Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a spin-off that is generally cute and funny. Still, it is overloading with references if you have ever played tabletop RPGs.
Tina tells you to roll initiative, jokes about the way most Paladins speak, directly describes what you are seeing, and shapes her world at will — even going back in time to redo a scene in a cooler way.
The game is an absolute blast for anyone familiar with the kind of game you are playing in this game. The inception is real, funny, and it keeps getting better.
One of the notorious references is the character creation. You don’t really choose your race as players usually have to do, but you do choose physical characteristics that make your character seem to be of a species that you’d usually see in medieval fantasy.
The background choice is another great reference to the most recent and popular tabletop RPGs. In the case of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, this choice also affects your Hero Stats — or just stats, or attributes, or ability scores if you come from Dungeons & Dragons.
That is important because it makes the background choice so much more than a flavor choice; this makes it relevant to your build when it comes to combat.
That being said, you might not want to choose a background that will end up not benefiting the way you play. Note that, even if you know how to respec in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, you can never change a character’s class and background. This is why this choice is so important.
Don’t worry, though. We’ll help you make the right choice. If you want to know which are the best backgrounds in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, we are going to help you out.
What is the Best Background?
It’s Village Idiot. Backgrounds are nothing but modifiers to your starting Hero Stats.
There are five different backgrounds in the game, and most of them give you a significant penalty to specific stat. However, Village Idiot gives you a -3 and a +8, which is a net gain of +5.
It’s by far the best one when it comes to point gains for a starting character, as long as you can aim.
Village Idiot gives you a bit less cooldown in exchange for a bunch of Crit Damage. That being said, you will have to headshot a lot to make the most out of this background.
Village Idiot is by far the best background considering that it is the one that takes away the least and gives you the most.
However, it might not be the one that works best for what you are trying to build, and I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the most fun of the backgrounds.
Depending on what you want to play, you might want to try something else, especially if you are playing for fun.
For instance, I just wanted a bit more cooldown because I wanted to cast more spells, and I didn’t mind having less HP, so I went for Raised by Elves.
You should check each background and decide how you want your character to be with all that in mind. Before making this choice, you need to know what each Hero Stat does and which class they benefit.
How do Hero Stats Work?
Each Hero Stat affects your combat performance differently, so it is important to understand how they work.
You might not care much about your ability’s cooldown if you don’t use it too often, and you might not want Crit Damage if you barely headshot your enemies.
That being said, this is what you get when you put a Hero Point in a Hero Stat:
- Strength: +1.25% Critical Hit Damage
- Dexterity: +2% Critical Hit Chance
- Intelligence: +1% Spell Cooldown Rate
- Wisdom: +2% Status Effect Damage
- Constitution: +5% Maximum Health/Ward
- Attunement: +1% Action Skill Cooldown Rate
The Best Hero Stats for Each Class
Optimizing builds is just a matter of time. Players will eventually find obviously more powerful combinations.
However, you don’t have to do too much in order to check what Hero Stats supposedly work better for your class.
Select any background. Don’t worry, you can return later if you want to change. Once you do it, you will be taken to the screen where you distribute your Hero Points — the points that you use to increase your Hero Stats.
When you hover your cursor over one of the six Hero Stats, you will see on the right side what each point does and which class benefits from that stat.
- Brr-Zerker: Strength, Constitution, and Attunement
- Clawbringer: Strength and Constitution
- Graveborn: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Constitution
- Spellshot: Dexterity and Intelligence
- Sporewarder: Dexterity and Attunement
- Stabbomancer: Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom
How to Choose a Background
The backgrounds in Tiny Tina’s Wonderland add a modifier to some of your Hero Stat and give you a fluff text about where your character’s origin. Unfortunately, that fluff text doesn’t influence the story in any way, so you can just ignore it.
Your choice will be based entirely on the kind of build you want to play and the extra boost you want during the early game.
