Equipment

Dead Cells provides players with Gear in the form of :
 * Weapons, which have limited but different move sets.
 * Skills, which cause a variety of effects but must cool down between uses.
 * And Amulets, passive items which grant powerful offensive or defensive benefits. They can also grant points to Brutality, Tactics or Survival.

Gear items are not automatically collected — they must be picked up with the Interact key/button. Unwanted gear can usually be converted into gold if the Recycle upgrade has been unlocked.

Most Gear appears with one or more Affixes, which add effects or situational benefits. Only non-starter, Level 1 Gear, and unique amulets lack affixes.

If you're looking for a missing item, but you have everything listed below, you might be missing the Merchandise Category upgrade from the Graveyard.

Gear level
Gear level is the roman numeral next to an item's name and is the base gear power of the item. Each biome has a base gear level value, which is the minimum level an item can be on any given biome. A table can be found below with each biome's base gear level.

The gear level of found items will increase based on the number of active Boss Stem Cells.

Additionally, the gear level of an item will also be affected by where it was found in the biome.

Gear quality
The player can spend cells at the Blacksmith's Legendary Forge to permanently upgrade all the gear quality attribute of all weapons and skills across runs.

Gear quality is the term used to refer to the "upgrade level" of an item. It is displayed as a +, ++, S, or L after the roman numerals (referred to as the gear level). Gear quality gives the item the following attributes:


 * Gear quality of + adds +2 to gear power.
 * Gear quality of ++ adds +4 to gear power.
 * Gear quality of S adds +6 to gear power.
 * Gear quality of L adds +6 to gear power.

Gear power
Gear power is the term used to refer to the "outputted level" of an item. This is a hidden value that represents the actual power of the item after taking into account its gear level and gear quality. Gear power is calculated by taking the gear level of the item and adding the bonus from the gear quality. As an example, a Heavy Crossbow IV++ has a gear level of 4 (as indicated by the roman numerals) and the gear quality of ++ adds a bonus +4 to gear power, resulting in a gear power of 8. This means the item will have a +129% damage boost and three affix slots.

Gear power influences the number of affix slots on the item, and the overall damage boost/reduction it receives. A table detailing the effects of gear power on weapons/skills can be found below:

Gear power follows a pattern:
 * The first bonus adds a +4% damage boost and an affix slot.
 * The second bonus adds a +29% damage boost or -1% damage reduction.
 * The third bonus adds a +29% damage boost or -1% damage reduction.
 * Every sixth bonus adds a +30% damage boost instead.
 * The cycle then repeats.

It should be noted that an item may have more affix slots than affixes available for that item. In that case, the item will just have empty slots that do not show up.

Gear variants
Two variants of weapons and skills can be encountered: Colorless items and Legendary items.

Colorless items
Colorless items, which are found in Cursed Chests and when unlocking a blueprint from the Collector, scale according to your highest stat. This means that if your highest stat at the time is Brutality, the colorless item is Brutality. If later on, your highest stat is Tactics, your item will now scale with Tactics. For example, a Colorless, which is a pure Brutality item, scales with Survival if you have higher Survival than Brutality. Colorless items are marked with a white color, rather than the colors of the base item's scaling stats.

Legendary items
Legendaries are powerful variants of items, appearing as a random drop from enemies (1% and 6% for common mobs and Elites, respectively), and as rewards after beating a boss without getting hit, or from legendary altars.

Legendary altars have a base 2% chance of spawning per biome, increasing by 15% for each biome where an altar did not spawn, meaning that most successful runs can expect to run into at least one of them. These altars grant 66% damage reduction to nearby enemies (indicated by a shield icon above the enemy's head), and the item can only be retrieved from the shrine when all enemies with this icon have been defeated. Alternatively, moving enemies, if they get far enough away from the altar and provided that no other enemies get close to the altar, allows retrieving the item on it.

A legendary item is guaranteed to be found in Perfect Doors following bosses if you beat them without being hit once.

The item pool for Legendary items found on enemies drops and altars is not limited to unlocked items, but heavily skewed towards them. It is therefore possible, but not likely, to get any Legendary item other than the on a new save file. However, you will never find a weapon you haven't unlocked in a Flawless Boss Door.

Legendary items cannot be upgraded, but they have powerful advantages over normal items: Legendary items are also denoted by an "L" suffix and a gold border around their icon, to differentiate them from normal items.
 * Colorless — scales with your highest stat.
 * A specific legendary affix (predetermined for each base item).
 * Can be equipped alongside another weapon of the same type. One could, for example, carry two Powerful Grenades at once if one or both of them were legendary.
 * Same power increase as "S" quality items.

