Requesting Backup: Hit Location Control (Patreon)

1. Introduction & Debuffs

2. Contents

3. Hit Location Control 

4. AI Control

5. Buffs

6. Defense & Healing

7. Activators

8. Movement & Positioning

9. Utility Offense

10. Survival Gains

11. Resource Gathering

12. Tactics

13. Miscellaneous

Overview

We will start out this series with a look at the most commonly used form of support gear, the kind of stuff that people iconically think of when you mention support gear. Hit Location control.

Hit Location Control starts with the White Lion's Cat Eye Circlet, an item that is so potent and important that it can result in multiple grinding sessions against the White Lion just looking for the Eye required to complete it. However, that is not where this category ends, there are a large amount of different pieces of gear which perform the actions of HL Control with a lot of different methods. It's a diverse category, which is also shared with Spears and Scythes.

HL Control is at its strongest when you are a new to intermediate experience player, or when you are facing a new monster for the first time. The more time you spend with a monster the more you internalise their reactions, and become better at judging when the trap is likely to hit. Therefore HL Control can be seen as being a 'learning tool' and I do absolutely recommend that you should eventually aim to move away from it as an 'every turn' thing and instead save it for 'we need the death blow' situations. It makes KD:Monster a more tense and interesting affair while also teaching you good offensive positioning without a crutch.

HL Control is what has set the 'acceptable' speed limits for weapons, because faster weapons reach beyond the typical depth of HL digging, the higher speeds are seen as unfavorable. If we had easy, regular access to HL Control that digs 4-5 cards deep then the higher speed weapons would hold more of a place in the game. However, that level of HL digging would be exceptionally powerful if it allowed reorganizing.

Lets get to the cards!

Cat Eye Circlet - White Lion

Crafting Cost: 1x Eye of Cat

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: Left blue is a very strong, solid affinity for the early game because of the combo with Lucky Charm + Rawhide Armor. But the fact that the Circlet doesn't need the blue affinity for anything is a huge added bonus.

Abilities & Keywords: The big keyword here is that this is a piece of jewelry.  This means that being defeated by a White Lion will result in losing it if you don't have some other jewelry as a buffer (Stone Noses). The other notable thing here is that it has the other keyword, which means it cannot be used by saviors. But that's not a big issue and it's something that's common to many of these pieces of gear.

Main Ability:  The poster child for HL Manipulation, you spend an activation and the next 2-3 attacks from your hunt partners are a lot higher quality. Not only do you get to see where the trap is (if it's coming) and choose who's going to trigger it (or keep burying it and stalling), but you can also prune away undesirable Hit Locations and set up your deadly weapons to align with the locations that drop critical resources. It's a massive QoL improvement and the baseline here is we get to see 3 cards. 

Rating: S Tier for the low cost and immense power.

Wisdom Potion - Gorm

Crafting Cost: Two Organs and a roll on the Gormchymist table.

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: Left Blue is a very strong element of what makes the Wisdom Potion tick, because many other support items use the Right Blue, you do not need to combine this with a Lucky Charm or other filler when you're putting it on a survivor. Additionally it has a straight activation combo with the Rib Blade and Rawhide/Leather Armor. This has resulted in the Wisdom Potion being something you can fit into builds with very little compromise.

Abilities & Keywords: It's a consumable this time, which gives you some benefits on the hunt, but also means that Antelopes can sometimes, rarely, try and eat it from your gear grid. On the whole the consumable keyword is a neutral one rather than a pure positive or negative, so it's fine.

Main Ability: This is a 'passive' or 'always on' ability that requires two blues to activate.  And you get to play with the top card of the showdown deck always revealed. I have a simple time saver recommendation for this one. If this is your only form of HL Scouting/Manuipulation; then after you've shuffled the HL Deck, place it upside down and draw from it in that fashion. You won't have to turn over the top card of the deck each time to reveal it then.

Rating: S+ This is a very powerful form of HL Scouting that has extreme synergy with both other forms of HL Manipulation (Control or Reshuffling) and slow weapons. There are strong combinations you can form with this, the Crest Crown, the Trash Crown and a hunt party with nothing but slow/1 speed weapons. 

Trash Crown - Dung Beetle Knight ("Failed" Calcification)

Crafting Cost: "Failing" the Calcification Process - I recommend trashing Zanbatos for this one because it's the cheapest item to sacrifice.

Additional Categories: Defense

Affinities: Two useful affinities, down Red has become stronger and stronger as we've seen new pieces of gear like the Hooked Knife and Tempered Spear that want red down connections in slot #2. 

