Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Builds Ranked

A Moonlighter 2 build is a melee class, a gun, a perk path, and a backpack habit. It is not a talent tree you screenshot once. Perks drop in the dungeon. Andrei, Eris, Nou, Blob-Life’s Poison Path, and the 1.0 Bomb Path all add branches. This page ranks six kits that cover the 1.0 game: a short-sword starter, gauntlet Berserk, spear control, Poison Path, Bomb Path, and Hex plus Thunder. Weapon unlocks sit on the Weapons Tier List. Relic rules sit on Relics. The Combat guide is the mechanical twin of this page.

All six kits assume single-player, potions from Eris, and a gun on the second slot. Blo-Beam is the default gun unless a kit says otherwise.

Short-sword starter

When: first Kalina hours, and any run where you still miss finishers.

Craft Merchant’s Sword for four Sun Eaters after you open the shop. The four-hit string ends in a finisher; Merchant’s Sword pays a short damage window after that hit. Learn to roll through a string, not away from it. Backpack smash only on Rupture (the black-purple aura). Do not smash as a panic button.

Upgrade path: Everlasting Fury after the first Kalina talk with Andrei (needs Herald’s Sound of Hubris) if you are fighting bosses more than rooms. Then Ultimate Short Sword at Vault IV for ammo windows. Endless Sword in 1.0 is the aggressive cousin: the special becomes a piercing multi-hit that scales with combo, so you stop dropping the string.

Perk bias: pickup radius, ammo, and any tile that makes finishers safer. Skip Berserk and spearhead perks; they belong to other kits. Potion count from Eris matters more than a third damage shrine if you still eat traps in Kalina Day.

This kit is S-tier for learning and A-tier for clear speed. It is the build you should not abandon just because gauntlets look faster in a trailer.

Gauntlet berserk

When: you can read enemy tells and you have at least two potions.

Merchant’s Gauntlets are the fastest melee. Hits fill the special meter. A full meter is Berserk: speed, knockback, and a very real chance to tank a hit you could have rolled. Merchant’s Gauntlets add Berserk duration. Sun and Moon Ballad is the actual build: when Berserk ends, attacks hit twice for a few seconds. That double-hit window is where elemental perks go nuclear. Ultimate Gauntlets add extra special hits from a charge counter. Heartbeat Hunter is the greed version: double damage taken in Berserk, huge damage dealt. Save it for rooms you already know.

Endless Gauntlets (1.0) lean even harder into Berserk power. If you cannot keep potions stocked, this class will feel worse than a broom.

Perk bias: attack speed, knockback, elemental on-hit, potion heal. Pair with Blo-Beam so you are not punching fliers. Hex and Bomb both work because gauntlets hit quota fast.

Rank: S-tier once Sun and Moon Ballad is on, B-tier if you only have Merchant gloves and no potion upgrades.

Spear control

When: rooms are wide, elites stand behind trash, or you hate trading hits.

Spears plant spearheads and recall them. Merchant’s Spear is the tutorial. The Rectifier turns returns into a five-second orbit. Ultimate Spear homes and bounces. Combat Rod (Masa) is a defensive orbit cousin. Endless Spear (1.0) is a burst button: spend stored heads so basics become specials for a window.

Play at the edge of the room. Drop heads on the pack, roll once, recall. Do not stand in melee range and pretend you are a short sword. Guns still matter for the one flyer that never walks into a head.

Perk bias: spearhead damage, recall speed, homing, any slow or root. Thunder marks on a packed recall are disgusting. Bomb Path also loves spears because one recall can tick several marks.

Rank: S-tier with Ultimate Spear, A-tier with Rectifier, B-tier with Merchant if you keep missing the recall.

Bomb Path 1.0

When: you have finished enough story to see the new perk branch. Version 1.0 (2 September 2026) added Bomb Path: mark enemies, hit them enough times, detonate, splash the pack.

Bomb is not a weapon. It is a path you bolt onto a fast kit. Gauntlets and short swords stack marks fastest. Spears mark a crowd on recall. Large swords mark slowly unless the room is already staggered. Guns can finish a mark on a flyer you cannot reach.

Build rule: take Bomb nodes that reduce the hit quota or raise splash before you take selfish damage nodes. Pair with Hex if both are unlocked; delayed curse plus a bomb is a room-delete. Pair with Thunder if you already have it from earlier EA paths.

Rank: S-tier as a path, not as a replacement for a melee identity. If you skip a weapon class to “main bombs,” you will still need a sword in your hand.

Poison Path (Blob-Life)

When: you have the Blob-Life perk branch and you can stay on a target for a few seconds.

Poison Path is a DoT that ramps each tick with a short duration. It is not Hex (delayed curse, spreads) and it is not Bomb (mark, quota, splash). You have to reapply. Fast kits (gauntlets, short swords, busy spears) keep the ramp alive. Large swords can poison a staggered elite and then lose the window while they wind up. Guns can refresh a flyer you cannot stand under.

Build rule: take nodes that extend duration or raise the per-tick ramp before selfish raw damage. Pair with Blo-Buddy if you want extra chips while you melee. Do not pair Poison with a playstyle that tags once and rolls to the next room; the short window will fall off and you will swear the path is weak.

Starsign Horn, Protocol Breaker, Dreampiercer, and Single Strike are the Blob-Life weapon aspects. They are class toys, not the path itself. The path bolts onto whatever melee you already like, the same way Bomb does in 1.0.

Rank: A-tier on packed rooms if you restack, B-tier on bosses that jump out of melee, C-tier if you treat it like a one-hit curse.

Hex and Thunder

When: Endless Vault II is done. Greed and Glory (11 March 2026) added Hex: curse, delayed damage, spread to neighbors. It unlocks at Vault Challenge 2 with no extra quest. Thunder was already a path; Hex is the multiplier.

Hex wants packs, not single bosses. Seed a curse on the smallest enemy, let it hop, then detonate with Thunder or Bomb. Blo-Blitz from the same update is the gun that keeps pressure while curses cook. Nimbus Regalia (also Greed and Glory) is the armor: one shield at the start of a dungeon, then +20% damage for two seconds when the shield breaks. Getting hit becomes a buff window, not only a mistake.

Perk bias: curse duration, spread chance, Thunder on cursed targets, any “on kill” spark. Avoid empty single-target rooms as your Hex test; Kalina trash halls teach it better than a boss.

Rank: S-tier in dense biomes, A-tier on bosses unless you brought a real melee special for the last phase.

How to pick tonight

• New save: short-sword starter, Blob Gun, Eris potions, no heroics.
• Comfortable in Kalina: gauntlets or spear, rush Blo-Beam, buy backpack slots from Sliver.
• Vault II done: turn on Hex, keep Thunder if you already invested.
• Blob-Life pets and paths unlocked: try Poison Path on a fast kit, then park a Bloblet for the shop shift.
• 1.0 credits and gold: Bomb Path on your fastest kit, then try an Endless aspect.
• Hardcore: large sword or spear control, never Heartbeat Hunter.

Do not run five kits at once. Andrei will happily craft them all; your muscle memory will not. Pick one melee, one gun, one path, then spend gold on the Vault gates instead of a fourth unused special. More lists sit in the Tier List Hub. Patch context sits in version 1.0.