Light-forging: A Review/Guide of the Slenderman Gear (Patreon)

I am already on record calling the Slenderman one of the best nemesis monster expansions in the game, despite its goofy status as an internet folk monster and the really concerning copyright issues that surround this expansion (seriously, I'm expecting a C&D to KD in the future on this one).

That aside, I had a request to take a look at the gear you get from the Slenderman and review it a bit, because it's an unusual bunch of items with varying levels of potency.

Before we move into the gear, it's worth touching on the light-forging system itself. It's a tier based system (similar to People of the Sun's gear) and you can't craft items without unlocking the tier they are in. This means that in order to be worthwhile, each gear item in the higher tiers should be more powerful than the stuff in the lower ones.

Each upgrade of Light-forging costs 2 resources and more importantly; 2 Dark Water Strange Resource. Which you can only get via fighting the Slenderman - This makes the Heartflute innovation very important (note: Slendermen levels are set by the lantern year you face them in, so there are ????? over how it interacts with the Heartflute these days, don't ask me - I use the expansion rules over the terrible Heartflute text).

The Gear:

Tier 1:

This tier is unlocked when you beat your first Slenderman, and it contains Four items of varying power.

Dark Water Vial - 1 Organ, 1 Dark Water

Possibly the worst Light-Forging item in the game. There are precious few applications of this gear card at all. Essentially it is used reactively to make your survivor not a threat or to cancel bleed tokens that you might receive. There are some edge cases where this works because you cannot remove bleed tokens (Sunstalkers), but these are rare and honestly in most situations Bandages and the Fecal Salve are just straight up superior.

There are better options elsewhere - 1/5

Gloom Bracelets - 1 Bone, 1 Lion Tail, 1 Scrap, 1 Dark Water

This item is far more exciting than the vial, it represents a huge amount of additional armor on your arms and also gives extra insanity plus useful affinities. It's still a somewhat marginal item in most cases, however the Fighting Art 'Crossarm Block' is super powerful when combined with this item, because you can make use of the arm high armor in order to tank hits to other locations

Additionally, it works relatively well with Silk Armor, in one of multiple synergies between Spidicules and the Slenderman. However, outside of these areas, it's not that strong.

Situationally Powerful - 2/5

Gloom-Coated Arrow - 2 Bone, 1 Dark Water

This one is a favourite of some players, however I consider it to be only an average item. Yes, against many L1 and L2 monsters this item is going to deal a huge amount of damage and allow other DPS characters a safe run at the hit locations drawn, but the strength on the arrow falls off hard once you get to the mid-late/late game

There isn't really much to discuss with this item to be honest, it's very basic - just a fast, powerful deadly arrow. I think its design is pretty bad personally.

Not for me, but your mileage may vary - 3/5

Gloom Mehndi - 3 Organ, 1 Dark Water

Easily one of the best Slenderman items. Not only does this one have some neat story interactions with Mineral Gathering/Spidicules. This one is genuinely strong with powerful affinities combined with a decent armor gain. Additionally, this item is good for Crystal Skin and Layline survivors because it provides some additional protection. 

One of the highlights of the expansion - 5/5

Tier 2:

This is the best tier for the expansion as it includes two of the four best pieces of gear available. Most of the time, this is where I stop, because the return on investment is highest here and I only like one of the three items in the tier above.

Raptor-Worm Collar - 1 Organ, 1 Scrap, 1 Dark Water

The name is based loosely around nematodes and the item is unique. It allows encourages without survival expenditure, instead causing the target to take 2 brain damage.  The only use for this is allowing survivors who cannot spend survival to be able to help encourage, it's pretty much that and nothing else apart from a couple of affinities.  

2/5 - Situational, I've not found a powerful use for this one yet which means it's probably not worth a slot

Gloom Cream - 1 Love Juice, 1 Hide, 2 Dark Water

This item is likewise unique, but it's powerful as heck - to the point that I consider one of these to be a must craft item for every settlement.  It essentially allows you to 'de-age' your survivors. The loss of understanding is relatively low risk as there are few situations that reset your understanding to 0. 

It's not as powerful as being ageless, but it's also 

5/5 - Unique, useful, interesting, everything that an item like this should be.

Gloom Hammer - 3 Skull, 1 Organ, 3 Dark Water

Goodness I adore the Gloom Hammer, it's such a well balanced item. Providing an item that effectively deals 1 wound every turn, has no drawback on a +speed character and manipulates the monster in a very unique way.

There are the obvious synergies that result by having your tank or spidicules ring survivors sit on the left of the Gloom Hammer user, and when combined with a Green Ring tank you can basically dominate almost every single monster in the game.

But it is not easy to set up, even when active it's a tricky thing to control/use, so it's never really broken in isolation (though it might feel that way when combined with the Green or Blue Ring). 

5/5 - My favourite item in this expansion

Tier 3:

I consider this tier to be the crap tier, you've paid 2 endeavours, 4 resources and most importantly 4 dark water to get to this tier and really there is only one item that's worth your time.

Gloom Katana - 1 Iron, 1 Crystal Mold, 2 Dark Water

This is easily the worst Katana in the game by a long, long margin. I have zero time for this weapon. The costs of building this are absolutely ridiculous, requiring 2 Dark Water (on top of unlock costs) to build a weapon that is a bad version of the Rainbow Katana and Xmaxe. It's easy to look at it and go 'ooh high insanity = high strength' and point to all the high insanity exploits to create a weapon that always wounds on a 2+. But there are so many better ways of getting to this (Black Sword weapon master for example).

Also, it's not fully active without a Gloom Sheath.

1/5 and I wanted to give it 0/5 but that's not a possible score in this system

Gloom Sheath - 1 Shank Bone, 2 Organ, 2 Dark Water

This is the other half of the Gloom Katana and honestly there is no reason to build this at all except in very specialist builds. When you look at what the Blood Sheath does in comparison you can see just how weak this is.

I know some will try and argue that the insanity gain is powerful, but there are so many better ways of gaining insanity. Honestly I don't know why anyone would want to bother with the Gloom Katana + Sheath, even if they love Katanas, because the Rainbow Katana + Blood Sheath is so much better.

1/5 pushing towards 0/5

Slender Ovule - 1 Phoenix Eye, 4 Dark Water

As the one decent spot in the Tier 3 gear the Slender Ovule is more what I expected from items that are so hard to unlock. This one is a truly unique item, it gives some rare affinities, bonus insanity and more importantly - one of the most insane abilities in the game.

This item gives adjacent monsters (and survivors) -1 luck. This means that as long as you keep other survivors away from your Slender Ovule everyone in the party gets an effective +1 Luck. That can be a huge breakpoint for critical hits 

4/5 and I would have given it 5/5 but as the only good item in this tier, it's super expensive.

So, there we are. a review of all the Slenderman gear, with some suggestions on where to use some of them and also a look at why I consider the Gloom Katana/Sheath to be an overpriced newbie trap. Xmaxe is where it's at.