Lootbound Beginner’s Guide

Welcome to our Lootbound Beginner’s Guide.

Lootbound is more than a traditional turn-based RPG. Although fighting is essential, winning will depend equally upon inventory management and character building. Every step you make, from exploring the map to placing items in your inventory, will significantly impact your success.

In Lootbound, it is more beneficial not to upgrade your inventory all the time with high-level loot but to try using different combinations of items. An ordinary sword, for example, may end up being one of your most powerful weapons due to the fact that it works with auras of several other items. However, legendary items can turn out to be weak in terms of synergy with other items due to their specific shape.

Newcomers will be confused by many different mechanics which Lootbound incorporates into itself. From the very first biome, the game will introduce you to such mechanics as elemental damage, companion management, buffs, debuffs, item auras, crafting upgrades, and routes. Knowing how these mechanics work will allow you to progress further in the game.

The guide is going to explain everything about these mechanics while also providing useful strategies which will save you from making beginner mistakes.

If you want to learn more about the game beyond this guide click here.

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The Gameplay Loop

Even though there are turn-based battles in Lootbound, combat is only one component of the gameplay loop.
The loop of each run is the following:

1. Choose your way through the biome.
2. Battle the enemies.
3. Pick up one loot after each victory.
4. Sort your inventory.
5. Upgrade your equipment.
6. Craft companions.
7. Improve your build.
8. Get tougher opponents.
9. Craft the boss.
10. Defeat the boss to finish the biome.

Combat provides you not only with experience but also with new equipment. New items will always change your inventory and force you to change your build after almost every fight. Some of the time you may even spend more time sorting out the equipment than fighting enemies, and it is done on purpose since inventory optimization is the core of Lootbound.

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Plan Ahead

It’s easy for many players to think that better gear means better builds. This isn’t usually the case. Lootbound prioritizes inventory efficiency much more than gear rarity.

Take these two builds into consideration:

Build A

• Some legendary weapons
• Gear placed inefficiently
• Does not have any aura bonuses
• Bad stat synergy

Build B

• Largely made up of normal gear
• Efficient placement of the gear
• Aura bonuses
• Synergy between stats

Even with worse individual pieces of gear, Build B is likely to be superior because everything on the player works together.

Don’t ask:
“Is this piece of gear stronger?” But instead, ask:

• Does this activate more auras?
• Does this enhance other bonuses I have?
• Am I using my inventory space efficiently?
• Does this complement my strategy?

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Understanding Combat

The combat is totally turn-based. Each round takes place according to the Initiative order in which fast players move before the slow players. Each player moves once during his turn before moving to the next player. Abilities consume mana while basic attacks don’t consume any.

At the end of the combat:

• The armor gets replenished totally.
• The mana is partially replenished.
• The health damage stays.

An essential resource management system is created in this way. Armor can be spent freely during combats since it will get replenished later. The mana, on the other hand, gets more valuable with long excursions. Knowing when to use special abilities and when to use simple attacks is one of the first strategies in the game.

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Understanding Health and Armor

Lootbound divides survivability into two separate resources.

Armor

Armor is your first line of defense. Most attacks will hit your armor before hitting your health. Your armor replenishes fully after each battle, therefore it is a renewable resource. You should never worry about ending battles with low armor as long as you stay alive, because you will start the next battle fully armored.

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Health

Health refers to permanent damage during the entire expedition. Unlike armor, health cannot be regained except when healed. Since healing isn’t always possible, health is more important than damage most of the time.

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Initiative Explained

Initiative decides the order of attacks. The character with a better initiative attacks first every round.
There are many benefits to going first during the fight.

You can:

• kill threats before they attack,
• strip buffs from the enemy,
• damage their armor before they make an attack,
• kill weakened enemies,
• evade any potential damage.

In some cases, a well-armed character with a good initiative score may kill an opponent before they have a chance to act. This will increase your survivability without improving your defense.

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Order vs. Chaos

One of the rather peculiar features of Lootbound is the split of buffs and debuffs into two different stats.

Order

Order enhances beneficial effects. The higher the Order is, the better:

• healing,
• armor repair,
• blessing,
• and any supporting abilities.

Order works well for characters who rely on healing or support in general. Paladins like it particularly.

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Chaos

Chaos impacts negative status effects. Characters with curses, weakening skills, poisonous attacks, or any other debuffs become much stronger with Chaos. Unlike direct damage, Chaos boosts the impact of negative effects on the enemies. Support-oriented characters usually prefer Order. On the contrary, offensive casters tend to like Chaos.

