First off, I have played a ton of hours into this game over the past year. I have created a guide on Item Affixes, and how secondary stats on items work.

Link to Item Affixes guide.
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3314371567
I have created several youtube videos which include a tips and tricks video with damage demonstrations. Here are links to the Tips and Tricks. There is a Part 1 and Part 2 so both are linked below.


I also created this youtube video series of my perma-death Legend difficulty run. It is full game play. The only parts that are "cut" are when I am save scumming, or a few times when my recording software glitched out on me.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUOxWLHwt71rlmBzfh4fStaGKfBft-XCT


With that all out of the way, I want to walk through my thoughts on how to min-max this game completely. In this guide I will present various stats I didn't find in other guides, and will focus more on how to min-max character creation, early game play, and itemization. I looked at all the other guides on steam for this game, and I tried my best to deliver content not found elsewhere.

Below is the screen shot of what I consider the easiest min-max starting Trait setup for a character. I'll explain in detail below.


First off, there is only a few "good" starting occupations. Those are Civil Servant, Researcher, Marathon Runner, Forwarder, and Soldier. Every other occupation is a F-Tier waste of a pick. Let me run down all the all the good ones though in the order they appear in the character creation screen. Sorry if the descriptions are long.

10% Completion speed and 25% Drop rate.

You'll get +100% completion speed through the skill tree alone. There is an item in the game that adds more completion speed if needed. There are two food buffs that also add to completion speed at 50% each. Completion speed is what dictates how fast you open most things in the game that have a progress bar. Most things do not take that long to open in this game in the first place. The extra 10% doesn't matter at all really. Late game it shaves off milliseconds at best. 10% is not shown on stat screen and was figured out through imprecise testing.

Drop rate affects how many items zombies can potentially drop, but even then there are fixed limits. No more than 2 red boxes that are unique items can drop from any zombie for example. No more than 6 boxes in total. There are plenty of ways to increase drop rates in the game through items, and food buffs. Know what also increases drop rates? Killing more zombies. Even with a negative value here you'll get a ton of drops. More than you'll be able to handle late game. Most of which are not worth picking up later truth be told. Negative also doesn't affect the boss 1 red box unique guaranteed drop either. So while the stats are technically usable and nice, they really are not noticeable in the late game.

10% Exp rate and 5% Crit rate.

The Exp rate is "nice to have" but not a must have stat. That is because gaining a level only grants a single stat point which is a hoo-hum reward for a level. The real reason to get levels is to reach level 50 to get a second follower, and then maybe reach level 99 for a third follower along with the achievement. That is it. You'll get there eventually by just playing the game. Also food like Burgers and the Burger Set grant bonus experience buffs after eating for 12 hours. Leveling is not that hard in this game unless you are really striving for level 99. Reaching 99 is a grind for sure. Still, having the bonus experience isn't horrible.

Now the reason Researcher is my number 1 pick is for that juicy Crit rate. This is a rare stat in game to get. You do not get any from the research tree. You do not get any from food buffs. You can only get it from item stats and coils. While reaching 100% Crit rate is technically feasible, it is not likely to happen without wearing certain armor sets. Reaching a good 30% to 40% Crit rate will drastically improve your damage output. As this occupation is one of the few easy sources of acquiring Critical Rating, it is my number 1 occupation pick.

10% Stamina Regeneration and 7% Movement Speed

Something to preface, the game uses Regen and Restore interchangeably. Starting stamina regen is 10 points per second while default stamina is 100. So 10% is only 1 point of stamina regen at the start. Stamina regen can be boosted by item, food buffs, the research tree. and point in Endurance. There is two different food buffs provide stacking 20% regen, and the research tree provide 50% regen. Stamina regen can be rolled as a secondary stat on all accessory types at a 10% rate per roll. Stamina regen also increases by about 0.8% per point of Endurance. Know what is more important than stamina regen? Stamina reduction. Reduction can come from traits, stats, items, food, and research tree. Stamina usage is more of an early game problem to solve, and over time solves itself.

Movement speed is also more of an early game problem to solve. Very early into the game you'll get access to vehicles which are much faster than running. With the base move speed the character can out run most zombies even in Iron armor which is the slowest of the armor sets. While a few zombies are faster than the default movement speed, almost all the zombies have to stop to attack. The good thing is that the player character does not have to stop to attack. You'll slow down during a melee animation, but not completely stop. This means you can still kite most zombies in the game with base move speed. Since move speed is part of the research tree and comes from food buffs it isn't hard to have more than enough fairly early into the game.

2 extra rows of inventory slots. (12 slots)

This is extremely useful early game, but the usefulness of it falls off by end game. Sure there is zero other ways in the game to get those same extra rows of inventory slots. Meaning Forwarder will always have those slots that no other character can get without Forwarder as well. Still, that is only 12 item slots. By end game you can have a mobile base with practically infinite inventory slots where ever you go. You can also access the inventory slots of your followers from anywhere on the map just by pressing the follower interaction key, which is the ~ tilde key by default. You get 2 extra rows per research tree point. With 5 research points that is 60 extra inventory slots for your character. Followers also get row (6 slots) upon leveling up every 10 levels. Lastly, most of what is dropped late game isn't worth picking up. Lack of inventory is an early game problem and is solved fairly quickly into game play.

5% Range Recoil (stability) and 10% Range damage.

This occupation provides the dubious range weapon recoil bonus. I have found no solid way of testing this. It seems to be a stability stat increase for range weapons only, but how much it affects the spread of range weapons or recoil is not measurable for me. I am going to guess it is a 5% stability bonus and thus not worthy of further discussion. Stability overall is a nice stat to have in the game, as it reduces the "spread" of the crosshairs which to a degree determine where your hits will land, but it isn't that big of a deal at all.

The other occupation trait is a 10% damage boost to all range weapons. This is a very nice boost. Range weapons are easily the best weapons in this game and that makes this occupation a good one for that reason. As this is percentage, the better the weapon you get the more damage you'll do.

On to the Traits themselves. I'll talk about each as both positive and negative where applicable. Positive traits take trait points to allocate to your character while negative traits give you trait points to spend to get more positive traits. By default the character starts with the "Unemployed" occupation with 20 Trait points. Occupations take trait points as well Traits. You can create a character with unspent trait points but you cannot create a character with negative trait points. This list is listed as (Positive/Negative).

10% Item recovery value.

Recovering from items is no big deal. Damage Leech is going to be the only healing you'll need late game and this stat doesn't affect it. You can safely take the negative for this one for an additional trait point to spend. Also each point of Judgement boosts healing when using an item. Not that I would recommend wasting points on the Judgement stat.

10% Stamina Regeneration.

Good early game, still useful late game, but not anything that you have to have. Taking either the positive or negative won't affect the overall game too much. Each point of Endurance boosts Stamina Regeneration.

Demolish speed. (value not shown in character screen)

Worthless.

5% Parry Range.

Only works with shields and isn't a big deal. Mostly worthless as shield builds are more of a meme thing.

10% Noise generation.

Being loud allows you to tactically lure zombies. You are able to safely take the negative version of this trait. On the flip side, it is easy to reach a 100% noise reduction value, and world spawn zombies will practically ignore you. Bosses and hordes will still agro you. This is why this stat is actually in the Defense Skill category of secondary stats in the game. For reaching 100% noise reduction there are items, research tree nodes, food buffs, and each point of Attention reduces noise generation.

5% Jump Power.

For the most part jump power is worthless. Strength and Research nodes will give all the jump power you need. You are not jumping over buildings in this game no matter how much you have. Safe to take the negative trait for more points to spend.

5% damage to harvesting tree, stone, and mineral nodes.

Early game this is a bit of a time saver, but later game it doesn't matter at all. Safe to take the negative here.

