Requesting Backup: Defense & Healing (Patreon)

1. Introduction & Debuffs

2. Contents

3. Hit Location Control

4. AI Control

5. Buffs

6. Defense & Healing

7. Activators

8. Movement & Positioning

9. Utility Offense

10. Survival Gains

11. Resource Gathering

12. Tactics

13. Miscellaneous

Overview

You could be forgiven for thinking that defense is a somewhat nebulous category or that it is covered by armor and shields and that would be a fair thought to have. However, there is a whole category of items that give out or repair armor points and this is the place for them.

Technically, evasion can be considered to be a form of defense, but it sits more squarely in the 'buff' category because it is mechanically identical to the rest of that category. So all the evasion items are in last week's entry here.

Defense & Healing is a (usually) showdown based set of items that either give additional armor points, 'heal' by repairing already lost armor points (a rather rare mechanic at the moment) and prevent/heal severe injuries. These items can help with the durability of your hunt party survivors a great deal by increasing the length of time they can stay and fight. A few, very rare, types of ability allow for survivors to outright ignore hits or reduce the total amount of damage they would be taking from them.

The Dung Beetle Knight "armor" pieces all technically land in this category due to their nature as items rather than armor, but because I have already been through those pieces over in the Assessing Armor series you can just read about them here.

Let us get onto the items!

Dried Acanthus - Core Game & Screaming Antelope

Crafting Cost: 1x fresh acanthus

Additional Categories: Survival gains

Affinities: N/A

Abilities & Keywords: This is one of the few places where the herb keyword turns up, it has not been used to date, but with the expansion into cooking coming in the Gambler's Chest, perhaps it will be used as a seasoning. The main benefit here is that this item is consumable, which has benefits during some hunt events at the cost of being tasty looking to hungry antelope eyes.

Main Ability:  Ignoring a single severe injury (when you choose to use it) is a very strong level of protection. It allows you to sit on this item in order to ignore just the severe injuries that would end the hunting career of the survivor holding it (death etc etc). This is a very strong, useful ability because of that and it is is often used as a way of mitigating the drawback of things like the Thundermaul.

It is also very useful against monsters that like to inflict severe injuries directly, such as the Manhunter and Dung Beetle Knight.

Alternative version: Healing Potion from the Gorm, which is considerably weaker because it does not cancel death.

Rating: If this item only provided protection from severe injuries it would be a solid option, but only used by survivors who know they are likely to injure themselves (such as Thundermaul users). However the addition of the +2 survival when departing makes this one a premium piece of early game survival and cements its place as the flagship healing item in the game. A

Satchel - Sense Memory (Flower Knight)

Crafting Cost: During Sense Memory 1x Lantern Bloom, 1x Leather

Additional Categories: Misc & Utility.

Affinities: A load of green affinities is why you see this one in the meme version of the Acanthus Doctor build. Useful for builds looking to set up Monster Grease, but due to the orientation of the horizontal affinity being left instead of right, this one isn't as useful as you'd hope.

Abilities & Keywords: Stinky and Heavy, usual issues with these two. Stinky is a mostly neutral keyword while Heavy is a highly negative one.

Main Ability:  This one is not directly a healing item in itself. However it allows one to carry out Fresh Acanthus (or Flower Knight Flowers). Fresh Acanthus is a phenomenal defensive resource, but normally you have to gather it during the hunt or at the showdown. This lets you always have access to one.

The text for that reads: Archive this to fully heal 1 location, including injury levels and armor points. 

And because it isn't an 'activated' or 'triggered' ability this is one of those weird cases where (like in a computer RPG) you can slam it into your mouth in response to anything apart from when you are Doomed. Quite strong.

Rating: Because it is essentially a meme item used with a meme weapon or an exceedingly overplayed build that doesn't need it (and it is heavy) the Satchel lands firmly with a very average C. However, if you wanted to house rule that this could hold 3 resources at a time, it would move up to an A- because it would mitigate the drawback of the Vespertine Foil in a meaningful way without removing the upkeep on that sword (which is the only other option to house rule it into the game outside of People of the Bloom).

If I had access to a clean, clear version of the card art, I'd create that card myself right now and post it here.

Almanac - Barber Surgeon/Screaming Antelope

Crafting Cost: 2x Leather (Pictographs required)

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: Right blue helps a bit if you want to activate this

Abilities & Keywords: This one is very unstable because of its dual negative keywords, not only can it be burnt up, it can also be washed away. However this is not a huge disaster because of how cheap the item is to craft (1 endeavor, 2x hide)

Main Ability:  This one provides protection against brain traumas with a little insanity gain. However its strongest use is the passive that 'locks' your disorders to whatever ones you have when you hold it. This can keep away every single negative disorder and protect important ones such as Ghostly Beauty.

In addition when you have this item equipped and you have Accept Darkness with 2 disorders you become completely immune to death by brain trauma, which is a nice thing to consider for those of you who don't belong to team collective toil like myself.

Rating: The main problem with this item is it being linked to the Barber Surgeon and Pictograms. Effectively you need to get Pottery, not have that smashed up by the King's Man's petulant tantrum, hunt an L2+ Screaming Antelope (which might not be in the campaign if you are playing Spidicules via one of the two official introduction variants) and innovate Pictograms which is a very low priority innovation because all it really does is give you access to some extra story options in events, a few crafting items and a very questionable 'Run Away' table stolen from, I mean inspired by Warhammer Quest. 

While there are some degenerate or fun single survivor showdown parties that use Run Away to clear out the bodyguard chaff, for the most part Pictorgrams is a very poor innovation. So getting the Almanac isn't an easy or straightforward thing. I think it is well costed and balanced for the price, but as an item which isn't an automatic inclusion in every build with a fair construction path, it gets a B+. You'll make very good use of this with certain survivors, such as with a Accept Darkness, Immortal, Ghostly Beauty, Narcissist, True Blade DPS Survivor, but it is not ubiquitous or easy to get.

