Survival Mode Character Guide

A guide for character selection in the survival mode.

Introduction

This guide is dedicated to character selection in the survival mode, written based on my opinion. For characteristics of weapons and followers, refer to the separate guide here.

Note: Things have drastically changed as of updates v1.1.0 and v1.2.0. Refer to “Update 1.2.0” in each section for the latest information.

General Information

In survival mode, characters appeared as followers in the main mode can be used as a player character, in addition to Marfusha.
Those eight characters come with different status and traits as described in the following sections. Note that the status in the character selection screen are "base" status, and thus the final, maxed-out status differs by character even though the in-game status graph looks the same.

Affinity Bonus

With some certain combinations of a protagonist and a follower (which is which does not matter), a special event will trigger. This includes a short movie scene (which is exclusive to the survival mode) and a small bonus to the protagonist's status.

• Marfusha and Laica: Rapid fire +2, Reload speed +2
  
• Enos and Alibina: Magazine capacity +2, Concentration +2
  
• Bion and Strelka: Attack +1, Concentration +2
  
• Belka and Felicette: Rapid fire +2

Character Review: Marfusha

Traits:

• Average stats.
  
• Weapons obtained have 1 more durability.
  
• Can use the special Electric Cannon card.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
3	3	3	3	3	3

A jack-of-all-trades, which is a rare thing to find in this dystopian hellhole. Her status is all “3”, which means you can invest in any status, weapons, or consumables as you like.
In addition, she has a unique ability to increase the weapon durability by 1. This will help you greatly in terms of cost reduction and smooth weapon swapping. A decent character if you want to survive for 100+ days.
She also has an ability to use the electric cannon, an insta-death BFG, but its spawn rate is extremely low.

Update 1.2.0:
She remains mostly unaffected by the recent game balance overhaul and still is a solid character. Her ability to increase weapon durability shines even more, since it gives you some luxury to try out new support items and souped-up special weapons (they are now pretty good, even in the late game).

Character Review: Belka

Traits:

• Attack UP when using SMG guns/advanced SMG.
  
• Lv1 Barricade cards can place 2 barricades.
  
• Fast movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
1	5	1	4	1	2

She sacrificed everything for reload speed and fire rate. While being the most inaccurate shooter in game, this old-school twin-tailed tsundere can spit out tremendous amount of dakka. Her fast movement speed helps getting up close and personal, but investment in concentration is mandatory if you want to survive longer.
Her unique ability is to place two level 1 barricades instead of one, which makes late-game survival way easier. A good character for both offense and defense.

Update 1.2.0:
Submachine guns (both regular and advanced variants) are still decent weapons, and barricades are still your bread and butter. What else do you need? She performs pretty well even after the major update.
She is arguably one of the best swarm killers in this game, but on the other hand she lacks a hard-hitting punch against large targets. Keep a special weapon by your side, or hire someone good at tankbusting (i.e. Felicette) and let her do her job.

Character Review: Strelka

Traits:

• Attack UP when using SMG/advanced SMG.
  
• Advanced SMG appear more frequently.
  
• Fast movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
2	4	1	4	2	2

Similar to Belka, with a bit more balanced status. Same Touhou-style bullet hell output, same “fast movement” and “improved SMG damage” traits.
However, her unique trait is “Advanced SMG appear more frequently”, which is far less reliable than Belka’s double barricade. Not bad, but in my opinion, Strelka is better used as a follower rather than a player character.

Update 1.2.0:
As mentioned above, SMGs are still pretty good, which is a good news for her. I’m not sure but it seems they received a minor buff. The advanced SMG is effective on both soft and hard targets, and her SMG damage buff makes this weapon quite useful even in the late game.
Her downside is that the SMG spawn rate modifier is still not so reliable since it will not give you solid supply of your desired gun (same goes to other similar abilities). If you can’t find an SMG when you need one, try a grenade launcher instead. Strelka’s high fire rate and reload speed are well suited for wielding a grenade launcher, and her low base accuracy does not matter since each projectile has a huge hit box.

Character Review: Bion

Traits:

• Attack UP when handling AR/advanced AR.
  
• Can place more land mines with Land Mine cards.
  
• Can place more Spike with Spike cards.
  
• Little fast movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
4	1	3	3	4	3

She has a relatively high damage per shot, but this is offset by low rate of fire. Other status are about average. Investment in "Rapid fire" is your top priority if you want to use her and survive.
She can lay four land mines instead of two by other characters. While being less reliable than barricades, it can still fend off small and medium ground enemies, and especially effective against shield bots.
The other trait is not good, since assault rifles are not so useful in late game even with the damage buff.

Update 1.2.0:
Things surrounding Bion have changed drastically. She lost her ability to place four mines, and instead she gained a new trait which allows placing more spikes. Spikes are weaker but reusable version of mines which can tenderize your foes as they come in before you finish them off. While the others can place only four spikes at once, Bion plants freaking EIGHT spikes. She can literally pave the stage with nasty punji steaks, and that is awesome. It can considerably weaken hard targets like large suicide bombers, and weaklings may die even before you can notice.
While she received a new powerful trait, her status characteristics are still not so good, even though she can now move slightly faster. Her low fire rate is quite problematic, so upgrade it ASAP if you want to survive longer.

