Hunter Traits and Progression
Hunt: Showdown runs two progression tracks side by side. Your Bloodline is the account rank from 1 to 100 that permanently unlocks traits, weapon variants, and cosmetics, while each individual hunter levels from 1 to 50 and loses everything on death. Traits split into permanent, burn, and scarce types, and Quartermaster, Greyhound, and Doctor are the highest priority picks for most builds.
Two counters go up every match, and they behave nothing alike. Your Bloodline is your account-level rank, and what it unlocks in the store stays unlocked. Your Hunter is the individual character you take into the field, who earns XP, gains trait points, and dies permanently if killed.
Understanding how these two systems feed each other is how you progress efficiently and recover quickly from losing your best hunter.
Bloodline Progression
Your Bloodline rank goes from 1 to 100. As of the 1896 relaunch, all base weapons and their standard ammo are available from Bloodline rank 1. Ranking up your Bloodline unlocks traits, weapon variants, and cosmetic rewards.
How you earn Bloodline XP:
- Extracting from matches (flat XP bonus for surviving)
- Killing AI enemies (Grunts, Hives, Armored, Immolators, Meatheads)
- Killing enemy hunters
- Finding clues
- Killing and banishing bosses
- Picking up bounty tokens
Key unlocks by Bloodline rank:
| Rank | Notable Unlock |
|---|---|
| 1 | All base weapons and standard ammo, plus Quartermaster and Necromancer |
| 12 | Fanning (critical for pistol builds) |
| 36 | Poacher and Vigilant |
| 62 | Poltergeist, the last trait any Bloodline rank grants |
| 100 | Prestige becomes available |
Trait unlock ranks move constantly. Fanning alone has sat at rank 87, 36, 17, 13 and now 12 across its patch history, and Quartermaster has moved between 24, 45, 51, 22 and now 1. Treat any rank number you read, including these, as a snapshot and not a fixture.
Note also that ranks 63 to 100 grant no new traits at all. They pay out Hunt Dollars only, so you have your full trait access well before you hit the Prestige threshold.
Weapon Variants: Instead of Bloodline rank gating, weapon variants (Marksman, Deadeye, Sniper, Precision, Silencer, Uppercut, etc.) unlock by earning XP with the base weapon family. Use the Winfield enough and you unlock its Aperture, Swift, and Marksman variants. Use the Nagant and you unlock the Silencer, Precision, and Deadeye variants.
Bloodline unlocks are permanent within a prestige cycle. Once you unlock a trait or variant, you can buy it for any hunter as long as you have Hunt Dollars. Losing a hunter does not re-lock anything.
Hunter Leveling
Each individual hunter earns XP independently. Hunter levels go from 1 to 50.
- Levels 1 to 50: Leveling grants upgrade points that you spend on traits for that hunter.
- Level 50: Your hunter is maxed and becomes eligible for retirement. There is no earlier retirement threshold.
When your hunter dies, their level, traits, and gear are gone. You start fresh with a new recruit.
Retiring Hunters
When a hunter reaches level 50 (the maximum), you can retire them from your roster. Retirement removes the hunter permanently but awards a flat 10,000 Bloodline XP bonus.
Retirement is only available at level 50. You cannot retire hunters early. This is a deliberate change from older versions of the game. If you remember retiring at level 25, that option no longer exists.
When to retire:
- You want to push your Bloodline rank to unlock a specific weapon or trait.
- The hunter's current loadout is not worth keeping (cheap gear, mediocre traits).
- You need to free a roster slot for a better recruit.
When NOT to retire:
- The hunter has a strong trait build you cannot easily replicate.
- You are already at Bloodline 100 (retirement XP has no benefit unless you are about to prestige).
Retirement returns every weapon, tool, and consumable the hunter carries to your arsenal, so expensive gear is never a reason to keep a level 50 hunter alive. Traits are the only thing you give up. Dying in a match is the case that costs you the kit.