10% range weapon damage.

If you are range weapon focus and took Soldier occupation then Hyperopia is a nice trait to stack with Soldier. If you really want to be melee only then Myopia can be picked but I advise against.

25 Protection points.

Protection is damage reduction from all source of damage. There is a soft cap with diminishing returns to protection. 100 protection is 50% damage reduction and 200 is 70% damage reduction and 300 is like 75%. Reaching 200 protection is easy enough without taking this trait. Research tree provides 80 points of protection itself. I will note that the negative version of this trait that reduces protection can be brutal during the beginning stages of gameplay. Especially on harder difficulty levels.

5% attack and dodge stamina usage reduction.

Nice to have. Taking either the positive or negative version won't affect late game character performance by end game. Research nodes, food buffs, items, and the Vitality stat all affect stamina reduction.

5% Parry Stamina Usage reduction.

If you are wanting to do a meme shield build then take this. Otherwise it is a huge waste of trait points to pick this.

10% completion speed.

This is mostly worthless. Almost useful early game, and useless late game. The value for this is not shown on the character screen. 10% is the guess I have from time tests I did that were not super stringent. It was hardly noticeable.

5% damage to zombies.

Take the positive version on this one. Never the negative. Zombies are what we fight in this game.

7% movement speed.

A nice to have bonus and more noticeable early game. Because it is nice early game I tend to take it. I wouldn't advise taking the negative though.

4 flat damage.

This is flat damage to any attack. This affects range weapons, melee weapons, kicking, and harvesting weapons. Always take the positive for this.

2% Melee Attack Speed.

A rare stat to get in the game. Comes from items, parts, and research tree only. You don't get much. The amount you get even when you max it all out isn't that big of a deal. This stat is mostly useful if using the Vital Stinger melee weapon as it has a small chance instantly kill anything you hit. So faster attacks means more chances to execute in a shorter amount of time. However, 2% isn't a noticeable amount at all. For reference, 12% attack speed can be obtained through the research tree and 5% is from a weapon "part" that can be socketed into melee weapon sockets. With this trait the max bonus attack speed is +19%. So missing out on this 2% isn't all that big of a deal.

5% Evasion Rating.

Always take the positive. Never the negative.

10% demolish returns.

This trait is more useful the harder the difficulty setting of the game. Demolishing base buildings on Normal by default returns 70% of the materials used to make the building. Reaching 100% on Normal difficulty or lower is very easy. 100% will return all materials used to build anything you demolish. Legend difficulty is 0% default which means no materials returned. Reaching 100% is impossible on Legend. Still, if you are not having to demolish anything you build it is not a big deal. Better to save scum before base building instead of demolishing on higher difficulties. The only way to increase this stat is with this trait or the research nodes on the Survival Page. Research provides up to 50% demolish returns.

5% Crit Rate.

Always take. Nothing else to say.

10% Exp gain.

Can take the positive if you want to reach level 99 and want to save some grind time. Otherwise safe to take negative for trait points.

25% item drop rate.

Useful early game and less useful late game. Plenty of ways to improve this stat in the game with ~700% being around the max amount. Fairly pointless to reach 700% as there is a hard cap on max items that can be dropped by any zombie.

This all goes back to my personal choices for min-maxing at character creation. This is shown by the screen shot above in the previous section.

Occupation: Researcher
Positives: Evil Nature Principle, Speedster, Big Bones, Quick Movement, Sharp Nails
Negatives: Indigestion, Loud Voice, Obesity, Eco Friendly

Pressing C will bring up the character screen shown in the screen shot below. This is the primary stats of Strength, Vitality, Endurance, Judgement, Memory, and Attention.


By default with the Unemployed Occupation your character will have 1 point in every stat. Other occupations have higher starting stats correlating to the increased cost of trait points for the occupation. Every level you get gives you 1 point to spend. Along with levels for stat point, the other ways to increase primary stats is through items, coils, and quest completions. Yes, completing a quest gives 1 stat point. However, only points from levels can be allocated. Each primary stat affects 2 secondary stats.

+0.6 Flat damage and +0.4% Jump Power.

Flat damage is very impactful early game, and still nice later in the game. Jump power doesn't matter. Just build a ramp if you need to go over something. You can build ramps just about anywhere. Even with high amounts of jump power, you'll never get to the point where your character jumps over buildings or has ridiculously high jumps. You'll not become a ninja. While early game jump power can help get you out of a pinch by helping to jump on top of something that zombies cannot reach, as the game progresses the zombies will be able to reach no matter where you go as they start having projectile attacks.

+0.8% Attack/Dodge stamina reduction and +1 Max Hps.

Your character starts with 100 max hit points. Hit points are a poor layer of defense choice in this game. Still if you run out of hit points then you die. Attack/Dodge stamina reduction is the primary reason to put points here until reaching 100% reduction. If this affected stam usage for running then stam regeneration would be a completely worthless stat. However, since there is no way to reduce stamina usage for running, stam regeneration still as a use.

+0.5% Satiety Reduction and +0.1 Stamina Regeneration.

Satiety reduction is more useful early game especially when you do not have enough research papers to get the nodes from research tree that reduce satiety by up to 30%. You can technically reach 100% satiety reduction. Having 100% means not having to eat food again. Which makes one wonder who is the real monster on the Island. Stamina regeneration is a flat amount here and is self explanatory.

+1% Hp recovery from items and +0.4 Protection.

Hp recovery from items is mostly worthless as a stat in this game. It has a small use early game, but has no use as gameplay progresses. Protection is also more useful in the early game when your character's protection level is low. When you get some research tree nodes in body guard, and better armor then protection falls off in usefulness per point. Don't waste points on this stat.

+0.2% Fishing Time and +0.3% Damage to Zombies.

Fishing time is worthless. Damage to Zombies by % though is huge in the end game. Early game you won't notice much, but this is a stacking effect being percentage. By late game with a high Memory score, you'll see huge damage increases against Zombies.

-0.4% Noise and +0.4% Move speed.

Both are decent stats to have, but neither are must have to max out. It is fun to reach 100% noise reduction and zombies around the map will ignore you as you walk by. However bosses and waves will still attack you regardless of your noise reduction. Still, not having to fight everything to loot places is fun sometimes. Move speed falls off in usefulness as you get more of it and as the game progresses. You'll never run faster than vehicles.

Stat priority for putting points in are as follows:
Early Game: Strength, Endurance, Vitality, Attention, Memory, Judgement
Late Game: Memory, Vitality, Strength, Attention, Endurance, Judgement

You can reset your stats with the the food buff from Golden Koi Soup at any point in the game. So early choices can be changed later.

Now that we've covered primary stats, I'll touch on the secondary stats. There is a lot of them and most of them are not as useful as the game progresses or have niche usefulness. Secondary stats can be affected by character starting traits, primary stats, items, coils, research tree nodes, food buffs, and environmental debuffs. They can all mostly be viewed in the Character screen by pressing C to the right of the Primary Stat Hexagon.


There are several categories that secondary stats fall into.

Hp = starts at 100 max
Stamina = starts at 100 max
Satiety = starts at 100 max

This has anything that can affect any type of attack be it melee or range.
Example stats are: Damage (base), Kick Damage, Attack Speed, Critical Rate, Headshot damage, Wound Reinforcement, % Damage to Zombies, % damage to harvest nodes, Fire Reinforcement, and Stability.

This is all the defensive options applied to your character.
Examples stats are: Protection, Extra damage taken, Fire Resistance, Explosion Resistance, Evasion Rate, Jump Power, Noise, and Movement Speed.

Stats that apply to shields when equipped.

Stats that apply to HP changes, Stamina changes, durability changes, and satiety changes.