Abilities & Keywords: This is jewelry, which puts it in the 'vulnerable to White Lion' category and it's also fragile which means there are some hunt events that can destroy it. One of the large areas that has to be highlighted here is that this gear card, for some unknown reason (because the Design Team has been actively silent on this when questioned) is that unlike other jewelry and/or crowns this one is not an accessory. If we look at the design remit for other crowns and circlets/jewelry with armor points they are all accessories, but the Trash Crown is not.

This could be an oversight, but it also could be an intentional synergy with the Rolling Armor. I play it without the keyword, so it's viable with Rolling Armor, Vagabond Armor and Mixed Sets (see the links below for the series on Mixed sets). However I would absolutely not call you wrong if you played it with accessory the way that the Necromancer's Eye and Apostle Crown have.

Main Ability: This ability is one that has for a long time be misunderstood. Because the crown cannot discard the trap(s), and in the situation where you hit the trap you will discard 3 non-trap hit locations it is easy for the inexperienced eye to fixate on that matter. One could also be forgiven for thinking "But what it does is get you to the trap faster."

While both of these are true, they are not complete downsides. To highlight why this is the case it is worth considering the King's Man. The King's Man has 3x Battle Pressure Hit Locations on top of its deck every single turn (and after each shuffle). These Locations have a lot of downsides to dealing with them and one of the aims of the showdown is to have a way of getting rid of them. This is often a survivor with the King's Dance, or someone with 3 speed who 'scrubs them' but the Trash Crown does this all with a single activation and also shows you what the 4th card is. Likewise if you are trying to kill Spidicules by removing all its legs, you can use the Trash Crown to ensure that you're always attacking just the legs until they are all gone (use slow weapons). 

Extrapolating this further, as long as you have a way to reshuffle the HL deck (Scythe, Spear, Blue Charm, Crest Crown) or you are willing to send someone in to hit the trap each cycle (traps hurt a lot less when you know they are coming up). You can scrub every single hit location in the HL deck that's not going to give you a chance at a resource (or stat gain in the case of the Dragon King). This is not basic HL Manipulation 101, this is getting into the more advanced stuff where you literally prune the monster for exactly what you need. When you get this rolling properly, it is a massive boost in the quality of your resource gains without having to 'scrub' the normal way (which involves taking nasty reactions or scoring wounds for no payout).

Rating: S++ The best designed of all the HL Manipulation cards, intelligent, has powerful uses and is phenomenal for HL Scrubbing. Is part of the strongest HL Combos in the game along with the Crest Crown and any one other HL Manip/Scouting card.

Crest Crown - Level 3 Phoenix

Crafting Cost: 1x Phoenix Crest, 6x Organ

Additional Categories: Survival & Defense

Affinities: A huge pile of affinities here, which you would expect from a prestige piece of gear from a very terrifying foe. The L3 Phoenix is no slouch to fight, so you would be right to expect as much as you can from this.

Abilities & Keywords: Very simple, this one isn't even jewelry, so it has no downsides outside of the 'no saviors' standard that sits across all HL gear.

Main Ability: If you want to put this gear in the #5 or #6 position on your grid, you can get access to the departing ability that gives out a reasonable amount of survival and insanity. This one isn't super powerful, but it can be a nice bonus if you have an armor set/load out that doesn't mind fitting that in.

However, the main ability triggers when you are insane (hello Screaming Horns) and it allows you to spend an activation in order to reshuffle the HL deck. Be clear, that's the entire HL Deck (Draw Pile and Discard Pile), that's how the wording in KDM works. If it was the draw pile only it would be "unrevealed hit locations" if it was the discard pile only it would say discard.  Just like the Spears, Blue Charm and Scythe this one is the entire HL Deck. 

In essence, unless you are unlucky you should never need to worry about the Trap again. And if you are unlucky you can run this + the Wisdom Potion with exclusively slow weapons and never worry about the trap again. Add in the Trash Crown and you can do all the farming I've mentioned above.

Rating: The single best form of HL Manipulation there is because it makes the Trap almost optional. It is a challenge to get, but it is worth it.

Necromancer's Eye - Level 1 Lion God

Crafting Cost: N/A - Victory reward for showdown.

Additional Categories: Defense & "Healing"

Affinities: Down Blue is nothing to write home about, sadly it needs to be connected to get the ability active. So that's something of an irritation, but it's not major, there are plenty of things that can complete the pairing.

Abilities & Keywords: Unique is to be expected and isn't much of a drawback because typically you don't want two of these in a hunt party anyway. Accessory is pretty darn amazing because this means that this gear is +2 head armor points for anyone who wants it.

