What is the best stat to upgrade?

[SGK960]

Whic stat option is best to upgrade when starting of in game?

[Shurenai]

Tbh it's incredibly down to user preference. But general user sentiment is that Strength and Intelligence are OP in their own ways- For general playing, Strength is a better option between the two, as Int's combat style is weak early into the game.

General sentiment aside, Pick the main stat that has the weapon types you like most- Like shotguns? Go Strength. Prefer assault rifles? Go Fortitude. You're also honestly going to want to spread points around to pick up minor abilities sooner or later, so you'll end up with points in each tree, with your combat tree taking the lead.

That said, I personally have played at least one playthrough focused purely on each tree, and while their playstyles and approach are different, I never really felt any of them to be wanting. The way you have to play each tree IS different though.

[Mardoin69]

Exactly as Shurenai has said. It also kind of depends how new you are to 7d2d. If you're pretty new to it and unfamiliar with it's mechanics, you will probably have an easier start if you focus more on the strength tree....as Shurenai pointed out...it's a bit more 'op.' Otherwise, it completely depends on how you like building your character.

[Crashtian]

Strength for quality of life perks, Int for better questing and faster access to mid game crafting.

Ultimately it doesn't matter though, figure out which quality of life perk you like the best and start with that tree.

[Macdallan]

Completely depends on how you want to play, and whether or not you're playing solo. I usually want to be fairly self sufficient since I mostly play solo these days so I find that branching out into a few stats/perks fairly early is best.

When I solo I try to get to the workbench fairly early, and I don't like to struggle for food so 3 levels in living off the land makes it super easy to deal with that. Beyond that - sexual tyrannosaurus might be one of the best perks in the entire game so I always get a couple points in that. Run and gun level 2 or 3 is basically essential if you have fast zombies. To play this way you obviously need to invest in multiple stats, but you can focus one and do just find if you adjust your play style to suit the stats/perks you've decided to go with.

But, as others have said, you can just focus a single stat and still do just fine because you're going to be really good at combat using that stat's weapons and you're going to be super focused in some areas. For example you don't need to worry about farming for food or having better recipes if you focus the stat/perk that lets you harvest a lot more resources from each animal and you can just grill and eat lots of meat.

I do find that bumping Strength early helps a lot with combat, more than most of the other stats can. Getting a level 3 basic club and a few perks from Strength can help you knock down and quickly kill most of the early zombies, plus shotguns are super fun.

[Nani Sore]

If you plan to do a lot of trader quests you should get the daring adventurer soonish.

I tend to start off with strength/intellect and then spread into basically all of the attributes to level 7 or so to pick up living off the land and stealth, which stealth related skills are controversial.

Later on lucky looter can turn into a significant boost to loot and max parkour is way more useful than I realized.

[Crater Creator]

If you want my advice, don’t outsource the fun of picking a character build to all of us! Enjoy exploring for yourself what perks & skills allow you to do. If you don’t like how it plays out, you can use Grandpa’s Forgettin’ Elixir to reset, or start a new game.

[Mithrandir]

As everyone said, the best is the one you prefer.

I really like to reach level 7 in most attributes. I'm then as good in tank mode (horde nights) than in stealth mode (wasteland expeditions). You don't want to go loud in the wasteland at night except if you're ready for a war.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

If you want my advice, don’t outsource the fun of picking a character build to all of us! Enjoy exploring for yourself what perks & skills allow you to do. If you don’t like how it plays out, you can use Grandpa’s Forgettin’ Elixir to reset, or start a new game.

I agree with this sentiment so I'm not going to talk about specific attributes, but some general things I would consider:

As a rough rule of thumb, building wide and shallow (lots of points in different attributes) helps with quality of life and survival. Building narrow and deep helps your combat potential. You can only use one weapon at a time, and high base attributes and weapon skills help headshot damage and dismember chance respectively. High damage headshots with frequent dismembers make combat go a lot more smoothly.

If you're not aware, base attribute costs scale up. Up to 5 in an attribute costs 1 point, 2 point up to 8 and 3 points if you're going to rank 9 or 10. This can make having a few attributes at 5 quite attractive, especially for a solo player where you have to do a little of everything yourself.

For lots of the quality of life skills you can get to rank 4 out of 5 with only 5 points in the governing attribute, and to rank 3 with only 3 points in the governing attribute. So you can be a pretty excellent miner/salvager/looter/hunter or whatever without totally specialising in the governing attribute. You can hover your cursor over the padlock item on a skill rank you haven't unlocked yet to see what attribute score you'd need to reach that skill level.

