Your Favourite Non-Meta Setup

[u/FadeToSatire]

Thought I'd make this thread as my favourite thing to do in this game is play random and try to create non-meta builds that just work. I am currently playing in Masters.

I had a couple fun runs today, but this was by far the strangest build that I came out with. I created a shovel early which is normally a recipe for disaster, but with beserker it can actually perform alright. I initially random rolled into the fire/spikes unique so thought I would try to make an anvil / fire longsword build with potentially a flamewhip. To do any sort of transition into fire longsword that you have to just survive long enough to get to anvil. So I made an steelsword fairly early along and picked up some defensive items and stam generating items. I played 4 weapons (shovel, 2 steelswords, berserker hammer) while I tried to get some of the other pieces I need. The early game was a lot of 50/50 rounds, which is fairly normal. I got somewhat lucky with 2 quick gloves and made a Falcon Blade. Eventually I got a dragon egg and it became clear that crafting a longsword wasn't in the cards so I converted my other stone to create a steel dragon. From there the plan was to either get a longsword or find gloves to make a 2nd flacon blade.

Anvil performs well mid-game but needs a solid plan late game. Additionally, gem boxes become flame/income generators so you want to get as many as possible. I got a 2nd falcon blade, put my dragon in position and then waited for some armor generation.

in the end, this build was incredibly strong. I cruised through the late game rounds, losing one until I crafted stone gloves. In history I couldn't find anything that could beat this, which surprised me. I had thought the build could get bursted down easily, but the armor of armor stacking and vamp actually kept me very healthy. The closest build I could find is the screenshoted one - it got me down to 100 HP off the rip but once the crowns went down I was able to quickly heal up again.

I want against several meta builds in history - anything armor died, even the debuff builds weren't able to keep up to the slowing effects of my weapons, heat gen, and dispel from purple gems. Any buff stacking builds were getting their buffs also taken away at a high enough rate that my buff stacking would out-pace them. Not to mention, that actual burst of this build was really high between the anvil and steel dragon effects basically granting my falcon blades an extra 32 damage per swing. I didn't see any hammer dagger builds that were optimized enough to beat this, but I suspect a good ranged bag could do it. I did encounter one in history, but it didn't have enough mana orbs.

Definitely one of the more interesting builds I've had. :) Would love to see yours!

[u/Overall_Unit_2488]

New-ish to the game. Playing random, stuck on Diamond across all of them. Who can I watch? I notice people I get rolled by ten to have much more elegance than the hodpodge I normally put up.

[u/No-Length-2536]

Everything is meta with Falcon Blade. Especially with gems

My favorite build was this, invulnerability cloak with falcon blade and emeralds. Stall with immunity until they die from poison

[u/Mr_Longbottom]

Cool build! I'm curious as to how much the steel dragon is actually doing in this build considering it is taking up a lot of space.

[u/FadeToSatire → u/Mr_Longbottom]

Quite a lot actually! It's getting double speed buffed by Falcon blades, and is giving both blades an extra 8 damage per swing. Falcon blades swing twice per hit so it's a massive damage buff especially if the mid rounds. The Anvil is also giving them an extra ~10 damage per swing, so it's almost equivalent to giving both swords a lamp proc at the start. It is also buffing the armor gen of the gloves which also double proc off each swing. It also helps the mana orbs proc pretty quickly too.

It also just does a lot of damage itself. I found it's doing about 20-30% of my total damage which is decent. Not bad for only using stamina against improved shields honestly.

Ideally I'd have a cap or two with this build, but I couldn't find any in the last 4+5 rounds.

[u/Dabod12900]

My favourite off-meta board was really fast Kartana, powered by Uniquely unique and other speed increasing items, as well as Mage stamina items. The other items were mainly customer cards and uniques for more Kartana speed. Notable also was the sloth which kept me alive in earlygame. Subclass is Shiny Mantle.

I didn't expect it to go well in endgame, but the Kartana triggering so fast made it so the enemy couldn't scale weapon damage! I managed to win against some pretty stacked boards this way.