Screaming Supports (Patreon)

Traditionally in KD:M, survivors have used Rawhide as the main armor set for any survivors that are undertaking support duties. This is because Rawhide provides deep survival pools, and AI control along with a modest form of protection. However, there is another armor set that works relatively well as a support set, either in full by itself or when mixed with the Rawhide headband and that is the Screaming Armor. 

Now I've touched on this a bit in the past during the Slambulance Mixed Armor build discussion. But to go over it again, Screaming Armor has one of the highest collections of support style abilities in an armor set out there:

[Image of Screaming Armor here]

A complete set offers, healing, resource gains, toughness reduction and insanity gains alongside a large amount of protections for the survivor wearing it. So lets look at each piece briefly.

Head - Screaming Horns

I have talked about how the wording on this helm creates a loophole where deaf insane survivors (i.e. a Survivor with active earplugs on the Lantern Helm) can keep gaining insanity forever. But even without that, this helmet offers +1 movement for the insane survivors and +1 insanity for everyone else. 

That's <Activation>: Gain +4 Insanity/Movement until the end of the round for the typical hunt party. Both of those stats really matter, +1 movement can result in being able to dash just out of reach of the typical monster and having a bit of Insanity is essential for hunters because Brain Trauma is a nightmare. 

This helmet is the second strongest support helmet after the Rawhide Headband, and the only reason that it's not more commonly used by supports is because AI control is really, really important.

So to get access to that ability, you can either swap in the Headband in a support build, you will lose a lot of defensive capabilities but gain massive control, or you can make sure you have a Rawhide DPS Archer who AI controls while the Screaming Support covers most of the rest of the support duties.

Arms: Screaming Bracers

The arms give us multiple benefits by spawning Acanthus Plants onto the board. The most obvious of which is, you are able to either gain +1 survival (allowing for additional survival actions) or Fresh Acanthus. This can either be saved and converted into other benefits in the settlement (Dried Acanthus, Cooking, Upgrading Gorm Innovations along with Gorm Brains and so on) or it can be handed to an injured member of the party who will be able to archive the resource for a full heal to 1 hit location. 

This is one of the only ways you can play a "healer" in Monster, and it is a surprisingly strong aspect of the armor set that scales all the way into the end portion of the game. You just need to gather the Acanthus and then keep it until it's time to deliver it onto a survivor who needs the heal.

Body: Screaming Coat

The final piece of the puzzle is the Screaming Coat. This body armor has an ability that is traditionally used along with the full set bonus in order to immediately attack after you have collided with the monster. However, you absolutely do NOT need to attack, you can in fact use this ability to shove the monster around a little (which is a very rare ability, generally you can only reposition monsters via AI control "taunting") while also setting up other survivors to have easier attacks. 

This is one of the strongest support functions in Monster outside of AI/HL control. While -1 Toughness may not seem like a lot, in a game based around D10s where monster toughness often increases only by 2 points per level. It is a massive bump up in strength for all survivors. Many weapons sit just 1 strength below the threshold for a 50%+ wounding chance against monsters, and this ability can help with that. 

It can also be stacked, so a Support with Screaming Armor can combo with a DPS also wearing Screaming Armor in order to slam the monster twice for a total of -2 toughness. That's a 20% toughness reduction on a L2 White Lion's toughness (for example) effectively weaking it back to the L1 level of resistance. 

Waist/Legs/Set Bonus

When it comes to the waist and feet, they do not provide any direct benefits for a support play style and likewise the Set Bonus is not that interesting (unless you are playing a hybrid support/dps spear trapper, which works well in conjunction with another hybrid support/dps archer). However, they do provide a lot of additional protection. So there are benefits.

But the Waist/Legs tends to be the spots where you can drop some additional flexibility in and go with a mixed set. Some interesting options here are:

Traditionally if you follow the rules as written with Spidicules, you are not supposed to have them in the same game as the Screaming Antelope. However, if you pretend that you have just acquired the spooder expansion and add it to an existing campaign (or just house rule ignore the replacement effect) then you can use the Silk Sash with the above three pieces of gear. It connects with the Screaming Bracers, provides additional survival when departing and once activated it gives you an extra layer of armor, which can help increase your durability if you are going with the route of using the Rawhide Headband.

This is a very simple ability, but it has a solid combo with the Screaming Coat because it means you can move 7 spaces to Slam. That increase in the distance you can perform the move helps a lot in ensuring that you can connect more often.

These can be used post slam to allow yourself to reposition in a manner that may be beneficial for other survivors while also keeping distance from the monster.

If you are not planning to attack, and instead just plan to support + slam. Then these Sunstalker boots are the ideal option because they combine a superior version of the Fecal Salve ability along with a way to (rarely) gain survival.

Speaking of which, the Cycloid waist is also an excellent option for such a build, as demonstrated in the Slambulance article linked above. It's a lot of survival when built correctly.

Also the Lion Slayer Cape (White Gigalion Expansion) is a very strong additional item, providing all survivors additional survival on arrival and a very powerful damage reduction for yourself. Shields can also be employed to help give an additional +armor "set bonus" at the cost of one slot. A slot you can afford if the Shield is the only weapon you bring (hey, get training on shield while you're at it!)

So, next time you find yourself tired of Rawhide Armor, or your settlement has such deep pools of survival (via innovations) that it is hard to run out of it. You may want to consider upgrading to the Screaming Armor set (with some possible flex options) and introduce healing, debuffing and brain trauma protection into your suite of options!