Hey Giantbomb,

As you may know Bastion has been released today and I was interested to see what tag team of weapons have you chosen. I'm liking the combination of the Machete with the Spreadshot Musket. Although everytime I find a new weapon i'll give it a go and I still have a few more to find. Also if you were to add a weapon to the game what would it be? I think a Whip would be badass.

Im early in the game but im tossing up between hammer and machete with the Breakers Bow 
 
Edit: quite a bit further along now and have to say im all in with the machete and scatter gun, a good mix of powerful close range blasts, fast melee strikes and powerful throwing attacks with a poison effect, though every weapon definitely has its place i love the pistols and the hammer too.

I've been trying everything, but haven't used the Breakers Bow nearly as much as some of the other stuff. I almost always go with the hammer, though.

@buft: I hated the bow, just the fact that you have to charge for so long to get only one hit and the hammer didn't do much for me. But the machete is like a perfect combination of both of those weapons and once you get the poison damage it becomes a little beast.

@Kowbrainz said:

I've been trying everything, but haven't used the Breakers Bow nearly as much as some of the other stuff. I almost always go with the hammer, though.

Hows the Hammer when you upgrade it?

the a button

I'm currently using the Machete and the Breaker's Bow. I'm considering changing out the Bow for the Repeater because the machete can serve as a psuedo-bow and also works up close.

I mixed it up in my first play-through, but i really liked the mortar and spear combo... first game in ages that hooked me so bad i played it start to finish. Might start new game + later.

the a button

@Kowbrainz said:

I've been trying everything, but haven't used the Breakers Bow nearly as much as some of the other stuff. I almost always go with the hammer, though.

Hows the Hammer when you upgrade it?

@Kowbrainz said:

@Dylabaloo said:

@Kowbrainz said:

I've been trying everything, but haven't used the Breakers Bow nearly as much as some of the other stuff. I almost always go with the hammer, though.

Hows the Hammer when you upgrade it?

I haven't upgraded it all the way. Since upgrades depend on the loot you find rather than how much you use any particular weapon, all of my stuff is pretty much at the same level. So it's alright I guess? Great if you stand in one place against non-organic enemies, gasbags too occasionally. I'm not sure about my choices from The Distillery though. One of them I'm using raises my crit rate a lot when I have under 33% health (not sure if this is from The Distillery or what actually, can't remember) so I've died a few times from trying to keep my health in that range. It's a risky upgrade to pair with the hammer, especially after I've started using stuff from The Shrine.

I also use that spirit, thinks its called warewolf or something to that effect, It very handy; but to eliminate the risk I pair it up with LiveWine which allows me to survive what would other wise be a killing blow as line of defense and when that should-be killing blow happens I have the Bastion Juice spirit which allows me to carry more health potions and when I use them they restore full health.

@dudy80 said:

I mixed it up in my first play-through, but i really liked the mortar and spear combo... first game in ages that hooked me so bad i played it start to finish. Might start new game + later.

Haven't even gotten the mortar yet sounds.....handy, I'm not a fan of the spear though its too slow for my liking.

Any good combos of spirits and any good upgrades from a player who beat the game?

@Dylabaloo: After they became available i was mainly using the 2 spirits that raise your potion cap along with the one that lets you take a deathblow and not die, forget what there actually called. The lost and found is where i got at least one of them i think, and it seems a lot of the better spirits are in there so get that early. For upgrades i used the +8 ammo cap for the repeater for awhile, plus it makes the challenge for repeaters fairly easy.

I tried a ton of different things to be honest though and i gotta say that they did a great job at making everything viable and fun. Theres no wrong way to go.

I'm finding all of them pretty fun. Right now I'm using the twin pistols (with three upgrades, tons of crit) and the War Machete (again, tons of crit). Pretty awesome combo. Haven't discovered all of the weapons yet, though, so we'll how long I stick with it.

Right now I like the twin pistols and scrap musket. It is funny because on this weeks bombcast Ryan mentions that he is using all guns and I thought at the time that it sounded dumb to use all ranged weapons. Now I have found that the scrap musket works more like a close range weapon and I like using that over most of the melee weapons. I also like the War Machete and use that a lot as well.

I love the bushman pike and I mix up the ranged weapons, but I like the dueling pistols.

Up close and personal with the machete. And running away like a pussy and shooting with the fang repeater.

Pretty much always use the hammer on X, and B is either the dueling pistols or the breaker's bow.

I used the hammer a lot but switched to the flamethrower (the name totally escapes me right now) since it seemed to do a lot more damage.

I also found that you can upgrade the Army Carbine to shoot very fast, which is useful for picking off enemies in the distance.

the repeater and sword currently.

The breaker's bow and scrap musket combo has been working out well for me.

Mortar/Machete - Guns/Hammer and well almost anything i really like all the weapons... Except! Like the Bow wich is kind of weird... And the Musket is i donno i don't like it

No love for the pike?

That carbine is pretty great. Use it with the hammer most of the time, just like the Stranger used to.

I'm really early into the game, but the machete and bow seem pretty good.

I go hambow in this shit.

I use the Breaker's Bow and War Machete.

