Dust to the End Trait Guide

Tier List Explained

In this guide I will be listing most perks you can get either at character creation or through generic recruits. This guide assumes that the perk is "A" level, which all starting character perks are at as most perks found on end-game recruits (aside from "S" level). Unique traits for unique characters (Reid, Anne, Jimmy, Beck, John, etc.) won't be listed, as those characters that have them are generally worth picking up anyway. Additionally, I won't include the different "specialization" perks for different ranged and melee weapons, since they're pretty self explanatory and depend more on what kind of weapons you want to use, which I'll cover in a different guide. I will categorize the usefulness of each perk by a "tier". Each "tier" defines how useful the perk is as below:

S TIER

These traits are defined by being not just useful for almost any character, but effective from early to end-game. They also tend to not be very situational or dependent on factors like weapon type or character class. They're something you can and probably should get on at least one or two of your people, if not your starting character.

A TIER

These traits are almost as good as the ones in S tier, but are defined by being somewhat more situational or simply not being essential. Still wonderful traits to build on your starting character or initial characters.

B TIER

These traits suffer from being much more situational than higher tiers, though they can still be powerful if used in very specific ways or combinations.

C TIER

Generally not worth picking up except for very specific builds where they may be powerful, but are otherwise not worth it for one reason or another. Worth considering a buff, putting it in a different class or reworking it altogether.

D TIER

Anything here is pretty awful, either because it doesn't fit the class or it's totally outdone elsewhere. Definitely should be buffed or replaced with something more useful or fitting. Thankfully there aren't many perks in this category.

Ranged Combat Trait Tier List

S TIER

Divine Eye: Increase hits by 6% when equipped with ranged weapons.

This trait is hands down amazing. Missing hits with ranged weapons is extremely punishing in Dust to the End, and becomes an increasing issue against enemies like Hyenas which gain more dodge the higher level they are and have the combat initiative. Divine Eye is especially vital for characters wanting to use Machine Guns or Shotguns, which have inherently lower hit chances than other weapons and a slow attack speed, meaning that if you don't make your shots count you won't be able to try again for a long time. Each missed shot is also wasted bullets or AP. Always try to get this on your ranged characters unless you plan to waste a lot of points on Perception!

Swift: Increase your own speed by 6 points.

Speed sounds like a pretty underwhelming stat to a new player, but in combat it can make a huge difference in your ability to clean up fights, especially when you're outnumbered (which you usually will be). All ranged weapons in Dust to the End suffer from low attack speed except the submachine guns, which means that you will be attacking much more rarely than your enemies or melee fighters. Swift helps make up for how punishing a missed shot is by letting you try again sooner (more than twice as fast in some cases), and goes especially well with Divine Eye or heavy guns that have inherently low attack speed.

Precise: Increase 6% critical strike when equipped with ranged weapons.

Critical strike chance is especially good on ranged characters, whether they're using heavy-hitting weapons or fast-firing guns like the submachine gun. Most guns can hit multiple enemies at once and do higher base damage than melee, which means that a successful critical strike can have a much greater impact than it would on a melee fighter (which can only target one person at a time). Also pairs well with Fury, which is otherwise a terrible trait.

A TIER

Harass: When dealing critical damage to an enemy target, there is a 35% chance that the target will fall into chaos.

Teetering on B tier, this ability suffers from being more situational than other A tier traits and having a low chance of activating. However, when it does activate it is very powerful, especially when using multi-shot weapons on a critical chance built character (which means potentially an entire row or board of characters can have a 35% chance of falling into chaos). Bear in mind that if you really want to make use of this perk, multi-shot weapons and high critical chance is a must build!

Anger: When your HP is less than 50%, critical strike will increase 10%.

Though not S tier because it depends on you being dangerously low health, if you can (and are willing to) somehow find yourself low enough that this ability is always active, it's basically a better Precise or Fury. Combined with Base Force, this trait can easily create a dangerous character that goes berserk at low health, giving them extra base damage and critical chance to boot! Alternatively it can be paired with Precise for a pure critical chance glass cannon build, or Hector/Harass for more situational, but proactive, use of both abilities. Should probably replace Stanch as an ability for ranged characters.

Command: Increase the others hits chance by 3% in the same row.

While not very useful on melee characters, Command is especially powerful for ranged fighters. As previously mentioned, ranged fighters suffer from low hit chances and attack speeds. If all of your ranged fighters have this perk at A level at least, their hit chance goes up by at least 9%! However, one character with this perk is hardly noticeable, and using it on all characters means you're sacrificing valuable perk points on more specialized builds.

