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Today in lessons learnt the hard way - fire pots don't set the ground ablaze in the snow and therefore are not the ace in the hole against chosen I thought they might be
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Aug 25, 2020 06:22
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Guess what disarm would've taken care of that fallen hero. There's nobody in that list of quick hand enemies that I would've wanted to disarm in the first place outside the early game Leaders. You can still disarm every dangerous two-hander in the game (besides maybe the Black Monolith champion guy?) - so still an absolute must have in my opinion.
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Aug 25, 2020 06:41
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WarpedLichen posted:Guess what disarm would've taken care of that fallen hero. Guess what, it eventually did. But sadly, things aren't that loving simple when there's also six gheists, five other fallen heroes and a whole loving mess of armored zombies to also deal with.
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Aug 25, 2020 06:55
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I have found there’s a kind of valley that’s hard to get out of in days 30-80. I can reliably get through the early game with any background on pretty much any map. By day 10 I usually have 7-8 bros with tier 1 weapons and 80/90 armour. By day 30 that’s usually 10 bros with 90/115 mail, able to handle 2 skull contracts. A normal roster is 1-2 bros costing 1000ish and the rest costing 1-400. Statswise, usually everyone is above average but nobody is exceptional. Then I kind of wander around directionlessly till the crisis starts, able to take on some but not other challenges. By day 80 most bros are level 6-7 with about 150 armour on frontliners. Once the crisis hits I always feel under-geared or under-statted (MDEF rarely breaks 30 with shield). Feels like I’m loving up somewhere along the line but I can’t easily diagnose where.
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Aug 25, 2020 08:06
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Beefeater1980 posted:I have found there’s a kind of valley that’s hard to get out of in days 30-80. Sounds like you're just not fighting enough, your levels are really low. BB is one of those games where you can snowball really hard because if you win a fight without taking any serious injuries you can go in and take another fight immediately. You should also be looting high value weapons and repairing them to sell if you're not doing so already. What sort of lineup do you usually go for? Having too many shield using frontliners can leave you getting hurt more because your bros spend more time facetanking the enemy.
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Aug 25, 2020 08:29
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I think it's a pretty common speed bump to hit in the mid-game as you have enough of a handle on the combat to get a campaign through the first few weeks but don't have a great sense of the strategic side of the game. That feeling of being undergeared and underpowered is probably because you are - raider mail is not going to hold up under the kind of foes you'll be seeing in the first crisis. Ideally, you want as many of your frontline guys out of mail and into 200+ armor as possible by the time the first crisis rolls around. This means a lot of your day 30-80 should be grinding out reinforced mail hauberks or the southern equivalent, which will cost you anywhere from like 2,100 to 3,100 a suit IIRC depending on the town. It's pretty tough to get every one of your guys in these by first crisis, so finding early bandit leaders that spawn with good armor that you can steal is important too. Don't worry about buying top tier helmets- - these are a lot easier to come by on your own. If you can find a teeny mercenary company of 5-6 guys early, you can snake some amazing gear way before normal - enemy mercenaries have a really varied equipment pool so if you're lucky some of them will spawn with no helmet/padded armor and a short sword for easy kills, while you dagger party the others. Realistically you want to have at least two sets of 200+ body armor, but more is both better and very doable Something I've taken advantage of that you may want to think about in the future is picking the noble war as your first crisis since it's the only crisis that you can straight up not participate whatsoever in if you feel like, which gives you an extra 50 or so days to just keep working on your company. Before DLC I would usually pick this if I was trying a new origin I haven't played much of (deserters or w/e) as a "cover my rear end" option. It should be a last resort because the noble war has amazing rewards in terms of selling off gear if your company can hang with their armies. As for quality of brothers, that's tough since it's such a RNG-laden grind. You should be getting at least a few guys who will break 30 with a shield by level 6 but sometimes life gives you lemons. Any brother you have that doesn't have a 200+ armor by crisis you should consider getting nimble on, especially if it's a bro you're not considering keeping in the long term. A regular dude in mail will have his armor broken in 2-3 swings by the higher tier weapons you'll see foes wielding during crisis. Nimble makes it so your average schmuck can take at least 3-5 swings. I do highly recommend the expanded tryout mod that shows you a recruits traits, stars and stats to trim down on the amount of time it takes to get together a good team. Hopefully you know which backgrounds are more like to provide better bros (brawlers, thieves, messengers, wildmen, militiamen, squires, lumberjacks, and butchers amongst many others. The new nomad, manhunter and assassin backgrounds in the south have really good rolls too) All of this to say what really sucks is there is very little you can do within the campaign itself to turn this sort of thing around, it's about doing better on the strategic side of the game next time around. Don't sweat it though! I have dozens of campaigns and retired many of them as I realize my budding company doesn't have what it takes to hang with the first crisis
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Aug 25, 2020 08:47
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That’s really helpful. Thanks!