Main Abilities: The activated ability is a ~33% stronger version of the Cat Eye Circlet, everything that's been written about that applies here, but a bit more. The Necromancer Circlet increases the range of speed you can safely apply per activation.

The 'ignore blind' ability is a very unique and potent thing that's usually hard to get. This isn't just 'ignore 1 blind severe injury' a completely blind survivor can use this and get their sight "back"  in full. Cards that bring back retired survivors are rather rare and unusual and something like this which has other abilities and can be guaranteed with a successful hunt is a rare thing. It's a good reason to have the Lion God in every campaign as an option if you want it.

Rating: S tier easily. This does everything that you want a HL Scouting card to do and more besides without any resource cost.

Apostle Crown - People of the Sun (Antelope + Phoenix)

Crafting Cost: People of the Sun - 1x Phoenix Crest, 1x Legendary Horns. All others: Found 'for free' while hunting the Sunstalker with a 10+ on the hunt card Cuddling Skeletons.

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: As this gear doesn't need affinities, the two it has are a nice bonus. Their orientation is fine, but nothing special.

Abilities & Keywords: Unique isn't an issue here because heck, who needs more than one of these? And the fact that it is an accessory means it works for any build that wants it.

Main Ability: You get access to a passive Necromancer's Eye as long as you have a +1 strength token. In People of the Sun this is gained via a survival action. But for everyone else they're going to have to work a bit for it. Here is a list of a few ways you can get that token.

• Red Fist SFA
• Acanthus Doctor SFA
• Monster Meat 
• Power Potion
• Scarab Circlet
• Brawler Armor
• Frenzy Drink (Frenzy)

There may be more. But in essence, you pick one way of getting a +1 strength token and then you're good to go. This one is very, very powerful, especially for a DPS character, they essentially have their own little support survivor sat on their head tuning the HL deck for them every attack.

Rating: Off the charts level of power. This one is fair in Sun because you need an L3 Phoenix + an L3 Screaming Antelope killed to make it. But in other campaigns it can be ridiculous, we've had it drop on the first hunt we've ever taken against an L1 Sunstalker and it dominated the campaign from then on.

Blue Lantern - Allison White Box Promo/Hooded Knight

Crafting Cost: N/A gifted by the Hooded Knight

Additional Categories: Lantern

Affinities: N/A

Abilities & Keywords: In addition to the usual other and lantern keywords you would expect from a Twilight Order/Hit Location Control/Lantern. This one is also one of the few order keyword items we have, which along with it's blue flame (rather than the usual yellow/orange we see elsewhere) has some strong lore implications. 

In addition this one is Sentient and like most Twilight Order stuff it is also Cursed. Cursed means you will need to be clever about who you give this item to because unless they have Crystal Skin, it's going to be stuck to them for good. The Sentient ability is another tricky aspect of this gear, because the main ability causes Brain Damage you need a way of building up insanity after using it.  There's a lot of flavor and clever design in this one.

Main Ability: This is the biggest Hit Location scout in the game right now. In exchange for suffering a probable Brain Trauma (Accept Darkness anyone?) You get to see every single card in the deck until you hit the trap, you can't change the order of them but they are there.

If you want to play this card optimally, you would record every single card on a sheet so you know what order they are in, or you can turn each card the other way up and keep the deck revealed up to the trap.  It's really up to you, because if you want to just use your memory because the other methods of tracking make you feel dirty, you're welcome to do so.  The quick trick for people without an eidetic memory is to note what # the critical resource gain cards are sat at and what # the trap is sat at.

Rating: The once per showdown limitation of this gear in combination with the huge levels of brain damage and limited ways of gaining this card keep the rating down a bit. But do not assume that means I think this is a bad card, I think that this card along with the Trash Crown represent the best designs for HL Control we have right now. They're powerful but limited with downsides.

So, as much as I despise the Twilight Order, the Blue Lantern is G R E A T.

A+

Summary:

There are a surprising and wide range of different flavors of hit location control out there, the category is way deeper than the AI control one (as we'll see next week), with stuff ranging from passive single card, through reveal X and reorder all the way up to filtering and outright reshuffling. 

HL Manipulation can absolutely dominate monsters by neutering half of their offense and turbo charge settlements by giving them a lot more opportunities to gain resources. They are one of the foundations of strong play and even when you are exceptionally experienced they are still of benefit.

Links to Mixed Sets for the Trash Crown:

• Mixed Sets 1 - Intro
• Mixed Sets 2 - Head
• Mixed Sets 3 - Body
• Mixed Sets 4 - Arms
• Mixed Sets 5 - Waist
• Mixed Sets 6 -  Legs