Gunfire Reborn: Flesh and Bones Synergies

To quickly catch everyone up to speed, I’ll describe how Flesh and Bones works.

For it’s primary effect, it converts all Shield/Armor into Health at a 1:1 ratio. This completely deletes the Shield/Armor pool, and no other effects can bring it back.

Any effects that increase your Max Shields/Armor will increase your Max Health instead. Effects that recover Shield/Armor or affect the Recharge mechanic of Shields will not function.

After all this is done, you heal 4% of your new maximum Health every second unconditionally.

If the Scroll is Enhanced in Reincarnation mode, that healing will increase based on your missing Health.

If you discard Flesh and Bones, the Shield to Health conversion will be undone properly.

Flesh and Bones synergizes with some heroes better than others. I’ll briefly go over the heroes here and the reasons they work well or don’t work well with Flesh and Bones.

Ao Bai

Ao Bai relies heavily off of his health pool due to his shield being the worst out of the heroes. Getting more of that health with healing to boot is a no-brainer.

Lei Lou

Lei Lou has quite a few means to increase his shield count, therefore increasing his health and healing with Flesh and Bones. There are downsides to picking it up, but the scroll actually synergizes fairly well with his dodging-focused playstyle since regenerating all health rather than just shields lets him make more mistakes before he actually goes down.

Keep in mind you’ll lose out on the extra secondary skill supplies from your shield breaking, but you won’t lose any stacks of Thunder Turbo either, so Flesh and Bones works better if you’re running a weapon build rather than a chain lightning build.

Li (DLC)

Li is a weird case, because on its own, Flesh and Bones on her is a sidegrade rather than an upgrade like other scrolls would be. Her shield is average, and she has no active shield recovery effects.

However, Li heavily synergizes with Lifesteal scrolls, more than any other hero, due to her glass cannon nature. Having more of her healthpool be healable health can set up god runs where you rapidly heal back any damage you take.

Qing Yan

Qing Yan’s main downside is that he needs to be actively fighting to recover his Armor pool, which then puts him at risk for taking more damage than he’s recovering back. Flesh and Bones removes this downside entirely, letting him passively heal health while behind cover.

However, most of Qing Yan’s Ascensions have Armor recovery as their sole, or at least primary, function, and those become useless when changing his Armor into Health. There are Ascensions focused on your Armor breaking as well, which also become useless.

Getting Flesh and Bones early on lets you build around it, prioritizing damage-focused Ascensions, but when it’s late game and you already have Ascensions that would be invalidated, taking the scroll would be a big mistake.

Tao

Tao is similar to Li in that she synergizes heavily with Lifesteal as a glass cannon, but Tao has multiple shield recovery effects that act as her lifeline in desperate situations that Flesh and Bones invalidates.

Taking Flesh and Bones is a gamble, as you’ll have more recovery overall, but when you mess up and need health right then and there, you won’t have on-kill Shield recharge or the Shield recovery of Sword Guard to save you.

Xing Zhe (DLC)

Despite some people’s belief, Xing Zhe actually has some pretty good survivability due to his Talents, but said Talents hinges on his Shield. Not being able to get Shield back with Steady Stance will get you killed a lot more often than Flesh and Bones’ regeneration will save you.

That being said, there is a use case for Flesh and Bones, and that is when you’re building the Ascension Aura Protection. Not having a Shield to break makes it impossible to lose stacks, letting you keep up to 45% DMG reduction and 50 extra Health permanently. This is very strong, but not stronger than the Shield Talents to a large enough degree to bump Xing Zhe further up the list.

Crown Prince

Crown Prince has two talents entirely dedicated to his Shield, and the Shield itself is fairly strong with a low recharge delay. Losing that for more health can be the right call depending on your other Scrolls, but usually having the shield is better.

Qian Sui

Qian Sui has inarguably the strongest Shield out of the whole cast, has instant cover to let the Shield recharge start, and has multiple Ascensions that aid in Shield recovery. Getting rid of his Shield is downright throwing.