Stats that add something "extra' to attacks like a chance to ignite an enemy with a fire dot or to apply a bleeding dot.

These stats are more niche defensive layers. Invincibility Chance on damage taken, Damage Leech, and Stagger Immunity Chance are examples here.

Are utility stats that are not related to combat. I wish Completion speed was here but it isn't. Still things like Fishing Time, Fishing Bar Size, and Materials returned on Demolish are examples here.

Now that we know the various secondary stats, some are far more important that others. Especially when it comes to combat.

Attack and Defense are of primary importance for combat. The more damage you deal the faster you kill zombies or even harvest nodes. The more defense options you have the less likely you are to die in this game. That being said, there are 3 primary combat stats that are top to prioritize where you can.

Critical Rate, Evasion Rate, and Wound Reinforcement.

When you Crit in the game you do double damage to the target by default. This includes any target. Zombies, animals, or harvest nodes. The higher your critical rate the higher the chance an attack that hits a target will do extra damage.

Evasion rate is your chance to avoid "hits" that attack you. Reaching 100% evasion rate is possible and if you reach 100% evasion rate then nothing can "hit" you in this game again. However, there are some attacks that are not coded as hits so they will always deal damage regardless of your evasion rate. Standing in a mine shaft for example will give your character an environmental debuff that applies chemical damage to your character. Evasion rating has no effect on this. You need to have 100% chemical resistance to avoid taking chemical damage while inside a mine in this game. Still, the vast majority of combat in this game involves enemies trying to hit you with attacks. So reaching 100% evasion will prevent the majority of damage from combat in this game. Here is a list of evasion sources:

5% Quick Movement Trait
30% from research tree
20% from food buffs
20% from Safety spear
2.6% Victor Medal
2.6% Victor Hat T2 +0 reforges (4.7% @+10-T6)
2.6% Victor Suit T2 +0 reforges (4.7% @+10-T6)
1.3% Victor Gloves T2 +0 reforges (3.6% @+10-T6)
1.3% Victor Shoes T2 +0 reforges (3.6% @+10-T6)
3%-5% Secondary stat roll on any Armor
2%-5% Secondary stat roll on any Accessory

Assuming not using the Safety spear and getting a single +5% roll on on all armor and accessories then the total is: 90% evasion rating. That is without Victors armor at all. Just trait, research, food, and 5% secondary stat rolls on 7 pieces of gear. Victor's full set add 10.4% evasion without boosting it. Maxed out the Victor set adds 19.2%

Wound Reinforcement is a special stacking damage enhancer. Lets look at Critical Rate for example. When you have Critical Rate there is a chance to land a critical hit on a target you attack. Critical damage by default is double damage. Your character can get the secondary stat of Critical Damage that will enhance beyond the double damage a critical will do. 30% Critical Damage will make a critical hit do 130% instead of 100% extra damage. Headshots, aka weakness point attacks, are something your character can land against only zombies. Most zombies can be shot in the head to automatically be granted extra damage for that attack like a critical hit. Headshot damage like Critical damage by default doubles the damage. So attacking a zombie in the head with a sword or gun will cause that attack to deal 100% extra damage. A 30% value to Headshot Damage will cause headshots to do 130% extra damage. The fun thing about this game is you can aim for a Headshot and also get a Critical which effectively double dips the bonus damage. By default you will do 200% damage on a Critical Headshot.

Now to explain Wound Reinforcement. It adds to both Headshot and Critical damage at the same time. If you have 30% Wound Reinforcement and get a Critical Headshot then you'll be doing 260% damage.

While you will want to prioritize Critical Rate, Evasion Rate, and Wound Reinforcement, here is the list of other secondary stats to try to increase or max out.

Any resistance because reaching 100% resistance makes you immune to that damage type
Invincibility Chance on damage taken
Damage Leech
Flat Damage
% Damage
Critical Damage
Headshot Damage
Protection (at least to 200 for around 70% damage reduction)
Movement Speed
Stamina Regeneration
Stamina Usage Reduction (for attack and dodge only)
Satiety Reduction

At character creation there is a "hidden" stat. Your character's height. Why is this a stat? Because it can affect combat performance. How? Well your height determines exactly how high your character is. The a taller character takes up more of the "screen" as this game is played from 3rd person over the shoulder mode. Taking up more of the screen makes it actually harder to aim range weapons. Conversely, being taller makes it easier to hit the heads of zombies with melee weapons.

Lastly, followers actually ignore several of the secondary stats players have because otherwise those followers would be even more worthless. Followers do not have stamina or anything related to stamina, they do not have guard points for shields, and they do not have move speed that matters since they will teleport to the player. They also do not have a durability decrement value so you do not need to fix anything a follower wears. They will always equip the highest tier weapon in inventory as well. Since followers do not have the research tree, they start with slightly better stats than the player in some places, but have far worse scaling as the game progresses because of that. Which makes them sort of useful early game in combat, and only useful for their inventory slots late game. At least followers are technically immortal and cannot be killed.

Now that we've gone over the basic stats and how to min-max all those from the start and through the end game, lets talk about how to maximize your character with items through playing. That is by save scumming.

First off, what is save scumming? Save scumming mostly is making a save point in your single player play through before you kill certain enemies with a high chance to drop a unique item you want for your character. Why unique items? Because unique items are the best items in the game.

The following enemies have high unique drop rates:
Bosses all have 100% drop rate on a single unique.
Mutant Animals have 100% drop rate to a very specific unique item.
Red Giant Sewer Half Crawlers have a very high rate for unique drops.
Zombie Giants of all types have a "goodish" unique drop rate.

The ones with low drop rates are:
Elite zombies haves a mediocre drop rate.
Regular zombies have a low unique drop chance.

Special note on drop rates. All nightly horde zombies have a significantly lower drop rate for any gear boxes compared to their identical world spawn versions. They just tend to drop research papers and some materials that can be found in those bag drops. So save scumming a nightly horde for drops would be a real waste of time.

Save scumming will save your character a lot of time in the game. Before you fight a boss you make a save point. Then kill the boss and see what it drops. If you like the drop then keep it and move on. If you don't then reload from the last save and kill the boss again. Do that over and over until the boss drops something you like. Bosses are different though for save scumming as you must kill the boss from 100% every time you load. Bosses always reset to their full life when loading from a save file. Other zombies will maintain the damage you've done to them at the time you save. This means for a Mutant Animal, you can attack it to the point it is going to die with your next attack. At that point you make a save point. This means when you load from that save point it will only take a single attack to kill it every time you load. This saves a lot of time when it comes to save scumming so you don't have to 100% kill every enemy besides bosses that have high unique drop rates.

You can also save scum when it comes to using the bank to make money, or buying items from vending machines (normal non unique gear), or when using the Coil Bench to reassemble 5 pieces of gear into a higher tier piece of gear. Save scumming does not work on reassembling unique gear though at the Safe House benches. Nor does Save Scumming work for unique gear given as rewards for Quests.

While you don't have to save scum to do well and beat the game on any difficulty, it will help save time in the long run. I will say it sometimes takes a lot of save scumming to get something good though and that can get boring very fast.

First off, the best trap in the game by far is the Shredder. It does consistent damage to multiple zombies at once while staggering them. It is cheap to create, takes upgrades, and is effective against everything. Second best trap is the Barbed Fence. It is great for creating choke points and blocking off areas. Many zombies during a horde will get hung up on them and die without moving away.

This game has a ton of flexibility when it comes to creating a base with a trap maze for the horde. Still the easiest solution for the entire game is to clear out a sewer in the starting city zone and laying a Shredder trap across the entrance with some barbed fences blocking access for zombies to get around the Shredder. I demonstrate this simple setup in the very first video of my perma-death Legend play through video series. This is a minimalist base setup.

