Only accurate to build 41.56. At first I was planning to only explain the basic traits, but this turned into a bit of a guide + rant. ko-fi.com/reta... / retanaru
With the new multiplayer patch out (b41.60) this video is no longer accurate unless you are playing on b41.56 which will not be available in the future.
i can't play without wakeful - Char wake up at 9am and need to sleep at 3pm it's horrible, wakeful makes things a lot closer to reality - wake up at 6 am and goes trough the day doing stuff and get tired around 10 pm - but you can keep pushing it until 3am - (it's the fckng apocalypse, can't you stay awake a little???)
It's the apocalypse, and we should stay awake a little? If I could never worry about having to schedule my sleeping not a single bit (assuming I actually have a safe, comfortable, un-noisy and dim place to sleep,) because there's no work, school, or store-opening and closing hours to worry about, I would definitely take it.
I understand what you are saying and it makes a lot of sense. But we must consider the conditions in which your characters has to live - No proper meal, walking and running all day, fighting for their lives, dealing with constant stress and fear. All that will naturally drain a person energy.
@@cr4yv3n it is... absolutely. But that's assuming you are already established. I meant when you must roam the map in search of any food, only to find dead animals, rotten food etc. Its basically the early game with the settings a usually play. You guys might be right, maybe the devs made that way because of balance? idk
I think skill experience multipliers are severely under-rated. I used to think that slow learner was a good trait because I could just survive for x months and gain skills over time. What I didn't realize (until your videos) is that skill gain becomes so far between skills that it's nearly impossible without multipliers.
@@Retanaru well im playing with 0.2 xp gain and -44 trait points and without fast learner and this is the only way i found leveling up skills interesting And thats only leveling up section settings
I think if you are in Riverside, you can ignore carpentry, as you can build om the river, and use campfires to boil water for consumption. Want to farm? Get to the river, infinite space and water. Want to build? Right next to the forest is the river. Want to forage? River baby.
@@quinnlee-miller9792 You can do all that in the middle of nowhere. The so called infinite Farming Space requires you to build out which means - wood. If youre literally building on the river. Otherwise you can do that anywhere with a source of water until you can Build a Rain-collector. But with the most recent update even that is faster, since you can just get the first two carpentry books and the VHS tapes and level it up without doing any carpentry at first. So by the time you have some semblance of a shack built for you to live in and if you want to live by the river you'd have to make one anyway ( unless you go to the few spots that have some houses close to it) you are bound to hit Carpentry 4, at which point the river is useless because again - Raincollector. Same goes for the Foraging, you can forage anywhere and the River has nothing to do with it. I literally just walked outside my temporary base in the Mauldraugh in the Gated Community just South of Cortman Medical. And was in Deep Forest, which gives the highest Foraging buff.
that was me with the tailoring skill, thought i didnt need it since i already had fast learner, but boy the difference it makes. same goes for every one of my friends that picked lillerate on their first character.
The levels you get in carpentry from carpenter don't matter at all. What matters is that you started at +2 so get a 100% boost to gains for carpentry. Halfing the xp you need to get up to t2 rain collectors and stairs matters. Especially since it stacks with books and works on life and living carpentry gains. Using it as my profession and the trait together stacked with fast learner I've hit 10 carpentry before power went out before. Yes I found all the carpentry books, but still.
Carpentry is by far the easiest skill to level, you can get to level 7 just off the TV shows if you have the books, and I often skip the tv shows these days because it only takes disassembling a few large beds or park benches to gain a point, you'll spend more time reading books than grinding skill. A single motel or school cafeteria will give you every skill point in carpentry you will need. XP mults in the very hard to grind nimble, lightfooted, sneaking, maintenance or weapon skill can save your run.
With Claustrophobic there's an easy exploit with sleeping. Be outside the bedroom (it's usually a bigger room where panic level drops), right-click bed when panic moodle disappears, step inside bedroom, click sleep. You'll go to sleep even with the highest panic level. You can also use beta blockers or sleeping pills.
Or raid any alcohol cabinet, drink 1/4 of the bottle at a time to rid your panic, and you can make a few cans of beer let you sleep easily for several weeks
@@marshmellowguy586even better, you can improve this technique by cancelling your action just when you start drinking to drink the tiniest amount of alcohol, while still granting yourself the effects. Taking a shot for a good night sleep :)
i do like organized as positive trait, where every container has 30% more capacity. it counts for backpacks, car trunks, or crates. so you can store more stuff in your base and transfer more items on your loot runs.
Yeah I love organized having a big bag with 35 space is very nice. Better if you find a militairy one but 35 or 36 is really huge compared to 27 or 28...
Outdoorsman is a pretty good trait. being effectively immune to sickness due to weather is pretty useful, especially if you make your permanent base out in the wilderness.
Outdoorsman is great because it overrides prone to illness, so I would always recommend pairing the two. That way you only really need to worry about illness from corpse sickness or bad food
Minor correction on the Pacifist/Fast Learner combo; It's multiplicative, not additive. so we'll say 1 is the base, 0.75 = -25%, and 1.3 = +30% 1*0.75=0.75*1.3=.975 or 97.5%. So with the combo, you do earn 2.5% less weapon exp, but but you get +30 exp in everything else which seems hella worth it to me
i would argue not taking pacifist unless you want faster levelling, only for crafting and survivalist. vanilla pz has no books for weapon skills, forcing the player to take traits with weapon skill xp multipliers
"The rest of the positive traits are uninteresting." Excuse me, sir. I will NEVER make a character without Organized, unless I'm doing some memey challenge playthrough where I deliberately gimp myself. Organized (that +30% storage capacity is incredible), Wakeful/Dextrous (because you're getting so much out of a 2-point trait from each of them) and Fast Learner (because the game is a mindless, tedious slog without it) are hands down the four best traits in the game.
@@Clumrat Same, I wish there was a better way because you do blow through the early levels, but it actually makes the mid tier level grind bearable, I hope they make the skill grind a bit less crazy, mainly by just cutting down how much XP you need at higher levels to stop that brick wall feeling.
@@connorbranscombe6819 The point of the game isn't really to get level 10 skills as doing so takes several months to get one skill to level 10. Imo the best way to play is to just play. The marginal benefits of high skills aren't worth spending hours not having fun. You can also easily change the amount of xp needed per level in a document somewhere to tailor the game to your liking.
@@Clumrat I mean I doubt its easy, I have no idea how I would begin to start doing that, I have no modding experience. And its a grind and a half to hit level 3-4 let alone level 10 without multiplying the XP gain.
What I feel the game doesn't communicate well, is that base skill gain is 25%. Which means that the skill points 75% skill gain is *huge*. It triples or quadruples (depending on who you ask, I haven't read the code carefully) xp gain.
Like all the other tooltips the exp multipliers make no sense and 75% does indeed take a skill from gaining 0.25 exp to 1 exp. At the very least for nimble which I was messing with yesterday.
wait... what?? I read this on the wiki and i interpret it as "+25%" exp, so i thought 125% experience was default, and +75% would mean you get 175% exp total This shit is more convoluted that Dark Souls!
You know, I was always wondering, why does no one choose the police officer? If what you said is true (and it is.) doesn't that make the police officer more powerful and cheaper than, say, the veteran?
@@LordTrashcanRulez going from 25% to 75% is 3x the xp But going from 75 to 100% is only about 1.5x the xp. This technically means its more efficient get 1 point in everything. As stacking it in one will give a less dramatic increase(but still notable). Also I run police officer because I take alot of negative panic traits for points and I like that mechanic. The reason people take veteran is because of the desensitized trait so they dont get panic debuff
Yeah I like when they skip the exposition and meaningless story before they start. Give me the information I'm looking for quickly and I'll check out your channel
For long-term survival I take Athletic and Feeble combination. 9 fitness is incredible and 3 strength while being noticeable downside early on, after you find dumbbell or barbell you can exercise for a week and you end up with the default 5 strength and if you have enough food you can even get up to strength 7 in another few weeks. Thanks to having that high fitness you have higher endurance and you can exercise longer = more experience points. Good to combine this with reading skill books and/or farming. Also use up your painkillers on this if you raided your local pharmacy. From agony level of pain you need to consume painkiller 2-3 times to lower the pain in order to continue exercising. This is the only activity in the game that allows you to use them in large quantities so don't consider it a waste. Keep in mind you will need a lot of food and a good bed in a safe location as you will get tired and hungry much faster from all the exercising and you'll be near useless in combat so before you begin, make sure you won't need to leave the safehouse for the next week.
and while I don't mind starting out overweight or underweight, for this build you don't want to take either, overweight you can't because of Athletic and underweight you don't want to take because they lower your fitness and it is very difficult getting that fitness from lvl 7 to lvl 8 to lvl 9 so I just don't take negative weight trait entirely. Having perfect weight also helps with combat early on to make up for the 3 strength.
@@Saskidan i think you cant gain fitness XP past lvl 5 if your obese or overweight (hence why you cant pick fitnes traits when you have them), if you get rid of the trait by starvation you will be able to pass lvl 5 fitness
You forgot Construction Worker. Outright starts with +3 Short blunt. Combine that with Strong traits,and find a lead pipe. You'll be mowing down zombies with it
I like Repairman more as I get that Maintenance which offers me to transition into spears and with addition of Brawler you can make him into Jack of All Trades as you get exp multiplier into almost every weapon category, which is inefficient as you can survive off of just short blunt forever even on Insane population (and even if you couldn't there are spears which benefit greatly from the Maintenance already), but it's just too much fun to be able to main Axes with very high Maintenance. It's a meme build, but on a strong occupation so it's still completely viable and I'd say preferable on +6.0 population runs because durability of the weapon/s you main is of utmost importance and using just spears or short blunt all the time gets boring after couple months.
high thrist is free point too, it's way too easy to get water hearty appetite is also pretty much free points because you gonna have to eat more than what your character needs anyway to get enough calories to not go underweight. i also take sleepyhead because nights are dangerous so I spend them by sleeping which means I don't need cat eyes and obviously not wakeful
I literally take opposite of your traits and playstyle im up day and night basically killing zombies because I don't even need to carry water or food until i head out of town allowing me to pack lightly. The night is as clear as day thanks to night eye & barely need sleep despite tiring myself from all the running and fighting thanks to wakefull. Fair play all I say, its cool to see the differences in preference
@@Mrjackcool2 I need to try wakeful but I find cats eye doesn't make it bright enough for me to justify from what I seen in comparisons unless the devs made it brighter recently.
@@Saskidan i only take wakeful if i take cat eyes. i was skeptical cat eyes would do much but i've found that even at 10:00pm i can see very clearly. Works well with wakeful because you can make your way back to base through the cleared areas and organize yourself for the next day which takes me about 1-2in game hours. I go to sleep at midnight and wakeup about 6 where it isnt too dark but with cat eyes its even better.
with hearty appetite there is a downside - calorie intake, if you do not watch out for what you eat, you can more easily get the negative modificators from too much weight
I love cats eye and keen hearing and basically will never make a survivor who doesn't have those traits... they are just amazing so you dont need to have a flashlight to go out at night and can "see" zombies even if they are behind you giving you time to react.
I would add 8 points to the cost of all occupations since Unemployed starts with 8 points. So mechanics doesn't cost 4 points, it costs 12 points. Otherwise, this is pretty spot on, good job
Let's be clear, unemployed doesn't give you points. You start with 8 points, and you have the option to spend them on a prepackaged set of traits, i.e. professions. Choosing unemployed simply means you didn't buy one, leaving you with your 8 starting points.
I have been playing with the Better/More/Dynamic Occupations and Traits mods so I'm a little rusty specifically on vanilla traits at this point. However as I've become more proficient with the game, I've reached a new sort of meta on traits/skills occupations. The best positive traits are ones which you effectively cannot replicate through game play. For example gymnast, which is +1 Nimble and +1 Lightfooted, simply allows you to skip over the grinding you'd need to do go get those two skills upped by +1 each. Keen hearing on the other hand, or Cat's eyes: give you character abilities which you cannot gain through game play. With this in mind my favored lists are: Dextrous, Organized, Wakeful, Fast Learner, Keen Hearing, etc.
Gymnast also gives you an experience gain bonus in both skills, for me keen hearing is not necessary if you already have a little experience and you have decent audio, and organized it's only useful if you intend to live in a small base as it does not affect the size of the backpack
i see a lot of recommendations for keen hearing but i don't understand why as I have never been injured from behind. i always hear them coming or check my 6 when dealing with other zombies that could mask the sound. does it amplify noises as well? i noticed with hard of hearing i couldn't hear zombies shuffling around or groaning behind doors. might be useful if i could pick up zombie noises from super far away
Most fun I had was starting with an unemployed, out of shape, alcoholic smoker with no life skills, but starts with a small car, no fuel, an empty gas can and a suitcase of clothes in the boot, stranded by the roadside in the middle of nowhere. Also a mod that turns zombies into sprinters at night.
It is still weird for me to pick my traits in the beginning, because yeah, i can handle most of them, but for the most part there is no way to remove the trait in longer sessions. At least for what i know a smoker can never become a not smoker, even when i spend time and nervs to not smoke for a while. Some Traits can be removed, quite easily to the point that i dont think they should be worth any points. There is also no way to gain traits later in the game. A Lumberjack with the AxeMan trait will always be better than every other job with the axe, even on max level. So i think there should be ways to remove or gain traits as you play, like you can with your weight-traits. Like chop down 1000 tress to gain AxeMan, kill 100.000 zombies to become a veteran and so on... and only give a lot of points for traits that cannot be removed, like shortsighted and way less for traits that can be manipulated.
