My Review of the Perks

[Ghostlight]

So here is my take on the various Perks available in the game and which ones you should focus on. This follows many hundreds of hours of 7D2D A17, many restarts, mostly co-op and several runs where I hit gamestage 600 or more, or level 200 or more. My ratings will be from A to E, where A means this perk is amazing, go for it asap; and E means avoid until you really have nothing else to spend points on.

 

STRENGTH

 

Sexy Rex (A)

An absolute must have if you are a miner for your group - you simply get more done in the time, but also maximizes survivability in melee combat situations.

 

Flurry of Blows (B)

This one might be bugged I am unsure. But when I have maxed this skill out, and used a fast melee weapon, heads just explode constantly. No idea why. However since one-shotting Rads is super-strong at late gamestage, I am rating it highly, with the caveat that it might be bugged and thus "nerfed" soon.

 

Deep Cuts (?)

I have never tried to use knives nor ever put a point in this skill, sorry.

 

Stay Down ©

This one is hard to rate because it's effectiveness seems related to how many points you have in Heavy Metal. Unless your enemy is already knocked down or stunned, this does nothing. Mileage may vary.

 

Heavy Metal (B)

When this skill is maxed, it is awesome and zombies fall over all round you, even if you swing your Sledge and hit the wall. But only up to a point. High gamestages means you will get more and encounters with the hardest POI enemy in the game, Irradiated Spiders and the usefulness of a slow weapon like the Sledge drops off as they seem immune to the knockdown.

 

Skull Crusher (A)

Late game, one-shotting enemies via an ability proc is super-powerful. Facing a dozen Rads all rushing you together? If you can one-shot some of them, you are in far better shape than killing them through normal damage numbers. Again as above with Flurry of Bows here, but these 2 skills seems to result in 90% of your attacks popping heads, which is really OP late game.

 

Miner69er (E)

Do not put points into this skill, ever? It's a tricky one. If all you care about is killing blocks fast, go for it, it's a B or C. However if you actually care about the amount of resource you get from mining etc, you should avoid it. The thing is there is bug with mining in A17 whereby the last hit you give to a block (which gives you the bonus yield) does NOT give the normal yield. So the yield lost depends how many HP the block had on that last swing (the more it had, the higher the loss). So while this skill means you will kill blocks faster, you will very often get LESS resource from blocks from these points. I just avoid them to be sure.

 

Pack Mule ©

The value of this skill depends on your ability to deal with being encumbered. If you are only a little encumbered, the effect is minimal, but being fully encumbered can make even jumping a 2-block gap difficult. This kind of means the first few points put into this skill are worth more than the later points. Storage pocket mods are also fairly common and can save you points in this skill.

 

Mother Lode (A+)

Getting more resource from everything you hit in the game simply snowballs your progression in all other areas. This is the best skill in the game to maximise asap, imo.

[Ghostlight]

AGILITY

 

Cardio ©

A tough one to rate. If you are a boulder miner, this skill is vital and great. Early game it is much stronger than later game, which makes it hard to rate. Probably 2 maybe 3 points in here is enough, but those points are well spent.

 

Light Armour (D)

If you go with Light Armour, know that your survivability will be poor until you get Military Armour (at level 100). To me it isn't worth waiting for that. Go with Heavy Armour and never look back.

 

Charging Bull (?)

This perk might be great, but I was not great with it. I cannot melee while constantly sprinting, it is just not in my nature.

 

Parkour (B)

This perk is plain FUN; especially when maxed out. Fun aside though, this greatly increases survivability late game as you can just get out of dodge whenever you wish. A must have for lategame melee combat.

 

Olympic Swimmer (Z)

No. Just no.

 

Ninja Movement (D)

If I actually believed this skill worked properly - which I don't - I would still rate it low-ish. The reason is that there is no late-game application for it I can see. When you are doing tier 5 quests in tier 5 (i.e. huge) POIs, TIME is the most precious resource. Sneaking about might work well as a tool to stay alive in there but it just takes forever. Too slow a combat style to be practical. And I stress I am criticizing it for the late game.

