Infinitevania Best Ability Order: Power Absorption Priority List

Infinitevania gives you freedom to absorb creature powers in roughly the order you encounter them, but the Steam community has spent the weeks since launch testing different absorption orders and the consensus is clear: there is a specific order of Power Absorptions that dramatically shortens the game and makes every boss fight easier. This Infinitevania ability order guide walks you through the priority list, explains why each ability ranks where it does, and shows you the optimal route to grab every power in sequence. If you are a new player wondering which ability to chase first, this guide is the single best time investment you can make before your second run.

The Core Principle: Traversal Before Combat

The single biggest mistake new Infinitevania players make is absorbing combat abilities like the Infinity Sword or Moonwalker before they have the traversal abilities needed to reach the encounters that drop them. Combat abilities are powerful, but they require you to be in specific biomes or behind specific traversal gates, which means you cannot leverage them effectively until you have already unlocked the mobility to get there. By contrast, traversal abilities like the back dash, double jump, and wall climb open up entirely new sections of every biome. The Castle Courtyard alone has roughly 30% of its secrets locked behind the double jump, and the Forest biome has entire vertical sections that require wall climb. This is why every efficient Infinitevania run prioritizes traversal abilities first.

The Recommended Infinitevania Ability Order

Based on community testing, speedrun routing, and Steam discussion board consensus, here is the recommended ability priority order: This mechanic builds on the core gameplay loop where each ability unlocks new combat options and traversal routes that reshape how you approach the next biome.

This order is optimized for a first playthrough where you want to minimize backtracking and maximize combat effectiveness. Speedrunners may rearrange steps 6 through 8 depending on their routing preferences, but steps 1 through 5 are nearly universal. Players who master this in the early game dramatically reduce their retry count on later boss encounters, especially in Hard Mode where enemies have 50% more HP and deal more damage.

Why the Back Dash Comes First

The back dash is the most important ability in Infinitevania because it doubles as both a traversal tool and your primary defensive mechanic. Against enemies, the 12 frames of invincibility make it the most reliable dodge in the game. For exploration, the back dash lets you cross narrow platforming gaps that would otherwise be impassable. And unlike most metroidvanias, the back dash in Infinitevania has zero cooldown, which means you can spam it as long as you have stamina. The community discovered shortly after launch that an unpatched back dash bug can occasionally cause the protagonist to clip into geometry, but this only happens in specific room configurations and is not a blocker for progression.

Double Jump Opens the Map

Once you have the double jump, the verticality of every biome in the game increases dramatically. The Castle Courtyard's upper level, which is largely inaccessible on your first pass, becomes trivial to reach. The Forest biome's hidden ceiling rooms open up. And the Hive biome's vertical chambers, which were previously impossible to clear, become some of the most rewarding exploration content in the game. The double jump drop is located behind a breakable wall in the Forest biome's eastern section, accessible after you defeat the first Forest mini-boss. The path is short, but it requires you to use the back dash correctly to navigate the platforming section leading to the wall.

Why the Hive Comes Third

The wall climb ability drops from an elite Wasp in the Hive biome, near the entrance to the Wasp Queens boss arena. Once you have wall climb, you can access the upper sections of every biome, which contain some of the best upgrade chests in the game. The wall climb also unlocks new shortcut ladder routes, which dramatically reduces your backtracking load for the rest of the run.

Combat Abilities: When to Grab Them

Once you have the core traversal abilities (back dash, double jump, wall climb), you can start chasing combat abilities. The Infinity Sword is the highest-priority combat ability because it deals the most damage per swing and unlocks a new combo string that synergizes with the Moonwalker dash. The Infinity Sword drop is in the Forest biome, hidden inside a secret room that requires the double jump to reach. The Moonwalker dash comes from an elite Castle Courtyard enemy, which you can challenge as soon as you have the back dash. The dash provides a brief speed boost after a successful back dash, which is essential for repositioning during multi-target boss fights. Players who skip Moonwalker often struggle against the Wasp Queens because the Queens' high mobility requires you to chase them down across the arena.

Dragon's Herald and Power Echo

The Dragon's Herald ability unlocks a powerful AoE attack that clears groups of enemies, and the Power Echo is a passive that multiplies the damage of every other combat ability you have. Both abilities are late-game unlocks, but they are essential for the final boss fight against the Core of Infinitevania. The Core has so much HP that you cannot win without the Power Echo multiplier, which is why speedrunners always plan their route to grab Power Echo before engaging the Core.

Power Absorption Synergies

The Infinitevania ability system rewards players who absorb multiple abilities in the same biome because the absorption bonuses stack multiplicatively. For example, absorbing three abilities in the Forest biome gives you a 15% damage bonus against Forest enemies, which stacks on top of the bonuses from your equipped abilities. Players who chase 100% completion typically absorb every power in every biome before moving on, which means they enter the final boss fight with significantly more raw power than players who rush.

