Some builds are better than others and everyone has their playstyle preferences, but this guide will help you understand each class’s core components.
How Each Class Works in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Until you reach the endgame of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, your primary gameplay loop will consist of “shoot gun, cast spell, kill enemy.” Your classes’ various skills augment that core trifecta. The primary difference between the six classes is how guns, spells, and Action Skills change how every encounter plays out.
Here’s a breakdown of each one of the classes, their abilities, and a few basic tips on playing them.
Spellshot Class: Magic-Person, Also Sheep
The Spellshot class is all about the casting of spells and shooting of guns. Its Feat, Spellweaving, adds up to five stacks (eight with a Skill) that increase Spell damage by 10% per stack.
One of the first available Skills increases Spell Critical chance, and the capstone Skill offers a flat 15% chance for every Gun Critical to reset all Spell cooldowns.
Many of Spellshot’s other skills somehow alter how Spell and Gun damage interact, usually revolving around either decreasing cooldowns, one adding damage to the other, or flat bonuses to either Sell or Gun Damage per stack of Spellweaving.
The Spellshot class only has a single Action Skill: Polymorph, which turns any non-boss enemy into a Skeep (floating, googly-eyed sheep), and while said enemy floats about uselessly, the Spellshot gains Spellweaving stacks and has a chance to cast a free spell whenever they deal Gun damage. If the enemy can’t be affected by Polymorph, which is every boss and some mini-boss enemies, the ability still activates but instead of transforming the enemy, a free Spell immediately goes off. They also gain two Spellweaving stacks immediately upon using the ability if it doesn’t turn anything into a Skeep.
For players who like the silliness of turning enemies into barely sentient farm animals, Polymorph is the way to go since it can remove powerful non-boss threats for eight seconds or cast your favorite Spell at no cost.
The other Spellshot ability isn’t an Action Skill at all. Instead, Ambi-Hextrous removes the Action Skill trigger entirely and replaces it with a second Spell. Casting your second Spell puts away your Gun for the entire casting time and eliminates the possibility of activating any Enchantment that requires Action Skills.
Ambi-Hextrous is for a build that increases Spell damage and reduces its cooldown as much as possible, as the Gun should almost be an afterthought. Alternately, the Gun should add some effect to the Spell.
Graveborn Class: The Darkest of Magic
The core of Graveborn class kit revolves around the usage and improvement of Dark Magic and Dark Magic damage. Every tick of Dark Magic damage heals its user and increasing Dark Magic Efficiency only increases the healing provided.
The Graveborn class also comes with a Demi-Lich Companion that uses Dark Magic ranged attacks every time you cast a spell. You can create other temporary Dark Hydra Companions which can also buff your damage output the more you have on the field.
Pairing with Companion classes (Clawbringer or Spore Warden) can make for some fun times, but Graveborn is about Dark Magic damage on its own.
The class’s Action Skills add interplay between health loss and health gain.
Dire Sacrifice sees you spend 40% of your current health total to deal Dark Magic damage and apply the Dark Magic status condition to nearby enemies. This is a good option if you want to burst down all the trash mobs around you in a single stroke. It doesn’t have any active effects, but it does have a fast cooldown. With the proper setup, you can use Dire Sacrifice every ten or fewer seconds, making yourself a reusable Dark Magic bomb. Fun, but not the most effective for bossing. Reaper of Bones hits you with constantly increasing DoT damage and improves all of your Dark Magic damage and Leech efficiency for as long as the ability lasts. Coincidentally, the ability last as long as your health bar does. And because Dark Magic heals you, you can potentially keep Reaper of Bones up for far longer than any other Action Skill in the game. There are many different Enchantments that require your Action Skill to be active, so the damage potential is obscene with stack the increased damage from Reaper of Bones, the Enchantments, and the additional Dark Magic bonus from the Graveborn skill tree. Even when you eventually run out of health in Reaper of Bones, you gain 20% of your maximum back and are invulnerable for 3 seconds.
