Mixed Sets #2: Remember what the Doormouse said, Protec Your Head. (Patreon)

Part 1: General Principles, Limitations and Foundations

Part 2: Head

Part 3: Body

Part 4: Arms

Part 5: Waist

It's time to get into looking at the very best head gear in the game and discussing why you'd be using them in your mixed set builds. As per our previous article, the single most important thing you're looking for in your head gear is powerful abilities, there is absolutely no point (outside of desperation) in using a mixed set if you're using something without a very powerful ability.

In addition, as this is the head location, armor points really matter, the head and body are the two locations that benefit most from extra protection, the head wants it because the severe injuries cause death twice as often as any other location.

We're going to put these out in order of roughly when you can get them.

Rawhide Headband - Generic Skinnery

I don't really need to go into massive detail about why the headband is so good. But to surmise, this is the only place where you're getting access to reliable AI manipulation right now. Rawhide itself lacks a lot of punch and use in the late game, on your support survivor it basically boils down to being Headband + Survival + ~50% increase in survival. So you might choose to peel away the headband and load up with other gear that is more relevant for support uses.

However, Rawhide has an atrociously low armor level, so a survivor with this needs to be playing it very safe, especially against monsters with head hunter attacks.

Gorment Mask - Gorm

This one has the heavy keyword, which is a downside that should not be ignored, however, it has an incredibly powerful ability which is a lot easier to activate on mixed sets than anywhere else.  Courage 4 makes you ignore intimidate actions from most monsters and Courage 5 makes you immune to even the legendary monsters. This is a huge boon for Immortal survivors who spend their insanity on physical hits, but it's also just a massive spike in power for any survivor. Any time a monster intimidates, every survivor with a Gorment Mask and the appropriate level of courage, gets to have a respite. If all your survivors have Gorment Masks then Intimidate actions are the equivalent of making the monster 'skip it's turn'. 

Screaming Horns - Screaming Antelope

I've been through what makes the Screaming Horns so strong many times before, but it's worth repeating again. First of all this gives your survivors effective immunity to most forms of brain damage because you can hold everyone at 3 insanity by spending activations to protec your head.  It also gives out +movement to non-deaf insane survivors which can push a survivor into the kiting range where they can actually dash-cancel a monster's attack (dashing out of range after the monster targets you).  

It also has a crazy loophole in the wording where deaf survivors continue to gain insanity over and over with no upper limit. So any time that a monster locks itself into a passive loop, such as Ground Fighting, Hiccup or similar - you can gain as much insanity as you like for your deaf contingent - and then abuse that to your hearts content.

Never forget that this is a thing.

 It is also cheap and has a solid level of armor points.

Manhunter's Hat - Manhunter

Gained by scoring a critical wound on the appropriate Manhunter location, the hat is an accessory that Poots mentioned in one interview was supposed to have outfit (so it would complete leather or rawhide sets). Even ignoring that, this is a solid, but uninspiring piece of head gear that gives you affinities plus additional head protection. It's a great piece of glue for your mixed sets if you're struggling to get certain red affinities.

Dormant Twilight Cloak - White Box, Allison, Hooded Knight event

This one has some irritating keywords and abilities that limit how useful it is as a head piece, but for builds that want to use sentient gear and struggle to generate enough insanity, it is essential. You can slap this on a newbie and have them rock out with a Gloom Hammer for example.

However, it's heavy (yuck!) and it's irreplaceable, so this one is never going to be a mainstay of your builds, it's just worth remembering that it's a thing, especially if you're tired with those disgusting antagonists pretending to be good guys (aka the Twilight Order) foisting cursed sticks of metal onto your favorite survivors.  Go F*** yourselves with your own swords Twilight Order.

Phoenix Helm - Phoenix

Being one way of gaining extra evasion token (plus it's  seriously cool looking), makes the Phoenix Helm a very desirable piece of gear. Yeah you need to be insane to use this, but as mentioned in part 1 Immortals make for a very good base to put mixed armor sets on.

Dragonskull Helm - Dragon King

The main reason to take this one in your mixed sets is to allow a shattered jaw survivor to encourage again (at least that's what the wording and what Zach B, who designed this, indicates). But it is also a huge source of red affinities for mixed set builds who want that. I don't think this is the highest tier of mixed helmet, but it is unique in what it provides.

Apostle Crown - Sunstalker Hunt Event

There is a Sunstalker hunt event that gives you a 10% chance of gaining this piece of headwear. It's absolutely one of the best items in the game, having a passive version of the Necromancer's Circlet that activates at the start of your act is amazing. Especially for higher speed builds. 

With this item and a way of creating the strength token (Red Fist, Seasoned Monster Meat etc); you have a lessened need for a dedicated support character because one of your DPS, Tanks or Bruisers can take over the role automatically.

Cycloid Scale Hood - Sunstalker

The other way of gaining evasion, this one isn't a token and requires you to spend your (Knight) before it works, but that does mean you can double activate it with Dash to get +2 Evasion. That can be very, very powerful when combined with other things such as Double Dash (for dash-cancel/movement based kite tanking) because as we all know, evasion trivializes the monsters no matter what level they are (unless they have a way of getting around it like the Lion God).

The main issue here is that it's costly and once you've starting making the hood, you're probably just going to build the entire rest of the set anyway, because it's obscenely good.

Trash Crown - Dung Beetle Knight calcification "failure"

Generally made by slamming Zanbatos into the ground until one of them fails, this is a cheap piece of head gear that seems almost built with mixed sets in mind as it is a non-armor, non-accessory, non-outfit piece of head gear.