B TIER

Base Force: When your HP is less than 50%, damage will increase 12%.

Though you should generally avoid your characters ever being below 50% HP, this ability is more viable for ranged characters since they're unlikely to take consistent damage except when enemy rangers decide to target them randomly. They're more likely to survive long enough at less than 50% HP to make good use of this perk, and even in the worst case this might give your party the extra edge it needs to survive if your frontline fighters go down.

Hector: After inflicting critical damage to an enemy, the hit is reduced by 14% for 2 round.

Hector is similar to Harass but is guaranteed to trigger- and far less powerful. Effective in the same builds as Harass, but that 14% hit chance reduction probably isn't as powerful as Harass in the event of a critical hit.

C TIER

Fury: After knocking back [killing] an enemy, your own critical strike increases by 6% for 2 rounds.

This trait ranks B tier only because it's essentially "Precise" but more situational. If used with Precise, however, you have a very potent critical strike build as long as this character gets the finishing kill on enemies. Not worth using with Harass or Hector over Precise and can't be used with it, so it doesn't have any place other than a pure critical strike chance build.

Reason: Increase resistance to abnormal conditions by 25%.

This trait sounds confusing at first, but from what I understand it increases your resistance to status effects like acid, stun and other debuffs (excluding bleed). On melee fighters this would be amazing, but considering how unlikely it is that your backline fighters are hit by status effect attacks (excluding ones from ranged weapons), this isn't that useful.

D TIER

Stanch: Reduce 80% of bleeding damaged caused by enemies.

On melee characters this is amazing, but for ranged characters it is almost totally useless. Melee attacks are the only thing that can inflict bleed, meaning that the only time your rangers are hit by bleed attacks are if your frontline dies or you for some reason put them on the frontline. Even then, they depend on the enemy using a sword weapon AND using their bleed attack. If your ranger is so exposed that any of that can happen, they'll probably die way before the bleed can even kill them anyway. Bad perk for rangers, needs to be replaced.

Melee Combat Trait Tier List

S TIER

Steel Body: When receiving critical strike damage, reduce critical strike damage by 80%.

This trait is essential for your best melee fighters. Critical strikes, though rare, can deal absurd damage to your frontline fighters, which can come close to two-shotting them if fighting especially powerful enemies when not quite up to their level. Steel Body effectively negates the bonus Critical Damage dealt to your character, letting them survive an otherwise fatal attack during a Relic mission, Story mission or general combat encounter.

Thorns: When melee damage is received, 28% of the damage is reflected to the attacking target.

This is another essential pick for melee fighters, especially tanks. Most damage in the game that you'll receive comes from melee, since hyenas and bug beasts (in most cases anyway) are melee-based fighters. Bandits will also generally have more melee fighters than ranged fighters, though usually they're about even. Still, reflecting even 25% of that damage back at them will soften them up enough to potentially kill them with one or two less attacks, or continue to heal yourself over and over while still dealing damage to your attackers and even killing them.

Strong Body: Increases the maximum HP limit by 19%.

This trait is another good pick for tank builds, and pairs well with either Steel Body (for maximum tankiness) or Thorns (for more sustained punish against melee). 19% extra health can translate to around 200 more HP by the end-game, especially if you plan on investing in your characters Constitution or HP-increasing items. Any melee character can benefit from this ability, as it scales especially well in the mid-late game.

A TIER

Meticulous: Increase hits by 6% when equipped with melee weapons.

This trait is the melee equivalent of Divine Eye. However, melee weapons in Dust to the End already tend to have really high accuracy, unlike ranged weapons which vary greatly. It's perfectly reasonable to make up for hit chance with a few points in Perception or finding an uncommon piece of armour/weapon at the Black Market or Arena. Still, this may prove useful by giving you some extra edge late-game when enemies have higher dodge and missing hits can be very punishing.

Stanch: Reduce 80% of bleeding damage caused by enemies.

Unlike when used on ranged characters, Stanch is actually a good pick for melee builds (particularly tanks). Enemies seem to use swords more often in the late game, where bleeding damage can hurt especially bad considering it penetrates armour. Not the best perk, but definitely not the worst.

Tingle: When your HP is less than 50%, dodge increase 10%.

Unlike its opposite ability "Base Force", Tingle is a really good ability that you can only find on non-starting characters you recruit. Arguably, this is what should replace Base Force for melee fighters as a whole and who start the game. It gives them a 10% chance to survive what could otherwise be a killing blow, or at least something that brings them closer to death. Goes especially well with a dodge build on a frontline fighter.