Those manipulations takes months of in-game time. Usually by that time your characters are either dead or overpowered even without any traits, just because of all the skills and collected stuff. On the side note: while yes, you can't obtain Veteran after you created a character, you also don't need to. All characters get used to panic more and more as the time passes on, getting faster recovery speed from it - that's why even if you have claustrophobic and/or agoraphobic traits you will eventually stop panicking at all. It's not a full nullifier, but it's really close to it.
@@thelegalmexican9860 dude, my comment was written 8 months ago. Things had changed. Also - yes, and this always was the truth, but I don't really get why you wrote that to me.
Short sighted is also one I love, because you can completely negate it with glasses. So its really only an issue if you trip and lose the glasses but zombies wearing glasses are pretty plentiful
I always have a pair of extra. But you can also find ones very easy from zombies. But you have to keep track of the glasses and you might not know it you are walking around 3 days without glasses hahaha
@@Drie_Kleuren EXACTLY! I've had way too many cases where I get attacked by a zombie, and my hat falls off, so I pick up the hat and I go about my day until I realize I dropped my glasses as well
Hey, I wanted to ask since you seem to know about this stuff. Can you rate a build of mine? I wanted to get Athletic and Strong in a single build so I stretched pretty thin, but I think I did good. The occupancy I picked was unemployed. The negative traits I picked are: -Thin-skinned (You'll see why in the positives.) -High thirst (Simple enough, even after three months in-game thirst was never an issue with this trait for me.) -Slow healer (I don't know how much of an effect this has because I simply never get sick.) -Underweight (Just eating as much as I can for the first few days easily gets rid of this.) -Hearty Appetite (This actually helps me maintain my weight since it lets me eat more. -Prone to Illness (Again, never got sick so I can't say.) -Weak Stomach (You can swallow kilos of lemon grass to negate this.) -Slow reader (I speed up time when reading books anyway, so doesn't feel like much of a debuff.) And the positives are: -Speed Demon (Has 1 point left so might as well. Noticeably helps with first gear acceleration.) -Dextrous (Like you said, really helps. I'm sure it saved me a hour in real time in total during my very long runs due to how much I move things around.) -Wakeful (Like you've said, the difference is massive.) -Graceful (I play with very high population so more stealth helps a fair bit.) -Eagle Eyed (This, along with Keen Hearing, is what justifies Thin-skinned for me.) -Keen hearing. (This actually makes you see 3-4 tiles behind you and I've yet to be surprised from behind using this.) -Organized (I like to loot. Strong also adds some inventor capacity so you can really haul quite a lot.) -Athletic -Strong (Self-explanatory. I want to avoid the athletic grind.)
Thin Skinned is also a good pick. It provides a tiny debuff, and you should be relying on clothes armour and good judgement, not on bare skin. Restless Sleeper is a bit annoying, but you just have to make sure you keep going back to sleep until it says 'not tired' rather than 'can't get back t osleep'. Also worth noting Hemophobic is not really viable anymore too so these are good pickups. And high thirst is obviously an essential, the weight of the extra water on long trips is the only real downside but take more strength with the points if it really bothers you.
Personally, i usually go with wakefull and restles sleeper. I have noticed that with these traits your character takes longer to get sleepy but also sleeps longer. Idk if restles sleeper has other drawbacks but so far it has been working (unless you play with sleep events, i tried it once and it wasnt pleasant). Since restless sleeper is +6 and wakefull is - 2, you will have 4 extra points wich you can use on anything you like.
Restless sleeper is a trap. I wouldn't pick it even if it gave 30 points. Tired moodle is one of the few that very noticeably impacts combat and no easy way to get rid of it outside looted vitamins/coffee/tea bags. These things on default setting are not plentiful enough to be used every 1-2 days (at least on higher population where clearing areas takes longer). The reason Wakeful is so good is that you sleep for 4-6 hours and then you can be awake from morning to dawn without worrying about the Drowsy moodle even popping up. Restless Sleeper just ruins that as well as many other things. If there was renewable way in vanilla to reduce tiredness like home-made tea I would at least consider picking this trait. As of now it's definitely on my top 5 worst negative traits in the game for as long as Tiredness is not easily dealt with like Stress with cigarettes.
Your video on Wakeful is pretty much what made me try it and I definitely love it, my guy never gets tired and I go scavenge and fight a lot on my first week. And I'm kinda surprised to not see High Thirst and Lucky mentioned here, most builds I see usually have them, any reason? Maybe you change my mind and the first is too crippling and the second is too useless
Lucky increases the loot you get and loot isn't rare unless you customize it yourself. I completely forgot about high thirst, but I wouldn't use it in the bread and butter, just the meta build.
@@Retanaru Love the work you've done, just gotta say though that I think High Thirst is pretty standard now as far as "meta" is concerned. Carrying a decent water bottle (which could honestly be its own video: bourbon bottles ftw) or two basically makes high thirst an inconvenience at 'worst' even if you're stranded in the middle of nowhere or somehow stuck in town with no more random water supplies. Bathtubs hold 100 water after shutoff, easily 4-5 days alone right there. Only downside is that it'll be about 1.4 weight you're carrying at all times in your base inventory. Much like smoker, high thirst really just becomes a minor management and you need to manage it anyway unlike smoker which you end up *having* to manage (easily).
@@MerkaRaukea You can actually drink water straight from the river/ponds as long as you don't put it in a container so high thirst is even less of a problem, but when I said "I" I mean me personally. I don't even use smoker because its kinda annoying. Pseudonymous Ed has a video on it.
Organized is very underrated. I love the extra storage. A big bag from 27 to 35 is really huge and and the militairy bag from 28 to 36. Also a trait I never hear people about is unlucky. Its 10% less loot and but its not noticable. I have found sledge hammers in random houses. I have spawned in houses that had like a fire axe in it. The unlucky trait is just free points. Loot is everywhere and if you know roughly where to look you will find everything you want very easy with this trait. Also smoker is my go to. Just make sure you smoke in down time. Also take a smoke before fight or right after eating. The smoking takes some time but its not that big of a deal if you manage it. Sigarettes are everywhere I have found like 700 in a month, and you only need like 2-3 a day so its easy+ lighters and maches are everywhere and you just have to make sure you always have some on you.
I've been using inconspicuous+Graceful for positive traits, and I don't know if it's a false positive or not but I find that I do tend to go unnoticed, which paves the way to better lightfooted and sneaking to only further improve my odds. I don't know the percentages, and given they're % chance traits for stealth checks I don't know if you can test them, but if it turns out they're not as good that'll free up points.
Graceful is fairly good, but Inconspicuous is quite a bit less useful. Reason being the way stealth works. Graceful decreases the total distance that your footstep sounds travel to a relevant degree, meaning that you can get closer to zombies and move around near them without them turning to see you. The distance is always 100% consistent, so it's something you can rely on. It applies to all movement speeds, which means those panic moments where you need to make a quick run for it, will also pull less zombies. With Gracefull and a high enough Lightfooted skill, you can actually reach the point where zombies flat out cannot hear you when sneaking. For Inconspicuous, it reduces "the chance a zombie will see you", not the distance. Every "tick" that passes in the game, it runs a calculation to see if any eligible zombies spot you. Inconspicuous halves this chance, which sounds big, but due to the check being made multiple times a second, doesn't actually result in much. In the open zombies will at very best get a second or two of delay in spotting you. It's best utility, is that when crossing small gaps or passing windows, it can prevent a zombie from seeing you. Even with max sneaking, there's never a point where it will grant you any exceptional ability that can actively and reliably be taken advantage of. Personally this doesn't seem that worthwhile, unless really going full on with the idea of total stealth for a heavily themed playthrough.
For me the "best" negative traits are: -Conspicuous(+4), by the way the zombies spot you it doesn't make really a big difference and I usually play with guns so zombies are going to spot me anyway. -High Thirst(+6) I just keep 1 extra bottle. -Pacifist(+4) if you combine it with fast learner you learn so much quicker everything and your xp gained for guns will be 97.5% (almost 100%) -Prone to Illness(+4) I don't usually play enough to get in to the winter but you can easyly contrarest it by just wearing enough clothes. -Short Sighted(+2) Just affects the search radius, if you are gonna search wear glasses. -Slow Healer(+6) I never die form wounds, only for zombification and a broken leg is always a dead game. -Slow Reader (+2) I always play in servers with friends the reading speed is really high so I don't care loosing an extra 10s reading every book. Weak Stomach(+3) just don't eat rotten food. Smoker(+4) once yo get cigarettes its actually op to be able to reduce all stress by just smoking. Thats +35 points easy
Underweight is better than overweight for the points. High thirst is good too, just carry two bottles. I always take the one's you first mentioned. Engineer is my fav profession, because you can build traps that there are no mags for, and eventually (with some elec. grinding lvl6) make battery connectors to make battery powered lamps. Pipe and fire bombs are awesome too! Have been trying hemophobic since I usually clean myself regularly, can cause some probs tho. Now I skip it and never clean 🤘🏻
hunter trait is slept on. 4 skill bonuses of some really good skills like aiming plus knowing the trapping recipes ahead of time. if i want to play a character that will use guns eventually at all i always pick hunter so i get to the good aiming lvls faster
If i can sugest biger hunger and thirst are free skill points in long term. Shure it can be a pain in ass first 3 days, but soon as you secure sorce of food and water you are set. The same slowl reader, difrence with slowl reader and with out it is minimal for me.
Another good one to take is outdoorsman, it cancels out prone to illness and makes it way easier to do things outside. Short sighted is good to and so it Conspicuous, Short sighted can be canceled out with glasses and Conspicuous doesn't really do anything since zombies can already see you pretty easily. Its better to get very underweight if you eat a lot since there is a lot of food and then with those points you can just choose a job like fitness Instructor or Security Guard to get your fitness back up
Good to know some perks I can take to better make a character based on me. Been floating a couple negatives, even with running Severely Underweight (IRL 6'02 and 52 kilo) and slow reader (Dyslexia).
Repairman is great for both solo and multiplayer. Maintenance, carpentry and short blunt are excellent. Short blunt easiest wep to find but gimped without proficiency, Life and Living shows need to be combined with Carpentry skill and/or book to be effective (plus limited window to do that before power goes out, and difficulty of being able to watch TV at exact times of day early game) and Maintenance is an under-appreciated skill that makes those rare weps and repairs last longer.
2:47 "it gives you the same ability as reading a magazine" Me, who went through and stripped through 3 different cities to find the damn thing, and still no dice - yeah... Real easy to find
Since fitness and strength are the hardest things to level, you can honestly forget about any other perks besides maintenance. The other levels will come eventually, which usually leads to me going burger flipper for the cheap maintenance point and then str + athletic, and no underweight/overweight. The loss of that fitness point just is not worth it. Sure it might be nice to have graceful for leveling those traits, but I have had no issues avoiding zeds even with full conspic and clumsy when I chose those for dump stats. If anything, it saves having to press Q to lead zombies into another block or some trees. Ive recently started to not take hemophobic and started to take hard of hearing instead simply because I was tired of the loss of damage/xp gain from melee when my character got super anxious about the deluge of blood covering me at all times and did not want to waste the water on constantly cleaning myself. If you get run up on by a zombie and need a larger perception radius to save you, you are not being vigilant enough. Back attacks are death and you should always be aware of your surroundings. Same concept for damage/xp loss goes for claustrophobic or the other one, but I am well aware that the issues with that go away after the first few months and you can always pop some beta blockers if you need to fight in the location you are weak in. I simply like getting into the meatgrinder and not having to worry about my character imploding from either going outside or walking into a room. Fast learner is pretty much a must and pacifist is an easy 4 points since you can always spend more time bashing a zombie down with the bonus for maintenance keeping the weapons in good condition. I usually start my run with metal pipes or bars due to the durability and before ive even broken two or three i usually am well on my way into maintenance 3. I understand that this combo means something like 93% xp for weapons, but that is a small price to pay when you are already getting full xp values for the only really important weapon skill and the 2 point cost equivalent is amazing considering the bonus you get to the other skills. My next run I am probably going to take wakeful instead of outdoorsman since I consider that a must and want to try other options, but I honestly like the bonus of not having to care about the weather all too much. Speed demon is a trap however. You really do not need the speed unless you are planning on running over hordes and will most likely result in you smacking into a roadblock you only had a few seconds to comprehend was there. I have never tried smoker, and it could honestly be a simple way to get 4 points, but you might as well take high thirst for an option that will automatically take care of itself rather than a trait that requires you to go into your inventory to mess around with a tar stick and a lighter. Clean water is not hard to come across and provided you find literally any metal water container, you can drink water from anywhere. There are lakes or rivers near most towns now. (After reading other comments I have seen organized get mentioned over and over. Build more boxes. Get another freezer. I can see this trait being useful if you plan to live out of your car, but for carrying supplies simply get another bag into your secondary. Half of my loot runs in my current life, I am coming back with a pipe in one hand and a duffel bag in the other. 6 points is a lot for such a miniscule gain. Id rather take lucky and cats eyes for those points. Although, I have not looked up the lucky perk since I started playing way back when and I don't know if its the end all be all it used to be anymore, but it just makes me feel... Lucky)
For anyone wanting to play build 41.60 here is my take on the traits. Negative traits for solo: Smoker and Hemophobic (grab a smoke after healing yourself and you're ok) Short sighted (make little to no difference as you can still see the zombies before they see you and the time before they disappear of your field of view doesn't change that much) Slow healer and Thin skinned (a bite is a 100% death and handling wounds isn't that difficult, just avoid crossing trough as many trees as posible to keep your clothes intact) Weak stomach (while being food intoxicated isn't good as long as you manage your food you'll be fine and as a + if you are desperate enough to eat raw or spoiled food you recover from food intoxication faster) Out of shape (only a -2 on fitness, you will get tired faster but if you're engaging hordes and constantly running as you just started you won't last long) For online multiplayer: Restless sleeper and sleepyhead (since sleep isn't available on most servers you get free points) Positive Perks: Brave (allows you to fight multiple zombies without panicking, based on experience without the perk I've been able to take down around 5-6 zombies but with the perk I've been able to take down groups of 10-12, this is because without high panic you maintain a good crit threshold allowing you to kill zombies consistently even if they are standing) Fast learner and fast reader (no time to waste plus extra exp from books coupled with fast learner increases your chances for survival exponentially) Lucky (better loot early on without much effort, chances of finding guns with attachments and in better condition) Organized (more space backpacks And cars = more carry weight) Strong (very good early paired with brave, lots of extra carry weight and lets you down zombies easily) And if you have some extra points: Wakeful (less sleep more work) Dextrous (Faster inventory management) Speed demon (the faster you drive the less zombies that catch up to your base + you can toe another car and have more inventory while not loosing that much speed) And my recommended profession: Burglar (good stealth starting bonus, allows you to have less of a chance to be spotted trough windows and allows for cars early on, very useful before power runs out as it allows you to stock on gas)
@@grawham They are. If the server has sleep disabled the positive/negative traits related to it are not available to be picked. I wonder what would happen if you try to load a template with those traits on tho hmm....