It's also got one of my favorite HL manipulation abilities on it, you get to blitz through the HL deck looking for just the critical hit locations (and the Trap, but that's because its fair and balanced) and discarding all the chaff locations you don't want to hit. 

This piece of gear gets slept on a LOT because it's hard to get over the 'I draw 4 cards and one of them is the trap, now I've put the trap on top of the deck' mindset. Seriously, that's not what happens most of the time, most of the time you get rid of 2-3 shitty locations and your grand weapon user/axe master chops a key critical hit location for some tasty resource or persistent injury. This one tends to be one of my top choices for mixed sets, which are always easier when you have access to the Dung Beetle Knight.

Silk Turban - Spidicules (L3)

Most of the Silk Armor set is a hot mess, but the Turban is  pure 🔥. That ability is superb support for DPS survivors because it gives you access to the blind spot no matter where it is, generally you'd have your support survivor wear this, then they can position and turn the monster to allow the DPS survivors to be able to get into the blind spot asap.  That's super powerful, because now they're not only getting blind spot bonuses, but they're out of the monster's field of view.

It S U C K S that this is locked behind the L3 Spidicules at the moment, but Adam has written on his twitter that Silk is getting a re-haul in Campaigns of Death. So lets hold our breath, knowing his track record it's going to make Silk top tier.

Necromancer's Eye - Lion God (L1)

The improved version of the White Lion's Eye, which is dug out from the L1 Lion God, gives you a head piece that ignores blind (hunt even though both eyes are gone!) While also providing strong HL manipulation.  This is absolutely the best reward you can get from the Lion God at the moment, and it only requires beating the L1, who is not that bad as long as you're cautious and well-practiced.

Green Helm - Dung Beetle Knight/Green Armor

Lets make this very, very clear.  This piece of head gear, while being part of the Green Knight armor set, is basically a Dung Beetle Knight expansion gear piece. To craft it you need the DBK Errant Badge, 1 Scell, 1 Beetle Horn and TOM (The Old Master) on your Quarry list.  This is all stuff that can be done with nothing other than the DBK expansion. The badge costs 1x organ and 1x bone. Meaning that once you beat a DBK with Storytelling innovated, eventually you can craft as many of these as you like for a very low cost (1x organ, 1x bone, 1x scell, 1x beetle horn). You absolutely do not need to kill TOM, you can leave him standing outside your settlement forever if you want.

What you get for this low, low cost is an incredible helm that has a pretty unusual pair of affinities, +1 Luck, a way of ignoring hits and scoring wounds to the monster with 5 armor. It's one of the mainstays of the mid to late game tanking Mixed armor set and the only real issue is that it doesn't have a down blue half-affinity to combo with the Phoenix Placart (it does however supply the left red half-affinity you're looking for).

This is the king of mixed helmet builds, never, ever sleep on it.

Lantern Helm - Generic Blacksmith

There are absolutely reasons why you would want to have this piece of gear active.  And those reasons are:

You're deaf so you can benefit from unlimited insanity via the Screaming Helm

You have -1 accuracy so you can spam the Counter-weighted Axe more effectively

If you are not clued in right now, one of the strongest builds in the core game is the Counter-weighted Axe (CWAxe) plus extra speed, timeless eye and negative accuracy via this helm and the bone witch (you do not want blind because it stops timeless eye working). Essentially all you hit on is 9 and 10s, which are perfect hits - and those become automatic wounds without drawing hit locations. It basically breaks the game, especially against nemesis monsters where you do not care about critical hits for resources.

Oxidized Lantern Helm - Post-Watcher, Lantern only

This helm, which is People of the Lantern specific, is of no use in the above build, however it is just a powerful tool that allows you to avoid many intimidate actions. It also helps in a wide range of other places, because choosing to be deaf when hearing would hurt you normally is fan-frigging-tastic.

Sadly, you're not likely to ever make this, because Oxidisation is STUPIDLY OVERPRICED and you'll spend most of your time making Oxidised Beacon Shields, an Oxidised Ring Whip (the best whip in the game) or Oxidised Lantern Swords for Deflect 1.  Basically this piece of gear is a fun oddity that's too expensive to build because of how rushed the post Watcher game design is.

We might revisit this helm and judge it differently in a campaign where the Screaming God and/or Mega-Stan are available. But that's a long way away.

Also, is anyone else pissed off that we couldn't oxidize a full lantern armor set? BOOO!

Flower Knight Helm - Generic, Bloom only

This piece of head gear is one of two attractions in People of the Easy Mode Bloom (along with the sword). It's got no specific armor set attached to it at the moment, and it's absolutely going to be reprinted (and maybe re-balanced) when the Abyssal Woods expansion is released. 

The main draw of this gear card is the activated ability, -1 speed can make certain monster attacks a lot easier to tank and it's easier to activate than normal because People of the Bloom are born with 1 innate Green Affinity already.

It's a solid piece of head gear, but not overpowered, and because it has no armor set linked to it right now, it's always going to be part of a mixed set. I'll probably look at Bloom in a post in the future and discuss builds for this when I do. Bloom is a solid campaign variant for players who are finding winning a campaign a bit too challenging and want to experience the story without constantly being stomped.

Helmets on, visors down!

And that's the best of the Head gear options available to us right now. You can also use things like the Masks as your head piece in a mixed set, but I'm going to be writing about each of the masks in the future as you need to support them with your builds if you really want to make use of them properly.