The slower countdown
An injury is the one status that truly takes a hero out of play. Stress, condition and fatigue only flag a hero as worn; an injury runs its own day counter, and the hero sits until it reaches zero. On every day of healing the game works out how many days come off, and Slow to Mend multiplies that by 2/3. Fractions carry over from day to day, so nothing is lost to rounding: each wound simply takes half as long again to close.
Assuming the basic rate of one day of healing per day:
| Injury length | Ordinary hero | Slow to Mend | Quick to Mend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 days | 6 days out | 9 | 4 |
| 9 days | 9 days out | 13–14 | 6 |
| 12 days | 12 days out | 18 | 8 |
A better Infirmary raises the daily rate toward the cap (2.5 days per day, or 2 for grave wounds), and the two-thirds multiplier applies to the improved rate. Investing in the Infirmary helps a Slow to Mend hero more in absolute days than anyone else on the roster.
What it does not change
The trait does not make injuries more likely. A downed hero still rolls the same 25% for a lasting wound, and a wound fielded while open still has the usual 22% chance to tear. Slow to Mend only changes how long the hero is gone once it happens. While they are injured, the attributes the wound touches are reduced by up to 35%, so a long recovery also means a long stretch at reduced strength if you field them early.
How much it really costs
The cost follows how often the hero gets hurt, so it depends almost entirely on role. On a back-line caster who rarely goes down, Slow to Mend may never fire in a season. On a front-liner who soaks hits every delve, it can turn one bad fight into two missed contracts.
It stacks badly with two traits the game allows on the same hero:
- Frail makes a downed hero come home injured 40% of the time. A Frail, Slow to Mend tank is a hero you will mostly see in the infirmary.
- Glass-Jawed means more knock-downs in the first place.
Indomitable is the partner that limits the damage: wounds never turn grave, so the worst cases stay ordinary even at two-thirds speed.
Jobs, the route and flavour
- Sellsword jobs dislike it. Sellsword contracts list Slow to Mend among the traits they would rather not take, which takes 6% off the hero’s suitability. A season of someone else’s war is a season of small wounds. Quick to Mend is on the same contract’s liked list.
- Forks. As party leader, a Slow to Mend hero leans +1 toward the known path. With nothing pulling the other way, they take a side room only about a third of the time it is offered.
- Flavour. Quest reports have Slow to Mend lines.
The hero card links the trait to Vitality. That link is descriptive and does not lower the attribute.
Where to use a Slow to Mend hero
- Roles that keep them standing: back-line damage, support, or any slot where they rarely drop below half health.
- A like-for-like backup on the roster, because when this hero is out, they are out for a long time.
- Never fielded while injured. A torn wound adds half its length again, and at two-thirds healing speed that becomes a very long absence.
Conflicts and rarity
Slow to Mend can never appear with Quick to Mend, its mirror image. Earning Quick to Mend later in a career removes it; short of that, price it as permanent.
- Rarity: common, negative · draw weight 100 of 6,365 · about 1 recruit in 25
- Founding draft: any card, or as the negative half of the wildcard card.
- In the wiki’s archive: first present in the 2.1.8 build (absent from 2.0.7).
Recruiting
A real discount on any melee recruit and a minor one on ranged or support heroes. It never improves with age or training.