B TIER

These traits suffer from being much more situational than higher tiers, though they can still be powerful if built in very specific ways.

Sharp: Increase 6% critical strike when equipped with melee weapons.

Sharp is not nearly as useful for melee as it is for ranged weapons, and is generally only useful for axe users. Critical strike chance doesn't seem to affect bleed damage (the main use of swords) though you can benefit from their attack speed, and it's totally useless in the case of hammers since their main draw is their stun ability. Axes, however, are all about increasing your raw damage output and increasing the damage an enemy takes, which makes Sharp extremely powerful on a critical build for axes- and nothing else.

Fury: After knocking back an enemy, your own critical strike increases by 6% for 2 rounds.

Fury is only useful with a critical strike build for axe users, similar to Sharp. It pairs especially well with it as a result, but isn't very useful in any other build (except with Hector, which is more useful on ranged characters anyway). Use for glass cannon axe users and swordsmen and nothing else.

C TIER

Hector: After inflicting critical damage to an enemy, the hit is reduced by 14% for 2 round.

Only useful if paired with Sharp, this perk doesn't have much potential with melee weapons since they're strictly single target. Still, in the off-chance you do get a critical strike against another melee character, this can mean the difference between you getting a crippling status effect or taking a lot of damage in the next round.

Command: Increased the others hits by 3% in the same row.

Unlike when used with ranged characters, Command is virtually useless. Melee hit chances are already high by default, and what little is missing can easily be made up for with attribute enhanced weapons or some stat investment. Its only use is end-game when heavy armour tends to lower your hit chance on your melee fighters by ~5%, at which point one or two people with this perk can make up the difference. Otherwise, waste of a perk slot.

D TIER

Base Force: When your HP is less than 50%, damage will increase 12%.

Far less useful on melee characters than ranged characters since you'll generally never want your frontline fighters to fall below 50% HP. If you depend on this in a fight with your warriors, you're probably dead already. Not even useful for a glass cannon.

Business Trait Tier List

S TIER

March: Increase the marching speed of caravans by 9%.

This trait is hands down amazing. Whenever you run into a new Zone, chances are you'll be outrun by most enemies on the map with whatever vehicle you enter with. Even when you buy a new vehicle within that Zone, it'll probably be just slower than or barely faster than the local enemies. 9% extra speed doesn't mean much early on, but late game it's a whole extra km/h, which in many cases is just enough to stay ahead of your enemies. 9% faster speed also means 9% less food and water consumed between locations and paying wages 9% less often. Topping it all off, this trait seems to rarely if ever show up on generic doctor, mechanic, pathfinder and adventurer characters, meaning your best chance of getting it is through the character creator. Start with this trait!

A TIER

Transaction: Increase the coin transaction volume of shops in the city by 45%.

This trait is definitely one of the best, though its usefulness drops off towards the Wildlands. Big cities will generally have enough money to keep up with the amount of goods you can get every week from nearby settlements, though this will help with the smaller settlements which don't have the same easy time (especially in the Dune, Gobi and Desert Zones).

Thrift: Reduce caravan's water and food consumption by 15%.

An invaluable trait early on when food and water will take up a lot of your limited load capacity, this will effectively increase your load capacity by reducing the amount of supplies you need to carry around. It is also effective late game, where supplies will be consumed in huge and expensive amounts by your ever-growing roster of caravaneers. It also allows you to more cost efficiently stock up on high quality food for the morale and immunity bonuses, which are great for the unexpected (or expected) fights to come.

Diplomatic: Increase caravan's 25% reputation gain.

Though you can also categorize this in B tier because it's only effective for as long as your reputation isn't maxed out with a faction, your reputation with factions and cities is extremely useful. Reputation with cities unlock access to usually lucrative trade goods (like local wine in Border Town, or Copper Wire in Gobi Town), and positive reputation with Civilian factions decrease the wages of recruits that are part of that faction.

B TIER

Bargain: When buying goods at the market, the total price reduce by 4%.

Not a terrible little perk, this basically increases your profits by 4%. It doesn't sound like much early on, but mid-late game when you're generally making at least 1 mil at a time per trade, that's giving you at least an extra 40k- enough money to pay for the supply cost of transit, at the very least.

Mechanic: Reduce caravan's fuel consumption by 9%.

While this probably won't save you as much money as Repair or Overhaul, it will save you on space since it means you'll need to carry less fuel. Definitely worth grabbing late game when you start running a lot of gas-guzzling vehicles.