There are no real reasons to run Flesh and Bones on him, with no synergies strong enough to justify removing one of his strongest attributes. Don’t pick it up.

Here I’ll list a couple Scrolls that work well with Flesh and Bones. I won’t cover every single good combo, but just the ones that work especially well.

Fire Enthusiast

Fire Enthusiast causes yourself to cause Burning on yourself when you inflict it on an enemy, but grants you 2% Lifesteal with Fire Damage while Burning. The Healing of Flesh and Bones offsets the damage from Burning, and gives you more Health to heal. This is the synergy that made me put Li so high on the Hero list, by the way. It’s that good on her.

Generosity

A Multiplayer exclusive, Generosity increases the healing you get from Buns and heals your allies for a portion of the healing you get from said Buns. Since the healing of Buns scales off of Maximum Health, having Flesh and Bones greatly increases the amount of healing you deal to your allies with this Scroll. Combine with Gourmet for maximum healing.

Resilient Life

Resilient Life heals you based on your Maximum Health when you take damage. Do I need to explain this one?

Resolute

Due to having no Shields or Armor, Resolute will constantly give you +25% Weapon Damage and +50% Movement Speed, giving you better offense and defense.

Capacity Overdraft

Capacity Overdraft lets you use your Secondary Skill without any supply, but damages you for doing so. Since Flesh and Bone’s healing doesn’t pause on damage like Shield recharging does, insufficient uses of your Secondary Skill are way less risky.

Fight for Immortality

Fight for Immortality nullifies a hit every 45 seconds and turns the nullified damage into Maximum Shield/Armor for 12 seconds. Despite being shield oriented, the nullification still works with Flesh and Bones and the Maximum Shield/Armor increase becomes Maximum Health, increasing your healing.

Fountain of Life

Fountain of Life heals you for 1 Health when you pick up Copper or Ammo. If your Health is full, it increases your Maximum Health by 1 for 10 seconds. This effect is relatively minimal, but in regular stages it can help you play aggressively since every kill will grant you extra healing, or more health for Flesh and Bones to scale off of.

Sanguine Relic

Sanguine Relic increases the damage you take by 50%, but increases your Health by 50% and grants you 3% Lifesteal. The Health bonus is applied after Flesh and Bones, which effectively nullifies the damage taken penalty and gives you powerful Lifesteal.

Veteran

Veteran permanently increases your Maximum Health by 1 after killing an enemy close to you. This helps scale your healing with Flesh and Bones even further.

On the opposite end, here I’ll be listing Scrolls that make Flesh and Bones actively worse or are nullified by Flesh and Bones. If you have these, you may not want to pick up Flesh or Bones, or discard the bad scrolls if you do pick up Flesh and Bones.

Abnormal Speed

Abnormal Speed grants you Movement Speed based on your current Shields/Armor. With no Shields or Armor due to Flesh and Bones, Abnormal Speed quite literally does nothing.

If Abnormal Speed is Enhanced, it does actually work well since it scales off of all HP instead of just Shields/Armor.

Devil’s Covenant

Devil’s Covenant halves your Max Health in exchange for getting 50% more Copper. This is applied after Flesh and Bones, essentially halving your Health for an inequal upside.

If Devil’s Covenant is Enhanced, the penalty is removed, making it usable with Flesh and Bones.

Thunder Screen

Thunder Screen deals AoE damage when your Shield breaks. Since you have no Shield with Flesh and Bones, this does nothing.

The Enhanced version triggers off of damage instead of Shield breaking, so it actually works with Flesh and Bones.

Glazed Sight

Glazed Sight grants you +1.5x CritX. If you take Health damage 50 times, this is reduced to +0.5x. This is never a badscroll, it’s extra damage, but it’s worse with Flesh and Bones since you’ll end up taking 50 instances of Health damage very quickly.

