Backpack Battles: A Build That Survives the Midgame with Shovels and Poison and Transitions into the Darksaber

According to the speaker, the Pan is the foundation of the early game, and it's a personal favorite of theirs. Compared to before the update, the starting Dagger is gone. In exchange, you now get more bag space and more gold. The speaker sees this as a tailwind for "Pan enthusiasts."

This build crafts two Shovels in the first few rounds. Previously, there wasn't enough bag space or gold, which made this quite difficult, but the speaker says the update has made it much easier to pull off. The class being played, the Reaper, has poison, which pairs extremely well with the Shovels. For a while, the playstyle is to dodge attacks while killing opponents with poison.

However, the build is very weak while the second Shovel is being crafted, and the speaker expects to lose that round almost certainly. In return, once both Shovels are complete, there's a stretch where the build stays strong for a while.

As items to pick up at this stage, the speaker lists Bananas, Slime, and Mushrooms. Stamina matters, so two Bananas are nearly essential. The Slime's healing is described as excellent in a two-weapon setup.

Mushrooms tend to be underrated, but the speaker says they get strong against tanky early-game Reapers. Since you start with one, it's economical to keep it rather than sell it, combine it with the Slime, and keep using it into the late game. On the other hand, considering the Reaper matchup and the late game, using a Carrot instead of the Mushroom is also a strong option. Which one to go with depends on what the shop offers.

Here the speaker also mentions that the update made rerolling more expensive. As a result, they suggest that builds with many options have become relatively stronger.

From round 7, class-specific items start appearing in the shop. The speaker bought a Dagger here. The goal was to counter blindness. They also explain that since this build can stack a lot of debuffs, it can be expected to boost critical hit chance as well. At this point, the opponent had 39 debuffs in total, which the speaker calls "a pretty good number."

Around this point, Lightsabers start appearing in the shop. However, the speaker says that because rerolling costs have gone up, it's become harder to actively hunt for them.

Lightsabers don't reach their full potential without two Herbs, so the speaker buys Herbs ahead of time to prepare. Since your inventory grows during this phase, they'd honestly rather not carry two Herbs. Even so, you can't afford to reroll repeatedly for Herbs later. So they judge that it's reasonable to buy them when they show up. The speaker also speculates that, for the same reason, opponents should have a harder time rerolling for the items they want.

After that, the Slime was completed and the build got somewhat stronger, but Lightsabers just weren't showing up. Rerolling kept coming up empty, and the speaker expected a string of losses for a while.

According to the speaker, the weakness of the previous Lightsaber build was that the early game was hard to get through. There was a risk of running out of lives before the Lightsabers came together. This build uses poison and Shovels to secure a reasonable amount of strength through the midgame. Thanks to that, it's able to preserve a fair number of lives.

On the other hand, a single Lightsaber no longer delivers explosive damage. With this in mind, the speaker considers this a more stability-oriented build than before.

While spending the lives preserved up to that point, the speaker assembled two Lightsabers. They say this is where "this build's power spike" begins. The plan from here is as follows:

• Collect more Lightsabers
• Convert one into a Darksaber
• Find a way to generate mana for the Darksaber

Before long, a third Lightsaber was obtained as well.

The speaker points out that unlike the Ranger, which can scale crits with arrows, this build's Lightsabers leave some doubt about how well their damage scales. That's where the Darksaber comes in. By consuming mana, it can make up for the missing damage.

However, this build has few ways to generate mana, so from here on, the goal is to find a Mana Orb. The speaker reveals that they had been holding onto Blueberries for exactly this reason, since mana becomes desirable at this stage. Shovels also occasionally dig up blue gems. None came up this time, but since they'll be needed with this plan in mind, the speaker advises holding onto any that you dig up.

After that, they successfully bought a Mana Orb. It's easy to agonize over its position relative to the Dagger, but placing it adjacent to just one sword provides enough mana. So, they say, you don't need to worry much about placement.

The speaker shows a fight after completing the Darksaber in slow motion. The battle lasted only a few seconds, and by the end, a huge number of debuffs had been stacked on the enemy.

In the next matchup, they faced an opponent running three Lightsabers. Here, the speaker uses the joke referenced in the title, speaking half in jest. The gist is that the Lightsaber has a "flimsy, weak-looking shape," while the Darksaber is darker, so it holds dark power and is stronger. With both light and darkness combined, it looks the strongest.

In the final round, the speaker bought a fourth Lightsaber and went into the final battle. The fight was shown at double speed. The opponent held out for a while with invulnerability, but debuffs kept piling up the whole time, and once the invulnerability wore off, the speaker sliced them to pieces and won.

The log showed that the Darksaber dealt more damage. On that basis, the speaker jokingly concludes that "it's definitively obvious that the Darksaber is superior." The result was a GG, and the speaker looks back on this build as a fun setup that could transition stably from the early game all the way into the Darksaber.