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Requesting Backup: Survival Gains (Patreon)

Published:

2019-12-16 11:16:15

Imported:

2024-02

Tags:

Support Support Gear

Content

Overview

Survival is one of the main tools you have as your settlement advances. Now, initially survival is less valuable than most other things because you have more than sufficient ways of gaining survival via Rawhide Gloves, Rawhide Boots, Fecal Salve and Dried Acanthus. Also your survival limit should not be more than 2-3 early on unless you are very resource rich or squandering precious resources on innovations (early innovating is a bad move, it should be skipped for 1-3 years early on because gear > innovations - more here and more on how to manage your innovation deck here. People get this wrong more than anything, and the strongest indicator of player experience & skill is their approach to innovating early on. You can spot the skilled players because they will deliberately ignore innovations at times in order to complete gear goals and avoid the "death spiral").

However, as your settlement moves forward, you gain more survival actions to spend survival on, monsters start to require more uses of survival per fight, Overwhelming Darkness comes into play and the Survival Limit trends upwards as you gain Principles/Innovations.

It is almost inevitable that you reach a point where survival gaining becomes a necessary part of a survivor's load out, survival on departure innovations are typically (but not always) weaker than other categories (see Hovel, which is a weak pick until it is time to get to eugenics innovations) and survival on departure is not the strongest form of survival gain either.

Survival gains come in three forms, on departure, on arrival and on use. Departure is the weaker of the two options because if you are hit by a hunt event that completely wipes out your survival you have nothing for the showdown, on arrival means that you can spend/lose all your survival on the hunt and still have access to some survival for fighting the monster. While one can complete the entire campaign without Dashing once (confirmed, I did it), it is not advisable, fun or easy to do so. On use items typically activate during the showdown, but some of them work on the hunt. They are strong because of their flexibility, but they are also the (only) skill "intensive" version of survival gains, because you have to choose when to hit it.

We have already covered many survival items previously, the Fecal Salve and the Whisker Harp were in the AI Manipulation section, Dried Acanthus in Defense & Healing and also there are certain pieces of armor that are very good for gaining survival, in the early game Rawhide and Leather are fantastic, while Dragon Armor (Dragon Mantle) and Lantern Armor (set Bonus) are absolutely incredible gains for 'on Arrival'. The Bone Sickle is very good for this purpose as well, but it will turn up next time in Resource Gathering.

Here we'll pick up the stuff I missed out earlier. Just like all of the above items, most Survival Gains gear have other abilities, be that protection, buffs, healing or otherwise. It is rare you see a pure 'survival gains' item and it is even rarer that one would want it because of how many 'on Depart' survival gain innovations there are to pick up the slack.

Reverberating Lantern - Manhunter (L1 Victory)

Crafting Cost: Defeat the L1 Manhunter

Additional Categories: Lantern, Healing & Defense, Misc

Affinities: Two decent affinities, they connect to leather gear or the Lucky Charm with relative ease and the colours are great. This combination of green/blue is common, but welcome

Abilities & Keywords: Currently there is not much benefit to it being a tool, but the lantern keyword is amazing post Watcher.

Main Ability: Sonorous Rest is an incredible triggered event, this is a demonstration of how the Manhunters are able to traverse the dark without being attacked by various monsters and why the Manhunter just 'suddenly turns up' inside the settlement without being noticed at first (during its introduction event). Before an event is revealed one can use this to gain +2 Survival (+1 extra for each green affinity) or +3 Insanity (+1 extra for each blue affinity) on each survivor. It also (with the help of War Room) allows for repair of armor & removal of hunt tokens and with Storytelling it can give out more survival, Understanding & Courage or even fighting arts.

Rating: This is one of the best hunt support items out there, giving survivors a chance to regain a solid chunk of survival, insanity if they don't need that, heal up, remove debuffs and even sometimes level up a little. You want to wait as long as possible before triggering this most of the time and it is at its best post overwhelming darkness, but it is absolutely 100% one of the best lanterns out there and a welcome addition to any hunt party. S Tier without hesitation.