Gear value
Every piece of gear has its own Gold value that is determined by a number of factors including gear level as well as each item's own specific base price. This value is used when buying items from shops as well as in determining the price for opening a gold door.

The equation for the value of a piece of gear is:

(Base price) &times; (100% + Quality Impact + Modifier Impact) + 100 &times; (Item level - 1)
 * Quality Impact is a percentage that is different between gear qualities.
 * {| class=wikitable style="text-align:center;"

!Quality !Cost impact
 * Basic || +0%
 * + || +30%
 * ++ || +60%
 * S || +90%
 * L || +30%
 * }
 * Modifier impact is the sum of all the Cost Impact values of each modifier on a piece of gear.
 * Item level is the Roman Numeral next to the gear's name.
 * L || +30%
 * }
 * Modifier impact is the sum of all the Cost Impact values of each modifier on a piece of gear.
 * Item level is the Roman Numeral next to the gear's name.
 * Item level is the Roman Numeral next to the gear's name.

Recycling prices
If the player has the upgrade Recycling I or Recycling II, they can recycle any gear or food on the ground, and can collect 7% (Recycling I) or 15% (Recycling II) of the total value of that item.
 * For Amulets, their prices are also calculated by the same formula used of gear value. Their base price is 5,000 Gold. There is currently no way to purchase amulets so their total value is only relevant to recycling.

Gear slots
The player initially has access to 5 slots for carrying various types of equipment. 2 slots are dedicated to carrying weapons, 2 for skills, and another slot for an amulet.

Certain weapons, called "two-handed" weapons, take up both of the player's weapon slots, and cannot be used alongside traditional weapons at the same time. Attempting to swap either of the two-handed weapon slots out for a one-handed weapon will result in dropping the entire two-handed item.

Backpack
Once the  upgrade is unlocked, picking up a third weapon allows the player to store said weapon. While in the, the stored weapon cannot be used (unless the player also has a mutation relating to the ). However, holding down the interact key allows the player to drop the stored weapon after they have left the equipment menu, allowing them to swap the item out with their current loadout as usual.

Please note that:
 * Skills, two-handed weapons, amulets, as well as other weapons such as the, cannot be stored in the.
 * The position of the slot in the UI can be changed in the options menu, as well as its opacity.

Weapons
Weapons are the main piece of gear that will be used throughout most runs. They are usually the main source of dealing damage, as well as for other, more utility focused capabilities. Unlike skills, they can be used repeatedly with little to no restrictions.

Skills
Skills are secondary abilities that can be used in combat. The player does not normally start with skills without the Recycling Tubes upgrade and must find them throughout the run.

The player has two skill slots. Upon picking up a third skill, a menu which compares all three appears, allowing the player to choose which of the three skills to discard.

Skills cannot trigger Rally nor cooldown reduction mutations.

Skills are roughly split into three types: traps and turrets, grenades, and miscellaneous powers.

Amulets
You may only equip one amulet at a time, but their effects are powerful... "A fine object, adroitly hidden under your clothes to make less work for the artists." Amulets come in Ruby, Topaz, Sapphire, Golden, and Moonstone. They can be found in the starting area on 1BC+ and are most frequently acquired by defeating Elite enemies or by opening Time or Killstreak Doors. Amulets can also be found within Challenge Rift chests, on corpses, or by rummaging through loot in lore rooms. Amulets carry one or more affixes, grant damage reduction, and can give the player more Stats.

Amulets have gear levels which are the same as the Biome gear level. However, Higher BSC introduce a minimum amulet level, which increases the gear level of amulets found in biomes that have a lower gear level than this to the minimum:
 * 0BC: Tier 1
 * 1BC: Tier 3
 * 2BC: Tier 4
 * 3BC: Tier 6
 * 4BC: Tier 7
 * 5BC: Tier 7

As amulets are levelled items, their gear levels affect the quantity and quality of the Affixes on the amulets found, as well as the number of Stats and the % of damage reduction they grant. Amulets follow a special pattern that determines what bonus is given every tier. The higher the tier of the amulet is, the more bonus stats it can have, up to 4 stats at XII tier:
 * Tiers 1-5: one stat.
 * Tiers 6-8: two stats.
 * Tiers 9-11: three stats.
 * Tier 12: four stats.

As of the Update of Plenty, the player will always start with an amulet on a pedestal in the starting area of the Prisoners' Quarters on 1 BSC and higher, with its tier increasing based on difficulty.

Prisoner's Collar
"'Nothing worth mentioning, except maybe a vague whiff of dead rat...'" The player starts every run with the Prisoner's Collar equipped. It gives no benefits of any kind.