Hunt: Showdown 1.5.1 Traits Tier List Guide

*Note: The situational column is largely loadout dependent, but also game mode dependent and play style dependent. For more details see below.

This tier consists of the traits everyone will want to get first with their first 10 trait points. This is probably going to be a hotly contested tier, but from my experience these traits make the biggest difference.

Greyhound

Increases total sprint duration from 20s to 60s. This one trait makes a very big impact on your ability to run away from danger, and your ability to chase people down. You never want to be caught with no sprinting stamina.

Packmule

Packmule is good for very obvious reasons, but what makes me think it’s fantastic is the fact that doubling consumable loot means you more reliably replenish your medkit charges. It can also save you a lot of money from having to buy high tier grenades yourself, as well as letting you begin looting money from dead hunters sooner (when all your consumables and tools are maxed out).

Using a crossbow, especially as a main weapon, is miserable without this trait. Approximately halves reload time with all crossbows.

This tier consists of the stuff you will want to have regardless of playstyle or loadout. Along with S tier, these make the best traits in the game.

Determination

Reduces stamina regen delay from 4s to 2s. This trait is great. The effect is relatively small, but you constantly feel the benefits of it. It lets you:

• sprint at full speed again sooner
• kill more monsters, more quickly
• boss kill using melee weapons faster and safer (this is huge vs Assassin, who can’t be sticky bombed)
• most importantly, amplifies the effectiveness of Greyhound

Doctor

Every time I prestige it’s the lack of this one trait that makes me angry that traits are level gated. Significantly increases your healing economy. Less medkit charges used = more opportunity for looting money from dead hunters. Has synergy with packmule. With Physician, often makes using your medkit more desirable than non-replenishing vitality shots in even the most dire situations. Not S tier because you should almost always be bringing some big vitality shots anyway, though this may very well be an S tier for some players who prefer to win by attrition.

Physician

Slightly ambiguous wording, only affects first aid kits. First aid kits now take 3 seconds to use instead of 6. Gets you back in the fight sooner, lets you heal relatively silently in the middle of a fight more safely.

The bigger your squad size, the worse this trait is. This is a great trait for newer players since it helps you stay low profile, but can easily be dumped for more experienced players. Still, even experienced players might find this a good pickup when playing solo, or for those who like to do a lot of flanking.

Deadeye Scopesmith

For annoying snipers. Does NOT work with single-shot weapons, including the Martini-Henry Deadeye and the Springfield Compact Deadeye.

Fanning

Requires a lot of trigger discipline. Excellent close-range solution for rifle wielders. Arguably the best sidearm option for rifle users, although maybe not as versatile as semi-auto and double-action pistols. Does not work with Nagant Officer or Nagant Precision.

Iron Repeater

Also works for the Winfield Terminus shotgun. Noticeably improves the fire rate and animation of lever action rifles when aiming down the sights. Surprisingly, in my experience, not a deal breaker not to have.

Levering

This trait is stupidly overpowered with the Windfield Terminus. It’s also very nice to have with the rifles, making you quite a bit better at close range fights with them. IMO less important than Iron Repeater when using the rifles.

Marksman Scopesmith

For even more annoying snipers. Does not work with single-shot weapons, only works with Winfield Marksman and Lebel Marksman.

Sniper Scopesmith

For the most annoying snipers. Does not work with single-shot weapons, only works with Mosin-Nagant Sniper.

Steady Hand

Works with all medium slot weapons with a scope. Surprisingly stables your aim quite quickly. Rated higher than the rifle counterpart because these medium slot weapons sway a hell of a lot more than the rifles.

This tier reaches territory where you have points to spare after already getting everything you need from S and A. Your next best options are in this category, which are the last traits that can be considered good.

Bloodless

Pretty sure the wording for this is a little misleading. You not only won’t escalate bleeding levels, but will never experience medium or heavy bleeding at all. Can definitely save your life from time to time, but otherwise good QOL.

Gator Legs

Huge QOL improvement for getting around the bayou. Crossing water is still very dangerous, but at least you’ll have a decent chance of surviving an ambush in the waters.
The secondary effect of making you noiseless when crouched in the water is a bit of a trap; don’t crouch in the water unless you’re absolutely certain the enemy does not know you’re there and will not have a line of sight of you within the next 5+ seconds.

Lightfoot

This trait is quite situational, but situations where its usefulness comes up are common enough for most players to benefit from. Silently vaulting over a fence is nice, and ladders are suddenly useable in close range fights.

Necromancer

25 meter range. Over a period of ~10 seconds you spend 25 health in darksight to revive a downed ally from a distance. This trait is an absolute game changer and lets you salvage so many losing fights. Would be A tier material if it wasn’t so risky to use. Beware, if you have darksight you will still use it with this trait.

Pitcher

I feel like this trait should be higher tier, but I don’t often feel like I’m missing it when I don’t have it, and don’t often notice it making a big difference for me. Makes grenades more flexible, so guaranteed to be at least good.

Salveskin

Losing health chunks sucks a lot, and this trait helps you prevent that. Prevents hellfire bombs, flares and immolator explosions from immediately removing a small health chunk, but you need to be quick to extinguish yourself. The main thing is that this trait gives your team mates 33% more time to snuff out your flames when you’re downed and burning.

