Backpack Battles – Reaper Guide to Grandma

Reaper Guide to Grandma

By JaySquared

This guide is a summary of my long reaper grind to grandma. While all of this guide is written with Reaper in mind, most of it applies to Ranger as well, although the priorities may differ.

This guide contains two sections: 

1. General advice per rank and what you should think about at each rank in order to advance to the next one. This advice is universally true and will stay true regardless of class, patch or meta.
2. Summary of the builds I played. This will only be useful for so long, as the balance and meta is rapidly changing.

General Advice for Each Rank

Think of this as a mental checklist whenever you look at your board and need to make decisions about buying, rolling, reserving and positioning. This game places no time restriction on you, so be prepared to spend longer and longer on each round as you progress through the ranks.

Bronze 0 to Platinum 0

Just play and learn the game. The elo adjustments are very generous and you do not need to win most of the time. Just playing will cause your elo to rise.

Do not be afraid to experiment and see what works and what does not. Also look at the enemy boards whenever you lose and see what they are playing. You will quickly get a feeling for the “meta” and what most people are aiming for.

Focus on the important positionings, but make sure you learn all interactions in the game. Most of them make no difference at this point in time, but will become the difference between decent and good players later on.

To summarize: Focus on learning the theoretical aspects of the game, without spending too much time on perfect execution.

Platinum 0 to Diamond 0

This is where the game starts to become interesting and most people run into their first wall. Losses will suddenly start hurting your elo and you find yourself with an increasing amount of “game overs” before getting to win 10.

By this time you should have a pretty clear picture of at least one working late game build that you are working towards. Having more than one build is very helpful and will become a hard requirement later on, but at this point just one build is enough.

Early Game

You will probably have noticed that the reaper early game sucks. Every round 1-4 against a ranger with whetstones feels like an auto loss. That’s because it pretty much is. You should try going for a pan at the very latest by round 2 and get through the first 4-5 rounds by adding on food. Afterwards you start building towards your target build.

Positioning

Just throwing the right items together is not enough anymore. You need to start thinking about the positioning of every item. Have a checklist, sorted by priority in your head. Something like:

1. Do all foods touch the pan?
2. Do all foods touch different foods?
3. Do I have my fanny packs underneath my most important items?
4. Do I have maximized the number of items in the coffin?
5. Can I make an additional slot in a fanny pack or coffin by rearranging anything?

This list will keep growing the longer the game goes and it will pretty quickly become impossible to satisfy all points. It is mandatory that you are aware of which points are more important than others, so you maximize them first and know when you can stop. However, you will be surprised how good you can get at finding perfect positioning for all interactions and synergies. But you must be willing to spend time on each board. 

The higher you want to climb, the more time you must be willing to invest staring at every board in order to find further improvements. If you find you are unable to satisfy even the most important points on your checklist, consider a complete rearranging of all backpacks. Maybe it would help if you rotate your entire build by 90°? There is always a way to make the most important things work.

Potions

Start paying attention to potion(towers). Potions are vital for your success and offer maybe the best form of defense during the early to mid game. They spike in power as soon as you are able to stack 2 on top of each other.

I see so many carelessly arranged potionstacks in screenshots, that would make an insane difference when thought about properly. Be aware of the order you want to trigger them in, as well as which potions may want to be triggered even 3 times!! 

For example, a stoneskin potion will be positioned completely differently depending on if you have an armor that gives you 45 armor at the start or not. With an armor, the stoneskin potion will trigger at the start of the round, so place it underneath a potion you also want to trigger as fast as possible (e.g. a poison potion). If you do not have armor, do you even have a way to reach the 20 armor in order to proc the stoneskin? If not, make sure one stoneskin is positioned on top of another potion, so that it will trigger as collateral. Once this happens to the first stoneskin, all other stoneskins go off immediately as well due to the 30 armor gained. 

Keep this in mind when building huge towers, as the correct ordering is a very complicated topic and changes based on your build priorities (e.g. maximize poison or maximize defense? How much stamina do you need and when?) Also optimally you should always end with only 1 potion at the top, so that as many potions as possible end up triggering another one.

