Choosing the best gear in Bioshock Infinite dramatically impacts your combat performance. Each gear piece, whether it boosts damage, strengthens defenses, or enhances movement, can change how you approach battles in Columbia. With the right loadout, you gain an advantage over your enemies, making every encounter more manageable and engaging. This guide breaks down the top gear in Bioshock Infinite, showing you how to create the ultimate setup to suit your playstyle.
Understanding Bioshock Infinite Gear
Gear in Bioshock Infinite comes in four types: hats, shirts, pants, and boots. Each type offers unique benefits and can only be equipped one at a time. Therefore, every choice directly influences your character’s strengths in combat. By selecting gear strategically, you can maximize effectiveness, whether you prefer a stealthy approach, long-range sniping, or aggressive melee combat.
Best Gear for Each Type in Bioshock Infinite
Let’s explore the best gear pieces in each category to help you choose the optimal setup for your playthrough.
Hats: Enhancing Combat Strategy
Hats in Bioshock Infinite provide an edge in combat, enhancing damage and amplifying vigor effects.
Burning Halo
- Effect: Adds fire and explosive damage to melee attacks.
- Why It’s Great: Burning Halo rewards players who like close-quarters combat. With this hat, every melee strike ignites enemies and creates a small explosion. This effect becomes especially useful in tight spaces, where you can quickly eliminate clustered enemies with a single strike.
Storm Hat
- Effect: 70% chance to chain vigor effects to nearby enemies after a vigor kill.
- Why It’s Great: Storm Hat shines for players who rely on vigors like Shock Jockey or Devil’s Kiss. When you kill an enemy using a vigor, this hat spreads the effect to nearby foes, creating a chain reaction. This advantage proves valuable during large-scale battles, allowing you to control groups of enemies with ease.
Shirts: Maximizing Offense and Resource Management
Shirts offer a combination of offensive boosts and resource regeneration, making them essential for long fights.
Blood to Salt
- Effect: Restores salts after each melee kill.
- Why It’s Great: Blood to Salt becomes a lifesaver for players who rely heavily on vigor abilities. By restoring salts with every melee kill, this shirt keeps your vigor abilities available, even in extended battles. It ensures you can frequently cast abilities like Possession or Undertow, giving you a significant edge.
Brittle-Skinned
- Effect: Increases damage taken by enemies after a melee strike.
- Why It’s Great: Brittle-Skinned offers a simple but powerful benefit. By weakening enemies after a melee hit, this shirt makes follow-up attacks more deadly. Players who use high-damage weapons can take advantage of this gear to quickly dispatch tougher enemies.
Pants: Boosting Defense and Agility
The pants category in Bioshock Infinite focuses on defensive boosts and movement enhancements, ideal for players who prefer versatility.
Urgent Care
- Effect: Reduces shield recharge delay and accelerates recharge speed.
- Why It’s Great: Urgent Care improves survivability by reducing the downtime after your shield breaks. This gear option becomes critical for players who engage in close combat, as it quickly brings their shield back up. With Urgent Care, you can fight confidently, knowing your shield will recharge faster.
Winter Shield
- Effect: Grants invincibility for a short time after dismounting from skylines or hooks.
- Why It’s Great: Winter Shield is ideal for mobile players who use skylines and hooks for movement. The temporary invincibility allows you to drop into battle without taking immediate damage. This gear piece creates unique opportunities for bold tactics, especially when you’re moving between vantage points.
Boots: Improving Mobility and Melee Power
Boots in Bioshock Infinite enhance either movement speed or melee power, helping players stay agile or strike harder.
Overkill
- Effect: Causes enemies to explode if killed with excessive damage.
- Why It’s Great: Overkill rewards players who use high-damage weapons, such as shotguns or carbines. Each kill with this gear creates an explosion, which helps in crowd control by damaging nearby enemies. It’s an excellent choice for clearing groups quickly, making battles less overwhelming.
Tunnel Vision
- Effect: Boosts damage while aiming, though it reduces hip-fire accuracy.
- Why It’s Great: Tunnel Vision suits players who prioritize precision. By increasing damage when aiming, this gear provides a noticeable advantage for long-range encounters. If you’re a fan of the sniper rifle or carbine, Tunnel Vision turns each shot into a potential one-hit kill.