The Enhanced version is just as mediocre, since it increases the CritX based on current Health rather than being a binary. With how much damage you’ll be taking, this makes your CritX volatile.

Paranormality

Paranormality sets your Maximum Health to 1, and doubles your Maximum Shield/Armor. You have no Shield/Armor, so this just sets your Health to 1 for no reason.

If Paranormality is Enhanced, it won’t set your Health to 1, actually making it a great boost to your Health since Shield/Armor will now essentially be converted to Health at a 1:2 ratio.

Reinforced Eggshell

Reinforced Eggshell reduces the damage you take by 30% while you have Shields/Armor, but increases the damage you take by 30% while you don’t.

With Flesh and Bones, you’d never get the upside and only the downside.

Silver Medal

Silver Medal causes your Shield to rechargeupon killing an enemy or destroying an item. Flesh and Bones grants no Shield to recharge, so this does nothing.

Airbag

Airbag reduces your current health when your Shield/Armor is active, and restores all Health when the Shield/Armor breaks. With no Shield/Armor, Airbag never takes effect with Flesh and Bones.

Deadly Curse

Deadly Curse reduces your Maximum Health in exchange for damage. I don’t need to explain why this sucks with Flesh and Bones.

Gold Medal

Gold Medal recovers some Shields/Armor when you use your cooldown abilities. I don’t need to restate why this doesn’t work.

Overwhelming Shield

Overwhelming Shield makes your Shield recharge unstoppable, but slower. …y’know.

The Ascensions of the Reincarnation mode also can have varying synergy with Flesh and Bones. Like the scrolls, I’ve only listed ones that have direct, strong synergy.

A Good Man

A multiplayer exclusive, this grants you +2% healing per second, +5% movement speed and +30% damage whenever you revive an ally or get revived, stacking up to 10 times per stage. The healing per second stacks directly with Flesh and Bones, giving you a ton of tankiness, especially during boss fights where more revives will be happening.

Fake Death

Fake Death gives you a few seconds to kill an enemy when you would normally die to revive yourself and become invincible for 3 seconds, with a 45 second cooldown. The healing of Flesh and Bones lets you quickly recover and get back to fighting after the 3 seconds are up.

Occult Booster

Occult Booster causes 20% of all Scrolls that spawn on your client to be Enhanced. With quite a few Scrolls being bad with Flesh and Bones unless they’re enhanced, this helps you take more scrolls without screwing yourself over.

Overconsumption

Overconsumption grants +300% Weapon and Skill Damage, -50% cooldown, +50% Movement Speed, +50 Max Health and Shield/Armor. These effects decrease based on how many Scrolls you have equipped. This boosts both your tankiness and damage, and softens the blow when you find Scrolls that you can’t use due to Flesh and Bones.

Battle Scarred (Ao Bai)

Battle Scarred grants 5% healing per second that stacks directly with Flesh and Bones, and reduces your damage taken by up to 50% based on your Health percentage. Combining Flesh and Bones with Battle Scarred skyrockets your healing and tankiness and is especially helpful against slow firing, heavy damage enemies.

Life Power (Ao Bai)

Life Power grants up to 200% of your Maximum Health as bonus Weapon Damage %. The damage bonus grows as you heal at a 1 health healed to:+2% weapon damage ratio. Taking damage lowers the bonus at an equal ratio, but will never enter negative numbers.

Life Power turns Flesh and Bones from a defensive Scroll to an offensive powerhouse with the large damage bonus you’ll consistently have.

Oppressor (Qing Yan)

Oppressor causes you to deal +150% damage to enemies with a lower or equal HP% to you, while reducing the damage you take 30% less damage from enemies with a greater HP%.

With Flesh and Bones, you can consistently have the damage bonus against your enemies due to constant healing.

Basically, Flesh and Bones is at its best when you have additional sources of Healing, and have a large enough health pool to sustain yourself.

Flesh and Bones is actively detrimental when you have Scrolls that reduce your Maximum Health, or are running multiple sources of Shield/Armor recovery.