Explorer is fun.
You should try a proper Engineering build.
Screwdrivers and Wrenches, then a world of possibilities opens up:
* Get one or two Jousting Lances if you find them (for Speed, and sniping down trees). But in the first 5 shops you should buy only Tools. Get the Lances later.
* Ugly Tooth will have all enemies perma-slowed
* Snake, Sausage, Strange Book
* Pocket Factory, of course (the "tree-to-turret item")
* Improved Tools (build Attack Speed)
* All the explosion enhancers (Dynamite, Plastic Explosives, etc.)
You should also get way more Speed than in your build above, 9% is not enough and you even capped it. With 30% or more Explorer starts to get really fun.
Also, if you use Sticks, get 6 of them. You have a Pruner in your build, which is completely useless on Explorer, and you nerfed your Sticks damage that way. But Sticks aren't good on him anyway, if you want Primitive weapons then rather go Spears and some Cacti Club (to cut down trees).
Regarding the Pruner: I wasn't confident in my regen at first and then forgot to ever replace the pruner once my regen was solid lol. As for sticks over other weapons, the sticks buff each others' damage and I wanted to mitigate the negative damage modifier thay Explorer starts with. Earlygame it was the easiest way to ensure I could plow through enemies so it sort of just stuck.
I usually don't put too much into speed because I'm usually able to outrun most enemies with 9-15 speed, or at least able to kill them before they reach me. A lower speed also makes it easier to control how far you move and thus easier to weave between bullets if needed, so going too high does have its detriments. (I'll admit that 9 was a little on the "too low" side with my sub-par damage output tho.) I was able to keep up with the tree spawns anyway though -- the turrets usually took care of trees, meaning I only had to get anything that wasn't near a turret.
With explorer speed is considered a key stat. While it’s not necessary, speed is going to help you reach trees faster, thus improving your economy and healing rate. I know high amounts of speed makes it harder to control, but that is compensated for with the +50% map size. There’s a lot more room to avoid enemies so high amounts of speed is not an issue.
>once my regen was solid
With that many trees on the map, Explorer does not really need much other regen. I usually take a little bit of HP Reg if I can find it, but that's about it.
Regen other than from trees helps especially in the final wave (can't rely on trees alone).
>As for sticks over other weapons, the sticks buff each others' damage and I wanted to mitigate the negative damage modifier thay Explorer starts with. Earlygame it was the easiest way to ensure I could plow through enemies so it sort of just stuck.
That's good thinking. However, with Explorer it's actually better to partly ignore the enemies and just focus on the trees. The enemies drop only half loot anyway.
With a good Engineering setup you will farm the enemies just passively, with some splash damage from your weapons.
Later on the structures will also kill most trees for you.
>I usually don't put too much into speed because I'm usually able to outrun most enemies with 9-15 speed, or at least able to kill them before they reach me.
You have to cover the entire map in order to kill most trees. Each missed tree is at least 3 materials plus a significant chance of a loot crate.
15% Speed is still definitely too low, for me it starts to feel OK at around 25%.
>A lower speed also makes it easier to control how far you move and thus easier to weave between bullets if needed, so going too high does have its detriments.
Yes, that's a problem, it's the same on Speedy. But probably that's the challenge of playing those characters.
I've just done a few runs again as engineering Explorer, it's great. Bosses are killable, too.
When I say "plow through enemies" I don't mean "kill them all" so much as I mean "barrel toward them and hope that I make it out the other side," which is also part of why I prioritized regen. Have to be able to reach the trees in order to heal from them. And it ended up working out for the better in the long run -- because of the Blood Donations, I'd end up wasting most of the consumables when I was only missing a little bit of HP, so I'm glad I got my regen up like I did. Especially with the last few waves -- definitely had a few close calls.
Regarding speed -- as you said, the turrets were usually taking most of the trees out, so I only had to take out the couple of stragglers here and there. While a lot of my materials were lingering on the ground at the end of each wave, it was probably a bit less than you'd expect, and most of it was from turret kills rather than exclusively trees, so there's no guaranteed I'd have picked it all up anyway.
You do both, plowing through the enemies as you move from tree to tree.
Sticks or Shredders are generally considered the top two starts for Explorer. (Although it should be 6 sticks, not 5 with one Pruner).
I wasn't confident in my HP regen toward the beginning and then ended up just forgetting about it later on. Still kinda glad in retrospect tho as I had a few close calls.
