The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Family Builds Guide

This is a compilation of strong or just interesting builds that I’ve found over time. They’ve been sitting in my google docs for a while, so I figured that I would upload them. I have to reformat everything for this guide, so it will probably take a while. The point of this guide is more to provide recommended paths and build skeletons for Family, so feel free to modify whatever to your preference.

• Skill tree and Ability tree paths are marked with either L, M, or R. L indicates to go left. M indicates to go down the middle. R indicates to go right.
• Recommended paths for each Family member’s ability are listed right at the top of their respective pages, right below their portrait and above their builds.
• The fastest executions for each Family member are also listed at the top of their respective pages. Feel free to use whatever out of preference, but the ones listed are the best gameplay-wise.
• Noteworthy random perks for each Family member are also listed at the top of their respective pages, right below their recommended ability path.
• The number of random perks that a Family member gets from a certain path is located in the Perks section right below the noteworthy guaranteed perks that they get.
• A * symbol next to a perk indicates that it’s random.
• Perk selections for builds are just general recommendations, and can be modified as you like.
• Irrelevant perks are ignored for perk pools. These are generally weak, situational, and/or actively detrimental perks, like I Smell Blood, Insulated, Sip Sip Sip, and Slow and Steady. Feel free to use them, but they will be ignored for the purpose of this guide.
• Scout is recommended for most serious builds assuming there is access to it, due to how strong it currently is.
• All of the default Family perks (Blood Runner, Hurt Pride, and Pack Animal) are unexceptional and not recommended for any builds, and thus will be ignored.
• Irrelevant Grandpa perks are ignored if the path has access to relevant ones. If the path only has irrelevant Grandpa perks, then they will all be listed.
  • The relevant perks are Exterior Alarms and Nobody Escapes Hell. Taking any other Grandpa perk while these are being used is unfortunately potentially detrimental, as these irrelevant Grandpa perks might be prioritized sooner than ETO/NEH, meaning that you can’t rush these perks as fast.
• With the current state of the game, any serious team composition needs to have a Cook with Security Pins. Without it, Victims are free to quickly rush and leave. Anything else after that isn’t as important, but Hitchhiker is the next recommended character. The third slot is a bit more fluid – Leatherface is good on any map, but Nancy can be really strong on Family House so long as the Victims don’t make it outside (mainly from jumping out the front window).
  • Johnny is pretty strong now after his various buffs, but Leatherface is still overall better and more consistent. Johnny is better if you are a newer player who is not used to playing Leatherface yet, or if you are going against newer Victims who misposition themselves out in the open frequently.
  • Sissy is unfortunately quite weak currently, and is not recommended for serious play.

• Savagery is generally the most important attribute for Family. A majority of your points should be going toward this.
• Blood Harvesting is a decent attribute, but gets countered by rushing or Agitator. It’s good to invest a few points into it for breakpoints, but the rest of the points should go toward Savagery. Do not max out this stat unless memeing. The breakpoints for Blood Harvesting are as follows:
  • 25 Blood Harvesting: 100 blood capacity vial and 5 buckets required to tier up Grandpa.
    • Mainly useful for guaranteeing a tier up after a kill.
  • 38 Blood Harvesting: 4 buckets required to tier up Grandpa.
  • 35 Blood Harvesting + Universal Donor Tier 3: 3 buckets required to tier up Grandpa.
  • 40 Blood Harvesting + Universal Donor Tier 2: 3 buckets required to tier up Grandpa.
  • 45 Blood Harvesting + Universal Donor Tier 1: 3 buckets required to tier up Grandpa.
• Endurance isn’t too useful of an attribute.
  • It’s not useful on the slow characters (Cook and Nancy) since they don’t want to be chasing for long – they just get a few hits in then go back on patrol.
  • It’s not useful on the chasing characters (Hitchhiker and Sissy) since their base Savagery values are already so low and they need to dump all their points toward it to compensate.
  • Leatherface almost entirely ignores the stamina mechanic and thus doesn’t need Endurance. In fact, it can actually hurt Leatherface to invest in Endurance if Hysterical Strength is equipped.
  • This means that this stat is only useful on Johnny, who wants to max out Savagery first and then dump the rest of his points into Endurance.

M, R, L

• Scout
• Security Pins
• Unrelenting

4 Random Perks

• Scout
• Security Pins
• *Serrated / *Tracker Tagged

• Exterior Alarms

27 Points Total

Easily Cook’s best path, no question. Security Pins and Exterior Alarms are meta-defining perks. Running anything else will only hurt your odds of winning. The only thing wrong with this path is that it doesn’t get Universal Donor, but getting Security Pins instead is well worth the sacrifice.

R, L, L

• Big Swings
• Scout
• Security Pins

3 Random Perks

• Scout
• Security Pins
• Big Swings / *Serrated / *Tracker Tagged

• Big Swings
• *Serrated
• *Punishment / Scout / Security Pins / *Tenderizer / Unrelenting

• Barge to the Point
• Well Well Well

30 Points Total

Big Swings variant of Path 1-1 which also happens to get 3 more attribute points, but loses Exterior Alarms and a random perk. Technically better than Path 1-1 if somebody else already has Exterior Alarms, but there’s no way to switch paths mid-lobby, and Cook doesn’t really need the extra attribute points anyway.

