Yet Another Zombie Survivors Item Pool Guide: Banish Items for Better Builds

Learn how the Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool works, when to banish items, and how to build stronger weapon, ability, and defense setups.

Why the Item Pool Matters

The Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool can determine whether a run develops into a focused build or a collection of upgrades that do not work well together. With dozens of possible items competing for level-up and crate choices, controlling which upgrades appear can make your build more consistent.

The new item-pool controls are especially useful for players who already understand their preferred weapons, abilities, and survivor roles. Instead of accepting every upgrade offered, you can remove items that do not support your plan and improve the odds of finding the stats you actually need.

This guide explains how the system works, how many items can be removed, and how to create a practical banish strategy for weapon, elemental, defensive, and utility builds.

How the Yet Another Zombie Survivors Item Pool Works

Based on player experience with the public beta update, the game introduced an option to banish unwanted items before starting a run. A banished item does not appear in your later upgrade or crate choices for that run.

The system is designed to support specialization. For example, a player planning an electric build may have little use for an item that improves chemical damage. Removing that item makes the remaining pool more relevant to the intended setup.

Community reports described a pool containing more than 60 items at the time of testing. The exact number may change as balance updates and new content are added, so treat that figure as a snapshot rather than a permanent total.

Item-pool detail	What player reports indicate	Practical effect
Approximate total item count	More than 60 during testing	Many possible upgrade choices can dilute a build
Minimum items retained	40	You cannot remove the entire pool
Maximum items banished	27 under the reported setup	You can remove a substantial group of unwanted options
Main purpose	Build specialization	More relevant choices during a run
Availability	Reported first on a public beta server	Check the current version before relying on every detail

The pool control is not the same as choosing your complete build in advance. It only removes selected possibilities. You still need to manage level-up choices, lock important options, reroll poor offerings, and select upgrades that match your squad.

The feature also creates an important planning question: which items should remain available? Removing too many general-purpose upgrades can leave a build vulnerable, particularly on maps with hazards or enemies that require mobility and damage mitigation.

Best Items to Banish

The strongest banish choices depend on your intended build. There is no universal list of bad items because an upgrade that is weak for one squad may be highly valuable for another.

A useful rule is to remove upgrades that fail all three tests:

They do not improve your chosen damage type.
They do not support your weapons or abilities.
They do not solve a survival problem in the current map or difficulty.

For example, a chemical damage modifier is a reasonable banish candidate when you are deliberately building around fire and electricity. However, it should remain in the pool if you are using a chemical-focused survivor or weapon.

Build direction	Items to prioritize	Possible banish targets
Fire damage	Fire modifiers, weapon damage, attack speed, cooldown reduction	Chemical-only modifiers, money upgrades that do not help the run
Electric damage	Electric modifiers, Tesla-related upgrades, cooldown reduction	Fire-only or chemical-only modifiers
Chemical damage	Chemical modifiers, area effects, damage-over-time support	Fire-only or electric-only modifiers
Weapon-heavy	Weapon damage, attack speed, reload or cooldown improvements	Ability-only upgrades that do not support the chosen squad
Ability-heavy	Ability damage, ability cooldown, area or duration support	Weapon-specific upgrades with no useful interaction
Defensive	Health, armor, shields, movement speed, dodge support	Excessive economy items or irrelevant elemental modifiers

The phrase “possible banish targets” is important. Do not remove an item simply because it is not part of your ideal endgame build. Early in a run, a general damage or defensive upgrade may be more valuable than a narrow synergy item.

Remove Economy Items Carefully

The player transcript specifically identifies money modifiers as potential banish choices for a combat-focused build. That approach can make sense when you already have enough currency or when your goal is to survive a difficult map rather than maximize long-term income.

Still, economy upgrades are not automatically useless. Permanent progression and training systems give resources lasting value, and players may want money-related improvements during farming runs. A good approach is to separate your item-pool presets by purpose:

Run objective	Economy-item policy
First clear on a difficult map	Banish most low-impact money upgrades
Farming currency	Keep money modifiers available
Testing a new survivor	Keep a broader pool until the character’s needs are clear
Chasing a specialized damage build	Remove economy items that compete with core combat upgrades
Learning a map	Retain defensive and utility items rather than over-specializing

Building a Better Banish Strategy

The most effective way to use the Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool is to make your banishes before the run begins, while keeping enough flexibility to respond to the map and survivor combination.