Buy & Sell

Do not buy clutter that does not contribute directly towards your goal. Almost always you only want 2 things: 

• 1) Items that contribute to the core build and 
• 2) Defense

Sales may be occasionally utilized, but do not hesitate to sell them again, once more important items show up! Do you really need the box of gemstones for your build to work? Do you even live long enough for that djinn lamp to trigger? Why do you buy a 4th dagger, when you do not even live 6 seconds? 

Deciding which items you need and which you do not is a skill that only becomes more important the further you climb. But for each item, ask yourself how does it contribute to my build? If the answer is neither 

• a) My build does not work without it (e.g. regen when playing bloodthorne) or 
• b) This helps me to survive the additional hits which I need to kill my opponent first,

Then do NOT buy it. On 98% of the posted screenshots I find items that you would not even notice are missing if I secretly sold them.

Diamond 0 to Master 0

You have a clear understanding of your build(s) and priorities. You may have reached diamond forcing the same build every time, but if you want to climb higher, it is time you start acquiring more tools in your belt. You can always have your preferred build, but you need some way to improvise, or some backup plan in case the shop just does not want to cooperate.

Taking the step to Master is HARD. There are no more easy answers. You need to be willing to invest time and learn a lot.

Common positionings will become second nature (e.g. pan and how to position 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 foods of all different kinds. Or dozens of possible card chains.). The meta will keep changing and you need to keep track of what is strong and what you are expecting to face. You need to be able to evaluate why things are good and why things are bad, in order to make improvised decisions based on the shop.

Early Game

You need to become creative to save every precious life you can. It is greedy to keep your starting dagger, just because you want to play hammer+dagger later on.

Not finding that pan early on? Maybe buckler + on sale thorn can carry you over one round if you already have some other defenses to make the fight long enough? Round 1 or 2 cards? If you have some gold left to gamble and no good alternatives, maybe they are your only shot! On sale whetstone + sword? You probably were not planning on going upgraded sword, but maybe you can make a steel goobert work this round? 

There are no easy answers as to what is good and what is bad. You need to be able to evaluate on your own if diverging from your planned build will give you increased odds of winning that round, while also not sacrificing too much later on.

Positioning

You need a long list of optimizations in your head and be able to utilize them effectively on the board:

Are my stoneskins touching my shields of valor? Are these stoneskins getting triple triggered? Are my fastest items in the coffin? Do I have no wasted slots in my fanny packs? Do I have enough stamina to put a fanny pack under my weapons, or do I need the fanny pack under the banana instead? Do I really need to buy extra space or can I rearrange everything to make my stupid deck of cards work?

Having this long list always in your mind is one thing. Being ready to invest the time every single round to execute 90% of these things simultaneously is just as important, but rarely respected. 

If you spend 60 seconds per round, you are most likely to fast. You will be surprised how much optimization is possible. And you will get better at it, if you invest the time, trust me. Do not forget to prioritize your checklist into must-haves and nice-to-haves, so you know when to pull out extra hours and when to call it a day. (Grandmas never call it a day btw).

Builds & Meta

Just having one build may work on Ranger, but on Reaper you need to be able to strategize and react based on the circumstances. 

Having your go to build is fine and even recommended, as not all builds are equally strong, but you must be ready for the possibility of that build not presenting itself on a silver platter. Spending too much gold rerolling, or buying items out of order because you “will need them later on”, is probably the main reason you lose lives and consequently rating. The more signs you are able to read that signal the possibility of alternative builds, the less likely you find yourself stranded with weak periods during the midgame. It is no longer about sometimes building the perfect build, but about ALWAYS building a decent build. 

I commonly lose round 17/18 vs high risk, high reward builds who simply got lucky and built everything perfectly. I do not care, since I already got all the wins I needed during the midgame.