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Aug 25, 2020 09:59
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Yeah that's a good point, you should have a distinct dividing line between "placeholder" brothers who get perks which are immediately useful but less good long term (backstabber, fast adaption, nimble on frontliners) and longer term prospects who are going to build specifically for being level 11.
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Aug 25, 2020 10:55
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I think backstabbers a solid perk even on long term brothers, tbh. A line of underdog/backstabber dudes at the front means your enemies are going to consistently be at the very least a 5% disadvantage than usual, then the extra bonus from backstabber means you're going to be hitting a lot. I just got my first famed items of this run, two shields. I'll take a 13 fatigue shield with 60hp and 35 ranged defence, sure. My throwers gonna loving love that.
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Aug 25, 2020 12:50
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I play very low contact with most of my bros using ranged weapons / polearms so backstabber is really bad, though I'd argue that you need to be getting at least 10% from it consistently to make it worthwhile. 5% to hit is not worth a perk.
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Aug 25, 2020 13:28
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I’ve started taking the stacking hit chance buff on bros who can’t get 3 point MAtk rolls to save their lives but thinking about it backstabber may mesh more with peasant. I’ll have to see how it goes.
Mazz fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 13:41
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RabidWeasel posted:I play very low contact with most of my bros using ranged weapons / polearms so backstabber is really bad, though I'd argue that you need to be getting at least 10% from it consistently to make it worthwhile. 5% to hit is not worth a perk. Backstabber works with polearms, iirc My bro's are generally ganging up on people. Late game i've got people who's only job is to throw nets over half the enemies so we can stab the gently caress out of a lot of the line before they can meet. Underdog on my indomitable shield bro ties up the rest. With late game fights giving you so much cash i'm finding that I can just abuse consumables. It's fun as hell. Its a weird, fucky build but i'm finding its working super well. Having the drillmaster works out for me too, because i've got a bunch of dudes in the backline ready to sub in each fight, just in case my tanks take a bad hit. E: One of those bro's is a priest i picked up who would "probably die soon" because he had lovely stats, but it turns out you don't need stats to stand there with throwing weapons and nets. dogstile fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 13:42
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I think they're saying they don't have many frontliners overall, which seems wild to me.
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Aug 25, 2020 13:45
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dogstile posted:I think backstabbers a solid perk even on long term brothers, tbh. A line of underdog/backstabber dudes at the front means your enemies are going to consistently be at the very least a 5% disadvantage than usual, then the extra bonus from backstabber means you're going to be hitting a lot. I always take backstab on polearm bros - in a typical scenario where the front line on each side has met, you're getting a 10% bonus to hit. Makes a lot of difference especially with the AOEs. And it's easier to find the perk space on a polearm guy because they don't really need the defensive perks.