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Resistance

Resistance decreases the amount of damage that the character takes. It should be noted that unlike Armor which acts as a temporary shield, Resistance consistently decreases the amount of damage taken by the character. Despite its relative insignificance compared to acquiring thousands of points of armor, it gradually gains importance in hard fights, when late game enemies deal significantly higher damage.

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Dodge

Dodge makes attacks have the potential to completely miss the character being attacked. As compared to Armor and Resistance, Dodge is very inconsistent. At some points, it can be extremely helpful. While at other points, it fails to do anything. Due to the element of uncertainty, Dodge should be used as a secondary stat and not the main one for defense. High Dodge is very important for fragile characters like companions.

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Critical Hits

Critical hits significantly raise your attack power. The builds that rely on Criticals get even stronger when you start stacking:

• Critical Hit chance
• Critical Hit damage
• Other damage boosts
• Auras

Some companions automatically work well with critical hit gear, making them formidable late-game damage dealers. It’s usually better to specialize than to evenly distribute investments into all stats.

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Mana Management

Mana fuels your best moves. Unlike Armor, however, Mana does not fully regenerate following each fight.
This forms a lasting economy of resources. Wasting Mana with costly moves each time can render you helpless when you face elite enemies.

Here is an effective strategy:

• Always use basic attacks if enough to do the job.
• Reserve Mana against tough foes.
• Move aggressively using Mana only if failing to do so would result in a dangerous situation.

Effective Mana Management is key to completing a potentially successful run till the end boss.

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Importance of Positioning Over Equipment

One of the most surprising things about Lootbound is how much the positioning of items plays into things. Where an item is located could end up being as critical as its attributes. Weapons, armor, accessories, and aura items interact in different ways based on their locations. As you fill your inventory with more items, you will find that repositioning the items that you already have will yield a greater power boost than using the new items that you have gained. This is why experienced players typically take several minutes to rearrange their inventory after acquiring a new item.

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Think of Your Inventory as a Puzzle

Any item has two features:

• Statistics of the item
• Shape of the item

Statistics define the role that this item plays in the game. The shape of an item defines its efficiency. It means that the legendary weapon is not always more efficient than regular. If legendary blocks three aura bonuses, which are powerful, then your character becomes weaker because of this legendary item. And even average weapon becomes one of the most powerful items of your build if it takes several buffs. When you find any new item, you shouldn’t rush to equip it.

Instead, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• Is it suitable for me as for a part of inventory?
• Is it activating aura effects?
• Does it block the efficiency of other more powerful items?
• Does it increase efficiency of my build?

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Inventory Space Is Your Most Valuable Resource

In many Roguelike games, the currency of choice is gold. In Lootbound, inventory space is equally important.
Each free space means potential. When your inventory starts getting filled up, you will soon find out that the hard part isn’t about obtaining better equipment. It’s about obtaining equipment that actually fits into your inventory.
The newbies tend to force all the items into their inventories. The experienced gamers will be more than happy to discard good equipment that does not fit their character.

There is a restriction on inventory slots. Each item that isn’t being used is taking up a place that can be filled with something that will boost your current setup.
Ask yourself, “Does this give me an advantage right now?” No? Then get rid of it.
New upgrades come all the time. Keeping inferior gear for many levels just does more harm than good.

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Understanding Equipment Categories

Every piece of gear is associated with a type. Even though the particular equipment will change from run to run, there are some main types of equipment that most of them belong to.

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Weapons

Weapons give your offensive stats. There are lots of aura effects that affect weapons, making them perfect candidates for synergy-based builds. That’s why proper weapon placement requires special consideration.
Sometimes moving the weapon by just one tile can make it much more powerful.

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Armor

Pieces of armor give defensive stats like:

• Armor
• Health
• Resistance
• Defensive bonuses

Unlike weapons, armor pieces are usually the base of survivability-focused builds. The late-game enemies have significantly higher damage compared to early-game ones.

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Accessories

Accessories usually give utility bonuses instead of damage. They often give such bonuses as:

• Initiative
• Order
• Chaos
• Dodge
• Critical Hit Chance
• Mana

Utility bonuses are often those little things that complete a build. But don’t ignore them, sometimes they work better than one big bonus.

