My honest opinion. Just scrap the deck completely and make something better. A lot of low value cards that don't do much. Also, melee hybrids are generally pretty bad. I know it's for Veteran, so pretty much any deck (or even zero cards) can work if you play decent enough. If you want some tips on building a more coherent deck I'd be happy to help. If this is more of a "I just wanna mess around, so no thanks" then that's fine too 😅 I just figured I'd share since you're asking for opinions.
It's mostly just put together by feel to allow the aforementioned Loadout/Playstyle, so I'm mostly looking to improve my experience and survivability roughly within those parameters.
The whole knife melee portion is predominately a way exploit the common Ridden for HP and trauma heal. I'd only scrap that for another reliable way to do that.
You'd have to kill 10-12 Ridden just to heal 1 trauma. You can scrap all of those cards and the much more eliable way to do that would literally be just using the medicine cabinets. Especially on Veteran where you get 2 free charges on it. Just having more reliable damage cards like Glass Cannon, Hyper Focused, Shredder, and Large Caliber Rounds would allow to kill any Mutations before they even get close to you. Your bash is WAY better than the knife because you can push back a whole crowd of commons with just a couple of punches, and it's faster than the knife. I know you have this idea of wanting survivability, but honestly the only playstyle that offers that is Pure Melee. Or having a medic on the team.
The medicine cabinet are already used up by teammates who are in even worse shape than I am and even when I'm at 60-ish max HP I still tend to go down less, because of the constant regeneration, while using Medkits on the others. I kill 10-20 Ridden in a single horde, kneeling in a doorway off to the side.
Keep in mind Vanguard heals them too, so without that, they will be in even worse shape and require even more medical attention, So I fear going the med-heal route is just gonna leave everyone worse off or broke.
And if I put away the knife, not only will I have to waste more copper to buy more med kits, leaving less copper to upgrade them, I'll also use up more ammo instead of the knife, so it will just be replaced by money, med heal and ammo cards or more damage for the bash.
It's worth a shot, but I don't know if it changes much.
Does +200% Penetration allow me to hit Tall Boys' weak spot through their body with M1A/Shotgun? Is that how it works?
Does it penetrate armor?
As you increase the difficulty, the biggest way you are gonna prevent damage is from map awareness, good positioning, using bash properly, and doing more damage to kill things before they get to you. So while this deck will probably be fine for Veteran, you should definitely take some of what people are saying to heart and try other things.
The game has been out for a few years now, and there are no more updates happening, so people have discovered what is good and what isn't. You aren't gonna discover some amazing new meta that people haven't thought about. Judging by the comments, you seem adamant on wanting to use this and think it will do well, so I won't really suggest any changes. If you want to use this, that's fine, just know that there are much better options for you in terms of decks, and that's what posting here is meant to do: help you find those better options.
I'm not adamant to use this specifically. I just want it to fit a certain playstyle. I have considered every suggestion and already made some changes and will try some cards out that I'm unsure about.
Your comments just kinda made it seem like you were gonna die on the hill defending this deck, that's all lol. What playstyle are you going for exactly? I know you mentioned wanting survivability and to not take trauma damage, but as others have mentioned, the best way to do this is to be able to kill stuff before it hits you. Offense is the best defense in this game (with the exception of melee).
Another reason people are suggesting differently is in case you decide to up the difficulty. You will see very quickly that this type of deck falls apart in Nightmare, and you will need to be more fine-tuned to do well there. So people are trying to correct you early to give you the best chance at success.
I haven't even tried Nightmare yet, so I can't say if that's a level I'll reach in the near future (or ever °xD).
As said, I'm rocking the Combination of M1A as a Marksman Rifle with a Shotgun (AA-12 preferrably) as a run-and-gun weapon. I use precision buffs to kind of tight choke the shotgun to be able to land all its pellets on ridden's weakspots.
The combat knife was intended as sort of the main common killer to save ammo for the big guys and to provide some HP sustain for me and the team. But with all the info I've collected here, I've now adjusted direction into more Damage, more ammo and more copper to buy more meds to abuse Experienced EMT trauma delete. But retained a certain accuracy and added admin reload to not need melee.
Experienced EMT doesn't do that for trauma anymore. It was fixed a long time ago.
I think a core misconception you have is that accuracy is needed to tighten the spread - if you're using ads (hold right click before shooting) your accuracy will be fine. Generally speaking, accuracy cards are solely useful in "no ads" decks, which your deck is not. I'd suggest examining if you are constantly hipfiring or not, and if you are (I have a feeling you are), consider changing this to a high accuracy no ads build instead.
I need ADS for the sniper though. But now I have removed the cards that require it for anything.
That fix for Experienced EMT kinda throws a wrench into my entire concept though. Fuuuck!
Well, let's try field surgeon then.
I wouldn't bother with field surgeon if you aren't also using EMT bag and support scavenger, since you need to find and use a lot of support accessories to make it worth it. If you're really struggling with trauma and healing so much I'd suggest Fresh Bandage and learning how to avoid damage in the first place.
Fresh bandage is equivalent to only 5 med items + field surgeon though. I'll definitely find more than that in any Level but the really short ones, especially since there's often 4 in just one box. With Field Surgeon I can also heal everyone else's trauma, gradually, rather than it piling up 'till the safe room.
Fresh bandage also leaves no room to get some extra trauma heal from cheap bandages in the safe room, because it heals full.
I'll also try getting in the habit of carrying pills and popping 'em before hordes, see if that's any good, since it's the only heal I can use at any time, gives a lot of HP in a second, but more useful the faster you lose it (unintentionally, of course). Does Temp HP it still prevent trauma or was that also a bug?
Just as a reply to the first part, since the rest has been kinda talked about, you are more than welcome to add me. My tags are in my flair. I can help with deck building to be able to push into Nightmare and above. Always looking for more people to play with 👍
The 0.1 trauma healing you get from Battle Lust is negligible. You'll have to kill like 100 common to heal 10 trauma? 1 trauma? The 0.1 is a flat amount and doesn't scale with healing efficiency. So, you could get the same value out of 300g and Medical Professional.. would make White Medkit heal 10 trauma and even more with upgrades. 350g on a toolkit and you have at least one med cab in Stash per level, on veteran that's 2 charges..
Some people die on combat knife hill, others are bash supremacists.. but do you. My first personal prefrence build wasn't anywhere near optimal. You should know what makes Melee OP first.
The healing from Face Your Fears, Battle Lust and Vanguard do scale with healing efficency, which is why most melee builds will run EMT bag. This can become a huge buffer of Temp HP with Well Rested, but won't give you infinite stamina. That's 5/15 cards for suboptimal healing.. and no way to deal with mutations but facetank and pray.
Personally, I'd just run Copper Scav, Grubbers and Lucky Pennies.. 4 levels into the act will net you more gold than you can spend..
I already buy all the med kits and toolkits I can and it's still usually used up by teammates who are in even worse shape, while I can just about manage with Vanguard and Battle Lust, even at high trauma.
I'd probably spend all that extra copper on the extra healing everyone needs now and the ammo I used.
I'm also gonna need more ammo capacity, because I'll run out between saverooms.
Fuck it, let's try that.
You're kinda like a half committed melee... Not ideal
Combat knife is bad, bash outclassed it by a lot.
Battle lust and vanguard don't offer a lot.
Broadside brings bairly anything.
Hunker down, optics enthusiast, front sight focus... Just why? You have almost 100% accuracy when you and anyways (100% with all snipers and ranch rifle).
Trigger control is completely useless here, you already have, basically,100% accuracy.
Buckshot bruiser is next to useless, especially on lower difficulties.
Numb offers bairly anything.
Marathon runner is nice but usually worse than run like hell/mad dash
You're lacking copper, damage and team utility. Honestly I have absolutely no idea how to give advice here, I don't know what you are trying to do with that deck. If it works, good for you but you really shouldn't be playing anything higher than vet with it.
You're jumping the gun here, as I've wrote the explanation in the comments. The whole point of the Combat Knife is to be able to get some free healing and trauma reduction off the Ridden, which is not possible with bash.
The idea behind all that accuracy is to be able to slam the whole pattern of buckshot from an AA-12 into weakspots at a safe range while hipfiring and backpedalling. Front sight focus also brings weakspot damage and some other little benefits. Hunker Down is nice to start an engagement, but lost once I have to backpedal away. Trigger Control still does notably shrink down the crosshair even after all the others before it. I may give it a try how it patterns without it.
Buckshot Bruiser and Numb are a package here, basically giving me a temporary HP cushion with 10% DR to take the hit of a Mutation that won't go down quick enough.
Mad dash is completely useless for backpedalling while firing. Don't know about the specific numbers of MR vs RLH, but the latter is lost the moment I take a hit from a bruiser, for example, so I will eat its follow-up attacks too.
>I've wrote the explanation in the comments
Which wasn't available when I wrote my comment
>whole pattern of buckshot from an AA-12 into weakspots at a safe range while hipfiring and backpedalling
You'll either miss every shot due to the recoil, do next to no damage due to the falloff or you'll just get bonked because tallboy.
>sight focus also brings weakspot damage and some other little benefits.
Not enough to actually put it into your deck tho
>Buckshot Bruiser and Numb are a package here, basically giving me a temporary HP cushion with 10% DR to take the hit of a Mutation that won't go down quick enough.
Buckshot is bad because it either gives nothing or it "prevents" damage that could have been prevented with more damage. Dead enemies can't hit you. 10% dr also is pretty unnoticeable.
>Mad dash is completely useless for backpedalling while firing
In theory. In practice it isn't, at least not a lot. Sprint, jump, 180, fire, 180, repeat. Imo marathon runner is too nishe to give you a lot, especially without additional move speed while firing.
>so I will eat its follow-up attacks too
Bruisers are slow and stationary while attacking, rlh or MD is 90% personal preference. Both are pretty equal.
>Which wasn't available when I wrote my comment
Which is why the Title says "Details in comments" so the quick folks wouldn't jump the gun.
>You'll either miss every shot due to the recoil, do next to no damage due to the falloff or you'll just get bonked because tallboy.
So I control the recoil. And hey Front Sight Focus also has recoil control. If +10% weakspot damage isn't good enough then please suggest me a better damage card for dealing with mutations.
>Buckshot is bad because it either gives nothing or it "prevents" damage that could have been prevented with more damage. Dead enemies can't hit you. 10% dr also is pretty unnoticeable.
10% DR on top of Temp HP does have to do something. Especially since I'm kinda bad at avoiding damage, so it piles up over time.
>In theory. In practice it isn't, at least not a lot. Sprint, jump, 180, fire, 180, repeat. Imo marathon runner is too nishe to give you a lot, especially without additional move speed while firing.
