Defense Skill Tree Discussion

[madmansam]

Soar wrote:

Nimble can work out:

My level-11 one-character-challenge Battle Brother there has 62 Melee Defense with Nimble, 82 once Confident thanks to Hold Out – in comparison, it would be 51 and 61 if using a heater shield, or 56 and 66 with Shield Expert. This is before accounting for Dodge. You’re looking at 14 dead Bandit Raiders and one dead Marksman. I ambushed the Marksman but there were a couple of Raiders nearby that engaged my character in melee – I figured I’d quickly kill them to get rid of their zone of control so I could retreat, but my character kept whiffing until the enemy’s main force arrived and I ended up completely surrounded. Preventable, and I wasn’t really expecting him to live through that, but thanks to high Melee Defense and Melee Skill, Riposte, and a blessing from the dice gods, that’s what happened.

Wow that’s seriously impressive. How did you stay alive long enough to reach level 2 let alone level 11?

[Sky]

Tips and tricks.

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[PsenBattle]

Awesome stuff! I’m celebrating this :)

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[Soar]

madmansam wrote:

Wow that’s seriously impressive. How did you stay alive long enough to reach level 2 let alone level 11?

By relying on NPC allies. Militias and caravans from prosperous settlements may be strong enough to fight off enemy parties, and of course there’s also castles, watchtowers and their patrols. In an earlier challenge run, a big break came when I got attacked by orc and bandits simultaneously, the bandits killed the orcs, and I was able to finish off the wounded bandits for enough experience to go up two levels. You can also whittle down parties using guerrilla tactics. Fight on the map edge, kill what you can and retreat the moment the situation starts to look unfavorable, then switch to an undamaged set of equipment and go back in again. If someone’s wandering around without head armor, it’s worthwhile to send a bolt, arrow or javelin their way in hopes of an one-shot kill – my first one-man-challenge character was actually a hunter with 55 starting Ranged Attack, which was helpful early on.

Once you get Battle Flow from the utility tree, you begin to have a chance of defeating groups of weaker enemies like zombies, ghouls and bandit thugs by your lonesome in a straight-up fight. Experience is gained by scoring kills, so single-handedly defeating enemy parties will get you a lot of it in a hurry. Still, expect to die a lot, especially before you’re high-level – in particular, werewolves love to munch on low-level characters, so I recommend spending your nights next to someplace with a strong militia or garrison.

[madmansam]

Ah, thanks for the write up Soar.

[GOD]

I’d like people’s thoughts on a sugestion I made earlier regarding Nine Lives and Shield Bash. Right now, Nine Lives doesn’t seem powerful enough to be a tier 2 perk. At the same time, Shield Bash is too weak for a tier 1 perk. My suggestion is therefore to put Nine Lives in tier 1 utility and move Shield Bash to tier 2 Defence, while buffing Shield Bash by giving it a chance to stun. It could that I’m underestimating Nine Lives though, so I’m curious whether anyone has been able to find a use for it.

[Meeky]

Really, really want to bring up Nimble again:

Weaponmaster background. Level 11 character. Put puts into melee defense AT EVERY LEVEL.

Result? 90 melee defense; character can wade into battle with the toughest orcs, put up Riposte, and just not give a damn. The only thing that bothers the guy is archers.

This guy I have is basically the best tank on my team, and he’s wearing very light armor – so light, in fact, that I felt taking “Battle Forged” would be a waste.

In the following screenshot, you’ll notice that his melee defense is EVEN HIGHER thanks to having Dodge and being Confident, both of which he starts the battle with thanks to perks. This gives him an effective 128 melee defense.

Nimble belongs on Tier 2. It’s good for niche builds with the Weapon Master, Adventurous Noble and Sellsword.

[Sky]

Perhaps there is somthing to consider nerfing a bit. I still did not have time to test this out.

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[Meeky]

Sky wrote:

Perhaps there is somthing to consider nerfing a bit. I still did not have time to test this out.

Maybe?

This is really more a problem with the Swordmaster than the perk. The Swordmaster is a veiled gem; you look at it and think “Well, he loses -10 fatigue, HP and initiative, so it’s balanced,” and the guy IS expensive. Normally, that’s true, but the Swordmaster has HUGE synergy with the Nimble perk.

Look at it this way: +20 inherent melee defense = +40 melee defense total with Nimble. Other characters get +5 melee defense – and there might be 1 or 2 that get +10? But for the most part they get +5, which equates to +10 total melee defense.

Essentially, rather than having 128 melee defense under the best of circumstances, most would have 98. That’s still really high, but… yeah.

Also, this sort of build takes time to feel how strong it is. If you start using an einhander build at level 5, you’ll find that you’re still very susceptible to high attack characters and you’re still scared of things like orc warriors, so you can’t just solo the game or anything. It’s not until level 11 that you start to REALLY feel how powerful it is, and you need Dodge and Confident to really get the character to feel like a powerhouse… and even then, there will ALWAYS be at LEAST a 5% chance to hit the character.

