Red Barrel

Red Barrel

Barrels filled with an explosive mixture that burn all in vicinity.

Main Stats

Rarity

Common

Health

Melee Damage

Fire Damage

Explosive Damage

Duration

Prepare Time

10

Rage Cost

9

Abilities

Perks

Non-documented:

• 
• 
• 
• Knockback resistance

Special Ability

Explosion damage and radius is increased by 30%

Unlock Requirements

Price

700

Player Level

5

Red Barrel is a red steel fuel drum with a yellow warning label on its center.

It can be unlocked after player level 5 for 700 coins.

Overview

Red Barrel is a primarily offensive Support Item. It's a barrel that can be dropped on enemies to deal melee damage to them. Once it gets destroyed, it will explode in a small radius, and create a fire pool. Once placed down, the barrel acts as an obstacle – if it stands in an enemy's way, they will attempt to destroy it.

Being a support item, Red Barrel can be dropped on almost any spot of the battlefield, and has all resistances typical for units of that class. It can be manually detonated by tapping.

If a mission has rainy weather, Red Barrel's fire pool will be extinguished immediately.

Special Ability

Red Barrel's special ability increases its explosion damage and radius by x1.3, totalling to 1,340 explosion damage.

While higher explosion damage is undeniably great, the extended range is what actually makes this SA worth buying. This buff makes manual detonations slightly easier to use, as it opens a window of error for timings, effectively granting a few extra milliseconds during which you can strike an enemy. Higher range also makes RB's explosions more effective against crowds, making the barrel excel at a job it's already good at. There's generally no reason to skip this SA, unless you are concerned about extended range being a potential hinderance on levels with Eggs.

Gameplay

Red Barrel is one of the best and crucial unit in the entire game thanks to its versatility and ease of use, being effective on both offensive and defensive uses as it can be used to damage or kill clusters of enemies, dispatching groups of running enemies with its explosion or fire pool and help to eliminate high health targets (being one of the best anti-tank support items early game), as well as serving as a fast and cheap yet durable shield for important units thanks to its high base health, low rage cost, and short preparation time. It sees great use against the Charged Zombie, able to bait one attack and kill small groups of them easily with its explosion. At higher levels, it can even survive more than one attack from such foes. Naturally, Red Barrel is not as effective in missions affected by rainy weather since it loses a considerable portion of its damage output from the fire pool, although it can still perform adequately as its explosion remains unaffected.

Red Barrel can be considered an upgraded version of Empty Barrel, having higher health, the same method of deployment, and significantly more damage output overall thanks to its explosion and fire damage. Comparatively, Empty Barrel's only advantages are the much higher melee damage and slightly cheaper cost. However, the explosion and fire damage does prove more calamitous should human units get caught in its blast radius. In the end, its positives adequately outweigh its negatives, and will prove better in practically any mission once it is available to buy. As such, players should replace Empty Barrel for it as soon as possible.

Trivia

• Up to four Red Barrels can be found on top of the Bus which serve as a fuel counter. These barrels have a different cross marking on their yellow label as opposed to the black droplet shape on the usual Red Barrels.
• Red Barrels appear as obstacles in a few missions throughout the game. Those barrels can be manually triggered, just like their regular counterparts. However, zombies will not stop to attack those barrels and will just walk past them.
• Red Barrel used to be the only stationary unit with a health bar to not possess fire resistance. Because of this, it was possible to create large chain explosions from detonating one of the barrels.