Corrupted Sword
The Corrupted Sword is an endgame weapon in Megabonk, designed for expert players who favor a high-risk, high-reward "berserker" playstyle. It offers immense damage potential in exchange for requiring the player to maintain low health. Its unlock condition is one of the most difficult challenges in the game.
The backwards slash deals half the damage of the forward slash, but has a much longer range.
How to Unlock (Challenge Guide)
Unlocking the Corrupted Sword requires speed, luck, and a deep understanding of game mechanics.
Prerequisite: First, you must unlock the Cursed Tome. This is done by finding and defeating a stage boss in under 5 minutes.
Once the Cursed Tome is available in your item pool, you must complete the main challenge: grab the Cursed Tome early and level it up to 20 before the in-game timer hits 10:00 (one minute into Final Swarm, if you stay on the first stage).
Challenge Tips:
- Character Choice: Start with a character that scales well without a lot of level support.
- Weapons: Consider paring down weapons to even just two complimentary ones (by refunding the Shop upgrade fully) so fewer choices are available each level-up once you complete your loadout.
- Aura provides omnidirectional damage support with an uncapped number of targets for Swarm waves reinforced by curse, and pairs very well with Noelle's passive.
- Sniper Rifle deals high damage even at low levels, good for dealing with mini-bosses.
- Sword or Hero Sword provide high damage even at low levels, if you're up for dealing with the close-range aiming.
- Bouncing weapons like Bone or Wireless Dagger have natural multiplicative scaling between bounces and Projectile Count making them scale strongly at early levels.
- Tomes: Consider paring down tomes to just three (by refunding the Shop upgrade once) so fewer choices are available each level-up once you complete your loadout.
- Cursed Tome is required for the challenge.
- XP Tome will greatly assist getting enough levels to power up the Cursed Tome.
- Size Tome scales both area and damage for Noelle.
- Golden Tome will earn you more chests and damage scaling on Robinette.
- Quantity Tome is the strongest low-level damage upgrade due to most weapons starting with just one projectile. Synergizes best with bouncing weapons.
- Item Restrictions: Use Toggler to reduce item pools to help support this challenge.
- Restrict weapons and tomes to just Cursed Tome, XP Tome, maybe one other that synergizes best with your targeted weapon set, and your one target weapon if it's not in the default set.
- Remove any long-term scaling items from the drop pool like Demonic Blood and Demonic Soul.
- Remove other sources of Curse like Skuleg and Cursed Grabbies.
- Pare down the Common and Uncommon pool to just key items like Time Bracelet and Echo Shard for xp, Cursed Doll for Swarm support, and Turbo Socks and Cowards Cloak for movement speed to grab all the power on the map you can before time runs out.
- Pare down the Legendary pool to remove support and sustain items like Chonkplate and Speed Boi.
- Consider removing sources of Luck and the Luck Tome. Stronger items and Charge Shrine picks can be a boon, but getting stuck grabbing too many upgraded Cursed Tome levels can quickly scale you out of the attempt.
- Luck: A lot of getting the Cursed Tome to 20 in time will just be based on luck in what you're offered on a run. Having to allocate so many levels to the Tome will leave your weapons and other tomes weak while the enemies get stronger and more numerous, so you'll need some powerful Shrine or Chest picks to carry you through the curse scaling.
- Carefully consider your Charge Shrine picks - since you only need to play to 10 minutes, be greedy about grabbing offensive stats over investment picks like Gold Gain (unless playing as Robinette). If you spot an early epic/legendary XP, definitely snag that. Some Luck can help with stronger Items and Shrine offerings, but will also scale Cursed Tome upgrades.
- Pick aggressive secondary sources for damage or XP scaling whenever possible through Microwaves and Shady Merchants.
- If you haven't picked up a strong set of items or Charge Shrine bonuses such that you're struggling to kill things with the Curse scaling by 5:00, consider resetting for your own sanity.
- Level the Tome Strategically: Try to pick only Common/Green upgrades for the Tome if possible to reduce the Curse pressure. Somewhere around Tome level 15-17, see if you can find a magnet powerup or shrine, stockpile the XP from the 3:00 Swarm wave, then activate the magnet and grab the last few levels rapidly, regardless of the upgrade rarity.
- Use Banishes on Items: Once you have your weapon and tome loadout squared away, be aggressive about banishing core items that won't contribute strongly to the run like Slippery Ring, Beacon, and Credit Card Green.