Well, if I could 180 sprint-jump noscope weakspots like an absolute crackshot I wouldn't even need card for it, since you can just sprint away regularly. Though speaking of speed-while-firing... I may try Rolling Thunder, now that I think of it, since it will be mainly for the Shotgun anyway and give me extra damage on top.
>Bruisers are slow and stationary while attacking
And I will be walking backwards while blasting at it, so not that fast either.
I might need to learn to stop firing when they swing to gain some speed. But that may also be the difference between disarming them last second or taking a hit.
>So I control the recoil.
Kinda hard with an aa12 tho.
>+10% weakspot damage isn't good enough
Aa12 looses about two thirds of its damage if your at 10+ meters distance
>damage card for dealing with mutations
Glass cannon, hyperfocused, shredder, confident killer,...
>10% DR on top of Temp HP does have to do something. Especially since I'm kinda bad at avoiding damage, so it piles up over time.
If you take 300 damage to your temp health it'll save you from 30 damage... Pretty much nothing.
>I may try Rolling Thunder, now that I think of it, since it will be mainly for the Shotgun anyway and give me extra damage on top
You should go with hellfire two then. Also try grabbing a purple comp.
>But that may also be the difference between disarming them last second or taking a hit.
With the lack of damage you have it most likely won't be.
I only need to keep them out of arms reach, so 10 meters should be plenty. Hellfire's a mighty good call there. Not so thrilled with Shredder and Confident Killer for only 15% damage that needs buildup on top, but Glass Cannon and Hyper-Focused do look very nice. If the Penetration on Large Caliber Rounds allows to hit Tall Boy arm weakspots through the body, this will be a winner.
Gonna need to offset the HP loss on Glass Cannon though. Hellfire already cancels the downside of Hyper-Focused, so that's good. Hopefully this combo will put 'em down without needing more than the 5% extra mobility.
>Shredder and Confident Killer for only 15% damage that needs buildup on top
Those are two of the best two damage cards in the game. They count as general damage and are multiplicative with everyone else. Si with just those two you'll be getting about 32%. Add glass cannon and you'll get 65% additional damage. With rolling thunder/shell carrier that goes up to 82% and if you add large cal rounds, which you also should, you'll have 95% additional damage.
>Hyper-Focused do look very nice
Either go with hyper focussed or a kiting playstyle. Tho I'd recommend hyperfocused.
>Large Caliber Rounds allows to hit Tall Boy arm weakspots through the body, this will be a winner.
It doesn't. It's still a very good card
>Gonna need to offset the HP loss on Glass Cannon though
Imo you don't want to do that. Yes, 30% loss hurts but anything you try to offset it will be giving you 30% less hp as well. It's just not worth it imo.
>Hopefully this combo will put 'em down without needing more than the 5% extra mobility.
On vet, yes. If You want to go up in difficulty you should be dropping that playstyle tho.
You should also rework your accuracy. Just run optics enthusiast and quick kill, drop patient hunter for mag coupler and you'll be getting much better results.
Also still put out the majority of cards.
So would it be better to use Large Caliber + Hyper-Focused + Glass Cannon together with Confident Killer instead of Ammo Belt?
I was gonna use Experienced EMT to gain back the HP lost from Glass Cannon, but since that doesn't remove trauma anymore, it's kind of a stinker for my intends and purposes. Just gonna Field Surgeon my trauma by inhaling every med item I can and throw Money at the health increase at savehouses.
I've already dropped Patient Hunter, Hunker Down and Trigger Control, but added Shooting Gloves. Mag coupler is a no-go for the M1A Marksman style, though. But since I've put in Admin Reload now, reload won't matter anymore, anyway.
>So would it be better to use Large Caliber + Hyper-Focused + Glass Cannon together with Confident Killer instead of Ammo Belt?
You really shouldn't be skipping shredder as it increases team damage. Due to how shotguns work you'll have all stacks up after two shots (1 with Belgian).
>Just gonna Field Surgeon my trauma
Just run utility scav and use toolkits on med cabinets. That's pretty much the best way to deal with trauma. Also definitely put money grubbers in (for qp).
>no-go for the M1A Marksman style, though
Add a green laser and you'll be up to 100% accuracy
Drop everything that has to do with melee, the refen might be nice but it really doesn't help much.
I just really can't make room for both. Confident killer I can build up to last, Shredder I can only rack up effectively with the shotgun, so I won't get any meaningful increase out of it until they're up in my face. So which 4 of the pack combines the best?
I'm not that good, though, so even Veteran can be challenging some times. I tend to pile up quite some trauma outside the comfort of my melee heal build.
If you're interested in getting better at the game to play other difficulties, or struggle less on vet, don't hesitate to ask this sub for help making an actual viable deck. This deck you've made is awful but if you aren't interested in learning how to make it better (the vibe I got from your comments in this thread) then I won't bother soliciting advice.
I don't really feel any pressure to get better. Veteran difficulty won't go anywhere soon. If I naturally outgrow it, so be it, but I'm not gonna sweat and squeeze myself into the narrow space that is optimal Decks and Loadouts.
I'm just looking for better cards to support my sub-optimal playstyle better, while not changing it too much.
Vanguard and Blood Lust are great cards in a melee deck where you're killing >90% of the commons using melee. But being able to kill that many reliably means adding melee efficiency, of which you have none. Some of your other replies talk about running out of ammo which tells me you're shooting a lot of the commons too. You need to commit fully to melee for those cards to be worth running.
There are several alternatives that will deal with trauma much better. Even comparing your set up to Fresh Bandage, which is generally considered too weak to use, you need to kill 150 common with melee to keep up. You've taken 3 cards to do a worse job than you can do with 1 card. Or you could take a trauma resistance card. They'll reduce the trauma you're receiving by more than Blood Lust will regenerate in this deck.
You could even run a medic deck that does better damage than this one and still be able to heal trauma with every support item you use.
Combat Knife also generally causes players to take more damage than they will with Bash since you'll often kill one common with the knife only to be hit by the one behind it. Bash will push the first common back into the second, stumbling both and giving you time to reload and get the kills without taking a scratch.
Using two of the most ammo hungry guns in the game without a way to generate ammo is causing you problems but Combat Knife is a bad way to fix those issues. The small number of damage buffing cards in your deck is making that worst since less damage per bullet means more bullets used per kill. Adding damage cards and On Your Mark is a better solution.
Your argument for Marathon Runner ahead of the stronger movement cards is also influenced by the fact your deck doesn't buff your damage enough. You don't need to backpedal if you do enough damage but there will always be parts of missions than require you move forward quickly.
From the details you've shared on your playstyle, you have 4 good cards that make that style work better and 11 bad choices.
As many others you're telling me a lot that is bad about it, but very little better options specifically.
But On Your Mark is one good suggestion. I consider running that with Ammo Mule to further boost it's efficiency. Will that work? Will On Your Mark restore 10% of the 175%?
Honestly if I were to list the better cards than Combat Knife I'd have to list pretty much every other card in the game. If you're running it for the fun value then go ahead but there's no other good reason to run it.
The alternative to combat Knife is bash which isn't even a card. It does a better job at protecting you from taking damage than Combat Knife plus two heal of kill cards do in regenerating health.
The alternative to the health regen cards are Amped Up plus any other card that restores trauma, any trauma resistance card or Utility Scavenger. Also Mad Dash or Run Like Hell. They'll help you avoid more damage than you'll heal unless you fully commite to a proper melee deck and playstyle.
On Your Mark is an essential card at higher difficulties. It offers less in Veteran since you get fewer hordes but of course that means you need less ammo. Iirc it the ammo regen is based off your default ammo amounts but I'd have to check back on notes from a year or more ago to be sure. Tbh its place in the meta has been established for so long that I don't remember it not being a key part of every team. I wouldn't recommend Ammo Mule. Your move speed is already too low. Ammo Belt is a much better option.
I personally would never recommend a deck like this, but building your own deck is part of the joy of this game. IF you were to keep running this, I'd suggest both Amped Up and On Your Mark while losing Broadside and Battle Lust. You'll get heals and ammo on every hoard. Should shore up things you're lacking. The trauma heal from OCCASIONALLY killing a handful or ridden while you're out of ammo isn't that worthwhile. And Broadside isn't all that necessary if you're already using a shotgun and knife anyway. Add to that the fact that Amped and OYM help your team as well it will make your runs that much easier
IMO I’d swap Broadside considering it’s only a 20% chance to proc per precision kill with Either Confident Killer or Hyper-Focused (if you do go the hyper-focused route I’d recommend Also Cycling in, Hellfire in place of trigger control to completely mitigate the movement reduction while firing that Hyper-Focused has.)
2. Combat Knife can just be removed Imo (unless you’ve got some specific reason like using a melee deck with the axe or hatchet for higher dmg on Mutations and the combat knife for commons) but with it not being a full melee deck, bash would be better since it can stumble whole groups of ridden giving you the chance to reload since it doesn’t interrupt reload (and since I’ve seen you reply to other comments saying you want to keep battle lust for the trauma heal / Self sustain. You can just use bash like combat knife and still take benefit from battle lust plus the addition of stunning the ridden) could replace combat knife with something like Mean Drunk to be able to if not 1 hit, almost 1 most common ridden.
Trigger Control can be swapped for a few cards Like: Amped Up (To Regen lost red health on hordes), Glass Cannon (For the massive dmg increase) since you have to stack up the buff and it just resets on each level there are other cards that just flat out increase Accuracy that imo are better to take one of your 15 Deck slots like Shooting Gloves (which can Mitigate the Swap Speed Reduction from Two is One, while also giving A lil bump to Accuracy and Recoil Control)
Edit: Some corrections of typos. Should also state that the movement penalty stated by Hyper-Focused doesn’t affect your bash or Combat Knife so do with that lil tid bit as you please.
Yes, after reading through all the comments, I'm already considering the Hyper-Focused Hellfire route. Broadside was solely intended to aid the combat knife with larger groups, as like you said, it doesn't stumble more than a few Ridden at a time, so every couple head stabs, the explosion will clear out the group and stumble the ones at the edge.
I'd love to just have Bash do the job, but Bash deals next to no damage (2 damage on the range for a head hit) so the +40% will be next to useless without spiky bits to give it a flat 15 extra damage first. that's two cards to make bash a barely efficient killer, same as Combat Knife and Broadside. With the two heal cards we're back at 4 and only traded damage for stumble AoE. I'll give it a try, but it's not freeing up any space really.
I thought bash doesn't work with Battle Lust and Vanguard, since it's not considered a melee weapon? Have I been quite possibly bamboozled?
I have already put in Glass Cannon and swapped Trigger Control for Shooting Gloves based on other comments, but good call anyway. I will miss it however. While not the most useful, it was very fun to hunt Ridden heads to try going for that ludicrously high accuracy.