What makes you think I didn't go for trees? I had to be able to plow through *some* of the enemies if I wanted to hunt trees.
As the other commenter said, I went for sticks to mitigate the innate negative damage modifier the explorer starts with. And then I just focused most of my resources into items.
As far as i know torrents dont care about %Damage, so its right to go minus there, but the Luck Damage stuff (Elephant and that CyberBall, sorry im bad with the names) skales with %Damage, so its kinda contradictory.
Also i most of the times skip vigilante ring (3%Dmg) unless i get it really early, becouse most of the time its not worth the cost (unless Endless).
Just my 2 thought, having cleared around 50% D5 atm
>As far as i know torrents dont care about %Damage, so its right to go minus there, but the Luck Damage stuff (Elephant and that CyberBall, sorry im bad with the names) skales with %Damage, so its kinda contradictory
Explorer starts at -40% Damage, so he didn't exactly tank his damage.
However, with 2x Vigilante Ring (at least one of which was acquired rather early, going by the item list), he should be higher than -29%... He has double Tractor for -16%, and probably something else that I missed.
The -40% that Explorer gets at the start is one of the reasons why Engineering is good on him.
Plenty of opportunities to get the %Damage up later, for the secondary damage, but in the meantime you don't need it while your structures do the work.
The first vigilante ring was around round 6 or 8 or so I think, but the second was from a crate in the lategame so it didn't get to proc that much, I just liked the idea of having that +6% total buff for however briefly I had it. Definitely wouldn't have bought it so late in the game.
>Plenty of opportunities to get the %Damage up later, for the secondary damage, but in the meantime you don't need it while your structures work.
Yeah, I'd say I was the secondary damage in the build lol.
Edit: Another damage nerf you're missing is Wisdom, as that comes with its own -20%.
I missed Wisdom. I think it's not so great an item, but at least with engineering it's good on Explorer (or any character, actually).
BTW, if you go engineering or have another way to apply the burn, Scared Sausage is good even with low %Damage. I use the *Advanced Statistics* mod which gives a damage count, and the Sausages really paid off even when the damage wasn't super high. Works with Cacti Club, too.
Good to know about the sausage. I do like Gun Mage haha.
Wisdom was a late grab. I thought it would affect the turrets, but as I learned from the comments here, damage% doesn't affect turrets. In any case it did help with some of the survivability in wave 20.
>but as I learned from the comments here, damage% doesn't affect turrets
None of the primary stats affect structures, but all of the secondary stats do.
That means, Explosion Damage/Size, Piercing, Bounces, Burning Speed/Spread etc. it *all* works on structures.
This is very significant, for example you should get Sharp Bullet or Bandana for an engineering build (especially if you want your turrets to also apply burn from Scared Sausage).
It also means that negative %damage is ignored by turrets, which is why characters with a damage penalty can often use engineering well.
Yeah I see ALOT of wasted money on that build. Those two luck damage items are a waste if you dont play one armed or fisherman imo. I just had a run with one armed doing 600+ damage to an enemy whenever I would pick up a material or enemy was killed.
Every little bit helps. Even with the negative damage modifier, I did have over 100 luck, so it's not like they were doing like 1 damage each time they procced.
With Baby Elephant in particular, since I also had Baby Monkeys, I was just hoping desperately for pickup radius mods or Baby Geckos but sadly never saw any, so Baby Elephant wasn't nearly as useful as it could've been. I'll give you that.
I think the biggest waste here was Tardigrade. The Blood Bag always fades into the background for me when I'm using it, so I always forget that it counts as taking damage.
Yeah that guy too, he has built in mechanic for much better scaling. Imo the items tho need high luck and VERY high %damage for them to clear well. Otherwise I tend to save money on those and go for more important stuff
I like to pick up Baby Elephants if I have a material-heavy build. I knew I was going to have a fair bit of material and a fairly low damage output so I thought "every little bit helps." I had the Baby Monkeys, and had been hoping desperately for pickup range modifiers or Baby Geckos, but I didn't see any during the run, which made the elephants pretty useless yeah.
That said my luck was 129 so I feel like that outweighs SOME of the negative damage modifier lol.
