Lootbound Inventory

It is a square grid, not a slot list

There is no reserved helmet row and no weapon hand. If ten helms fit, the game will let you wear ten helms. If a class-locked reward will not accept the current hero, it still occupies the same kind of cells on the character who can use it. Treat every drop as a polyomino first and a stat stick second.

One loot card, one seat

After a win the loot card offers a short list. You move only one item from that card onto a grid. The rest walk away. That is why shape-reading happens before the drag, not after the bag is already jammed.

Once you know the board is the build, the next failure mode is obvious: the piece never sat down.

Equipped means “still on the cells”

Seating a piece and then rotating a larger neighbor on top of it unequips the first one. The Lootbound inventory does not keep a hidden loadout behind the puzzle. What you see on that character’s grid is the only kit they take into the next node.

Preview is not a commit

Hovering a loot-card shape over empty cells is a test. If you leave the card without placing, you took nothing. If you place and the outline stays red, you took nothing. The first-run loop on the beginner guide is the same habit: fight, then pack, then leave.

If the outline is the problem, rotation is the next tool — not a bigger rarity.

Shape families you will actually see

Public writeups group footprints the same way the board feels: single-cell accessories, vertical or horizontal bars, compact squares, L-shapes, and large irregulars. Exact names and cell counts per item stay TBA on the items index — do not memorize a fake catalog. Memorize the tax: a large irregular that blocks three neighbors is more expensive than its rarity banner.

Pack dense, leave a hinge

A clean rectangle of gear is easier to reopen than a jagged skyline. Keep one flexible fringe — small or situational pieces — so the next awkward drop does not force a full rebuild. The mid-page table below is the keep / drop / rotate call you make once the outline is green.

Three questions, in this order

What shape is it? Does it feed an aura I already seated? What do I throw out to make room? If the answer to the last one is “the cluster that is carrying the run,” leave the drop on the floor. Inventory space is the scarce currency — gold-bordered loot is not.

When the hero bag is full, look sideways

The Lootbound inventory is not one shared party suitcase. If the hero is dense and a companion is hollow, the keep decision can be “keep, but not here.” That is the next section.

Same rules, different jobs

A shape that seats cleanly beside a Warrior slash cluster may waste a Paladin’s armor neighborhood or a Bard’s instrument row (some writeups say Jester — this wiki uses Bard and notes the alias). Pack for the role on classes, not for “whoever has a hole.”

You still only click the hero

Combat stays hero-only. Companions resolve from initiative with whatever you left on their grid. A beautiful hero backpack and an empty Paladin bag is a half-build — the combat page covers turn order; this page is why that Paladin never grew armor.

Once both bags have a spine, adjacency is the reason you slide instead of hoard.

Districts, not a treasure pile

Early guides call this zoning: a damage district, a defense district, and a small utility corner. You do not need named items to do it. You need one offensive aura touching the weapons you will actually swing, and enough empty cells that the next items drop can join the same neighborhood.

Slide before you rebuild

If a new shape is “almost” right, rotate it, then slide the old neighbor one cell. Full wipes are for biome gates and dead kits, not for every loot card. When the glow finally matches the tooltip, stop packing and go read how those neighbors actually scale on auras.

Do not let potions break a district

Consumables are temporary. Park them on the fringe or in a single-cell gap so using one does not rip a hole through the damage cluster. Community notes about a two-consumable carry cap stay TBA until we log the 1.0 bag — pack as if every potion costs a cell you might need for a real shape.

Hero bag is the only combat backpack you click

Because you only issue hero orders, a potion on the hero is the only potion you can spend. A “full” companion grid stuffed with drinks is a misread of the Lootbound inventory, not extra storage. If the hero bag is the bottleneck, drop a fringe accessory, not the last heal.

The last pass is a short list of packing errors that look like bad loot.

One habit that fixes most of them

Before you leave the inventory screen, look at each grid and ask whether every seated piece is still touching the neighbor it was packed for. If a glow died, slide; if a shape is lonely, drop it. Then take the sequel page — adjacency is the rest of the build.