First play through stuck pretty much exclusively with the musket (spec'd for damage) and pike (spec'd for dmg and crits).  The damage on the Pike is fucking unreal. 
 
Started my second run with all of the idols on.  Still rolling with the musket, but spec'd it out for wide knock back instead.  I'm still experimenting, but I think for now I'll be sticking with a speedy aim Carbine with radius damage for my secondary.

Used fully upgraded pistols and hammer for the most part, but changed to that rocket cannon for the last level.

Towards the end I started rolling with the Calamity Cannon and the the Mortar. All of that explosive damage!!

Anyone else find the challenge area for the Calamity Cannon mad hard?

@GlenTennis said:

No love for the pike?

I did the pike challenge area but just couldn't find any love for it.

@Slaker117 said:

That carbine is pretty great. Use it with the hammer most of the time, just like the Stranger used to.

The lock on with the carbine seemed too slow, is it easily fixable with upgrades?

I go Machette and Pike. Machette having serrated edges, Pike having higher critical chance. Makes for a good 1 2 punch, plus I have a decent way of hitting dudes at range wtih the Machette throw. Still, sometimes turrets are hard to deal with. I tend to use the Machette Secret Techique with it so I can kill armored frogs easily.

@GlenTennis: I don't like how long it takes to use it. I generally find that the war machete is a fast and easy weapon to use up close, and covers the same job with it's long range capabilities.

I rolled with the Musket and Carbine for the latter half of the game.

Yeahh just s ranked this bad boy. I used the army rifle and the hammer.

I've been switching it up a lot towards the end game and using certain items for vigils but those damn pistols have won me over...they're so fast!

The A button.

...

Sorry :(

Machete/Mortar.

either machete/mortar or machete scrapgun

Dual Pistols/Flamethrower with some crit updates and a dot effect combined with the life leech seemed to work pretty well for my first playthrough. Didn't like the end game weapons like the mortar or cannon that much...

Maxed out Repeater (damage and ricochet) and the War Machette (crit build)

Spear and shotgun.

the weapon balance is so good, every new combination i try has some benefit and gameplay style that suits it and keeps them relevant, im really liking the spear and pistols the machete and scrap musket and the hammer and rifle combos but the pistols and scrap musket makes me feel like a cast member from Bad Boys 2. great great game cant believe how much i look forward to each new skill unlocked and new distillery options to see how i can combine them and mix it up.

I like the War Machete and pistols. Pistols are cool because there's no auto-aim. Shield (love the deflections) is so awesome

Machete + musket has been the best combo for me so far

Serrated machete and manual calamity. Just started my second playthrough, so I still have some upgrading and such to do, but I'm pretty sure this will be my combo unless the pistols turn out to be just as effective as the cannon.

Just completed it and found that the fully damaged out carbine and speed/ammo dueling pistols to be a good combo. The carbine could kill most things in 1-2 shots and if you get close to a enemy with it you don't need to aim making it a good long and short range weapon. I used the dueling pistols for stuff like the eyes and the birds aswell as to finish off enemies I'd damaged with the carbine

Figured I'd ask this here. When you are holding the button when using the Bow is there a way to cancel out of it? Or am I stuck in that animation until I release?

So far after upgrading all of the weapons a few times I've found that the spear (with faster jab, knockback, damage and crit bonus, and armor piercing) plus the carbine (with faster aim and reload plus explosive rounds) to be an absolutely killer combo. With the damage tonic you get with New Game +, I can one-shot most turrets and gasfellows (except the big ones)  with a single power shot  from the carbine even with all the idols turned on.  The AoE from the carbine is great as well, especially since the explosion isn't affected by the reflection idol, making it great for taking out clumps of little dudes. And the spear simply shreds armored foes like lunkheads and wall flowers, and the knockback keeps melee enemies out of range from hitting me but still in range of the spear. With this setup and the leech tonic I was able to clear the Kid's Dream with all idols on and I only used one health potion the whole time. I've been going through New Game + with this setup and all idols on, and so far I'm about halfway through and the only foes that are a real problem are the swarms of peckers if they get in close, since none of my weapons have an especially fast attack rate.

So far after upgrading all of the weapons a few times I've found that the spear (with faster jab, knockback, damage and crit bonus, and armor piercing) plus the carbine (with faster aim and reload plus explosive rounds) to be an absolutely killer combo. With the damage tonic you get with New Game +, I can one-shot most turrets and gasfellows (except the big ones)  with a single power shot  from the carbine even with all the idols turned on.  The AoE from the carbine is great as well, especially since the explosion isn't affected by the reflection idol, making it great for taking out clumps of little dudes. And the spear simply shreds armored foes like lunkheads and wall flowers, and the knockback keeps melee enemies out of range from hitting me but still in range of the spear. With this setup and the leech tonic I was able to clear the Kid's Dream with all idols on and I only used one health potion the whole time. I've been going through New Game + with this setup and all idols on, and so far I'm about halfway through and the only foes that are a real problem are the swarms of peckers if they get in close, since none of my weapons have an especially fast attack rate.

Machete on crits and dot and pistols full damage. I mostly use the pistols.
 
In NG+ I switched to the Hammer because I hardly used the machete anyway. Liking it because it deals great damage.