Survivors
After a dozen hours I have unlocked 11 survivors that you can use. You can start with 2 of them. If you un-check the "Random Starting Characters" you will see the first randomly assigned character and can then select the 2nd. The first is always random, however, you can exit out and back in and the random character will change. Do this until you get one of the two starting characters you like and then select the 2nd.
The 11 Survivors are:
Anna
Janis
Viktorija
Dmitry
Katerina
Spriditis
Dzintars
Zigmars
Maksim
Inese
Samanta
Anna
Anna has the following abilities:
Bat Bash is your main attack. Carnage is an excellent finisher. Hemorrhage I dislike because it does not add focus. Bloody triumph is a gamble of being an excellent finisher if there would be remaining enemies, or a slow weak attack. Unhinged Intimidation is a buff spell for Carnage The biggest problem with her kit is you want focus increases and she is very slow to hit hard unless Bloody triumph finishes an enemy.
When deciding between Carnage or Bloody triumph, consider whether adding 7 delay with Unhinged intimidation would allow you to still attack before the target would get another round. If so, use the Ui + Carnage for the guaranteed kill and take the 2 focus points. Otherwise I would gamble and use the Bloody triumph.
The best combo is use Carnage to finish off an enemy, and then pick 'Push through' to self heal with the 2 focus points you get from it.
Anna has these three Focus buffs.
'Push through' is very strong as she has high toughness. Stacks.
'Bloodshed' is very poor unless you have a character that can do bleed abilities for her. Her own does not add focus. Stacks.
'Debilitate' is an ok choice, she only hits one enemy at a time but if your are going to spam Bat Bash early then it isn't useless. Does not stack, only choose once.
I recommend picking 'Push through' first, then 'Bloodshed' if you have another survivor with a good bleed ability. I would then pick 'Debilitate' once and spam 'Push through' focus choices or 'Bloodshed' choices.
You start with Anna, she is an ok survivor. She can heal herself with 'Push through' so is alright as a front-liner, her dps is alright as she can swing hard or reliably fast. She has the health and self healing to stay in the front-line while not being an amazing tank. She can be more damage focused in the back-line but is out shined by a lot of other damage dealers.
She Pairs well with Dzintars as he can make bleed, and heal her as she doesn't have armor abilities. Viktorija is also a good front-line partner.
If you did not start with Anna she will pretty much make a good addition to any squad. She is not the best at anything, but someone you dont mind getting as she she can serve in the roles of DPS and Tank.
Janis
Janis is a starting survivor, he has the following abilities:
Rusted Blade and Reciprocation are the two damaging abilities. Rusted Blade hits both front-line enemies. Reciprocation counter attacks enemies that attack him. He has minimal damaging abilities, this is not his strong area.
Recover adds protection to any survivor, wild shout is a taunt all and adds protection to Janis. These are the abilities I use the most as he is a fantastic tank. Check to see what enemies are doing before you select one of these abilities. Sometimes you want them to attack others, sometimes you want them to attack Janis. If they are already going to hit Janis, Recover adds more protection.
Provide opportunity has only one use I've found, Inese has an ability that takes forever and deals massive (like 90) damage. So have Inese do the ability, and then have Janis let her take ability significantly earlier. You wont get to use Janis for a long time tho unless you use Inese's other ability to then allow Janis to go next. Its a very odd but effective combo. They are probably the best duo for this strange reason.
Janis has amazing focus buffs. Unwavering Resolve is the main pick. I pick this 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Protect Teammates is ok against some AOE enemies. Dare will give Janis some more DPS potential. I am not sure if Dare stacks, but the others do. I would pick Unwavering Resolve 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then see if there is any aoe going or if you need a little more damage to finish the fight after that.
Janis is a front-liner. He protects and can do a little bit of damage. He can set up one of the biggest attacks in the game with Inese. He is a fantastic starting choice,you are only sad to see him when you already have your tanks and want more DPS in your lineup.
Viktorija
Viktorija is an unlockable survivor. She has the following abilties:
Viktorija is a front-line survivor that can guard the backline, she can give the entire front line protection with Laugh it off and allow for some healing. She can also negate a single non-damage-over-time hit on another survivor. She has a weak damaging ability.
Viktorija is a good survivor to assist your existing preferred front-line survivor. She is weaker than Janis in every way, although is very complimentary to other tanks. Viktorija + another tank in the front row allows you to have 2 big damage dealers in the back row with less worry about durability.
Her focus abilities are weak. Refuse to die is horrible. Treat wounds is a self heal that is ok. Protect teammates is ok. She is not a great tank. She is a great support tank. Having her do the protect teammates while your real tank like Janis taunts is much better. She does help other tanks very well. She is a tank.
Dmitry
Dmitry is an unlock-able survivor. He has these lackluster abilities:
Dmitry is a fantastic survivor for when you are about to gain another survivor. You have him your front line and you let him die so that you can save on food when you rest. Food management is important in this game and Dmitry is a survivor you will be overjoyed in letting die so that you can rest with less of a food cost.
Nimble Strikes does 3 damage to all enemies. Anna has Bat bash which does 10 damage to 1 enemy. Bat Bash is faster and concentrates damage. This is why Dmitry is so bad. Sadism is actually kinda interesting but only lasts 30 ticks. It jump starts his focus abilities which are the best part of his kit. Disorienting blow is so slow, it is only good against bosses that you want to hinder the focus gain on. Take Cover can only provide 9 protection while losing 3 focus. Horrible.