I pick a lot of those as well. I'll have to try brave that sounds pretty good. I didn't pick burglar cause you can get lots of gas later by using a generator at the gas station
I can't believe you didn't mention construction worker for that incredible short blunt bonus. Because it does make every hammer a viable weapon and they last forever.
Because the park ranger gets double XP for foraging with the master foraging book read it is a 32x experience gain. I leveled up from the start of level 9 all the way to level 10 in about 5-6 minutes of foraging in the woods.
Even though this contradicts the video, I find herbalist useful, since it's complete rng if you find the magazine, and i think it's one of the rarer ones. Also it let's you begin foraging for, and identifying, berries day one, without risk. Which can be knowledge preserved for the rest of the run if you don't just do a fresh save when you die.
I've played with hemophobic once, it was a nightmare. Every now and then I missed a spot of blood on my clothes, go to sleep and as a result I wake up a nervous wreck. Just flat out washing your entire gear after every outing costs so much time.
I like herbalist for certain runs just because I've had terrible luck trying to find the magazine, or because I'm going to need foraging before I'll even get a chance to look for it.
Short Sighted may also be a good trait. You will likely to know when a zombie is near by just hearing. And even if you can't see so far, you see far enough to spot zombie.
I'm surprised that u didn't mentioned lucky. It's so cheap and useful. Also I like using the +10 underweight thing with the -6 athletic one. Since they both cancel it other it's just +4 points (I personally prefer being slim at the beginning since it's much easier to become more fat than the other way around).
i feel like a lot of zed encounters that could go wrong dont because i've got lucky on. so many instances of minor scratches and lacerations where my mates got bites.
@@The_Custos yea it was me taking a hefty amount of copium because i didnt know what Lucky actually did hahahaha i had just started playing PZ when I typed that up.
I'm pretty sure all Lucky does is show you the second hidden inventory in loot containers. It doesn't have anything to do with any other metric and the game. That coupled with the fact they removed it from multiplayer pretty much nerfed it.
@@EmeraldPangolin the lucky trait just makes it more likely to spawn better rare loot like saws and machetes when you open containers it doesn't show any "second hidden inventory". the stashes in the floorboards of some houses can be opened without the lucky trait if that's what you mean, you just need to look at the list of icons of shelves and stuff in the looting menu on the right and notice when the stash icon shows up and click it open or look for tampered looking floorboards manually
Claustrophobic is a really funny trait to have in multiplayer. My friends made a SMP & we have about 8 guys on a rural farm. They all have rooms in the farmhouse & I live in the barn. While they go out to towns on looting runs, I spend my time; Foraging, cooking, trapping, cutting trees down & upgrading carpentry. Highly recommended.
It's very easy to avoid catching the cold without it, so unless you are actually living outdoors and refuse to use fires/car heaters I don't really see a point. Maybe if you use the sandbox setting "very cold" to make it always freezing. I'm currently doing december runs with that setting to test out if I actually get sick or not.
I like the carpentry profession if my character dies and I have to make up for the lost life and living xp to build water barrels, but outside that niche case I think burglar or unemployed are both very strong choices. In the end what you go for really depends on what your plans/needs are.
i still remember old time, getting Cowardly + Claustrophobic + Agoraphobic as debuff. and Adrenaline Junkie with lot of fitness... it really make the character run insane fast= = on some server u dont require sleep so this build was broken
i tend to always pick smoker and alcoholic with that better traits mod. they are both easily managed and i've never really had to ration the good/bad stuff. cat eyes and dexterious are my go to perks, but ever since you showed it off restful is gonna be my go to perk now. i once tried restless sleeper...what a nightmare.
Restless sleeper isn't so bad if you take wakeful. You just need to keep going back to sleep until it says 'Not tired' rather than 'can't get back to sleep right now'. You just need something to do at night while waiting, like read, prep food, excercise or organize your junk.
Fun fact:underweight removes one fitness and gives 6 points, and fit cost 6 points while giving 2 fitness. Underweight is the only weight trait that doesn't limit fitness/strength traits Also lumberjack gang
imo construction worker is the most overpowered profession, having 3 short blunt points in the start helps a lot since you find short blunt weapons pretty much everywhere (tool cabinets, garages, kitchens, sheds, etc.) (keep in mind you get the 125% XP bonus), combine this with fast learner and brave (panic reduces crit chance) you will be one hitting zombies constantly with hammers or pipes and it doesn't take much time to get short blunt lvl. 7 (thats when it starts to get really OP) + since the short blunt weapons are one handed you will have a free hand to carry screwdrivers (dismantle watches and other electronics) or carry a suitcase (best handheld bag in the game)
@@nerfherder4284 carry 2-4 tea bags at all times. they weigh barely anything and they can keep you fighting if the chopper overruns your base or something and you need to fight at night
There is a glitch I accidently found that allows you to select All Thumbs twice (I'll explain how to I did later). I'm not sure if it sums the two traits or if the game counts them as one, but it does give you the double of points. To do the glitch, do as it follows: -Change the game language to Brazilian Portuguese -Create a new character You'll notice that the traits All Thumbs and Clumsy have both the same name (Desastrado) -Select Clumsy -Remove Clumsy Now the All Thumbs trait should appear. If that doesn't work, go to the personalization menu (with Clumsy selected) and then go back to the trait menu. Then, try again. (obs.: I'm not sure if it works anymore but it happened to me once) (obs.2: you can't select Clumsy with this glitch)
with claustrophobic all you need is 1/4 of any alcoholic drink to be able to sleep the night in any sized room. raid a bar or liquor store, take a bunch of bourbon and wine, pour it into a tumbler or wine glass, and drink 1/4 of your drink per night. sleeping pills and beta blockers also work
Maxing out maintenance with repairman profession and handy (+125%) is a must have to every playthrough. I get so annoyed constantly breaking weapons...especially spears, which are my ideal weapon. I put hunting knives kn spears with high maintenance to make sure they last as long as possible (plus hunting knife spear does more damage and crit, killing faster, meaning less swings which also implicitly prolongs spear life)
Weak full can be a really pain in ass if you plan to level up your fitnes and strenght. Like you said its increas time you need to recover from traning. As result you train more faster, its good right? No as result you can reach point when half of next day you are in agony and cant work at muscel, as result your progres is slower.
I like outdoorsman cause i hate having to just stay inside when it rains. Other than that and wakeful i just try and get as much str and fitness as i can because i hate trying to level those. Every time i get to a point in a game where i try and really commit to leveling them i always get bored and stop playing.
My character don't get wet that fast. I guess the clothes she's wearing is quite water proof. Even so, another rain day is another reading day to me. Also, I hate leveling so I put exp gain x10.
Thanks for this. I've heard conflicting info about permanent handicaps with the weight traits and was wondering if it's true. From what I understand obese/very underweight is -2 fitness that can't be regained...
Hey I remember people always saying that its not worth it to take *Desensitized* or *Brave* because eventually in game given enough time or kill enough zombies and you'll be inmune to panic, is that true? I never thought it actually works like that, at best I think your character just recovers from panic moodles faster. There always has been misinformation about panic, I think cowardly actually makes it so you never recover faster from the panic moodle. You wanna test that out?
I believe by the end of 3 months you are no longer really panicked by zombies and would have to quickly spot 10+ to actually panic. I'll test cowardly eventually, but the only time I'd ever take it is in combo with adrenaline junkie so perma panic would be the goal.
I have started taking cowardly in my runs, but 2 points aren't really worth it. Keep dying at day 8-9 lately from trying to get too much done too quickly.
@@Retanaru I'm pretty sure panic gain dont change, only how fast you drop your panic, and its quite amazingly big difference. Spotting zed give you panic spike, so with cowardly it will be always super high spike, only change will be how fast it will drop.
I think it depends on the amount of zeds u kill to add those traits (I play modded so idk if it works in vanilla so if im wrong my badXD) i once ran with a brave character and killed 1000 zeds and got the desensitized perk, without brave it took 500 to become brave and if u have cowardly, it takes 500 zed kills to remove the trait.
@@GreenieBoi9 you cant get desentized in vanillia if you didnt pick it in character creation, its mod probably more traits or there was second one i dont remember name
*Professions* I can't believe you skipped over *Repairman* profession. This awards +1 Carpentry (meh), +1 short blunt and +3 Maintenance. This is great if one plans on maining short blunt weapons like the griddle pan, or lead pipe, which have high knock back, and knock down chance - but what makes the profession _really_ OP is the +125% boost one gets for leveling maintence. Starting at -4 points, this profession effectively costs _less_ than the _Handy_ (+1 Carpentry + Maintenance +8 points) trait alone. Using your example build given @2:36 we can now swap out Handy giving +4 points to use on other traits. The only downside is the loss of _Axeman_ profession trait, and starting with a weapon at +1 instead of +2. However, the +4 points could be used to swap out _Stout_ (+2 Strength -6 points) for _Strong_ (+4 Strength -10 points) putting starting Strength at 9 (5 + 4), instead of 8 (5 + 1+ 2) - which more than makes up for the downside. Incidentally, _Axeman_ only gives a +25% faster axe swing; it _does not_ increase damage as you state @3:20. The percieved damage increase actually comes from the +1 Strength the *Lumberjack* profession gives. *Metalworker* is another great profession, as this gives one a whopping +3 in Metalworking, unarguable the hardest skill to level in the game. Like Carpentry, this skill has recipes that only unlock at higher levels, but unlike Carpentry, there are no TV Shows, or VHS to speed up the process. This is, however the _only_ benefit of the profession besides knwoing the recipes, and the whopping -6 starting points is an unfair trade off IMO. Still a great profession, just one that gets screwed over in balance. *Negative Traits* _Slow Healer_ (+6 points) is a terrible trait choice, as ones performance is impacted heavily by health conditions. You are effectively making a bad situation (being injured) worse by choosing this trait - probably worse than _Thin Skinned_ (+8 points) at the cost of potentially being injured more often - which you can at least negate by wearing armour - and would award another 2 points to spend. I agree with most of the other negative trait choices (although Smoker (+4 points) is an iffy choice at best, as while technically free points can be annoying to maintain - this trait just gives you one more moodle need to fulfil, and search for cigarrettes. A far better alternative to _Smoker_ would be _High Thirst_ (+6 points) which can easily be negated simply by carrying 2 bottles of water with you instead of one. One also has an extra 2 points to spend with this trait. Other options which could be either swapped out, or included for exta points are: _Slow Reader_ (+2 points) Reading can be time-skipped making this essentially free points, and once one has read all the necessary books this trait has no impact at all. _Short Sighted_ (+2 points) can easily be negated by wearing glasses, or reading glasses - although they may fall off when successfully attacked. _Disorganized_ (30% capacity loss for inventory, and containers +4 points) which only really has an impact very early game, when one only has their inventory and is not much of an issue in the long run. _Hearty Eater_ (+4 points) is the food based version of _High Thirst_ but is a little harder to compensate for, since easy water is essentailly infinate; but easy food is finite, and one needs to fish, hunt, farm or forage to maintain the supply. *Positive Traits* I agree that _Gymnast_ (+1 Lightfooted +1 Nimble -5 points) is great for any profession other than OP *Burglar* which has _Burglar_ (+2 Lightfooted +2 Nimble +2 Sneaking) _Hotwiring_ without need for +1 Electrical and +2 Mechancial; and less likely to break window locks, so no issues here. I also agree that _Herbalist_ (-6 points) is a waste, since there is no benefit other than unlocking recipes which can easily be found in game. _Cats Eyes_ (-2 points) for slightly better night vision, and _Dextrous_ (-2 Points) are situationally useful - the former for games where night is set to Dark - in which case, for SP just _do not set it to dark lol_ and the latter for, as you mentioned fast-robbing corpses in precarious situations. The same applies to _Adreniline Junkie_ (-8) and again, this only affects MP, since simply not setting sprint on SP negates any need for this expensive trait. _Keen Hearing_ (-6 points) is actually awesome, and probably a better "must have" trait than all your picks, barring Gymnast to which it is on par - but you neglected to mention the reason why. In addition to having 200% perception radius, this trait also prevents zeds sneaking up behind you, as they become visible before they can do so. The back is ones main weak point, and this trait protects that. The benefit of the trait _Ametuer Mechanic_ (+1 Mechanic -5 points) is not the unlocked recipes, but the +75% XP boost it awards. It is still a little expensive, but it is also the only way one can obtain this boost when playing a profession that is not the *Mechanic* _Fast Learner_ (-6 points) is kinda expensive for what amounts to a 30% experience increase in all skills (barring Fitness and Strength) when more than half of the skills dont't require higher levels to benefit from. Simply choosing a profession or trait that awards even +1 in a useful skill gives +75%, which outclasses _Fast Learner_ by more than double. A skill r occupation which has +2 gives +100% (more than triple) and 3 gives +125% (more than quadriple). The only real benefit of _Fast Learner_ is the abilty to boost skills that otherwise have no option to boost available, such as _Long Blade_ but for everything else, there is a better, cheaper option. Gotta say, I also don't rate _Wakeful_ (-2 points) that great either. IME all this grants is 30% less sleep required daily. This was quickly screw over your characters sleep schedule, as they become out of sync with the standard day/night pattern. It does not have an impact on stamina regen (other than what is regenerated during sleep) so IMO not worth the -2 points that could be better spent elsewhere. As for the tratis you arbitrarily deemed "uninteresting" - most of them are +1 to a skill with it's associated +75% boost which is always a good choice if one intents to main that weapon, or focus on that skill. Some, such as _Brawler_ (+1 Axe +1 Long Blunt -6 points) are a little janky, but if one intends on maining two weapons, I guess it could is worthwhile given that _Baseball Player_ (+1 Long Blunt) is almost as expensive with less value*. Another good mentione is _Speed Demon_ (-1 point) that while kinda meh, is still worth taking if you have 1 point left over that would otherwise go to waste - which happens often. A small issue here is while it increases the top speed of vehicles, and reversing is faster, the engine is also also louder while at top speed, and reversing which can attract zeds. *This is not to say that _Baseball Player_ is a bad trait - it is still good as an the cheaper option for Long Blunt. _Brawler_ is also the only way one can access the 75% to axes when choosing a profession that does not have the trait included.