Here is some screen shots of a current Legend run I was doing for fun again. This is a setup for a base that can last the entire game for every horde night no problem.


Power generation like windmills and solar panels work where ever you can place them. The only things that depend on being placed outdoors are production sets like animal traps or plant farms. For those at the start I place far enough away that the zombies during the horde won't chase down to smash.

While this works for a base for any difficulty regardless of the horde wave, I want to stress that a large part of the fun of this game is base building and creating trap mazes for the daily zombie hordes. This is a guide to min-maxing and this basic sewer base setup is about as min-maxed as you can get.

Another tip to know is that traps early game do far more damage than your character. As such, I tend to make a trap machine and carry enough materials to create a Shredder several times even after I demolish it. For Legend difficulty I must mention that I need to either get the Novice Demolitionist node from the research tree or take the starting trait of Environmental Protection to have some materials returned to me when I demolish. This way if I demolish a trap I am always getting the Trap Machine component back which is the only part I cannot make in the field very easily.

While moving about in the early game. I can use a Shredder to do all my clearing. Proper use of a Shredder allows me to block off an area at a choke point that prevents zombies from getting around the Shredder to attack me. This allows me to gather a lot of zombies from an area, run to a Shredder trap I placed, go to the other side of the Shredder by crouching under it or climbing over it. Then the zombies on the other side will get stuck running at the Shredder while trying to get at me. They then just get shredded to death. This is a far safer and faster way to clear out areas in the early game while your stats are very low and you don't have good gear. Again this is demonstrated in the youtube video series I linked to in the introduction of this guide on Day 1 play through. Using traps this way early game is far more effective to progress the game at first. The only down side is that traps cannot be built against bosses as nothing can be built in dungeons where bosses reside. Also the drop rate for zombies that die to traps isn't affected by your character drop rate chance. Which can be a good or a bad thing.

Research papers aren't particularly rare, but you'll need a lot of them. Also, certain research nodes along most trees are gated behind a book that you need to have in inventory to use. Books are specific to each region or even specific locations. Except the book kiosks which sell all books at very high prices. Statistically you'll find every book eventually you need to complete all the research. Yes, you can and should complete everything in this game that you can. There is no downside to getting every research node.

However, for min-maxing our time while playing this game, the early game needs some research to make life easier. These are what I prioritize from each section of the research window.

Survival: Porter Line = 12 inventory slots per node.
Skill: Everything you can as most is gated by books.
Combat: Guard line for Protection, Spartan Line for Kick damage and kick stam reduction, and anything from the 2 damage lines.
Utility: Diver line for stamina regen, Jogger Line for movement speed, Boxer Line for evasion rating, Dieter Line for satiety reduction, and Hunter line for more damage.

Utility is mostly where it is at early game except for Protection points from Combat and Porter line for inventory slots. Getting stam usage and regen under control, not being 1 shot by zombies, and not having to eat every 2 seconds are massive quality of life improvements. After that fill in what you think is best.

As for the Cell line, that is late game. You can't afford nor find the chips needed for any of the research nodes in the early game.

Human Hunter can be the last thing you ever research. You don't fight humans in this game outside multiplayer and pvping others.

I want to reiterate something here in case the point wasn't made clear. Get all the research nodes you can. The vast majority of the players power comes from research nodes. Everything in this game stacks additively as well. So when a research tree has 3 nodes providing 10% to a stat, that is 10% + 10% + 10% for 30% increase. This is why the research tree provides so much power to a character.

In this game there ways to apply various duration buffs, and even debuffs, to your character. Duration buffs are broken down into 2 types. Short duration and long duration. All buffs require the character using a consumable item. Usually this is food for long duration, or a healing item for a short duration. There are some consumable items like Detox Pads that provide chemical resistance for 6 hours. Detox pads are not food though as they provide no calorie value for satiety levels.

Your character can have a max of 6 long term duration buffs and 1 of each type of short term if applicable. A couple different healing items for example provide a small heal over time buff and they are considered different buffs that stack from different item types. However, when using the same duration buff item that is currently being applied to your character then that will just refresh the duration of that particular buff. When you consume a new long term buff duration when already at the max of 6 then the oldest buff is removed.

With the preface of what buffs are in this game now explained, which food buffs are actually good?

Well if you need to do some fishing then the foods that help with fishing are great! Birthday Party Set, Japanese Food Set, Pasta, and Sashimi all work for that.

Want to just loot areas without fighting zombies? Then completion speed and noise reduction foods are in order! Muffin, Cake, Burger Set, and Birthday Party Set.

Roasted Mushrooms and Fruits = 10% Move speed
Sandwich = 10% evasion
French Fries = 10 flat damage
Pizza = 10% damage
Fast Food Set = 10% evasion and 10% damage

Then either a Donut or Slow Food Set. Maybe Burger Set or other resistance buff food for a specific resistance to an element as needed. Roasted Mushrooms can be dropped as well if move speed isn't needed.

The above is just the best combat setup of food buffs. I prioritize the evasion rating foods to reach 100% evasion as well as damage foods. Early game max Satiety foods and Protection foods will work better as though mainly because they are easy to craft. Early game you should be able to craft simple foods that provide buffs which include the Roasted Mushrooms and Fruits, and Meat Stew. If you get lucky killing a buck or boar then crafting Roasted Good Meat or Roasted Pig's Feet for the max Satiety buffs is good to have going in the early game. All of those can be cooked at the basic campfire as well.

When it comes to your character being hungry then eat grilled mushrooms, canned beans, or candy bars to keep your satiety levels topped off. Using foods that provide buffs for the calorie intake is as waste of resources. Also do not cook any of your meat for pure calorie food intake. Use all that meat elsewhere. Typically meat is used for manure for the farm plots. Mushrooms are literally every where for free food in this game.

Below is a few screen shots of the context menus of some items in the game and the stats provided by those menus for those items. I added the gold stars with the labels to the various sections of the pop-up context menu that comes up in game when hovering your cursor over an item. The gold star and label are used to highlight those sections that I will reference below. For screen shots, I used a weapon and a piece of armor to cover the majority of what I want to explain in this guide section.

All Gear has the potential for multiple sections of information that can provide bonuses to the character. I am using the word Gear to specifically designate items that are worn by the player character or followers versus other items in inventory.

Berserker's Fury Axe:

Victor's Formal Uniform:

First, all items in this game goes from tier 1 to tier 6. (T1-T6)
The tier level and bases stats are are on all gear. Tier level affects the amount of base stats. The higher the Tier level, the better the base stats. Tier levels for gear can usually be increased. More on base stats below as well as how to increase Tier levels.

Based on category, there is consistent set of base stats for each gear type. For example weapons provide the 3 following base stats for all weapons. Those are: Damage, Stability rating, and Movement speed penalty. Usually these are self explanatory. Armor has the two always base stat of Protection, and Movement speed penalty. Armor also has an extra bonus base stat based on the armor set. Accessories also have the one extra bonus base stat. In the screen shot above of the Victor Formal Suit, that extra bonus base stat is Evasion Rating.

All base stats can be increased in two potential ways assuming that the gear piece allows it. Gear can be enhanced by either reforging it or hardening it. Reforging is a process done on an appropriate workbench at your base that consumes a lot of materials per reforging point. Reforging can go up to +10 levels. The screen shot above of the axe shows it at +7. Each level of reforging takes an increasing and harder to obtain amount of resources.

Hardening increases the Tier level of a piece of gear. Hardening as a process can only be done at an anvil found inside any of the mine shafts in the game. All hardening levels require an increasing amount of gold bars along with another metal ingot type. Increasing the tier also increases the base stats of that piece of gear.