Maxing vs. Retiring
| Strategy | Benefit | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Max to 50 | Bonus Bloodline XP on every match. Strong trait build. | Losing a level 50 hunter with 15 traits hurts. |
| Retire at 50 | Flat 10,000 Bloodline XP payout. Frees a roster slot. All carried gear returns to your arsenal. | You spent many matches building this hunter's traits, and those are gone. The gear comes back. |
The best approach depends on your goal. If you need to push Bloodline XP fast, retire at 50 and cycle through hunters. If you have a hunter with a perfect trait build, keep them alive and farm Bloodline XP through match performance. Use the Death Cheat trait to protect high-value hunters during those final dangerous levels.
Traits
Traits are individual perks that modify your hunter's abilities. You spend upgrade points (earned from hunter leveling) to equip traits from the trait menu.
Traits come in four types, shown by the color of the Trait Spur: Regular (white), Burn (red), Scarce (blue), and Event traits that come and go with seasonal content. A trait can carry both the Burn and Scarce tags at once, and that handful is the rarest in the game.
Separately from those types, traits are grouped by role into Offensive, Defensive, Movement and Supportive. Some also carry a Solo or Catalyst tag, which unlocks extra effects under specific conditions.
Permanent Traits
Standard traits that stay with your hunter until they die. These are the backbone of your build.
Combat and Gunplay:
| Trait | Effect | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Fanning | Allows rapid hip-fire with single-action pistols. | High. Turns pistols into close-range weapons. |
| Levering | Allows rapid hip-fire with lever-action rifles and shotguns. | High for Winfield and Terminus users. |
| Bulletgrubber | Catches the ejected round when you interrupt a bolt-action or lever-action reload, saving ammo. | Medium. Prevents wasted rounds on long-ammo weapons. |
| Iron Eye | The current trait for scoped aiming. Iron Sharpshooter no longer exists, having been merged into Iron Eye back in Update 1.15, along with Iron Devastator and Iron Repeater. | Medium for long-range players. |
| Scopesmith | Keeps you in scope view after firing, instead of kicking you out of the sight. | High if you use scoped weapons. Note that it has nothing to do with scope glint, which is not a mechanic in this game. |
| Steady Aim | Reduces hip-fire crosshair bloom. | Medium. Improves snapshot accuracy. |
| Blast Sense | Highlights gunshots and explosions within 200m while in Dark Sight. Available from the start. | High. Turns audio guesswork into a visual read on where fights are. |
Movement and Stamina:
| Trait | Effect | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Greyhound | Increases sprint speed. | High. Getting to clues, bosses, and extractions faster is always valuable. |
| Determination | Faster stamina recovery. | High. Pairs with Greyhound for sustained mobility. |
| Lightfoot | Reduces fall damage and noise from jumping/landing. Update 2.9 gave it the Catalyst Conditional to never break branches, moved off Beastface. | Medium. Good for vertical maps like DeSalle. |
| Gator Legs | Faster movement speed in water. | High on Stillwater Bayou. Low priority on dry maps. |
| Kiteskin | Reduces fall damage. | Low priority. Only relevant on DeSalle and Mammon's Gulch. |
Utility and Awareness:
| Trait | Effect | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Quartermaster | Adds +1 Weapon Capacity, taking you from 5 to 6. Update 2.8 reworked it into this generic bonus and raised its price from 6 to 8 Upgrade Points. | Very high. Opens two Size 3 weapons, or a 4 and a 2. |
| Doctor | Fully heals a health chunk instead of partially healing it when using a Medkit. | High. Stretches your healing resources across longer matches. |
| Resilience | A teammate's revive brings you back with up to full health instead of a partial bar. 3 Upgrade Points, unlocked at Bloodline rank 4. | Medium in duos and trios. It does nothing for a solo, since Necromancer already self-revives at full health. |
| Physician | Faster Medkit use speed. | Medium. Good in fights where you need to heal between exchanges. |
| Vulture | Lets you loot dead hunters even after they have been fully searched. Update 2.9 gave it a Catalyst Conditional that loots some ammo from downed Hunters. | Low. Niche use for finding extra supplies. |