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Aug 25, 2020 13:53
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UP AND ADAM posted:I think they're saying they don't have many frontliners overall, which seems wild to me. The polearm guys are part of the frontline but they avoid standing next to the enemy as much as possible. They have survivability perks (no indom though) and heavy armour and don't level mdef. The idea is that they're not supposed to tank, but they can take incidental damage well. Since morale got more important it feels really hard to level up 5 stats at once to a reasonable place (matk, mdef, hp, fat, res) so the solution for me was to make each frontline bro level either matk or mdef and they become either a tank or a frontline polearm user. This makes it much easier to find decent hires since you only need a good talent in either mdef or matk, though ideally you also want some stars in the other 3 stats. Wheras the way I used to build my frontliners you had to get high matk and mdef to make them effective which is a significantly higher barrier. They also get quick hands and a regular 2h weapon so they can do just as much damage as a dedicated 2hander, they just don't dodge so well. Obviously any amazing hires can still use the old 2h frontline build and max mdef and matk and spam AoEs a lot (probably hammer)
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Aug 25, 2020 15:01
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That is the beauty of Battle Brothers isn't it? That it supports a variety of different playstyles. Hell, I like to roleplay a little based on the scenario I choose. If I choose poachers everyone gets pathfinder, if I choose peasants everyone gets rotation, etc. It mixes things up and makes every playthrough feel different.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:05
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Here's a hybrid theory: Bags&Belts, quickhands, Crossbow/Gun mastery, Fearsome, Overwhelm and four of them spears that shoot in the bags. ~70 MA, ~80 RA, and the rest into Resolve, MDef and possibly some initiative. Can blather them in face on approach, and when the lines meet he can shoot, stab and gun as the situation dictates. Can also switch loadout to whatever consumables the fight dictates, and be a utility guy. Thought this up when i found a retired solider in a spider pantry and he had stars in resolve, RA and MDef. Not the greatest combo, as retired soliders have low fatigue and HP for doing the shield schpiel. I'm going to try the aforementioned and see how it goes. I mean, he's going to end up eating a crossbowbolt realistically, but that's what you get.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:50
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Found an overseer crossbow. God i love these things. I imagine having a few of these would own on hill defence missions.
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Aug 25, 2020 16:06
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So it turns out my motley band of peasants eat chosen for breakfast now. Between the new tools from the expansion and my own modifications; I'm quite happy with how things have progressed. My 16 men vs 15 chosen and 2 drummers. The drummers and one of the chosen fled, the rest were slaughtered. No casualties on my side. 2 of my men received an injury, and only 4 out of the 16 actually took hit point damage. 2 of my men were level 10, the rest levels 11-12. One of my front liners was still in sub 200 armour, most were somewhere between 200-300. First and only attempt. On the field for me: 2 Spear/sword tanks 3 mace tanks 2 2h hammers 1 2h sword 1 2h greataxe 3x polearms (warscythe) 2x gunners 2x javelins Debuffs are absolutely brilliant. My gunners and polearms have overwhelm, my gunners, polearms and tanks all have fearsome. Turns out chosen are cowards. I've never had success like this against chosen before.
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Aug 25, 2020 18:13
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RabidWeasel posted:The polearm guys are part of the frontline but they avoid standing next to the enemy as much as possible. They have survivability perks (no indom though) and heavy armour and don't level mdef. The idea is that they're not supposed to tank, but they can take incidental damage well. Since morale got more important it feels really hard to level up 5 stats at once to a reasonable place (matk, mdef, hp, fat, res) so the solution for me was to make each frontline bro level either matk or mdef and they become either a tank or a frontline polearm user. This makes it much easier to find decent hires since you only need a good talent in either mdef or matk, though ideally you also want some stars in the other 3 stats. Wheras the way I used to build my frontliners you had to get high matk and mdef to make them effective which is a significantly higher barrier. They also get quick hands and a regular 2h weapon so they can do just as much damage as a dedicated 2hander, they just don't dodge so well. Yeah that's kinda how I do it too. The back pole guys come around the edges on high number fights what's interesting is by fluke right now is one is high MDef and one is high RDef so they mostly get left alone as the bad guys go for "softer" targets.
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Aug 25, 2020 20:29
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Scaramouche posted:Yeah that's kinda how I do it too. The back pole guys come around the edges on high number fights what's interesting is by fluke right now is one is high MDef and one is high RDef so they mostly get left alone as the bad guys go for "softer" targets. No I mean these guys are also most of my frontline, I have 6-8 of them, 2 or 3 proper tanks and then the rest archers.
