Zoey Samaras' Kitchen Knifemares - Zoey (Solo)

Upgrade Path:

1. Keen Eye (3 XP)
2. 2x Vicious Blow 2x Vicious Blow (4 XP total)
3. 2x Beat Cop 2x Beat Cop (4 XP total)
4. 2x Enchanted Blade 2x Enchanted Blade (6 XP total) OR 2x Timeworn Brand (10 XP total) (or some combination).
5. (optional) Charisma (3 XP) (best used if you elect for more allies instead of Something Worth Fighting For, but also not a bad card for Dunwich anyway).

Notes:

This build is based off of a Desperate Zoey build I ran through Dunwich Legacy solo (on standard difficulty). This build is able to complete the campaign in the "best" way despite the low intellect. No spoilers here, but I think those of you who've ran through the campaign more that once have some idea of what I mean.

The main idea here came from the fact that Meat Cleaver feels like a perfect thematic fit for Zoey Samaras. I mean, she's a chef. I couldn't not try and make a cleaver build for her. Sure, the cleaver is arguably a better fit on survivors like Calvin Wright who benefits from taking horror anyway, or Rita Young who can get to 3 sanity even faster; and sure we only have 5 out of class slots on Zoey, only one of which ultimately opts for Peter Sylvestre because Drawn to the Flame is just too good for Zoey not to take; but that doesn't mean we can't make this build good. And considering the only other Guardian who can take the knife is Carolyn Fern, and people have managed to make that a pretty good fit for her as well, I think Zoey's 6 Sanity lends her to being able to easily make a good cleaver build.

Of course there's the opportunity cost of weapons. Why run Meat Cleaver over something like .45 Automatic or Machete? The only way to make the Cleaver worth it over those weapons is through exploiting the low sanity, aka Desperate cards. Now in my original runthrough, I decided to see if I could take advantage of the agility boost of Sylvestre (running only 1 Flame) by running Run For Your Life as well instead of Something Worth Fighting For. Ultimately it did not work and Run was more often a dead card than a useful one. Since I traded out a Sylvestre for a Flame, I figured more soak would be a good replacement, though you could definitely swap Something Worth Fighting For in favor of another ally or even some Fine Clothes. A chef must look her best, I suppose.

So how does the build work?

Step 1: Get your Meat Cleaver out and take some horror (or just fail some tests until you get to 3). Until that point, you can use Flashlight to get clues off of 1 and 2 shroud locations, and our trio of clue gathering events to get it from other sources (Drawn to the Flame works especially well here as it accelerates our sanity loss a good chunk of the time).

Step 2: Use Desperate Search to investigate the high shroud locations, pass the difficult tests, and use Say Your Prayers and soaks to shield you from more horror. And with Reckless Assault you can all but guarantee hits on even the hardest to hit monsters- throw in some Vicious Blow and your chef's knife should be consistently healing any excess horror that makes it onto Zoey.

Step 3: If horror gets to be too much to take with the cleaver, you have Enchanted Blade as a backup weapon and Beat Cop as extra damage reach. Oh, and don't forget the value of Zoey's Cross as well.

Get out there and make some monster tenderloin.