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Item Shapes Explained

All items don’t take up the basic square shape. Weapons can be shaped vertically. Other items can have an odd L-shaped form. Some accessory items take just one slot. Other items take up huge space in your inventory.
The strange shape of items is deliberate. It gives you choices to make. If the weapon is big and does immense damage, but also blocks other aura items, then it will be less useful. Whenever possible, build around compact equipment. Smaller items create more opportunities for synergy.

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Auras Change Everything

Auras are definitely some of the strongest pieces of equipment found in Lootbound. Unlike regular gear, aura equipment doesn’t just boost their own stats. Rather, they boost stats of surrounding pieces of equipment.

Depending on the aura, it could give bonuses such as:

• Health
• Armor
• Vampirism
• Critical Chance
• Damage
• Initiative
• Order
• And more.

Certain aura bonuses only affect certain weapon types, while others only affect certain armor types, etc. It’s vital to learn these restrictions.

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Always Read Aura Requirements

New players often look at a great aura and think that it will affect everything around it. Wrong. There are always some requirements for activating an aura.

They may be something like:

• Equipment adjacent to it only
• Plate only
• Swords only
• Instruments only

Not considering this will make you miss out on your bonuses. Whenever you get a new aura, find out:

• What type of equipment it activates?
• What side does it work from?
• How many pieces it affects?

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One Aura Can Improve Your Entire Build

Consider finding an aura that provides you with:

• +40 Damage
• +20 Critical Chance
  

And if properly positioned, that item can enhance up to four weapons at once. Instead of receiving +40 damage, you receive +160 damage in total. That’s why positioning is so crucial. Good players always seek ways where one item will enhance other items.

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Weapons Aren’t Always Your Best Damage Source

Another misconception is that the fastest way to progress is by improving the damage dealt by weapons.
This is not always the case.

Consider two choices:

Choice A:
Upgrade your sword to do an additional 30 damage.

Choice B:
Position your current sword such that it will receive buffs from three auras.

Choice B will generally result in more damage output.

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Building Around One Strategy

Most new players tend to distribute stats everywhere. Some Dodge. Some Critical Chance. Some Acid Damage. Some Slash Damage. This creates average characters. Instead, specialize.

Builds such as:

Critical Build

With:

• Critical Chance
• Critical Damage
• High base damage

Do not waste stat points on unnecessary defense.

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Lifesteal Build

With:
• Vampirism
• High attack rate
• Constant damage from weapon

Each attack will restore health to let you endure in battle.

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Tank Build

With:
• Armor
• Resistance
• Health
• Order

This build is best for tough opponents.

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Debuff Build

With:
• Chaos
• Acid damage
• Companions
Do not kill the opponent immediately but weaken him/her gradually.

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Rebuilding is Natural

Do not get stuck on your present layout. Adding every single piece makes a difference to your puzzle. Great players have to rebuild their inventories multiple times during the session. Changing one single weapon might mean moving five others around. This is all natural. Inventory management is an ongoing process—not something you finish after the first few battles.

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Your Companions’ Equipment

Companions have their own inventory. So you’re not creating a single character. You’re creating a whole party.
Each of your companions needs equipment based on their abilities. Don’t treat them all the same. Roles vary and therefore, priorities vary.

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The Warrior

The Warrior specializes in straightforward physical damage.

Prioritize:

• Damage
• Critical Chance
• Slash Damage
• Vampirism

The Warrior performs best as your primary damage dealer.

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The Paladin

The Paladin inherently cares about survival.

Key areas of importance are:

• Armor
• Health
• Resistance
• Order

Instead of optimizing for damage, concentrate on making the Paladin survive. A survivable Paladin may well decide the outcome of challenging fights.

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The Witch

The Witch is an expert at magic attacks.

Key stats include:

• Acid Damage
• Chaos
• Mana
• Ability to debuff

Since Acid Damage bypasses armor, the Witch becomes more powerful when fighting armored foes.

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The Jester

The Jester is one of the game’s most interesting companions. Instead of functioning as a traditional attacker, the Jester strengthens the entire party through supportive abilities. Many instrument-based weapons naturally complement the Jester’s playstyle. Building around these unique equipment types can dramatically increase overall team effectiveness. Rather than evaluating the Jester by personal damage, judge them by how much stronger they make everyone else.

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Think About Your Entire Party

When you discover new gear, do not think:
“Who uses this piece of equipment?”
Ask yourself:
“Whose stat sheet is improved the most by this gear?”
Often the answer might surprise you. For example, the Paladin might benefit more from a weapon that gives mediocre attack power but provides great support bonuses. An instrument with less attack power might greatly enhance the Jester.