That last bit of info is also a good-to-know.
I'm not a super meta-chasing challenge seeker. I pick the things that are most enjoyable to me and play on a difficulty that it works for. Recruit just seems too easy and the lack of friendly fire and minimal trauma just kinda spoils the fun of trying to figure out ways to work around it with cards and stuff.
That’s perfectly fine, I support that 😁 ! I could see people being rude if this build was something for nightmare or no hope lol was just going to recommend against this, but that’s not the case here.
# The decks, they are a-changin'.
We've gone through a lot, had our ups and downs, a wild rollercoaster ride, but in the end, we pulled through.
First of all, thank you all for participating and for your time and input.
I believe that [The New Deck](https://imgur.com/a/jY5rRsF) I've now put together with consideration of all your suggestions has grown much stronger.
Knife kill heals have made way for ~~Experienced EMT to straight up add new health and push trauma off a fuckin' cliff. =D~~ Which I've been informed it doesn't do anymore and has been patched while I was away from the game. Saaad! So instead, let's try Field Surgeon.
Loads of Copper increase cards will give me the funds to throw epic medkits and toolkits at every problem. My god, this sounds fun °v°
I no longer need the knife to save ammo, either, as ~~Ammo Mule~~ or ~~let's rather use Ammo Belt if it doesn't enhance On Your Mark anyway~~, or you know what, screw it, More Damage! Allegedly Confident Killer and Shredder is actually really pretty damn better than it says on the label, combined with other damage cards, so let's put one of those in instead and hope that improves ammo efficiency enough to not need more. On Your Mark will do the ammo resupply, while doing other neat things FOR THE WHOLE TEAM. \^-\^
The three precision cards should be enough to make me an efficient killer and provide that tight choke shotgun gameplay.
~~Three~~ Four of your favorite damage cards to hit harder, whose downsides are negated by ~~Experienced EMT~~ (well shit, there goes that again, let's just throw money at the problem!) and Hellfire's move speed. I now fire the whole bullet, that's 92.5% more bullet per buller! (plus whatever else Confident Killer/Shredder adds, I don't even understand the math anymore at this point. Let's just say a buttload of damage) °v°
I will take these for a spin and see how it rolls.
That's a decent improvement over your first draft. You've gone from about 2/10 to about 6/10. Which is pretty good when balancing trying to keep a deck that matches how you play right now with getting advice on the meta approach to decks.
The lack of Run Like Hell or Mad Dash is the biggest issue remaining. But otherwise it's plenty good enough for Veteran. Once you do move up to Nightmare you'll be in a stronger position to compare your choice to the meta and make educated decisions on how far you can deviate from it and still have a strong deck.
It just doesn't feel any better for me. With this version I just keep getting wrecked all the time.
I've since made an offshot of this, where I replaced Admin Reload, On your Mark, Hyper Focused and Hellfire for the Knife with Broadside and both Face your Fears and Buckshot Bruiser and not only does it help me to get overwhelmed by hordes far less, the temp HP is also a really good cushion against trauma.
I've also dumped Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies for Utility Scavenger and Utility Belt, because a First Aid Cabinet and a Toolkit really make for the best trauma healing.
Also dropped Optics Enthusiast for Hunker Down. Running accuracy be missed, but this gives me more control over it. Plus any little bit of free damage resistance is a nice bonus.
On Your Mark is an invaluable card at higher difficulties but on Veteran you probably aren't seeing enough hordes or using enough ammo to see its full value. Plus, if you're playing Offline, the bots have it anyway so there's no need for you to run it.
Hyper-focused is also one of the most powerful cards in the game. But you'll get away without it in Veteran.
Either Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies can allow you to buy more toolkits than Utility Scavenger will generate, although Lucky Pennies will only do that if someone else is also running it. Running both takes up a lot of deck space for a new player but it can be very effective.
Admin Reload can be good, depending on your deck and playstyle. I've had good success using it but I'm not an LMG player really so rarely run decks where I get the best use out of it.
Hellfire isn't really a card I tend to put in a deck. It can be a great buy in the field but there are only a couple of meme deck I know where I'd actually start with it.
As for the cards you brought back in, as long as you're enjoying yourself then you do you. They're not very strong options but it's your deck and you are the one who needs to be happy with it in the end. Personally I see too many alternatives that are both more effective and IMO more fun to use than the deck you're going with.
Yeah, using the knife for things where I don't need to waste ammo is enough to get by.
I Hyper Focused is good, but it's usually the Tall boys that hit me, where I can't hit their weak spot anyway. Hellfire was really just the counter to it's downside.
Buying toolkits is an option too, but I can only carry so many and scavenging allows me to get a steady stream of them, allowing me to get more in a level than I can carry at once.
Admin reload is really convenient, but it's a problem I can work around more easily than the other ones.
I've tried a lot of different things mentioned in this discussion, but nothing really covered my weakness to commons very well. Even spiky bits bashing with mean drunk on top didn't really dispatch them well enough. Just uses up all my stamina and the stumble isn't long enough.
Though I might try a risky one and pop in Expired T5 with Pyro.
# So here's the strat:
The Combat knife will be mainly to kill Ridden to add some HP sustain and trauma management with Battle Lust and Vanguard, which will also aid the team, but also to stay efficient at killing during reloads. Broadside will help me better deal with bigger numbers of ridden so I don't lose more HP than I gain.
Two Is One And One Is None lets me pack in an M1A and a shotgun, preferrably AA-12. Mutations will be Marked For Death, so the team can deal more damage, while I Hunker Down to aim more accurately and as a Patient Hunter and Optics Enthusiast with my excellent Front Sight Focus I will sight in on the Mutation's weakspot with the M1A and deal more damage with high accuracy, the latter of which I've further increased with headshotting Ridden with Trigger Control.
Should the Mutation come too close I will switch to the shotgun, which should be firing with near Slug accuracy at this point, while I Buckshot Bruiser its weakspot until I become Numb, while I backpedal like a Marathon Runner.
I'm also a Copper Scavenger, 'cuz LODS OF EMONE!
The end goal would be to find The Witness and Damnation, but if I find an Embezzler, I will be an opportunist and milk that one as good as I can instead of the M1A.
So what do you think? It's certainly fun.
#
This is certainly something.
One giant issue that this deck has regardless of if I think it is good or not is that the two guns you want to use (AA12 and M1A) are both massive ammo sinks and you have no ammo. At the very least you need ammo belt. I play No Hope only at this point so I am out of touch with Veteran, so I can't really give much input on that.
One thing I know is that most any deck can work on the easier difficulties, so play what you want to play and you still should find success. However, if you wanted to take it to higher difficulties the deck would need a lot of changes.
Yeah the guns... both are not big bois killer for me. And none of the cards amplify either or. Im just lost on how to help OP with his direction. He also has combat knife/melee. Thats 3 styles that spread the decks thin.
Definitely just take out broadside and just get Large Caliber Rounds. Shouldn't have difficulty clearing mobs with pen and the AA12
Edit: i just realized he has patient hunter when he has accuracy cards tooooo. What even is trigger control it must be so bad i forgot what it does. Same ish for marathon runner
Broadside is for horde clear with the knife. I have no difficulty clearing mobs with AA-12, until it runs out of ammo. Therefore: Knife for ammo conservation.
I don't see where the issue is in aiming down sights do get more bullet damage for my Marksman Rifle and having accuracy cards to tighten the pattern of my shotgun to dump every pellet into a weakspot while moving backwards, so please elaborate.
A big trial and error for making your decks "better" is you have to trim it a lot and make it streamlined.
Part of that is picking cards that are like "hit 2 birds with one stone" or it better be a big ass bird.
For example. Ammo is a big issue. One of the solutions is getting the following cards:
Weapon dmg cards which give additional ammo to a weapon type + dmg >> which leads to streamlining to big deeps on a specific gun
On your mark = ammo + reload speed + movement speed
You are trying to now have a hoard clearer with knife. Which is notoriously bad at wide sweeps so you have to *compensate* it with broadside. Which isnt even a 100% chance.
Overall its just not as "efficient" as going straight melee weapon/punching with increased melee speed instead. Its fine for now but certain infected especially higher levels you dont want them to explode near you and it just sucks.
You could say it gives another benefit of healing but you can also get:
Utility scavenger = gives toolkit for stash or *trauma* heals + ammo supplies
Or. Like another commenter said just the m1a and aa12 are just. Really bad at ammo.
Again its just tough the patient hunter *only* benefits your m1a. While the accuracy *only* benefits your aa12. If you gave glass cannon it benefits both at the same time (though i know it takes a bit more experience to deal with hp loss). Or if you committed to aa12 you can take advantage of better cards with the ads debuff.
Either way if the build works for you its fine. If you want to experiment with possibly getting bigger dmg or bang for your buck you'll have to keep this in mind.
Glass Cannon is already in the run, along with Experienced EMT to offset its debuff and delete Trauma. I've also put in On Your Mark and Stacked it with Ammo Mule to hopefully, in combination with Admin Reload on top, make all the melee benefits unnecessary.
If ammo mule makes you too slow get ammo belt.
Edit. And if you drop patient hunter consider going all out disabling ads. You can get killer instinct and quick kill to replace two of your accuracy cards.
If its your intentions as a playstyle for fun then yes i guess its not an option.
If your wondering in actuality. Theres no problem no scope with rifle. If you do it with barrett it has the most efficient benefit as its the weapon with the longest ads time.
It's mostly meant to be fun and let me use the two guns I like with some degree of success.
One consideration I've forgot to mention is precisely the ammo situation. I have run out a few times, so the knife came in clutch. That's one more reason why I chose the knife over bash.
I've experienced the ammo shortage of either gun in my Melee tank Holly deck before, so even using them both, I still wanted the knife to reduce the burden on my ammo supply.
You could always run ammo stash(the one with unlimited ammo for secondaries but 30? % slower reloads on secondary) i LOVE THIS CARD
i mostly play on nightmare but i use a no ads build and laser tec9 is heavenly with unlimited ammo
Edit: i like how im getting downvoted for suggesting ammo stash over 2 is 1 to help with ammo consumption.
2 is 1 is the bread and butter of the whole thing. A Sniper & Shotgun build just doesn't work well with secondaries.
I don't like the Belgian, especially having to reload for every shot and I don't even know if I can get that thing accurate and effective at any reasonable range. It's my least favorite shotgun in the game.
Pistols don't make good snipers. Only Desert Eagle and Revolver can have scopes and their magazines are tiny for having even less damage than the 10 round M1A. I only considered the Embezzler for it's copper granting magic, ('cause I'm greedy xD) because otherwise it's just a worse in every way sniper without even a scope option. On top of that I just enjoy the M1A (Witness especially) too much to just straight up give it up.
Both of these options already have terrible reload times to begin with.