 

Sneak Attack ©

This is actually quite good if you are just using it for your opener against one or two sleepers that you have spotted from a distance. However used as part of a main strat of sneaking, it's too slow lategame as I said above. Are silencers bugged? Because when I use this with a silenced weapon, it still tends to wake up all nearby sleepers, which is why this gets a C instead of a B.

 

From the Shadows (E)

Apart from nights #1 and possibly #2 of a new play-through of the game, I cannot think of any occasion where I'd want to be completely hidden in the shadows. When is that useful? Also I tend to wear a lit up Mining Helmet in all situations, so I may be bias here.

[Ghostlight]

FORTITUDE

 

Heavy Armour (B)

Personally I feel Heavy Armour is the way to go. This makes it better. Survivability is good.

 

Huntsman (E)

Useless. I never have a shortage of Meat or Leather and I never put a point in this skill. Now if it affected how many Bones I got from dead things, it would be a B or C skill no question.

 

Intrinsic Immunity (E)

It's just not needed. I have never spent a point here, and yet 9 times out of 10 I have just shrugged off an illness or other debuff naturally. In those occasions where I didn't, Yellow Tea or Antibiotics (both of which you have en mass in the late-game) do the trick just fine.

 

Well Insulated (E)

Typically you can avoid Desert or Snow till you have a few decent items of clothing and mods, so why bother? It is tempting to drop a point in here early when you start to get the temperature debuffs, but I feel they are wasted in the long-term. Perhaps a point or two and leave it at that? On my level 200 character I think I have 1 or 2 points in this and I NEVER get a temperate debuff (due to clothing and mods).

 

Living Off the Land ©

A couple of points in here are great, especially if you have a co-op group to feed. It's not really about the food though, as food is pretty easy to manage in the game, but mass producing Aloe and Red Flowers is a must.

 

Pain Tolerance (A)

If you want to survive late-game POIs, max this asap, it is amazing. As a co-op player I have seen the difference between having this and not having it first hand when the crapolla hit the fan. I live, they die.

 

Healing Factor ©

A couple of points in here is all you ever need and these are great points to spend, just to top your health off now and then. Most of the time (and especially late-game) you will no longer need this perk and just use a bandage or Med-kit when required, so this skill cannot get more than a C from me.

 

Slow Metabolism (E)

Just rubbish and completely not needed. Food is absolutely not an issue for people going out and playing the game normally. Maybe if you do not fall into that category this might be a decent skill? Either way I think a single point in Master Chef is a point better spent, as it does the same job in a round about way.

 

Self Medicated (?)

Never tried it. Never felt the need to try it.

[Ghostlight]

PERCEPTION

 

Gunslinger (A)

Of all the gun-related perks this is one of the best in terms of how much more combat-effective it makes the player when using the type of gun it affects. ASSUMING you like using that type of gun of course. Pistol and Magnum users become MUCH more deadly with this skill.

 

Shotgun Messiah ©

This one is not bad as obviously a faster fire rate and faster reload make you more deadly with Shotguns (my favorite weapon type). So why not an A rating? Well it's that damn stun effect. I feel it is a liability more than anything. In the confusion of large, late game fights, players just ignore a downed enemy that isn't getting back up, thus allowing the stunned zombies to cause major problems for the back line.

 

Automatic Weapons (B)

This one is all about horde night - surely the only time in A17 you can afford to use automatic weapons in anger? - and gives a decent boost to SMGs and AKs. The Stamina gain is gravy.

 

Dead Eye (E)

On high difficulty you are simply not going to get this to proc much, even if you are great at getting headshots. On lower difficulty this probably procs all the time and is a barrel of laughs - but doesn't that make it a "win more" skill?

 

Archery ©

A great skill for what it actually does, but I feel Bows become useless in the late-game at high gamestage. It's just too frantic to use them, and for a Stealth build, why not use a silenced Sniper rifle over a Bow? A good skill for a couple of points early on when you use a Bow lots due to lack of ammo.

 

Explosive Weapons (?)

I don't use them. I don't rate them.

 

Boom! Headshot! (A)

Unless you suck at headshots, this skill is great for the same reason Skull Crusher is great - if you can circumvent having to kill late-game enemies with pure damage and can one-shot them with a proc, it is very OP.