Honestly The best use for Dmitry is to let him die so you save on food. He barely has any utility, he does no damage and hit big slow hit does less than a Bat bash.
He does have a use. Let him die. Let him take the 6 toughness and 2 armors worth of damage (while probably not causing much damage in return) so that you can save on food when you rest.
So here is why you should use Dmitry. His Focus buffs are not exactly the worst. He can heal himself (opposite of letting him die). Allies can gain 1 focus, Janis benefits in getting his Unwavering Resolve up faster. Haste is actually really good. Delaying all enemies by 7 will help Inese with her protection ability. It also slows down all the enemies. So using Sadism to keep spamming Haste is a viable strategy. I just wish all his abilities were not so mediocre.
Use him. Let him die when you have more than 4 survivors. Start him in the front row for every risky fight as he will absorb 80 damage before dying. Hopefully while accelerating the rest of your team and delaying the enemies.
Katerina
Katerina is fantastic. She shoots. She can heal. Fantastic back-liner.
Her abilities are all great except for Headshot. Headshot is garbage. 50% chance to miss. I missed 7 times in a row once as a test. Her DPS is solid without it, I don't even hold it against her. Her heal is faster than Dzintars.
Her Focus buffs are interesting. If you have no other healers then Seize hope is not useless and worth using on the first pick. Gunfire is pretty good dps and a solid 2nd pick. Spamming Concentrate to get more Gunfire procs is the strategy. This is probably the weakest part of her kit, but only because it is average.
Spriditis
Spriditis is an unusual character. Chaos is what he does. You have no idea other than supposedly good thing or supposedly bad thing. I try to minimize the impact by using the good things on front-liners and the bad things more as damage + debuff to the bosses or biggest enemy. Animated Limbs is a good protection cast later in a fight after a few positive buffs have been given to your main tank.
He has can be a front-liner with his high toughness and armor generating abilities.
His damage is random. Sometimes you land a great debuff and sometimes you dont.
He gets another ability (not shown yet sorry) that remove a random buff from an enemy which can be battle changing when used in certain fights. Like a big boss guy starts with 1 really powerful buff... you can remove it.
Stacking debuffs is thus not as good as stacking buffs because the stacked buffs work with the protection ability.
Spriditis has horrible focus buffs. He can likely gain in stats with infinite chaos, but I'm not gambler. Interruption strange because it allows your next action to basically double action. Either attack twice, or buff twice, or buff and protect, or double protect. Its kinda good. Condemn is also good if he is on your front line. He can tank fairly well.
He is a good find in most situations. I keep him around as he can fill many roles. I like him in the back line, ready to jump to the front should a tank die. He was on my team for one of my farthest achieving runs.
Dzintars
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Dzintars is a back-line healer. He has some damaging and damage assisting abilities as well as being a consistent healer.
I like to start fights out with him doing Weak Spots twice to get to the first focus buffs. Weak Spots is particularly great because it lasts all combat, and multiplies with multi-hit survivors like Zigmars.
I use Phlebotomy to turn 4+ stacks of poison to bleed so it is more efficient to cure with Remedy.
He is not tough but starts with decent armor. Having Samanta put a parry buff on him is a great idea so you can forget about his health.
Dzintars has healing based focus buffs. Resist doom is a whole party heal on a slower timer than the self ones. So a self heal is 1 per 10 while while this is 1 per 30 * up to 4. Exsanguinate is good way to cure bleed while doing some dps. Exsanguinate is how you power up Anna Bloodshed. Footwork is a focus boost to your allies to get those early tank buffs going. Overall great survivor.
Samanta
Samanta is probably the best front-line tank you can get. She starts with guard already a feature, the ability defence strategy is to specifically turn it off for someone should ever want to... I dunno... reasons?
Parry is probably the most important feature she has, this should be your first ability every single time. You can put it on anyone that starts with protection, and they will take less damage while protection is up.
Momentum is an interesting protection ability that can add up to +20 to a target survivor. It does a minimum of 3, usually adds more. It is comparable to Janis's taunt Wild shout but has much more upside than downside. Janis does not get guard, Samanta starts with it permanently.
Pulverize is actually a good damage ability, double if the enemy has protection is fantastic. Some fights are a little ridiculous where the enemy has like 94 protection, Samanta shines in bring that down.
Samanta has interesting focus choices. Staleate will give each teammate 5 armor for each enemy that has armor... There is a particular boss fight where you will get 20 armor for everyone every time with this.
Thick skin is nice because it makes Moemntum leave you with 7 protection if you are at zero. (3 thick skin + 3 initial +1 from having the 3 from thick skin).
Condemn adds to her damage ability
Samanta probably has the best set of focus buffs.
Samanta has weak toughness (low health) and that is her downside. You have have to keep her protection high otherwise she will regain less protection and has to set up the immunity with parry to really be strong. Absolutely fantastic front-line option. You are will not be disappointed with getting her even if you already have tanks as her damage is usually better than Janis.
Samanta partners better with Spriditis than Dzintars. She benefits a lot from his blessings and his ability to add protection to her. Anyone that can add protection to her is good, even horrible Dmitry can pair better with her for that reason. Parry is one of the best defensive abilities in the game. She shreds armor with lone offensive ability. A great survivor.
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