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Aug 25, 2020 20:58
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frontliners with longaxes and polemaces with the relevant mastery cancel out the penalty for hitting adjacent targets and can reach the enemy polearm users, letting you skip the grinding down of legionaries or footmen or w/e to get at the real threats. It wrecks The AI must have been tweaked a fair bit in this, I feel like you can't always move one tile back in ancient undead fights to prime a round where they walk in to you, you get a full turn then next turn starts and you get another full turn. I was really dependent on that to smash down 2-3 shield legionaries before they cement their formation. To be fair, handgonnes and the fire potions absolutely destroy in large undead fights now. Fire pots in general are way stronger than I initially thought, although I played myself pretty hard trying to take down a 12-chosen camp with a few and finding out they fizzle out and do nothing in the snow
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Aug 25, 2020 21:36
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 Gotta watch where you're going when traversing the desert.
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Aug 25, 2020 23:58
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Broken Cog posted:
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Aug 26, 2020 00:57
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They totally gently caress up an equal number of ancient dead, including honour guards. Maybe not an equal number of honour guards but I think they'd be able to since they're whole thing is putting you out of position and ancient dead whole thing is being in position.
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Aug 26, 2020 01:13
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Don't have latest DLC, but watching FilthyRobot's stream. He was talking about a "zero stam build" idea he got from another streamer named Gravebees. Here's a 1 minute, twitch clip, simplified explanation. He likes that it's opened up new possibilities for him because he doesn't have to focus on as many stats. Weapon spec + Pathfinder allows a move and a swing each round. Any thoughts?
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Aug 26, 2020 01:27
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ccubed posted:Don't have latest DLC, but watching FilthyRobot's stream. He was talking about a "zero stam build" idea he got from another streamer named Gravebees. Here's a 1 minute, twitch clip, simplified explanation. He likes that it's opened up new possibilities for him because he doesn't have to focus on as many stats. Weapon spec + Pathfinder allows a move and a swing each round. It should work fine till you run into any enemy type that requires fatigue use to operate against; Kraken, Goblin Shaman and nets, 20+ Spiders, etc. Those low stam bros are going to max out on fatigue real fast and mostly be able to only attack what is directly next to them. As like a general build for a 2H it does makes sense as he describes. Mazz fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 01:57
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I'm a never-take-pathfinder ever guy so I don't see how switching an extremely precious perk point over to Pathfinder just so you can technically always swing that compelling. Guys with good melee rolls but poor stamina should get 2h maces anyways, but you need fatigue for more than just moving and swinging. There's rotation, adrenaline, indomitable, taunt, etc up that require stamina and even though they patched the indom/adrenaline loop, odds are you still want at least one of those perks (rotation/adrenaline for me). Pathfinder just isn't going to make the cut. I can't think of a single time a 2h maceman has been completely out of stamina AND one tile away from an opponent - usually if it's that close he's standing next to the target anyways and will always have the 12 stamina to swing I allow my 2h mace wielders to walk on the field with less than 70 max stamina after gear which is a lot less than I'm comfortable with for other 2h brothers. Hitting 65-70 stamina after gear should be achievable for any brother who didn't start with abysmal roll and no star in the stat
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Aug 26, 2020 02:11
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I can't over emphasise how game changing it is to have a bunch of guys with fearsome and overwhelm. I have fearsome on all my shield bros and both on my polearms, and my gunners now, and between that and the javelin specialists I no longer struggle against chosen, it's insane. You can break their morale very easily and then they end up with huge debuffs. Edit: we can add lindwurms to the list of things that die like hilarious little bitches when spammed with overwhelm and fearsome. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 06:14
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The Lord Bude posted:I can't over emphasise how game changing it is to have a bunch of guys with fearsome and overwhelm. I have fearsome on all my shield bros and both on my polearms, and my gunners now, and between that and the javelin specialists I no longer struggle against chosen, it's insane. You can break their morale very easily and then they end up with huge debuffs. The overwhelmers are high initiative nimble I take it? How much initiative do you want at the minimum for something like this? Sacrifice stamina for it?
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Aug 26, 2020 15:19
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Overwhelm doesn't really require high init for it to work, considering it just detracts from their next turn. The gunners/archers would be stacking enough for the initial charge and then the rest you should be roughly even with stacking it on between their turns.