Seasoned Monster Meat - Dung Beetle Knight

Crafting Cost: 1x underplate fungus, 2x organ

Additional Categories: Buff

Affinities: As mentioned elsewhere, up green is the second best green slot at the moment, while the right red is okay, but not super strong (it is better on the left). However, a survival gains item with two affinities, even if it does require a puzzle red, is still great.

Abilities & Keywords: Consumable and requires the ability to Consume in order to work. So no good for survivors with a shattered jaw.

Main Ability: This overt Monster Hunter reference is one of the best survival packages in the game, it is a massive amount of survival on departing and another big pile of survival once per showdown along with a modest strength buff. However, the crafting cost on this one is a little prohibitive if you have access to Green Armor parts because Fetorsaurs (one of the best shields in the game, if not the best) uses underplate fungus and that is a single drop from the DBK resource deck. So sometimes you just can't make this because upgrading that bacon shield to cheese is more important.

Rating: If you want survival, this has it in spades, A+ because the crafting cost is a little prohibitive. But it is something I always consider making because of how completely it covers your core survival needs.

Stone Noses - Organ Grinder

Crafting Cost: 1x endeavor

Additional Categories: Defense (minor)

Affinities: N/A

Abilities & Keywords: This bag of marble snozzberries are classed as jewelry, and this is a strong benefit here. While you are hunting the White Lion these provide a level of protection against losing important jewelry (Cat Eye Circlet) when the worst happens. Considering how cheap these are to make, this is massive.

Main Ability: There are multiple uses for Stone Noses. Early on they are a great filler item to put in your grid to help bolster your survival and provide protection against the first intimidate action from the monster. But they also provide jewelry protection as mentioned above and they are super cheap to trade in during events such as the Dark Blacksmith - The Cyclops Knight will happily trade you some awesome stuff in exchange for a bag of noses, he's a real bro.

Rating: Considering how cheap these are to make, they land in the S Tier as an S-, you will eventually stop using them, but early on they are a great tool in your repertoire and represent a great thing to spend endeavors on instead of innovating and harming your success chances.

First Aid Kit - Barber Surgeon

Crafting Cost: 1x leather, 2x bone

Additional Categories: Defense

Affinities: 4 greens, one in each direction and that is super powerful in itself. You will often see players use this item just for that alone.

Abilities & Keywords: Heavy is a real bummer on this, heavy sometimes sucks. You know the risks.

Main Ability: Ignoring disemboweled is an edge case ability, sometimes it will be useful, especially against certain monsters that inflict that severe injury more often than normal. But the main benefit for this is a mass gain of survival for everyone on arrival and also a huge pile of affinities.

Rating: A+, it is a very strong, useful item, but it has a significant downside that carries risks. If you use it, don't cry when your Acanthus Doctor is tossed down a giant hole in the ground and never seen again, honestly, they deserved it.

Elder Earrings - Barber Surgeon/Screaming Antelope

Crafting Cost: 1x scrap, 1x shank bone

Additional Categories: Misc

Affinities: A really great suite of affinities here, premium red and blue positioning and spare blue affinity to boot. This item is great filler for grids.

Abilities & Keywords: The usual jewelry issue stands here, but as this is a late game item, it is rare that it should encounter the White Lion. Anyone else find it weird that this item is made out of bone, includes feathers in its design but doesn't have the bone and feather keywords?

Main Ability: +2 survival gains on Arrival is solid, but the thing to watch out for is the +1 Hunt XP. This isn't an item for your experienced survivors unless they are ageless (or the aging clock isn't going to impact because of time left in the campaign). However, you are not likely to use this on anyone (outside of the ageless) except for young survivors late in the campaign. Here it allows you to push survivors up quickly through the age categories and you are less concerned about weapon proficiency because you already have the masteries in the settlement.

Just remember that you have 16 ticks of Hunt XP for a non-ageless survivor, you only need 2 ticks to get Weapon Proficiency online (unless they have inherited proficiency via Family) and 8 ticks to get the mastery. That means you can rush the first couple of ticks and not impact on your survival gains at all.