The decision on which build to start building towards, or maybe even when to abandon your current path for an alternative is never easy. Aspects to consider are:

• Likelihood vs Strength: If you do not find your preferred items, but instead items for some alternative (potentially weaker) build, you must decide on a case by case basis if this weaker build is worth the increased chance of building it. You will only gain a feel for this by playing all builds multiple times to get a sense of their success rate. 
• Unfortunately this strength is not constant and changes as fast as the meta and the builds you are facing against. You need to follow the meta closely and update your internal “power chart” of your possible builds daily. Patches will cause huge disruptions and may require you to learn completely new builds. The more builds you have in your repertoire, the more consistent your results will get.
• Your lives left: If you have many lives left, it may allow you to take higher risks for the big payoff in the end. If you have only one life left, do everything in your power to maximize round by round. Do not worry about your late game at all
• Your current strength: If you had good luck and are above the curve, you may take the risk of buying items out of order, for when you need them later. This will cause your power to drop but you should have strength to spare from previous lucky finds. Do not be greedy and buy items out of order, when you need the strength of usable items NOW.

Buy & Sell

I am repeating myself here from the Plat to Diamond section, but do NOT buy clutter. I see way too many screenshots of random items either bought on sale or kept from early game on peoples boards. Not only are they worth real gold, they also take up very very precious space. Sell everything you do not need!!

Offense Vs Defense

When choosing which items to buy, I always find myself asking what my build needs right now in order to beat other meta boards: Do I need to increase my damage or do I need to live longer? 

You may think that both are important, but depending on the completion of your build, one is typically much more impactful than the other. 

For example Hammer+Poison Dagger: If you already have Hammer + 2 Poison Daggers set up, adding a third dagger may decrease your time to kill from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. However adding your first defensive layer (e.g. 2 healing potions) will increase the time you live by 5 seconds. 

While this may be an extreme example, I very rarely see people take this into consideration. They blindly chase the items to make their builds “better”, but ignore the aspect of maximizing their time to stay alive.

On the topic of which defense to buy: I have found 2 defense potions to be absolutely unbeatable when it comes to early game defensive value. They are ALWAYS a MUST HAVE. Afterwards the choice of defensive options becomes more difficult and meta oriented. It is entirely up to the enemy build, if you should rather buy a 3rd potion or a shield or an armor or a cap. 

Once again you need to have an expectation of the meta and the possible boards you can run into.

During the hammer Dagger Meta last week, bucklers and shields were always #1 priority, but this has changed recently against the burst builds from rangers. Now you either need to combine caps with mana + books to get invincibility in time, or simply stack raw numbers through huge potion towers. My point is that there is no easy answer as to which defense you should buy. Think about the meta and how much time each defense item buys you against the expected builds.

Master 0 to Grandmaster 0

Reaching Master on Reaper is very difficult, you are already an exception. Further climbing from here is very grueling and the rating win vs loss just feels unfair. You. Will. Lose. Oftentimes with no influence on the outcome. It is all about the mindset of changing the very few outcomes you do have control over.

You probably do not need any tips on how to position your items or what build is strong currently. You probably win most of your rounds, but due to the rating system, the occasional unfair loss will erase many wins in one fell swoop.

If I had to guess, there are probably only 4 areas left which you can improve in:

1. Expand your possible builds to 4 or 5, that way you will almost always find items early on that can lead to a (somewhat) successful build. Not all builds are created equal, and you should definitely prioritize some over others, but having not just 1 or 2 on your radar drastically decreases your chances of those pesky round 10 game overs.
2. Improvise. In the early game, you should not give a crap about your lategame plans. You know just as well as I do how Ranger dominated and unforgiving the first 3-4 rounds are. Do everything in your power to save those early lives. Round 1 spear? Buy that! On sale Buckler? Get that! Round 1 deck of cards? Get those lovers turn 1 for an instant win! Every life saved that way will give you so much more breathing room to get your real build online later.
3. Take. Your. Time. You know which items you want next to each other. You know which potions should trigger as fast and as often as possible. You know which items go in a fanny pack. It is just overwhelmingly difficult to always make everything fit. But the possibilities in this game are always astounding. If you are willing to clear that bag and reshuffle all pouches round per round, you will find the missing % that causes you to go from 9-5 to 10-4. It will not be much, but it will give you the edge you need to just slightly notch up your win%. Keep in mind that you are looking for the small improvements left to find. You already know of the big and obvious things, but so does everyone else!
4. Luck: There is no secret recipe. The game has rng, the opponents you face are rng. You will lose. It is all about changing the winrate ever so slightly in your favor, so that the many many wins and losses will in the long run yield a positive net return

Grandmaster 0 to Grandma 0

There is very little I can teach you. At this point you know everything you need to know and it is just a matter of finding miniscule improvements and pushing your boards and consistency to the limit. 