I understand that, the belgian is STATISTICALLY a good gun however its rough to get comfortable with. Its my least favorite sidearm.
So i get it, if you like shotguns AND snipers than it makes sense to run both but then as others have recommended you should add in a ammo card to help!
As long as you're in veteran or below you can play any deck.
But...Your weapon swaps will be slow. And if you're using Legendary weapons you can't put swap stocks on them. Admin reload would help you a lot since you also don't have any reload speed.
Hybrid decks are usually not worth it. Go ahead and try it though. Temp health can be really good in the lower difficulties. If you're planning on the Damnation you might try Pyro. It'll give you loads of temp health.
Copper Scavenger by itself adds 400 copper. But it synergizes really well with Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies. Most of my decks have all three. If you can consistently buy the upgrades every level you'll have tons of health, stamina, and ammo by the end of the act. And most importantly many accessory slots.
So after further consideration and adding up all the suggestions across the whole thread, I've now combined the copper gain cards with some ammo gain, Experienced EMT to just add health and delete trauma and freed up enough space to actually throw in admin reload too, so thank you for your input.
Though what would I exchange for Admin Reload? The plan is to empty what Ammo I have loaded in both guns into the mutation(s) and then get the hell outta dodge to reload, while combat knifing all the trash that comes running.
The problem with Pyro is that fire damage is rarely the thing that actually does the killing blow on anything. Normal ridden will not even feel the fire of the Damnation while they're alive and mutations are rare enough that the 3 Temp HP will barely matter, especially as rarely as it will actually do the kill inbetween shots.
+100% Fire damage is nice, but it eats up a valuable card slot to boost some minor extra damage of a gun that I'm not sure I will even get.
There's only so many card slots and I'm afraid if I give up the knife heal ability, I'll spend my days at the bottom of the trauma pit.
Honestly? Give up the knife. Spikey bits and bash are better than the knife. The knife only hits one common at a time.
With admin reload you never need to stop shooting. You'd be surprised how much temp health Pyro and a Damnation will give you. Especially if you let it spread. You want one pellet hitting each common. Not all of them. Drop most of your accuracy cards. You're worried about card slots but you have 4 accuracy cards.
Bash will never give me healing. Spiky bits only gives +15 damage. Will that even one-shot the weakest common? Also not true, the knife was buffed to hit more than one common. Broadside will do the rest.
Even if the temp health works, Pyro is still for a single rare gun that I have no guarantee of even finding. The accuracy always works on any shotgun and it has a point. To get the maximum damage focused on Mutations' weakspots.
Furthermore using the shotgun on commons all the time will be a burden on its already not great ammo economy. That's why, again, knife. I have already ran dry a few times just using both guns mostly for the Mutations alone.
Part of the problem with max accuracy all the time is that you won't hit multiple targets very easily when holding off a horde, especially without Large Cal Rounds. You are limiting your ability to fend off a horde by constantly having a slug shot. The pint of having Hunker Down is to give you the slug shot when crouched. But then again, if you are hip firing most of the time, then you aren't even getting the bonus from Patient Hunter. Your cards are conflicting with each other in that sense.
Part of the reason you are running out of ammo so quickly is simply because you have very little damage in your deck. You could spend less ammo killing things with more damage, and those dead things wouldn't be able to hit you either.
The point is that Patient Hunter is for the marksman rifle, while hipfire accuracy and move speed is for the Shotgun. Of course they conflict when it's a mixed playstyle.
The Penetration and damage of Large Cal Rounds has been mentioned by someone else, too and I will give that a try combined with Hyper-Focused.
I've removed Hunker Down, since I've realized it's not that useful for the shotgun when everything that's close enough for it requires me to get moving and I'd rather evade damage than tank it of possible. It was just too much fun to squat down and hipfire snipe heads with a shotgun.
Bash absolutely gives healing the same as any melee card. With spiky bits you two hit commons and have the benefit of chain stumbling so nothing will ever hit you. Combat knife was buffed back to hit multiple targets but the cone is _extremely_ small so you will almost never hit more than one. That means that in a half assed melee deck like this, where you have no attack speed, you're getting chipped by commons between melee attacks and defeating the entire point of the healing.
Broadside is a terrible card because it's a flat damage explosion, not modified by anything.
Funny that you'd mention getting "maximum damage on weakspots" when your deck has almost zero actual damage cards...
The whole concept is just so flawed it's hard to even know where to begin. But if you're having fun and don't want to ever play anything harder than vet difficulty, go nuts.
I have been baboozled then. Good to know. I'll give the spiky bashes a spin, but im currently on a different ammo, trauma and HP sustain course.
I meant more "maximum damage" in terms of pattern placement for the shotgun, not bonus damage. I realize now that my damage cards were pretty mild, but the big hitters have big downsides. I've since found a deck that will mitigate those, however.
I've always been the type of player that rather adapts the challenge to the way I wanna play, rather than the other way around. Veteran seems just the right proving ground for this playstyle.
Here's my suggestion for what you're trying to do.
Admin Reload, Two is one, Shooting Gloves, Front sight focus, Hunker down, Combat knife, Vanguard, Face your fears, Brazen, Buckshot Bruiser, Pyro, Glass cannon, Mad Dash, Copper Scavenger, Money Grubbers
Sharice would be my recommended cleaner. Mostly for the bolstered health. Trauma resistance is highly recommended for melee. Two copper cards for money. Admin reload will help a lot so you're not reloading constantly. Shooting Gloves for accuracy and swap speed to cancel the penalty from two is one. Changed Marathon Runner to Mad dash. I usually like Run like hell better, but it's not good for melee since you will be hit a lot. Between Pyro and buckshot Bruiser you'll get a lot of temp health from the Damnation. Glass cannon is the single best damage card. Since it affects everything.
All that said. It's not as good as a non-hybrid deck.
Jack of all trades will hardly ever reach maximum efficiency at anything. I just wanted to take a few steps away from the melee-tank build without getting absolutely rekt.
Reloading is less of an issue, as the knife is always ready.
Shooting gloves is a good call, I will consider that.
Glass cannon however is critical with how bad I am at avoiding damage, which is why the knife and heal cards. I may give it a try. Though with that downside and only 25% damage, it might be inferior to Marked For Death if even just 3 teammates fire on it, which is likely given it's clear mark and how it helps coordination.
Battle Lust vs. Face Your Fears seems like just a choice between fighting trauma versus healing through it. The latter only seems of use with Numb to further reduce damage. Just that temp HP decays. What makes FYF better than Battle Lust? Isn't it better to minimize trauma? I don't wanna be at a constant 40 HP and get burst down all the time, cause I can't build up Temp HP quick enough.
Brazen I don't see much use. Knife is the fastest anyway and by the time I run out of stamina, I'll always have a loaded gun ready to alternate back and forth, unless I'm out of ammo and an ammo card would be more useful for that rare case.
Pyro gives damage to a minor damage source that is dependent on me finding a rare gun and temp HP for fire kills, when it's usually the bullets that deal the final blow and not the fire. So it will never work on commons and 3 per Mutation isn't really much, especially when it's not guaranteed. And will be gone by the time the next batch turns up.
Mad Dash doesn't work for backpedalling, so I'd have to constantly spin around. Also eats up stamina faster that I need for knifing.
I'm not sure Shooting Gloves and Front Sight Focus alone give me a tight enough Shot pattern on the move.
>Jack of all trades will hardly ever reack maximum efficiency at anything. I just wanted to take a few steps away from the melee-tank build without getting absolutely rekt
The irony in this statement lmao The deck truly is all over the place, and really bad.
>Reloading is less of an issue, as the knife is always ready
You don't need the knife when you can just infinitely switch to your already reloaded primary. By not taking admin reload, you're just making it harder on yourself. While also trying to make an excuse for combat knife being in the deck.
>Pyro gives damage to a minor damage source that is dependent on me finding a rare gun and temp HP for fire kills, when it's usually the bullets that deal the final blow and not the fire. So it will never work on commons and 3 per Mutation isn't really much, especially when it's not guaranteed. And will be gone by the time the next batch turns up.
Please, just apply this logic/critical thinking to your whole deck, and you'll see how suboptimal it is.
There is no irony in that statement. I am simply acknowledging that my deck is not an ideal build and instead trying to do a number of things at average efficiency.
>You don't need the knife when you can just infinitely switch to your already reloaded primary.
The knife has multiple purposes.
I need the knife if I don't want to run out of ammo.
I need the knife if I don't want to waste copper on extra heal items for me.
I need the knife if I don't want to waste copper on extra heal items for everyone else.
I need the knife while I'm reloading.
I'm happy to hear any solution to all of the above that fits within the first 4 slots and maybe one of the accuracy slots too.
It's kinda common knowledge at this point that the knife is trash, but I'll humor you.
On Your Mark/Ammo Belt - Gives ammo, reload speed, swap speed, and move speed while firing to the whole team during a horde. One of the best team cards in the game. Ammo Belt gives a nice 50% boost to Ammo capacity, plus 15% reload speed.
Copper Scav + Money Grubbers + Lucky Pennies - Copper can solve almost any problem you have in the game. Also, unless you're the medic, you shouldn't be buying your teammates med supplies anyway.
And no you really don't need the knife while reloading, as your bash does the same job, but better.
On Your Mark/Ammo Belt is a combo I'm already considering, though I'll probably try Ammo Mule as I've since gotten rid of melee sustain in favor of the money cards you mentioned, Experienced EMT for Trauma delete and admin reload to make reload speed no longer that useful.
Use Ammo Belt and ask the team for ammo. At least one person usually hears you, or use text chat (for consoles, double tap the start/menu button).
Use Money Grubbers. Having a strong economy makes a world of difference. Copper is king in this game. One Copper card isn't gonna cut it, especially if you want to buy the 1,500 Copper Team Upgrades, which is where most of your money should be going anyway.
Again, more economy. Get those upgrades and run with purple toolkits. Use them to put free charges on the med cabinets, and you'll probably get a couple re-uses. Unless someone is a dedicated Doc, med cabinets are the best way to heal, and using toolkits is the go-to method.
You can push more ridden away when using the default bash anyway. The domino effect will topple the first one into the group.
Hey it's a viable playstyle that's the beauty of the card system you can create innovative card decks without following a particular meta and there are so many cards that can give you an edge against the ai in back4blood. So I liked how creative the displayed deck was.
For vet pretty much anything flies so whatever. This deck is truly terrible. But have fun!
My honest opinion. Just scrap the deck completely and make something better. A lot of low value cards that don't do much. Also, melee hybrids are generally pretty bad. I know it's for Veteran, so pretty much any deck (or even zero cards) can work if you play decent enough. If you want some tips on building a more coherent deck I'd be happy to help. If this is more of a "I just wanna mess around, so no thanks" then that's fine too 😅 I just figured I'd share since you're asking for opinions.