 

Run and Gun (A)

OK I am biased here, as a Shotgun user. I favor Shotguns for POIs and they are the best guns to be fired from the hip, especially with a Duck Bill mod. This skill makes a run and gun strategy very very powerful indeed, and is exactly what you want in the chaos of late-game POIs where 20+ enemies at a time is not unusual.

 

Lucky Looter (E)

In a game where you can eventually craft everything at top tier, this skill strikes me as just useless. If it gave you MORE of a commodity you had looted (e.g 4 Duct Tape instead of 2) it would be a A+ skill up there with Mother Lode. As it is, I hate spending points that will become worthless by the end-game and this perk reeks of that.

 

Salvage Operations (A)

Amazing. In the same way Mother Lode is amazing. getting more of everything when gathering snowballs everything else.

[Ghostlight]

INTELLIGENCE

 

What a difficult tree to rate because Intelligence bestows the ability to craft stuff on the player. I hate that as a mechanic, and it makes this tree different from all the others as so much of this tree is a "must-have". I loathe must-haves though; they do not really deserve a rating because I disagree that any skill should actually be a must-have in the first place. It's a design pattern in games that I greatly dislike as it reduces player choice. Anyways...

 

Better Barter ©

Great early game, useless late game. I hate spending points in skills that fall into that category, so this one gets a middling rating.

 

Daring Adventurer (A)

Want all the mods? This is how you get them. 5 points in this and spend your days running trader quests is a very productive way to play the middle- and end-game.

 

Charismatic Nature ©

Does this work in solo play, buffing yourself? Unlikely but I've never tried. This is another skill that is great early on and somewhat useless later, so gets a low to middling rating. If it allowed you to buff other players above and beyond the max, it would score higher, but....

 

Hammer and Forge (???)

All points are must have, as soon as the player can get to the gate and spend them; doesn't merit a rating.

 

Grease Monkey (???)

All points are must have, as soon as the player can get to the gate and spend them; doesn't merit a rating.

 

Advanced Engineering (???)

All points are must have, as soon as the player can get to the gate and spend them; doesn't merit a rating.

 

Yeah, Science (???)

Only spend 3 points here, as I feel the things you get for 4 and 5 points are rather useless. Once tier 4 and 5 schematics exists, this will change. (To "doesn't merit a rating" lol)

 

Physician (E)

I have never put more than one or two points in here. They are not needed.

 

Master Chef (B)

Again I recommend only 1 or 2 points in this skill but those points are GOLDEN. You want to be able to make Red Tea asap and never drink anything else once you do. Never. Everything else in the game snowballs once you have made that transition. Bacon and Eggs should be your staple food and are very easy to mass produce with little to no effort.

[Roland]

Deep Cuts (?)

I have never tried to use knives nor ever put a point in this skill, sorry.

 

It made me fall in love with the Fireaxe as a weapon.

 

Great post. Thank you.

[RestInPieces]

Close enough to how I feel about the perks as well. Agility and Fortitude virtually get the short end of the stick - Intelligence on the other hand is something more or less essential so most perks can't even be rated. I dislike the concept of recipes being mixed with character attributes as well. Nice review.

[RipClaw]

The armor perks seems to be bugged. I tested it and there seems no difference between 0 points in heavy / light armor and 5 points in heavy / light armor.

 

Both perks say that the armor rating is increased up to 50% but the numbers in the stats stay the same and I get the same damage no matter how many points are in heavy / light armor.

[Ghostlight]

How did you test this? I know the numbers are borked but how did you test the damage you are receiving? I would like to try.

[RipClaw]

How did you test this? I know the numbers are borked but how did you test the damage you are receiving? I would like to try.

 

I used the commands

 

buff buffme

 

and

 

buff nerfme

 

The first command gives you 5 points in all perks, the second lower it to 0 points. I spawned in a radioactive feral wight in dm mode and let him beat me and compared the damage. It seemed about the same.

