Explosive, stylish, and devastating – the Vanessa Powder Keg build is one of the most thrilling ways to dominate a run in The Bazaar. This high-risk, high-reward strategy scales hard into the late game but requires a smart, flexible early approach to execute well. It lands itself in S-Tier on the latest Bazaar Meta Report.

Vanessa Radiant Powder Keg Build Example final build

4-second kill According to my calculations, Mak dies in less than 4 seconds

Early Game (Days 1-4) – Playing for Tempo

Early on, you’re not committing to Powder Keg. You’re playing for tempo, staying healthy, and keeping your options open.

  • Play flexibly – don’t hard-force Powder Keg. Build around Vanessa’s early weapons and try to win fights.
  • Key tempo items: Zoarcid, Trebuchet, Shark Claws – great early power that can be used through the early and midgame.
  • Other strong early options: Double Barrel, Cannon, Katana, Revolver, Cutlass, etc.
  • Try to win early rounds – or at least limit prestige loss.
  • You may think it’s boring but I always go for the Gold and Income Start. It gives you money to both build a board and stash strong items for later transitions.

Example early game boards:

day-1 Day 1

day-2 Day 2

day-3 Day 3

day-4 Day 4

Mid Game (Days 5-9) – Stashing Lategame Options while Playing your Strongest Board

The midgame for this build can be challenging. You’ll want to start picking up the core parts of your build, but you’re not online yet. Your inventory is full to bursting as you stash away your lategame options while playing your strongest midgame board.

  • Look for Powder Keg from weapons dealer (Aila) or medium shops (Mittel or Quixel/Barkun).
  • IMPORTANT: Don’t put it on your board until it’s upgraded – Powder Keg at Silver is garbage! Try to hit Diamond.
  • Core mid-game skills:
    • Heated Shells: This one skill enables the whole build, allowing you to build around low-cooldown ammo items. It’s the fastest way to charge your Powder Keg. Luckily, this skill is part of the ammo skills pool which is a very small pool, so if you see the ammo skills vendor you can usually find it. If you can’t find it, Hot Spot, and Warm Hugs are good runners up. Pair two or three of these together and you’re cooking with fire.
    • Left/Right/Keen Eye, Inexorable, Tracer Fire, Static Acceleration: These skills are just some of the options to start building up your crit chance. You’ll need to reach 100% crit chance to one-shot your opponent (or have certain enchants–more on those later).
  • If you can’t find any of the burn skills above, Incendiary Rounds is the next best option. Other options like Trebuchet, Lighter, or Pop Snappers might need to be considered to keep your burn engine going. Fiery enchantments on low-cooldown items like Uzi or Nesting Dolls can also fill that gap if you’re able to find them.
  • Shop smart:
    • Prioritize Aila for weapons and Mittel for medium item rolls, even Quixel and Barkun for more chances to get Powder Keg to Diamond.
  • You may need to play hybrid while waiting for the full combo to come online.
  • If you never find Powder Keg by the time you reach ~Day 10, consider switching to another burn/haste/weapons Vanesssa build like Trebuchet, Sharkray, or Shot Glasses.

Example midgame board and inventory:

day-7 Day 7 Board & Inventory

Transitioning to Powder Keg

powder-keg-transition This was the tipping point where I made the decision to transition, despite a gold Powder Keg

Late Game (Day 10+) – Transitioning to Powder Keg and Deleting People

Here’s where it all comes together. Time to get Powder Keg online and blow your opponents away.

  • Core combo:
    • Diamond-tier Powder Keg + a lot of fast burn + 100% crit chance (OR a top-tier enchant)
  • For burn, either get:
    • Heated Shells with low-cooldown ammo items like Nesting Doll, Dive Weights, Uzi, etc.
    • Warm Hugs with low-cooldown friends like Zoarcid, Narwhal, Seashadow, First Aiden, etc.
    • Incendiary Rounds OR Hot Spot with low-cooldown items, OR
    • Low-cooldown burn items like Lighter, Pop Snappers, Trebuchet, etc.
  • Go for 100% crit chance with:
    • Crit items: Star Chart, Vanessa's Amulet, Spyglass, Swashbuckle, Star Chart, etc.
    • Crit skills: Inexorable, Left/Right/Keen Eye, Tracer Fire, Static Acceleration

heated-shells C3 is great for this build! Since his total pool of skills is pretty small, you can get Heated Shells pretty reliably.

Example late game board: day-11 Day 11 Board

  • Top-tier Enchantments:
    • Obsidian and Shiny: Best-in-slot – deal 100% HP without needing crit!
    • Deadly: +50% crit chance – excellent to help you reach 100% crit chance with half the effort! This can also be grabbed from the “Trade Health for Power” event, but the cost is a hefty 20% of Max HP. I still think it’s worth it for this build if you’re not already at or close to 100% crit chance.
    • Radiant: Stops Powder Keg from self-destroying, making it a repeatable explosive engine!
    • Burn or Poison: Helps finish off opponents through shields/revive effects like Fiery Rebirth
    • The others usually aren’t too helpful and would be better used on another item. If you have to YOLO roll on a random enchantment and need to replace it later, don’t hesitate to do that. The right enchantment on this build can be a gamechanger.

powder-keg-radiant Ditching the Fiery enchant for Radiant Powder Keg

TL;DR

  • Early game: Play for tempo with Trebuchet, Zoarcid, and Shark Claws.
  • Mid game: Look for Powder Keg and hold in inventory, start building up crit chance and supporting items and skills. Find Heated Shells or another burn engine.
  • Late game: Upgrade Powder Keg to Diamond and get it on your board. Get 100% crit chance online, look for a strong enchantment.
  • In order to have the build fully online you need:
    • Diamond-tier Powder Keg
    • A lot of fast burn
    • 100% crit chance (OR a top-tier enchant)

4-second kill I have no quarrel with you, but if you insiiiiiist…

Final tips

  • Weapon skills like Left/Right Handed are good for the early and mid game, but aren’t necessary once you get Powder Keg online. Be ready for the mentality shift from prioritizing damage and weapon scaling to prioritizing items and skills that activate Powder Keg as quickly as possible.
  • Some games, you can go the entire game without seeing one Powder Keg. If it doesn’t seem to be showing up and you’re already on your last life, you may have to call an audible and play out a Multi-Weapon Vanessa build instead. In these cases, just try your best to get at least 4 wins and go on to the next game. This game has an element of chance after all, and this build isn’t guaranteed. Trebuchet, Zoarcid, and Shark Claws can probably carry you to 4-7 wins in a lot of cases anyway, and sometimes up to 10 if you move fast or highroll!
  • Once you have Heated Shells, try to work your start time down by subbing in low-cooldown ammo items like Dive Weights, Nesting Doll, Shot Glasses, Uzi, and even Revolver/Grapeshot. These all have quick cooldowns or multicast and can cast multiple times without running out of ammo, making them great choices for the final lategame build.
  • Holsters is a great item to help you cap off your build. Make sure you’ve got a good number of small burn/ammo items in the game and the haste at the beginning of the fight will help you get your combo off in record time–sometimes as quick as 2-3 seconds!

📣 Let us know what build you’d like to see next!