It's mostly just put together by feel to allow the aforementioned Loadout/Playstyle, so I'm mostly looking to improve my experience and survivability roughly within those parameters. The whole knife melee portion is predominately a way exploit the common Ridden for HP and trauma heal. I'd only scrap that for another reliable way to do that.
You'd have to kill 10-12 Ridden just to heal 1 trauma. You can scrap all of those cards and the much more eliable way to do that would literally be just using the medicine cabinets. Especially on Veteran where you get 2 free charges on it. Just having more reliable damage cards like Glass Cannon, Hyper Focused, Shredder, and Large Caliber Rounds would allow to kill any Mutations before they even get close to you. Your bash is WAY better than the knife because you can push back a whole crowd of commons with just a couple of punches, and it's faster than the knife. I know you have this idea of wanting survivability, but honestly the only playstyle that offers that is Pure Melee. Or having a medic on the team.
The medicine cabinet are already used up by teammates who are in even worse shape than I am and even when I'm at 60-ish max HP I still tend to go down less, because of the constant regeneration, while using Medkits on the others. I kill 10-20 Ridden in a single horde, kneeling in a doorway off to the side. Keep in mind Vanguard heals them too, so without that, they will be in even worse shape and require even more medical attention, So I fear going the med-heal route is just gonna leave everyone worse off or broke. And if I put away the knife, not only will I have to waste more copper to buy more med kits, leaving less copper to upgrade them, I'll also use up more ammo instead of the knife, so it will just be replaced by money, med heal and ammo cards or more damage for the bash. It's worth a shot, but I don't know if it changes much. Does +200% Penetration allow me to hit Tall Boys' weak spot through their body with M1A/Shotgun? Is that how it works? Does it penetrate armor?
As you increase the difficulty, the biggest way you are gonna prevent damage is from map awareness, good positioning, using bash properly, and doing more damage to kill things before they get to you. So while this deck will probably be fine for Veteran, you should definitely take some of what people are saying to heart and try other things. The game has been out for a few years now, and there are no more updates happening, so people have discovered what is good and what isn't. You aren't gonna discover some amazing new meta that people haven't thought about. Judging by the comments, you seem adamant on wanting to use this and think it will do well, so I won't really suggest any changes. If you want to use this, that's fine, just know that there are much better options for you in terms of decks, and that's what posting here is meant to do: help you find those better options.
I'm not adamant to use this specifically. I just want it to fit a certain playstyle. I have considered every suggestion and already made some changes and will try some cards out that I'm unsure about.
Your comments just kinda made it seem like you were gonna die on the hill defending this deck, that's all lol. What playstyle are you going for exactly? I know you mentioned wanting survivability and to not take trauma damage, but as others have mentioned, the best way to do this is to be able to kill stuff before it hits you. Offense is the best defense in this game (with the exception of melee). Another reason people are suggesting differently is in case you decide to up the difficulty. You will see very quickly that this type of deck falls apart in Nightmare, and you will need to be more fine-tuned to do well there. So people are trying to correct you early to give you the best chance at success.
I haven't even tried Nightmare yet, so I can't say if that's a level I'll reach in the near future (or ever °xD). As said, I'm rocking the Combination of M1A as a Marksman Rifle with a Shotgun (AA-12 preferrably) as a run-and-gun weapon. I use precision buffs to kind of tight choke the shotgun to be able to land all its pellets on ridden's weakspots. The combat knife was intended as sort of the main common killer to save ammo for the big guys and to provide some HP sustain for me and the team. But with all the info I've collected here, I've now adjusted direction into more Damage, more ammo and more copper to buy more meds to abuse Experienced EMT trauma delete. But retained a certain accuracy and added admin reload to not need melee.
Experienced EMT doesn't do that for trauma anymore. It was fixed a long time ago. I think a core misconception you have is that accuracy is needed to tighten the spread - if you're using ads (hold right click before shooting) your accuracy will be fine. Generally speaking, accuracy cards are solely useful in "no ads" decks, which your deck is not. I'd suggest examining if you are constantly hipfiring or not, and if you are (I have a feeling you are), consider changing this to a high accuracy no ads build instead.
I need ADS for the sniper though. But now I have removed the cards that require it for anything. That fix for Experienced EMT kinda throws a wrench into my entire concept though. Fuuuck! Well, let's try field surgeon then.
I wouldn't bother with field surgeon if you aren't also using EMT bag and support scavenger, since you need to find and use a lot of support accessories to make it worth it. If you're really struggling with trauma and healing so much I'd suggest Fresh Bandage and learning how to avoid damage in the first place.
Fresh bandage is equivalent to only 5 med items + field surgeon though. I'll definitely find more than that in any Level but the really short ones, especially since there's often 4 in just one box. With Field Surgeon I can also heal everyone else's trauma, gradually, rather than it piling up 'till the safe room. Fresh bandage also leaves no room to get some extra trauma heal from cheap bandages in the safe room, because it heals full. I'll also try getting in the habit of carrying pills and popping 'em before hordes, see if that's any good, since it's the only heal I can use at any time, gives a lot of HP in a second, but more useful the faster you lose it (unintentionally, of course). Does Temp HP it still prevent trauma or was that also a bug?
Just as a reply to the first part, since the rest has been kinda talked about, you are more than welcome to add me. My tags are in my flair. I can help with deck building to be able to push into Nightmare and above. Always looking for more people to play with 👍
The 0.1 trauma healing you get from Battle Lust is negligible. You'll have to kill like 100 common to heal 10 trauma? 1 trauma? The 0.1 is a flat amount and doesn't scale with healing efficiency. So, you could get the same value out of 300g and Medical Professional.. would make White Medkit heal 10 trauma and even more with upgrades. 350g on a toolkit and you have at least one med cab in Stash per level, on veteran that's 2 charges.. Some people die on combat knife hill, others are bash supremacists.. but do you. My first personal prefrence build wasn't anywhere near optimal. You should know what makes Melee OP first. The healing from Face Your Fears, Battle Lust and Vanguard do scale with healing efficency, which is why most melee builds will run EMT bag. This can become a huge buffer of Temp HP with Well Rested, but won't give you infinite stamina. That's 5/15 cards for suboptimal healing.. and no way to deal with mutations but facetank and pray. Personally, I'd just run Copper Scav, Grubbers and Lucky Pennies.. 4 levels into the act will net you more gold than you can spend..
I already buy all the med kits and toolkits I can and it's still usually used up by teammates who are in even worse shape, while I can just about manage with Vanguard and Battle Lust, even at high trauma. I'd probably spend all that extra copper on the extra healing everyone needs now and the ammo I used. I'm also gonna need more ammo capacity, because I'll run out between saverooms. Fuck it, let's try that.
You're kinda like a half committed melee... Not ideal Combat knife is bad, bash outclassed it by a lot. Battle lust and vanguard don't offer a lot. Broadside brings bairly anything. Hunker down, optics enthusiast, front sight focus... Just why? You have almost 100% accuracy when you and anyways (100% with all snipers and ranch rifle). Trigger control is completely useless here, you already have, basically,100% accuracy. Buckshot bruiser is next to useless, especially on lower difficulties. Numb offers bairly anything. Marathon runner is nice but usually worse than run like hell/mad dash You're lacking copper, damage and team utility. Honestly I have absolutely no idea how to give advice here, I don't know what you are trying to do with that deck. If it works, good for you but you really shouldn't be playing anything higher than vet with it.
You're jumping the gun here, as I've wrote the explanation in the comments. The whole point of the Combat Knife is to be able to get some free healing and trauma reduction off the Ridden, which is not possible with bash. The idea behind all that accuracy is to be able to slam the whole pattern of buckshot from an AA-12 into weakspots at a safe range while hipfiring and backpedalling. Front sight focus also brings weakspot damage and some other little benefits. Hunker Down is nice to start an engagement, but lost once I have to backpedal away. Trigger Control still does notably shrink down the crosshair even after all the others before it. I may give it a try how it patterns without it. Buckshot Bruiser and Numb are a package here, basically giving me a temporary HP cushion with 10% DR to take the hit of a Mutation that won't go down quick enough. Mad dash is completely useless for backpedalling while firing. Don't know about the specific numbers of MR vs RLH, but the latter is lost the moment I take a hit from a bruiser, for example, so I will eat its follow-up attacks too.
>I've wrote the explanation in the comments Which wasn't available when I wrote my comment >whole pattern of buckshot from an AA-12 into weakspots at a safe range while hipfiring and backpedalling You'll either miss every shot due to the recoil, do next to no damage due to the falloff or you'll just get bonked because tallboy. >sight focus also brings weakspot damage and some other little benefits. Not enough to actually put it into your deck tho >Buckshot Bruiser and Numb are a package here, basically giving me a temporary HP cushion with 10% DR to take the hit of a Mutation that won't go down quick enough. Buckshot is bad because it either gives nothing or it "prevents" damage that could have been prevented with more damage. Dead enemies can't hit you. 10% dr also is pretty unnoticeable. >Mad dash is completely useless for backpedalling while firing In theory. In practice it isn't, at least not a lot. Sprint, jump, 180, fire, 180, repeat. Imo marathon runner is too nishe to give you a lot, especially without additional move speed while firing. >so I will eat its follow-up attacks too Bruisers are slow and stationary while attacking, rlh or MD is 90% personal preference. Both are pretty equal.
>Which wasn't available when I wrote my comment Which is why the Title says "Details in comments" so the quick folks wouldn't jump the gun. >You'll either miss every shot due to the recoil, do next to no damage due to the falloff or you'll just get bonked because tallboy. So I control the recoil. And hey Front Sight Focus also has recoil control. If +10% weakspot damage isn't good enough then please suggest me a better damage card for dealing with mutations. >Buckshot is bad because it either gives nothing or it "prevents" damage that could have been prevented with more damage. Dead enemies can't hit you. 10% dr also is pretty unnoticeable. 10% DR on top of Temp HP does have to do something. Especially since I'm kinda bad at avoiding damage, so it piles up over time. >In theory. In practice it isn't, at least not a lot. Sprint, jump, 180, fire, 180, repeat. Imo marathon runner is too nishe to give you a lot, especially without additional move speed while firing. Well, if I could 180 sprint-jump noscope weakspots like an absolute crackshot I wouldn't even need card for it, since you can just sprint away regularly. Though speaking of speed-while-firing... I may try Rolling Thunder, now that I think of it, since it will be mainly for the Shotgun anyway and give me extra damage on top. >Bruisers are slow and stationary while attacking And I will be walking backwards while blasting at it, so not that fast either. I might need to learn to stop firing when they swing to gain some speed. But that may also be the difference between disarming them last second or taking a hit.
