Discuss what you personally like, the benefits, and how you deal with the drawbacks.
I love chimera, basically makes you a murder machine and once you get the two bionics which reduce the amount of food and water you need it becomes manageable with the hyper metabolism. Apex predator, various combat mutations, and the ability to eat to heal health (That includes zombie corpses)
I one time nearly broke both my legs and arms after getting pinballed by a massive group of hulks and corresponding zombie masters in a football field, after barely surviving that I just munched on the corpses and restored from near death to full health.
Good jack of all trades, little drawbacks except maybe reduction of intelligence (Apex Predator) and some troublesome mutations like club tail which limits what you could wear for armor.
It feels good to not have any focus drain for combat with apex predator, fast levels.
So far, tried medical on my main run and enjoying it greatly. It doesn’t have stat-boosting mutations, but acid proof and deadened are excellent mutations since it prevents acid damage and pain. Makes battles far too easy on a skilled survivor. If you can remove genetic instability/chaos with some purifier there’s little to no risk of gaining mutated anatomy as well. Plus, it has resilient, which can at the very least cancel out glass jaw and flimsy/frail/fragile traits if those were selected at the start.
Aside from that, elf-a. Not super powerful, but I like the image of a glorious looking survivor kicking undead ass.
Great stat bonuses, great night vision, tireless (which isn’t literally tireless, but the sleep requirements are AMAZINGLY low). No real game-changers*, just all-around better in every category.
Meant literally - things that change how you play the game, such as acid-proof.
That said, some of the good stuff on elf-a can be acquired since they’re pre-threshold mutations. Only tireless and stretchy limbs are elf-a’s post-threshold stuff. Once I get a good enough supply, I’ll try getting glorious while retaining the acid proof and deadened mutations.
I’m still surprised there isn’t a vanilla mutation in the medical category that can cure schizophrenia or at least cancel it out since that category can cause that. Literally added my own mutation that all it does is remove that trait if you have it.
Usually boring old Alpha or Elf. I love some of the medical mutations, but I’d never go post-thresh in it. Mutations could use some re balancing. The risk vs benefit on most categories is skewed WAY in favor of risk. Thats why you see so many elves running around.
It’s not just the risk as in bad mutations, it’s also the significant game-changing mutations. Anything that prevents standard gas mask-type protections is a big pain, mutations that make you too large to weak standard stuff is highly annoying, etc. Even if they aren’t really “risky” (as in actually bad for you), they are still more annoying than they are worth.
At least, so it seems to me and, from what I can tell, a good many other people.
They can be fun, if you like, of course, but if that’s not what you’re going for… no thank you.
You already know. When I have Sporogenesis I am unstoppable. I can turn and zombie, no matter how big, into basic fungal zombies, and I can turn those into paste. Also, being fireproof is awesome. Feeder sucks though, I can’t take drugs any more.
I have not used any mutagen in any run yet, surprisingly XD. The only times I’ve mutated were in a couple early games when I didn’t really know much about radiation yet. I’m planning on dabbling in it very soon, but haven’t decided on which yet.
Post-thresh Medical for the nigh immortality, increased strength (Resilient requires one of four other mutations that increase strength), Deadened, and Acid Proof for easily dealt with drawbacks (drugs gave you mental disorders? Just take more drugs!).
Supplemented by Bird for extra speed with drawbacks that can be reduced by Medical’s increased strength (except Beak, which just sucks).
I’ve seen a few people play Mycus, but I’ve never tried it myself. It’s not that I think it’s a bad mutation tree, it’s just I wouldn’t be able to call myself a “survivor” if I took that route.
Even if I were to take it, the idea that I’ve just become a pawn for a greater collective mind would bug me too much. Now if you could become the King of the Mycus, then that’s a different story, I’d happily become a ruler, but not just another cog.
Personally I try not to go in to post-threshold in any mutations, almost for the same reason. I like mutating to be something like an enhanced human, so genetically I’d create a human race that could survive the wasteland. But if I go past the threshold, I wouldn’t be an “enhanced human” I’d be something else with, oh, just a bit of human in there. I would become the same as an animal given Human Mutagen. I wouldn’t be able to procreate if my genes go too far out that I’m more animal than man.
Still there’s a scary thought; Give a Moose “Human Mutagen” and watch the beast become smarter, even be able to wield weapons it finds, like a gun!.. Someone want to put this in the Crazy Cataclysm Mod?
I usually stick to elf-a, and it’s only in my current main run where I dabbled into medical. I had briefly considered trying bird due to its great boost to perception, though.
Also always wanted to try the big mutations like ursine, but the problems with driving a car due to the size mutations were too much of a drawback.
I have never actually post thresholded before I alway just looked at what each category gives and those mutagens until I get what I want. It’s more of I don’t like the idea of being locked in especially since with the exception of chimera nothing in post threshold really comes to me as worth it.