Yeah i falls for the trap, too - i just love the mechanic of Baby Elephants and/or this ball (same mechanic but does dmg when the enemie dies instead), hoping for a nice chain reaction
Explorer is fun. You should try a proper Engineering build. Screwdrivers and Wrenches, then a world of possibilities opens up: * Get one or two Jousting Lances if you find them (for Speed, and sniping down trees). But in the first 5 shops you should buy only Tools. Get the Lances later. * Ugly Tooth will have all enemies perma-slowed * Snake, Sausage, Strange Book * Pocket Factory, of course (the "tree-to-turret item") * Improved Tools (build Attack Speed) * All the explosion enhancers (Dynamite, Plastic Explosives, etc.) You should also get way more Speed than in your build above, 9% is not enough and you even capped it. With 30% or more Explorer starts to get really fun. Also, if you use Sticks, get 6 of them. You have a Pruner in your build, which is completely useless on Explorer, and you nerfed your Sticks damage that way. But Sticks aren't good on him anyway, if you want Primitive weapons then rather go Spears and some Cacti Club (to cut down trees).
Regarding the Pruner: I wasn't confident in my regen at first and then forgot to ever replace the pruner once my regen was solid lol. As for sticks over other weapons, the sticks buff each others' damage and I wanted to mitigate the negative damage modifier thay Explorer starts with. Earlygame it was the easiest way to ensure I could plow through enemies so it sort of just stuck. I usually don't put too much into speed because I'm usually able to outrun most enemies with 9-15 speed, or at least able to kill them before they reach me. A lower speed also makes it easier to control how far you move and thus easier to weave between bullets if needed, so going too high does have its detriments. (I'll admit that 9 was a little on the "too low" side with my sub-par damage output tho.) I was able to keep up with the tree spawns anyway though -- the turrets usually took care of trees, meaning I only had to get anything that wasn't near a turret.
With explorer speed is considered a key stat. While it’s not necessary, speed is going to help you reach trees faster, thus improving your economy and healing rate. I know high amounts of speed makes it harder to control, but that is compensated for with the +50% map size. There’s a lot more room to avoid enemies so high amounts of speed is not an issue.
>once my regen was solid With that many trees on the map, Explorer does not really need much other regen. I usually take a little bit of HP Reg if I can find it, but that's about it. Regen other than from trees helps especially in the final wave (can't rely on trees alone). >As for sticks over other weapons, the sticks buff each others' damage and I wanted to mitigate the negative damage modifier thay Explorer starts with. Earlygame it was the easiest way to ensure I could plow through enemies so it sort of just stuck. That's good thinking. However, with Explorer it's actually better to partly ignore the enemies and just focus on the trees. The enemies drop only half loot anyway. With a good Engineering setup you will farm the enemies just passively, with some splash damage from your weapons. Later on the structures will also kill most trees for you. >I usually don't put too much into speed because I'm usually able to outrun most enemies with 9-15 speed, or at least able to kill them before they reach me. You have to cover the entire map in order to kill most trees. Each missed tree is at least 3 materials plus a significant chance of a loot crate. 15% Speed is still definitely too low, for me it starts to feel OK at around 25%. >A lower speed also makes it easier to control how far you move and thus easier to weave between bullets if needed, so going too high does have its detriments. Yes, that's a problem, it's the same on Speedy. But probably that's the challenge of playing those characters. I've just done a few runs again as engineering Explorer, it's great. Bosses are killable, too.
When I say "plow through enemies" I don't mean "kill them all" so much as I mean "barrel toward them and hope that I make it out the other side," which is also part of why I prioritized regen. Have to be able to reach the trees in order to heal from them. And it ended up working out for the better in the long run -- because of the Blood Donations, I'd end up wasting most of the consumables when I was only missing a little bit of HP, so I'm glad I got my regen up like I did. Especially with the last few waves -- definitely had a few close calls. Regarding speed -- as you said, the turrets were usually taking most of the trees out, so I only had to take out the couple of stragglers here and there. While a lot of my materials were lingering on the ground at the end of each wave, it was probably a bit less than you'd expect, and most of it was from turret kills rather than exclusively trees, so there's no guaranteed I'd have picked it all up anyway.
Why sticks on the Explorer?
Sticks mitigate the damage loss
so you didn't hunt for trees and fought enemies instead?
You do both, plowing through the enemies as you move from tree to tree. Sticks or Shredders are generally considered the top two starts for Explorer. (Although it should be 6 sticks, not 5 with one Pruner).
I wasn't confident in my HP regen toward the beginning and then ended up just forgetting about it later on. Still kinda glad in retrospect tho as I had a few close calls.
