Dead Island 2 offers players the choice of six characters to play. These characters will define your playstyle as progress through the game. These niches for each character offer moments where personalities truly shine, making you recognise why you picked them. Yet, the developers designed some of these characters and playstyles for different tasks and roles much better than others. Here is a look at a Dead Island 2 Tier List ranking the best characters, in which we outline the characteristics you want to look for when deciding what character to pick.

Dead Island 2 Best Character Ranked in a Tier List¶

The most important thing to note is that this is not like Borderlands or any other game like that, as the power of each character is limited to two different passives. So, it’s a matter of which of the gameplay niches matters the most to you. Saying that, some do seem more usable in various situations than others, so, let us take a look at how the characters rank in this best Dead Island 2 characters tier list.

If you want a more detailed look and analysis on how these playstyles, innate skills and starting stats matter, read below for each character for a better understand, breakdown, and tips on how they work in the game.

Best Dead Island 2 Characters Explained¶

Jacob¶

• Feral: Jacob gets a stack of minor damage boost when attacking in quick succession.
• Critical Gains: Jacob’s Critical Hits when stamina is low, gets a moderate Critical Damage boost and regains stamina.

Jacob is arguably the best slayer in Dead Island 2, and certainly ranks as the best in our Dead Island 2 tier list. The reason why is because of his simplicity, and generally all sound great damage perks that works in all scenarios.

You will see very minor benefits when fighting one or two zombies on the streets. But, when you fight higher-level enemies, or tougher types of zombies, or bosses, that damage ramps-up noticeably, especially when you get more crits and regain stamina. You’ll find there’s not a single downside to these combat stats for generally playing the game however you want.

Not to mention Jacob has high health, making him somewhat durable. Moreso, he has high stamina, meaning you get to use your special skills more often, like flying kicks, vulnerability charges, and other such kit skills. If you want to beat zombies up without thinking, then Jacob is by far the best character for that more generalized, care-free playstyle.

Bruno¶

• Backstab: Gets a moderate damage boost when attacking zombies from behind.
• Rapid Reprisal: Boost Agility and heavy attack charges when he avoids or blacks an attack.

Bruno is the rogue archetype in the game, with his focus being on huge burst critical strikes, and even sneaking up on enemies when possible. He comes with a very high critical strike damage and agility, with a few decent defensive stats. He does, however, have the lowest health in the game.

Bruno is okay as a character, shining the most when you use meat bait and can easily get lots of backstabs off. The only downside is the character is slightly squishy, and will need to use lots of dodges correctly, which is a little tricky, and slightly dangerous when in swarms. You’ll also need to learn to dodge behind enemies to use that backstab, which is slightly hard and potentially dangerous at times.

Overall, there are very few times Bruno’s innate skills will come in useful, but, when they do, they shine quite hard. He also make a good parking for characters like Carla and Ryan in coop, where your friend can tank while you get those juicy backstabs off more often.

Carla¶

• Mosh Pit: Carla gets a minor damage boost when close to multiple zombies
• Dig Deep: Carla gets a moderate toughness boost when her health is critical.

Carla is a good character for when you’re fighting off lots of zombies. You will find this is active quite a lot since it is easy to find a pack of two-three zombies, with some of the more set-piece moments. So, you get decent zombie deleting skills to get you through the combat-intensive parts of the game. The added defense-focused base stats are not too bad too, helping to protect her while you start going to town on HelLA.

The major downside to Carla is that she has the lowest crit damage and one of the lowest agility scores. She is all about being a beefy bruiser, supported by her highest resilience, and one of the highest toughness and peak health stats in the roster of slayers. So, combat may be a little slow to take things down compared to Amy, Jacob or Dani, but it’s not all bad.

If you’re looking for a classic bruiser character, then Carla is a very good pick. The only downside is when you have to fight really tough enemies by themselves, where Carla’s damage profile falls off, compared to the likes of Jacob, with only the energy defensive innate skill coming in handy here. Overall, she’s a good character, and a safe bet at that.

Dani¶

• Thunderstruck: Dani’s Heavy Attack triggers a forceful explosion on impact
• Bloodlust: Dani regains health when slaying multiple zombies in quick succession.

Dani is a decent character, with some strong tools for detonating packs of zombies. This comes at the cost of the stamina usage, by charging up heavy attacks. However, these attacks cause explosions, so, you’ll be launching enemies around the place and dealing more damage on top of other classes for your heavy attack usages. As for Bloodlust, this allows you to take on multiple threats, and regain health back. This makes Dani a solid cleave character when fighting hordes of enemies.

To support this playstyle, Dani has some high Stamina, along with average Crit, Agility, Toughness and above average Peak Health. The only downside is you have rather low health recovery, which means you will be relying on lots of protein bars and energy drinks, along with chugging your med packs more often.

If you want a hard-hitting heavy swinging attack sort of playstyle, Dani is decent, though, she is less versatile than Jacob. You’re best considering somewhat similar to Carla, albeit with more damage and less tankyness. She makes a great coop character to play too, as you can deal with hordes easily, or setup; your partner for their innate skil playstyle.

Ryan¶

• Retaliation: Get a moderate force boost when using block or dodge.
• Seesaw: Regain health whenever you knock a zombie down.

Like Carla, Ryan is a great tanky character, with loses out on Agility and Crit modifiers. However, he instead relies more on crowd-controlling enemies to get his innate skills going. It means Ryan is going to be pushing enemies to the ground more often than his counterparts, which will restore health. Ryan an’t get bit and scratched if they get floored taps head

In our opinion, Ryan is the best Dead Island 2 character for group content. If you plan to play the game in coop, have a friend (or yourself) play as Ryan, and let them floor everyone they can, so they stay tanky, supported by their base stats. You’ll find that this character works incredibly well with characters like Dani, and Bruno, as they help make those backstabs or charged heavy attacks much easier to land. He also works well with Amy, as she can assassinate with her isolated targets, while Ryan takes care of the hoard and floors them all.

Amy¶

• Relief Pitcher: Amy regains stamina when you throw a weapon at a zombie.
• Divide and Conquer: gets a minor damage boost when she attacks isolated zombies.

Amy’s playstyle is all about going fast, assassinating targets, and then regening her combat stamina to continue using ability cards against zombies. This makes Amy one of the best tanky enemy killers, which is great for boss battles, or fighting the mini bosses or larger zombie types you come across.

The major downside is that Amy doesn’t have any innate benefits for taking on larger packs of zombies, and so, will rely on things like Meat Bait to deal with multiple zombie, especially those not isolated. You also kinda need to keep some really dumb weapons on you to throw at enemies when you need your stamina back for a charge or drop kick style attack, which makes things interesting anyway.

Moreso, you rely on dodging a lot, which, if you mess up, Amy will feel the pain, as she has the lowest toughness in the game. She also has very low peak HP, meaning she is by far one of the squishiest characters to play. Make a mistake and you will feel the pain

In our opinion, consider playing Amy like a Samurai, in which you calculate when to throw your weapons, when to spend your stamina on ability card skills, and when you can strike, utilizing that high agility and crit damage, before dodging out of harms way, waiting for the next ideal time to strike.

Amy is for sure a great character, but, like Bruno, is one of the harder ones to play, but she as at least more versatility than Bruno.

This concludes our Dead Island 2 Tier List, ranking the best slayers in Dead Island 2. In truth, play whichever character you want that fits your group or individual playstyle. Most of the time, the characters don’t matter, as the skill decks you build as you play thorough the game and the blueprints you use are where your playstyle develops. But, the character’s innate passives do help round those styles out. So, honestly, do whatever seems more fun to you.