 

You can remove the buff afterwards with

 

debuff buffme

 

and

 

debuff nerfme

[lord_ahriman]

My feelings:

 

STRENGTH - You are spot on and it's clear as water your playstyle is totally different the way I like to play, i.e., this perk is well rounded, but I'd like to to improve Mother Load a bit (maybe 5% more each point)

 

AGILITY - I disagree about Sneak Attack and From the Shadows. Sneak attack is really strong pairing with a fully modded crossbow. Headshot damage in on par with sniper rifle and I don't need silencer. I think I can't one shot radiated Feral Wight, Bikers and Soldiers (those two because reduced damage bonus). Well, I'm a builder and so far From the Shadows works great, my lucky could come to an end, but so far I've been mining (underground) all night and no problem.

 

FORTITUDE - Disagree about Well Insulated, Living Off the Land and Slow Metabolism. As I said before I'm a builder/miner/crafter so well insulated is great when I need to "farm" sand. I always build elevated farms so Living Off the Land is mandatory to maximize space. Slow metabolism is more like a personal choice because I think Auger is awful in A17, so I need tons of food when mining.

 

PERCEPTION - Archery suits my playstyle, specially because crossbow can be my main weapon in my horde defense system. Not to mention steels bolts, are cheap and very powerful. Explosive weapons. Well, I don't even know how many times I asked about why explosive weapons are so weak/awful in A17. In A16 exploding bolts were my favorite weapons late game and a great crowd control during horde nights (when cops were a real threat). Ok, explosives are lame, but how about Stun and Dismember, could be nice if it worked. I hope TFP take a look at this soon. Lucky Looter is really awful and I like your idea to give more of a same item, specially ammo. I'm not wasting my precious bullets cleaning and entire mid late game POI, because it's a big waste of resources. I'll always nerdpole to get the "best loot" (best?) and done.

 

INTELLIGENCE - Spot on, except Better Barter (imo). As a crafter I need traders, so the more money I get the better. With 17.2 nerf, I think this skill needs to be reworked: each rank allows you to sell more of the same item. I.e, I could get more money (of course costing more work to get raw materials) mitigating current nerf.

[BeardedProtagonist]

this is awesome, thank you!

 

I had been ignoring the INT Trader options (the top 3), because in solo I tend to ignore the trader altogether, haven't really needed to rely on anything they provide, but the Daring Adventurer mod thoughts got me considering it....did realize that helped (I probably overlooked it)

 

thanks again!

[RestInPieces]

Too bad forum reputation has the spam prevention mechanism that A16 crafting should have had and I can't rep you for the time being Ghostlight!

(how to eloquently derail a thread)

[akram22]

i totally agree with you in the intelligence this part of the game is really as you described all the gates are behind intelligence HOW IS THAT A THING ,i cant latterly stand this. this why my last solo play was only 3 points in intellect because i wanted to test how game play feels like if i focus all on combat and survivabilty so cobblestone and cement are coming from looting , the total results that is i am getting gated even if i got a working workbench and working forge (that i still need to go to very apart) THE QUESTION IS what is your comments on?

1- do you like the intellect tree? why?

2- some perks dont work except with other perks.RIGHT?. this destroys the meaning of having custom very different play style for each one

3- something like living of the land and cooking. can you cook with corps if you dont have them?, or can you cook with corps if you dont have the perk to cook , can you stealth without setting points to this. or can you stealth without one hiting a zombie ? ( he will wake up the rest if you dont)

4- the idea of this system is great but , it DOES need a lot of working in it just to make every style possible without gateing every thing behind " but you need to craft this " Maybe crafting is something that you can get individual points for rather than same type of points

[madmole]

Thank you for your review I have taken some notes and we'll be looking at improving the admittedly weak ones.

 

I agree with Roland, Deep cuts is amazing with a fire axe. They literally start dropping like flies as you back pedal once you get them bleeding. Its kind infecting them with your own lethal virus lol.

[madmole]

We're looking at redistributing weapons to various attributes so players no longer HAVE to have INT or STR. By specializing in axes, you'll be able to craft nice axes, little to no INT required. This way players can specialize on 1-2 attributes and feel pretty powerful instead of forced into jack of all trade perk selections. NEED str, NEED int, NEED this, NEED that. We're still talking about how to distribute crafting skill so non INT players are viable, yet people who want to be a specialized crafter also can be the INT guy.

