Glory Hunter’s coefficients
Half a point. Kill hunger +0.5 is the largest coefficient, on any parameter, of any trait this wiki has datamined: more than three times Ambitious (+0.15), double Greedy (+0.25), and clear of Vain (+0.3) by a comfortable margin. It comes with recklessness +0.2 and threat +0.08, and together the three numbers describe a hero whose combat AI treats finishing blows as the point of the exercise.
Here’s the detail most managers miss when they lump Glory Hunter in with the other selfish finishers: it carries no protectiveness penalty. Greedy (−0.15) and Vain (−0.3) both express their self-interest by caring less about party-mates. Glory Hunter doesn’t. The hero still covers, still guards, still aids at the normal rate. They just want the killing blow desperately, will take real risks to get it, and fight loudly enough that enemies pay them extra attention. This is vanity that performs for an audience. It never abandons that audience. In party-design terms that distinction is worth actual delves: your Glory Hunter remains a functioning team member between kills.
At +0.5, this stops being a nudge. Ambitious tilts close decisions; Glory Hunter overrides ones that weren’t close.
Kill-stealing as a play style
In the delve report, a Glory Hunter is unmistakable: one name attached to nearly every killing blow, round after round. When that pattern is working for you, it’s tempo in its purest form. Wounded enemies die now rather than two rounds from now, and with four heroes against a procedural dungeon, every early kill is an attacker subtracted from every remaining round. Against swarms of fragile enemies, and on attrition floors where flooding, curses or darkness tax each round you linger, a Glory Hunter shortens delves enough to notice in the yield.
When it’s working against you, the report shows the cost of overriding decisions that weren’t close. The hero crosses the room, through danger the AI would normally respect (that’s the +0.2 recklessness), to harvest a target the damage dealer next to it had already finished in all but name, while the fresh, dangerous enemy it ignored spends the round hitting your support. Overkill and misallocation, the classic kill-hunger failure modes, both scaled up to match the coefficient. The +0.08 threat rider adds a mild surcharge: all that showing off draws attention, though far less of it than Reckless (+0.16) or Hot-Headed (+0.14) attract.
Boss fights with adds are the acid test. A +0.5 kill-hunger hero will reliably prefer the dying add to the boss mechanic, and no delve condition punishes that preference, so your party composition has to.
Building around a Glory Hunter
Build the party as a delivery system and Glory Hunter repays it. The trait belongs on your primary finisher, full stop. It is wasted anywhere else, and actively harmful on roles with other jobs. A support who prioritises killing blows at +0.5 is not a support. An anchor who leaves the line to finish things is a hole in the line.
Around the finisher, you want wound-makers and shape-holders: heroes who bring enemies to the threshold, and a disciplined front line (Professional and Methodical company suits it well) that keeps the formation honest while the Glory Hunter operates. Since the trait spares protectiveness, you don’t need to over-invest in Loyal or Team Player insurance the way you would around Vain; the Glory Hunter still does its share of covering.
Never run two. Two +0.5 kill-hunger heroes converge on the same dying target with mechanical certainty, doubling the overkill and halving the coverage. And check the synergy planner: pairings that reward focused damage turn the funnelling into a feature, which is as close as this trait gets to being optimised.
Wages, fame and the oath table
Glory Hunter heroes get expensive, then more expensive. Kill hunger concentrates killing blows; killing blows are the currency of reputation; and a hero who has spent a season collecting nearly all of the party’s kills arrives at the Sworn Oath renewal with a highlight reel and a number in mind. Of the whole kill-hunger family, this is the trait most likely to price itself off your roster. Budget for the renewal from the day you sign them, and sanity-check the term in the oath negotiator while you still have leverage.
The upside of fame is liquidity. A Glory Hunter’s record shows brilliantly to buyers, so selling one mid-career is easy and often correct: you captured the tempo, someone else funds the wage curve. On age: the behaviour holds as attributes decline, but the recklessness rider on a fading hero means the risks stay constant while the margin for surviving them shrinks. Under permadeath, an old Glory Hunter is a hero writing cheques their sheet can no longer cash. Move them on a season early rather than a delve late.
v1.9.6 to v2.1.8
The coefficients have not moved across any tracked build: +0.5 kill hunger, +0.2 recklessness, +0.08 threat, from v1.9.6 straight through v2.1.8. Whatever risks this trait carries, patch risk is not among them.