Rating: Because you can use this to take a 0 Hunt XP survivor out and get them to Age I immediately and it has excellent affinities I consider this item to be an A-. You almost certainly want one copy of it available in most settlements so you can use it when it is needed. I cannot list all the windows where using the Elder Earrings matter because it depends on Lantern Years left in campaign, current age of survivor, Masteries and so on. But it is an incredible tool for the experienced player.

Bone Witch Mehndi - Lion God

Crafting Cost: Grab during the Sinkhole event vs. Higher Level Lion Gods and then succeed at opening the Silver Urn.

Additional Categories: Mehndi (For Necromancers)

Affinities: Three solid affinities, but you have to have all of them connected for this one to become a relevant piece of gear, so they are not a huge benefit. Especially because it wants the 2,5 or 8 positions (center column) on your gear grid) to work and doesn't synergise well with armor.

Abilities & Keywords: More necromancer synergy here and also anti-synergy with the Sunstalker who likes to wash away soluble stuff.

Main Ability: This is a stronger, but slightly more limited, version of the Silk Boots. The Silk Boots are one of the best pieces of footwear in the game right now, so having access to another version is very strong. There are builds you can make with this item, builds that use the Feather Shield & Immortal in combination for example - using your survival to increase your insanity and spending that to tank damage. But you can also bleed away insanity to gain survival, which is a rare and precious ability, potentially this one is a huge pool of survival.

Rating: B+, this one is expensive to get your hands on as the collateral damage an L2+ Lion God can deal is sometimes extreme, but for skilled players looking to power up their necromancer more, there is a lot you can do with this one.

God Mask - Mask Maker (Butcher)

Crafting Cost: 1x founding stone, 6x bone, 4x organ.

Additional Categories: Defense (Head)

Affinities: N/A and that is quite an issue here as the God Mask demands you have 6 completed affinities from the other 8 gear slots. Outside of Prismatic that can be a tall order.

Abilities & Keywords: Same as all masks, this one is bone (good), unique (negative), Irreplacable (very high negative) and an accessory (good). The irreplacable is worse here than normal because the other masks require easy to get resources, Founding Stones are a finite and often used resource. So the crafting cost is a tall order.

Main Ability: If you are insane, get +1 survival. But only if you have the 6 required affinities. That is a decent ability, very strong in the right builds, but there are better ways to do this because the requirements involved are just too hard. If the God Mask provided some affinities itself then we might be in a different place, but as it stands this item is the realm of Prismatics or Necromancers with a lot of Mehndi.

Rating: D- Hard to make, pricey and hard to activate. Outside of People of the Sun and a few meme builds you are rarely going to see this one. Which is a shame because it is fun to speculate who the 'God' that the mask represents is.

Deathpact - L4 Manhunter

Crafting Cost: Defeat the L4 Manhunter.

Additional Categories: Misc

Affinities: Up Blue and Right Red are nothing to write home about, but because this weapon doesn't

Abilities & Keywords: Being Unique isn't a large deal because you're not going to face a second L4 Manhunter in the same timeline anyway. Fragile is something to watch out for though, but there isn't much you can do if an event hits it outside of rerolls.

Main Ability: You get a single Founding Stone in the form of the ball (in our history it would typically be lead but who knows what the Holy Lands arm their Manhunters with, silver?) Which is a neat ability, but I do wish that the card was double sided so one could track that it had been fired - it is unlikely that you would forget this, but some tool to track the shot would have been great. Perhaps a token with a pistol ball that had a lion's face on it?

In addition, you get the same ability as the God Mask, but with no limitations on getting it active, you just need to have the gunpowder pistol with you and it gives you that survival every turn. This is exceedingly strong and has fueled entire builds - one of the most famous is combining it with the Phoenix Placart & Silk Boots, which allows you to turn the extra survival into insanity which you can then use to ignore hits. It's a marvelous mixed tank build.

Rating: S+, thanks to that no crafting cost and better version of the God Mask ability. You just need to beat the L4 Manhunter, which you want to do anyway in order to avoid him carting your survivors off to the Holy Lands for awful things to happen to them. No-one wants their best survivors to disappear and become 'Manless' or give birth to children who are then turned into neat little drones or worker bees. It's not the fate anyone deserves. So slap the stupid genetic abomination out of the wrestling ring for once and all.