The Turbo Shell Engine
In order to effectively make a slower strategy work, it helps to have a good line of defenses.
Turtle Shell and
Pearl have become Vanessa's greatest sources of Shield, allowing her to tank just about any hit with enough time.
Looking over the build, one thing is probably quite apparent. There are three
Pearls. What happened to the one item limit?
Well, while you can't purchase a second copy of an item, you can occasionally acquire them through other means. Most of the time this is exceedingly rare, but when it comes to Small Aquatic items specifically, it's actually quite common.
Fishing Rod is a key part of this build's strategy, allowing you to have a chance to find and stack multiple
Pearls. This is incredibly strong as the
Pearls will all Charge each other, creating infinite loops of Shield, along with any other "on-use" skill/item/enchant effects.
A Silver tier
Fishing Rod is recommended at the minimum, as the items will not combine to upgrade upon finding more. Though if you're given the chance to upgrade it to Gold/Diamond, finding multiple higher tier
Pearls is a huge boost in power.
Turtle Shell
Turtle Shell provides all the defensive scaling this build needs to outlast just about anything in a Sandstorm. It's even more insane alongside all the additional
Pearls.
It's definitely the number one priority when it comes to upgrading your items. Be sure to take every vendor opportunity in order to find it as early as possible. Acquiring it too late means you'll miss the chance to upgrade it via level-up rewards, making it far more challenging to get it to Diamond.
Pearl
Assuming items are compared at the same tier,
Pearl is the fastest activator in this build. This makes it the ideal target for enchants like Turbo/Heavy/Icy, as it will be able to spam their use repeatedly.
Restorative also works great alongside
Turtle Shell as a Poison counter. Since the Healing property scales to the Shield, it will grow at the same rate, further bolstering your defenses.
If you acquire any skills like
Lefty Loosey or
Righty Tighty, be sure to position
Pearl accordingly in order to best take advantage of their effect.
Kripp happened to have a Fiery enchant on one of the
Pearls, but it's by no means necessary for the build to work.
The Boulder
Since the patch, The Boulder has become more accessible by dropping from its Diamond exclusivity down to Gold. This gives players more opportunities to pivot or plan it into their builds, as it'll start appearing in vendors much earlier.
At face value The Boulder is a pretty crazy item. I mean, it can literally one-shot the enemy. However, don't forget that "Max Health" doesn't factor in Shield... so with only one Ammo, a little more work may be required.
Scaling its Ammo via
Gunpowder or finding a way to refill it is one means, but given its long Cooldown, the best way to capitalize on The Boulder is by ensuring it can Crit. Doing so will mean The Boulder can hit for 2x the opponent's Max Health, which should often be enough to close out the game.
If you want to take it a step further, stacking up extra skills can make a huge difference. Although worst case scenario, you still have the Turbo Shell stalling backup plan.
The Boulder
Gold/Diamond, Large, Weapon
- Cooldown: 20/16 seconds
- Max Ammo: 1
- Deal Damage equal to your enemy's Max Health.