Not all pieces of gear can be hardened or reforged. For example, accessories cannot be reforged. Your innate bag items (the gray/white) items in the slots on the right side of your character in the inventory screen, those bag items cannot be hardened. Weapons and armor can be both reforged as well as hardened. Base stats increase in a linear fashion and are not randomized.

For additional reference, all gear has a movement speed penalty as a base stat. So everything you wear slows you down by a varying degree. When it comes to armor types, the lighter armors have lower movement speed penalties than heavier armors.

All gear that is not gray/white or a tool can roll a secondary stat. Secondary stats are random affixes applied to gear when gear drops. My affix guide linked at the top of this guide has a much more in-depth explanation about secondary stats and affixes. For most gear these random affixes are what typically make a piece of gear good or trash for a given build.

This section of stats is only available on unique items as basically bonus stats that common pool items do not get. Unique items of the same type have the same unique stats, but they roll at different ranges. For example the Victor's Formal Suit screen shot above shows the item has a unique stat of Ranged Weapon Damage with a value range going from 25% to 50%. All Victor armors from that set will have that same unique stat and range value.

This section shows the inherit coils on a piece of armor. The first coil shown is the "base" coil and will always be there for that armor type. The screen shot above shows that the Victor's armor set has a base coil of Ignition. All Victor's armor will come with that base coil. Desert armor for example has the base inherit coil type of Chilling. Min inherit base coil value, and max inherit coil value is determined by rarity. Min is 1-gray/blue/yellow, and 3-red. Max value is 3-gray, 9-blue/yellow, and 13-red. The screen shot of the Victor Formal Uniform above shows a maxed out roll for inherit coils possible with 3 Ignition coils and 10 Lightning coils for a total of 13.

Both weapons and armor come with a section for sockets always. Weapons and Shields have part sockets while armor has coil sockets. Weapons have either 0, 2, or 3 part sockets available. Shields have 2 part sockets. Armor has 1 or 2 coil sockets by default. Chest armor is 2 sockets, and the rest is 1 socket.

As for why the varying degrees of part sockets for weapons, it is pretty self explanatory once you know what all the parts are. Range weapon parts are as follows: scopes, lights, and muzzle devices. Bows have 0 sockets because no parts in the game "fit" them. The crossbow has 2 sockets because a crossbow cannot fit a muzzle device part as it lacks a muzzle. Melee weapons follow a similar pattern. Melee weapon parts are: head, body, and handle attachments. Not all melee weapons have room for a head part for some reason. Not sure why, but that is the game.

Armor has default coil sockets, but that amount can be increased if one of the secondary affix rolls is bonus sockets. This is all covered in my other guide.

Lastly for sockets, armor and accessories have an additional socket section for skin cosmetics. These sockets have no performative difference in the game.

Anything socketed can be added or removed practically at will during gameplay.

As mentioned earlier in this guide, Unique items are the best items in this game generally speaking. There are a few decent common items that can be used though. The next guide sections are my thoughts on the unique items and at the end the good common items. Also, please refer to the Item Affix guide I linked in the intro to understand what secondary stats matter when it comes to determining whether an item drop is a keeper or not. I'll speak about armor sets though as one item. Also, there are no Tier 0 or Tier 1 uniques.

Devastation = Axe for harvesting trees. Try to get one with 90%+ rubber resin chance and anything that adds to damage.

Depletion = Mining pick for harvesting stone and ore. Try to get one with a 90%+ for extra copper ore when harvesting ore nodes. Also look for secondary stats that add to damage.

Vital Strike = 1 handed short sword that only stabs forward. Look for one with the max 5% execution chance. While maxing out secondary damage stats is good for any weapon, the main reason to use this weapon is the execution chance. Great starter weapon. On easier difficulties some players like to use this weapon all the way through to the end game. For my preference, this is the best weapon for followers to use as follower damage output is significantly lower than the players. Getting free execution kills from them is about the best thing your followers can do. For reference, execute does not instant kill bosses but does about 10% of their max health when it goes off. You can fight bosses with this and a shield if you like to block, parry, and dodge while fighting.

Holed Canteen = Belt Accessory. Also comes with 2 to 5 coil sockets. Try to get at least 4 sockets. While T6 Veronica's Notebook is better, this item is basically best in slot for the majority of the game. Note: this item used to go up to 6 coil sockets, but I believe it was nerfed at one point to a max of 5.

Nutcracker = Barely usable early game 1 handed axe. Better to get a high execute chance Vital Stinger instead.

Walter's Baton (Story Quest Reward) = Trash 1 handed blunt weapon. Don't bother using it at all.

Mutated Rabbit Foot = Dagger with short range and okay attack animation. Unique stats are critical rate and drop rate which are both good. Damage output isn't all that great though in comparison to other melee weapons. Still better than Nutcracker. Best to get a high drop rate and use this item while save scumming to increase drop rate for that last hit. Mutant animals are fairly rare to find, and usually they find you when you aren't paying attention. Been killed by a random mutant rabbit attack more times than I want to remember when one snuck up on me. Aside from bosses, mutant animals are some of the strongest foes in the game. They are also faster than your character by a lot and can attack while moving. They hit like trucks and attack very fast. Animals don't take bonus headshot damage either. Fair warning.

Victor's Medal = Base Accessory. Has a lot of unique stats that are bonuses for ranged weapon. This makes bows, crossbows, and shotguns amazing in this game. Also has a base stat with evasion rating along with all the Victor set items making this a strong item. Best In Slot item

Victor's Armor = (Evasion/Ignition) Basically the best armor set for the majority of the game because of the bonus base stat is evasion, base inherit coil type is ignition, and unique stat is increasing range damage by percentage. This set allows your character to reach 100% evasion easier than any other set. Try to get at least a 5% evasion suffix roll on the uniform, boots, and gloves. The hat is replaceable later.

Rage Remover = Okay bow. Can have very good headshot damage by adding up to another 200% for headshots. Headshots can only be done on zombies though. Significantly better than the base bow.

Desert Armor = (Max Hp/Chilling) Bad armor set IMHO. The unique stats are fire resistance which can be obtained easily through other means, and drop rate. The increased drop rate has a use if you are save scumming to last hit a Red Half Giant in the sewer for example. You can equip this set, save, and then do the last hit for more loot to drop. Although that means taking up 4 inventory slots for this set. Again, I don't think drop rate is worth it or that important in this game to do this.

Gut Massager = Claw weapons that attack really fast. Attack animation is nice. Unique stat adds to combo damage. Combo damage is a kick damage mechanic in the game. You gain combo points when you kick zombies during their "exposed weakness" combat animations. This is shown in combat on screen when a black dot appears in the middle of a zombie body that is attacking. Kick them to get a combo point. Kick again when weakness it not showing to do extra damage on that kick. The extra damage done is based on the number of combo points stacked up. Combo points have a timer, but that timer refreshes when you gain another point. So these claws are meant to enhance kick damage when spending combo points which is weird. These claws also adds a lot of Attention stat which in turn adds movement speed and noise reduction. Usually equip these when I want to run around undetected to loot. This is the only item I actively look for rolls that add Noise Reduction as a suffix roll. Only to reach that 100% noise reduction total. I don't care if these claws do damage. To me they are a utility item.

Victor's Handgun (Story Quest Reward) = Okay handgun. Nothing special. Unique stats adds directly to kick damage for some reason. At least the damage add is far more straight forward than the combo point add that the Gut Messager does. If you get a good set of secondary stat rolls then this handgun can be used for a period of time in gameplay.

Francis Bible = Belt Accessory. Unique stats are increased Invincibility Chance on damage taken (up to 10% chance), and increased duration of that Invincibility when the buff turns on. Invincibility duration is 2 seconds by default. Bible can extend duration by another 4 seconds. This is a better follower item than player character item.

