Here's how to choose an ideal "deck" of the best Skill Card combinations in in Dead Island 2.

Dead Island 2: Best Skill Card Combinations Guide

Here's how to choose an ideal "deck" of the best Skill Card combinations in in Dead Island 2.

Skill Cards give you awesome abilities, attacks, buffs, and debuffs in Dead Island 2. With that in mind, you’ll want to know some of the best Card combinations for your Slayer. With the right tools, you’ll be able to take down zombies and hostiles with ease. Below, we cover some of the top combos to look out for. 

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The Best Skill Card Combinations in Dead Island 2

Dead Island 2 Skill Cards are divided into four categories, which we’ll tackle below. However, there are a number of ways to obtain abilities and passives in DI2, including regular campaign progression, exploration, challenge completions, and sidequests.

For now, though, you can refer to our “deck” or “build” using the image below:

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Abilities Cards

  • Dodge and Dropkick: Both are self-explanatory given how they’re integral to combat.
  • Dash Strike: This acts as a mobility action, offensive rush, and debuffer all rolled into one neat package.
  • Overhead Smash: This is your Fury “ultimate.”
  • Blood Rush: This Ability Card helps you build up your Fury faster by way of counters.

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Survivor Cards

  • Safety First: This is singularly the best Skill Card in Dead Island 2, because it allows your HP to regenerate when you do a well-timed dodge or block.
  • Invigorating: When combined with Blood Rush and Safety First, you’re regaining more HP through avoidance and counters.
  • Greased Pig: If ever you’re caught by a zombie grab, you can escape automatically without the need for QTEs.
  • Ravenous: Use this Survivor Card to wail away at the undead hordes to regain Fury while it’s active.

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Slayer Cards

  • The Limb Reaper: Also one of the best Dead Island 2 Skill Cards, this lets you regenerate HP when you maim enemies.
  • Surgeon: Speaking of maiming, this Slayer Card gives you boosted damage.
  • No Mercy: Assuming you have a weapon that causes a status effect (i.e., burning, shocked, poisoned, bleeding, or traumatized), you’ll do extra damage to afflicted targets.
  • Group Therapy: If you’re playing as Dani or Jacob, this provides extra stamina if you manage to kill zombies in quick succession. This is useful if you have powerful weapons like the Emma’s Wrath Legendary Sledgehammer or AoE explosions via Curveballs.
    • Alternative — Janus Rage: If you’re not playing as Dani or Jacob, you can opt for Janus Rage. It gives a boost to toughness when your Fury meter is full and a boost to damage if it isn’t.

Screenshot by GameSkinny

Numen Cards

  • Corpse Blossom: This Numen Card makes zombies explode when you kill them via fire, shock, or caustic elemental effects. Given that you’re likely to use Legendary weapons or apply mods that trigger these, then you’re going to see creatures blowing up often.
  • Seismic Stomp: Your head stomp on knocked-down zombies will trigger a forceful explosion, stability drain, and the bleed effect. What’s not to like?

Image via Deep Silver

These are what we consider the best Skill Card combinations in Dead Island 2. Of course, you may find others that better suit your playstyle — and that’s half the fun of visiting Hell-A. To learn more about the game, you can check out our other Dead Island 2 guides.

Featured image via Deep Silver.


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Author
Jason Rodriguez
Jason Rodriguez is a game reviewer and guides writer from the Philippines. With around 5,000 published articles, he's freelanced for numerous outlets, including GameSkinny, GameSpot, Polygon, IGN, PCGamesN, PC Invasion, and more.