A few Skills on the Graveborn class tree affect your Spell damage, so you can add any number of Dark Magic spells to boost your output. The Graveborn capstone skill activates all of your character’s Kill Skills on Spell cast, which can add three or four additional bonuses from Kill Skills for the cost of a single Spell usage.
If you’ve got ways to decrease your Spell and Action Skill cooldowns, you can have your Kill Skills active indefinitely and have Reaper of Bones up and ready at a moment’s notice.
Spore Warden Class: Gun Shrooms
There are two primary routes to take with the Spore Warden class: Companion-focused or Gun damage-focused. Of them, Gun damage is probably the most consistent, as most of the Spore Warden Skills modify your weapon in some way. Pair pumping your Gun damage with universal or Gun damage enchantments can make for a busted build even when compared to other classes.
There’s even a movement speed Kill Skill that will let you go a mile a minute when combined with the one from either the Stabbomancer or Brr-Zerker classes, avoiding attacks and dealing damage in equal, but ungodly, measure.
The Spore Warden’s Action Skills are very useful at boosting damage of all kinds.
Barrage summons a spirit bow with seven arrows knocked. You can fire the arrows three times before the ability goes on cooldown, and whatever Gun damage you apply to your weapons applies to Barrage as well. Use Action Skill Start Enchantments, use Barrage once, then go to town. Blizzard is great for Cryomancer builds, as it creates three frost cyclones that seek nearby enemies. If you have ways to pump Frost damage with Spells and weapons like Liquid Cooling, Blizzard can be a good encounter starter that adds a little extra oomph and area control.
Beyond the Gun damage Skills, which take up almost half of Spore Warden’s tree, the class also has the Companion and Ability damage buffs. As Spore Warden’s Mushroom Companion deals Poison Damage, you can pair it with any of the other Companion Classes for a build that focuses on at least two Elements. Most Classes with Companions also buff your character’s damage alongside your buddies.
If you add some additional Companion Skills to your Spore Warden kit, your best bet is to go all in. There aren’t quite enough Skill points available to go fully into both Gun and Companion setups, but there are plenty of Enchantments and gear pieces that can buff your little buddies.
With the Medicinal Mushroom Skill, your Companion can attempt to revive you if you go down and gains increased damage if it does. This can be particularly helpful in the harder boss fights or those with limited mobs.
With all the additional Companion buffs you should have with a buddy build, sacrificing your Mushroom friend’s damage for a little while won’t cost you much.
Clawbringer Class: Fire and Lightning Lizards
A class equally focused on dealing Fire and Lighting damage or buffing its Wyvern Companion, the Clawbringer is an elemental build’s best friend. Where other classes specialize in one element, you have access to two here. Multiclassing, therefore, ensures your build is effective with up to three kinds of Elemental damage.
Most of Clawbringer’s class Skills also buff your character’s damage whenever they augment the Wyvern’s, usually as an increase to Gun or Elemental damage. There’s only one Skill — “Awe,” on the penultimate branch of the tree — that increases Critical damage or chance. Clawbringer abilities don’t rely on Criticals, so Awe isn’t necessary unless you spec into a class like Stabbomancer that’s all about crits.
The biggest choice you have to make early in a Clawbringer playthrough is whether you want Fire or Lightning damage and melee or ranged combat, as the Action Skills on offer favor one or the other.
Cleansing Flames has you slam a large hammer down, creating a Fire damage explosion. This is your Melee damage, Action Skill Start Enchantment ability. It has a slightly longer cooldown than the other Action Skill, but if you want fast burst damage that’s all about melting through red health bars, Cleansing Flames is the way to go. Storm Dragon’s Judgement sees you throw a large hammer toward your enemies, dealing Melee damage and creating a sphere of continuous Lightning damage. You can recall the hammer to your hand for a refund of some of the cooldown, as well. Between this ability and Cleansing Flames, this one has more overall utility. Still, Lightning damage isn’t quite as useful overall as, say, Fire or Frost, so one of its best uses is a catalyst for Action Skill Enchantments. Stack some Action Skill cooldown buffs, and you’ll be in business again in no time.
