Vanessa Guide

Learn how to play Vanessa in The Bazaar with this in-depth hero build and strategy guide!

The Basics

After being stripped of her Poison build in the previous patch, Vanessa has become a pretty one-dimensional character focused on Weapon Damage (Shield items aren't really her style).

Whether it's a flurry of weapons being buffed by a skill or one mega weapon supported by other items, Vanessa always circles back to a Weapon Damage based plan. In order to decide which of those options to pick for your run, the items and skills you find early will have a big impact. Yet, it can often be the ones you don't encounter that have the most impact.

This is the most important skill at the moment, which you can get from the Day 2 Monster Tent City Mayor. If you're able to grab this skill, all you have to do is find as many fast or Multicast weapons as you can and buff them as much as possible.

Figurehead could be regarded as a poor man's Augmented Weaponry, but it takes space on your board and needs to be upgraded to really impact your run.

Crow's Nest is a great item in the current meta because Lifesteal is one of the few ways Vanessa can fight against a Poison or Burn Dooley build without simply outpacing their damage. You'll typically want to pair Crow's Nest with Silencer to maximize the power of your unique weapon. Sextant and Star Chart are also great support pieces.

If the single weapon route didn't work out, you can put your trust in Trebuchet. All you need to do is make it fast enough to become a reliable source of damage. The biggest upside this weapon has is its ability to charge off of Weapons and Haste items. This gives you lots of options to surround it with.

Still haven't found any of these three? You can still try to find a powerful enough weapon and just give it your best shot. Try to find weapons like Flagship or Sniper Rifle that you can boost by other means.

Now that we've covered the various options in Vanessa's toolkit, let's take a look at how to pilot a run to 10 wins!

Early Stages

Most of the important items you want to build your run around are large items, so you won't see them immediately. As such, your primary focus should be building enough power to be able to take on Tent City Mayor on Day 2. Finding Augmented Weaponry is your quickest path to 10 wins.

On the following days, Tempest Flamedancer and Bloodreef Raider are essential to beat because they can drop Fiery Cutlass and Crow's Nest. These are not elites, so you should be able to beat either of them by the time they show up.

In addition to these specific targets, the large items you are looking to purchase and upgrade throughout the run will cost quite a bit of gold. As such, quickly being able to farm Monsters—especially elites—will represent a surefire way to gain gold every day.

The Ammo items are typically your best bet to increase your early power (unless you want to try buffing a Cutlass, Rifle, or Katana quickly enough to build your run around it). Fortunately, the best options in both categories are Medium items, so you'll want to focus on those merchants in particular.

With that said, you will need to buff either the damage or the Max Ammo of your early items in order to carry you to the next stage. If you happen to come across an item or a skill that can support either direction, it might be worth the investment for your future build.

Finally, although skills can play a significant role in elevating the power of your build, you typically won't have enough gold to do everything at this stage of your run. I prefer focusing on the items now and spending on skills later. However, this isn't a hard rule, and grabbing a skill is better than nothing before you head into that important Day 2, 3, and 4 window—especially if you are unsure of your power level.

These two in particular are great pickups early in a run.

Racking Up PvP Wins

The second part of your run is actually easier to navigate with Vanessa than the other heroes because you really only have two possibilities to pick from: Improve your damage or improve your resilience.

Improving your damage will mostly come in the form of level up bonuses and upgrading your items with gold. Level up bonuses will usually give you Sharpening Stones to add damage to your weapons. Cooldown reduction is also great if you can get your hands on it, and Critical Chance from an Eagle Talisman is fine if you didn't get a Crow's Nest. You won't get a huge bonus each time, but they can add up to make a big difference if you stack them all on the same weapon.

Upgrading items is often the best way to increase the power of Weapon Damage builds, particularly when it comes to the key support items like Crow's Nest and Silencer. In fact, upgrading is pretty much the only way to improve their contribution to your build, so you want to target them with your level up bonuses more than your weapons since you can upgrade those through other means.

The other option you have to upgrade your items is spending gold at merchants in the hopes that you'll find a duplicate. This creates a battle between gold and experience in the PvP focused phase. Personally, I let my skills fight that battle for me so I don't have to make any tough decisions. If I have Augmented Weaponry or Iron Sharpens Iron, I will prioritize encounters that build those skills. After all, I still have elite monsters to fight if I need a good chunk of experience. If the only thing I would get from a merchant is the possibility of an upgrade, I'll take the experience gain instead (if it's available).

Moving on to improving your resilience, this is often the difference between a run petering out around 7 wins and a run that goes the distance. Disrupting your opponent isn't usually that important because your goal is to be the heaviest hitter (or have enough Lifesteal to give you the edge against other damage based builds). Don't get me wrong, if you can use a Freeze skill then take it by all means. However, because Vanessa typically relies on one super-buffed weapon or a Trebuchet, you can't allow it to get Frozen or Slowed because your damage will simply stop.

Finding the magic enchantment will solve that problem and send you on your way to a gold win. Otherwise, you can try to complete a single-weapon build with ways to annoy your opponent. Items like Dock Lines, Iceberg, and Tripwire can give you more time to overpower your opponent in case you get impaired early on.

Closing Words

At the moment, Vanessa rewards your ability to optimize a build more than being a flexible pilot since there aren't many builds you can shoot for. Mastering Vanessa will mostly come down to understanding how the character uses Weapon Damage to cut through the opposition. In a way, you start your build the moment you pick Vanessa, not when the game asks you to pick a starting item.

This lack of flexibility might not sound appealing, but it means that Vanessa is often an easier character to learn than Dooley or Pygmalien (at least when it comes to the amount of game knowledge you need). Indeed, you won't be tempted by Poison, Shield, or Burn items with Vanessa, and the game probably won't give you enough of them to make a build work anyway.

I hope this guide was helpful, and I wish you luck in The Bazaar! If you have any questions or if you're looking for coaching, feel free to reach out on Discord @den_ccg.

Good Game Everyone.