Character Review: Alibina

Traits:

• Attack UP when handling AR/advanced AR.
  
• Advanced assault rifles appear more frequently.
  
• Little fast movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
5	2	3	3	4	3

On status-wise, she is Bion on steroids. She is the character who has the highest Attack of 5, and all other status are the same or better than those of Bion’s. Her overall combat capability is above the average, with the top-tier damage per round.
And her traits are… Oh the greatest leader of Kazormia, what have you done? She shares the same almost-useless AR damage buff with Bion, and has another useless trait of “Advanced assault rifles appear more frequently”. Even with the “advanced” prefix and damage buff, assault rifles are still assault rifles, and you need something better than that in late game.

Update 1.2.0:
As of the update 1.2.0, Alibina has gained a new trait which slightly increases her movement speed (the same trait as the one added for Bion). Not a big change, but it mildly helps advancing and pushing up the line.
Another good news is that assault rifles have been moderately buffed, so her damage buff and spawn rate modifier are no longer dead traits. The regular one is still a mid-tier weapon, but the advanced version is now quite potent.
Overall, her traits are still kind of weak compared to other characters. However, her base status is pretty good so she can put up a good fight.

Character Review: Felicette

Traits:

• Rapid fire UP when handling advanced sniper rifles.
  
• Advanced sniper rifles appear more frequently.
  
• Slow movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
4	4	2	2	5	3

In terms of DPS output, she seems to be the best of all. With high firepower and rate of fire, everything melts like a snowflake on Hawaiian beach. Give her an advanced SR for extra killiness if you want someone really, really dead.
However, her movement speed is slower than a slug suffering from whole body paralysis, which can be fatal in late game. In addition, using her as a player character disables her as a follower, which is a massive downside since she is one of the strongest followers in this game.

Update 1.2.0:
Her characteristics, impressive damage output and very, very sluggish movement, are still unchanged. She is even slower than Enos, and her movement speed is actually the same as large suiciders.
Following the weapon performance overhaul, she became quite picky about weapon selection. Since she has the slowest reload speed, she needs guns with fast reload speed such as SMGs, or high capacity like LMGs to work properly. Don’t hesitate to re-roll if you can’t find a suitable weapon.

Character Review: Enos

Traits:

• Attack UP when handling LMG/advanced LMG.
  
• Gates are slightly repaired every day.
  
• Slow movement speed.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
2	2	4	5	2	1

While being designed as a “defensive” type character, her DPS-wise damage output is pretty decent thanks to high magazine capacity and reloading speed. She is the only character who can fire five shells from a standard shotgun.
She has an ability to regenerate the gate health each day, which is quite helpful since it makes small damages by some stray rounds almost negligible. Although she has the same “Slow movement speed” trait as Felicette, Enos’ movement speed is not so bad. A good choice if you want steady defense and long, uninterrupted streams of lead.

Update 1.2.0:
Her health regeneration ability is still pretty solid. Following the terrible nerf of the regular shotgun, Enos is the only one who can use it properly like it’s golden age. She can still fire five shells with a proper status upgrade, and her fast fire rate and reloading speed mitigate the nerfed status of the gun itself.
Her signature weapon, light machine guns, seem to have been moderately buffed. They can now actually kill enemies and are better than the default pistol (they weren’t at the initial release). However they are still low-tier weapons even with Enos’ damage buff ability, so their usefulness is limited to early and mid stages.

Character Review: Laica

Traits:

• Increases buckshot when handling SG/advanced SG.
  
• All weapons become buckshot.

Status:

Attack	Rapid fire	Magazine capacity	Reload speed	Concentration	Bullet speed
3	4	2	3	1	2

A cute Marfusha’s boss returns as a player character, with an ability to turn everything into a shotgun in this time. Her status is below the average, but this unique and reliable trait solves everything.
While being extremely effective for horde-sweeping, note that the damage of each projectile is greatly reduced, so her attack will not hurt as it looks. The total damage output seems to be almost in the same level as other characters.
Currently she is the only character who cannot receive the affinity bonus, as Marfusha does not appear as a follower.

Update 1.2.0:
Even though she has a unique ability to buff shotguns, using a regular shotgun without upgrading her status properly is a bad, bad idea. Since the shotgun has been terribly nerfed in update 1.1.0, using it properly now requires investment in “Reload speed” and “Concentration”. Since Laica has the worst concentration of 1 (same value as Belka), your pellets will fly almost sideways and hit nothing without sufficient upgrade.
A good news is that her accuracy when using non-shotgun weapons is now affected by the “Concentration” status. Max it out if you can, since narrowing down the spread means you can hit more pellets from a distance, resulting in a longer effective range.

Version History

Sep 7, 2021: First issue
Nov 12, 2021: Revised for the update 1.1.0. Still mostly a stub.
Nov 17, 2021: Update 1.2.0 has come so I added information about some characters. Still a mess and needs tidying up. Would you help me, Belka?
Nov 18, 2021: Revised sections for Strelka and Bion for 1.2.0. Others are coming soon.
Nov 19, 2021: Tried and tested everything. Now things are up to date.

[Artemisia Bell Ashcroft]

up until now, Marfusha is still not available as colleague which is quiet letdown for me.
I dunno if it's oversight from dev or they just don't know how to design her gameplay as colleague, but not being able to choose her as colleague is kinda bother me.