when you start dead island 2, your first choice is to decide which of the six playable “hunters” to pick first. The character you choose is both more important and less important than it looks. It doesn’t seem to change the story much, but it will have a major impact on how you ultimately play the game. Here’s what you need to know before you Choose a Slayer In dead island 2.
Which Slayer should I choose in Dead Island 2?
The six Slayers in dead island 2 are roughly divided into three unofficial, unnamed character classes determined by their starting stats, innate abilities, and shared unique character classes ability cards.
- Ryan and Carla are “tanks” with high health and high armor that can block enemy attacks. Their damage output doesn’t match the other Slayers, but it takes a lot to bring them down. Their shared ability cards give them advantages when blocking or hitting, and add an extra impact to your dropkick.
- Daniel and Jacob are high-damage characters who are good at taking threats head-on, but don’t recover their health as easily as the others and are easily knocked down by harmful status effects. Their shared ability cards are all triggered by killing zombies in quick succession.
- Amy and Bruno are “glass cannons”. Both have high speed but low health, deal a lot of damage with critical hits, and do their best when they’re not the focus of zombie attention. But even in groups, Amy and Bruno tend to die often. Their shared ability cards give them buffs to flying kick, sprint attacks, and successful dodges.
Screenshot of GameSkinny
DI2 doesn’t do much to enforce a Slayer’s specific playstyle. The benefits of your character’s innate and unique ability cards are all relatively subtle, especially in the mid to late game when you have access to weapons.
Generally:
- Ryan and Carla are made for pure defense
- Amy and Bruno are all offense, no defense
- Jacob and Dani are good at wading right into zombies, but have to be careful not to outgrow them
Dead Island 2: All Slayer Stats Listed
At the beginning of dead island 2each of the six Slayers has set stats that largely influence the best way to play each character.
In the late game you can use skill cards, weapon mods, and Perks to fix your Slayer’s weak spots. For example, the Guardian perk increases a character’s toughness by a noticeable amount while the modded weapon is equipped.
- amy
- Max health: 2
- Endurance: 3
- Agility: 5
- Hardness: 1
- Critical Damage: 4
- Restoring health: 3
- Resilience: 3
- Bruno
- Max health: 1
- Endurance: 3
- Agility: 4
- Hardness: 2
- Critical Damage: 5
- Restoring health: 3
- Resilience: 3
- carla
- Max Health: 3
- Endurance: 3
- Agility: 2
- Hardness: 4
- Critical Damage: 1
- Restoring health: 3
- Resilience: 5
- Daniel
- Max Health: 4
- Endurance: 5
- Agility: 3
- Hardness: 3
- Critical Damage: 3
- Health restoration: 1
- Resilience: 2
- Jacob
- Max Health: 5
- Endurance: 4
- Agility: 3
- Hardness: 3
- Critical Damage: 3
- Health restoration: 2
- Resilience: 1
- Ryan
- Max Health: 3
- Endurance: 3
- Agility: 1
- Hardness: 5
- Critical Damage: 2
- Restoring health: 3
- Resilience: 4
All character stats explained
DI2 hits you with character select before telling you what your primary stats mean. Some are self-explanatory, like Peak Health, while others are a little more vague, like the difference between toughness and resilience.
The seven key statistics in DI2defined are:
Screenshot of GameSkinny
Adapt the Slayer to the circumstances: which character is the best choice?
If you plan to walk dead island 2 Solo, you want to focus on survival. You often end up in tight quarters, you frequently fight in groups of five or more infected, and Hell-A’s general volatility means you’re never more than a big blast away from death.
on the downside, DI2The emphasis on environmental dead means you don’t have to do your own harm. Ryan and Carla have weak crits, but if you dropkick everything into Oil Fires, it doesn’t matter.
Screenshot of GameSkinny
Your best choice for a DI2 Solo run in order:
- Ryan is slow but tough, with two innate ability cards that have excellent synergy with each other. With a good bat or sledgehammer, Ryan can increase his force by blocking via retaliation, then use Seesaw to knock down masses of zombies to regain health.
- carlaHigh resilience gives you plenty of leeway against environmental hazards and status-spitting enemies like Slobbers, and Mosh Pit gives her an edge over hordes. Dig Deep, on the other hand, is inherently weak; Any enemy that actually got Carla to low health is a threat big enough that Dig Deep won’t save you.
- Daniel‘s Bloodlust offers plenty of survivability as long as there are strays and shamblers around to mow down. Thunderstruck gives her plenty of jailbreak free cards when cornered, but watch out for other things around you that could be detonated by the shockwave. In the beginning, her 1 in health recovery doesn’t matter since everyone’s HP pool is so low, but Dani gains a fraction of the health recovery from effects like activating Fury or the Limb Reaper skill card.
- Jacob‘s Feral gives him a huge damage advantage right from the start, especially with fast weapons like claws; He can instantly stack Feral to 5 with a single shotgun blast. Additionally, Critical Gains lets him attack forever without running out of stamina. However, his low resilience means every zombie with an elemental attack has their number, and he shares some of Dani’s issues with healing.
- amy is fragile but fast, so she’s good with cavalry tactics in open areas. Keep a few knives to throw, and she can charge in, deal some damage, and then pull back to regenerate her stamina via Relief Pitcher. On maps like the Brentwood Sewers, however, where she doesn’t have room to move, bring either friends or a shotgun.
- Bruno is designed for co-op where he can assassinate unsuspecting enemies with a sudden backstab. When alone, you’ll want to block/dodge perfectly to maximize Rapid Reprisal’s gains, making him the highest risk/highest reward Slayer.
None of this is to say that there is actually a bad choice. You can delete DI2 Soloing with one of the Slayers, but Amy or Bruno will have a surge while Jacob and Dani struggle towards the end when they routinely run into each other Apex infected out in the world. Ryan and Carla just plow through the game, slowly but steadily.
Screenshot of GameSkinny
In co-op playthis list is effectively reversed.
Both Amy and Bruno become much more dangerous when Ryan or Carla are there to get the zombies’ attention. Bruno comes into his own when he can sit back and let someone else take the fight to him.
Since DI2 doesn’t have traditional threat mechanics, Ryan and Carla can’t distract zombies in the way you might want, but they can still charge straight into brawls where other Slayers would need to be more careful.
A note here is that Dani and Ryan actually have negative synergies due to the interaction of Seesaw and Thunderstruck. If Dani knocks down all zombies, Ryan isn’t, and that means he doesn’t regenerate from Seesaw.
Again, you can get through the game with any combination of characters you want DI2 Feel free to choose three of them The same thing Slayer if that’s what you want. It’s your apocalypse, man. Make the best of it. For more tips and tricks, go to dead island 2, visit us dedicated Guides hub.