 

Logically it made sense that INT controlled crafting quality, Perception controlled all firearm skills, STR controlled melee/mining but at the end of the day it doesn't make for player choice. So now agility will govern knives/bows/pistols because those are the goto stealth weapons and agility is the stealth skill. Every attribute will have a ranged and melee weapon perk it governs. Everything is moved around a bit, but with player archetypes in mind.

 

I'm still working on this design and need to sell it to the team but its looking getting some traction. Just need to finalize how to split up crafting perks.

[Cirion]

We're looking at redistributing weapons to various attributes so players no longer HAVE to have INT or STR. By specializing in axes, you'll be able to craft nice axes, little to no INT required. This way players can specialize on 1-2 attributes and feel pretty powerful instead of forced into jack of all trade perk selections. NEED str, NEED int, NEED this, NEED that. We're still talking about how to distribute crafting skill so non INT players are viable, yet people who want to be a specialized crafter also can be the INT guy.

 

Logically it made sense that INT controlled crafting quality, Perception controlled all firearm skills, STR controlled melee/mining but at the end of the day it doesn't make for player choice. So now agility will govern knives/bows/pistols because those are the goto stealth weapons and agility is the stealth skill. Every attribute will have a ranged and melee weapon perk it governs. Everything is moved around a bit, but with player archetypes in mind.

 

I'm still working on this design and need to sell it to the team but its looking getting some traction. Just need to finalize how to split up crafting perks.

 

Excellent. I have to be honest and you have probably seen some of my posts, but A17 isn't my favorite perk system and this still won't be my favorite but this will go a long ways from me "hating" the perk system to "being reasonably okay with it". So for that - thanks

[Thecolours]

We're looking at redistributing weapons to various attributes so players no longer HAVE to have INT or STR. By specializing in axes, you'll be able to craft nice axes, little to no INT required. This way players can specialize on 1-2 attributes and feel pretty powerful instead of forced into jack of all trade perk selections. NEED str, NEED int, NEED this, NEED that. We're still talking about how to distribute crafting skill so non INT players are viable, yet people who want to be a specialized crafter also can be the INT guy.

 

Logically it made sense that INT controlled crafting quality, Perception controlled all firearm skills, STR controlled melee/mining but at the end of the day it doesn't make for player choice. So now agility will govern knives/bows/pistols because those are the goto stealth weapons and agility is the stealth skill. Every attribute will have a ranged and melee weapon perk it governs. Everything is moved around a bit, but with player archetypes in mind.

 

I'm still working on this design and need to sell it to the team but its looking getting some traction. Just need to finalize how to split up crafting perks.

 

Have you guys thought about not attaching Str, Int, Perception...etc to the perks?

 

Also, unrelated but I would love to see a perk and some mods added that would make the chainsaw a viable melee weapon.

[meganoth]

AGILITY

From the Shadows (E)

Apart from nights #1 and possibly #2 of a new play-through of the game, I cannot think of any occasion where I'd want to be completely hidden in the shadows. When is that useful? Also I tend to wear a lit up Mining Helmet in all situations, so I may be bias here.

 

Anytime you want to do mining undisturbed?

 

Recently our co-op group have been digging in a top-down mine a lot and when we used augers+headlight+not stealthed we got screamers every few minutes, maybe 5-10 in a single day. In the night my co players left for other things and I used pickaxe+stealthed and even with headlight on had 0 screamers the whole night (with From the Shadows at 3)

[Ladarian]

We're looking at redistributing weapons to various attributes so players no longer HAVE to have INT or STR.

 

Why have crafting be connected to a stat at all? Why not just have a separate "crafting Menu" Melee / Blacksmith / Gunsmith / Bowsmith"? etc

 

 

You level you get 1 skill point and 1 crafting point?

 

Then you could tie quality to individual skills instead of a sweep of making everything X quality because of X int like we have now

 

Way more precise and lets folks specialize even more.

 

You could even tie in weapon / tool damage into the crafting choices too so the jack of all trades could do a little more damage than average and the specialist could do way more.