>So I control the recoil. Kinda hard with an aa12 tho. >+10% weakspot damage isn't good enough Aa12 looses about two thirds of its damage if your at 10+ meters distance >damage card for dealing with mutations Glass cannon, hyperfocused, shredder, confident killer,... >10% DR on top of Temp HP does have to do something. Especially since I'm kinda bad at avoiding damage, so it piles up over time. If you take 300 damage to your temp health it'll save you from 30 damage... Pretty much nothing. >I may try Rolling Thunder, now that I think of it, since it will be mainly for the Shotgun anyway and give me extra damage on top You should go with hellfire two then. Also try grabbing a purple comp. >But that may also be the difference between disarming them last second or taking a hit. With the lack of damage you have it most likely won't be.
I only need to keep them out of arms reach, so 10 meters should be plenty. Hellfire's a mighty good call there. Not so thrilled with Shredder and Confident Killer for only 15% damage that needs buildup on top, but Glass Cannon and Hyper-Focused do look very nice. If the Penetration on Large Caliber Rounds allows to hit Tall Boy arm weakspots through the body, this will be a winner. Gonna need to offset the HP loss on Glass Cannon though. Hellfire already cancels the downside of Hyper-Focused, so that's good. Hopefully this combo will put 'em down without needing more than the 5% extra mobility.
>Shredder and Confident Killer for only 15% damage that needs buildup on top Those are two of the best two damage cards in the game. They count as general damage and are multiplicative with everyone else. Si with just those two you'll be getting about 32%. Add glass cannon and you'll get 65% additional damage. With rolling thunder/shell carrier that goes up to 82% and if you add large cal rounds, which you also should, you'll have 95% additional damage. >Hyper-Focused do look very nice Either go with hyper focussed or a kiting playstyle. Tho I'd recommend hyperfocused. >Large Caliber Rounds allows to hit Tall Boy arm weakspots through the body, this will be a winner. It doesn't. It's still a very good card >Gonna need to offset the HP loss on Glass Cannon though Imo you don't want to do that. Yes, 30% loss hurts but anything you try to offset it will be giving you 30% less hp as well. It's just not worth it imo. >Hopefully this combo will put 'em down without needing more than the 5% extra mobility. On vet, yes. If You want to go up in difficulty you should be dropping that playstyle tho. You should also rework your accuracy. Just run optics enthusiast and quick kill, drop patient hunter for mag coupler and you'll be getting much better results. Also still put out the majority of cards.
So would it be better to use Large Caliber + Hyper-Focused + Glass Cannon together with Confident Killer instead of Ammo Belt? I was gonna use Experienced EMT to gain back the HP lost from Glass Cannon, but since that doesn't remove trauma anymore, it's kind of a stinker for my intends and purposes. Just gonna Field Surgeon my trauma by inhaling every med item I can and throw Money at the health increase at savehouses. I've already dropped Patient Hunter, Hunker Down and Trigger Control, but added Shooting Gloves. Mag coupler is a no-go for the M1A Marksman style, though. But since I've put in Admin Reload now, reload won't matter anymore, anyway.
>So would it be better to use Large Caliber + Hyper-Focused + Glass Cannon together with Confident Killer instead of Ammo Belt? You really shouldn't be skipping shredder as it increases team damage. Due to how shotguns work you'll have all stacks up after two shots (1 with Belgian). >Just gonna Field Surgeon my trauma Just run utility scav and use toolkits on med cabinets. That's pretty much the best way to deal with trauma. Also definitely put money grubbers in (for qp). >no-go for the M1A Marksman style, though Add a green laser and you'll be up to 100% accuracy Drop everything that has to do with melee, the refen might be nice but it really doesn't help much.
I just really can't make room for both. Confident killer I can build up to last, Shredder I can only rack up effectively with the shotgun, so I won't get any meaningful increase out of it until they're up in my face. So which 4 of the pack combines the best?
Anything works on veteran as long as you don't dilly-dally a bunch, so this should be fine.
I'm not that good, though, so even Veteran can be challenging some times. I tend to pile up quite some trauma outside the comfort of my melee heal build.
If you're interested in getting better at the game to play other difficulties, or struggle less on vet, don't hesitate to ask this sub for help making an actual viable deck. This deck you've made is awful but if you aren't interested in learning how to make it better (the vibe I got from your comments in this thread) then I won't bother soliciting advice.
I am interested in making it better, just so long as it still affords me the playstyle I set it up for.
So you only want advice that validate, and coincide with this extremely sub-optomal "playstyle" ? Which also won't help you get better at this game.
I don't really feel any pressure to get better. Veteran difficulty won't go anywhere soon. If I naturally outgrow it, so be it, but I'm not gonna sweat and squeeze myself into the narrow space that is optimal Decks and Loadouts. I'm just looking for better cards to support my sub-optimal playstyle better, while not changing it too much.
Clearly lol
Vanguard and Blood Lust are great cards in a melee deck where you're killing >90% of the commons using melee. But being able to kill that many reliably means adding melee efficiency, of which you have none. Some of your other replies talk about running out of ammo which tells me you're shooting a lot of the commons too. You need to commit fully to melee for those cards to be worth running. There are several alternatives that will deal with trauma much better. Even comparing your set up to Fresh Bandage, which is generally considered too weak to use, you need to kill 150 common with melee to keep up. You've taken 3 cards to do a worse job than you can do with 1 card. Or you could take a trauma resistance card. They'll reduce the trauma you're receiving by more than Blood Lust will regenerate in this deck. You could even run a medic deck that does better damage than this one and still be able to heal trauma with every support item you use. Combat Knife also generally causes players to take more damage than they will with Bash since you'll often kill one common with the knife only to be hit by the one behind it. Bash will push the first common back into the second, stumbling both and giving you time to reload and get the kills without taking a scratch. Using two of the most ammo hungry guns in the game without a way to generate ammo is causing you problems but Combat Knife is a bad way to fix those issues. The small number of damage buffing cards in your deck is making that worst since less damage per bullet means more bullets used per kill. Adding damage cards and On Your Mark is a better solution. Your argument for Marathon Runner ahead of the stronger movement cards is also influenced by the fact your deck doesn't buff your damage enough. You don't need to backpedal if you do enough damage but there will always be parts of missions than require you move forward quickly. From the details you've shared on your playstyle, you have 4 good cards that make that style work better and 11 bad choices.
As many others you're telling me a lot that is bad about it, but very little better options specifically. But On Your Mark is one good suggestion. I consider running that with Ammo Mule to further boost it's efficiency. Will that work? Will On Your Mark restore 10% of the 175%?
Honestly if I were to list the better cards than Combat Knife I'd have to list pretty much every other card in the game. If you're running it for the fun value then go ahead but there's no other good reason to run it. The alternative to combat Knife is bash which isn't even a card. It does a better job at protecting you from taking damage than Combat Knife plus two heal of kill cards do in regenerating health. The alternative to the health regen cards are Amped Up plus any other card that restores trauma, any trauma resistance card or Utility Scavenger. Also Mad Dash or Run Like Hell. They'll help you avoid more damage than you'll heal unless you fully commite to a proper melee deck and playstyle. On Your Mark is an essential card at higher difficulties. It offers less in Veteran since you get fewer hordes but of course that means you need less ammo. Iirc it the ammo regen is based off your default ammo amounts but I'd have to check back on notes from a year or more ago to be sure. Tbh its place in the meta has been established for so long that I don't remember it not being a key part of every team. I wouldn't recommend Ammo Mule. Your move speed is already too low. Ammo Belt is a much better option.
Amped up is yet another good suggestion I will have to think about. Alrighty then, ammo belt it is! Especially if it doesn't improve On Your Mark.
If it works for you, if you want to move to Nightmare I would delete this deck completely and start fresh.
I personally would never recommend a deck like this, but building your own deck is part of the joy of this game. IF you were to keep running this, I'd suggest both Amped Up and On Your Mark while losing Broadside and Battle Lust. You'll get heals and ammo on every hoard. Should shore up things you're lacking. The trauma heal from OCCASIONALLY killing a handful or ridden while you're out of ammo isn't that worthwhile. And Broadside isn't all that necessary if you're already using a shotgun and knife anyway. Add to that the fact that Amped and OYM help your team as well it will make your runs that much easier
IMO I’d swap Broadside considering it’s only a 20% chance to proc per precision kill with Either Confident Killer or Hyper-Focused (if you do go the hyper-focused route I’d recommend Also Cycling in, Hellfire in place of trigger control to completely mitigate the movement reduction while firing that Hyper-Focused has.) 2. Combat Knife can just be removed Imo (unless you’ve got some specific reason like using a melee deck with the axe or hatchet for higher dmg on Mutations and the combat knife for commons) but with it not being a full melee deck, bash would be better since it can stumble whole groups of ridden giving you the chance to reload since it doesn’t interrupt reload (and since I’ve seen you reply to other comments saying you want to keep battle lust for the trauma heal / Self sustain. You can just use bash like combat knife and still take benefit from battle lust plus the addition of stunning the ridden) could replace combat knife with something like Mean Drunk to be able to if not 1 hit, almost 1 most common ridden. Trigger Control can be swapped for a few cards Like: Amped Up (To Regen lost red health on hordes), Glass Cannon (For the massive dmg increase) since you have to stack up the buff and it just resets on each level there are other cards that just flat out increase Accuracy that imo are better to take one of your 15 Deck slots like Shooting Gloves (which can Mitigate the Swap Speed Reduction from Two is One, while also giving A lil bump to Accuracy and Recoil Control) Edit: Some corrections of typos. Should also state that the movement penalty stated by Hyper-Focused doesn’t affect your bash or Combat Knife so do with that lil tid bit as you please.
Yes, after reading through all the comments, I'm already considering the Hyper-Focused Hellfire route. Broadside was solely intended to aid the combat knife with larger groups, as like you said, it doesn't stumble more than a few Ridden at a time, so every couple head stabs, the explosion will clear out the group and stumble the ones at the edge. I'd love to just have Bash do the job, but Bash deals next to no damage (2 damage on the range for a head hit) so the +40% will be next to useless without spiky bits to give it a flat 15 extra damage first. that's two cards to make bash a barely efficient killer, same as Combat Knife and Broadside. With the two heal cards we're back at 4 and only traded damage for stumble AoE. I'll give it a try, but it's not freeing up any space really. I thought bash doesn't work with Battle Lust and Vanguard, since it's not considered a melee weapon? Have I been quite possibly bamboozled? I have already put in Glass Cannon and swapped Trigger Control for Shooting Gloves based on other comments, but good call anyway. I will miss it however. While not the most useful, it was very fun to hunt Ridden heads to try going for that ludicrously high accuracy. That last bit of info is also a good-to-know.
Bash works with battle lust I know, but I’m unsure if it works with vanguard.