| Packmule | Extra item from ammo boxes and supply points. | Medium. Keeps your ammo and consumables topped up across the match. |
| Serpent | Interact with clues, rifts, banishable targets and abandoned bounty tokens from 25m, rising to 50m for solos. | Situational. Lets you grab bounties without entering the lair. |
| Vigilant | Highlights traps (trip mines, bear traps, concertina) through Dark Sight. | Medium. Prevents cheap deaths from traps in compound fights. |
| Witness | Reveals dead hunters and monsters in Dark Sight within 75m. | Medium. Reads where fights happened and which routes enemies took. |
| Pain Sense | Reveals bleeding, poisoned and burning hunters in Dark Sight within 150m. Renamed from Poison Sense in Update 2.1 with its scope widened. | High if you play aggressively. Tells you who is already hurt. |
Update 2.8 raised several trait prices alongside the inventory rework. Quartermaster went from 6 Upgrade Points to 8, Frontiersman from 5 to 6, and Hundred Hands from 2 to 3. Budget for those before you plan a build around them.
Burn Traits
Marked in red, burn traits are consumed after a single use. Once triggered, the trait is gone from your hunter and you must spend upgrade points to re-equip it.
Seven traits carry the Burn tag. Necromancer, Death Cheat, Rampage, Relentless, and Remedy came first, and Update 2.9 added Siphon and Chupacabra. Death Cheat, Rampage, Relentless, and Remedy are Scarce as well, so they get their own table further down. Resilience belongs in none of that, despite how often it gets listed as a Burn trait. It is an ordinary 3 Upgrade Point Supportive trait from Bloodline rank 4, and it sits in the utility table above.
| Trait | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Necromancer | Revive a dead teammate at range through walls, or self-revive as a solo after a 5 second wait. | Extremely powerful in squad play. Not Scarce, so you can simply buy it back. |
| Siphon | Loots a Scarce Trait off an enemy Hunter's body, leaving Siphon in its place. | Added in Update 2.9. You can acquire it by interacting with a Blood Well, or find it in-world the way other Scarce Traits spawn. It takes Death Cheat whenever it can, and otherwise a random Scarce Trait the looted Hunter was carrying. For a solo the second preference is Necromancer, though never off another solo, only off someone in a team. A stolen Death Cheat stays active for the player who lost it for the rest of the round. |
| Chupacabra | Interact with a live horse, cow, or animal cage to restore 1 Health Chunk. | Added in Update 2.9. Buyable from the Trait menu for 2 Upgrade Points once it is unlocked. A dog cage lets you interact with all 3 dogs separately, while a chicken cage takes one interaction for the whole cage. The animal you pick is triggered during the interaction and killed when it completes. |
Scarce Traits
Marked in blue, scarce traits cannot be purchased. You find them during matches from Trait Spurs on the map or as boss rewards. Update 2.8 gave the Spurs in Watch Towers, Hunting Towers, and other points of interest a chance to spawn a sealed variant of the trait, and it put a guaranteed un-sealed Catalyst Spur in every Military Supply. Update 2.9 then added Crackshot, Blademancer, and Corpse Seer to the Trait spawns at Scout Towers and themed Supply Points, in both Sealed and normal Trait Spur variations, and it added Siphon as a way to take a Scarce Trait straight off an enemy Hunter's body.
| Trait | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow | Reduced noise from movement. | Cannot be bought. |
| Catalyst | Unlocks conditional bonus effects on Beastface, Kiteskin, Vigilant, Pain Sense and Frontiersman when those traits are equipped. Update 2.9 added Lightfoot and Vulture to that list. | Added to the core game in February 2026. It is a multiplier on traits you already run, not an intel tool. Lightfoot picked up the never-break-branches conditional, moved off Beastface, and Vulture gained one that loots some ammo from downed Hunters. |
Ghoul, Conduit and Whispersmith are not Scarce traits. All three are ordinary purchasable traits, so you do not need to hunt for them in-world. And Tomahawk no longer exists at all, having been merged into Assailant in Update 1.15. Assailant is the current trait that improves thrown knives and axes, which is also what the sledgehammer-throw achievement needs.