For instance, you might want some points in a specific stat anyway as you level up. If that’s the case, perhaps you can add them later and use the background that helps you be stronger while you are a low-level Fate Maker.
Let’s go through each of the backgrounds and point out what they do first, then we’ll discuss if that’s a good choice for your build.
After that, we’re going to teach you how to check for yourself the best background for each class.
Village Idiot
In this one, your character is pretty much considered large and dumb.
You get a massive bonus to your Strength, increasing your Crit Damage by 10%, but your spells take longer to be cast again due to the -3 Intelligence modifier that comes with the background.
This background works with pretty much any build. The extra damage on Crit Damage is especially good if your aim is good. It doesn’t matter what kind of weapon you use.
Although it might seem counterintuitive, village idiots can even be effective Spellshots. However, they most likely wouldn’t be optimal. If you want to play as a spell caster, you will want to increase Hero Stats that allow your magic to come back more often and deal more damage.
Note that just because something works to an extent, doesn’t mean you should carelessly go for it. So, if you want to be a powerful wizard, wait for us to check the other Backgrounds.
Still, you can probably do well with any other class when playing a Village Idiot if you are going for some sort of Crit Damage build.
Raised by Elves
This background says that you were raised by elves, but you don’t like bringing it up. This was my personal choice, which makes things really weird since my character is clearly an elf.
This background gives you a small bonus to Dexterity, a +2, and takes 4 points from your Constitution.
Raised by Elves increases your Critical Chance, but it takes 10% away from your health.
It works pretty well for Spellshots if you can look past the fact that it sort of turns you into a glass cannon. More glass and less cannon when you’re starting the game, though.
That lower health will be noticed, I can assure you. The -4 penalty to Constitution is no light modifier. It’s hard to recommend this for beginners, but it most likely is the best background for those who want to optimize a spellcaster. You just have to put in the work.
Failed Monk
This background says you tried to be a monk and make a vow of nonviolence but eventually attacked the head monk.
Failed Monk is also an interesting background for spellcasting. You get a bit of Spell Cooldown from the +2 to Intelligence and 8% Status Damage from your +4 to Wisdom.
However, you do get -5% to Crit Damage and -4% to Crit Chance. This is especially good if you are going for a spellcasting build based on status damage instead of headshots and crit damage in general.
It works with many classes, but I only recommend this background to those who know exactly what they are doing.
Recovering Inventory Hoarder
You gathered everything you could find, being those things useful or not, until you got buried by your junk. You’ve sworn to stop, but now you’re taken by the urge of collecting instruments of destruction.
I love how Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands doesn’t design backgrounds that are specifically tailored for a class. If you are not trying to optimize your character, you can have fun with any combination.
As you can see, there are ways to use backgrounds creatively and make them work in any class if you know how to build your character. That’s the case for the Recovering Inventory Hoarder as well.
This background gives you -4% Crit Chance and -5% Max HP and Max Ward in exchange for +2% Spell Cooldown and +5% Skill Cooldown.
This works very well with the Spellshot. If your build heavily depends on your character’s special abilities, just go for the Recovering Inventory Hoarder.
I didn’t go with this one cause I love being a sniping wizard, meaning I wanted that Crit Damage, but it could have worked just as well.
Rogue Alchemist
Rogue Alchemist is a fitting name for this background, or maybe I’m reading way too much between the lines.
The fluff says you made a name for yourself hawking off-brand affordable jewelry. However, you are on the run because the local baron discovered his amulet was made of chocolate.
Although the fluff text perfectly explains the name Rogue Alchemist, I say it’s fitting because of the bonus and penalties.
You lose some Crit Chance, which is weird for a classic rogue, but you are a rogue alchemist, so you get +8 to Wisdom. That Wisdom bonus is huge for Status Damage builds since it grants you a +16% Status Bonus.
Unfortunately, you also get -5 to your Constitution since, apparently, not even Tiny Tina expects a rogue to take a lot of damage.