Serpent

25 meter range. Like necromancer, this trait is a total game changer. Punishes people for not picking up the bounty fast enough, lets you safely take clues at a distance, sometimes it’s even faster. Beware, if you have darksight you will still use it with this trait.

Dual pistols are for close range, and in close range timing is more essential. That said, this trait only seems to speed up reload by ~30%. Good trait, but doesn’t feel essential to dual wield.

Bulletgrubber

Applies to Specter, Mosin-Nagant, Bornheim, Lebel, Dolch, and Winfield 1887 variants. It seems to me like this is a fairly popular trait, and although I can see why, I think it’s too expensive for what it is. Worthless for the shotguns, okay for the Mosin, pretty good for Lebel, Bornheim and Dolch.

Quartermaster

Overrated trait. IMO is only a good option when pairing a large shotgun with a compact rifle, but a pistol can be just as good of a sidearm. Compact shotguns aren’t usually worth using, and dual pistols pair quite well with compact rifles or a single pistol.

Resilience

This trait can save you from one gunshot 50% of the time when being revived. This trait can be a game changer, but in my experience is not worth taking except in trios where you tend to have a better chance of being revived.

Silent Killer

Removes the voice of the hunter when you perform a melee, but not the noise monsters and animals make when they die. The hunter noise tends to be slightly louder and much more distinct, so can help you stay under the radar at distances of 50-80ish meters, since monsters can easily be heard under that range. Also very good for people who like to make sneaky knife plays.

Steady Aim

Works with all large slot weapons utilising a scope. Mostly helps with great distance sniping, since rifles already have relatively little sway. Mostly useful with marksman scopes and sniper scopes, less important with deadeye scopes.

Vulture

Good in trios, give it to one player so that everybody can loot a dead hunter’s body. Also a good pickup for players who tend to be slow to join a fight.

Whispersmith

This is the hellfire bomb trait, but also good with concertina bombs since they both normally make quite a lot of noise when you take them out. Can be helpful when trying to do a sneaky knife play in combination with Silent Killer.

These traits are merely okay. The remaining traits that are nice to have.

Bulwark

Sounds helpful but 25% less of 1000 damage is still 750 damage. Taking cover and running will always be a more reliable way to survive explosives. If you get stuck with a bomb lance shot, it will only do 125 damage, but how often do you get stuck with a bomb lance?

Conduit

Mostly a QOL trait. It’s not uncommon to use all your stamina and lose a bit of health when killing zombies around a clue. This trait just tops it all back up and sends you on your way.

Frontiersman

Way too expensive for what it is. Main benefit is that it gives you an extra medkit charge, and for the scum among you, another concertina mine charge. Value improves as you bring more tools that can run out, but you should usually be bringing both dusters and a knife anyway.

Kiteskin

For 1 trait point this is a nice value trait. Certain drops in this game do just enough damage to you for you to lose a bar of health, making you use a medkit to top-up. With this trait you’ll never have to worry about medium height drops again.

Mithridatist

Halves the duration of poison, but you’ll rarely get heavily poisoned. If a hive throws bees at you, you can quickly kill the swarm with two heavy punches with your duster.

Tomahawk

Make a ranged light melee attack. Generally meme material but surprisingly a good option for killing hives.

Decoy fuses are decent, and being able to replenish them at ammo boxes is good. Normal decoys and blank fire decoys suck though.

Iron Sharpshooter

Probably a controversial placement, but the kick of bolt-action rifles is high enough that this doesn’t feel like it makes much of a difference. Between the Lebel and Mosin they shoot slowly enough that you’d probably prefer ducking to and from cover. Pretty good with the Vetterli.

Vigilant

If you’re careless during the fight, but careful before it then this might help. I’ve never found this useful.

Rarely worth the trait points or the trait slot, unless you get them for free and have plenty of trait slots to spare.

Adrenaline

Has potential for allowing you to sprint as soon as your get up from a revive, but does nothing when you have resilience (I think), which is a better trait anyway.

Bolt Seer

Throwing knives suck now and special ammo crates are everywhere making maintaining your bolt supply easy. This trait is the epitome of bad.

Dauntless

3m interaction range. Can be fun to use but properly cooked grenades will ruin your day. This trait can get you killed.

Ghoul

I believe this works for any grunt killed by you within a 25m range. To my surprise a lot of people think this trait is quite good. In my experience, has potential but will rarely make a difference. If PvE hurts you then you can go find a medical station or consumable box in the world. If PvP hurts you then you’re unlikely to solve that problem by killing grunts, unless you’ve put yourself in the dangerous position of between monsters and players. If you’re about to fight and the other players already know where you are then the monsters around you should be dealt with as soon as possible.

Hornskin

I think this stops you from getting killed in 1 hit from a hammer? Otherwise this trait does nothing except marginally help you with PvE.

Iron Devastator

Only works with the Specter shotgun. Ironsights aren’t all that useful for shotguns, but potentially quite good when using slugs. Might bump this up after some testing.

Poacher

You’re generally going to want to place traps before people arrive, not when they’re already within earshot of you.