Start by identifying your primary damage plan. This may be based on a weapon, an ability, a survivor’s role, or an elemental modifier. Then decide whether your run needs defensive support. On a safe map at low difficulty, you may be able to remove more defensive options. On a hazardous map, that can create problems later.

The public beta gameplay used for the community report featured Green Hell, a map with damaging poison areas. The same report also described tougher enemy attack patterns and a new werewolf boss. Because those observations came from a beta playthrough, they should be treated as player experience rather than a definitive patch-note record. They do, however, illustrate why a fully offensive item pool can be risky.

Planning stage	Question to ask	Recommended action
1. Choose damage type	What will deal most of my damage?	Keep matching modifiers and supporting stats
2. Choose core weapons	Which weapons must appear or improve?	Keep their upgrades and related weapon stats
3. Check map threats	Are there hazards, fast enemies, or difficult bosses?	Retain movement, shields, health, or armor options
4. Review the pool	Which items have no realistic use?	Banish clearly irrelevant upgrades
5. Leave flexibility	Could the run pivot if early choices are poor?	Keep several broad-value items
6. Test and refine	Did the run lack damage or survivability?	Adjust the next pool based on the result

Keep General-Purpose Upgrades

Some upgrades are useful in almost every run. Damage, attack speed, cooldown reduction, movement speed, and defensive statistics can support multiple strategies. Removing these simply to make room for narrow synergies may reduce your overall consistency.

A broad pool is usually better when:

You are still learning a survivor.
You do not know which weapons will appear.
You are playing a new map.
You are attempting a first clear.
You are testing the current balance after an update.

A narrow pool is more appropriate when:

You have a specific weapon combination in mind.
You are repeating a map you already understand.
You are pushing a higher difficulty.
You are optimizing a score or completion time.
You know which upgrades your survivor can use efficiently.

Strong Item Categories for Survival

The item pool should not be evaluated only by damage per second. A run can fail because the player cannot avoid attacks, recover from mistakes, or maintain enough space around the squad.

The available team-wide upgrade system also reinforces this approach. The community wiki describes five upgrade categories: Endurance, Charisma, Strength, Intellect, and Agility. These permanent upgrades include health, damage reduction, income, ability cooldown, weapon damage, experience collection, pickup range, movement speed, and fire rate.

Those permanent upgrades are separate from run-time item choices, but they help explain why different players may value the same item differently. A player with strong permanent movement and damage upgrades may be able to dedicate more of the item pool to offensive effects.

Stat category	What it helps with	When to value it highly
Weapon damage	Improves weapon output	Your main damage comes from firearms or melee weapons
Ability damage	Improves activated or automatic abilities	Your squad relies on abilities for area control
Attack speed or fire rate	Increases attack frequency	Your weapons are already accurate and consistently active
Cooldown reduction	Lets abilities activate more often	Your strongest effect has a meaningful cooldown
Movement speed	Improves positioning and evasion	Enemies are fast or attacks cover large areas
Health and armor	Increases error tolerance	You are learning a map or facing harder bosses
Shield effects	Prevents or absorbs incoming damage	Burst attacks or contact damage are common
Experience pickup range	Speeds progression during crowded waves	Experience drops are difficult to collect safely
Luck or economy	Improves resource efficiency	You are farming or building toward long-term progression

Do Not Ignore Mobility

The community playthrough reported that certain boss attacks were more difficult to dodge after the update. Whether that behavior remains in the current release or changes through balance patches, the lesson is straightforward: mobility can be a damage stat indirectly.

Movement speed helps you stay in firing range, avoid poison areas, escape charging enemies, and collect experience without walking into danger. If your build already has strong damage, a mobility upgrade may produce more practical value than another small offensive modifier.

Use Shields as Run Insurance

Energy Shield was selected repeatedly during the reported gameplay session. That does not prove it is the best defensive item in every version, but it demonstrates the kind of upgrade that can protect an otherwise fragile build.

Treat shields as insurance rather than a replacement for movement. A shield may let you survive an unexpected hit, but standing in hazards or repeatedly absorbing attacks will still end the run eventually.