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Aug 26, 2020 15:34
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Not sure i have enough brain for this to compute properly. You need to go first for overwhelm to proc, and would therefore require the overwhelmer to be higher in the initiative order than those he intends to overwhelm. Are you saying you don't need that much realistically to to be effective? I can see how that would function, I just tend to stack it up on my overwhelm guys as they also usually have dodge. What would be an effective minimum though?
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Aug 26, 2020 17:38
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TheBeardyCleaver posted:The overwhelmers are high initiative nimble I take it? How much initiative do you want at the minimum for something like this? Sacrifice stamina for it? I have both overwhelm and fearsome on polearms and gunners - I didn't really invest in adding initiative beyond whatever base amount they had - maybe one level or so on the gunners when I had nothing better to add ( I don't value defense stats particularly highly on back line bros). What I did do though is give them hyena pelt armour attachments - these give an extra 15 initiative - equivalent of 3 max level ups. That plus being in light armour with nimble should keep them ahead of most enemies, certainly the hard fights where the overwhelm really matters - chosen and the such. Some beasts are faster like hyenas. Gunners don't really need fatigue - reloading and firing uses 19 per turn - so fatigue is only building by 4 per turn net. Mine have about 110 fatigue I think. Polearms on the other hand need all the fatigue they can get since they'll be doing AOEs with the warscythes (note I have a swordlance on each of them as a backup weapon for when the warscythes run out of durability but I think it's important to get the warscythes as a main weapon, the extra armour damage is a big deal. You'll often get in 2 AOEs per turn. I have 3 polearmsmen in my company and 2 gunners, although I only use all 3 polearms in some fights. (playing as peasants). My gunners: Student Gifted (theoretically you could take colossus here if they had truly abysmal starting health, but most of the time I can get to 75 no problem) Fortified Mind Crossbow Mastery Footwork Nimble Overwhelm Fearsome Relentless (This is useful on the gunners because you often have to use the wait function in order to get a good shot, and this keeps you from being moved down the turn order next turn when you wait. The half fatigue penalty to initiative is nice too but not really the main point) Crippling Strikes Executioner Get ranged attack as high as you possibly can. mid 80s is acceptable, over 90 is ideal. I like to get health to at least 75 for my back line. Stamina to around 110. Resolve as high as possible. Stars in resolve are an advantage (but not a requirement) for gunners, and with the low stamina requirements you can afford to put points in it at every level up. The more you have the more effective fearsome will be. I took them to the arena for the +5 resolve buff. If you have points left over after health and stamina you can put in ranged defence or melee defence. It's best to give them one large ammo pouch, then have them carry a crossbow and stack of bolts - in most fights after a while the lines will get jumbled and it will be increasingly hard to get a good shot from a gun without hitting your own guys, so at that point you take a turn to switch over. I like to put them towards the ends of the back line that way they can angle their shots inwards towards the middle for max coverage. For polearms: Student Recover ( I find it useful because my polearms end up doing so many AOEs that they get fatigue capped well before the end of longer fights - they do a huge proportion of my damage; and they'll often be using the AOE twice per turn - I try to use shield bros to set up multi AOE turns) You could take crippling strikes if you're someone who hates recover. Backstab Polearm Mastery Footwork Nimble Berserk Killing Frenzy Overwhelm Fearsome Executioner My Pole guys don't have room for relentless, and I don't think it's been that big of a deal. The fearsome matters more in the tougher fights anyway. Give them a warscythe and a swordlance. They also don't have room for fortified mind, so their fearsome strikes won't be quite as debilitating but still pretty decent. AOE polearms are a big component of my damage and maximising damage still comes first. Health to 75 (They really don't have room for colossus so try not to hire guys with super low health). Melee attack needs to be as high as possible - Being able to get to 80 is my absolute minimum hiring standard but I'd prefer to get closer to 90. You'll often find guys with really good melee attack who don't have the fatigue to be on the front line. I'd consider being able to hit 120 fatigue to be the bare minimum but more is better, I level fatigue at every level up. Leftover points once health is where you want it go to resolve, but It's ok to skip it for the occasional max roll in ranged def or melee def as long as you're doing nicely (I'd want to try for 60 resolve minimum though). Don't forget to do arena for the +5 and wear a