How to beat Nightmare in Brotato: characters, builds and fog waves

Start Nightmare with Knight or Masochist, the two characters a player with every Danger 5 win could beat it with. Both turn defensive stats into damage, which matters because Nightmare enemies have +60% damage and health and a defensive build on an ordinary character cannot kill them. Players also report wins with Technomage, Jack and Cyborg. For Primal Dread characters, the one dedicated Nightmare guide uses Meat Tenderizer on four of the ten; the 12 November patch did not change weapons.

Nightmare unlocks after 10 Danger 5 wins with different characters or zones. It adds +10% enemy speed, environmental projectiles, fog waves and stronger enemy variants. The unlock and the full list of changes are in danger levels. Update 1.2 (2 November) made Nightmare easier, so player advice from before November describes a harder mode.

Characters with reported Nightmare wins

“Reports” counts independent sources: separate players in the Steam discussion, the Cephalopocalypse video for that character and the two Steam guides.

Character	Build	Why it holds up	Reports
Knight	Armor stack with melee weapons. Players name Fists and Rocks; Rocks add +1 to +2 Armor each. The Danger 5 build of Swords or Spears with Jousting Lances also applies.	Each Armor point adds 2 Melee Damage, so buying defense also buys damage.	3
Masochist	Six Spiky Shields, Armor, Max HP and HP Regeneration. Blood Donation or Bloody Hand.	Starts with +8 Armor and +20 HP Regeneration. Each hit taken adds +5% Damage until the wave ends, and Spiky Shield damage scales with Armor.	1
Technomage	Icicles with Scared Sausages, 20 to 22 Armor, no Dodge and no cursed items. Buy every structure.	Each structure adds 2 Elemental Damage, and structures light the fog around them.	2
Jack	Start with the Laser Gun and add any ranged weapon. Harvesting first, then Attack Speed, then Crit Chance; no Armor. Late Max HP and Dodge.	Only 30% as many enemies, with +125% damage against bosses and elites, so high-damage single shots do the work. Candy Bag adds stats and extra elites, which Jack kills for materials.	2
Cyborg	SMGs or three ranged and three Engineering weapons. Level Ranged Damage, never Engineering.	Ranged Damage modifications are tripled, and half of each wave converts it into Engineering for the structures.	2
Lich	Sharp Tooth with Max HP, HP Regeneration and Life Steal rather than damage.	Every heal deals damage equal to Max HP to a random enemy, so healing stats are the damage stats.	1
Creature	Every cursed item you can find, plus Dodge.	Weapon damage also scales with 35% of Curse, which is enough to kill most enemies in one hit.	1

Cephalopocalypse also has Nightmare videos for Druid (“The Most Broken Nightmare Character?”), Ghost, One-Armed, Gangster, Diver, Saver, Vampire, Pacifist, Demon and Brawler. They were recorded on 1.1.15.1, before the Update 1.2 Nightmare nerfs and before Diver’s enemy-health penalty dropped from 250% to 200%.

Primal Dread characters on Nightmare

These come from one player’s Nightmare wins with every Primal Dread character on all three zones, written on 7 November. The 12 November patch changed Mecha, Variant and Mad Scientist afterwards; current changes are shown in the last column.

Character	Build reported	Since 12 November
Archaeologist	Meat Tenderizers and HP Regeneration while standing on dig sites; Recycling Machine for crate materials. The first waves are slow.	No change
Poacher	Meat Tenderizers or other melee weapons, so kills land inside the hunting area. The guide reports +800% Damage by wave 20 without buying % Damage.	No change
Caveman	Five upgraded Spears; keep the sixth slot to burn a locked Primitive weapon in every shop.	Boomerang added to starting weapons
Arsonist	Sticky Grenade or Shredder with Attack Speed, then Fireball. Buy explosion and Elemental Damage items.	Engineering upgrades no longer offered
Time Shifter	Slow, hard-hitting weapons such as Spears; Blood Donation keeps time shift active because it deals damage every second.	Dodge upgrades no longer offered
Veteran	Machine Guns with Ranged Damage, Range and piercing.	No change
Variant	Meat Tenderizers, so random mutations cannot break the build; easier after wave 10.	Item replacement removed; now a 25% chance to mutate an item when equipped
Survivor	Early Luck for crates; Sticks in the eight weapon slots. Waves 1 to 6 are the hard part.	No change
Mad Scientist	Called the strongest of the ten.	Starting Awl and Blowgun replaced by Laser Gun and Carbon Bow; Mecha weakened

The same guide found Mutant stronger than Mecha for Endless and Mecha more controllable for 20 waves. On 12 November Mechanize dropped from +5% to +3% weapon damage per mecha power point, while mutation copies now reach full strength at 100 Evolution instead of 150. See Mecha or Mutant.

Where Nightmare runs die

The Steam discussion’s opening post lists the waves where runs end: 6, 8 to 10, and 15 to 17. They overlap the fog waves and the elite and horde waves.

Danger	When	Counter
Fog	One wave in 5–7, 10–12 and 16–18	Structures, pets and explosions light the fog. Candle +25% visibility, Campfire +50%, Lantern +75%, Lighthouse +100%. Each structure you own adds another lit area.
Environmental projectiles	Some waves, faster and denser as the wave goes on	The arrow shows each bullet’s path. jldark89 buys two or three Light Sabers on melee builds, because they deflect enemy projectiles.
Enemy that bursts into bullets	A Nightmare variant that fills the screen with bullets when hit by ranged attacks	B the No-Self recommends two or three Laser Guns for ranged builds, and Range to fight from further away.
First elite or horde	Mid-run	A defensive build without damage cannot kill them. One reply’s rule: always take damage at level-ups; another adds early economy (Harvesting, Bag, Coupon, more enemies).
Shop RNG	All run	Use bans to remove weapons and items your build cannot use. Since 12 November you get one more ban token every 4 waves up to wave 20. See bans and locks.

Shop rules that differ from Danger 5

• Buy less, but buy the right thing. Players who won describe a minimal shop: skip expensive general items and buy only what the character’s build uses.
• Take more Armor than on Danger 5. One player’s fix after watching the Cephalopocalypse videos was buying far more Armor. Knight and Masochist do this by design.
• Damage first, economy early. Two replies disagree on details but agree that damage at level-ups comes first and that a little Harvesting in the first waves pays for later damage.
• Choose the zone. One reply found the Abyss easier, especially for melee characters, and the Crash Zone the hardest. The Jungle’s Nightmare waves were eased on 12 November: more basic enemies in waves 2 to 5, no Jeholopterus, fewer and smaller holes, and acid that only hurts while you stand in it. See Jungle hazards.
• Accessibility options. The projectile waves can be turned off or slowed in the options; the run title then shows the change. A Steam reply suggests this for collecting the Wounded unlock first.

Rewards

Winning any Nightmare run unlocks the Wounded, who dies in one hit. For the Wounded, B the No-Self recommends Ranged Damage early, two or three Laser Guns, Range to keep distance, and Dodge only when offered free or once you are clearing the screen. A Wounded win unlocks the Rail Gun.

Need the ten Danger 5 wins first? See how to beat Danger 5.