Ranged Survivor Guide
This guide does not focus on individual weapons and armour, but is intended as a guide to help work out useful traits to equip on survivors if you don’t have game changing weapons such as the Winter Harpoon Gun, The Import.57 or the Hazard Bulldozer. More information on great ways to build and equip individual heroes can be found in this website, categorised for all 6 classes of hero, along with combinations of heroes that suit a range of maps.
Ranged Survivors are essentially offensive classes and are best equipped with aggressive traits, badges, weapons and armour, however there are exceptions to the rule that might prove useful. Certain Hunters and Shooters have more defensive leader traits (LTs) and are best suited to Guild War (GW) or Outpost Defence. Assaults traditionally used as a defensive class (used for stun wall strategies where they provide a protection barrier) have now been overshadowed by offensive Assaults like Mercer (and my alternate Mercer, Abraham). It is worth noting that if you are using the Sure Shot trait, you should always equip a weapon with piercing and because sure shot activates only if you have not moved, tactical is an essential trait too.
Melee Survivor Guide
It is harder to define the melee class as offensive or defensive, as how you use them is influenced more by the weapon they use. For the most part you want to build your Scouts and Warriors as a ‘Glass Cannon’, able to deal huge amounts of damage but are unable to survive a single hit. This relies heavily on utilising leader traits and equipping them with the right tools for the job.
Power Strike and Strong are great traits for powerful attacks, but with the addition of traits like weakening we have to prioritise one over the other. For Scouts like Rick, Power Strike and Ruthless give immensely powerful attacks, but require he keep some distance with Spears or the Bayonet Musket. The Crescent Edge or Mercer’s Axe are the weapon of choice for Scouts that need to be more tactical, such as Pizza Guy Glenn (PGG) or Drive-by-Daryl (DBD) and so for them Strong is the trait of choice. Warriors equipped with The Morning Star or Dragon’s Tongue can make great use of Power Strike, but for other weapons with gold Razor and Wide Arc you will need to go with Strong.
The Bruiser class are your damage absorbers and are pretty much defensive across the board, although new arrival Fighter Rosita (Bruisita) can be built offensively.