"it's about being the best and not the fun factor" gonna be honest, i can't agree. i don't enjoy min-maxing in games and prefer a balance between what i like and what's useful. in this case i wouldn't ever touch the phobia perks because i don't like dealing with panic and want to be able to fight zombies efficiently from the get-go. there were some good tips in here tho, like wakeful and cat's eyes being really good for their price
@@Keragom How is lucky actually helpful in terms of finding lighters? It only unlocks a hidden loot table and 10% increase in finding rare loot. Lighters are not rare loot.
@@maxwellhere1430 In that case, you don't run out of lighters in any way if you are a good fighter. I am not 100% sure how it's coded. But technically lighters are indeed rare loot on zombie bodies so I thought it worked that way. Having unlimited lighters is just my personal game experience. Living casually for 1year+ on apocalypse + insane population settings and lighters are never a problem to get by and so are cigarettes.
@@maxwellhere1430 Killing every zombie you run into is pretty much the meta of the game right now. No matter the population settings. I kill around 3000 zombies per month on average and never struggle with either of these 2 loot items. Zombies indeed dont drop lighters ofte, but if you kill a thousand zombies in a week, you usually get 2 or 3 lighters and you definitely didnt use 1 lighter up in that week so you should end up net positive in the end.
Herbalist gives a 0.2 sight radius to foraging, as well as 15% bonus to medicinal plants, and 5% bonus to wild plants, herbs, crops, berries and mushrooms. It's not "worthless", neither are some other skills that seems worthless like Former Scout, which also gives 0.7 sight radius, -13% weather effect and other bonuses. These all stack and can get to the max foraging sight radius of 15 without aiming or crouching, which is very strong in the late game where points in strength can be mitigated by exercising. You can become stronger, you can't grow better eyesight.
Athletic, Organized, Stout, Gymnast, Faster Learner Veteran Weak Stomach, Thirsty, Smoker, Pacifist, Underweight, Hearty Appetite I think thats all thats needed but I’d have to check again I may have a more negative traits Lots of room for guns and ammo, still get a 2x boost on gun skills at the cost of melee levels. Never panicked, plenty of stamina, and two other manageable weak traits.
I managed to eat myself from very uw to just uw, but I remain at three fitness. So I got more melee damage and less tripping chance, but my fitness remains low?
I've been trying some six month later recently, and I've really gotten a liking for burglar + hunter. Takes a lot of points, but you get great sneaking (with the massive hordes I've been able to level to 5-6 within a couple days, making you basically invisible) and hunter actually gives all the trap recipes ( of course the tip doesn't tell you this) which I have trouble finding as my strategy revolves around being in a very remote location, due to the difficulty of killing the massive number of zombies. If you get to a remote enough location, you can survive off of traps, sporadic fishing, and foraging for supplies (since you can't find food in the winter). Recommend if you're looking for a change of pace
im curious if they add a bow skill and bows to the game if hunter would be reworked to give + bow skill... i really hope they add bows when they add in animals and hunting.
@@Valchrist1313 as of right now inconspicuous is a complete waste of skillpoints... it has almost no effect and your better using the points elsewhere... this might change eventually as the proffession/trait system is being rebalanced in the next update alongside AI..
@@Valchrist1313 thats the thing though... the effect of the trait has almost no noticeable effect its been proven to do almost nothing... any effect you think is happening is only in your head... the trait really doesn't do much at all... but again... im sure alot of the traits will change once they do the rebalance.
I tend to grab both the obese and the unfit trait, because obease you can just eat less in the beginning when you are starting out and loose weight and if you don't take unfit you'll auto have it because of obese. and if you level up fitness to i think 5 then the unfit will go away and if you lose weight for obese that will obv go away too
Whats wrong with going underweight and athletic and having 8 fitness? That's still a lot of fitness. Are you saying you don't get the bonus from fitness if you don't have at least 9 fitness?
I dunno if this is from dynamic trait mod or vanilla but smoker is basically run killer in ccda or six month later if u don't get lucky with cigarettes early.. since being anxious make u drench and ur cold will only got worse..
It's still good for what it is, you'll still be the best with axes until everyone hits 10 skill (and most people die way before then). Fire officer with athletic looking mighty tasty though.
A few other negative traits that most people consider to be "free points": High Thirst: You can find water everywhere Clumsy: Just use stealth Short sighted: All it does is reduce camera pan range, big deal Thin-skinned: Well worth the risk for 8 points Slow Reader: I personally don't like this but most veteran players seem to like it Personally, I also like to take Hard of Hearing (wear decent headphones and be keen of hearing in real life and you won't get caught off guard) and hearty appetite (food is pretty easy to come by as well) Also, Axe Man DOES NOT increase your axe damage! All it does is increase your tree chopping speed
Axe man increases your axe attack speed along with the tree chopping speed mate. The damage buff comes from the 2 levels and XP boost in Axe skill. I personally prefer fire officer too though.
@@Keragom Hm, you're right, it is a bit faster, my bad... I guess I didn't notice the difference when I tried it As for the damage, he specifically said "...2 axe skill *and* the Axe Man trait *which* increases your damage with axes"
@@brotherzero Yeah yeah, you are perfectly right with that criticism. He did falsely claim that the axe man trait increases damage with axes while it specifically only increases attack speed of them.
What about organized? I think it is a really good trait since literally every container gains extra space for the whole game, which can stack up for every container, backpack, trunk etc that you might use.
just started to play and i was so tired of watching videos which explain stuff so slowly and vaguely. You my guy are the best there is: All skill explained, best build and what you could do in under 4 min.
I don't like the smoking trait. It means from the start of the game to the end you always need to worry about: Having cigarettes on you, having a lighting method, looting & storing those items, and having to smoke. And even though they are light, they still add some weight. That entire trait feels like a shore, a shore that I can never escape.
Take extra strength with the points you get from smoker, they weigh almost nothing and a fire starting method should be in your survival kit anyway. It is annoying though.
I enjoy smoking in real life, I've always got an abundance of smokes in game and it brings me satisfaction to have a puff after a busy day killing zombies. Different strokes for different folks.
Since smoker is considered free points to many atm, I'd like to see it made more punishing. On the other hand, that'd hopefully include a withdrawal mechanic, so quitting could provide a difficult but worth it challenge for long-term survivors.
With the new multiplayer patch out (b41.60) this video is no longer accurate unless you are playing on b41.56 which will not be available in the future.
U.U
Waiting for some new info for .60
Why's that? Did traits change in .60?
It’s 41.61 now 😂
waiting for update! :)
i can't play without wakeful - Char wake up at 9am and need to sleep at 3pm it's horrible, wakeful makes things a lot closer to reality - wake up at 6 am and goes trough the day doing stuff and get tired around 10 pm - but you can keep pushing it until 3am - (it's the fckng apocalypse, can't you stay awake a little???)
Yeah the internal clock of the characters is that of a 80 year old ffs
It's the apocalypse, and we should stay awake a little? If I could never worry about having to schedule my sleeping not a single bit (assuming I actually have a safe, comfortable, un-noisy and dim place to sleep,) because there's no work, school, or store-opening and closing hours to worry about, I would definitely take it.
I understand what you are saying and it makes a lot of sense. But we must consider the conditions in which your characters has to live - No proper meal, walking and running all day, fighting for their lives, dealing with constant stress and fear. All that will naturally drain a person energy.
@@murilomoreno11 what u mean no proper meal?
Fish with brocolli, vegetable rabbit soup and berries for dessert are "not a proper meal" to you?
@@cr4yv3n it is... absolutely. But that's assuming you are already established. I meant when you must roam the map in search of any food, only to find dead animals, rotten food etc. Its basically the early game with the settings a usually play. You guys might be right, maybe the devs made that way because of balance? idk
I think skill experience multipliers are severely under-rated. I used to think that slow learner was a good trait because I could just survive for x months and gain skills over time. What I didn't realize (until your videos) is that skill gain becomes so far between skills that it's nearly impossible without multipliers.
I think everyone goes through a phase of trying to make the most grueling experience possible, even if they don't realize what they are doing.
@@Retanaru well im playing with 0.2 xp gain and -44 trait points and without fast learner and this is the only way i found leveling up skills interesting
And thats only leveling up section settings
I think if you are in Riverside, you can ignore carpentry, as you can build om the river, and use campfires to boil water for consumption.
Want to farm? Get to the river, infinite space and water.
Want to build? Right next to the forest is the river.
Want to forage? River baby.
@@quinnlee-miller9792 You can do all that in the middle of nowhere.
The so called infinite Farming Space requires you to build out which means - wood. If youre literally building on the river. Otherwise you can do that anywhere with a source of water until you can Build a Rain-collector. But with the most recent update even that is faster, since you can just get the first two carpentry books and the VHS tapes and level it up without doing any carpentry at first. So by the time you have some semblance of a shack built for you to live in and if you want to live by the river you'd have to make one anyway ( unless you go to the few spots that have some houses close to it) you are bound to hit Carpentry 4, at which point the river is useless because again - Raincollector.
Same goes for the Foraging, you can forage anywhere and the River has nothing to do with it. I literally just walked outside my temporary base in the Mauldraugh in the Gated Community just South of Cortman Medical. And was in Deep Forest, which gives the highest Foraging buff.
that was me with the tailoring skill, thought i didnt need it since i already had fast learner, but boy the difference it makes. same goes for every one of my friends that picked lillerate on their first character.
The levels you get in carpentry from carpenter don't matter at all. What matters is that you started at +2 so get a 100% boost to gains for carpentry. Halfing the xp you need to get up to t2 rain collectors and stairs matters. Especially since it stacks with books and works on life and living carpentry gains. Using it as my profession and the trait together stacked with fast learner I've hit 10 carpentry before power went out before. Yes I found all the carpentry books, but still.
Carpentry is by far the easiest skill to level, you can get to level 7 just off the TV shows if you have the books, and I often skip the tv shows these days because it only takes disassembling a few large beds or park benches to gain a point, you'll spend more time reading books than grinding skill. A single motel or school cafeteria will give you every skill point in carpentry you will need. XP mults in the very hard to grind nimble, lightfooted, sneaking, maintenance or weapon skill can save your run.
It's not a 100% boost, it's like a 400-500% boost. The game explains things completely wrong.
As someone who likes to play on "winter is coming", it can be pretty damn useful.
@DXPOHIHIHI Agreed, not a priority at all
Make a guide..
weak, thin skinned and very underweight is probably the best combo
They don't have that level of depression it would be to broken and a waste of every point.
