Bones and Coins Party Building

A Bones and Coins party is a small auto-battler, not a crowd. You buy slots on the skill tree, fill them in the Guild, and then the bodies fight while you aim the torch. The full game promises six heroes and countless combinations. The combinations that actually print coins in public footage share one shape: someone holds the pack, someone multiplies the next hit, someone deletes the leftovers.

This page is the slot-order guide. Kit details live on the hero roster. Rankings live on the hero tier list. Stickers live on blessings.

Slot one is not a personality test

Slot one is the Barbarian. High durability, frontline damage, hired early in almost every playtest clip. If you put a caster in slot one, the pack walks through empty space and your torch does all the work. That is a solo run with extra tabs. Buy the slot, hire the Barbarian, and only then think about identity.

Bones and Coins demo first look — unlocking slots and reading the floor

Slot two is the multiplier

Slot two is the Shaman. Mark nearby enemies; marked targets take 50% more damage from the next attack. That next attack can be your torch or the Barbarian’s swing. Either way, the room dies faster than a second melee would allow. Streamers who skipped Shaman to “see more swords” spent extra torches for the same copper.

Playtest builds also stacked two blessing slots on top of Shaman mechanics. Full game: five slots per hero. Do not spend those until the mark is actually on the floor. A blessing on an empty kit is a sticker in a drawer.

Slot three is the pack cleaner

Slot three is the Bowman / Archer. Execute on low HP, extra arrows, bonus damage to full-health targets. He wants a marked pile, not a fair 1v1. If you hire him before the Shaman, he still works — ranged always works — but you are leaving a 50% multiplier on the table.

Slot four is where the Wizard belongs

Wizard arrived in demo v0.8.0 with three new blessings. Without an official spell card, treat him as backline caster number two: hire after the core three exist, then see whether his kit overlaps Bowman (more damage) or Shaman (more control). If it overlaps badly, park him and wait for one of the two unnamed full-release heroes.

Slots five and six

The Steam post says six recruitable heroes. Extra slots are expensive tree purchases. Fill them only when the core three (or four) already clear the current dungeon room without you panic-hovering. A fifth body in a tiny room just clutters pathing. Demo v0.8.0 already buffed hero movement and attack speed because cluttered floors felt slow.

Synergy beats duplicate

Good combinations from public kits:

• Barbarian + Shaman. Marked melee. The budget core.
• Barbarian + Shaman + Bowman. The loot core this wiki recommends in the party planner.
• Barbarian + Shaman + Wizard. If Wizard’s kit is area damage, this is the “I cannot aim” variant.
• Bowman + Shaman without a tank. Playable in early rooms, fragile in later ones.

Bad combinations:

• Two frontliners, no mark.
• Caster first, tank never.
• Filling every slot before income nodes are bought — you will own a crowd that starves.

Weapons still matter. A Barbarian with a slow pretty swing and a Bowman with extra arrows are different rooms. Read the weapon tier list after the bodies exist, not before. Loot and economy tells you which drops to keep for those weapons.

How to test a party in five torches

1. Run the current room with the new hire and no other changes.
2. Watch left-side DPS portraits and whether packs actually die faster, not whether the new animation is loud.
3. If the floor goes empty sooner, keep the hire.
4. If the torch still expires on a full island, the problem is spawn count or room XP, not the kit. See How to Play.
5. Only then spend a blessing slot.

Party building is finished when you can End Looting because the pack is gone, not because you are bored. For launch-week rankings of those cores, use the build tier list.