Olivaire's Church Catacombs Cross = A large 2 handed sword. Adds up to 250% damage against zombies only. Good alternative to the Berserker's Fury if you get a good drop of this instead. Has high base damage. Can ignite zombies with a fire dot on hit. Berserker's Fury still has more damage potential though.

Mutated Lion Head = Literally best in slot helmet in the game. Can have up to 100% wound reinforcement as a unique stat. No other item in the game adds more potential damage output. The base inherit coil type is Toxic.

Safety = A 1 handed spear that is only useful for reaching 100% evasion rating mid way through the game if you have not somehow reached 100% by the time you find this item. Otherwise the weapon doesn't do much damage, only stabs forward slowly, and isn't the best for hitting multiple zombies. At least this can be used with a shield if you need one somehow. Decent follower item if you want to use your follower as a meat bag distraction as it makes your follower tankier. Followers don't have access to the research tree so they don't get the nodes that add to evasion rating and protection like the player does.

Doberman = Best rifle in the game. Can have up to 150% extra crit damage. The durability decrement can go to 100% making this a weapon that does not need to be repaired. Holds 30 rounds of ammo per reload. Base accuracy and recoil is good. High base damage per shot. Try to get the unique stats as high as possible and look for any secondary stats that adds to damage for a weapon. (+damage, %damage, crit, wound reinforcement, etc)

Berserker's Fury = 2 handed axe that has the most damage potential of any weapon in the game per normal attack. The unique stats give up to an extra 100 flat damage and 100% damage on top of that. The downside is you take extra damage from 10% to 100%. Make sure you get a lower damage taken negative (closer to 10% if possible) while maximizing the damage adding unique stats. Although with maxed out evasion rating, the downside stat of taking more damage is mostly mitigated. As a 2 handed axe it has a large AoE per swing and can easily hit the heads of several zombies in a crowd around you at once. Consistent attack animation makes aiming for headshots easy as well. With the high base damage a good Berserker's Fury is an end game weapon.

Bradley's Shovel (Story Quest Reward) = Trash 1 handed blunt weapon like Walter's baton.

David's Handgun = Best handgun in the game. Tied for best horde weapon. Does a corpse explosion that propagates damage to nearby zombies based on the health of the zombie killed. A single shot can kill hundreds of zombies if they are packed closely enough. Also to note, ability "procs" like the corpse explosion can happen off any damage your character does. This includes things like kicking, dot damage, or even missiles that spawn from David's Artificial Hand as described next. So you don't have to use ammo to actually make use of this gun in a horde.

David's Artificial Hand = Pauldron Accessory. It has a special ability that drops a missile from the sky at a random chance on top of anything hit by an attack you do. Also, these missile deal a ton of AoE damage. If you are using melee attacks this will drop missiles on your head. This includes while hitting a harvest node like a tree or rock. Damage from missile can spawn another missile leading to a chain reaction of missiles. Nice item, but can be a very dangerous. Does explosive damage on hit. Having 100% evasion and explosion resistance will prevent you from killing yourself from this item. If you don't have 100% evasion and/or explosion resistance then don't use this item. Missiles don't really work indoors either as the missile lands on top of the building or mine shaft your are in. Also has a base bonus stat of crit rate chance.

Bradley's Hammer = A fun, high damage 2 handed hammer with a shock and explosive attack. This item is also "bugged" as it can kill team mates in multi-player servers even with pvp turned off. Using this the player can kill their follower (which counts as pvp kills for the achievement) and your follower can kill you with it so be careful. The hammer does have a fun attack animation.

Bulldog = A fun shotgun with a knockback effect. Decent damage and tight spread. Very good range weapon although I still prefer the Doberman. It has extra firing speed, and knockback as unique stats. With those unique stats it is an effective end game weapon. However, it is found in the later half of the game already there are plenty of good weapons to chose from by then. Still shotguns tickle the fancy of some players over other weapons. Overall a great weapon.

Indomitable = 2 handed spear that is absolute trash.

Grave = 1 handed sword that does poison damage. Potential is there since the range of poison damage it adds is absolutely huge, but that also makes getting a good roll on this very difficult. Adds both flat poison damage and poison reinforcement damage. Also reduces your max HP which is a detriment. Not quite trash tier because of the potential, but it is usually not a good weapon because of how bad RNG is for this weapon. Attack animation is not the greatest either. It does pair well with the Elemental Reinforcement accessories found at the end of the game.

Distorted Space = Only unique shield and it comes very late in the game. Unique stats can give it a massive parry range almost making it into a range weapon when doing a parry. Can knock back enemies pretty far. Good shield for a follower as well although the parry stamina reduction stat isn't used by followers.

Torture Knife (Story Quest Reward) = Very similar to the Mutated Rabbit Foot dagger but with damage leech instead of critical rating. Mostly useless trash tier if you already have a good Mutated Rabbit Foot.

Gregory Bow = Bow that shoots out multiple arrows at once that do an AoE frost nova for damage where the arrows land. Other Gregory set pieces make the bow fire more arrows at once. These are "free" arrows and don't consume the arrows in inventory. Great for shooting hordes or even mass harvesting trees/bushes in a field. It is the best bow in the game and is tied for me with David's Handgun for best horde weapon.

Gregory Longsword = 1 handed sword. Another high potential damage melee weapon. However there is a caveat here in that it does bonus damage to Frozen enemies. Which you can freeze with the Gregory Bow first, or from a hit from any weapon while having a high Cold ability affect from Chilling coils in your gear. Too bad the Gregory Armor doesn't have Chilling coils as the inherit coils. It is a nice, but niche melee weapon. High base damage though for a 1 handed melee. It pairs well with the Elemental Reinforcement accessories found at the end of the game.

Gregory Armor = (Crit/Ignition). Unique stats are +All Stats and Dodge Stamina Usage reduction. Also each piece has a unique stat to add bonus arrows shot with the Gregory bow. This armor set compliments very well with the Gregory bow. The set pairs well with Nora's Pendant as the reduced dodge stamina can get you to the point of not using any stamina to dodge at all. Since the base bonus stat is crit rate this armor set adds a lot to potential damage output.

Gregory Cloak = Pauldron Accessory. Adds extra arrows shot by the Gregory bow like the other Gregory items. Has a unique stat that adds up to 15% crit rate. That amount of crit rate is huge. The other unique stat adds up to 55% cold resistance which is ok. Would have been a best in slot item if it was all resistances instead of only cold resistance. On top of everything else, this cloak has a base stat bonus of crit rate as well. This cloak along with good rolls on the Gregory armor set (or copper set) has the potential to get your character to 100% crit rate chance.

Made this section longer to put some extra thoughts down on the new Dr Cleon's items from the recent October 2025 patch.

The Order of the Paladin's Pride = 1 handed sword again. Base damage is low. Damage potential is fairly low. More a defensive weapon than offensive. Adds up to 75% value to all resistances. Has up to a 15% chance to become Invincible on damage take. Paired with Francis Bible, fortress coils, and good rolls on accessories, then this sword can get a character near the theoretical max 85% chance for invincibility. Better as a follower weapon making them tankier.

Mutated White Bear Cloak = Pauldron Accessory. Great item. Up to 35 all stats, and 60% resistances. With this and all the CELL research chips, which must be bought at a kiosk, the player can easily reach 100% all resistances. Has a base stat of protection which is decently high as well. Increases elemental damage by a little bit but that stat is mostly worthless. While T6 Nora's Pendant is technically the Best in slot item for the Pauldron Accessory slot, the Mutated White Bear Cloak is far easier to farm and get a good one of. Which in my opinion makes it technically a Best In Slot item because of ease of getting a good one. Nora's Pendant is an extremely rare boss drop and getting one with good rolls is even rarer to find.

