Vain on the kill-hunger ladder
Vain sits second on the kill-hunger ladder with kill hunger +0.3, above Greedy (+0.25) and Ambitious (+0.15) and below only Glory Hunter (+0.5). It pays for the position with the worst riders in the family: protectiveness −0.3 and recklessness +0.12.
That protectiveness number deserves a hard stare. At −0.3 it is double Greedy’s cut, deeper than Arrogant’s (−0.2), and more than halfway to Lone Wolf’s −0.5, which is the most antisocial coefficient in the game. Glory Hunter, the trait above Vain on the ladder, carries no protectiveness penalty at all, which makes Vain the truly selfish member of the family. A Glory Hunter performs for the party’s audience; a Vain hero has stopped noticing the party exists. When the combat AI scores a round, “finish the wounded enemy” is inflated, “cover the wounded ally” is heavily deflated, and the gap between those two adjustments is where this trait lives.
One mercy: no threat rider and no discipline cut. The hero holds formation and draws normal enemy attention. The damage Vain does is all to the fabric of the party. The hero’s own survivability is untouched.
A Vain hero mid-delve
Mid-fight is where the double movement of the coefficients shows. The kill hunger works exactly as it does for the rest of the family: attacks funnel into whichever enemy is closest to dropping, fights shorten, and on floors where every extra round of flooding or curse ticks costs you, that tempo is genuine value. If the delve report shows your Vain hero collecting kills at a Greedy-plus rate, the trait is paying its way.
The protectiveness hole shows up in what the report doesn’t contain. Guard actions, covering moves, aid given to faltering party-mates: at −0.3 these mostly stop appearing under the Vain hero’s name. In a four-hero party there is no slack for that. Every round your healer takes a hit that an adjacent hero could have absorbed, check who was adjacent. If it was your Vain finisher busy lining up a killing blow that two other heroes could have delivered, you’re reading the trait’s true cost. Darkness and other sight-punishing conditions sharpen it further: the recklessness rider nudges the hero into exposed finishing plays exactly when positioning errors are most expensive.
Shorter fights, thinner mutual cover. Whether that trade profits depends entirely on how much of your party’s defence was routed through this hero to begin with.
Compositions that tolerate Vain
Supports should never carry Vain, and neither should anchors: the two roles the party relies on for protectiveness are the two roles this trait hollows out. That much is obvious. The subtler rule is about the rest of the party when your finisher is Vain: someone else must own the guarding budget explicitly. A Loyal or Team Player companion (+0.4 protectiveness each) or a Field Medic (+0.42) restores what the Vain hero withdraws, and the composition plays close to a Glory Hunter setup at a fraction of the wage pressure.
On the finisher slot itself, Vain versus Greedy is a fair fight. Vain buys +0.05 more kill hunger and +0.02 more recklessness at the cost of −0.15 further protectiveness. If your party has cover to spare, take Vain; if your four is thin on guardians, Greedy is the safer selfish pick. Vain versus Glory Hunter is not a fair fight on coefficients: Glory Hunter’s hunger is bigger with friendlier riders, so the case for Vain is economic, covered below.
Never stack Vain with Lone Wolf company or a second protectiveness-negative trait in the same four. A party where nobody covers isn’t aggressive, it’s just brittle. Run the four through the synergy planner and make sure at least one named pairing is doing defensive work.
Scouting and contract advice
Market pricing is where Vain earns its roster spot. It delivers well over half the top rung’s kill hunger without the fame machinery: no threat rider means fewer spotlight moments, a smaller highlight reel, and generally a calmer Sworn Oath renewal than a Glory Hunter’s. If you want elite finishing on a mid-table budget, Vain is the family’s value pick. The discount is real and the delve output is close.
The trait ages acceptably. Behaviour coefficients don’t decay, and with no threat multiplier the hero isn’t accumulating extra career damage the way Reckless or Hot-Headed heroes do. The recklessness rider is modest. What you’re managing long-term isn’t survival risk, it’s the permanent hole in your guarding budget, which gets more expensive to patch as veterans around the Vain hero retire and their Loyal replacements need finding. Factor that hidden roster cost in when the renewal comes; the oath negotiator prices the wage, but the babysitting is on you.
Pass when your squad depth can’t guarantee a high-protectiveness partner in every four the Vain hero joins. The trait is only ever as good as the cover standing next to it.
History across builds
Across every build this wiki tracks, v1.9.6 through v2.1.8, Vain’s three coefficients have not shifted. The trade it offers, hunger for cover, is a stable one to plan around.