Mastering the Bandit Hemorrhage build in Risk of Rain 2 transforms the character into a single-target executioner capable of melting bosses in seconds. The core mechanic relies on triggering critical strikes with your secondary skill, Serrated Dagger or Serrated Shiv, to apply Hemorrhage—a devastating damage-over-time debuff that deals 2,000% base damage over 15 seconds. Because the Bandit's passive, Backstab, guarantees critical strikes from behind, positioning is everything.
Building an effective hemorrhage setup requires more than just spamming your secondary ability. You need specific item synergies, proper cooldown management, and careful handling of attack speed to stack damage before health bars vanish.
Essential Skills and Loadout Selection
Setting up the hemorrhage build starts in the character select screen. Choosing the right abilities ensures your secondary skill consistently procs the debuff while maintaining your mobility.
- Primary Skill - Burst: Fire a shotgun blast of five pellets. While Blast offers longer-range precision, Burst is mandatory here. Each of the five pellets procs on-hit items independently, letting you stack chaos quickly.
- Secondary Skill - Serrated Shiv: While the default Serrated Dagger deals more upfront melee damage, unlocking and equipping Serrated Shiv allows you to throw a ranged blade that still applies Hemorrhage on critical hits. This ranged option keeps you safe from dangerous boss shockwaves.
- Utility - Smoke Bomb: This is your primary repositioning tool. Entering stealth drops enemy aggro, letting you slide behind heavy targets to line up guaranteed backstab criticals.
- Special - Lights Out: Fire a high-damage revolver shot. Killing an enemy with Lights Out resets all your active cooldowns, creating endless reset chains that let you throw multiple daggers in rapid succession.
Core Item Synergies for Maximum Damage
Hemorrhage scales aggressively with attack speed, cooldown reductions, and specific item triggers. Prioritize these items during your runs to maximize your damage output.
- Backup Magazine: Extra secondary charges are non-negotiable. Stacking Backup Magazines lets you chain multiple Serrated Shiv throws back-to-back, rapidly stacking Hemorrhage counts on massive health pools.
- Soldier's Syringe and Predatory Instincts: Attack speed speeds up your Burst reload animations and shortens the cast delay on your daggers. Predatory Instincts further accelerates your speed as your multi-pellet critical hits pile up.
- Shatterspleen: This boss item causes all critical strikes to apply standard bleed while making bleeding enemies explode on death. Bleed stacks independently alongside Hemorrhage, turning mob clear into a chain reaction.
- Laser Scope: Doubling your critical hit damage elevates every single backstab pellet and dagger strike into an elite threat.
Execution Strategy and Combat Flow
Executing this build requires adopting a hit-and-run mindset. Never face elite bosses head-on. Instead, activate Smoke Bomb, slip behind the target, and unleash a point-blank Burst to abuse the 5-pellet backstab multiplier.
Follow up immediately with your Serrated Shiv to plant the initial Hemorrhage stack. Because Hemorrhage stacks refresh and add a fresh 15-second duration with every reapplication, consistency matters more than panic-spamming. If you encounter smaller targets during a boss fight, pick them off with Lights Out to instantly refresh your dagger cooldowns and keep your momentum fluid.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Ignoring Positioning: Relying on random front-facing shots means missing out on the guaranteed Backstab criticals required to trigger Hemorrhage. Always flank your target.
- Over-stacking Attack Speed Without Ammo: Having high attack speed is useless if you run out of dagger charges immediately. Always balance attack speed with Backup Magazines.
- Standing Still in Boss Fights: The Bandit lacks natural health regeneration. Using Smoke Bomb strictly as an offensive opener leaves you with no escape route when a boss turns around.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Hemorrhage stack infinitely?
Yes. Every time you land a critical strike with your secondary skill while a target is already bleeding from Hemorrhage, it adds a new full-duration stack. There is no hard cap on how many stacks an enemy can hold.
Should I use Purity with this build?
Purity reduces your skill cooldowns to flat values, which helps throw more daggers, but the heavy luck penalty ruins your chance-based item procs. Avoid Purity unless you are running a strictly non-proc utility variant.
Is Serrated Shiv better than Serrated Dagger?
For high-difficulty runs like Monsoon or Eclipse, Serrated Shiv is generally better. The safety of a ranged throw outweighs the minor melee damage trade-off of the Dagger, keeping you out of lethal boss melee range.
How do I unlock Serrated Shiv?
You unlock Serrated Shiv by completing the "Sadist" challenge, which requires you to kill a single monster while it has at least 20 active stacks of Hemorrhage. This is easiest to accomplish on high-health boss units like Aurelionite using multiple Backup Magazines.