Logistics: Increase the load of the caravan by 14%.

Perhaps a controversial decision for B-tier, this trait can be very powerful, especially mid-late game where 14% of your load can add up to anywhere between 100 and 1000 extra load. However, the issue with this trait late game where it really pays off is that you'll be hard pressed to find settlements that can produce enough goods for you to buy such massive amounts, and early game it barely makes an impact. It's basically soft-capped at B tier because while it is theoretically A or S tier, it's limited by a factor you can't really control: the volume of goods settlements produce. Not to mention the value of money shrinks in the late game where it's most useful, since you'll eventually run out of worthwhile things to invest in.

Surgery: The recovery speed of severely injured is increased by 40%.

Unlike First Aid, this skill is a lot more useful if not somewhat more situational. Whenever a character is knocked out in combat or from a lack of supplies/a sandstorm, they're "severely injured". Severely injured characters can't drive vehicles (potentially slowing down the caravan) and can't fight; it's essentially a death sentence to everyone else. Getting them back into the fight ASAP is very useful, and that's exactly what this trait does.

C TIER

Overhaul: When repairing vehicles, reduce the costs by 14%.

Though it can be useful late game, chances are by the time maintenance costs actually mean something you'll be making enough money that it won't hurt you to have this or not. It's not the worst trait to grab at the start, especially if you plan on running a lot of bikes or constantly run out of fuel, but there are definitely better options for your character and you won't be hard-pressed to recruit a mechanic with it either.

Repair: Reduce vehicle condition loss by 8%.

Arguably less powerful than overhaul, though I suppose it could pair well with it if you want to maximize your vehicle cost efficiency. Outside of that niche combination, probably not worth investing in.

Elite: Increase the amount of experience gained after caravan battle victory by 25%.

You'll generally want to avoid combat, leveling up increases wages and you eventually hit a level cap. Not useful.

D TIER

Sneak: Increase the 25% chance of getting out of the battle in the field combat.

Though hard to understand, this basically increases your chance of escaping a combat encounter on the world map by 25%. While theoretically good, it's nothing that March can't outdo by simply making you fast enough to avoid combat altogether, or Overhaul can't do by making vehicles less expensive to maintain and therefore easier to invest in so that combat can be more easily avoided or money can be made to better equip your people.

Finance: Increase the number of coins obtained after the caravan battle is won by 100%.

While this sounds amazing because it is a 100% increase, you will likely avoid combat more than engage in it due to how slow and unrewarding it is. Even with this 100% increase, it only matters if you're fighting bandits (since Bug Beasts and Hyenas don't carry money) and doesn't even affect bandit encounters in Relics. If this increased the loot you got from fights or rewards from doing jobs I can see it being useful, but otherwise it's totally useless unless paired with much better perks.

First Aid: Increase caravan's medicine recovery effect by 28%.

Theoretically good, this trait kind of sucks since it only increases your caravan's passive healing effect, not the effect of combat first aid or out-of-combat healing items. Generally you'll use those instead of waiting for passive healing anyway since they're pretty cheap, activated instantly and don't weigh much. Alternatively you can easily rest at a tavern a couple times for some instant, affordable group healing.

Bandage: After combat, heal 16% HP of player, effect when doctor in combat.

Outside of its really confusing description, this ability sounds terrible. If I'm understanding it right, this gives a random character 16% of its HP back after a fight. Even if you can select the character that gets the heal, it still sounds awful. Even worse, it seems to imply that this only triggers if your doctor is actively fighting- something you'll probably never do because there is a ranger class specifically designed for fighting. Considering how cheap and easy it is to stock up on medkits to heal with after or before combat and how little 16% is for such a niche ability even at A level, this would probably go in F tier if there was one. I can only see this being useful in Arena, where it may be the only way to heal one of your fighters after a combat round (since healing is otherwise impossible between rounds in Arena tournaments).

Conclusion

Generally speaking, Dust to the End has a really good selection of perks- it's just a shame you can't upgrade them to higher levels (for example, B to A or A to S) or that certain perks exist for certain classes that are either useless or too situational. With a little reworking they can easily have a balanced selection of perks for all classes, with plenty of niches for them to still fill. You will probably have a fun time finding combinations that work well in crazy and fun ways! If I missed any non-unique or specialization perks, please let me know what they are and what their values are at on "A" level!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2322871638

Trait Guide

Tier List Explained

Ranged Combat Trait Tier List

Melee Combat Trait Tier List

Business Trait Tier List

Conclusion

More Dust to the End guilds