Backpack Brawl – In-Depth Sage Guide

Comprehensive Guide for Sage

By Potato.

Overall

Her Unique Trait and Backpack:

• Poison Blood and Revenge.
• Moonlit assassins refers to fast-paced execution.
• Crossbow/Arbalest for long ranged, burst dmg and debuff with adaptive tactical by various bolts.
• Kunai and Katana for melee-revenge attack.
• Shadow Satchel (Dark Green) for extra bolts or Mana generator when inflict debuff.
• Radiance Satchel (Light Green) for bolt generator which can sell for extra Gold.

Style:

• Fast Burst dmg to low-defense enemy.
• Revengeful attack (anti-multi hit).
• Inflict Poison, Bleed to top up dmg.
• Main weapons critical hit.

What You Can Expect from Her:

• Assassin liked gameplay.
• Fast fight.
• Punish who recklessly spam weapons and daggers.

Matchup

Advantage to Burst, Tempo Burst, many weapons playstyle and low-defense build

• Chana
• Nymphedora
• Tink

Disadvantage to Durable-Sustain playstyle and Pet-Based build

• Ronan
• Harkon
• Buzz

Counterplay to Sage:

• Build Thorns to counter Katana.
• Stamina Drain to cut some hits and hold sometime as her naturally not food-based build.
• Have some blocking dmg like Heater shield etc.
• Heavy Blind as she doesn’t build many cleansing nor doesn’t build very high Luck.

Gameplay Progression

What to Accept:

• Early game progression isn’t stable. Rely on good item and iron bolt spawn rng.
• Disadvantage to durable build especially Ronan.
• Block Damage from shield affect her overall perfomance hard.
• Missing attack is unacceptable: need decent item upgrades until get all + accuracy node.

How to Play:

• Always put Bolt in Shadow Satchel
• Always fill crossbow Star with Bolt to full especially early stages
  • Hand Crossbow = 2 Bolts
  • Ironwood Boltcaster = 3 Bolts
  • Titanwood Repeater = 3-4 Bolts (depends on overall build or Bolt Quiver’s
  • Arcane Bolt Blaster = 4+ Bolts (as it can fire 4 Bolts per shot)
• Stamina management
  • Note that Stamina sources are Banana, Apple, Endurance Potion, Wrath Potion
  • No additional Stamina source:
    • 1 crossbow + any weapon (< 1.15 Stamina/s)
    • 1 crossbow and 2 Autotrigger
• Ironwood Boltcaster and higher crossbow can consume Mana for extra temporary attack. It does significantly dmg part. So, better find some Mana sources after get the crossbow.
• Put Jade or Refine Jade to top up Accuracy value to be 100 for some starting weapons.

Item Choices

Early (Round 1-8)

Weapons

• Wooden Club -> Mallet: Strong, can remove Thorns and more Armor reduction. With an additional banana Stamina should be sufficient
• Stick -> Willow Wand: Good, strong and reliable ranged weapon. Additional Mana generation to use.
• Fishing Rod: Okay, it doesn’t deal much dmg, but good Mana generation and some fish is always good. Pray for Pinktail, Tuna or Willowfin
• Rock, Dagger -> Hooked Dagger: for Bleed build.
• Iron Bolt: As I mentioned above.
• Wooden sword, Broom, Fisherman’s Hook, They are melee, low dmg, hit fast, vulnerable to Thorns.

Mana Generation

• Wizard Robe: Decent Mana generator, gives some defense. frequently triggered(for trigger essence) and upgrade item lv has high chance to gain 4 random buff.
• Lucky Tuna: Decent Mana generator and good stats with fast cooldown
• Watermelon: Not my favorite as it takes 2×2 spaces which hard to fit and might up shield space, but it’s okay for Mana source.

Defense

• Spiked Shield: For melee counter. Works well where melee heroes are in meta or you encounter them a lot. This helps against melee hero very good.
• Heater Shield: General purpose and overall good shield. Just so big for 2×3 spaces.
• Stunbreaker Shield: This is good for counter hammer-stun and prevent too big hit dmg. Need some item level upgrades to be soooo goood.

Misc

• Nightshade: Very good dmg top up and can be use for changing build from Bleed into Poison later after unique selection. Should locked it until you really want to go Poison.
• Night Dahlia: Very good for sustain and initial Mana.
• Water Potion: Very good vs Chana and can be use for combining into potion later.
• Banana, Tender Sausage, Apple, Fly Agaric are good and can be use for combining later.
• Whetstone, Jade: Good and use for combining Katana route.
• Ginseng Root + Wild Rose -> Bloodthorn: Generally good items. gives all good stats and with upgrade level can grow stats.
• Sash -> Belt: It isn’t sage primary item nor must-buy. It is good but not provide offense/defense directly. So, choose wisely and always focus averagely good survivability first.
• Bat: When on sale is must buy. Full price may be okay for later round. Helps a lot.

Mid (Round 9-15) to Late (Round 16-21)

Bleeding Build

• General build and suitable for most unique (except Plague Ichor, Noxious Lantern)
• Crossbow + Razor Bolt
• Throwing Hatchet / Soulstealer + additional Stamina source
• Axe of Abraxas / Woodsman’s Axe + additional Stamina source (less good compare to above set)
• Fishing Rod is okay, but need to be replaced later
• Fishing Harpoon / Neptune Wrath + additional Stamina source is also good
• Hooked Dagger -> Scroll of Blood: God tier for Bleed
• Mars Flytrap+Plants -> This is okay to take, but not always take as Sage isn’t so durable/sustain. She used up spaces for other items
• Ancient Relic + Bloodthorns -> Very good for counter Bleed and burst your enemy

Poison Build

• Suitable for Noxious Lantern, Plague Ichor
• Serpent Deathbolt may play Poison: build, but Bleed build still similar good performance too.
• Can save Nightshade for Bolutinum Potions and Belts. They gives overall more Poison. having Bleed to trigger healing on enemy then activated the Bolutinum
• Crossbow + Toxic Bolt or Razor Bolt. Toxic Bolt will shine when have Bolt Quiver
• Serpent’s Tongue + additional Stamina source

Mixed Bleed / Burn / Poison build

• Usually rely on some top up dmg from debuff and higher Damage on weapons and bolts
• If you have pets like Boomslang, Red Widow from Serpent Deathbolt. You may take Pet Collar.

Misc

• Magic, Life, Speed Essences are very good. Remember to place it to frequently trigger items, no need to combine them unless you’d like to get Astral Reaver
• Holy Essence good, but needs more Mana priority/generation
• Death Essence good, but suitable for Poison or combine into Unholy Skull
• Amethyst Pendant: Reliable Mana generator and starting Lifesteal
• Frost Barrier, Gothic Shield: Great, but don’t expect too much.
• Stunbreaker Shield: With high item level upgrade is so good.
• Brainsquasher: Reliable Armor Thorns breaking and stun source. Also good off-weapon.
• Golden Tail: Very good item which gives starting Empower. It helps all weapons dmg including Bolts.