Surviving the bayou inHunt: Showdownis a difficult feat in itself. Most of your hunters won’t survive long enough to level up at all. Those that do return leave you with an important decision: what traits to give them.
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There is a staggering total of 51 traits in Hunt to pick from. Some of them share similar effects to help you specialize in certain weapons. Others are unique effects that improve your hunter’s performance with tools, their stealth, or endurance. Even with so many choices there are a few staples that are always good, and others that arebuild-specific.This list has the ones you should know.
10Scopesmiths
There are three scopesmith perks in Hunt: Showdown, one for every length of scope. They all enable you to remain scoped in after firing a shot. While only a small change, its use can make the difference between a wound and a down.
Normally, when using scoped weapons with more than one loaded round, you leave the scope sight in order to cycle your next round. At a distance, this can make you lose sight of your target. Scopesmiths help you keep sight and improve your rate of fire.
9Pack Mule
Pack Mule increases the number of tools gained when looting a toolbox or enemy player from one to two. When looting, you can be rewarded with a random consumable or a refill for some of your tools. These methods are the only way to refill those supplies during a hunt, so doubling that gain is effective to double your resources.
Having more grenades makes you more dangerous in a fight. Placing more traps hinders other hunters' ability to attack you. Having more first-aid kits means more health for you and your team. Whatever gains you see through Pack Mule go directly to how effective you can be.
8Lightfoot
Stealth is a huge advantage in Hunt. Finding someone before they find you lets you launch a critical surprise attack on your enemy. Most fights can be ended in just a few seconds if you can get the drop on your target.
Lightfoot helps you do this by quieting your character’s movement as they vault fences and climb ladders. While this may seem niche at first, most fights take place within mid-to-close range inside compounds. Often there are physical barriers to entering these places that you need to climb over. You can always go around, but this can take more time and put you in a compromising position.
Lightfoot will let you reach better ground without alerting your enemy.
Consumables and tools can change the dynamic of a firefight for or against you. A good grenade will wipe out an enemy team, and a bad one will wipe out yours. Pitcher helps you use your ordnance better by increasing your throwing distance for all throwable items.
A range increase is one obvious benefit, and that one benefit leads to another: safety. Because you don’t have to move into a throwing position, you limit the amount of time you spend exposing yourself to enemy fire. Limiting your own exposure to danger is key to keeping yourself alive in Hunt.
6Frontiersman
Tools offer a wide variety of utilities. You can have traps for setting up a defense, decoys for misleading opponents, and choke bombs for dousing fires. Tools are also your most reliable method for healing, through the first aid kit, and melee weapons in the forms of knives and knuckle dusters.
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Frontiersman increases the number of charges you have for each tool by one. Excluding things that are a single item, like a knife or a spyglass, one more use for your tools can go a long way. It’s more useful for critical items like your first aid kit, but overall, it’s just a convenient quality-of-life boost.
5Necromancer
When playing as a team, Necromancer is one of the best tools you can have. Having a teammate drop puts you on the back foot in any engagement. Reviving them should be one of your highest priorities, right behind keeping yourself alive.
If a teammate went down in the open, or across an area with no cover, reaching them during a fight can be so risky it’s impossible. Necromancer lets you revive from a 25-meter distance. It may cost some health, but rescuing a friend is worth it.
It wouldn’t be a proper western without the ability to fan the hammer on a revolver. Fanning turns your single-action revolver into rapid-fire monsters. At close range, you can dump your cylinder in seconds and there’s a good chance your enemies won’t survive.
It’s far from accurate, however. You’re firing from the hip with a one-handed weapon. While Fanning does let you fire quickly, not every firefight is improved by spraying your shots. You should be fast and controlled.
3Beastface
Sound is more important than sight in Hunt: Showdown. Gunshots can be heard anywhere on the map, and there are sound traps littered all over the bayou with the express purpose of giving away your location. The most common sound traps are animals.
Crows, ducks, dogs, and chickens will all start raising a ruckus the moment you startle them, and in the demon-infested bayou, it doesn’t take much for that to happen. Beastface shortens the distance and rate at which you startle wildlife. This helps you skirt their detection and lets you get where you want to go without everyone knowing it. Animals will still be alerted if you’re too close or loud near them, so the best defense is still your own caution.
There are dozens of ways to be injured in Hunt: Showdown, but you could count the healing methods available on your fingers alone. Doctor improves your first aid kit by doubling the amount of health it restores from 50 to 100. Given that some weapons can do up to 149 of your 150 health in one shot, improving your healing is essential.
Bringing a first aid kit on a hunt is just as essential as bringing your weapons, perhaps even more so. These kits have limited charges and refilling them isn’t guaranteed. Doctor both helps you conserve these charges and improves their effect when you need it.
1Physician
Getting injured during a firefight with enemy hunters is stressful. Chances are you’re already in danger and you’re looking for a place to hunker down and heal. When you do, enemy hunters are likely to press their advantage, putting more pressure on your teammates or charging you if you’re alone.
These situations are very common, and they’re why the physician trait is so important. Physician vastly quickens healing speed. It helps you get back into fighting shape faster, giving you those precious seconds that can make all the difference in a fight.
