Did nothing but level up Survivalist from 0 to 25 and thoughts

[Ghost Man]

For 4 days I did nothing but level up this perk just to see how viable the perk is at certain areas. These are the results.

Experiment done on Hard mode for Multiplayer with Solo play for higher difficulties

Skills used: R L L R L
Heavy weapons training
Medic Training
Ammo Vest
Make things go boom
Madman

Weapons used. These are my preferred weapons, you are free to chose your own.

Winchester as intern trash killing weapon. 1 shots trash to the head but does take 2 headshots for Gorefiend and 3 headshots for Bloat

Boomstick as intern power weapon. Kills Scrakes with 5-6 alt shots if Solo killing on 6 Man Hard

M4 as high tier trash killing weapon. Fast and powerfull shots can kill most trash in 1 body shot and Gorefiend and Bloats with one well aimed headshot. Also great for Scrakes

RPG as high tier power weapon. Takes 3 shots to kill a 6 Man Hard Fleshpound and 2 for Quarterpound. 4-5 Shots to kill a Scrake.

SOLO is fine to play as long as you choose the correct weapons and skills. I did get the Hellish Survivalist achievement as a result. Note starting on Suicidal Scakes take 2 RPG bodyshots to kill but M4 will decapitate them fast with successive headshots.

MULTIPLAYER: If you really want to play Survivalist in this mode, then my recommendation is to stick to 6 Man Hard mode as playing on Higher difficulties will very difficult and also you will get flamed and kicked out of the game the moment you try to join a Suicidal and up game.
Reasons: Even with at max level, it take quite a significant ammount of ammunition to take down Scrakes and Fleshpounds on 6 Man Sucidial and up games. Even with RPG and M4 and your trash killing role are usual superceded by perks dedicated to killing trash and big Zeds.

Personally I don't discriminate against Survivalist on higher difficulties in Multiplayer but I don't reccomend it as it will be a pain to fight. But if you are on server that does tolerate Survivalist. Always carry a medic weapon be ready to kill trash only. Leave the big Zeds to the Perks dedicated to killing them. But if you are on 6 Man Hard or the Boss wave. Then by all means grab yourself an RPG and whatever weapon that's good for killing with you and possibly a medic weapon if no Medic shows up. You'll be surprised about the amount of times I went to a Hard game and there wasn't a medic at all.

Changes to see to Survivalist:
For Level 5 skills, Make a global weapon reload perk bonus instead of placing it on select perk weapons. It really sucks if you spawn in a Solo or Multiplayer game and your starting weapon does not benefit from your chosen skill and as there is no way to change your skills during a wave. It's basically a gamble of luck at that point. Harsh if you spawn with a culk and burn or a shovel as there is no reload benefits for Firebug or Medic weapons. In return for replacing level 5 skills, add increase damage to select perk weapons that stack with global weapon damage as new level 5 skills. Be sure to add Firebug and Medic to this as well.

For Level 10 skills. I'd say they very solid for a non perk Medic or Berserker though I would like to see an increase in Syringe recharge rate. As is somewhat slow stil compared to a max level Medic's recharge rate. Also consider putting movement speed increase in the perk bonuses area adding some more Berserker traits to Berserker skill.

For Level 15 skills, As said before, relying on luck is not the best idea and since this is a perk for anything, then it should be allowed to choose what role you want. As for Grenades, I find it very inconvieniet that we lose our HE grenades at level 15, which is good for killing Fleshpounds, and get a Molotov that heavily damages you if caught in it or a healing grenade, which I prefer the most since Im forced to use it. Though the extra carry weight is nice for more weapons and upgrades. So keep that for future rework. So add something new when replacing grenade replacement portions.

For Level 20, Spontaneous Zedsplosion is just like Firebug's Zed Shrapenel. Luck based and not reliable. Replace it with something more convieneint. Boom is fine as is.

For Level 25, keep Madman and I have yet to evaluate Lockdown properly. I'll check it out sometime later.

Verdict: Survivalist is an interesting and fun perk to play with. Just not a good perk for Sucidal and Hell on Earth Multiplayer games. But still very do-able on Solo games for Higher difficulties. We are told that Survivalist will get a rework in the future, hopefully sometime in 2019, and with that change we should have more new perks coming into the game once the new Survivalist has been approved for play.

[GnomeDompski]

That says more about the build than Survivalist as a whole. I regularly played survivalist on an increased zed, increased difficulty server. I can definitely see trouble with using the RPG paired with an M4. Saying you got regularly kicked is suprising since being kicked or told to change my perk has been a rare occurence.

[Ant Ra]

I have never played Survivalist as a killer class but always as support, means assistant class.

That is what the freezethrower, the crossbow, seeker 6 and/or a rifle like the cheap winchester are for as example. But definetely not a weapon like the RPG or the Boomstick. This are specialists tools in need for perk skills. - Upgraded weapons are significant and an obligation.

Molotovs as high damaging and zed disturbing throwing weapon. Always "melee expert" for 25% runspeed and fast melee attacks if needed. The live saver..
With "make things go boom" the seeker 6 will never have a missing rocket. With "lockdown" the crossbow will be a fury.

Performing a supportive playstyle all difficulty levels are playable and effective... and fun of course.

[randomselect]

survivalist can hardly reach the levels of dmg output of other perks, but a lot of people still try to compare it on those terms. his strenght lies in versatility and defense. so i could see how people wont like them much on MP.

but as for kiting he is very strong, personally i like using him with medic grenades+melee, that speed is very very good+KF1 nostalgia, my guess its potentially better than medic skill. but the loss of the weight carry still hurts.

some other good weapons are the SPX, SCAR, M14, railgun, Evicerator even if it was nerfed.

[GnomeDompski]

Originally posted by randomselect:

survivalist can hardly reach the levels of dmg output of other perks, but a lot of people still try to compare it on those terms. his strenght lies in versatility and defense. so i could see how people wont like them much on MP.

but as for kiting he is very strong, personally i like using him with medic grenades+melee, that speed is very very good+KF1 nostalgia, my guess its potentially better than medic skill. but the loss of the weight carry still hurts.

some other good weapons are the SPX, SCAR, M14, railgun, Evicerator even if it was nerfed.

While true, it only limits how good some weapons are when used on survivalist. Many perks have overkill damage output for general play. If survivalist does 30% less damage, but both perks can still kill most zeds in 1 shot, then is it a big deal? Yes, but only in a few cases such as big zed killing, which I would say is where Survivalist should be supporting and not trying to replace a big zed killer. I would rather a trash killing Survivalist with an Evicerator support me against a Fleshpound than a trash killing Swat tickle that Fleshpound.