you’re past 20% of the way down the levels. You’re almost never hurting for money outside the first couple strata unless you’re avoiding conflict altogether, in which case this perk is useless anyway. Also, even if you had tons of gold, there’s a limit to how you can spend it; you only have so many spell slots and so many wands. You don’t need to buy every wand or every spell, you can’t possibly use them all, and half the time I have enough gold to almost do that. This is a perk that sounds way better than it actually is. Oftentimes I’ll have plenty of gold and still won’t even bother buying any of the wands or spells because they simply aren’t very good or not what I’m looking for. Trick Greed is even worse due to the added layer of specific actions. Almost any perk would be a better option than this, because rarely will this define a run for you; even if you take it early, when it’s the best time to take it, its practicality is gone by the next level, two maximum. I’d only advise this perk if you’re trying to speedrun your way to the bottom and will be short on gold, but even then, there are likely other perks you really, really want in order to accomplish that.

However, I will note that, to its credit, Greed can drastically help you achieve a specific build, if that’s what you’re trying to do over all else. With the reroll’s exponentially increasing cost, you really can’t have too much gold.

Why would you bother? This would mainly be for collecting gold, and can pull the nuggets out of hazards spots, but the radius isn’t that large, and while it isn’t a useless perk it would simply take up a slot that would be better used for something else. This is as “convenience perk” as a convenience perk can get, and barely, at that, considering its range.

You’re wasting a perk slot so that you can waste an inventory slot. On occasion this is a good choice; it’s better to slap a Holy Bomb into that inventory slot than to waste a whole wand slot just dedicated to that one spell (unless you have tons of them). Most of the time, you’d be better served keeping all flasks in there, or perhaps a Tablet for the lich. There are quite few bomb spells out there, anyway, making this perk even less utilitarian than it might otherwise be (it would be hilarious if you could throw a nuke, though).

Any particle-based semi-fluid material vanishes around you, including snow, sand, piles of coal, dreams of being a doctor, etc. In the majority of cases this just isn’t useful. It can be, but just not enough to warrant spending a perk slot on it. It makes the waltz through the snowy wasteland and the desert interesting, but the answer to the question “but why…?” is a resounding “uuhhhhhh…why not?”

[EX]

Wasn’t sure whether this warranted a C or D, and decided on this rank due to its capacity of irritation and its specificity to really make it shine. As mentioned with the other perks, this is mostly useful when paired with perks that revolve around not being stained. In addition, it serves as an exploration tool to get through lava. Many times this perk will be a major hindrance, freezing any drops of liquid into solid pixels suspended in midair, blocking your shots, stopping your movement, and oftentimes trapping you as you’re attempting to fight. With Stainless Armor or Invisibility, this is considerably better. It will not protect you from Toxic Ice effects, however.

[D+]

Enemies explode when they die, which is quite the curious reversal of the usual sequential order of things. This can be helpful here and there, but not enough to really make you want to choose this over another option. Now, if something like Glass Cannon or being zerked doubled the radius and damage of these explosions, that might be something; I don’t know if it actually does, but might move this to a C if so.

Makes spells return to you and decreases their damage. A double nerf, if you ask me. You may be able to embrace the chaos and have fun with it, but there are too many things to be mindful of, and too little benefit gained, for me to consider this a worthy contender of a perk for anything. Like other perks in this category, you’ll have a better option pretty much all the time, and is marginally good depending on what kind of build you’re running.

[D+]

It’s almost a C rank. Knockback can be quite useful, but it just isn’t useful enough compared to the perks in other ranks. It can really screw with the enemies’ aim and makes it far easier to put distance between you and your would-be aggressive harem of lovers. This is something you might want to take if you’ve got nothing better.

It’s a meme perk. There’s just no reason to take it unless you’re swimming in other perks or you’re just going for a wacky run. If you’re very good at aiming kicks, this will synergize nicely with Trick Greed. Speaking of which…

[PROG-]

Greed isn’t very useful, but this is worse (on its own). I want to reiterate how much gold a good player will get without any perks for money, and that is “a lot.” So, even if you somehow did consider it worth burning a perk in order to get more cash, Greed would simply be more reliable. Sure, 4x the gold per trick kill sounds like a ton of cash, but unless you’re setting up a build directly to achieve the goal of trick kills, you’re choosing a money perk that oscillates wildly in performance over one that is a solid x2 multiplier at all times. That being said, I’m no expert on what things count as trick kills anymore (bomb explosions from your wands used to count, but no longer; I don’t know if Plague Rats count, or Explode on Death, etc.) but I’m sure there are a couple perks or spells that count as them and can really take advantage of this. Once again, though, even if that is the case, you simply don’t need all that cash. Why take a perk that lets you find water easier when you’re swimming in an ocean?

20% damage reduction but you blink every time you get hurt. It’s a liability. On a long enough run, it will eventually get you killed; all it needs is a single time of porting you into some lava or acid. It’s alright if you’re a very careful player who can think fast on your feet, and it can be useful for speedrunning purposes, but almost any perk is better than this one. One of the first things I read on Noita’s subreddit was an amusing post with lots of votes: “Everyone takes teleportitus once. Once.”

Waste of a slot. Enemies attack each other less. The only conceivable benefit of this would be the opportunity for more gold from more kills, and the decreasing likelihood that you’ll be instakilled from a nuke or Holy Bomb going off because one enemy fired it at another. Just not worth it.

These perks are here because there’s no set rank for them, or their goodness or badness is just too subjective or all over the place, or they aren’t “good” or “bad.”

[Rank Range A – D]

Some people love it. Some people hate it. Seems rough around the edges to me. The legs give you great maneuverability but are also a major liability because they can set off any explosives that come within range. Whether it’s good or bad for you is probably more down to a matter of taste and your playstyle; personally I prefer to choose other perks because they give me greater benefits.

[Rank Range S – B]

The hit to your max health can hurt quite a bit if you take it early on, and it leans farther to the “cost” side of things in a cost-benefit analysis. This has to potential to be quite powerful, as long as you’re armed with chainsaws or a drill and have plenty of meaty targets, and becomes absolutely ridiculous if you also manage to snag Oil or Slime Blood. One major drawback everyone complains about is the speed: it takes a year just to drink enough blood to replenish your health to any appreciable degree.

Works as advertised. No rank, because it’s not good or bad, it’s a tool you either want or you don’t. Like a wrench. You need a wrench, for whatever reason? Yeah? Okay here, it works great, I promise. Oh you don’t? So this is no more than a blunt weapon for your purposes then? Okay never mind.

Same as above. No rank. You either want worms to play competitive cuddling with you or you don’t.