Dual-Classification Traits (Burn + Scarce)
Some traits carry both the Burn and Scarce tags. They are consumed on use AND can only be found in-world, making them the rarest and most valuable traits in the game.
| Trait | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Death Cheat | Your hunter survives one lethal hit during the match. | Saves a fully-built hunter from permadeath. Cannot be rebought. Must be found again, and Update 2.8 slightly reduced the chance of a Hellborn dropping it. |
| Rampage | Increased fire rate after a kill. | Extremely aggressive snowball trait. One use per match. |
| Relentless | Reduced stamina cost on melee attacks after a kill. | Strong for melee-heavy builds. |
| Remedy | Gain health on a successful kill. | Sustain during chain fights. |
Traits in Custom Loadouts
Update 2.9 lets you attach Traits to a Custom Loadout, meant to cut down the number of steps to re-equip a Hunter after death. A Custom Loadout now carries a dual cost in Hunt Dollars and Upgrade Points.
- You can equip 0 to 15 Traits to a loadout, and the cost is replaced with the total budget needed.
- The cost of the Traits lands when you equip the Loadout to your Hunter.
- A Loadout you cannot cover in Upgrade Points will not equip, and the game shows an error message.
- Copying a Hunter's loadout into a Custom Loadout slot still works. Scarce and Locked Traits are skipped when you do.
- You can disable the Traits widget and equip the Custom Loadout without them.
Recommended Builds for New Players
The Survivor (Levels 1 to 30)
Focus on staying alive and extracting. Kills and bounties come later.
Priority traits:
- Greyhound (run faster, escape fights)
- Doctor (get more from each Medkit)
- Determination (recover stamina faster)
- Physician (heal faster under pressure)
Loadout: Vetterli 71 + Caldwell Pax. Cheap, effective, replaceable.
The Bounty Hunter (Levels 30 to 60)
You are comfortable fighting. Now optimize for boss kills and extractions.
Priority traits:
- Quartermaster (carry larger weapon combos)
- Fanning or Levering (depending on your sidearm)
- Greyhound
- Doctor
Loadout: Berthier + Uppercut or Winfield (with Levering) + Pax.
The PvP Fighter (Levels 60+)
You are hunting other hunters, not just bosses.
Priority traits:
- Quartermaster
- Fanning
- Scopesmith (if using scoped weapons)
- Bulletgrubber
- Greyhound
- Necromancer (burn trait, for squad play)
Loadout: Mosin-Nagant or Berthier + Uppercut. Bring Concertina Bombs and Fire Bombs for area control.
Prestige
Once you reach Bloodline rank 100, you can Prestige. This resets your Bloodline rank to 1, re-locking all weapons and items. In return, you earn:
- A reward at every one of the 100 prestige levels, not a single one-time payout. Most levels let you choose between +2,000 Hunt Dollars and a +10% XP boost, 11 levels offer a random Blood Bond skin, 17 grant an exclusive hunter or skin automatically, and 8 hand over 100 Blood Bonds.
- Profile milestones that track how far you have gone.
- The satisfaction of doing it again.
Prestige is optional. If you like having the full arsenal available and do not care about prestige badges, there is no gameplay benefit to resetting. Many experienced players sit at Prestige 0, Rank 100 permanently.
If you do prestige:
- Your Hunt Dollars reset to 8,000. Do not stockpile currency expecting it to carry over.
- Your contraband items and variant unlocks are wiped. Your career statistics, your Legendary unlocks, and your Blood Bond balance all survive untouched.
