Team Compositions/Physical Damage

The Physical build is a slow but steady sort of build. Thanks to its high damaging skills, it reaches its full potential quickly with little hassle. Physical is best described as having idle gameplay, where you are free to leave the game alone as it pushes. The Physical Build is a favorite of many due to its simplicity and effectiveness.

These builds often use single target attacks, in contrast with magic builds which are primarily multi-target. X's Shadow Slicer may be reserved for taking out Janitors and large groups.

Since 1.1, Sweeping Smash is fast so it can be used instead of Phantasmal Claw even in the late game. Because of this, many would say that Physical is now overall better than Magic. The Widowmaker is unique, so a second character can wield the Knifey Glove for backup when the primary damage dealer is disabled.

Pros:

* Small investment
* High damage skills, especially after completing the Nailed It Quest for 4x damage.

Cons:

* Slow skills at the start. Longer animation time on its Nailed It and Shadow Slicer skills.
* Leads to a rather strict team setup at one point where you must run four Carpenters.

**Example:** TNMyCCX, Relic of Physical Boost

### Characters

Main Units:

* Carpenter - Strong, DPS unit. Best at single-target damage.
* X - Important unit. Has a strong group attack and ability to protect from death.
	+ Prioritize getting his relic. It's essential for a Physical team.
* Thief - Loot increasing unit. Needed to gain more essence from upgrades.
* Nurse - Healing unit. Can be removed early on when you have max HP Regen relic.

Alternative Units:

* Huntress - Grind-based DPS unit. Has potential to deal high damage, but requires grinding.
* Blademaster - Weapon-based DPS unit. Requires good equipment to deal decent damage.

### 1.1 Meta Physical Build

Read the full guide here: 1.1.0 Physical Guide by MJDesigns

### Meta Physical Build Before 1.1

Read the full guide here: Phys to Claw guide from 1k-1M by MJDesigns

This build takes advantage of the Carpenter's high damage multipliers to clear rooms early on with little investment.

The team composition starts off with 4 Carpenters, which are used to reliably clear most floors. Eventually, X will be strong enough to take over the role as main DPS, and you'll be able to replace two of the Carpenters with Nurses to fill the need of survivability later on.

Typically, the meta Carpenter build progression is as follows:

* T C C C C X
	+ Carpenters are the main source of damage.
	+ Notably slow because it uses Nailed It! up to 4 times per room.
	+ X's role is to keep the team alive and assassinate Janitors.
* N T N C C X
	+ X is the main source of damage.
	+ Carpenters can handle 1 and 2 enemy rooms.
	+ Faster than the previous team, but still somewhat slow.
	+ Nurses are needed as HP Regen relic can no longer keep up.
* C N N C T X
	+ Thief Ransack is no longer needed. She is sent to the back.
	+ Carpenter is brought to the front to optimize speed.

### Off-Meta Physical Builds

Of course, there are other ways to make a Physical Build. Unfortunately, most of these "off-meta" builds are undocumented, so their speed and effectiveness are up to debate.

The only real difference between these builds and the meta build is that Carpenters are replaced by either Blademasters or Huntresses. Since X is the only physical character with an AoE skill, he remains essential to both builds and is still the main source of damage after a certain point.

#### **Blademasters vs Carpenters**

Examples: T B B B B X, N T B B H X

Blademasters are capable of dealing high damage with their Double Strike skill, almost enough to rival the damage dealt by Carpenter's Nailed It. Unfortunately, they require a Huntress on the team to unlock their full damage potential as the skill has a cooldown.

For the most part, Blademasters need to rely on Default attacks to deal damage. However, they don't really have an advantage over any other character in this case, even with their ability to dual wield weapons.

#### **Huntresses vs Carpenters**

Example: T H H H H X, N T H H H X

Huntresses have a distinct edge thanks to their Soul Bond passive, which allows them to slowly accumulate power separate from Relics. At maximum captures, they effectively have +1000 ATK against most enemies. Of course, this requires a lot of grinding, and it is hard to get max captures on minibosses and bosses as they do not appear as often.

If you can get past the grinding, Huntresses are a viable replacement to Carpenters. Additionally, they are good for transitioning into a Magic Claw build later on, as their bonus damage also applies to Magic attacks.

### (Obsolete) Physical to Claw Transition Build

*Note: After 1.1, it is no longer needed to transition to Magic early on for Physical teams.*

Read the full guide here: Physical to Magic Transition Guide by Wifisadness

Before 1.1, Physical teams tend to reach their max FPH at around floor 150k. Thus, people used to transition to a Magic build, so that they can make use of fast AoE Magic skills such as Phantasmal Claw. Thankfully, there is a build that allows for cheap and smooth transition from Physical to Magic.

The team focuses only on Thief, Nurse, and X. There is only one team composition:

N N N N T X

Since you only have three classes to worry about, you don't need to spread your essence across multiple class relics. Your main goal is to slowly build up the Magic relic until you can make use of Magic skills effectively. Your transition is finished when X is capable of clearing rooms with Phantasmal Claw instead of his Shadow Slicer.