I recommend taking at least 15 seconds for each item in the shop, and just stare at it and think about how buying it would impact your build. Even if you think you know what you are looking for, you will occasionally find solutions to gaps you did not even know you have. 

Grandmasters in chess describe this better than I can, but it seems like the commonly taught rules do not apply to them anymore. For them, the common opening recommendations (e.g. never move the same piece twice) are no longer rules they are trying to follow. Rather, these are just sentences that happen to describe the way they usually play. If they find something better, who cares what the rule is? 

This mindset should in some sense apply when you try to make optimal decisions. You will know exactly WHY these common rules exist and therefore be able to tell when to make exceptions to those rules. 

None of this is easy and I can only implore you to make use of the only resource, which the game provides in abundance: Time. Think about every item in the shop. Think about every item on the board. Think about all of your various pouches. Before clicking play, spend an additional 30 seconds just staring at your board, rerunning that long, long checklist in your head of all possible interactions and synergies.

Take the game slow and apply everything you have learned at every single step. Find ways to squeeze water from rocks. Increase your odds by 0.5% and the effect will become noticeable over time. My final games to reach that final stretch never took less than an hour. 

Good luck!!!

Summary of the Builds I Played

This will only be useful for so long, as the balance and meta is rapidly changing. The entire grind from Bronze to Grandma was achieved on patch 0.5.5 this is neither permanent, nor conclusive advice. i have not tested all builds and many other viable options may exist.

Early Game

• 90% Pan + 4-7 foods. Transition away at rounds 5-7
• 10% Improvisation based on sales (and non pan shops). Spears, bucklers, thorns, cards, whestones, swords, potions… whatever increases my early game odds. These “random” early game items must make sense together. E.g. A buckler is only good if you already have defenses to make the fight long enough that the stamina drain becomes beneficial. A potion is only good if you are already dealing enough dmg and just need to buy that one extra second.

Mid / Late Game

• 35% Cards -> Whip -> Bloodthorn -> Holy Armors (+ sometimes Chonk). If I find the right items in the right order, this is my go-to build. Finding cards early is a good early game power spike, as each lover deals an insane amount of damage (and heals) for the early game. The important part in this build is the order. Every single item listed is useless, without first getting all of the items listed before. Do not greed out of order, as it will cost you lives!
• 30% Hammer + Poison Dagger(s). Hard to transition into, because it only becomes useful once the first dagger is poisoned and you have a hammer available. This requires the pan to stay past its strongest round. If you find the 3 required parts (Hammer/Dagger/Poison) early enough, put them in and immediately focus on defense. Potions, Potions, Potions. Once you have the 2nd dagger, crystals in armors become #1. The 3rd. poison Dagger is overrated as defense is just more important,
• 20% Pandemonium. The easiest transition out of the pan starts, but also the weakest during the late game. Sometimes I consider just taking the 10 wins and cutting my losses with this build. Late Game variations often include a scythe, a poisoned dagger, struggles. Building the right defenses at the right time are very very important, as the poison needs time to tick up.
• 10% Poison bomb. Finding early, multiple poison flasks take me down this path. As soon as you find a scythe the build is online. There used to be a meta where people actively avoided healing to counter poison bomb, but that time has passed.

5% Staff of Unhealing. If the early game sometimes forces me into brooms against my will, I often default to the last resort of upgrading them all the way to staff of unhealings. I have no real core for this build, as it is my least played build, but if I make it through the awkward early/mid game, the staff of unhealing usually takes me through wave 18