After completing this difficult challenge, the Corrupted Sword must be purchased from the Unlocks tab for 8 Silver.
Strategy and Synergies
The Corrupted Sword has damage scaling based off of your current HP. It deals heavily reduced damage at high HP, and significantly increased damage at low HP. Below you can see a table displaying the exact damage modifier at each current HP %.
| HP | Damage | HP | Damage | HP | Damage | HP | Damage | HP | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | x0.4 | 99% | x0.4 | 98% | x0.4 | 97% | x0.401 | 96% | x0.403 |
| 95% | x0.405 | 94% | x0.406 | 93% | x0.409 | 92% | x0.411 | 91% | x0.415 |
| 90% | x0.418 | 89% | x0.422 | 88% | x0.426 | 87% | x0.431 | 86% | x0.436 |
| 85% | x0.441 | 84% | x0.447 | 83% | x0.453 | 82% | x0.46 | 81% | x0.466 |
| 80% | x0.474 | 79% | x0.481 | 78% | x0.489 | 77% | x0.497 | 76% | x0.506 |
| 75% | x0.515 | 74% | x0.525 | 73% | x0.535 | 72% | x0.545 | 71% | x0.555 |
| 70% | x0.566 | 69% | x0.577 | 68% | x0.589 | 67% | x0.601 | 66% | x0.614 |
| 65% | x0.626 | 64% | x0.64 | 63% | x0.653 | 62% | x0.667 | 61% | x0.681 |
| 60% | x0.695 | 59% | x0.71 | 58% | x0.726 | 57% | x0.741 | 56% | x0.758 |
| 55% | x0.775 | 54% | x0.791 | 53% | x0.808 | 52% | x0.825 | 51% | x0.844 |
| 50% | x0.862 | 49% | x0.88 | 48% | x0.9 | 47% | x0.92 | 46% | x0.939 |
| 45% | x0.96 | 44% | x0.98 | 43% | x1 | 42% | x1.022 | 41% | x1.044 |
| 40% | x1.065 | 39% | x1.088 | 38% | x1.11 | 37% | x1.134 | 36% | x1.157 |
| 35% | x1.181 | 34% | x1.205 | 33% | x1.23 | 32% | x1.255 | 31% | x1.28 |
| 30% | x1.306 | 29% | x1.332 | 28% | x1.359 | 27% | x1.385 | 26% | x1.413 |
| 25% | x1.44 | 24% | x1.468 | 23% | x1.496 | 22% | x1.525 | 21% | x1.555 |
| 20% | x1.584 | 19% | x1.614 | 18% | x1.644 | 17% | x1.674 | 16% | x1.705 |
| 15% | x1.736 | 14% | x1.768 | 13% | x1.8 | 12% | x1.832 | 11% | x1.865 |
| 10% | x1.898 | 9% | x1.931 | 8% | x1.965 | 7% | x2 | 6% | x2.035 |
| 5% | x2.07 | 4% | x2.105 | 3% | x2.14 | 2% | x2.176 | 1% | x2.213 |
| When at exactly 1 HP, Damage multiplier is set to x3 | |||||||||
- Shield bonuses: Whether they are from Charge Shrines, the Chaos Tome, or even the Shield Tome having any amount of shields will prevent you from dying to a single hit regardless of how low your HP is.
- Mirror: Prevents you from taking damage from a hit and briefly makes you invincible. This is just as effective as Shield and can stack with them, just be mindful that this item has a cooldown before it can be activated again.
- Kevin: Kevin has a chance to damage you when hitting enemies. This damage cannot kill you, ignores Shields to damage your HP directly, and doesn't trigger the Mirror. Perfect for keeping your HP at 1 for the maximum damage bonus without disrupting your other methods of survival.
Best Characters:
- Athena gains damage at low HP just like the Corrupted Sword so they pair together better than most. She also starts with the Aegis weapon which can keep you from dying if you take a hit while at low HP. Just remember that at least 1 damage will still be taken through the Aegis' protection.
- Noelle gains 1% Size per level which helps your slashes hit more enemies. She also starts with the Frostwalker which will freeze enemies, slowing them down and keeping you safer.
Upgrades
The Corrupted Sword can receive the following upgrades upon leveling up:
| Stat | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Epic | Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage | 2 | 2.4 | 2.8 | 3.2 | 4 |
| Projectile Count | 1 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 2 |
| Projectile Speed | 4 | 4.8 | 5.6 | 6.4 | 8 |
| Size | 15% | 18% | 21% | 24% | 30% |