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Damage

You will find that Lootbound is more focused on knowing how all the statistics affect your build rather than looking for legendary gear by the time you finish building your first biome. New players usually base their analysis of gear on only one thing – damage. Seasoned players, on the other hand, know that the strength of the weapon lies in its stats and synergy.

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Four Types of Damage

In Lootbound there are four main types of damage. They all have their unique traits in combat and work effectively against certain enemies. The choice of damage type is crucial to choosing over increasing your power.

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Base Damage

Base Damage is the most basic type of attack. It has no unique features and interacts in the usual way with both armor and health. Even though Base Damage does not feature any cool stuff, it will always have the advantage of working perfectly fine on all enemies. Many weapons offer high Base Damage combined with other damage types, thus proving useful throughout the whole run. If you are not sure which build to use at the beginning of the game, go for Base Damage.

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Slash Damage

Slash Damage focuses on the destruction of enemy health. In contrast to Base Damage, Slash Damage deals much more damage once the enemy’s armor has been stripped away. As a result, Slash builds work best when used against lightly armored enemies and bosses that can be easily debuffed.

Some features that are useful for Slash are:

• High Critical Chance
• Critical Damage
• Initiative
• Regular weapon upgrades

Due to such scalability, Slash Damage often generates the highest damage outputs.

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Crush Damage

Unlike health, Crush Damage’s aim is to tear down armor. In case of well-protected enemies, Crush Damage significantly speeds up the battle process by getting rid of their primary protection. As soon as the armor is taken away, the rest of your squad can start damaging the enemy’s health. Crush pairing works excellently with Slash characters. One destroys the armor. The second one kills the enemy. Such team is more productive compared to a squad with identical roles of all characters.

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Acid Damage

Acid Damage is one of Lootbound’s distinctive features. It does not hit the armor first; it attacks the health completely bypassing the armor. Thus, there are several advantages to Acid Damage. Firstly, this type of damage works perfectly against enemies with high protective abilities. Also, Acid provides an opportunity for support characters to deal significant damage independently of armor breaking companions. Witches are good acid users due to their inherent nature.

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Health versus Survivability

Health pools definitely play their role. Still, health by itself rarely determines victory in tough battles.

A character with:

• High Resistance
• Healing capability
• Armour
• Good positioning

will most likely beat an opponent that has many more health points. Survivability is achieved through combining several systems. Always assess health relative to other aspects.

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Why Resistance Becomes Better Later

Early-game opponents deal moderate damage. Later game opponents can strip away large chunks of your defense in one hit. Since Resistance takes off damage every time you get hit, it becomes much more useful the higher the damage done by your opponents. Resistance is one of the best scaling defensive stats in Lootbound.
If you must choose between small health boosts and Resistance, go with the Resistance most of the time.

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Initiative Is an Offensive Stat… and a Defensive One

Most people believe that Initiative only decides the order of turns. However, Initiative indirectly improves survivability. By going first, you can:

• destroy threatening enemies,
• break buffing sequences,
• dispose of support units,
• strip off armors,
• stop any incoming attacks.

An enemy which never gets its turn does not do any damage. For aggressive parties, Initiative might be more valuable than extra armor.

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Order is Stronger Than You Think

Order does not enhance damage. It enhances almost all benefits that you receive from your party.

Order enhances:

• Healing
• Armor regen
• Blessing
• Defense
• Support skills

As these benefits apply to several fights per run, even small Order upgrades can yield a lot of benefits. Your support heroes will appreciate high-order builds the most.

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Chaos Rewards Specialized Builds

Chaos acts as the offensive equivalent of Order. While Order enhances positive conditions, Chaos buffs negative conditions.

Heroes that depend on:

• Curses
• Debuffs
• Interactions with Acid
• Weakness

are greatly empowered when Chaos rises. Chaos is not applicable to everyone. But, to those heroes who specialize in status effects, Chaos can be very powerful.

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Vampirism

Vampirism heals the character every time damage is dealt. Unlike the other abilities that rely on Mana, Vampirism is a reward for being offensive. The more damaging your attacks get, the more health you gain back. It is a cycle that keeps repeating itself. More damage will result in more healing. More healing means more surviving. And more surviving means more chances to deliver damage. There are not many stats that can scale naturally throughout the whole run.