Harold's Wrist Bracelet (Story Quest Reward) = Base Accessory. Increases completion speed and movement speed. It is niche to say the least. You get it free as part of the main story quest line though. In the base accessory slot, the only other unique is the Victor's Medal which is significantly better for unique stats for combat. This is nice if you are wanting to silently loot out buildings very fast. Put on some high rolled claws (gut massager), this bracer, and with 100% noise reduction have fun looting everything in sight.

Nora's Pendant = Base accessory. Turns your dodges into mini teleports instead. You do damage during the teleport and where you "appear" at the end of the teleport. The damage done is based on the base damage of your weapon. So having a weapon with a high base damage pairs well with this. The Grenade Launcher is best to use since it has the highest base damage. The pendant also provides All Elemental Resistances up to 60% and a huge amount of Stamina regeneration up to 75% which makes dodging more often easier to do. In case i didn't mention it already, your character is also completely invulnerable to all damage while dodging. Even DoT damage from a bleeding debuff doesn't do damage during the dodge animation. So being able to dodge all the time is a valid defense strategy in this game. Best In Slot item.

Veronica's Notebook = Belt Accessory. Dropped by last boss. Unique stats add +All Stats, a high elemental reinforcement amount, and a large amount of max hps. When you have a chance to get this item as a drop, your character should be min-maxed anyhow considering this is the final boss drop item. This accessory shines when paired with an elemental weapon such as Graves, or Gregory Sword/Bow, Cross sword from Francis, Flamethrower, or even the Plasma Swords which do lightning damage. Best In Slot item.

Dr. Cleon's Armor = (Damage%/Resistance) Crazy end game set recently added. Base bonus stat is a low amount of Damage %. The base inherit coil is Resistance which is not good. However, the two unique stats are crazy. Those are +All Stats from 50-150 and Range Weapon Damage from 200-300. For damage output, this now makes this set the official king of damage. The only downside being it is not a very "tanky" set and having max evasion rating will be hard. I am hesitant to rate this over the Victor's armor set, but it pretty much is. Getting max rolls would be +450 All Stats and +900% ranged weapon damage. Those stats alone would max out practically any secondary stat with a cap. You'll have zero fishing time, 100% noise reduction, 100% stam reduction, and so on. This set enables god-mode for most things in this game. You might even outrun vehicles as you'll have 180% extra move speed. While it will be hard having max evasion with this armor set I don't think it is needed. With Nora's Pendant equipped you can just dodge infinitely since you'll be over the 100% dodge stam reduction from all those points in Vitality. As mentioned with Nora's Pendant dodging does a ton of damage as an AoE around your character. Your character will be basically unkillable while dodging infinitely and able to kill anything. The only cost is your fingers cramping to constantly activate the dodge button unless you make a macro for to make that action a toggle instead. Best In Slot Items

This section lists the common items that are still good. Of course in the very early game you are not going be swimming in high level unique items with amazing rolls. So gettng some good yellow common pieces with good rolls will go a long way. Here is how normal item progression begins on a new game run.

First, look for any accessory in the early game. Also, use the bow when you first start and give your follower a melee weapon to be a meat bag distraction for the zombies while they are still useful for that. You'll want to replace that starter clothing set for Tier 2 (hence forth using T# to refer to tiers) leather at least as soon as possible. However try to make a coil workbench in your base as soon as possible so you can craft better gear before fighting Victor the first boss of the game. You can get the "electronic device" component usually from the first building the main quest story sends you. That electronic device component is needed to make the coil workbench. The coil workbench is used to reassemble common items (aka combine and roll) to get higher tier items. Save scumming can be done with the coil workbench. At the beginning of the game you won't be swimming in gear to use at the coil workbench. It is also recommended to use blue or yellow only gear of the same tier to get a good chance of a yellow rolled item of the next tier up. If you don't have 5 items of the same tier, save scum to craft some extra stuff that is rolled blue or yellow. With that being said I try to get at least a T3 German sub-machine gun I can use in the first boss fight along with some T3 Bone armor pieces.

Putting in any piece of gear into one of the 5 slots on the Reassembly page of the bench will display a "productivity" value above the item slots. Higher tier items and higher rarities have higher values. T6 is the highest item tier in the game. There is nothing higher. To produce an item from a specific tier you need to add items, and you must have 5 items, into the Reassembly page of the bench. The amount of productivity needed is shown by the following table (ripped from Shadowrun's guide)

T2: 29~46
T3: 47~64
T4: 65~82
T5: 83~99
T6: 100

T6 items always come out yellow rarity. The higher the productivity value in each range gives a higher chance of a higher rarity. For example, T2 takes a range of 29-46 productivity score. At 29 points the chances of getting a gray/white item is very likely and getting a yellow item is very unlikely. However, at 46 points the likelihood of creating a yellow T2 item is very high and getting a gray/white item is fairly low. Since blues are so common, my personal way of using the bench is by stacking in 3 or 4 blues with yellows for the rest. Of course all items I put in are of the same tier.

The other hidden goodness about the coil workbench is that by combining items to get higher tier items, those higher tier items can then be disassembled for metal resources that you may not have access to at that stage in the game.

T3 Bone armor is a good set to get before fighting Victor for his armor set. It has a good balance of protection level, not much negative to movement speed, and has the base stat of pure % bonus damage although that isn't a whole lot.

T3 German sub-machine gun is the best sub machine gun in the game. There are no unique sub machine guns. Very useful to use the coil bench to reassemble extra T2 common gear to try and get a good T3 German sub-machine gun to fight the first boss with. I typically save scum until I get one with rolls I like.

T4 Crossbow is an excellent weapon all game long. Easier to shoot than the bow and can be equipped with additional accessory parts to help it with accuracy. Paired with Victors medal, it can be shot in a high fire rate that is also more accurate than normal bows. Base damage on the crossbow is also very high.

T4 Flamethrower can be an fun horde weapon as well with the right rolls. Does use fuel for ammo.

T4 Chainsaw and Jackhammer. These are the other "weapons" used on harvest nodes. Both require fuel to be in the character inventory to use which makes them take resources to get resources. They are however very fast at harvesting nodes doing a lot of "hits" without an animation on their target nodes. Out of the two, the Jackhammer I find useful in mines at least. The Chainsaw is mostly worthless to me. Just stick with the Devastation axe. Trees do not have a lot of health and eventually the Devastation axe once maxed out can 1 tap trees down. Sure the axe still has an animation swing making it "slower" than the Chainsaw, but it is barely slower. Also, the bonus Rubber Resin is usually late game what I am chopping trees down for as well as the wood to make into charcoal.

T5 Grenade launcher has the highest base damage of all weapons and a huge AoE. Rocket ammo for it sucks though. Works amazingly well with Nora's Pendant because your dodges deal the same damage as the Grenade Launcher's base damage in an AoE without using any ammo for it.

T5 Copper armor set has crit rate as a base stat with a good protection rating.

T5 British Sniper rifle can be fun with a scope against Giants during a horde wave.

Most of the common pool items aren't really that good though. Besides the Grenade launcher, German sub-machine gun and Crossbow, there are better alternatives that are unique items. Still The German sub-machine gun is of limited use in the game until you get a good Doberman rifle.

Also, wanted to list the armor sets I prefer in order of best to worst in left to right order. Also shown in this is the base inherit coil for each set.