[Ghostlight]

AGILITY - I disagree about Sneak Attack and From the Shadows. Sneak attack is really strong pairing with a fully modded crossbow. Headshot damage in on par with sniper rifle and I don't need silencer.

 

Oh? I haven't tried a crossbow in A17 for some time but last time I did it was LOUD as all hell and useless for a Stealth build. Have they changed this? For Sneak to work imo, you need to be able to kill stuff without waking up other stuff, and I could not get that to work whenever I tried it. Also, tier 5 quests can take all day to finish, time is the enemy, and sneaking just feels too slow to me. I prefer to wake everything and charge in like a crazy thing; one way or another, the fight will be quick.

 

Well, I'm a builder and so far From the Shadows works great, my lucky could come to an end, but so far I've been mining (underground) all night and no problem.

 

OK in that case, I do not understand this perk then. The way it reads, an enemy that would normally have line of sight on you will not have it if you are in shadows with this perk. That is quite different from being able to be out of their line of sight completely and yet avoid them digging down. SO basically we are saying that the effect that causes surface zombies to dig down to the player is based on them having line of sight? Because that makes no sense. I thought it was Heat or noise, neither of which is mitigated by this perk.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Anytime you want to do mining undisturbed?

 

Recently our co-op group have been digging in a top-down mine a lot and when we used augers+headlight+not stealthed we got screamers every few minutes, maybe 5-10 in a single day. In the night my co players left for other things and I used pickaxe+stealthed and even with headlight on had 0 screamers the whole night (with From the Shadows at 3)

 

You alone underground with a Pick would not generate Screamers with or without this perk. Augers on the other hand generate a ton of heat.

[RipClaw]

Anytime you want to do mining undisturbed?

 

Recently our co-op group have been digging in a top-down mine a lot and when we used augers+headlight+not stealthed we got screamers every few minutes, maybe 5-10 in a single day. In the night my co players left for other things and I used pickaxe+stealthed and even with headlight on had 0 screamers the whole night (with From the Shadows at 3)

 

This is because the pickaxe does not generate heat. Only the auger generates heat.

[madmole]

Why have crafting be connected to a stat at all? Why not just have a separate "crafting Menu" Melee / Blacksmith / Gunsmith / Bowsmith"? etc

 

 

You level you get 1 skill point and 1 crafting point?

 

Then you could tie quality to individual skills instead of a sweep of making everything X quality because of X int like we have now

 

Way more precise and lets folks specialize even more.

 

You could even tie in weapon / tool damage into the crafting choices too so the jack of all trades could do a little more damage than average and the specialist could do way more.

 

This is what I am proposing already. To craft a brown shotgun you buy one rank of shotgun messiah. To craft an orange you buy the 2nd, yellow etc. Pink will become the new "legendary" and everything will move up a notch, so brown will be like the current orange, because frankly brown items are worthless.

 

The other design is items have a crafting difficulty and your crafting skill for each item is a collection of points from various locations. Some from your shotgun messiah skill, some from perhaps a firearm crafting skill in INT, some from goggles, some from potions, or whatever. Stone axes would be low crafting difficulty, sniper rifles higher. More mod slights even higher.

[grukdon]

I agree with OP, the INT tree makes me sad.

 

I'd love to see the crafting be yanked out of the perk system altogether and put into it's own system.

It could still be similar to perks, whereas you get points to spend but with it's own experience system/bar. When you level you get a nice chunk of exp and, maybe enough for points in the early levels. Then you can bring in spam crafting for small bits of exp and crafting quests for burst exp. This allows for those that really want to play the crafter roll to do just that.

 

Still want an INT tree? Design that for archetypes, crafted axes are cheaper to make, swing faster (cause you know how to balance the axe better), etc. So now it's not a "crafting" perk but enhances your character. This would probably require the database to keep track of "crafted weapon". You could go wild with ideas, but I still think it would require moving crafting out of the perk system.

 

IMHO

 

Edit. Ladarian beat me to it.

[meganoth]

This is because the pickaxe does not generate heat. Only the auger generates heat.

 

Could be. I thought any noise and any light generates heat. Just like any noise or light might betray your position to a zombie.

 

How sure are you that your information is correct?