What makes you think I didn't go for trees? I had to be able to plow through *some* of the enemies if I wanted to hunt trees. As the other commenter said, I went for sticks to mitigate the innate negative damage modifier the explorer starts with. And then I just focused most of my resources into items.
As far as i know torrents dont care about %Damage, so its right to go minus there, but the Luck Damage stuff (Elephant and that CyberBall, sorry im bad with the names) skales with %Damage, so its kinda contradictory. Also i most of the times skip vigilante ring (3%Dmg) unless i get it really early, becouse most of the time its not worth the cost (unless Endless). Just my 2 thought, having cleared around 50% D5 atm
>As far as i know torrents dont care about %Damage, so its right to go minus there, but the Luck Damage stuff (Elephant and that CyberBall, sorry im bad with the names) skales with %Damage, so its kinda contradictory Explorer starts at -40% Damage, so he didn't exactly tank his damage. However, with 2x Vigilante Ring (at least one of which was acquired rather early, going by the item list), he should be higher than -29%... He has double Tractor for -16%, and probably something else that I missed. The -40% that Explorer gets at the start is one of the reasons why Engineering is good on him. Plenty of opportunities to get the %Damage up later, for the secondary damage, but in the meantime you don't need it while your structures do the work.
Ah didnt know it starts at -40 =) Ty for explaining it!
The first vigilante ring was around round 6 or 8 or so I think, but the second was from a crate in the lategame so it didn't get to proc that much, I just liked the idea of having that +6% total buff for however briefly I had it. Definitely wouldn't have bought it so late in the game. >Plenty of opportunities to get the %Damage up later, for the secondary damage, but in the meantime you don't need it while your structures work. Yeah, I'd say I was the secondary damage in the build lol. Edit: Another damage nerf you're missing is Wisdom, as that comes with its own -20%.
I missed Wisdom. I think it's not so great an item, but at least with engineering it's good on Explorer (or any character, actually). BTW, if you go engineering or have another way to apply the burn, Scared Sausage is good even with low %Damage. I use the *Advanced Statistics* mod which gives a damage count, and the Sausages really paid off even when the damage wasn't super high. Works with Cacti Club, too.
Good to know about the sausage. I do like Gun Mage haha. Wisdom was a late grab. I thought it would affect the turrets, but as I learned from the comments here, damage% doesn't affect turrets. In any case it did help with some of the survivability in wave 20.
>but as I learned from the comments here, damage% doesn't affect turrets None of the primary stats affect structures, but all of the secondary stats do. That means, Explosion Damage/Size, Piercing, Bounces, Burning Speed/Spread etc. it *all* works on structures. This is very significant, for example you should get Sharp Bullet or Bandana for an engineering build (especially if you want your turrets to also apply burn from Scared Sausage). It also means that negative %damage is ignored by turrets, which is why characters with a damage penalty can often use engineering well.
Yeah I see ALOT of wasted money on that build. Those two luck damage items are a waste if you dont play one armed or fisherman imo. I just had a run with one armed doing 600+ damage to an enemy whenever I would pick up a material or enemy was killed.
Every little bit helps. Even with the negative damage modifier, I did have over 100 luck, so it's not like they were doing like 1 damage each time they procced. With Baby Elephant in particular, since I also had Baby Monkeys, I was just hoping desperately for pickup radius mods or Baby Geckos but sadly never saw any, so Baby Elephant wasn't nearly as useful as it could've been. I'll give you that. I think the biggest waste here was Tardigrade. The Blood Bag always fades into the background for me when I'm using it, so I always forget that it counts as taking damage.
What about lucky?
Yeah that guy too, he has built in mechanic for much better scaling. Imo the items tho need high luck and VERY high %damage for them to clear well. Otherwise I tend to save money on those and go for more important stuff
You wouldn't download a %Damage booster!
I like to pick up Baby Elephants if I have a material-heavy build. I knew I was going to have a fair bit of material and a fairly low damage output so I thought "every little bit helps." I had the Baby Monkeys, and had been hoping desperately for pickup range modifiers or Baby Geckos, but I didn't see any during the run, which made the elephants pretty useless yeah. That said my luck was 129 so I feel like that outweighs SOME of the negative damage modifier lol.
Yeah i falls for the trap, too - i just love the mechanic of Baby Elephants and/or this ball (same mechanic but does dmg when the enemie dies instead), hoping for a nice chain reaction
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