Impackt: Neonpunk II

RNG in 2026 by partying like it’s 2077

Mega Pack

Blueprint

From a crafting perspective

Stardust Sample Hackrazor Edge is a standard-issue T6 Potion T7 Sword. Not much to say here.

This item has CHC on it, making it a great option for DI.

From a meta perspective

Crit Chance on weapons is always really useful for damage dealers. That said, Hackrazor Edge falls into a trap that tends to affect a lot of lower tier items – it’s pure offense and levelling heroes care more about survivability than damage output. If you’re safe and will be using T7 (or so) for a while, then this is a great option. Otherwise skip it.

From a crafting perspective

BIT.Runner Armor¹ offers something a little new. We’re at the point in a tier’s lifespan where items start to have higher base stats, which means the crafting costs will be a little higher as well. This bumps the normal 11 Essence cost (reduced to 9) that’s relatively normal on T15s up to base 12 and reduced to 10. It also trades Jungle components for Elysium and still keeps four Timewarped (reduced to 3 with Ascension).

BIT.Runner Armor is a slight upgrade over Teddy Bear Body and is a little better than it for DI.

From a meta perspective

BIT.Runner Armor is a slight upgrade over Teddy Bear Body and is a little better than it for DI normal hero usage. It’s the new BiS tank armor. If you’re still using Teddy Bear, this isn’t a huge upgrade so you can probably hold off on switching if you want to save some gold.

Superior Pack

Blueprints

From a crafting perspective

BIT.Runner Visor drops a Timewarped component in favor of an Elysium one, but is otherwise a perfectly serviceable T15 Iron / Steel craft.

Being an item with CHC on it, BIT.Runner Visor is a great choice for DI and is the new best Misc Armor item if you’re not enchanting your gear.

From a meta perspective

Evidently BIT.Runner Visor didn’t get the memo from its Armor companion that items can start having higher base stats now.

As far as actual usage goes, Fighter gear with offensive stats is pretty niche and mostly only useful for Samurai, Spellblades, and offensive builds on other red classes. BIT.Runner Visor will probably be better than Cursed King’s Helm if you’re using that, but otherwise skip it. Samurai also have the additional asterisk that this item is mostly useless if you’re using Kiku-Ichimonji, so keep that in mind.

From a crafting perspective

A.U.R.A. Assistant is both an item later in a tier’s lifespan and an Aurasong, which both make it a fairly expensive craft. It doesn’t use any Jungle components, but requires a heftier than usual 13 Essence. That can be reduced to 10 with Ascension at least, but it’s still expensive. Given how abundant metal crafts are (especially with better options in this same pack), it’s not a great craft unless you’re specifically looking for gold or Merchant XP.

Aurasongs cannot be donated to the Airship, but they can be equipped to Champions. Aura of Inspiration is better than A.U.R.A. Assistant due to providing higher Power (DI being one of the only instances where this stat is relevant).

A.U.R.A. Assistant is also useful for Ascensions. This is Aurasong #19, which is enough to unlock the second Reduced Rush Energy Cost bonus available at 56 (assuming you have every Aurasong BP).

From a meta perspective

To answer the question you probably opened this blog post for, no. A.U.R.A. Assistant is not the new BiS Aurasong, nor is it particularly close. While it does offer higher base stats than Aura of Inspiration, Inspiration has a really handy All affinity that bumps up both the stats and the Element stat to offset the slightly lower base values.

As far as the effect goes, Assistant grants Crit Damage and Quest Time Reduction. Let’s break down why these are not useful in most circumstances.

Crit Damage is a handy stat especially since we don’t have a lot of sources to get more of it. If your heroes have high crit chance or if you’re running a Champion that can boost it, then CD is useful. If your heroes are struggling to reliably live through the quest however, critting slightly harder is not going to fix that problem.

The QTR is very simple. A.U.R.A. Assistant grants 5% Quest Time Reduction which will only shave 5-10 minutes off quest time on Jungle Extreme. Plus it’s quest time reduction, not quest AND rest, so your rest timers are unaffected. If you’re absolutely min-maxing (aka logging in to complete quests as soon as the timer is up, feathering, then sending them out immediately), this will maybe let you run one additional round of quests per day.

Overall, this aurasong is only marginally useful if you’re already steamrolling content or if you’re absolutely min-maxing quest timers. Unless you’re in one of these extremely small and niche camps, A.U.R.A. Assistant is only useful for selling, vanity, or Ascension.

Customizations

Avatar Items

Decorations

Flooring/Wallpaper/Shop Frame

Summary

• One item is a marginal upgrade over another same-tier item and the other three are niche at best. Crafting-wise, they’re OK but nothing special.
• Be a BIT.Runner to the nearest neon store to stock up on materials for your dystopian futuristic look.
• hey, at least they remembered what the current tier is this time
• Look ma, we managed to go an entire fullmetal Impackt without complaining about it once!²

Final Score

Mega Pack: 6/10
Superior Pack: 6/10

Shameless plug: ArchonMal is looking for some new people for his guild Fellowship of the Blings since he’s a weirdo and doesn’t want to join the rest of the stc crew’s guild. If you have 75G invested (negotiable), are active in events / investments, please DM him on Discord at @archonmal.

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1. typing that repeatedly in this post is going to old quickly ↩︎
2. _{ah, dangit} ↩︎