Kripp's Figurehead Pufferfish Vanessa Build

Enabling the Aquatic Loop

Patch 0.1.5 has made a big impact with its overall nerf to many popular skills. Many builds relied on skills as their reliable form of Haste triggers. Skills like Lefty Loosey were often enough on their own to enable items that care about "When you Haste".

Now these skills have hard limits, preventing them from being a limitless source of speed and scaling. This puts a much greater emphasis on Haste items and also makes the Turbo enchant even more premium than before.

All of this combined with the nerf to Charge means Pufferfish needs a little more help to find its footing. However, while Charge and Haste have been toned down, there's still another angle you can take to make the build come together... Cooldown reduction!

Figurehead

Figurehead has never been that popular in Aquatic builds but is now finding itself to be an important pillar. Applying a flat 30% Cooldown reduction to all your items at Diamond is a massive improvement. Combine this with some Feathers and/or Insect Wings and you'll be wondering whether your items were even nerfed at all.

Unfortunately the item tier matters a lot as it's a significantly lower Cooldown reduction at Silver/Gold. Ideally you are able to pick this up early enough so that it can reach Diamond through your free level 13 upgrade. In the meantime, Beach Ball is a great alternative.

Pufferfish

Pufferfish upgrades don't matter as much anymore now that it will always Charge at a two second rate. However, it's still important to scale its Poison. Skills will be the more reliable source, but be sure to take advantage of other ways that show up during your run.

Pufferfish is an incredible enchant target and is most likely the priority choice once you reach level 10. The Toxic enchant will double its Poison which drastically speeds up your clock. Other strong options would be Heavy/Icy for disruption, or Turbo to accelerate your entire board and make Pufferfish Charge like crazy.

Turtle Shell

Turtle Shell is a valuable form of defense. With enough time to scale you can often become untouchable, and with Figurehead it can still run at a pretty effective speed. This is a critical piece of the build to improve survivability, so be sure to prioritize the right vendors in order to find it. Barrel is a decent placeholder in the meantime.

Kripp had a Fiery enchant on his Turtle Shell which had little to no impact on the build.

Jellyfish

Jellyfish is a very important Haste enabler for Pufferfish builds. While it's always been great in the early game, it often found itself being replaced when better skills were acquired.

Placed between fast Charging items allows it to trigger multiple times, creating a very consistent source of Haste to fuel Pufferfish. Its tier actually doesn't matter at all, as it's only used for its passive Haste effect.

Kripp used a Fishing Rod to get more. While it is random, the pool of Small Aquatic items isn't that big, making it pretty likely to acquire a second one after enough rounds.

Pearl

Pearl fits perfectly as another fast Charging Aquatic item, and more importantly the ideal partner for Turtle Shell. Paired together gives you access to two "low Cooldown" Shield items and really bolsters the build's defenses.

Turtle Shell alone isn't really enough, so unless you have a Shielded enchant on another item, Pearl is a pretty necessary inclusion. Plus with its fast rate of Charging, it's the next best ideal target for enchants after Pufferfish.

Seaweed

Seaweed helps patch up the mirror. As strong as the build is at Shielding, it can lack the ability to hold off Poison. Figurehead helps lower its subpar six second Cooldown, making it feel much more reliable than normal.

If you happen to get a Restorative enchant on your Turtle Shell or Pearl, you can probably drop the Seaweed to free up another slot. Without a second Jellyfish, a Beach Ball would be a good fit and give the build more reliable Haste.

Venomous Vitality

Venomous Vitality is a rare Diamond skill but is incredibly powerful in the right build. The Toxic Pufferfish's rate of Poison is crazy fast, making this skill actually create a worthwhile amount of Regeneration.

Regeneration isn't usually the impactful in the late game, often because it can't reach that large of an amount (or requires too much to be worth it). Venomous Vitality makes it free and gives a massive advantage against other Poison builds.

Exposing Toxins

Exposing Toxins is a great form of Crit scaling for Pufferfish builds. With how fast Pufferfish Charges, it doesn't take long to get all your items up to 100% (and beyond).

There's no doubt that Building Crescendo is still the premium choice over any other Crit skill, but if you didn't come across it and Exposing Toxins is offered, it's definitely worth picking up.

Rigged

Rigged is pretty rare since it's a Monster skill dropped from the Eccentric Etherwright PvE Encounter, but having it really kickstarts this build into gear. Having the immediate Haste at the start of each fight both accelerates your items and Charges them.

Aquatic builds need time to scale, so having a guaranteed lead against the opponent is a huge benefit that can't be understated. Pair this with any Freeze or Slow skills and you'll be miles ahead while they're struggling just to get started.

Potent Poison Scaling

Sextant is a unique alternative supporting item for Pufferfish builds. It's a great form of repeatable Haste triggers so long as you can reliably Crit, but what really justifies its inclusion is the Improvised Poison skill.

This skill is ridiculously powerful to the point where you really don't need any other form of Poison scaling. You could make due with a Bronze Pufferfish because with a high enough Crit Chance it'll reach astronomical levels of Poison.

Dock Lines

Dock Lines is a great form of speed control. Its one of the faster and more reliable Slowing items that can really disrupt the opponent. This helps buy extra time for the Poison to take effect and reduces the chance of being bursted down before Turtle Shell scales to a stronger rate of Shield.

Kripp got a lucky Turbo enchant on his Dock Lines, making it have extra synergy with Pufferfish. It's not mandatory but a welcome inclusion when available.

Inexorable

Inexorable is an excellent form of Crit scaling that continues to grow throughout the run. However, it's ideally acquired as early as possible in order to get the most out of it.

If you happen to get Inexorable, be sure to take every opportunity for extra fights. Mountain Pass can give you a chance at building more Crit Chance, and other various events can do the same. This can go a long way to making it worthwhile compared to just the standard two fights per day (PvE and PvP).

Toxic Pearl

Having a Toxic enchanted Pearl can fulfill a similar role as Pufferfish without having to lean into Haste support. Overall the most important part is having low Cooldown Aquatic items to keep it running as fast as possible.

Since the Poison is based on its Shield, Turtle Shell gives the build natural scaling throughout the fight without needing additional items or skills. This build offers more flexibility with its supporting items, meaning it can prioritize more defensive and/or utility options.

It's worth noting that Sea Shell would be easily replaced by a second Pearl if available, as this would allow the Charge spamming to chain together even faster.

Clamera + Dive Weights

Clamera gives the Pearl an immediate kickstart which helps start the scaling ASAP. This is especially important during the later parts of the game when builds are ultimately stronger, and sometimes lack the time to scale.

Dive Weights has the potential to proc Pearl a ridiculous amount of times, if you're able to improve its Ammo capacity. This does take a bit of work to achieve, but it really amplifies its ability to get off the ground.

Gunner

Gunner is an easy way to increase Ammo on Dive Weights, but you should also look for Gunpowder to further extend its limit. Once you get access to Gold/Diamond loot it becomes a lot easier to reach greater numbers.