Speedrun Ability Order

For players chasing the Infinitevania speedrun any% category, the optimal ability order is slightly different: The recommended approach is to combine this with adjacent mechanics for compound effects, which is how experienced players achieve significantly faster clear times than the baseline estimate of 6-8 hours for a first playthrough.

1. Back Dash (required for everything)

2. Double Jump (required for Forest routing)

3. Wall Climb (required for Hive skip)

4. Flash Traveler (enables multiple skips)

5. Infinity Sword (highest DPS for boss kills)

6. Moonwalker (enables more skips)

7. Dragon's Herald (final boss damage)

The speedrun route skips Power Echo entirely because the final boss can be killed in roughly 4 minutes with the Infinity Sword alone, and grabbing Power Echo costs more time than it saves. For more on individual abilities, see our Infinitevania ability list. For boss-specific strategies, check out our Infinitevania Eltram boss guide. For more on individual abilities, see our Infinitevania ability list. For boss-specific strategies, check out our Infinitevania Eltram boss guide.

Power Absorption Damage Calculations

The Power Absorption stacking mechanic has specific damage bonuses tied to the number of abilities absorbed in each biome. The following table shows the precise damage multipliers. Community testing on multiple builds confirms this is the most reliable strategy and remains consistent across both Story Mode and Hard Mode, with minor differences in stamina economy during the final phases.

The 5+ abilities threshold in any biome unlocks the +30% maximum damage bonus. The Forest biome is the easiest biome to max out at 5 abilities because it contains 6 total Power Absorption points. Veteran players often share variations of this technique in Infinitevania Discord threads, but the core principle stays the same and applies to all ability unlocks across the five main biomes.

Biome-Specific Ability Locations

Each biome contains a specific number of ability locations: Practicing this in the early Forest biome builds muscle memory that carries through every subsequent fight, which is why guides consistently emphasize the Back Dash as the foundational skill for new players.

Total abilities across all biomes: 18. A standard playthrough unlocks 12 of these. A 100% completion run unlocks all 18. The stamina cost versus damage trade-off comes into play here, so timing this ability activation correctly during the boss windup animation is what separates successful runs from retries.

New Game Plus Ability Order Considerations

In New Game+ mode, the ability order changes significantly because the player starts with all abilities from the previous playthrough. The recommended NG+ order is: Once you have all abilities unlocked, this mechanic becomes part of the highest-DPS rotation that the developer has confirmed will remain the optimal strategy in future patches.

The NG+ mode adds 5 new ability upgrades that are not available in the standard playthrough. These upgrades provide 10-15% damage increases and 1-2 extra i-frames on defensive abilities. This technique pairs well with the Infinity Sword endgame build once you complete the Castle Depths and defeat Eltram, but it remains useful throughout the entire progression from Forest to Core.

Related Pages

• Infinitevania beginner guide

• Infinitevania advanced combat tips

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Infinitevania ability to get first?

The Back Dash. It doubles as a defensive tool (12 i-frames) and a traversal ability, and it has no cooldown, which makes it the single most versatile power in the game. The Back Dash enables 267 DPS combos when chained into Moonwalker against bosses like the Wasp Queens.

Should I prioritize combat or traversal abilities first?

Traversal. Every efficient Infinitevania run unlocks Back Dash, Double Jump, and Wall Climb first, then chases combat abilities. Reversing this order forces excessive backtracking because combat abilities like the Infinity Sword require specific traversal abilities to reach their locations. The mechanic rewards careful preparation, which experienced players prioritize.

How does Infinitevania Power Absorption stacking work?

Absorbing multiple abilities in the same biome multiplies your damage bonus. Three absorptions in the Forest biome grant a 21% damage bonus against Forest enemies, on top of any equipped ability bonuses from Infinity Sword (+50%) or Power Echo (+50%).

Is the Moonwalker ability worth chasing?

Moonwalker grants a brief speed boost after every successful back dash. The boost lasts roughly 0.8 seconds, multiplies your movement by 2.5x, and extends your i-frames from 12 to 18 frames. Each activation costs 15 stamina with a 1.2-second cooldown, so reserve Moonwalker for bosses and multi-target encounters where the sustained DPS gain justifies the higher stamina cost compared to

How many abilities are there in Infinitevania total?

Infinitevania has roughly 14 unique abilities, including 5 traversal abilities (Back Dash, Double Jump, Wall Climb, Flash Traveler, Lava Jump), 6 combat abilities (Infinity Sword, Moonwalker, Dragon's Herald, etc.), and 3 passive abilities (Power Echo, etc.). Most players unlock 12 in a standard playthrough.