 Life Elixir - Gorm 

Crafting Cost: 2x Organs, Multiple Gorm innovations

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: N/A

Abilities & Keywords: Consumable holds the usual positives and negatives, while Stinky has applications when dealing with Anxiety and the Dung Beetle Knight's targeting. 

Main Ability:  This is an extra life in a bottle, it  is so on the nose with that - it could have literally been a small green mushroom shaped potion and we would have accepted it. This means it is more specific in its trigger than Dried Acanthus, but it is also more effective.

For a less powerful, broader in scope but potentially repeatable version of this, check out the Green Charm (Stone Circle) and for a version which allows you to die, but then has a chance of re-spawning your lost survivor check out the Hunter's Heart (Manhunter L2). 

Rating: I do not really consider 'avoid dying' specific items to be that useful, because most of the times you should not be in this situation in the first place. However, if you have a slot and you do not really know what to use, or if you are trying to make use of a Gorment/Shoulder Spikes build for some reason, remember that this exists. If we had more slots, or if this didn't take up a normal gear slot, I would score it higher. B+

Silk Body Suit - Spidicules

Crafting Cost: 5x silk, 2x hide, 1x spinnerets 

Additional Categories: This is flammable, which means you should be careful when fighting the Sunstalker in particular. Flammable is one of the 'destructive' keywords along with things like fragile, noisy and consumable.

Affinities: N/A

Abilities & Keywords: Silk is not really much of a thing, but flammable does mean that this requires some caution, it can be lost if hit by a Solar Flare for example.

Main Ability:  This kind of damage reduction represents a huge amount of 'virtual' armor points, I have called this one one of the most powerful defensive items in the game and I'm not going to retread all of those points, you can see more on the section on silk armor in assessing armor. 

Rating:  This is one of the strongest items in the game and a huge argument for why you would ever hunt the Spidicules. S++ First thing you should try and craft from Spidicules.

For another version of this item, check out the Lion Slayer Cloak from the Gigalion, it is Fur specific, but has an even more powerful version of the ability which stacks with this one.

Green Ring - Spidicules (Legless Ball required)

Crafting Cost: 3x unlaid eggs, 2x spinnerets

Additional Categories: N/A

Affinities: This is the mirror version of the Satchel and it's a much better layout because of how it combines. You can easily slot this with the Leather Skirt, Leather Shield, Leather Boots and Monster Grease for a giant pile of green affinities. It's only a shame that the Green Charm is kinda mediocre, but you might use it here.

Abilities & Keywords: The amber keyword means that those survivors with Tiny  Arachnophobia can't use it. But at this stage that's it, it is not even an other keyword item, which you would expect normally.

Main Ability:  Even without manipulation of the survivor turn order via the Gloom Hammer this item can result in you gaining +15 t points every 4 turns, which is nutty.  When you do set it on a tank and have a Gloom Hammer DPS before them in the turn order then this item can become just campaign distorting. 

Rating: S++ Another amazing Spidicules Item that is incredible even if you do not build directly around it. It takes a lot to save up for those 5 resources and you need to get a Legless Ball, but if you can make it, you should.

Gorn - Gorm

Crafting Cost: 3x bone, 1x stout heart

Additional Categories: Instrument

Affinities: Down blue is a very desirable affinity for several different armor sets, this one is a benefit to White Lion, Gorment and Leather Armor for a start.

Abilities & Keywords: The Gorn is an instrument for the Infernal Rhythm & Rhythm Chaser fighting arts, however it is also, very importantly, NOT noisy. Meaning that this is the only instrument you can take out without fear of being hit by the Harvester event and dying without any chance of counter play. This is why the Gorn is the number 1 best instrument in the game right now and why it is worth the cost of crafting.

Main Ability:  In truth, the main ability of the Gorn is not why you pick it up, it's the combination of keywords. However, situationally this item is +5 armor and an encourage for every single other non-deaf survivor on the board, as long as they are knocked down when you activate it. That is a lot of defensive stats from a single activation and it scales further in 5-6 player games.

Rating: Because of what this does in combination with the easy to get Rhythm Chaser fighting art and now its power in combination with the Infernal Rhythm strain fighting art this piece of gear is phenomenal before you even get close to considering its once per showdown 'stand up' power. I have no hesitation putting this one in the S tier, a place I would put other instruments if it wasn't for event #10.

Bird Bread - Plumery (Phoenix)

Crafting Cost: 1x pustules, 3x hide

Additional Categories: AI Control (minor)

Affinities: Right green, as mentioned above in the Satchel section, is an exceptional affinity. Not only because of its strong combination with the Monster Grease, but because it helps activate the Phoenix Plackart for non-Warlord Armor builds.

Abilities & Keywords: Soluble and Consumable. Usual warnings on these two, soluble has issues against the Sunstalker, Consumable against the Screaming Antelope. But consumable is overall positive and soluble is a minor negative at most.

Main Ability:  This one is the Priority Token + 1 armor to all locations with a 10% chance of losing all your survival. That means you are typically going to delay using this one until you have a low amount of survival, but it also has combinations with things like the Scarab Circlet which gives you a +1 strength token when you hit 0 survival and that can get out of hand fast if you have repeatable survival gains via something like Thrill Seeker.

Rating: Bird Bread is a very fair item, with a reasonable crafting cost and a fair ability. But, as I think you might beginning to notice, fair items are not that useful in a world with broken, overpowered or undercosted stuff around. Especially when many of them are available on monsters that are not able to insta-delete survivors the way that the Phoenix can.

That written, the Bird Bread's +5 armor, small AI control and premium right green affinity means that it deserves an A-.