Kripp's Aggro Crook Vanessa Build (Rare Pivot)

An Aggressive Opportunity

The Bazaar has many occasions where you can opt for a free random item. Many of these times actually include items from other Heroes, giving you a chance at some unique build opportunities.

Kripp acquired his Crook as a random Weapon from The Docks event, then later picked up the Flamethrower from Pearl's Dig Site. Since Vanessa already excels with her own Weapons, this made for a very easy pivot into more Medium items.

Crook

Crook is arguably Pyg's most popular Weapon and for a good reason. It unlocks a ton of Damage scaling early on with a very low bar of entry. Having five Medium items is a very simple feat, and there's a plethora of viable options within Vanessa's pool.

Katana is a fantastic common example. Kripp made excellent use of its incredibly fast two second Cooldown, only replacing it towards the end of the run once the Flamethrower was found.

Kripp was able to apply a Deadly enchant to his Crook, giving a flat 50% Crit Chance to the entire board. This helped guarantee Crits, although with a few skills alongside the supporting items, it's still doable without the enchantment.

Flamethrower

Flamethrower is easily one of the best ways to benefit from Damage scaling. It's very commonly sought after when playing Pyg's Crook builds, so having it appear in Pearl's Dig Site made it an absolute no-brainer pickup for this build.

Its Burn rate doubles from Gold to Diamond, so be sure to prioritize your targeted upgrades on Flamethrower if the one you picked up is at Gold tier. Applying a Fiery or Toxic enchant will make its already insane Damage output even crazier.

Double Barrel

Double Barrel is one of Vanessa's most reliable Weapons thanks to its high base Damage, low Cooldown, and Multicast. In most cases it does require reload support to be at its highest potential.

However, with this build the Double Barrel actually takes a back seat since the Flamethrower is by far the strongest threat. This let it play a more aggressive role, focusing on fast burst Damage to close the gap for the Burn to end the game.

Adding Gunpowder can help extend its reach. With a reliable enough Crit Chance, that single extra piece of Ammo can actually deal a significant amount of Damage.

Kripp enchanted the Double Barrel with Turbo, turning it into a fast Haste enabler for his other items. This ideally speeds up the somewhat sluggish Flamethrower, allowing that first stack of Burn to begin ticking ASAP.

Star Chart

Star Chart is placed between the Flamethrower and Double Barrel to give the build the most aggressive start. While it won't be beneficial to the Double Barrel for long, the speed of the build makes it unnecessary to bother using it with Crook.

Kripp's Star Chart had the Heavy enchant which isn't necessary for the build, but it does add a slight means of defense by Slowing enemy items if you drop below half Health.

Swash Buckle

Swash Buckle adds an incredible amount of power with its unique ability to turn Crit Chance into raw Damage. This of course further scales the Burn of the Flamethrower, and allows the build to capitalize on the fact it goes well above 100% Crit.

Any form of Crit scaling during the fight makes this even crazier, and if you happen to land a Shielded or Restorative enchant you can also benefit from the extra Heal/Shield values.

Lifting

Lifting is an excellent out-of-combat means of Damage scaling. By actively purchasing cheaper Weapons (ideally Small ones of the lowest available tier) you can create an excellent buff across your board.

With a strong enough Economy you can even start to buy more expensive items, though it's good to not spend all your savings in case you encounter skill events and/or Pearl's Dig Site.

Foreboding Winds

Foreboding Winds can be a double-edged sword, and is one of the few PvE Encounter skill drops you'll often consider skipping. In this particular build it won't be activating too much as Double Barrel is the only fast item and has limited uses.

However, it does allow for the opponent to potentially stack up even more Crit, meaning Swash Buckle provides even more Damage. It's by no means a priority pick among Crit skills and you'll want to find others, but for this particular aggro build it works quite well.

Improvised Weaponry

Improvised Weaponry is the premium Damage scaling skill for any builds that can reliably Crit. This escalates crazy fast, almost immediately dialling the Flamethrower up to 100.

It's powerful enough that it's even worth grabbing without reliable Crit, under the assumption that you can solve that problem later. The difference is worth going the extra mile to obtain.