Debuffers - The Rarely Seen and Sometimes Broken Class (Patreon)

We will continue our series with a class of survivor that I use, and I have not yet seen anyone else employ to a serious degree. I've written a bit about this one in the past, so you'll probably recognise some of the concepts, however this is where I'll put all of the concepts and tools together in one place.

Debuffing is a style of play where you make the foes you are attacking weaker rather than strengthening/protecting yourself or your team (buffing). Buffing is something traditionally done by 'support' survivors in KD:M, and debuffing can be considered to be the opposite. This style of play has been a staple of many MMO and RPG style games, but it can also be put together in KD:M.

There are a number of different kinds of 'debuff' effects available to the survivors and I'll walk you through each of them in turn.

Stat decreases:

Inflicted primarily by arrows (Claw HEad, Hollowpoint) and Fetorsaurus, these items directly reduce the monsters stats permanently.

Permanent Injuries:

Inflicted by some critical wounds, this style of play has some risk to it because certain monsters become more dangerous once the permanent injury Hit Location cards are removed from the deck. This style is typically demonstrated by axe masters, but critical hit DPS + hit location manipulation can do the same thing.

AI manipulation

Mentioned in the Support and Tank discussions, AI manipulation is a huge 'hidden' form of debuffing. Currently it is employed by clubs, Rawhide Headbands and the Blue Ring. 

Knockdown

This was one of the primary ways that high level monsters were rinsed very quickly, knockdowns remove all reactions from the monster. While the Indomitable trait has reduced the effectiveness of this, it still remains very powerful. The Pulse Lantern is one way this is done, Grand Weapon Specialisation also has a simple way to do it.

So most survivors debuff monsters in one way or another, and you could call every class a hybrid debuffer. But as in all cases in KD:M if you build a single, specific survivor to do the job then you will benefit more from it and in order to understand how this works, we will look at some of the items and styles you can employ in more detail.

The first one we will examine is the simplest version of this survivor class. 

The Debuffing Archer

A DPS/Debuff hybrid, the Debuffing Archer requires access to the Dragon King to fully unlock it's potential. This is because you are going to combine arrows that cause stat decreases with the Shielded Quiver to double stack things. Here's the quiver alongside one of the arrows so you can get an idea how it works.

As you can see, with this combo you get to hit twice with a relatively accurate item and inflict -2 movement to the monster. That might not seem like a lot, but KD:M is a game of 'break point' numbers, if you debuff a monster down to 4 movement, then it's going to become 'kiteable'. In other words, when it targets a survivor with a Move & Attack action you can Dash faster than it can chase after you, which will cause the monster's attack to fail - against high speed monster attacks this is more effective than Dodging/Blocking.

The range of debuff effects we have on arrows at the moment is somewhat limited. Currently there is:

Claw Head Arrow: -1 Evasion on hit (Basically +1 Accuracy to every survivor)

Hollowpoint Arrow: -1 Movement on hit (as above)

Dragon Bite Bolt: Knockback 5 on wound (Sadly it's only 6 strength, same issue most DK stuff has)

The other arrows are designed around dealing damage, so we're pretty much at the limit of what you can do with an Archer when debuffing. So if you're going this route, it is more likely that your Archer will be an Archer/DPS hybrid.

Additionally, it is important to hit with this items, because if you miss then you are going to lose the effect, these arrows are once per showdown. So anything that gives extra accuracy is huge, the Sunstalker is fantastic for this, because the Sunshark Bow is close range (therefore it encourages you to use it in the blind spot) and the Sunspot Lantern + Cycloid Scale Armor gives + Accuracy buffs. So keep an eye out for ways of increasing your accuracy if you want to go this route.

However, before we move on, it is absolutely vital to point out that each survivor can have their own set of Bow + Shielded Quiver + Arrows. So you can build multiples of these and stack their effects. 2-3 survivors with Claw Heads + Hollowpoints is going to trivialise just about every single monster in the game. There are very few monsters who can remain a threat when their movement is dropped by 4 or more.

Utility Debuffer

So a Utility Debuffer is a more pure version of this class, they are going to be very similar in that they will work like a Support survivor, wearing little to no armor a lot of the time (Crystal Skin and Leyline Walkers rock for this) and sometimes not even using a weapon (depends on the player).

If you are going to use a weapon the choices tend to be Grand Weapons, Skullcap Hammer + Timeless Eye or Riot Mace (Gorm) in a hybrid DPS build. However you can also do this with an Axe Master in the late game, they will just hold their attacks until the Persistent Injuries turn up and then swing for an easy Persistent.

The list of items you can use here is very wide, so I'll just bullet point them with a sentence or two on each:

Silk Turban (Spidicules): Turning the Monster to face away can limit the number of targets it has, because Field of View attacks exclude the blind spot.

Blue Ring (Spidicules): I've written about this in other articles. It's better for a Tank/Debuffer hybrid.

Pulse Lantern (Gorm): This knocks down the monster (4+ roll), at the cost of a -1 accuracy token for everyone. This is best employed during the monster's flow step on its turn with a surge (as it cancels the AI card also) and then it gives everyone an almost free turn of bashing on the monster with no reactions. Does not work vs. Spidicules and is weaker vs. Indomitable L3+ monsters (but still good).

Gaxe (Gorm): This one is both an Axe (for Axe Masters) and it has a debuff ability that inflicts -1 evasion on it's first critical hit per showdown. Sadly it does not have deadly and its strength is only 4.

Dragon Chakram (Dragon King): You have to hit with this one to generate -1 evasion onto the monster for just the round in question. Unfortunately the weapon is a Thrown Weapon (no mastery, boo Poots, BOO!) and it has low strength & range, so using it can often hurt you badly when the monster reacts. 

Beetle Bomb (DBK): This one is expensive and unreliable, but it's a huge effect. It gives the monster -1 accuracy and -1 evasion. That's a big swing, especially when stacked with other evasion effects. Minus accuracy is very powerful when inflicted on the monster, only minus damage is more potent (and we don't have an item that does that at the moment because it would be broken).

Slender Ovule (Slender man): Subtracting luck from the monster is the equivalent of giving everyone else a boost to their own luck and this rare Phoenix/Slenderman based unique item is one of the only ways to do it.

Fecal Salve/Cycloid Scale Shoes (Organ Grinder/Sunstalker): Both of these items allow you to stop being a threat until you attack. If you are doing funky debuff things then you're not going to be attacking. Therefore these items allow you to do your work in peace without too much of a threat.  In a similar fashion you can also employ the Bloom Sphere from the Phoenix to limit the amount of times you get targeted. This is very useful because it reduces the need to spend slots on armor.

I've already touched on the AI manipulation form of debuffing in the tank and support articles, so I won't go over it again here. Just remember that it's an option.

 So there we have it! The Debuffer. Now as you can see, at the moment this class isn't deep enough to provide a real full class build outside of archery, it's generally going to be hybridised build (Support/Debuff is very common) or even spread across other members of the hunt party. But as the game grows in size and more expansions turn up, debuffers may move more to the forefront of the game, allowing parties to become even more specialised with just 1 DPS, 1 Support, 1 Tank and 1 Debuffer.

Either way, I hope this article has given you inspiration to re-evaluate the various ways you can weaken the monster without just straight beating it to death!