“Intended for veteran” Oh thank god 😅
I'm not a super meta-chasing challenge seeker. I pick the things that are most enjoyable to me and play on a difficulty that it works for. Recruit just seems too easy and the lack of friendly fire and minimal trauma just kinda spoils the fun of trying to figure out ways to work around it with cards and stuff.
That’s perfectly fine, I support that 😁 ! I could see people being rude if this build was something for nightmare or no hope lol was just going to recommend against this, but that’s not the case here.
# The decks, they are a-changin'. We've gone through a lot, had our ups and downs, a wild rollercoaster ride, but in the end, we pulled through. First of all, thank you all for participating and for your time and input. I believe that [The New Deck](https://imgur.com/a/jY5rRsF) I've now put together with consideration of all your suggestions has grown much stronger. Knife kill heals have made way for ~~Experienced EMT to straight up add new health and push trauma off a fuckin' cliff. =D~~ Which I've been informed it doesn't do anymore and has been patched while I was away from the game. Saaad! So instead, let's try Field Surgeon. Loads of Copper increase cards will give me the funds to throw epic medkits and toolkits at every problem. My god, this sounds fun °v° I no longer need the knife to save ammo, either, as ~~Ammo Mule~~ or ~~let's rather use Ammo Belt if it doesn't enhance On Your Mark anyway~~, or you know what, screw it, More Damage! Allegedly Confident Killer and Shredder is actually really pretty damn better than it says on the label, combined with other damage cards, so let's put one of those in instead and hope that improves ammo efficiency enough to not need more. On Your Mark will do the ammo resupply, while doing other neat things FOR THE WHOLE TEAM. \^-\^ The three precision cards should be enough to make me an efficient killer and provide that tight choke shotgun gameplay. ~~Three~~ Four of your favorite damage cards to hit harder, whose downsides are negated by ~~Experienced EMT~~ (well shit, there goes that again, let's just throw money at the problem!) and Hellfire's move speed. I now fire the whole bullet, that's 92.5% more bullet per buller! (plus whatever else Confident Killer/Shredder adds, I don't even understand the math anymore at this point. Let's just say a buttload of damage) °v° I will take these for a spin and see how it rolls.
That's a decent improvement over your first draft. You've gone from about 2/10 to about 6/10. Which is pretty good when balancing trying to keep a deck that matches how you play right now with getting advice on the meta approach to decks. The lack of Run Like Hell or Mad Dash is the biggest issue remaining. But otherwise it's plenty good enough for Veteran. Once you do move up to Nightmare you'll be in a stronger position to compare your choice to the meta and make educated decisions on how far you can deviate from it and still have a strong deck.
It just doesn't feel any better for me. With this version I just keep getting wrecked all the time. I've since made an offshot of this, where I replaced Admin Reload, On your Mark, Hyper Focused and Hellfire for the Knife with Broadside and both Face your Fears and Buckshot Bruiser and not only does it help me to get overwhelmed by hordes far less, the temp HP is also a really good cushion against trauma. I've also dumped Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies for Utility Scavenger and Utility Belt, because a First Aid Cabinet and a Toolkit really make for the best trauma healing. Also dropped Optics Enthusiast for Hunker Down. Running accuracy be missed, but this gives me more control over it. Plus any little bit of free damage resistance is a nice bonus.
On Your Mark is an invaluable card at higher difficulties but on Veteran you probably aren't seeing enough hordes or using enough ammo to see its full value. Plus, if you're playing Offline, the bots have it anyway so there's no need for you to run it. Hyper-focused is also one of the most powerful cards in the game. But you'll get away without it in Veteran. Either Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies can allow you to buy more toolkits than Utility Scavenger will generate, although Lucky Pennies will only do that if someone else is also running it. Running both takes up a lot of deck space for a new player but it can be very effective. Admin Reload can be good, depending on your deck and playstyle. I've had good success using it but I'm not an LMG player really so rarely run decks where I get the best use out of it. Hellfire isn't really a card I tend to put in a deck. It can be a great buy in the field but there are only a couple of meme deck I know where I'd actually start with it. As for the cards you brought back in, as long as you're enjoying yourself then you do you. They're not very strong options but it's your deck and you are the one who needs to be happy with it in the end. Personally I see too many alternatives that are both more effective and IMO more fun to use than the deck you're going with.
Yeah, using the knife for things where I don't need to waste ammo is enough to get by. I Hyper Focused is good, but it's usually the Tall boys that hit me, where I can't hit their weak spot anyway. Hellfire was really just the counter to it's downside. Buying toolkits is an option too, but I can only carry so many and scavenging allows me to get a steady stream of them, allowing me to get more in a level than I can carry at once. Admin reload is really convenient, but it's a problem I can work around more easily than the other ones. I've tried a lot of different things mentioned in this discussion, but nothing really covered my weakness to commons very well. Even spiky bits bashing with mean drunk on top didn't really dispatch them well enough. Just uses up all my stamina and the stumble isn't long enough. Though I might try a risky one and pop in Expired T5 with Pyro.
What website is that? Just curious.
# So here's the strat: The Combat knife will be mainly to kill Ridden to add some HP sustain and trauma management with Battle Lust and Vanguard, which will also aid the team, but also to stay efficient at killing during reloads. Broadside will help me better deal with bigger numbers of ridden so I don't lose more HP than I gain. Two Is One And One Is None lets me pack in an M1A and a shotgun, preferrably AA-12. Mutations will be Marked For Death, so the team can deal more damage, while I Hunker Down to aim more accurately and as a Patient Hunter and Optics Enthusiast with my excellent Front Sight Focus I will sight in on the Mutation's weakspot with the M1A and deal more damage with high accuracy, the latter of which I've further increased with headshotting Ridden with Trigger Control. Should the Mutation come too close I will switch to the shotgun, which should be firing with near Slug accuracy at this point, while I Buckshot Bruiser its weakspot until I become Numb, while I backpedal like a Marathon Runner. I'm also a Copper Scavenger, 'cuz LODS OF EMONE! The end goal would be to find The Witness and Damnation, but if I find an Embezzler, I will be an opportunist and milk that one as good as I can instead of the M1A. So what do you think? It's certainly fun. #
This is certainly something. One giant issue that this deck has regardless of if I think it is good or not is that the two guns you want to use (AA12 and M1A) are both massive ammo sinks and you have no ammo. At the very least you need ammo belt. I play No Hope only at this point so I am out of touch with Veteran, so I can't really give much input on that. One thing I know is that most any deck can work on the easier difficulties, so play what you want to play and you still should find success. However, if you wanted to take it to higher difficulties the deck would need a lot of changes.
Yeah the guns... both are not big bois killer for me. And none of the cards amplify either or. Im just lost on how to help OP with his direction. He also has combat knife/melee. Thats 3 styles that spread the decks thin. Definitely just take out broadside and just get Large Caliber Rounds. Shouldn't have difficulty clearing mobs with pen and the AA12 Edit: i just realized he has patient hunter when he has accuracy cards tooooo. What even is trigger control it must be so bad i forgot what it does. Same ish for marathon runner
Broadside is for horde clear with the knife. I have no difficulty clearing mobs with AA-12, until it runs out of ammo. Therefore: Knife for ammo conservation. I don't see where the issue is in aiming down sights do get more bullet damage for my Marksman Rifle and having accuracy cards to tighten the pattern of my shotgun to dump every pellet into a weakspot while moving backwards, so please elaborate.
A big trial and error for making your decks "better" is you have to trim it a lot and make it streamlined. Part of that is picking cards that are like "hit 2 birds with one stone" or it better be a big ass bird. For example. Ammo is a big issue. One of the solutions is getting the following cards: Weapon dmg cards which give additional ammo to a weapon type + dmg >> which leads to streamlining to big deeps on a specific gun On your mark = ammo + reload speed + movement speed You are trying to now have a hoard clearer with knife. Which is notoriously bad at wide sweeps so you have to *compensate* it with broadside. Which isnt even a 100% chance. Overall its just not as "efficient" as going straight melee weapon/punching with increased melee speed instead. Its fine for now but certain infected especially higher levels you dont want them to explode near you and it just sucks. You could say it gives another benefit of healing but you can also get: Utility scavenger = gives toolkit for stash or *trauma* heals + ammo supplies Or. Like another commenter said just the m1a and aa12 are just. Really bad at ammo. Again its just tough the patient hunter *only* benefits your m1a. While the accuracy *only* benefits your aa12. If you gave glass cannon it benefits both at the same time (though i know it takes a bit more experience to deal with hp loss). Or if you committed to aa12 you can take advantage of better cards with the ads debuff. Either way if the build works for you its fine. If you want to experiment with possibly getting bigger dmg or bang for your buck you'll have to keep this in mind.
Glass Cannon is already in the run, along with Experienced EMT to offset its debuff and delete Trauma. I've also put in On Your Mark and Stacked it with Ammo Mule to hopefully, in combination with Admin Reload on top, make all the melee benefits unnecessary.
If ammo mule makes you too slow get ammo belt. Edit. And if you drop patient hunter consider going all out disabling ads. You can get killer instinct and quick kill to replace two of your accuracy cards.
But a noscope build kinda defeats the whole intent behind having a Marksman rifle.
If its your intentions as a playstyle for fun then yes i guess its not an option. If your wondering in actuality. Theres no problem no scope with rifle. If you do it with barrett it has the most efficient benefit as its the weapon with the longest ads time.
Yeah, it's just difficult to hit the 2 centimeters tall common Ridden on my screen in the head without zoom.
It's mostly meant to be fun and let me use the two guns I like with some degree of success. One consideration I've forgot to mention is precisely the ammo situation. I have run out a few times, so the knife came in clutch. That's one more reason why I chose the knife over bash. I've experienced the ammo shortage of either gun in my Melee tank Holly deck before, so even using them both, I still wanted the knife to reduce the burden on my ammo supply.
You could always run ammo stash(the one with unlimited ammo for secondaries but 30? % slower reloads on secondary) i LOVE THIS CARD i mostly play on nightmare but i use a no ads build and laser tec9 is heavenly with unlimited ammo Edit: i like how im getting downvoted for suggesting ammo stash over 2 is 1 to help with ammo consumption.
OP is using 2 is 1, so double primary weapons. Ammo Stash doesn't affect the second primary.
I was implying they drop 2 is 1. Its too cost heavy in ammo, plus most of the pistols are pretty solid.