@@TronG33k damn
yeah but then i'd need to mod the game to give me 100 more points to spend.
100% the reason why I never played anything besides unemployed 👌🏼
Better yet, play as your ideal self and watch as he still dies to a biter who learned about facestabbing from spys.
With Claustrophobic there's an easy exploit with sleeping. Be outside the bedroom (it's usually a bigger room where panic level drops), right-click bed when panic moodle disappears, step inside bedroom, click sleep. You'll go to sleep even with the highest panic level.
You can also use beta blockers or sleeping pills.
Or raid any alcohol cabinet, drink 1/4 of the bottle at a time to rid your panic, and you can make a few cans of beer let you sleep easily for several weeks
@@marshmellowguy586even better, you can improve this technique by cancelling your action just when you start drinking to drink the tiniest amount of alcohol, while still granting yourself the effects. Taking a shot for a good night sleep :)
i do like organized as positive trait, where every container has 30% more capacity. it counts for backpacks, car trunks, or crates. so you can store more stuff in your base and transfer more items on your loot runs.
Yeah I love organized having a big bag with 35 space is very nice. Better if you find a militairy one but 35 or 36 is really huge compared to 27 or 28...
Outdoorsman is a pretty good trait. being effectively immune to sickness due to weather is pretty useful, especially if you make your permanent base out in the wilderness.
Outdoorsman is great because it overrides prone to illness, so I would always recommend pairing the two. That way you only really need to worry about illness from corpse sickness or bad food
Minor correction on the Pacifist/Fast Learner combo; It's multiplicative, not additive. so we'll say 1 is the base, 0.75 = -25%, and 1.3 = +30%
1*0.75=0.75*1.3=.975 or 97.5%.
So with the combo, you do earn 2.5% less weapon exp, but but you get +30 exp in everything else which seems hella worth it to me
And it reduces weapons condition faster
@@onça_pintuda999spears, problem sorted
i would argue not taking pacifist unless you want faster levelling, only for crafting and survivalist.
vanilla pz has no books for weapon skills, forcing the player to take traits with weapon skill xp multipliers
"The rest of the positive traits are uninteresting."
Excuse me, sir. I will NEVER make a character without Organized, unless I'm doing some memey challenge playthrough where I deliberately gimp myself.
Organized (that +30% storage capacity is incredible), Wakeful/Dextrous (because you're getting so much out of a 2-point trait from each of them) and Fast Learner (because the game is a mindless, tedious slog without it) are hands down the four best traits in the game.
Organized isn't interesting. It's just outright better.
I always crank up the XP Multiplier to 2x-5x because grinding isn't that fun.
@@Clumrat Same, I wish there was a better way because you do blow through the early levels, but it actually makes the mid tier level grind bearable, I hope they make the skill grind a bit less crazy, mainly by just cutting down how much XP you need at higher levels to stop that brick wall feeling.
@@connorbranscombe6819 The point of the game isn't really to get level 10 skills as doing so takes several months to get one skill to level 10. Imo the best way to play is to just play. The marginal benefits of high skills aren't worth spending hours not having fun. You can also easily change the amount of xp needed per level in a document somewhere to tailor the game to your liking.
@@Clumrat I mean I doubt its easy, I have no idea how I would begin to start doing that, I have no modding experience.
And its a grind and a half to hit level 3-4 let alone level 10 without multiplying the XP gain.
What I feel the game doesn't communicate well, is that base skill gain is 25%. Which means that the skill points 75% skill gain is *huge*. It triples or quadruples (depending on who you ask, I haven't read the code carefully) xp gain.
Like all the other tooltips the exp multipliers make no sense and 75% does indeed take a skill from gaining 0.25 exp to 1 exp. At the very least for nimble which I was messing with yesterday.
wait... what??
I read this on the wiki and i interpret it as "+25%" exp, so i thought 125% experience was default, and +75% would mean you get 175% exp total
This shit is more convoluted that Dark Souls!
@@Mrjackcool2 Nope! normal is 25%, starting level 1 gives 75%. level 2 gives 100%, and level 3 gives 125%.
You know, I was always wondering, why does no one choose the police officer? If what you said is true (and it is.) doesn't that make the police officer more powerful and cheaper than, say, the veteran?
@@LordTrashcanRulez going from 25% to 75% is 3x the xp
But going from 75 to 100% is only about 1.5x the xp. This technically means its more efficient get 1 point in everything. As stacking it in one will give a less dramatic increase(but still notable).
Also I run police officer because I take alot of negative panic traits for points and I like that mechanic.
The reason people take veteran is because of the desensitized trait
so they dont get panic debuff
simple, direct and to the point - just how I like a guide.
No bullshtting around, cheers mate
Yeah I like when they skip the exposition and meaningless story before they start.
Give me the information I'm looking for quickly and I'll check out your channel
For long-term survival I take Athletic and Feeble combination. 9 fitness is incredible and 3 strength while being noticeable downside early on, after you find dumbbell or barbell you can exercise for a week and you end up with the default 5 strength and if you have enough food you can even get up to strength 7 in another few weeks. Thanks to having that high fitness you have higher endurance and you can exercise longer = more experience points.
Good to combine this with reading skill books and/or farming. Also use up your painkillers on this if you raided your local pharmacy. From agony level of pain you need to consume painkiller 2-3 times to lower the pain in order to continue exercising. This is the only activity in the game that allows you to use them in large quantities so don't consider it a waste. Keep in mind you will need a lot of food and a good bed in a safe location as you will get tired and hungry much faster from all the exercising and you'll be near useless in combat so before you begin, make sure you won't need to leave the safehouse for the next week.
and while I don't mind starting out overweight or underweight, for this build you don't want to take either, overweight you can't because of Athletic and underweight you don't want to take because they lower your fitness and it is very difficult getting that fitness from lvl 7 to lvl 8 to lvl 9 so I just don't take negative weight trait entirely. Having perfect weight also helps with combat early on to make up for the 3 strength.
@@Laireso Someone was saying you incur a permanent -2 fitness handicap from Obese and very underweight. Is that true?
@@Saskidan i think you cant gain fitness XP past lvl 5 if your obese or overweight (hence why you cant pick fitnes traits when you have them), if you get rid of the trait by starvation you will be able to pass lvl 5 fitness
You forgot Construction Worker. Outright starts with +3 Short blunt. Combine that with Strong traits,and find a lead pipe. You'll be mowing down zombies with it
I like Repairman more as I get that Maintenance which offers me to transition into spears and with addition of Brawler you can make him into Jack of All Trades as you get exp multiplier into almost every weapon category, which is inefficient as you can survive off of just short blunt forever even on Insane population (and even if you couldn't there are spears which benefit greatly from the Maintenance already), but it's just too much fun to be able to main Axes with very high Maintenance.
It's a meme build, but on a strong occupation so it's still completely viable and I'd say preferable on +6.0 population runs because durability of the weapon/s you main is of utmost importance and using just spears or short blunt all the time gets boring after couple months.
@@Laireso Mhm I see, a Don't starve and Project zomboid player, the perfect masochist
Yes, it is so strong if you use the metal bars with reach.
Axe man, stout/strong. Nuff said
high thrist is free point too, it's way too easy to get water
hearty appetite is also pretty much free points because you gonna have to eat more than what your character needs anyway to get enough calories to not go underweight.
i also take sleepyhead because nights are dangerous so I spend them by sleeping which means I don't need cat eyes and obviously not wakeful
I literally take opposite of your traits and playstyle
im up day and night basically killing zombies because I don't even need to carry water or food until i head out of town allowing me to pack lightly.
The night is as clear as day thanks to night eye & barely need sleep despite tiring myself from all the running and fighting thanks to wakefull.
Fair play all I say, its cool to see the differences in preference
@@Mrjackcool2 I need to try wakeful but I find cats eye doesn't make it bright enough for me to justify from what I seen in comparisons unless the devs made it brighter recently.
@@Saskidan i only take wakeful if i take cat eyes. i was skeptical cat eyes would do much but i've found that even at 10:00pm i can see very clearly. Works well with wakeful because you can make your way back to base through the cleared areas and organize yourself for the next day which takes me about 1-2in game hours. I go to sleep at midnight and wakeup about 6 where it isnt too dark but with cat eyes its even better.
with hearty appetite there is a downside - calorie intake, if you do not watch out for what you eat, you can more easily get the negative modificators from too much weight
@@mioszwerner7907 I wish, most of my time I spent it to get enough calories to not lose weight
I love cats eye and keen hearing and basically will never make a survivor who doesn't have those traits... they are just amazing so you dont need to have a flashlight to go out at night and can "see" zombies even if they are behind you giving you time to react.
Woah woah woah. Wakeful increases stamina regen? That could most definitely make a difference.
Fatigue reduces stamina regen, and wakeful reduces natural fatigue buildup.
I would add 8 points to the cost of all occupations since Unemployed starts with 8 points. So mechanics doesn't cost 4 points, it costs 12 points. Otherwise, this is pretty spot on, good job
was thinking the same exact thing lol
You could also say that unemployed just straight up gives you 8 points. No other occupations give you bonus starting points anyway.
@@dashofbloodx6834 Burger Flipper does. 2 points. Farmer too I think.
My guess is that Naccarat is an economist. :)
#OpportunityCost
Let's be clear, unemployed doesn't give you points. You start with 8 points, and you have the option to spend them on a prepackaged set of traits, i.e. professions. Choosing unemployed simply means you didn't buy one, leaving you with your 8 starting points.
I have been playing with the Better/More/Dynamic Occupations and Traits mods so I'm a little rusty specifically on vanilla traits at this point. However as I've become more proficient with the game, I've reached a new sort of meta on traits/skills occupations. The best positive traits are ones which you effectively cannot replicate through game play. For example gymnast, which is +1 Nimble and +1 Lightfooted, simply allows you to skip over the grinding you'd need to do go get those two skills upped by +1 each. Keen hearing on the other hand, or Cat's eyes: give you character abilities which you cannot gain through game play. With this in mind my favored lists are:
Dextrous, Organized, Wakeful, Fast Learner, Keen Hearing, etc.
Gymnast also gives you an experience gain bonus in both skills, for me keen hearing is not necessary if you already have a little experience and you have decent audio, and organized it's only useful if you intend to live in a small base as it does not affect the size of the backpack
i see a lot of recommendations for keen hearing but i don't understand why as I have never been injured from behind. i always hear them coming or check my 6 when dealing with other zombies that could mask the sound.
does it amplify noises as well? i noticed with hard of hearing i couldn't hear zombies shuffling around or groaning behind doors. might be useful if i could pick up zombie noises from super far away
Most fun I had was starting with an unemployed, out of shape, alcoholic smoker with no life skills, but starts with a small car, no fuel, an empty gas can and a suitcase of clothes in the boot, stranded by the roadside in the middle of nowhere. Also a mod that turns zombies into sprinters at night.
It is still weird for me to pick my traits in the beginning, because yeah, i can handle most of them, but for the most part there is no way to remove the trait in longer sessions. At least for what i know a smoker can never become a not smoker, even when i spend time and nervs to not smoke for a while. Some Traits can be removed, quite easily to the point that i dont think they should be worth any points.
There is also no way to gain traits later in the game. A Lumberjack with the AxeMan trait will always be better than every other job with the axe, even on max level. So i think there should be ways to remove or gain traits as you play, like you can with your weight-traits. Like chop down 1000 tress to gain AxeMan, kill 100.000 zombies to become a veteran and so on... and only give a lot of points for traits that cannot be removed, like shortsighted and way less for traits that can be manipulated.
Those manipulations takes months of in-game time. Usually by that time your characters are either dead or overpowered even without any traits, just because of all the skills and collected stuff.
On the side note: while yes, you can't obtain Veteran after you created a character, you also don't need to. All characters get used to panic more and more as the time passes on, getting faster recovery speed from it - that's why even if you have claustrophobic and/or agoraphobic traits you will eventually stop panicking at all. It's not a full nullifier, but it's really close to it.
Yeah there should be nicotine patches in the game to get rid of the smoker trait but if you smoke too much you get the trait again.
@@albusjustalbus7988 Underweight can be removed by just eating a lot, then even if I am overweight I wont get the trait
@@thelegalmexican9860 dude, my comment was written 8 months ago. Things had changed.
Also - yes, and this always was the truth, but I don't really get why you wrote that to me.
@@albusjustalbus7988 tbh I didn’t know how old the video or the comments where, I thought that it was recent
Short sighted is also one I love, because you can completely negate it with glasses. So its really only an issue if you trip and lose the glasses but zombies wearing glasses are pretty plentiful
Also, if you trip and they fall off, you can re-trace your steps in foraging mode and find them
@@TheKueiJinOr have an extra pair in hand.
I always have a pair of extra. But you can also find ones very easy from zombies. But you have to keep track of the glasses and you might not know it you are walking around 3 days without glasses hahaha
@@Drie_Kleuren EXACTLY! I've had way too many cases where I get attacked by a zombie, and my hat falls off, so I pick up the hat and I go about my day until I realize I dropped my glasses as well
@@amel888 yeah you really have to hoard glasses because they just disappear hahaha
Hey, I wanted to ask since you seem to know about this stuff. Can you rate a build of mine? I wanted to get Athletic and Strong in a single build so I stretched pretty thin, but I think I did good. The occupancy I picked was unemployed.