Add in the capstone Skill from Clawbringer, and you’ll deal both Fire and Lightning damage to nearby enemies whenever you cast your Action Skill. Elemental damage is king in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and Clawbringer might be the king of raw Elemental damage. It doesn’t specialize like the Brr-Zerker or Spore Warden classes, but it offers plenty of additional options.
Brr-Zerker Class: Crazy Cold
On its face, Brr-Zerker seems like a great option among the classes for a Frost build (and it is), but there’s a lot of utility in its Skill tree that works for almost any setup. It offers a little bit of everything: movement speed, health regeneration, straight damage, and resistance bonuses.
That says nothing about the powerful Frost damage buffs the class can provide. With all the strong Frost damage spells, weapons, and abilities in Wonderlands, it’s hard to argue about adding a little Brr-Zerker to any build you make with another class.
The one caveat is that the Brr-Zerker class is all about being up in your enemy’s face as much as possible. Ranged combat is not this class’s forte, as both its Action Skills put you right in the thick of things.
In Dreadwind, you spin around for six seconds, swinging your Melee weapon wildly in a circle. Any gear that pumps Ability and Melee damage can make this Action Skill extremely deadly, and be sure to use a Frost Melee weapon to take advantage of all the buffs in the class skill tree. The damage potential, even over just six seconds, is ungodly. Using Feral Surge sends you jumping toward your enemy and slamming down your Melee weapon, dealing Frost damage in a burst immediately around you. Any non-Boss enemy killed by the slam instantly resets the entire cooldown, letting you slam again and again, provided there are enemies to kill. This ability works excellent with any Action Skill Start Enchantments or builds centered around burst damage and ability spam.
Using an Action Skill as a Brr-Zerker also sees you enter the Enraged state, which further increases your Frost damage and doubles the effects of specific Skills.
If you’re able to shorten the cooldown of your Action Skills to have them up almost constantly, you can keep Enrage up just as much, increasing your damage, movement speed, and health regeneration indefinitely. Even if you can’t stay Enraged forever, the passive buffs to all those stats are more than enough to recommend the Brr-Zerker class.
Stabbomancer: Crits. You will do them
There’s nothing special about the Stabbomancer’s Class Feat. Its effect is simple: increase Critical Hit Chance by 30%. It then goes on to buff almost everything else you can do in the game save Dark Magic, health regen, and Elemental damage. Gun damage, movement speed, Melee damage, Status damage, Critical damage — it’s all there.
The lack of health regen can be a significant detriment if your second class also lacks it, but ideally, you kill everything before that becomes a problem. Both Actions Skills help with that particular issue.
Ghost Blade summons a ghost blade that spins in place, dealing Melee damage to any enemy unfortunate enough to be inside it. You can use five percent of the Action Skill duration to reposition the blade if your target moves too much. Melee damage builds will love this ability, as will anything that wants an Action Skill with a longer duration. Ghost Blade has a total duration of 16 seconds, so any Action Skill Active Enchantments will do well here too. As good as Ghost Blade is, From the Shadows might outclass it in almost every way. Using it sends your character into Stealth for 8 seconds and turns every tick of damage you do into a Critical hit. You lose 25% of your Critical damage, but you can quickly gain all that back and more with a few Enchantments and some of the other Skills in the Stabbomancer tree. You will probably feel some of the damage loss, but stacked against the volume of ways to increase Gun and Melee and Elemental damage, 25% is nothing.
One of the other important skills in the Stabbomancer class tree is Elusive, which allows you to shoot while sprinting. Using Elusive alongside Swift Death, which increases your damage the faster you move, and any other Movement Speed buff from Brr-Zerker can elevate your output further.
Remember that Stabbomancer buffs Status damage, so whenever one of your Elemental weapons starts dealing DoT damage, the DPS potential of a proper Stabbomancer build is hard to fathom until you see it.
There are a thousand other nuances to all the classes in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but these are some of the basic class considerations when starting a character or adding the second class midway through the game.
Use some of the other tips in our Wonderlands guides hub to make that process even easier. With just the information here, you’re in good shape to begin going into Chaos Mode and continue refining your build.