M, R, R, L

• Scout
• Universal Donor
• Unrelenting
• Vial-ent

3 Random Perks

• Scout
• Universal Donor
• *Serrated / *Tracker Tagged

• Exterior Alarms
• Nobody Escapes Hell

27 Points Total

Universal Donor path. Unfortunately loses Security Pins, so not at all worth it. It gains Nobody Escapes Hell though, so it is possible to quickly rush that with Universal Donor.

R, L, R, L

• Big Swings
• Scout
• Universal Donor
• Vial-ent

2 Random Perks

• Scout
• Universal Donor
• Big Swings / *Serrated / *Tracker Tagged

• Big Swings
• *Serrated
• Scout / Vial-ent / Any

• Nobody Escapes Hell

30 Points Total

Big Swings variant of Path 2-1 which also happens to get 3 more attribute points, but loses Exterior Alarms and a random perk. The Universal Donor path already gets Nobody Escapes Hell, so losing Exterior Alarms isn’t as bad as with Path 1. Technically better than Path 2-1 if somebody else already has Exterior Alarms, but there’s no way to switch paths mid-lobby, and Cook doesn’t really need the extra attribute points anyway.

X

• X

X Random Perks

• X

• X

X Points Total

X

X

• X

X Random Perks

• X

• X

X Points Total

X

L,

• Easily Tuckered Out

X Random Perks

• Easily Tuckered Out
• *Scout
• *Serrated

• Exterior Alarms

X Points Total

Path for Exterior Alarms. Gets Easily Tuckered Out as well, which synergizes decently with Johnny’s lunge, but is generally outclassed by Big Swings / Fired Up / Unrelenting. Probably Johnny’s best path, just because Exterior Alarms is so good. Outclassed by Path 2 if someone else is running Exterior Alarms, however.

R,

• Big Swings
• Fired Up
• Unrelenting

X Random Perks

• *Scout
• *Serrated
• Big Swings / Fired Up / Unrelenting

• Big Swings
• *Serrated
• Fired Up / Unrelenting

• X

X Points Total

Johnny’s chase/lethality path. Gets access to Big Swings, Fired Up, and Unrelenting, but unfortunately loses access to Exterior Alarms, meaning no access to any good Grandpa perks. Good path if someone else is running Exterior Alarms, but is otherwise probably worse than Path 1. Unrelenting is generally more consistent than Fired Up, but they’re both still solid choices.

X

• Scout

X Random Perks

• X

• Nobody Escapes Hell

X Points Total

X

X

• Big Swings

X Random Perks

• X

• Brute Strength

X Points Total

X

R, L, R, R, R

• Dinner Bell
• Hey Sissy
• Pins and Needles
• Poisoned Claws
• Tracker Tagged
• Wait a Second

1 Random Perk

• Poisoned Claws
• Wait a Second
• Dinner Bell / Pins and Needles / *Universal Donor

• Dinner Bell
• Tracker Tagged
• Hey Sissy / Any

• Always in Sync
• Barge to the Point
• Don’t Have All Day

30 Points Total

Don’t go left for Hurt ‘Em at the third fork. You will lose an attribute point and it is a bad perk – Nancy’s traps only do 5 damage, meaning that this perk only adds an additional 2.5 damage. For reference, a 25 Toughness Victim has ~111 health.
Probably Nancy’s best path. Loses Scout and a random perk (meaning only 1!), but gains Poisoned Claws and Wait a Second which are both very strong and important perks for her. Pins and Needles is really strong too, assuming that it procs even once and that there’s time to set up the fourth trap. This path also gets 4 more attribute points than Path 2.

R, M, R, R

• Dinner Bell
• Feral
• Hey Sissy
• Scout
• Tracker Tagged

2 Random Perks

• Scout
• Dinner Bell / Feral / Tracker Tagged / *Universal Donor / Any

• Feral
• *Fired Up
• Scout

• Dinner Bell
• Tracker Tagged
• Scout

• *Dracula
• *Universal Donor
• Scout / Any

• Always in Sync
• Don’t Have All Day

26 Points Total

Don’t go left for Hurt ‘Em at the third fork, same as Path 1.
Nancy’s Scout path. Unfortunately loses out on Pins and Needles, Poisoned Claws, and Wait a Second though, meaning that this probably is her weaker path despite having access to Scout.

R, R, R, R

• Dinner Bell
• Give Me More
• Hey Sissy
• Siphon
• Surgical
• Tracker Tagged
• Nobody Escapes Hell

3 Random Perks

• *Universal Donor
• Dinner Bell / Any
• *Fired Up / Give Me More / Hey Sissy / Any

• Give Me More
• Hey Sissy
• Dinner Bell / Tracker Tagged / *Universal Donor / Any

• *Universal Donor
• *Dracula / Siphon / Surgical

• Nobody Escapes Hell

25 Points Total

Nobody Escapes Hell path. Unfortunately bad other than the fact that it gets an actually useful Grandpa perk. This path at least gets 3 random perks to make up for its poor selection of regular perks.

R, R, L

• Efficient Herbalist
• Fired Up
• Scout
• Universal Donor
• Exterior Alarms / Nobody Escapes Hell

X Random Perks

• Scout
• *Special Blend
• Universal Donor

• Fired Up
• Scout
• *Special Blend

• Efficient Herbalist
• Scout
• Universal Donor

• Exterior Alarms

25 Points Total

X

L, L, R

• Linger
• Spore Loser

X Random Perks

• Linger
• *Special Blend
• Spore Loser

• X

X Points Total

X