resolve boosting necklace. I still want to do see some testing on required initiative levels, to see whether the hyena pelt is really necessary. I'd prefer to be using the unhold bone plate if I can get away with it. My shield Bros ( I have 5 of them - two with spear/sword masteries for the flanks, the other 3 with maces) all have fearsome as well, and it seems to be doing good work ( I decided they all had good enough starting resolve not to need fortified mind). Targeting 60 resolve (including the +5 from arena and wearing at least a +4 necklace; so 51 really). I don't stress to much on mdef with shield bros, they all have unique shields now and their defence is good enough ( all of them are over 30 with the shield). I usually do: Student Colossus Shield Expert Brawny Underdog Spear mastery or Mace mastery as appropriate (on spear guys I take this earlier on; before underdog) Battleforged Indomitable Rotation Fearsome (could be fortified mind if you don't think you'll make it resolve wise but I'd rather just not hire someone with super crap resolve) Recover ( on my spear guys this is sword mastery instead - One of my spear guys happened to be iron lungs and switching to swords uses low fatigue in any case, plus these guys don't end up using indom as often.) The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 17:53
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TheBeardyCleaver posted:Not sure i have enough brain for this to compute properly. You need to go first for overwhelm to proc, and would therefore require the overwhelmer to be higher in the initiative order than those he intends to overwhelm. Are you saying you don't need that much realistically to to be effective? I can see how that would function, I just tend to stack it up on my overwhelm guys as they also usually have dodge. What would be an effective minimum though? Armour deducts from your initiative. The fact that you are wearing light armour will automatically give you higher initiative than most human/orc/chosen opponents without putting a single point into initiative (assuming a starting value around 100-110; the sort of backgrounds you'd be hiring for back row duty often have higher initiatives to begin with). Dodge is a waste of a perk point. A bro with 75 health and nimble can take a surprising amount of damage, they can shrug off arrows and the odd bolt no problem; you really don't need other defensive perks on back line bros any more. The most important thing to remember is that using the wait button will give you I think a 25% penalty to initiative on the next round unless you have the relentless perk so bear that in mind.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:01
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Cheers for the writeup! Haven't found ant decent gunner/schyte material yet (or so i thought, more or less looking for high initiative sergeants), but going to build some for my gladiator company. I have a retired solider that I'm building up to be a sergeant, but he may get Old (they still do right?) and thus slow. The Hyena attachment: Is that not the one that gives fire/gun resist? Or is there another one? It's a nice enough armour bonus but haven't seen an initiative one. Do you have a recipe spoiler? Side topic: Anyone have any thoughts on nimble frontliners? My Bear is nimble and of ridiculous health, with fearsome and wolf mantle, and does very well, but he has that there background buff which makes him very hard to kill. Been toying with the idea of a nimble overwhelm swordsman, but it's likely too expensive stats wise, unless I find one of the gods I used to make duelists out of.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:16
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TheBeardyCleaver posted:Cheers for the writeup! Haven't found ant decent gunner/schyte material yet (or so i thought, more or less looking for high initiative sergeants), but going to build some for my gladiator company. I have a retired solider that I'm building up to be a sergeant, but he may get Old (they still do right?) and thus slow. I added a section on my front line guys to the first post - they have fearsome but not overwhelm. The magical healing water you get from the strange tree will reverse Old age and stop it from happening again. Initiative is irrelevant for the vast majority of builds, even where it factors in ( like overwhelm) it usually isn't worth putting points in. Your Sergeant certainly doesn't need it. I would never waste an expensive background on a sergeant, even with the increased resolve requirements post expansion he's still going to be in reserve a decent chunk of the time. A sergeant needs: As much resolve as possible - 50+ base with 3 stars is the dream, over 50 with 2 stars or 45-50 with 3 stars is still very good; over 40 with 2 stars is acceptable in a pinch, especially if you're playing peasants, since you'll typically have 2 sergeants (or a sergeant and a corporal as I like to call it). remember you have fortified mind, the +10 sash, the bonus from arena etc all boosting resolve. The ability to get to 75 health - Sergeants have plenty of room for spare perks to customise as required so you usually take colossus to get there At least 120 stamina by level 11; but more