Item-Pool Examples

The following examples show how to translate a build idea into a banish list. They are planning templates, not guaranteed tier lists. Weapon balance, survivor availability, and item names can change between versions.

Example build	Keep available	Banish first	Why
Assault-rifle offense	Weapon damage, attack speed, fire rate, cooldown reduction, critical effects	Unrelated elemental modifiers, low-value economy items	Concentrates the pool on repeated weapon output
Electric control	Electric modifiers, Tesla-style abilities, cooldown reduction, movement speed	Fire-only and chemical-only modifiers	Improves elemental consistency while retaining survival tools
Fire area damage	Fire modifiers, area effects, weapon damage, ability damage	Chemical-only effects, unnecessary money modifiers	Supports damage zones and crowd clearing
New-map clear	Damage, health, armor, shield, movement speed, experience range	Only clearly irrelevant specialized modifiers	Preserves options for hazards and unfamiliar enemies
Farming run	Economy, luck, experience, pickup range, reliable damage	Highly narrow upgrades with low farming value	Helps progression while maintaining a functional build

A common mistake is banishing based on the first five minutes of a run. Early choices often reveal what the game is offering, but they do not always indicate the best final direction. Use the pool to improve the odds, then use locks and rerolls to make precise decisions during the run.

What to Check After Each Run

The fastest way to improve your Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool is to record why the run succeeded or failed. Do not only ask whether you died. Identify the point at which the build stopped answering the map’s threats.

Result	Likely issue	Item-pool adjustment
Died to regular enemies	Damage or area control was too low	Keep more damage, attack-speed, or crowd-control options
Died while escaping attacks	Mobility or positioning was insufficient	Keep movement-speed and shield upgrades
Boss survived too long	Single-target damage was weak	Retain critical, weapon-damage, or cooldown options
Leveling slowed down	Experience was hard to collect	Keep pickup range or experience-related options
Build felt inconsistent	Too many irrelevant choices appeared	Banish more items that do not match the plan
Strong start, weak finish	Narrow specialization removed needed utility	Restore general-purpose defensive or damage upgrades
Plenty of currency but low combat power	Too many economy choices were selected	Banish low-impact money modifiers for combat runs

The game’s Steam page describes Yet Another Zombie Survivors as a bullet-heaven action roguelike centered on assembling a squad, choosing upgrades, and creating synergies. That makes item-pool management especially valuable because each decision contributes to the interaction between survivors, weapons, abilities, and permanent progression. You can find the game on the official Yet Another Zombie Survivors Steam page.

Final Recommendations

The best Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool is not necessarily the smallest possible pool. It is the pool that gives you relevant choices without removing the tools needed to handle the map.

For a first attempt, keep general damage, movement, health, shields, and cooldown reduction. Banish only upgrades that clearly do not fit your survivor or damage plan. Once you understand the map and your preferred squad, remove more specialized categories and build a tighter pool.

Use these priorities:

Pick a primary damage direction before banishing items.
Keep at least a few defensive and mobility options.
Remove economy upgrades only when the run is combat-focused.
Retain upgrades that support both weapons and abilities when possible.
Treat beta observations and community reports as version-specific.
Review every failed run before changing the pool.
Avoid narrowing the pool so much that one poor early roll ruins the attempt.

Item-pool controls are most powerful when they reduce noise without eliminating adaptability. A focused pool improves your odds, but smart in-run decisions still determine whether the squad survives the final waves.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool?

The Yet Another Zombie Survivors item pool is the collection of upgrades that can appear during a run. Player experience from a public beta update reported a banish feature that lets players remove unwanted items from future choices.

How many items can I banish?

Community reports from the beta described a minimum pool of 40 retained items and a maximum of 27 banished items. The exact limits may vary by version, so check the current game build before planning around those numbers.

Should I banish every item that does not match my build?

No. Keep broad upgrades such as damage, movement speed, cooldown reduction, health, and shields unless you have a specific reason to remove them. These options can save a run when the map or enemy behavior creates unexpected problems.

Are the item-pool changes officially confirmed?

The detailed banish behavior in this guide comes from player experience with a public beta test. The Steam listing confirms the game’s broader upgrade and synergy systems, but beta-specific limits and balance observations may change after release updates.