You should try a similar build that I forgot to take a pic of but its the same idea. Put your whetstone in one of the corners and then line up the entire row and column with shivs and hatchets. Getting that legendary shield and surrounding it lets you build up damage with some early safety shielding. Just remember to not take armor if you take hatchets since it reduces their damage but that was a pretty fun run that also died to poison on the second run through. You lose out on the AOE the machetes offer but you also get way more bag space to keep spices and consumables to heal up with.