is helpful - Generally I take whichever roll of health/fatigue is higher until health is at 75 then the rest all in stamina. mdef and rdef are luxuries your sergeant can't afford, but if you happen to have an unusually good recruit; you might squeeze in a couple of level ups. As I've said before nimble backliners are surprisingly resilient, particularly to ranged attacks, and you should have the tools to get out of danger fast if they're threatened in melee - footwork, rotation on your shield bros, good strategic positioning in the first place, etc. They can face tank a few melee hits; it isn't critical to raise defence stats. The banner is helpful in some situations to boost resolve (geist fights, hexes, ancient dead fights with priests - but much of the time you should be keeping it in your pocket and using a real weapon. You can swap to the banner and rally on the same turn now without quick hands; but a lot of the time once you're at high levels you can get by just fine rallying without the banner out, particularly if you don't leave it till the last minute - ie rally when you see guys wavering, don't wait till they are breaking or fleeing. I like to build my sergeant like so: Student Gifted (they have an extra super important stat, so this really helps) Fortified Mind Rally Backstab Weapon mastery (see below) Nimble Footwork Those are the core perks of a sergeant - that leaves 4 to customise to your liking. You can take colossus if you need extra help getting health to a reasonable level; Fearsome synergises well given the high resolve; overwhelm synergises with being on the back line and wearing light armour. You could take quick hands if you really wanted; or relentless to help with overwhelm/make sure you're acting early in the initiative queue. Plenty of people give their sergeants polearm mastery and a second polearm to use when they don't need the banner. I prefer giving them whips - it's really hard to find room for a whip bro in your lineup; and many of the fights where you want a sergeant you also want whips - dealing with geists in particular. I haven't needed to do this, but one option, particularly when playing gladiators since you can't have reservists is to make your sergeant a gunner ( in this case you don't need backstab; build it like my gunner above, just cut crippling strikes for rally. And obviously you need ranged attack instead of melee attack; and more resolve.)
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Aug 26, 2020 18:53
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On nimble front liners: There's no real reason for a duelist to also be nimble, unless you want to use a fencing sword. Being a duelist just means using a 1handed weapon with no shield and taking the duelist perk. Mathematically speaking maces are best; with the possible exception if you have enough crazy high fatigue to use an orc cleaver. The problem with making your duelist nimble is that unlike the back line, nimble and a high health pool alone isn't enough when you're on the front line, so you end up having to waste perks on stuff like dodge; which in turn impacts your damage because duelist builds don't really have the space to waste perks. There are more efficient ways to apply overwhelm - note that gunners and guys with a warsycthe all do AOE damage so they can apply a bunch of stacks per turn. Using a fencing sword as mentioned above will require a nimble initiative focused build but I've tested them out a couple times and even with a unique fencing sword they just don't stack up. The damage buff isn't good enough, they have niches where they're useful, but even then other builds would be just as good or better and still be more broadly useful.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:02
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The Lord Bude posted:Good sergeant advice Oh yea, I wasn't actually looking for a sergeant, just sergeant stats with high initiative, I.E tons of resolve, fatigue and MAtk. Since I don't actually need the initiative that badly I have more leeway, and a level 6 lad on his way. Would not a warscythe be better on a sergeant than a gun though? Well, I guess it's just a matter of Ranged vs Melee attack. Used a warscythe on a sergeant in another run and he did well enough. Gave him stuff to do in fights where he did not need to shout much. Yea, fencing sword people are really hard to find. They are fun for things but they are underwhelming as you say except for when they manage to shank the odd shaman. I have a very good dagger lad for this  I do still wonder if i find a low fatigue greatsword if overwhelm may not be a thing though. Guess I'll have to try.
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Aug 26, 2020 23:54
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Do you guys ever go for the “Sure we’ll give the quest item to you, random guy” options in contracts?
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Aug 27, 2020 01:26
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If they decide to throw loads of money at me and I'm just doing a random quest, not like my allied city then yes totally.
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Aug 27, 2020 01:32
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