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The Blacksmith

The Blacksmith event can prove to be the most fruitful events that you can come across while on your run. Instead of equipping new gear, the Blacksmith event will upgrade your gear with the help of enchanted gems.
The upgrades will give you bonuses such as:

• Damage
• Critical Hits
• Vampiric Effects
• Armor
• Dodge

The thing about enchanting is that it will stay permanently attached to your equipment unlike regular gear. Hence, think twice before enchanting a piece of gear because you need to ask yourself, “Will I be using this gear a few battles down the road?”

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Which Items Should Get Gems?

Select items that:

• support your existing build,
• trigger aura bonuses,
• will not get replaced,
• are in efficient slot spaces.

Do not put gems on temporary gear that you will replace soon. Waiting often yields better results.

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Training Events

The training nodes present a special mechanic based on the principle of risk versus reward. Instead of getting equipment, you make a dice roll to see if you were able to get your desired reward. Obviously, the higher the reward, the harder the roll needs to be made. Failure will definitely disappoint you, but with Training you can get upgrades much earlier than usual. Extra dice will be a very useful resource. Don’t waste them on insignificant rewards.

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Campfires

A campfire provides something every good journey must have: Recovery. As health endures between fights, it is crucial to regain health at the proper time. Many players tend to use the campfire when their health reaches critical levels. This might be too late. Elite fights might suddenly become too much for a weak team. Whenever entering a risky area of the map, heal before being attacked.

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Consumables

Consumables offer quick strategic benefits. These are some common examples:

• Health potions
• Mana potions
• Bombs

Unlike abilities, consumables rarely use up an action turn, making them highly versatile. Since there is space limitation in your bag, do not stock up consumables that are completely useless to you.

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Think Like a Party Leader

A common mistake among new players is focusing almost exclusively on the main character. Instead, think of your team as a single machine made up of multiple parts. Every companion should fill a specific role.

For example:

Warrior

• Primary damage dealer
• Removes dangerous enemies quickly

Paladin

• Frontline defender
• Maintains team survivability
• Provides defensive utility

Witch

• Ignores armor
• Eliminates defensive enemies
• Applies powerful debuffs

Jester

• Team support
• Buff specialist
• Critical-hit enabler

Rather than trying to make everyone deal massive damage, allow each character to specialize. Specialists consistently outperform generalists.

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Understanding Target Priority

Not every enemy deserves equal attention. One of the biggest improvements you can make is learning which enemy should die first. Generally, prioritize enemies in this order.

1. Buffers

Enemies that strengthen their allies can dramatically increase the difficulty of longer fights.

Removing them immediately prevents the enemy team from snowballing.

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2. Debuff Specialists

Enemies capable of weakening your party often create problems that become worse every round.

If left alive, they force you into defensive play.

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3. High-Damage Enemies

Heavy hitters become dangerous once support units have been eliminated.

Without buffs protecting them, they’re usually much easier to handle.

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4. Defensive Enemies

Enemies that simply absorb damage are often safe to leave until the end.

Unless they’re protecting another dangerous target, they usually aren’t the highest priority.

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Mana Management During Extended Runs

A lot of players tend to burn their Mana way too quickly at the beginning of a biome. They soon realize that they have very little left when tougher enemies start appearing. Treat Mana as a limited resource. If the basic attack is all you need to win, then use the basic attack.

Save Mana for:
• Elite enemies
• Support enemies
• Boss fights
• Emergencies

Conserving Mana dramatically improves consistency.

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When to Rebuild Your Inventory?

There are several moments during every run where you should stop and reconsider your entire layout.

Examples include:

• After recruiting a companion.
• After receiving a powerful aura item.
• After finding a weapon with a unique shape.
• After receiving multiple Blacksmith upgrades.
• After replacing your primary weapon.
• Don’t simply squeeze new items into empty spaces.
• Look at the inventory from scratch.

Many players discover entirely new combinations by rebuilding instead of adjusting.

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Lootbound rewards intelligent decision making way more than luck. Sure, powerful gear does make a difference.
But knowing what makes gear powerful is even more important. All the successful expeditions share the following fundamental philosophy:

• Build intelligently.
• Specialize your characters.
• Take care of synergies.
• Adjust to your loot.
• Learn enemy abilities.
• Optimize your gear after each major reward.
• Manage your resources properly.
• And most importantly, don’t fall into the trap of being too focused on one particular strategy.

Every single expedition requires solving a unique puzzle, and the ones that manage to solve it on a regular basis—and not the ones focused on chasing for the best possible rarity gear—will be the ones reaching Sentinel and winning the game. With all that in mind, you’ll not only manage to complete your first successful expedition, but also will learn to build even stronger builds and play on harder difficulties.

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