Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppThe Bazaar is home to many unique items and strategies. Players scour through various vendors and encounters, each trying to assemble the best build they can. But with so many decisions and possibilities at every turn, it can be tricky to find the right footing.
So how can we get a leg up on the competition? Allow me to give you a run down on some helpful tips for a strong start in The Bazaar!
The Bazaar is a game of numbers. Your goal is to put together the strongest combination of items to create crazy combos with ridiculous values. However, when it comes to the early game, board space and items are limited. With fewer existing combinations, usually the best value is simply the highest value.
Unless you have a specific build in mind, you’re often best choosing whatever item offers the most damage or defense. After all, your starting item begins at Silver tier (Sorry Dooley, Cores start at Bronze.), meaning it’s generally more powerful than anything else you’ll find on Day One. Jaballian Longbow is a prime example of early game power.
Since the starting skill is Gold tier, it can be a very important source of early game power. As for which one you should choose, if you want to stay as open as possible early on, then I highly recommend choosing a “leftmost/rightmost” skill. These offer the highest amount of raw stats.
By choosing a leftmost/rightmost skill, all you need to do is find one item that can benefit from it, and you’ll immediately gain a small power spike on Day One. Depending on the item and skill combination, it can often be enough power to easily handle the first few days.
Starting skills are far more impactful in the initial days when number values are low. So even if your build shifts away from them later, that’s okay. Take advantage of their early game power.
Damage and Shield skills tend to be the safest starters, as they typically offer the largest pool of items so they’re easy to track down. However, Burn and Poison can be exceptionally powerful openers if you’re willing to gamble and dig around a bit to find support.
While I always recommend leftmost/rightmost in terms of flexibility, when it comes to potential power, wide buff skills can also be very effective. These are the skills that offer +X buff to one item type (Weapon/Shield/Burn/Poison/etc.).
Find enough applicable items early on and your power goes through the roof. But if you don’t, you’ll often be lacking value compared to a leftmost/rightmost skill.
The safest bet is generally weapon damage for Vanessa. More items means more value, and she’s got the most consistent selection of small weapons by far. If you manage to pick up a good starting item and it’s followed by the same wide buff skill, it’s a great time to lean into playing that build.
There’s a handful of other skills, each with their own use case. There’s a bunch of size specific buff skills, many of which pale in comparison to their counterparts. However, the two that are worth considering would be “Medium Burn/Poison”. Their values are still high, and many of the best Burn and Poison items are Medium-sized.
Wide scaling buffs that give small values at the beginning of each fight often aren’t worth grabbing. You’ll be swapping around items so frequently that it’s hard to scale enough buffs to matter. That’s not to say there isn’t potential, but in order to see it shine, you’ll need to commit pretty hard to a specific strategy.
Vanessa’s Iron Sharpens Iron is a good example:
Crit Chance skills can offer you a decently high value that does indeed stay relevant later on. The biggest issue is you’re sacrificing early game consistency for an okay later game reward. It’s pretty hard to stack a reliable amount of Crit Chance early, so unless you wanna roll the dice, I’d be cautious with this one.
In a perfect world, you were able to select a great starting item and skill combination. But not every run is going to hand us a silver platter.
On the first day, you’re going to want to put together the strongest four-slot combination you can. Depending on what you started with, the amount of slots you need to fill varies. Prioritize items above all else.
While you may be tempted to choose Income or XP, it’s important to evaluate your board and ensure you’re strong enough first. While it’s nice to add Income on Day One, the more days you lose early on, the harder challenges you’ll face later. So if you’re lacking items, check the shops!
Even if you can’t find what you’re looking for, it’s important to give yourself as many opportunities as you can. While it’s not ideal to waste gold on rerolling shops early, it can be worth it for the right shop. Item pools are quite small early on, so rerolling a specific size or type of item will give you good odds at finding what you’re looking for.
It’s best to reroll specific vendors over generalist vendors, but if you’re struggling to piece anything together then by all means spend the gold. While losing the first PvP encounter isn’t a big deal, getting early wins is a huge help. So try your best to find some early power.
When it comes to skills, you’re best off avoiding them entirely the first day (Sorry Pip). Most Bronze skills just aren’t worth it, and having them at Bronze can actually be a detriment later. If you have a skill at Bronze, you have to continue to upgrade it instead of simply finding it at a higher tier later on. Items come first, skills come later.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re missing items on board, prioritize vendors. If you’re already equipped with a reasonable build, opt for Income or XP. Free items are also great early grabs to help save gold while potentially filling gaps in your build. If you see a free item offered of the size or type that’s desirable for your build, it’s almost always worth grabbing unless the alternative is a high priority vendor.
If you’ve got a strong starting item/skill combination and were able to purchase some good items, keep your eyes open for XP. If you come across and can afford to give Dabora five gold on Day One, or happen to visit two XP events, you can actually reach Level 2 before the first PvP encounter.
Note that Dabora has been removed in the November 20th hotfix, time will tell if she will be put back in as a rework or stay removed.
This will give you a massive advantage in the upcoming fight by increasing your max health and increasing your board space. Even if you don’t have extra available items, you’ve got a reasonable shot at getting one as a level-up reward.
It’s important to pay attention to the hour of the day. You want to be strong enough to take on the top PvE encounter of the day in order to maximize XP and rewards. If your build isn’t strong enough at the start of the day, you should be looking to spend at vendors pre-encounter, in hopes of improving enough to take on the hardest fight.
However, if you’re strong enough already and don’t see any priority vendors, consider saving your gold for after the PvE encounter. This way you’ll have more gold available for the later shops, and another chance at finding the vendors that offer items you actually want.
The path to mastering The Bazaar is learning to understand just how strong you are at a given time. Knowledge is everything. As you practice and continue to get better, you’ll be able to roughly figure out your build’s power relative to other players of the same day.
PvE encounters are a good indicator of a build’s strength. Generally speaking, if you aren’t able to defeat the highest level encounter on a given day, then you’re not strong enough. There are exceptions, as encounters aren’t created equal; especially the ones with legendary drops.. But overall you should be comfortable taking on most enemies.
If you’re unable to take on the top encounter, or worse, you’re losing encounters, then consider yourself behind. This is the time you need to re-evaluate your build and potentially pivot into an entirely new direction.
Sometimes you just lack the item upgrades, while other times you’re missing vital pieces. Either way, you’re probably better off finding some immediate power.
While XP is very important, it can be worth it to take on a “weaker” encounter if they offer items or skills of value to your build. Some of these rewards can be game warping, so take the time to learn what’s offered, or refer to our PvE Encounters guide when you meet an unfamiliar encounter!
Large items can be an excellent gateway into a new build. Since Large items take up so much board space they are usually well defined in their abilities and offer stronger effects. Early on they are likely stronger than many of the Bronze/Silver items you’ve come across, so don’t be afraid to shift gears and try something new.
If you’ve been dominating the early days with a single strong skill/item combo, remember that there’s typically an expiry date. Unless it actually has synergy with your full build, you’re going to have to look for a replacement in the near future. While raw stats are very strong in the early game, without proper synergy they can eventually fall off and be outscaled by better combos.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re stronger than you really are. Instead, be actively on the lookout for items that better suit your build. Your starting skill already did its job if it won you the first few days. :)
Lastly, be sure to continue acquiring XP (or Income) when you can afford to do so. Assuming your build is coming along well and you aren’t skipping valuable vendors, Dabora and The Lost Crate are solid choices. This will help you catch up if behind or help you continue to snowball your advantage.
