The Fuel Cell is a fan favorite uncommon item in Risk Of Rain 2. Furthermore, it is widely seen as one of the best green items in the game! As the new Survivors of the Void DLC was released, Hopoo Games provided an alternative to the Equipment-Enhancing Juggernaut – the Fuel Cell. The Lysate Cell changed a large portion of what made the original Fuel Cell great, but which one is truly better? The decision for choosing the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2 can only be made if you understand precisely what makes it so amazing, to begin with.
What is the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2?
The Fuel Cell Gives the Survivor an extra charge for any equipment they have; this allows you to activate the equipment during the effect or at any moment. The Fuel cell is insanely powerful because of the 15% cooldown reduction on all charges, including the one not gotten from the Fuel Cell. Since this stacking CDR scales down per stack, ten fuel cells will get you a rough 80% reduction on all equipment charges.
What items are BAD when paired with the Fuel Cell?
Eccentric Vase
The Eccentric Vase, quite frankly, is terrible for several reasons on its own. This equipment creates a “Quantum Tunnel” that can be interacted with on either end to travel to the other side in a straight line. You can get hit while crossing through the active effect, the travel time isn’t anything to be impressed by, and you cannot do anything except leave the tunnel prematurely.
The Vase has a natural 45-second cooldown, and the tunnels last 30 seconds. You would be making the wrong decision to choose this equipment over anything else. This is true unless you are using it to get to a hard-to-reach location with zero mobility. The Fuel Cell barely benefits from this.
Radar Scanner
This Equipment is fantastic if you don’t know where things spawn in the game. Using the Radar Scanner reveals all interactables in the stage, including the randomly generated Newt Altars and the Teleporter. Once you use the item once, everything on the map is shown for a short time. Having multiple charges of this item would merely allow you to see the same stuff multiple times, which isn’t helpful when paired with the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2.
The Crowdfunder
The Crowdfunder is a toggleable active item that siphons out your money to do a stream of projectiles. You do your raw base damage every shot, and the money cost increases over time. Having a Fuel Cell does absolutely nothing to change the Crowdfunder’s powerful endgame or weak early game. It doesn’t change any scaling whatsoever.
Trophy Hunter’s Tricorn
The Trophy Hunter’s Tricorn is only useful the first time you use it unless you wish to say “Ahoy!” endlessly in the chat. You can use it to extract one boss item and convert it into a joke item.
Remote Caffeinator
The Remote Caffeinator isn’t entirely useless with the Fuel Cell. Yet, it would be more akin to having multiple charges of Captain’s Special Skill. Every time you call down the Remote Caffinator’s dispensing machine, it does 20 times the natural damage of your survivor in a small AOE. Although not useless, this effect is inconsistent due to enemies being able to move around.
Executive Card Is Also Not Helpful With the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2
This Equipment is one of the absolute best items in the game. Furthermore, it activates every time you interact with a purchasable item. It has barely any cooldown and refunds 10 percent of all money spent on a purchase. The amazing use of this equipment comes from how multishop terminals allow you to buy all three purchasable items without shutting you out of them.
This equipment will enable you to get extreme value out of every shop in the game. This is especially true since excess money gets converted into experience when using the teleporter to move to the next stage. Nothing about the Fuel Cell benefits this item. The CDR and extra charge only make it so spam buying things can happen without waiting a literal half of a second for the equipment to recharge. There is no reason to go for a Fuel Cell when you have this equipment. Moreover, it makes the item utterly useless while in your inventory.
What items are GOOD when paired with the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2?
Bottled Chaos
This Legendary Item was released along with the Survivors Of The Void Expansion. Bottled Chaos creates a random equipment effect upon using a charge of one, minus doing a Lunar item effect because that would do more harm than good. This item is inconsistent but can still provide some excellent utility if you have a low cooldown on your items and is precisely what the Fuel Cell provides. Although you might occasionally do something completely unexpected, it’s rarely harmful and usually beneficial. Definitely good, but nothing extraordinary due to the random nature of the item.
Gesture of The Drowned
Gesture of The Drowned is an insanely powerful Lunar Item that removes 50% of your equipment’s cooldown upon collecting it. Still, it also makes it so your equipment activates as soon as that cooldown refreshes. Pairing this with a stack of itself or the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2 allows you to have a cooldown roughly equivalent to 35% of your equipment’s natural wait time. Each additional stack of this item is treated like another Fuel Cell in cooldown reduction. It is incredible to have this paired with the Fuel Cell. This is true because you don’t have any equipment that could hurt you upon use.
Spinel Tonic
Spinel Tonic gives you a powerful buff to all of your stats upon use for 20 seconds but has a 60 second recharge time, meaning you’ll have around 40 seconds without the buff. This item naturally spends two-thirds of the time wielding it being inactive, which is why its passive is so detrimental. You have a 20 percent chance, upon the buff expiring, to get a permanent debuff added to your items which stacks to damaging extremes. If the item does not buff you, all these stacks of affliction will permanently debuff every one of your stacks.
This is where the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2 comes in. If you manage to reduce the cooldown of this lunar equipment to roughly 20 seconds, you will never suffer the downside of getting a Tonic Affliction. This pairs great with a Gesture of the Drowned because if you have at least one of them and three extra stacks of the same item or Fuel Cells, you will have a 100% uptime on the effect.
Royal Capacitor also Pairs Well with the Fuel Cell in Risk of Rain 2
When used with Gesture of the Drowned, the Fuel Cell ignores one of its passives unless you’re using equipment that requires a target to activate. Not storing equipment charges isn’t bad. Yet, when paired with equipment that allows you to keep a charge, that’s when the item truly shines. The Royal Capacitor is the best example because it does cataclysmic amounts of damage when activated rapidly. This is the best item to combine both effects if you’re lucky enough to get both items in one run.
Of course, other items pair exceptionally well with the Fuel Cell, but these are some best examples.
Is the Lysate Cell Worth It Over the Fuel Cell?
The Lysate Cell in Risk of Rain 2 gives you a second charge of your special skill and zero Cooldown Reduction. Ultimately, your decision should depend on your equipment item. If you were to keep the Executive Card or the Remote Caffeinator for the rest of the run, it would make sense to take this item. It is crucial to keep in mind that you only get one extra Engineer turret to actively use once you have this item. Never take this on Void Fiend unless you have Essence of Heresy. This is because it does not affect the non-corrupted form’s Special. Ultimately, the Fuel Cell has such perfect natural utility that it is hard to argue to replace it.