The negative traits I picked are:
-Thin-skinned (You'll see why in the positives.)
-High thirst (Simple enough, even after three months in-game thirst was never an issue with this trait for me.)
-Slow healer (I don't know how much of an effect this has because I simply never get sick.)
-Underweight (Just eating as much as I can for the first few days easily gets rid of this.)
-Hearty Appetite (This actually helps me maintain my weight since it lets me eat more.
-Prone to Illness (Again, never got sick so I can't say.)
-Weak Stomach (You can swallow kilos of lemon grass to negate this.)
-Slow reader (I speed up time when reading books anyway, so doesn't feel like much of a debuff.)
And the positives are:
-Speed Demon (Has 1 point left so might as well. Noticeably helps with first gear acceleration.)
-Dextrous (Like you said, really helps. I'm sure it saved me a hour in real time in total during my very long runs due to how much I move things around.)
-Wakeful (Like you've said, the difference is massive.)
-Graceful (I play with very high population so more stealth helps a fair bit.)
-Eagle Eyed (This, along with Keen Hearing, is what justifies Thin-skinned for me.)
-Keen hearing. (This actually makes you see 3-4 tiles behind you and I've yet to be surprised from behind using this.)
-Organized (I like to loot. Strong also adds some inventor capacity so you can really haul quite a lot.)
-Athletic
-Strong (Self-explanatory. I want to avoid the athletic grind.)
Seems fine, I'd maybe drop eagle eye for cat eyes, but its all up to you. Just have fun.
@@Retanaru thanks a lot man!
Does wakeful not exist in multiplayer?
You get sick much outside when it rains? I picked a similar build but chose outdoorsman and resilient.
@@Saskidan I actually just use an umbrella whenever I can.
Keen hearing lets you see zombies immediately behind you, it's essential
people are literally out there writing a whole ass dissertation on a video game mechanics. Love it.
Thin Skinned is also a good pick. It provides a tiny debuff, and you should be relying on clothes armour and good judgement, not on bare skin. Restless Sleeper is a bit annoying, but you just have to make sure you keep going back to sleep until it says 'not tired' rather than 'can't get back t osleep'. Also worth noting Hemophobic is not really viable anymore too so these are good pickups. And high thirst is obviously an essential, the weight of the extra water on long trips is the only real downside but take more strength with the points if it really bothers you.
Why is Hemophobic not viable anymore?
@@Saskidan because having bloody clothes makes your character stressed.
@@GregHali I kinda like that it reminds me to wash my clothes. The problem is you get bloody too quickly and it's really annoying.
@@GregHali but if you pair it with smoker it cancels it out
Personally, i usually go with wakefull and restles sleeper. I have noticed that with these traits your character takes longer to get sleepy but also sleeps longer. Idk if restles sleeper has other drawbacks but so far it has been working (unless you play with sleep events, i tried it once and it wasnt pleasant). Since restless sleeper is +6 and wakefull is - 2, you will have 4 extra points wich you can use on anything you like.
i tried restless sleeper a couple times my character kept waking up before he could get any real sleep ill probably never use it again
Restless sleeper is a trap. I wouldn't pick it even if it gave 30 points. Tired moodle is one of the few that very noticeably impacts combat and no easy way to get rid of it outside looted vitamins/coffee/tea bags. These things on default setting are not plentiful enough to be used every 1-2 days (at least on higher population where clearing areas takes longer).
The reason Wakeful is so good is that you sleep for 4-6 hours and then you can be awake from morning to dawn without worrying about the Drowsy moodle even popping up. Restless Sleeper just ruins that as well as many other things. If there was renewable way in vanilla to reduce tiredness like home-made tea I would at least consider picking this trait. As of now it's definitely on my top 5 worst negative traits in the game for as long as Tiredness is not easily dealt with like Stress with cigarettes.
Oh boy, this is a really informative video, thank you dude!
Your video on Wakeful is pretty much what made me try it and I definitely love it, my guy never gets tired and I go scavenge and fight a lot on my first week. And I'm kinda surprised to not see High Thirst and Lucky mentioned here, most builds I see usually have them, any reason? Maybe you change my mind and the first is too crippling and the second is too useless
Lucky increases the loot you get and loot isn't rare unless you customize it yourself. I completely forgot about high thirst, but I wouldn't use it in the bread and butter, just the meta build.
@@Retanaru water is pretty much infinite so i don't see why not to use it
@@Retanaru Love the work you've done, just gotta say though that I think High Thirst is pretty standard now as far as "meta" is concerned. Carrying a decent water bottle (which could honestly be its own video: bourbon bottles ftw) or two basically makes high thirst an inconvenience at 'worst' even if you're stranded in the middle of nowhere or somehow stuck in town with no more random water supplies. Bathtubs hold 100 water after shutoff, easily 4-5 days alone right there. Only downside is that it'll be about 1.4 weight you're carrying at all times in your base inventory. Much like smoker, high thirst really just becomes a minor management and you need to manage it anyway unlike smoker which you end up *having* to manage (easily).
@@MerkaRaukea You can actually drink water straight from the river/ponds as long as you don't put it in a container so high thirst is even less of a problem, but when I said "I" I mean me personally. I don't even use smoker because its kinda annoying.
Pseudonymous Ed has a video on it.
@@Retanaru I wonder about drinking from the source when you are really thirsty and are going to consume more than 10 units of water.
Organized is very underrated. I love the extra storage. A big bag from 27 to 35 is really huge and and the militairy bag from 28 to 36. Also a trait I never hear people about is unlucky. Its 10% less loot and but its not noticable. I have found sledge hammers in random houses. I have spawned in houses that had like a fire axe in it. The unlucky trait is just free points. Loot is everywhere and if you know roughly where to look you will find everything you want very easy with this trait. Also smoker is my go to. Just make sure you smoke in down time. Also take a smoke before fight or right after eating. The smoking takes some time but its not that big of a deal if you manage it. Sigarettes are everywhere I have found like 700 in a month, and you only need like 2-3 a day so its easy+ lighters and maches are everywhere and you just have to make sure you always have some on you.
I've been using inconspicuous+Graceful for positive traits, and I don't know if it's a false positive or not but I find that I do tend to go unnoticed, which paves the way to better lightfooted and sneaking to only further improve my odds. I don't know the percentages, and given they're % chance traits for stealth checks I don't know if you can test them, but if it turns out they're not as good that'll free up points.
Graceful is fairly good, but Inconspicuous is quite a bit less useful. Reason being the way stealth works.
Graceful decreases the total distance that your footstep sounds travel to a relevant degree, meaning that you can get closer to zombies and move around near them without them turning to see you. The distance is always 100% consistent, so it's something you can rely on. It applies to all movement speeds, which means those panic moments where you need to make a quick run for it, will also pull less zombies. With Gracefull and a high enough Lightfooted skill, you can actually reach the point where zombies flat out cannot hear you when sneaking.
For Inconspicuous, it reduces "the chance a zombie will see you", not the distance. Every "tick" that passes in the game, it runs a calculation to see if any eligible zombies spot you. Inconspicuous halves this chance, which sounds big, but due to the check being made multiple times a second, doesn't actually result in much. In the open zombies will at very best get a second or two of delay in spotting you. It's best utility, is that when crossing small gaps or passing windows, it can prevent a zombie from seeing you. Even with max sneaking, there's never a point where it will grant you any exceptional ability that can actively and reliably be taken advantage of. Personally this doesn't seem that worthwhile, unless really going full on with the idea of total stealth for a heavily themed playthrough.
For me the "best" negative traits are:
-Conspicuous(+4), by the way the zombies spot you it doesn't make really a big difference and I usually play with guns so zombies are going to spot me anyway.
-High Thirst(+6) I just keep 1 extra bottle.
-Pacifist(+4) if you combine it with fast learner you learn so much quicker everything and your xp gained for guns will be 97.5% (almost 100%)
-Prone to Illness(+4) I don't usually play enough to get in to the winter but you can easyly contrarest it by just wearing enough clothes.
-Short Sighted(+2) Just affects the search radius, if you are gonna search wear glasses.
-Slow Healer(+6) I never die form wounds, only for zombification and a broken leg is always a dead game.
-Slow Reader (+2) I always play in servers with friends the reading speed is really high so I don't care loosing an extra 10s reading every book.
Weak Stomach(+3) just don't eat rotten food.
Smoker(+4) once yo get cigarettes its actually op to be able to reduce all stress by just smoking.
Thats +35 points easy
high thirst in must-have
Yep plus whiskey bottles for water because they hold more water (14) than normal water bottles (10) and have the best water to weight ratio
Lucky unlocks an entirely unique item pool that players without said trait will never have access to.
Underweight is better than overweight for the points. High thirst is good too, just carry two bottles. I always take the one's you first mentioned. Engineer is my fav profession, because you can build traps that there are no mags for, and eventually (with some elec. grinding lvl6) make battery connectors to make battery powered lamps. Pipe and fire bombs are awesome too!
Have been trying hemophobic since I usually clean myself regularly, can cause some probs tho. Now I skip it and never clean 🤘🏻
For normal loot setting, I recommended very underweight traits
Food are very easy to find in the early game so you would gain weight pretty fast
hunter trait is slept on. 4 skill bonuses of some really good skills like aiming plus knowing the trapping recipes ahead of time. if i want to play a character that will use guns eventually at all i always pick hunter so i get to the good aiming lvls faster
It is great, and some don't seem to notice. Also a very strong addition to the burger flipper, giving one more in short blade.
If i can sugest biger hunger and thirst are free skill points in long term. Shure it can be a pain in ass first 3 days, but soon as you secure sorce of food and water you are set. The same slowl reader, difrence with slowl reader and with out it is minimal for me.
Another good one to take is outdoorsman, it cancels out prone to illness and makes it way easier to do things outside. Short sighted is good to and so it Conspicuous, Short sighted can be canceled out with glasses and Conspicuous doesn't really do anything since zombies can already see you pretty easily. Its better to get very underweight if you eat a lot since there is a lot of food and then with those points you can just choose a job like fitness Instructor or Security Guard to get your fitness back up
Burglar with these traits, gymnest, graciful, and inconspicous is a great choice for sneaking around and not wanting zombies finding you.
Too bad stealth sucks ass in this game
Good to know some perks I can take to better make a character based on me. Been floating a couple negatives, even with running Severely Underweight (IRL 6'02 and 52 kilo) and slow reader (Dyslexia).
Repairman is great for both solo and multiplayer. Maintenance, carpentry and short blunt are excellent. Short blunt easiest wep to find but gimped without proficiency, Life and Living shows need to be combined with Carpentry skill and/or book to be effective (plus limited window to do that before power goes out, and difficulty of being able to watch TV at exact times of day early game) and Maintenance is an under-appreciated skill that makes those rare weps and repairs last longer.
2:47 "it gives you the same ability as reading a magazine"
Me, who went through and stripped through 3 different cities to find the damn thing, and still no dice - yeah... Real easy to find
Since fitness and strength are the hardest things to level, you can honestly forget about any other perks besides maintenance. The other levels will come eventually, which usually leads to me going burger flipper for the cheap maintenance point and then str + athletic, and no underweight/overweight. The loss of that fitness point just is not worth it. Sure it might be nice to have graceful for leveling those traits, but I have had no issues avoiding zeds even with full conspic and clumsy when I chose those for dump stats. If anything, it saves having to press Q to lead zombies into another block or some trees.
Ive recently started to not take hemophobic and started to take hard of hearing instead simply because I was tired of the loss of damage/xp gain from melee when my character got super anxious about the deluge of blood covering me at all times and did not want to waste the water on constantly cleaning myself. If you get run up on by a zombie and need a larger perception radius to save you, you are not being vigilant enough. Back attacks are death and you should always be aware of your surroundings. Same concept for damage/xp loss goes for claustrophobic or the other one, but I am well aware that the issues with that go away after the first few months and you can always pop some beta blockers if you need to fight in the location you are weak in. I simply like getting into the meatgrinder and not having to worry about my character imploding from either going outside or walking into a room.
Fast learner is pretty much a must and pacifist is an easy 4 points since you can always spend more time bashing a zombie down with the bonus for maintenance keeping the weapons in good condition. I usually start my run with metal pipes or bars due to the durability and before ive even broken two or three i usually am well on my way into maintenance 3. I understand that this combo means something like 93% xp for weapons, but that is a small price to pay when you are already getting full xp values for the only really important weapon skill and the 2 point cost equivalent is amazing considering the bonus you get to the other skills.
My next run I am probably going to take wakeful instead of outdoorsman since I consider that a must and want to try other options, but I honestly like the bonus of not having to care about the weather all too much. Speed demon is a trap however. You really do not need the speed unless you are planning on running over hordes and will most likely result in you smacking into a roadblock you only had a few seconds to comprehend was there.
I have never tried smoker, and it could honestly be a simple way to get 4 points, but you might as well take high thirst for an option that will automatically take care of itself rather than a trait that requires you to go into your inventory to mess around with a tar stick and a lighter. Clean water is not hard to come across and provided you find literally any metal water container, you can drink water from anywhere. There are lakes or rivers near most towns now.