- Accept that your first 20 to 30 ranks after prestige will be rough. All base weapons are still available, but you lose your variant unlocks and need to re-earn them through weapon XP.
- Update 2.9 carved out one exception. Every Burgess variant unlocks through the Battle Pass during Blood Testament and stays unlocked over Prestige, and they move into normal weapon progression once that event ends.
- The same update fixed an exploit where players could Prestige after readying up and load into a Mission with an empty Hunter.
- Prestige goes up to 100 levels. Each prestige level has its own badge. Reaching Prestige 100 is an extreme long-term grind (thousands of hours).
The Hunt Dollar Economy
Hunt Dollars are earned through gameplay and spent on hunters, weapons, tools, and consumables.
Income sources:
- Extracting from matches (base payout scales with how much you did in the match)
- Killing enemy hunters (bonus per kill)
- Finding clues and banishing bosses
- Completing daily and weekly challenges
Spending priorities:
- Recruit hunters with good starting traits (saves you upgrade points)
- Buy weapons that match your playstyle and current Bloodline tier
- Stock consumables (Vitality Shots and Antidote Shots are worth the cost)
- Do not buy gear you cannot afford to lose. If one death wipes your bank account, you are overspending.
If you run out of Hunt Dollars, use free hunters. The game always offers a few free recruits with basic loadouts. They have random (often mediocre) traits, but they cost nothing. Use them to rebuild your bank on budget runs.
Frequently Asked Questions
At what level can you retire a hunter in Hunt: Showdown?
Level 50, and only level 50. Retirement removes the hunter permanently and pays out a flat 10,000 Bloodline XP bonus, and every weapon, tool, and consumable they carry returns to your arsenal. You lose the traits, not the gear. If you remember retiring at level 25 from older versions, that option no longer exists.
What are burn traits in Hunt: Showdown?
Burn traits are marked in red and consumed after a single use, then gone from that hunter until you re-equip them. Seven traits carry the tag, since Update 2.9 added Siphon and Chupacabra. You can buy Necromancer back with upgrade points, and Chupacabra costs 2 Upgrade Points from the Trait menu once it is unlocked, while Death Cheat, Rampage, Relentless, and Remedy are Burn and Scarce, so you have to find them in-world again. Resilience gets listed as a burn trait all over the place, but it is an ordinary 3 Upgrade Point Supportive trait from Bloodline rank 4.
How do you get scarce traits?
You cannot buy them. Scarce traits are marked in blue and come from Trait Spurs on the map or from boss rewards. Shadow and Catalyst are examples, along with the Burn and Scarce group like Death Cheat. Update 2.9 added Crackshot, Blademancer and Corpse Seer to the Trait spawns at Scout Towers and themed Supply Points, and it added Siphon, a Burn Trait that loots a Scarce Trait straight off an enemy Hunter's body. Note that Ghoul, Conduit and Whispersmith are ordinary purchasable traits despite often being listed as scarce, and Tomahawk no longer exists at all since it was merged into Assailant.
Is prestige worth it in Hunt: Showdown?
It is optional. Prestiging resets your Bloodline to rank 1 and your Hunt Dollars to 8,000 and wipes unlocked equipment, traits and hunters, though your statistics, Legendary unlocks and Blood Bonds survive. Unlike a one-off reward, every one of the 100 prestige levels pays out something, usually a choice between 2,000 Hunt Dollars and a 10 percent XP boost. Many experienced players still sit at Rank 100 without prestiging.
Which traits should a new Hunt: Showdown player buy first?
Greyhound, Doctor, Determination, and Physician. That set keeps you moving, stretches your Medkits, and gets you out of fights you should not be taking while you are still learning the maps.
What to Read Next
- Weapons and Loadouts. Spending Hunt Dollars sensibly.
- PvP and Strategy. Dark Sight traits and their counter-play.
- Achievements. Progression achievements and prestige milestones.
- Tips and Tricks. Moving trait ranks, scarce trait sources, and what Prestige actually pays.