[ElDudorino]

It's hard to argue against strength and/or intelligence in the early game. I actually avoid int and traders in general because they're so OP they break progression. But either way you go, once you have your basic necessities covered I like to level up parkour under agility.

After 2 levels of parkour you can jump twice as high and after 4 levels of it you can jump 3 times as high and pretty much never have to think about fall damage unless you're on a skyscraper. Jumping higher opens up a lot of possibilities for navigating buildings, and with max jump height you can easily jump over zombies' heads.

[Dreadstone]

Figure out how you want to kill zombies, and / or play the game. I like to play "Stealth / Sniper", so Parkour is my number one choice (this is more defensive), followed closely by Hidden Strike and From the Shadows.

Want to beat the crap out of them with fist weapons? Different tree.

Want to focus on base building and farming? Different tree.

[MoistGamer]

if it helps Ive never perked into a weapon tree once*. When I die in this game its generally to a bear on day 3 rather than a zombie at any time.

Like others have said though it's preference.

* I do get these perks once the game is a wash/already beaten and there's time to just get everything. But in terms of having to make decisions when you dont have infinite points, I've never chosen a weapon tree. They've just never proven necessary, there's never been a time where I'm like boy oh boy i need each shot to do 5% more damage, or whatever comparable asset is given. The bullets are free and everywhere, and you can make your own at a god tier rate, really soon into the game. The ammunition abundance AND the gobs of loot negate the need for any buffs or gains to be had on a weapon tree. In terms of NEED.

[autumndragonfalling]

Fortitude, it's the only one you get achievements for upgrading.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by MoistGamer:

if it helps Ive never perked into a weapon tree once*. When I die in this game its generally to a bear on day 3 rather than a zombie at any time.

Like others have said though it's preference.

* I do get these perks once the game is a wash/already beaten and there's time to just get everything. But in terms of having to make decisions when you dont have infinite points, I've never chosen a weapon tree. They've just never proven necessary, there's never been a time where I'm like boy oh boy i need each shot to do 5% more damage, or whatever comparable asset is given. The bullets are free and everywhere, and you can make your own at a god tier rate, really soon into the game. The ammunition abundance AND the gobs of loot negate the need for any buffs or gains to be had on a weapon tree. In terms of NEED.

Sounds like you play on the default difficulty, or easier, with frequent loot respawn and 200% loot abundance. Crank up the difficulty to warrior or higher, set zombies to sprint all the time, turn off air drops and loot respawn. Do that and you'll probably want some weapon perks.

[MoistGamer]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Originally posted by MoistGamer:

if it helps Ive never perked into a weapon tree once*. When I die in this game its generally to a bear on day 3 rather than a zombie at any time.

Like others have said though it's preference.

* I do get these perks once the game is a wash/already beaten and there's time to just get everything. But in terms of having to make decisions when you dont have infinite points, I've never chosen a weapon tree. They've just never proven necessary, there's never been a time where I'm like boy oh boy i need each shot to do 5% more damage, or whatever comparable asset is given. The bullets are free and everywhere, and you can make your own at a god tier rate, really soon into the game. The ammunition abundance AND the gobs of loot negate the need for any buffs or gains to be had on a weapon tree. In terms of NEED.

Sounds like you play on the default difficulty, or easier, with frequent loot respawn and 200% loot abundance. Crank up the difficulty to warrior or higher, set zombies to sprint all the time, turn off air drops and loot respawn. Do that and you'll probably want some weapon perks.

We play on one above adventurer. Nomad, Adventurer, then whatever that next one is. Whichever the third is anyway. And we've done the 25% loot thing, it just stretches out the mechanic doesnt really add any extra threat. Just searching 12 buildings instead of 4 for the same result most of the time.

[Macdallan]

Yeah, that's the old "standard" difficulty setting so it used to be the intended "normal" difficulty and once you understand the game mechanics and have a bit of experience it's nowhere near challenging for most players.

The 25% loot setting indirectly adds more threat because ammo isn't as abundant - unless you keep doing missions to re-set POIs of course.

Anyway, a lower loot % also means you have to go into more buildings with less ammo/resources which increases risk as well. Obviously if you're playing on the "normal" difficulty and don't crank up zombie speeds then it's not nearly the challenge it could or should be. On default settings you can effectively go through most or all of the easier POIs with nothing but a tier 1 wooden club.

Anyway, we're off topic and I think my point has been made - if you aren't playing the game with tougher settings then you can get away with avoiding weapon perks/trees since the zeds are generally much easier to deal with than they really should be.