(After reading other comments I have seen organized get mentioned over and over. Build more boxes. Get another freezer. I can see this trait being useful if you plan to live out of your car, but for carrying supplies simply get another bag into your secondary. Half of my loot runs in my current life, I am coming back with a pipe in one hand and a duffel bag in the other. 6 points is a lot for such a miniscule gain. Id rather take lucky and cats eyes for those points. Although, I have not looked up the lucky perk since I started playing way back when and I don't know if its the end all be all it used to be anymore, but it just makes me feel... Lucky)
For anyone wanting to play build 41.60 here is my take on the traits.
Negative traits for solo:
Smoker and Hemophobic (grab a smoke after healing yourself and you're ok)
Short sighted (make little to no difference as you can still see the zombies before they see you and the time before they disappear of your field of view doesn't change that much)
Slow healer and Thin skinned (a bite is a 100% death and handling wounds isn't that difficult, just avoid crossing trough as many trees as posible to keep your clothes intact)
Weak stomach (while being food intoxicated isn't good as long as you manage your food you'll be fine and as a + if you are desperate enough to eat raw or spoiled food you recover from food intoxication faster)
Out of shape (only a -2 on fitness, you will get tired faster but if you're engaging hordes and constantly running as you just started you won't last long)
For online multiplayer:
Restless sleeper and sleepyhead (since sleep isn't available on most servers you get free points)
Positive Perks:
Brave (allows you to fight multiple zombies without panicking, based on experience without the perk I've been able to take down around 5-6 zombies but with the perk I've been able to take down groups of 10-12, this is because without high panic you maintain a good crit threshold allowing you to kill zombies consistently even if they are standing)
Fast learner and fast reader (no time to waste plus extra exp from books coupled with fast learner increases your chances for survival exponentially)
Lucky (better loot early on without much effort, chances of finding guns with attachments and in better condition)
Organized (more space backpacks And cars = more carry weight)
Strong (very good early paired with brave, lots of extra carry weight and lets you down zombies easily)
And if you have some extra points:
Wakeful (less sleep more work)
Dextrous (Faster inventory management)
Speed demon (the faster you drive the less zombies that catch up to your base + you can toe another car and have more inventory while not loosing that much speed)
And my recommended profession:
Burglar (good stealth starting bonus, allows you to have less of a chance to be spotted trough windows and allows for cars early on, very useful before power runs out as it allows you to stock on gas)
heads up, I'm pretty sure that all of the sleep-related traits are typically disabled for multiplayer (they definitely should be, at least)
@@grawham They are. If the server has sleep disabled the positive/negative traits related to it are not available to be picked. I wonder what would happen if you try to load a template with those traits on tho hmm....
I pick a lot of those as well. I'll have to try brave that sounds pretty good. I didn't pick burglar cause you can get lots of gas later by using a generator at the gas station
I can't believe you didn't mention construction worker for that incredible short blunt bonus. Because it does make every hammer a viable weapon and they last forever.
Because the park ranger gets double XP for foraging with the master foraging book read it is a 32x experience gain. I leveled up from the start of level 9 all the way to level 10 in about 5-6 minutes of foraging in the woods.
God park ranger with the new foraging bonuses (not sure if it was out at the time of the comment) is so good
Even though this contradicts the video, I find herbalist useful, since it's complete rng if you find the magazine, and i think it's one of the rarer ones. Also it let's you begin foraging for, and identifying, berries day one, without risk. Which can be knowledge preserved for the rest of the run if you don't just do a fresh save when you die.
I've played with hemophobic once, it was a nightmare. Every now and then I missed a spot of blood on my clothes, go to sleep and as a result I wake up a nervous wreck.
Just flat out washing your entire gear after every outing costs so much time.
It's a great in game trait, and a horrible IRL time waster.
@smelly paws That's what I do :D I enjoy having a smoke after a long day
This looks very close to what I run all the time. Good Job!
I like herbalist for certain runs just because I've had terrible luck trying to find the magazine, or because I'm going to need foraging before I'll even get a chance to look for it.
When I clicked on this vid I was expecting to hear some bs but I found myself agreeing with 95% of things you said. Well done.
i personally refuse to step outside without inconspicuous
Short Sighted may also be a good trait. You will likely to know when a zombie is near by just hearing. And even if you can't see so far, you see far enough to spot zombie.
You can deny it totally be picking up glasses from a Zed an wear them
I'm surprised that u didn't mentioned lucky. It's so cheap and useful.
Also I like using the +10 underweight thing with the -6 athletic one. Since they both cancel it other it's just +4 points (I personally prefer being slim at the beginning since it's much easier to become more fat than the other way around).
i feel like a lot of zed encounters that could go wrong dont because i've got lucky on. so many instances of minor scratches and lacerations where my mates got bites.
@@justjazz784 that might be thin skinned for them. Lucky is more finding a fire ute with three axes in the back.
@@The_Custos yea it was me taking a hefty amount of copium because i didnt know what Lucky actually did hahahaha i had just started playing PZ when I typed that up.
I'm pretty sure all Lucky does is show you the second hidden inventory in loot containers. It doesn't have anything to do with any other metric and the game. That coupled with the fact they removed it from multiplayer pretty much nerfed it.
@@EmeraldPangolin the lucky trait just makes it more likely to spawn better rare loot like saws and machetes when you open containers it doesn't show any "second hidden inventory". the stashes in the floorboards of some houses can be opened without the lucky trait if that's what you mean, you just need to look at the list of icons of shelves and stuff in the looting menu on the right and notice when the stash icon shows up and click it open or look for tampered looking floorboards manually
Last build I used Graceful and Inconspicuous. I couldn't notice a difference
He's made vids about these two. Graceful is useful while Inconspicuous/Conspicuous are damn near the same in practice
Burger flipper is another notable profession imo, even if only for the bonus maintenance xp gain, with little cost
pairs great with hunter
for me shortsighted isnt really that bad. you still can see zombies distance away that you can still avoid
I've never noticed an issue myself. I always pick it for sure.
Short sighted actually doesn't reduce vision of zombies, it only increases zombie fade and foraging radius, which makes it free points.
Claustrophobic is a really funny trait to have in multiplayer.
My friends made a SMP & we have about 8 guys on a rural farm. They all have rooms in the farmhouse & I live in the barn.
While they go out to towns on looting runs, I spend my time; Foraging, cooking, trapping, cutting trees down & upgrading carpentry. Highly recommended.
What do you think of outdoorsman?
It's very easy to avoid catching the cold without it, so unless you are actually living outdoors and refuse to use fires/car heaters I don't really see a point. Maybe if you use the sandbox setting "very cold" to make it always freezing. I'm currently doing december runs with that setting to test out if I actually get sick or not.
I like the carpentry profession if my character dies and I have to make up for the lost life and living xp to build water barrels, but outside that niche case I think burglar or unemployed are both very strong choices. In the end what you go for really depends on what your plans/needs are.
i still remember old time, getting Cowardly + Claustrophobic + Agoraphobic as debuff.
and Adrenaline Junkie with lot of fitness... it really make the character run insane fast= = on some server u dont require sleep so this build was broken
i tend to always pick smoker and alcoholic with that better traits mod. they are both easily managed and i've never really had to ration the good/bad stuff.
cat eyes and dexterious are my go to perks, but ever since you showed it off restful is gonna be my go to perk now.
i once tried restless sleeper...what a nightmare.
Restless sleeper isn't so bad if you take wakeful. You just need to keep going back to sleep until it says 'Not tired' rather than 'can't get back to sleep right now'. You just need something to do at night while waiting, like read, prep food, excercise or organize your junk.
Will you be making another of this type of vid for the newer patches?
Fun fact:underweight removes one fitness and gives 6 points, and fit cost 6 points while giving 2 fitness. Underweight is the only weight trait that doesn't limit fitness/strength traits
Also lumberjack gang
imo construction worker is the most overpowered profession, having 3 short blunt points in the start helps a lot since you find short blunt weapons pretty much everywhere (tool cabinets, garages, kitchens, sheds, etc.) (keep in mind you get the 125% XP bonus), combine this with fast learner and brave (panic reduces crit chance) you will be one hitting zombies constantly with hammers or pipes and it doesn't take much time to get short blunt lvl. 7 (thats when it starts to get really OP) + since the short blunt weapons are one handed you will have a free hand to carry screwdrivers (dismantle watches and other electronics) or carry a suitcase (best handheld bag in the game)
Why is the suitcase the best handheld bag and not stuff like a other duffel bag or hicking bag or even military backpack?
you can hold any bag in your hand, so the biggest bag in the game is the best hand held bag.
The basic traits you take: whatever YOURS are.
Wakeful is just too good to be true. I almost never get tired even when doing tiring tasks.
Gonna try that one next, getting tired is death in PZ.
@@nerfherder4284 carry 2-4 tea bags at all times. they weigh barely anything and they can keep you fighting if the chopper overruns your base or something and you need to fight at night
With security guard it’s insane. You have to set an alarm or your character sleeps for hours past necessary.
There is a glitch I accidently found that allows you to select All Thumbs twice (I'll explain how to I did later). I'm not sure if it sums the two traits or if the game counts them as one, but it does give you the double of points.
To do the glitch, do as it follows:
-Change the game language to Brazilian Portuguese
-Create a new character
You'll notice that the traits All Thumbs and Clumsy have both the same name (Desastrado)
-Select Clumsy
-Remove Clumsy
Now the All Thumbs trait should appear. If that doesn't work, go to the personalization menu (with Clumsy selected) and then go back to the trait menu. Then, try again.
(obs.: I'm not sure if it works anymore but it happened to me once)
(obs.2: you can't select Clumsy with this glitch)
with claustrophobic all you need is 1/4 of any alcoholic drink to be able to sleep the night in any sized room. raid a bar or liquor store, take a bunch of bourbon and wine, pour it into a tumbler or wine glass, and drink 1/4 of your drink per night. sleeping pills and beta blockers also work
Wish I could give this video like 100,000 more views. This is invaluable information that's right to the point.
Mechanic doesn't cost 4 points, it costs 12 points and the inability to pick another occupation, since you start out with 8 points.
Maxing out maintenance with repairman profession and handy (+125%) is a must have to every playthrough. I get so annoyed constantly breaking weapons...especially spears, which are my ideal weapon. I put hunting knives kn spears with high maintenance to make sure they last as long as possible (plus hunting knife spear does more damage and crit, killing faster, meaning less swings which also implicitly prolongs spear life)
personally i go with handy man + fire officer, that way i can still take underweight and have 9 fitness but also still get maintenance boost.
I though the Subscribe notification that popped up was an error when you went to sleep, tripped me out.
I can't play without organized and fast learner anymore.
Weak full can be a really pain in ass if you plan to level up your fitnes and strenght. Like you said its increas time you need to recover from traning. As result you train more faster, its good right? No as result you can reach point when half of next day you are in agony and cant work at muscel, as result your progres is slower.
I like outdoorsman cause i hate having to just stay inside when it rains. Other than that and wakeful i just try and get as much str and fitness as i can because i hate trying to level those. Every time i get to a point in a game where i try and really commit to leveling them i always get bored and stop playing.
My character don't get wet that fast. I guess the clothes she's wearing is quite water proof.
Even so, another rain day is another reading day to me.
Also, I hate leveling so I put exp gain x10.
Thanks for this. I've heard conflicting info about permanent handicaps with the weight traits and was wondering if it's true. From what I understand obese/very underweight is -2 fitness that can't be regained...
You can exercise them back, but fitness doesn't come back just because you gained/lost weight.
@@Retanaru TY
Hey I remember people always saying that its not worth it to take *Desensitized* or *Brave* because eventually in game given enough time or kill enough zombies and you'll be inmune to panic, is that true? I never thought it actually works like that, at best I think your character just recovers from panic moodles faster. There always has been misinformation about panic, I think cowardly actually makes it so you never recover faster from the panic moodle. You wanna test that out?
I believe by the end of 3 months you are no longer really panicked by zombies and would have to quickly spot 10+ to actually panic. I'll test cowardly eventually, but the only time I'd ever take it is in combo with adrenaline junkie so perma panic would be the goal.
I have started taking cowardly in my runs, but 2 points aren't really worth it. Keep dying at day 8-9 lately from trying to get too much done too quickly.
@@Retanaru I'm pretty sure panic gain dont change, only how fast you drop your panic, and its quite amazingly big difference. Spotting zed give you panic spike, so with cowardly it will be always super high spike, only change will be how fast it will drop.
I think it depends on the amount of zeds u kill to add those traits (I play modded so idk if it works in vanilla so if im wrong my badXD) i once ran with a brave character and killed 1000 zeds and got the desensitized perk, without brave it took 500 to become brave and if u have cowardly, it takes 500 zed kills to remove the trait.
@@GreenieBoi9 you cant get desentized in vanillia if you didnt pick it in character creation, its mod probably more traits or there was second one i dont remember name
Thanks. Ive been taking herbalist not knowing you can just read a magazine for the same benefits
*Professions*
I can't believe you skipped over *Repairman* profession. This awards +1 Carpentry (meh), +1 short blunt and +3 Maintenance. This is great if one plans on maining short blunt weapons like the griddle pan, or lead pipe, which have high knock back, and knock down chance - but what makes the profession _really_ OP is the +125% boost one gets for leveling maintence. Starting at -4 points, this profession effectively costs _less_ than the _Handy_ (+1 Carpentry + Maintenance +8 points) trait alone.
