Strategies

The following is a list of common strategies that will help improve your game.  Some may be obvious, but their usefulness cannot be overstated.

Activating the Teleporter

Your primary goal in each area is to activate the teleporter, instead of killing mobs. While searching for it, ignore the enemies that spawn along the way, but try to memorize the location of chests (Explanation ahead). The sooner you activate the teleporter, the better it is for you, because the game's difficulty as you have noticed, is changing as time passes and it is a lot harder to pass through each area on higher difficulties. After you have activated the teleporter and cleared the map of enemies, search for the aforementioned chests (remembering where each chest was equals less time spent in the area looking for items, thus faster travel to other areas) but do not wander far from the teleporter, unless you feel the necessity to do so.

Farming/Grinding

Another option of gameplay is to farm/grind. Farming/Grinding is a very time consuming and extensive, but significantly safer, way of completing a play-through, as it includes sitting in the same spot for a long period of time without activating the teleporter, killing any bosses that spawn. This is where kiting skills become most useful, due to the player constantly kiting monsters and bosses in the same spot. Typically, an effective way for a player to farm is to find an open and flat place making kiting an easier task, then to sit in this spot killing bosses that spawn and grabbing the items they drop whilst killing any monsters in the area.

Using this strategy requires the item, Warbanner, and for the player to start early in the playthrough. Warbanner will greatly increase the player's survivability and stats so long as they stay inside of the range of the banner, and starting early is most beneficial as the leveling up curve of the game will result in you laying down a minimal amount of banners later in the game. Attempting this strategy without this item can prove to be very very difficult.

Other items that can assist are 56 Leaf Clover, which can speed up the process of aquiring items, and Captain's Brooch, giving you a free chest everytime its off cooldown.

Kiting as a Ranged Character

Kiting is the act of running from your enemies while dealing damage.  In other games, kiting involves slowing your opponents so they cannot keep up with you.  Many of the classes in Risk of Rain, however, move faster than most of the mobs in the game, making this unnecessary.  Kiting works best for ranged characters.

Dealing damage while kiting differs from character to character, but the essential ideas remain the same.  While running from mobs, a character should quickly turn in place to face his assailants and throw a few attacks at them when the character is a far enough distance away.

Keep in mind that a character can turn around in midair.  This allows a character to jump while kiting, turn in midair, and fire before continuing to run.  This is especially helpful on the Engineer character, as his Tri-nade attack will have a higher chance of hitting his oncoming targets.

Kiting as a Melee Character

While kiting best works with ranged classes, melee classes with invulnerability frames or a movement speed ability and point blank attacks can kite rather effectively.  These include the Bandit's Smokebomb and Dynamite Toss; the Mercenary's Blinding Assault, Whirlwind, and Eviscerate; HAN-D's FORCED_REASSEMBLY and OVERCLOCK; and the Miner's Drill Charge, Backblast and To The Stars.

This method of kiting is a little counter-intuitive.  Instead of running away from the enemy mob, the character should run towards it.  The character should then use their point blank attacks before using their movement ability to run away.  This is best seen on a case by case basis.

Bandit:

The bandit should use his Smokebomb prior to combat and enter into the enemy mobs before using his Dynamite Toss.  This will stun the mobs and allow the Bandit to make a hasty getaway.  Keep in mind that successful Lights Out kills will allow him to repeat this process indefinitely.

Mercenary:

The Mercenary should charge into battle with Eviscerate and follow up with a Blinding Assault through the enemy.  After the first Blinding Assault, he may use Whirlwind to deal additional damage before using Blinding Assault two more times through the enemy and finishing with an Eviscerate.  This deals an incredible amount of damage, but if the enemy isn't dead, the mercenary can easily retreat.  Note that if a truly hasty getaway is needed, the third Blinding Assault can be used away from the enemy to get a head start on running.

HAN-D:

HAN-D's method is a little different as it can sustain itself fairly well using its DRONE ability.  However, kiting can be necessary with a large number of powerful mobs.  HAN-D should OVERCLOCK, run into the enemy mobs, and use FORCED_REASSEMBLY before laying on the HURT.  Hitting the mobs with HURT after FORCED_REASSEMBLY will allow HAN-D more time in OVERCLOCK, which lets it keep its movement speed for running away.

Miner:

The Miner can easily charge up a Drill Charge to dash through a group of enemies, and then Backblast out of the group. This also leaves a window where damage can be output via To The Stars whilst the enemies are stunned, whilst still leaving the Miner out of range of their attacks. This tactic usually reduces enemies to quite low health, where they can be finished off with a Crush if they approach the Miner. When trying to escape a large crowd or powerful enemies, Backblast can be used to stun them, and a uncharged Drill Charge can be used to add extra distance.

Acrid:

Acrid has a lot of options because it has good ranged attacks combined with a melee attack. Epidemic should be spammed everytime it is up as it is an easy skill to land and provides a large portion of its damage. Acrid excels in killing large mobs by spreading Caustic Sludge across the ground and fighting over it. Neurotoxin is a great skill to keep the mob over your Caustic Sludge or just to hurt monsters while keeping your distance. The best way to utilize Festering Wounds is to jump back and forth passing over enemies while using the skill in the air. Combining these tatics is what makes Acrid such a versatile character to choose.

Infusion in Boar beach

If you make it to boar beach with one or more infusion then it is possible to easily farm health from boars, which are relatively low-health for their position in the game. If you avoid killing the Toxic Beast, then boars will continue to spawn, and situating yoursef at the top of the area will allow you to kill any boar that spawns up there with relative ease and with little risk.(of rain)