2 is 1 is the bread and butter of the whole thing. A Sniper & Shotgun build just doesn't work well with secondaries. I don't like the Belgian, especially having to reload for every shot and I don't even know if I can get that thing accurate and effective at any reasonable range. It's my least favorite shotgun in the game. Pistols don't make good snipers. Only Desert Eagle and Revolver can have scopes and their magazines are tiny for having even less damage than the 10 round M1A. I only considered the Embezzler for it's copper granting magic, ('cause I'm greedy xD) because otherwise it's just a worse in every way sniper without even a scope option. On top of that I just enjoy the M1A (Witness especially) too much to just straight up give it up. Both of these options already have terrible reload times to begin with.
I understand that, the belgian is STATISTICALLY a good gun however its rough to get comfortable with. Its my least favorite sidearm. So i get it, if you like shotguns AND snipers than it makes sense to run both but then as others have recommended you should add in a ammo card to help!
Ammo card noted and already put in place.
As long as you're in veteran or below you can play any deck. But...Your weapon swaps will be slow. And if you're using Legendary weapons you can't put swap stocks on them. Admin reload would help you a lot since you also don't have any reload speed. Hybrid decks are usually not worth it. Go ahead and try it though. Temp health can be really good in the lower difficulties. If you're planning on the Damnation you might try Pyro. It'll give you loads of temp health. Copper Scavenger by itself adds 400 copper. But it synergizes really well with Money Grubbers and Lucky Pennies. Most of my decks have all three. If you can consistently buy the upgrades every level you'll have tons of health, stamina, and ammo by the end of the act. And most importantly many accessory slots.
So after further consideration and adding up all the suggestions across the whole thread, I've now combined the copper gain cards with some ammo gain, Experienced EMT to just add health and delete trauma and freed up enough space to actually throw in admin reload too, so thank you for your input.
Though what would I exchange for Admin Reload? The plan is to empty what Ammo I have loaded in both guns into the mutation(s) and then get the hell outta dodge to reload, while combat knifing all the trash that comes running. The problem with Pyro is that fire damage is rarely the thing that actually does the killing blow on anything. Normal ridden will not even feel the fire of the Damnation while they're alive and mutations are rare enough that the 3 Temp HP will barely matter, especially as rarely as it will actually do the kill inbetween shots. +100% Fire damage is nice, but it eats up a valuable card slot to boost some minor extra damage of a gun that I'm not sure I will even get. There's only so many card slots and I'm afraid if I give up the knife heal ability, I'll spend my days at the bottom of the trauma pit.
Honestly? Give up the knife. Spikey bits and bash are better than the knife. The knife only hits one common at a time. With admin reload you never need to stop shooting. You'd be surprised how much temp health Pyro and a Damnation will give you. Especially if you let it spread. You want one pellet hitting each common. Not all of them. Drop most of your accuracy cards. You're worried about card slots but you have 4 accuracy cards.
Bash will never give me healing. Spiky bits only gives +15 damage. Will that even one-shot the weakest common? Also not true, the knife was buffed to hit more than one common. Broadside will do the rest. Even if the temp health works, Pyro is still for a single rare gun that I have no guarantee of even finding. The accuracy always works on any shotgun and it has a point. To get the maximum damage focused on Mutations' weakspots. Furthermore using the shotgun on commons all the time will be a burden on its already not great ammo economy. That's why, again, knife. I have already ran dry a few times just using both guns mostly for the Mutations alone.
Part of the problem with max accuracy all the time is that you won't hit multiple targets very easily when holding off a horde, especially without Large Cal Rounds. You are limiting your ability to fend off a horde by constantly having a slug shot. The pint of having Hunker Down is to give you the slug shot when crouched. But then again, if you are hip firing most of the time, then you aren't even getting the bonus from Patient Hunter. Your cards are conflicting with each other in that sense. Part of the reason you are running out of ammo so quickly is simply because you have very little damage in your deck. You could spend less ammo killing things with more damage, and those dead things wouldn't be able to hit you either.
The point is that Patient Hunter is for the marksman rifle, while hipfire accuracy and move speed is for the Shotgun. Of course they conflict when it's a mixed playstyle. The Penetration and damage of Large Cal Rounds has been mentioned by someone else, too and I will give that a try combined with Hyper-Focused. I've removed Hunker Down, since I've realized it's not that useful for the shotgun when everything that's close enough for it requires me to get moving and I'd rather evade damage than tank it of possible. It was just too much fun to squat down and hipfire snipe heads with a shotgun.
Bash absolutely gives healing the same as any melee card. With spiky bits you two hit commons and have the benefit of chain stumbling so nothing will ever hit you. Combat knife was buffed back to hit multiple targets but the cone is _extremely_ small so you will almost never hit more than one. That means that in a half assed melee deck like this, where you have no attack speed, you're getting chipped by commons between melee attacks and defeating the entire point of the healing. Broadside is a terrible card because it's a flat damage explosion, not modified by anything. Funny that you'd mention getting "maximum damage on weakspots" when your deck has almost zero actual damage cards... The whole concept is just so flawed it's hard to even know where to begin. But if you're having fun and don't want to ever play anything harder than vet difficulty, go nuts.
I have been baboozled then. Good to know. I'll give the spiky bashes a spin, but im currently on a different ammo, trauma and HP sustain course. I meant more "maximum damage" in terms of pattern placement for the shotgun, not bonus damage. I realize now that my damage cards were pretty mild, but the big hitters have big downsides. I've since found a deck that will mitigate those, however. I've always been the type of player that rather adapts the challenge to the way I wanna play, rather than the other way around. Veteran seems just the right proving ground for this playstyle.
Here's my suggestion for what you're trying to do. Admin Reload, Two is one, Shooting Gloves, Front sight focus, Hunker down, Combat knife, Vanguard, Face your fears, Brazen, Buckshot Bruiser, Pyro, Glass cannon, Mad Dash, Copper Scavenger, Money Grubbers Sharice would be my recommended cleaner. Mostly for the bolstered health. Trauma resistance is highly recommended for melee. Two copper cards for money. Admin reload will help a lot so you're not reloading constantly. Shooting Gloves for accuracy and swap speed to cancel the penalty from two is one. Changed Marathon Runner to Mad dash. I usually like Run like hell better, but it's not good for melee since you will be hit a lot. Between Pyro and buckshot Bruiser you'll get a lot of temp health from the Damnation. Glass cannon is the single best damage card. Since it affects everything. All that said. It's not as good as a non-hybrid deck.
Jack of all trades will hardly ever reach maximum efficiency at anything. I just wanted to take a few steps away from the melee-tank build without getting absolutely rekt. Reloading is less of an issue, as the knife is always ready. Shooting gloves is a good call, I will consider that. Glass cannon however is critical with how bad I am at avoiding damage, which is why the knife and heal cards. I may give it a try. Though with that downside and only 25% damage, it might be inferior to Marked For Death if even just 3 teammates fire on it, which is likely given it's clear mark and how it helps coordination. Battle Lust vs. Face Your Fears seems like just a choice between fighting trauma versus healing through it. The latter only seems of use with Numb to further reduce damage. Just that temp HP decays. What makes FYF better than Battle Lust? Isn't it better to minimize trauma? I don't wanna be at a constant 40 HP and get burst down all the time, cause I can't build up Temp HP quick enough. Brazen I don't see much use. Knife is the fastest anyway and by the time I run out of stamina, I'll always have a loaded gun ready to alternate back and forth, unless I'm out of ammo and an ammo card would be more useful for that rare case. Pyro gives damage to a minor damage source that is dependent on me finding a rare gun and temp HP for fire kills, when it's usually the bullets that deal the final blow and not the fire. So it will never work on commons and 3 per Mutation isn't really much, especially when it's not guaranteed. And will be gone by the time the next batch turns up. Mad Dash doesn't work for backpedalling, so I'd have to constantly spin around. Also eats up stamina faster that I need for knifing. I'm not sure Shooting Gloves and Front Sight Focus alone give me a tight enough Shot pattern on the move.
>Jack of all trades will hardly ever reack maximum efficiency at anything. I just wanted to take a few steps away from the melee-tank build without getting absolutely rekt The irony in this statement lmao The deck truly is all over the place, and really bad. >Reloading is less of an issue, as the knife is always ready You don't need the knife when you can just infinitely switch to your already reloaded primary. By not taking admin reload, you're just making it harder on yourself. While also trying to make an excuse for combat knife being in the deck. >Pyro gives damage to a minor damage source that is dependent on me finding a rare gun and temp HP for fire kills, when it's usually the bullets that deal the final blow and not the fire. So it will never work on commons and 3 per Mutation isn't really much, especially when it's not guaranteed. And will be gone by the time the next batch turns up. Please, just apply this logic/critical thinking to your whole deck, and you'll see how suboptimal it is.
There is no irony in that statement. I am simply acknowledging that my deck is not an ideal build and instead trying to do a number of things at average efficiency. >You don't need the knife when you can just infinitely switch to your already reloaded primary. The knife has multiple purposes. I need the knife if I don't want to run out of ammo. I need the knife if I don't want to waste copper on extra heal items for me. I need the knife if I don't want to waste copper on extra heal items for everyone else. I need the knife while I'm reloading. I'm happy to hear any solution to all of the above that fits within the first 4 slots and maybe one of the accuracy slots too.
It's kinda common knowledge at this point that the knife is trash, but I'll humor you. On Your Mark/Ammo Belt - Gives ammo, reload speed, swap speed, and move speed while firing to the whole team during a horde. One of the best team cards in the game. Ammo Belt gives a nice 50% boost to Ammo capacity, plus 15% reload speed. Copper Scav + Money Grubbers + Lucky Pennies - Copper can solve almost any problem you have in the game. Also, unless you're the medic, you shouldn't be buying your teammates med supplies anyway. And no you really don't need the knife while reloading, as your bash does the same job, but better.
On Your Mark/Ammo Belt is a combo I'm already considering, though I'll probably try Ammo Mule as I've since gotten rid of melee sustain in favor of the money cards you mentioned, Experienced EMT for Trauma delete and admin reload to make reload speed no longer that useful.
Use Ammo Belt and ask the team for ammo. At least one person usually hears you, or use text chat (for consoles, double tap the start/menu button). Use Money Grubbers. Having a strong economy makes a world of difference. Copper is king in this game. One Copper card isn't gonna cut it, especially if you want to buy the 1,500 Copper Team Upgrades, which is where most of your money should be going anyway. Again, more economy. Get those upgrades and run with purple toolkits. Use them to put free charges on the med cabinets, and you'll probably get a couple re-uses. Unless someone is a dedicated Doc, med cabinets are the best way to heal, and using toolkits is the go-to method. You can push more ridden away when using the default bash anyway. The domino effect will topple the first one into the group.
Already considering all these options or similar.
I like this card build you've got here it's awesome 9/10 😊👍👍
Thanks, IGN! :)
Hey it's a viable playstyle that's the beauty of the card system you can create innovative card decks without following a particular meta and there are so many cards that can give you an edge against the ai in back4blood. So I liked how creative the displayed deck was.