As an aside: one thing I’m trying to decide presently is whether or not Perfect Focus is still worth taking. It seems to still be fine on melee characters, but archers feel pretty lackluster with it right now. The nerf was needed, though; at least there’s an actual limit on how many shots you can fire in a round now.
The offense tree is still useful, but the top tier feels a little lackluster. Killing Frenzy is probably the better of the two options, but I’m going to run a company with Perfect Focus and the horn blowers before I run a rampaging horde of berserkers. Tier 2 Offense seems to be in a good place still.
I’m actually thinking that an archer could spend 8 points in Offense before dipping into other trees. Since Battle Flow doesn’t equate to infinite fatigue anymore and Perfect Focus has real limits, it feels to me that an Archer would want to take the following:
Sundering Strikes
Executioner
Head Hunter
Fast Adaption
Bullseye
Killing Frenzy
Close Combat Archer
Berserk
And then you’d take these two traits from Utility:
Bags and Belts
Quick Hands
For obvious reasons.
Now, if Weapon Master in the utility tree provided more fatigue reduction, I’d consider archers with Perfect Focus more seriously. The trouble I ran into is that Quick Shot costs 30 fatigue when you use Perfect Focus. Even if your archer has 120 fatigue, he’s going to be drained completely in 4 shots, and then he’ll need a LOT of turns of horn blowing to get back to the point where he can fight like a normal person again. But if Weapon Master was stronger, it might still be worth doing, as you’d still have fatigue left over.
Interestingly, the one type of Battle Brother who still benefits a LOT from having Perfect Focus is the two-handed weapons guy. A pike wielder wearing heavy armor with Full Force can deal over 100 damage in one hit to the body, and that attack normally only costs 15 fatigue and 6 AP. With Perfect Focus and Berserk, such a Battle Brother can get 3 attacks like that in one turn with no problem whatsoever.