Using your example build given @2:36 we can now swap out Handy giving +4 points to use on other traits. The only downside is the loss of _Axeman_ profession trait, and starting with a weapon at +1 instead of +2. However, the +4 points could be used to swap out _Stout_ (+2 Strength -6 points) for _Strong_ (+4 Strength -10 points) putting starting Strength at 9 (5 + 4), instead of 8 (5 + 1+ 2) - which more than makes up for the downside.
Incidentally, _Axeman_ only gives a +25% faster axe swing; it _does not_ increase damage as you state @3:20. The percieved damage increase actually comes from the +1 Strength the *Lumberjack* profession gives.
*Metalworker* is another great profession, as this gives one a whopping +3 in Metalworking, unarguable the hardest skill to level in the game. Like Carpentry, this skill has recipes that only unlock at higher levels, but unlike Carpentry, there are no TV Shows, or VHS to speed up the process. This is, however the _only_ benefit of the profession besides knwoing the recipes, and the whopping -6 starting points is an unfair trade off IMO. Still a great profession, just one that gets screwed over in balance.
*Negative Traits*
_Slow Healer_ (+6 points) is a terrible trait choice, as ones performance is impacted heavily by health conditions. You are effectively making a bad situation (being injured) worse by choosing this trait - probably worse than _Thin Skinned_ (+8 points) at the cost of potentially being injured more often - which you can at least negate by wearing armour - and would award another 2 points to spend.
I agree with most of the other negative trait choices (although Smoker (+4 points) is an iffy choice at best, as while technically free points can be annoying to maintain - this trait just gives you one more moodle need to fulfil, and search for cigarrettes. A far better alternative to _Smoker_ would be _High Thirst_ (+6 points) which can easily be negated simply by carrying 2 bottles of water with you instead of one. One also has an extra 2 points to spend with this trait.
Other options which could be either swapped out, or included for exta points are:
_Slow Reader_ (+2 points) Reading can be time-skipped making this essentially free points, and once one has read all the necessary books this trait has no impact at all.
_Short Sighted_ (+2 points) can easily be negated by wearing glasses, or reading glasses - although they may fall off when successfully attacked.
_Disorganized_ (30% capacity loss for inventory, and containers +4 points) which only really has an impact very early game, when one only has their inventory and is not much of an issue in the long run.
_Hearty Eater_ (+4 points) is the food based version of _High Thirst_ but is a little harder to compensate for, since easy water is essentailly infinate; but easy food is finite, and one needs to fish, hunt, farm or forage to maintain the supply.
*Positive Traits*
I agree that _Gymnast_ (+1 Lightfooted +1 Nimble -5 points) is great for any profession other than OP *Burglar* which has _Burglar_ (+2 Lightfooted +2 Nimble +2 Sneaking) _Hotwiring_ without need for +1 Electrical and +2 Mechancial; and less likely to break window locks, so no issues here.
I also agree that _Herbalist_ (-6 points) is a waste, since there is no benefit other than unlocking recipes which can easily be found in game.
_Cats Eyes_ (-2 points) for slightly better night vision, and _Dextrous_ (-2 Points) are situationally useful - the former for games where night is set to Dark - in which case, for SP just _do not set it to dark lol_ and the latter for, as you mentioned fast-robbing corpses in precarious situations. The same applies to _Adreniline Junkie_ (-8) and again, this only affects MP, since simply not setting sprint on SP negates any need for this expensive trait.
_Keen Hearing_ (-6 points) is actually awesome, and probably a better "must have" trait than all your picks, barring Gymnast to which it is on par - but you neglected to mention the reason why. In addition to having 200% perception radius, this trait also prevents zeds sneaking up behind you, as they become visible before they can do so. The back is ones main weak point, and this trait protects that.
The benefit of the trait _Ametuer Mechanic_ (+1 Mechanic -5 points) is not the unlocked recipes, but the +75% XP boost it awards. It is still a little expensive, but it is also the only way one can obtain this boost when playing a profession that is not the *Mechanic*
_Fast Learner_ (-6 points) is kinda expensive for what amounts to a 30% experience increase in all skills (barring Fitness and Strength) when more than half of the skills dont't require higher levels to benefit from. Simply choosing a profession or trait that awards even +1 in a useful skill gives +75%, which outclasses _Fast Learner_ by more than double. A skill r occupation which has +2 gives +100% (more than triple) and 3 gives +125% (more than quadriple).
The only real benefit of _Fast Learner_ is the abilty to boost skills that otherwise have no option to boost available, such as _Long Blade_ but for everything else, there is a better, cheaper option.
Gotta say, I also don't rate _Wakeful_ (-2 points) that great either. IME all this grants is 30% less sleep required daily. This was quickly screw over your characters sleep schedule, as they become out of sync with the standard day/night pattern. It does not have an impact on stamina regen (other than what is regenerated during sleep) so IMO not worth the -2 points that could be better spent elsewhere.
As for the tratis you arbitrarily deemed "uninteresting" - most of them are +1 to a skill with it's associated +75% boost which is always a good choice if one intents to main that weapon, or focus on that skill. Some, such as _Brawler_ (+1 Axe +1 Long Blunt -6 points) are a little janky, but if one intends on maining two weapons, I guess it could is worthwhile given that _Baseball Player_ (+1 Long Blunt) is almost as expensive with less value*.
Another good mentione is _Speed Demon_ (-1 point) that while kinda meh, is still worth taking if you have 1 point left over that would otherwise go to waste - which happens often. A small issue here is while it increases the top speed of vehicles, and reversing is faster, the engine is also also louder while at top speed, and reversing which can attract zeds.
*This is not to say that _Baseball Player_ is a bad trait - it is still good as an the cheaper option for Long Blunt. _Brawler_ is also the only way one can access the 75% to axes when choosing a profession that does not have the trait included.
Hope you make a new one like this soon!
"it's about being the best and not the fun factor"
gonna be honest, i can't agree. i don't enjoy min-maxing in games and prefer a balance between what i like and what's useful. in this case i wouldn't ever touch the phobia perks because i don't like dealing with panic and want to be able to fight zombies efficiently from the get-go. there were some good tips in here tho, like wakeful and cat's eyes being really good for their price
i can agree that smoker is easy to manage with few drawbacks but damn smoker is such an annoying trait to deal with
I only started taking claustrophobic because I was looking for a trait to replace smoker.
@@maxwellhere1430 you don't really run out of lighters either if you are a good fighter and especially not if you use the powerful lucky trait.
@@Keragom How is lucky actually helpful in terms of finding lighters? It only unlocks a hidden loot table and 10% increase in finding rare loot. Lighters are not rare loot.
@@maxwellhere1430 In that case, you don't run out of lighters in any way if you are a good fighter.
I am not 100% sure how it's coded. But technically lighters are indeed rare loot on zombie bodies so I thought it worked that way.
Having unlimited lighters is just my personal game experience. Living casually for 1year+ on apocalypse + insane population settings and lighters are never a problem to get by and so are cigarettes.
@@maxwellhere1430 Killing every zombie you run into is pretty much the meta of the game right now. No matter the population settings. I kill around 3000 zombies per month on average and never struggle with either of these 2 loot items.
Zombies indeed dont drop lighters ofte, but if you kill a thousand zombies in a week, you usually get 2 or 3 lighters and you definitely didnt use 1 lighter up in that week so you should end up net positive in the end.
Herbalist gives a 0.2 sight radius to foraging, as well as 15% bonus to medicinal plants, and 5% bonus to wild plants, herbs, crops, berries and mushrooms. It's not "worthless", neither are some other skills that seems worthless like Former Scout, which also gives 0.7 sight radius, -13% weather effect and other bonuses.
These all stack and can get to the max foraging sight radius of 15 without aiming or crouching, which is very strong in the late game where points in strength can be mitigated by exercising. You can become stronger, you can't grow better eyesight.
This looks pretty niche to a spear or forest survivor build, having a little better eyesight doesn't help rip off zombies' heads
Athletic, Organized, Stout, Gymnast, Faster Learner
Veteran
Weak Stomach, Thirsty, Smoker, Pacifist, Underweight, Hearty Appetite
I think thats all thats needed but I’d have to check again I may have a more negative traits
Lots of room for guns and ammo, still get a 2x boost on gun skills at the cost of melee levels. Never panicked, plenty of stamina, and two other manageable weak traits.
I managed to eat myself from very uw to just uw, but I remain at three fitness. So I got more melee damage and less tripping chance, but my fitness remains low?
Yes. The cost of the negative trait is that you actually have to train your fitness or spend points on positive fitness traits.
I've been trying some six month later recently, and I've really gotten a liking for burglar + hunter. Takes a lot of points, but you get great sneaking (with the massive hordes I've been able to level to 5-6 within a couple days, making you basically invisible) and hunter actually gives all the trap recipes ( of course the tip doesn't tell you this) which I have trouble finding as my strategy revolves around being in a very remote location, due to the difficulty of killing the massive number of zombies.
If you get to a remote enough location, you can survive off of traps, sporadic fishing, and foraging for supplies (since you can't find food in the winter). Recommend if you're looking for a change of pace
im curious if they add a bow skill and bows to the game if hunter would be reworked to give + bow skill... i really hope they add bows when they add in animals and hunting.
I'm a big fan of graceful and inconspicuous with sneaking builds like burglar, hunter.
@@Valchrist1313 as of right now inconspicuous is a complete waste of skillpoints... it has almost no effect and your better using the points elsewhere...
this might change eventually as the proffession/trait system is being rebalanced in the next update alongside AI..
@@arcanumelite4853 I find it very useful for splitting up mobs.
@@Valchrist1313 thats the thing though... the effect of the trait has almost no noticeable effect its been proven to do almost nothing... any effect you think is happening is only in your head... the trait really doesn't do much at all...
but again... im sure alot of the traits will change once they do the rebalance.
my current character who has
slow learner, homephobic, high appetite, and high thrist (among others)
ive made... questionable choices
I tend to grab both the obese and the unfit trait, because obease you can just eat less in the beginning when you are starting out and loose weight and if you don't take unfit you'll auto have it because of obese. and if you level up fitness to i think 5 then the unfit will go away and if you lose weight for obese that will obv go away too
For some reason I can’t see prone to illness and slow healer traits, why is that?
Whats wrong with going underweight and athletic and having 8 fitness? That's still a lot of fitness. Are you saying you don't get the bonus from fitness if you don't have at least 9 fitness?
Yes, you don't get the endurance loss bonus if you are below 9 fitness
need a violent perk thats just "They kinda want to fight" kinda thing. .
I dunno if this is from dynamic trait mod or vanilla but smoker is basically run killer in ccda or six month later if u don't get lucky with cigarettes early.. since being anxious make u drench and ur cold will only got worse..
after your latest video, do you still recommend using lumberjak?
It's still good for what it is, you'll still be the best with axes until everyone hits 10 skill (and most people die way before then). Fire officer with athletic looking mighty tasty though.
A few other negative traits that most people consider to be "free points":
High Thirst: You can find water everywhere
Clumsy: Just use stealth
Short sighted: All it does is reduce camera pan range, big deal
Thin-skinned: Well worth the risk for 8 points
Slow Reader: I personally don't like this but most veteran players seem to like it
Personally, I also like to take Hard of Hearing (wear decent headphones and be keen of hearing in real life and you won't get caught off guard) and hearty appetite (food is pretty easy to come by as well)
Also, Axe Man DOES NOT increase your axe damage! All it does is increase your tree chopping speed
Axe man increases your axe attack speed along with the tree chopping speed mate.
The damage buff comes from the 2 levels and XP boost in Axe skill.
I personally prefer fire officer too though.
@@Keragom Hm, you're right, it is a bit faster, my bad... I guess I didn't notice the difference when I tried it
As for the damage, he specifically said "...2 axe skill *and* the Axe Man trait *which* increases your damage with axes"
@@brotherzero
Yeah yeah, you are perfectly right with that criticism. He did falsely claim that the axe man trait increases damage with axes while it specifically only increases attack speed of them.
Good hearing increases your detection radius, letting you 'see' behind you. I always take it.
I always take Sunday driver because I don’t drive much in zomboid and it prevents me from crashing a lot
What about organized? I think it is a really good trait since literally every container gains extra space for the whole game, which can stack up for every container, backpack, trunk etc that you might use.
just started to play and i was so tired of watching videos which explain stuff so slowly and vaguely. You my guy are the best there is: All skill explained, best build and what you could do in under 4 min.
I don't like the smoking trait. It means from the start of the game to the end you always need to worry about: Having cigarettes on you, having a lighting method, looting & storing those items, and having to smoke. And even though they are light, they still add some weight. That entire trait feels like a shore, a shore that I can never escape.
Take extra strength with the points you get from smoker, they weigh almost nothing and a fire starting method should be in your survival kit anyway. It is annoying though.
Yeah and because it is annoying and I hate cigarretes in real life, for me, smoker is by far, the worst trait in Project Zomboid.
every time i take the smoker trait i can never find any smokes
I enjoy smoking in real life, I've always got an abundance of smokes in game and it brings me satisfaction to have a puff after a busy day killing zombies. Different strokes for different folks.
Since smoker is considered free points to many atm, I'd like to see it made more punishing. On the other hand, that'd hopefully include a withdrawal mechanic, so quitting could provide a difficult but worth it challenge for long-term survivors.
What if I take Herbalist because I want to make a wildman build and I keep getting unlucky with finding herbalist magazines?