Best Gear Combinations for Different Playstyles
While each gear piece offers benefits on its own, combining them strategically maximizes their impact. Here are three powerful setups for different playstyles:
Close-Combat Expert
- Loadout: Burning Halo (Hat), Blood to Salt (Shirt), Brittle-Skinned (Pants), Overkill (Boots)
- Effectiveness: This setup enhances melee damage, replenishes salts, and creates explosions with each kill. For players who enjoy up-close combat, this loadout makes every encounter feel intense and highly destructive.
Vigor Specialist
- Loadout: Storm Hat (Hat), Blood to Salt (Shirt), Urgent Care (Pants), Winter Shield (Boots)
- Effectiveness: For players who prefer a vigor-focused approach, this setup keeps salts replenished and allows vigor effects to spread between enemies. Urgent Care and Winter Shield add defensive support, letting you stay in the action longer without needing to retreat.
Sharpshooter Setup
- Loadout: Tunnel Vision (Boots), Brittle-Skinned (Shirt), Urgent Care (Pants), Storm Hat (Hat)
- Effectiveness: This loadout supports players who specialize in long-range shooting. Tunnel Vision’s damage boost for aiming pairs well with Brittle-Skinned, allowing you to weaken enemies before taking precise shots. With Urgent Care’s shield support, you’ll stay protected while lining up each shot.
Maximizing Gear Effectiveness with Weapons and Vigors
Your chosen gear directly influences which weapons and vigors work best in combat. Let’s explore how to pair gear with your arsenal.
Gear and Weapon Pairings
Each gear piece offers unique synergy with specific weapons:
- Burning Halo with Shotgun: The shotgun’s close-range power pairs well with Burning Halo’s explosive effect, allowing you to eliminate groups effectively.
- Tunnel Vision with Sniper Rifle: Tunnel Vision increases aimed shot damage, making it ideal for players who prefer long-range combat with a sniper rifle.
Gear and Vigor Synergies
Some vigor abilities complement certain gear choices, creating powerful combos:
- Storm Hat with Shock Jockey: Storm Hat lets you spread Shock Jockey’s stun effect, which proves effective for crowd control.
- Winter Shield with Undertow: Winter Shield’s invincibility helps you pull enemies toward you with Undertow without fear of immediate retaliation.
Tips for Finding the Best Gear
Finding the best gear in Bioshock Infinite requires thorough exploration and attention to detail. Here’s how to uncover top gear choices:
- Explore Thoroughly: Gear often hides in out-of-the-way locations, so search every area carefully. Exploration rewards players with powerful items that can make the game easier and more enjoyable.
- Follow Elizabeth’s Hints: Elizabeth often points out important locations or items. Pay attention to her cues, as she may lead you to valuable gear you’d otherwise miss.
- Complete Optional Missions: Side missions frequently offer useful rewards, including high-quality gear. Tackling these tasks gives you access to equipment that enhances your combat capabilities, making it worth your time.
Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Gear
Choosing the best gear requires strategic thinking, and avoiding these common mistakes will help maximize your effectiveness:
- Ignoring Gear Synergy: Randomly picking gear limits effectiveness. Instead, focus on combining pieces that support your playstyle, ensuring a more streamlined and effective loadout.
- Overlooking Salt Regeneration: Salt-regeneration gear, like Blood to Salt, proves essential for vigor-focused players. Without it, you may find yourself out of resources in longer battles, reducing your combat options.
- Prioritizing Damage Over Defense: While offensive gear sounds appealing, defensive options like Urgent Care ensure you stay protected. A balanced loadout offers better overall performance, helping you stay in control during challenging encounters.
Final Thoughts on Bioshock Infinite Best Gear
Selecting the best gear in Bioshock Infinite transforms your experience in Columbia, making each battle feel exciting and manageable. By experimenting with different loadouts and focusing on gear synergy, you’ll find a setup that aligns perfectly with your style. Embrace the challenge of mixing and matching gear, and enjoy the thrill of becoming unstoppable in the world of Bioshock Infinite.
