Badge Crafting Guide
A big thank you to Grady, Magic, Paste and NatsuDark for all the work they put into bringing the community all the information on badge crafting. This is the map we’ve all been waiting for with loads of additional bonus traits.
Many people have complained that even with access to the maps and crafting instructions they still have no idea what they are doing with crafting so below is my attempt to simplify it. The bottom line is that to progress to be an end gamer your badges need to be fantastic so you really only want to craft Gold 5-star rarity badges – everything else is just fodder to feed into those top badges.
This not meant as a beginner’s guide to crafting, it is more intermediate, aiming to help you progress to become an expert badger. It addresses strategies such as assigning odd slots to certain badges and even slots to complimentary badges (such as Damage and Critical Damage) so that equipping them is easier, and also looks at ways to maximise the odds that you will craft a badge with a useful bonus trait rather than waste resources on badges with useless or non-existent bonuses.
I do not construct Critical Chance badges at all, and I do prioritise offensive badges over defensive ones as the need for defensive badges is far less that of offensive ones. With the gradual shift towards building the assault class offensively, you should prioritise defensive badges on your bruisers. A mistake I often see people make is far exceeding the 80% maximum on Damage Reduction badges, which would actually enable you to utilise some of the lower level badges you may already have crafted.
A Column
Most of us will be cycling the A column and it is by far the easiest to navigate as there are no obstacles to get around, it is simply a choice of craft a badge, or step to the next row using your lowest level components in a step recipe (a complete guide to recipes is included later in this guide). A quick head count of the badges I have already crafted indicated that my best option was to craft Damage badges in the odd slots and Critical Damage badges in the even ones. Similarly, I opted to craft Health badges in the odd slots and Damage Reduction badges in the even ones.
B Column
The B column is where it starts to get a little more complicated, because the rows highlighted in red (B07, B16, B17, B22 and B30) have no bonus trait at all but you can’t use a step recipe to advance to the next row because a step recipe will transport you elsewhere in the map. In some cases you can use a jump recipe to achieve the desired effect but in others you would have no choice but to waste assets crafting a useless badge with no bonus trait to remain in the B column. It is generally not quite as good as the A column anyway, so it would probably be a waste of resources to try and remain.
C Column
The C column is not a bad column to be in if you are trying to build up your defensive badges, however C21 and C29 are the 2 problem rows as neither of these has a bonus trait and the step, jump and fail recipes transport you to a different place in the map. Your only option in both of these cases is to craft a useless badge with no bonus trait so it would be a complete waste of resources to remain in the column.
D Column
The D column is a great column for crafting damage badges, however D12 and D28 are the 2 problem rows as neither of these has a bonus trait and the step, jump and fail recipes transport you to a different place in the map. Your only option in both of these cases is to craft a useless badge with no bonus trait so it would be a complete waste of resources to remain in the column.
Recipe Guide
Recipes for crafting fall into different categories craft, step, jump and fail. Crafting recipes are the ones that help you craft Damage, Critical Damage, Health, Damage Reduction or Critical Chance badges but you are only guaranteed to craft the desired effect if you use ONLY Legendary (Gold 5-star) fragment and components. For each Epic (Blue 4-star) component you substitute you reduce the odds of you crafting the desired effect by 5% For each Rare (Green 3-star) component you substitute you reduce the odds by 10% and so on. This should be avoided at all costs, not only because it is wasteful, if you don’t get the desired effect, but also it is classed as a fail recipe and is likely to transport you to somewhere else in the map completely.
It is when you start moving around the map that things get a lot more confusing. Moving to different columns requires using Jump or Fail recipes. Jump recipes should work all the time however, even using your lowest possible components there is at least a 5% chance that you will craft a low-level badge with the desired effect and it would not count as a fail. I would only recommend this strategy to more advanced crafters who want to move to a different column to craft very specific badges not found in column A. Personally, I have no issue with cycling through the A column – I know where I am with it and if some of the badges I craft have a dud bonus, I accept it and move on.
Bonus Trait Guide
This latest update in badge crafting has thrown out the original IPR (Iron Skin, Power Strike, Ruthless), LMS (Lucky, Marksman, Sure Shot), DRB (Dodge, Retaliate, Bullet Dodge) and SVD (Strong, Vigilant, Defensive Stance) bonus conditions in favour of 2 super groups of 9 – increasing the amount of trait bonuses available from 12 to 18. It is great that we now have the possibility to get bonuses for more useful traits such as Punish, Weakening and Perseverance, however with 9 options to choose from, the drop rate for the badges you really want are far reduced.
In group 1 which has Lucky, Strong, Marksman, Sure Shot, Punish and Critical Aim you have a staggering 67% chance of rolling an offensive badge with the desired effect. These are very good odds compared to group 2. The second group has Dodge, Weakening and Perseverance so I have opted to craft defensive badges for my bruisers, giving me only a 33% chance of crafting a useful badge. This group has Ruthless and Power Strike which both suit an offensive badge but with no other useful offensive traits in the group the odds of rolling something decent are only 22%, which is why I opt for defensive badges here. Group 1 is definitely worth the gamble but group 2 has far lower odds of paying off with a useful badge.
The class match bonus is great, because it is easier to predict the class of teammate you will team with your heroes. Both the options; SBS (Shooter, Bruiser or Scout) and HWA (Hunter, Warrior or Assault) suit an offensive badge craft (either damage or critical damage). If you refer to my column guides I craft Damage badges in the odd slots (1, 3, 5) and Critical Damage badges in the even slots (2, 4, 6).
Hero Bonus Traits
The latest version of the map has organised the bonus ‘if one of the survivors mission teammates is a particular hero’ into 8 groups of 5 heroes, so that all 40 heroes (except Connie) are represented. This is a tricky match to pull off because with the exception of some of the useful combos such as SMY and SPY, it is quite difficult to predict who the survivor’s teammates are likely to be.
Most of us have trios that we like to use together on maps; for example, I like to use Zeke with Eugene and RGG. It would be advantageous to use ‘bonus if teammate is Zeke’ on Eugene and RGG, and in GW and The Distance it makes great sense, however if the Star Hero was Beta, I would want to team him with my 2 favourite bruisers but no longer teamed with Zeke, they would instantly become less effective. If I had badged ‘bonus if teammate is a Warrior’ there would be no change.
For this reason, the hero bonus is less of a priority to me and for 3 of the 8 groups I would just use a step recipe. For the other 5 I have calculated the odds and probably because I’m sitting on a lot of resources lately (where I was waiting for this update in crafting), I opt to take a gamble choosing to roll offensive badges.