1: Cleon Set (Resistance)
2: Victor Set (Ignition)
3: Gregory Set (Ignition)
4: Copper Set (Resistance)
5: Desert Set (Chilling)
6: Bone Set (Resistance)
7: Iron Set (Fortress)
8: Leather Set (Ignition)
9: Starter Cloth Set (No coils)

When describing the T6 Cleon set I put some of this info there, I want to clarify a few things. Cleon's set is better damage output than any other set, but Victor's set is still the best defensively. While Gregory's and Copper set were both better offensively than Victor's the difference in offense output wasn't that much when using range weapons. Cleon's set is just that much more offensively capable than anything else putting it above Victor's as it currently stands. Cleon's set is also the last set you'll get at the end of the game. However, without Victors set and Safety spear, reaching above 90% evasion will be be very hard. This is assuming you roll 5% evasion on all the 3 pieces of Cleon's armor set. You'll need a couple double evasion rolls of 10% on a couple items to reach 100% evasion with Cleon set. Or you can use a Safety spear but that negates the bonus range weapon damage. Still, the next best thing defensively is infinite dodges which Cleon's set provides as I mentioned above. With Nora's Pendant you can dodge infinitely while still killing everything.

I forgot to include this section initially when I wrote my guide. I'll keep it brief and stick to my preferences here.

Melee: Knuckle Handle (+5% Crit rate), Clamp (50% durability decrement), and Saw (40% bleed chance on hit)
Range: Dot Sight (gives good zoom and clearer view with the dot), Laser (as your character already has a flash light), Muzzle Break (for more stability)

For slower range weapons like the sniper rifle then I'll do the Muzzle booster for increased fire rate. for the sniper I'll also use a scope to see further than the Dot Sight. For the Vital Stinger I prefer the attack speed boost part as already mentioned instead of the crit rate part. I put the Air Booster on melee weapons for my followers instead as there is no durability concerns when followers use weapons. If I ever rolled a good Graves sword I would put a poison emitter instead of the saw part on it for example.

Weapons: Doberman (ranged) and Berserker's Fury (melee)
Head: Mutated Lion Head
Chest/Gloves/Boots: Victor's Armor
Pauldron: Mutated White Bear Cloak
Accessory: Victor's Medal
Belt: Holed Canteen

Ideally look for +5% Evasion on any armor and accessory piece. For armor, the following are acceptable rolls. +5% Evasion with +3 coil sockets, a double roll of Evasion that puts the value over 5%, or a perfect roll of 5% Evasion with 5% Crit Rate. As my item affix guide details: Coil sockets, Evasion Rate, and Crit rate are all suffixes. Armor can only have 2 suffix rolls. So Crit + Evasion is the "perfect" suffix rolls for armor. Perfect prefix roll would be a double +5 All Stats roll. So a +10 All Stats, +5% Crit, and +5% Evasion and 13 inherit coils would be the absolute GOD roll for any armor piece. Never seen a GOD roll though. More on that 13 inherit coil detail described below.

For weapons look for +10 Damage, 5% Crit Rate, and 20% Wound Reinforcement rolls. Of course higher rolls than that are fine.

For accessories look for 5% Evasion, 5% Crit Rate, and either 20% Wound Reinforcement rolls. 5% Invincibility Chance on Damage take and 0.5% Life leech are acceptable rolls as well if you've already reached max Evasion at 100%.

Lastly when it comes to gear, always reforge gear at the appropriate workbench to +10 and "harden" any gear at any anvil in any mine shaft. Reforging only works on weapons, armor, shields, and your character's innate bag items in inventory. Accessories cannot be reforged. Hardening can be done on most items including accessories. I explained most of this in a previous section.

Vital Strike = Crit Rate (Lvl 3 is 15% Crit Rate)
Pierce = Headshot damage (Lvl 3 is 100% Headshot Damage)
Invincibility = Invincibility (Lvl 3 is 10% invincibility)
Life Leech = Leeching (Lvl 3 is 1% Life Leech)

So look for Ignition, Lightning, Fortress, and Toxic coils in that order. Ideal max coil setup is:

Ignition Coil: 20 (For Lvl 3 Vital Strike)
Lightning Coil: 20 (For Lvl 3 Pierce)
Fortress Coil: 15 (For Lvl 2 Invincibility as getting to 30 for lvl 3 Invincibility is not feasible)
Toxic Coil: 10 (For lvl 2 Life Leech)
Total Coil Value to feasibly aim for: 65

Coils were talked about in the previous section of this guide for armor. I want to talk a bit more about understanding what to do to here to reach an acceptable coil value score for your build.

Armor has both inherit coils built in as well as coil sockets allowing the player to insert specific coil types. Default coil sockets are 1 for head, gloves, and boots, and 2 for chest for 5 default sockets. Unique armor has a coil value range between 3-13 for the base inherent coils. Getting that max 13 coil value roll from a single armor piece is an extremely rare roll. The max potential inherit coil values is 52. With the default sockets in armor add another 15 in total coil value for a total of 67 potential coils. Holed Canteen can add another 15 coils for a total now of 82.

However, average rolls for inherent coils is around 8. With 8 average the total inherit coils is usually around 32. That total makes it a little difficult to get the min 65 coil count needed for my idea coil setup even with a 5 socket Holed Canteen. Getting those 65 coils is not impossible, but will require a decent amount of save scumming. That also assumes for the inherit coil rolls they were all of the type listed above. If chilling or resistance coils are rolled then I need to dig for a better roll on that piece.

Here is my opinion on why Chilling and Resistance coils are bad. Chilling coils provide the Cold buff which is useful only if you are not at 100% evasion rate. Otherwise it is useless. This is because Cold acts as a layer of defense slowing down zombies and their attacks. Once you have nothing to fear from almost every zombie attack in the game then there is no need for this layer of defense. I will make a special note that since Cold can stack to freeze zombies, it can help the Gregory Longsword dish out its extra damage as part of its unique stat. It is a bit of a meme build, but can be done.

Resistance coils are for getting resistances mainly. Using coils for resistances is a waste since resistances are easily obtained through other means. The Research Tree "Cells" will provide 50% resistance to each specific type in the game once you buy the chips sold at a default cost of 2000 gold coins. There are 6 resistances to buy for a total of 12,000 gold coins to get a 50% minimum resistance for every resistance type. A few of the higher end items provide a unique stat of all resistances at a rate of 50% or even higher. The easiest item is the Mutated White Bear Cloak which has a high chance for rolling over 50% on the unique stat it provides of all resistances. For the most part, you'll only really need resistances for mines, the desert biome, or the snow biome. You can easily solve the resistance problem needed in those areas with long duration food buffs that can be crafted or bought from a kiosk. Also for mines you can wear a gas mask or swap in a level 3 purification coil temporarily into a slot and then swap it out later.

The other abilities that use either resistance coils or chilling coils are Super Armor (provides stagger resistance and not needed with 100% evade), Parry Upgrade (if you want to try for that meme shield build), Self Healing (health regen is very mediocre compared to leech), and Opportunity for drop rate. I explained already why drop rate is just a mediocre stat at the beginning of this guide. So late game, all the abilities that are created by either Chilling or Resistance coils are terrible in comparison to what the other coil types provide.

I forgot to go into detail something I mentioned earlier. The absolute max chance for invincibility when damage take is 85%. This can only be reached with the following.

5% from Stuntman research tree node.
10% from 30 fortress coils.
10% from Francis Bible.
15% from Order of Paladin's Pride sword.
45% from accessories if rolling the perfect 15% triple roll on an accessory. Getting a perfect triple roll for a single accessory item is near impossible. Getting it for three accessories is less likely to happen than winning a billion dollar lottery.

As mentioned, the triple roll is what I would call a GOD roll and is not likely to happen. Getting a single roll of 5% is much more doable. This realistically makes reaching a 55% chance "feasible" assuming max rolls on the Bible and Paladin sword. Since 100% chance is out of the question, this defensive stat cannot be a stat one seeks to maximize out in comparison to evasion. Still, it is a nice stat to have on your character and is even better on a follower later into the game. Assuming you are still using a follower in combat for the laughs I guess.