Archers are still a bane to this character. Notice that I didn’t grab Battle Forged, and that the character still only has 86 fatigue when wearing padded leather. This is the inherent weakness of the Swordmaster; I put a lot of points into Fatique and still wound up wishing I had more. If I put heavier armor on (say, the better mail shirt), I could see his fatique drop into the 70’s. Acceptable, but not ideal.

So, the character is very specialized. Graceful Gisbert tanks melee opponents and sort of dashes away from the group to do so. Other characters have to eliminate the archers or else HE has to engage the archers in melee range so as not to die. He’s very effective at what he does, but I think the inclusion of more dangerous ranged opponents and MAYBE a nerfing of the Swordmaster – a slight one – would be sufficient. The perk itself is fine.

[madmansam]

Perhaps Nimble should split the 100% defense bonus between a smaller passive bonus and an acive skill that that costs fatigue?

[Rap]

Since we’ve yet to add more range-oriented enemies with the goblins, who could pose a serious problem for a build that specialized, we’ll probably leave Nimble alone for now. The Swordmaster, like most backgrounds, will also receive some fitting events on the worldmap, which in his case could mean that age catches up with him.

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[Meeky]

Rap wrote:

Since we’ve yet to add more range-oriented enemies with the goblins, who could pose a serious problem for a build that specialized, we’ll probably leave Nimble alone for now. The Swordmaster, like most backgrounds, will also receive some fitting events on the worldmap, which in his case could mean that age catches up with him.

That’s probably best. I’ll post again once I fight Goblins. Like I said, the build is really specialized, and in order for it to deal with ranged units there has to be someone else to do that or it needs to run up into their faces ASAP. (Which it can because it ignores melee attacks.)
I’m also wondering what the chances of a Spear-wielding opponent with high attack are of hitting this sort of build. I don’t know the exact math behind to-hit calculations, and I haven’t seen many high level opponents wielding spears…
Also, I just checked to see what sort of armor this guy can tote. Wielding his favored weapon (a Noble Sword), he can wear basic mail with 84 fatigue. I can put him in some decently heavy armor (lamellar harness) and he’ll have 77 fatigue. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but this is with his helmet being -7 fatigue.

[Malthus]

Rap wrote:

Since we’ve yet to add more range-oriented enemies with the goblins, who could pose a serious problem for a build that specialized, we’ll probably leave Nimble alone for now. The Swordmaster, like most backgrounds, will also receive some fitting events on the worldmap, which in his case could mean that age catches up with him.

Oh no I sense “Barristan the Bold-moments” incomming
http://winteriscoming.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/barristan-greyworm.jpg

"I am a Paladin!"
>OMG, Malthus, there are no damn paladins in Battle Brothers...<
"OK, OK! Then I´m a wrecked down minstrel drunkard pretending to be a paladin, singing so wrong in the midst of battle that even the undead run in fear... Better?!"

[RVallant]

I was hoping to see more 1H type defences available, but my ideas were already covered by Evade/Dodge and Riposte.

Basically something like ‘Defensive fighter’ – When fighting without a shield, the battle brother switches into a more conservative stance ready to deflect melee blows with his primary weapon. Gain +xx% melee defence, but no ranged defence.

Sort of to highlight a fighter who relies on his weapon to defend and not his dodging or evading ability… Sort of like a counter-puncher type of character, but I can’t think of a way to implement that without infringing on riposte. Oh and the lack of range defence is on point, I can’t imagine someone blocking with consistency with a weapon vs an arrow tbh.

[JavaJavaJava]

Tier 1 Defense perks:
Does anybody actually use the 25% Hitpoints perk? Since direct hitpoint damage is pretty rare, I’ve always thought 20% more armor — combined with utility’s Brawny (50% reduced armor fatigue) just outclassed it completely. Even if you leveled up Hitpoints at every opportunity, you’d only get them up to about 100 ish, with Colossus, that’s… maybe a soft max of 150? At level 11? Whereas if you level Fatigue at every opportunity instead, you could simply wear better armor, even without Brawny, for a much better final tank.

I mean, doing the math: Two levels of Hitpoints, could be about 8 more final damage you can take…. whereas 8 ish Fatigue max, means you can wear 20 more body armor AND 20 more head armor. Worth it?

Taking hitpoint damage inflicts morale damage too. Why on earth would you build Colossus, when you could take Battle Forged, Dodge, OR 25% Shield defense?
Colossus increases your final tank by about 5-8% (when you can take it, at first Tier, when it matters most), whereas Battle Forged reduces damage to armor by 20% (not sure if it applies to the Head, but even if it doesn’t, that’s still about 15% total damage reduction); Dodge decreases chance to be hit, at least once per battle, by roughly 5% I believe, and getting hit at all is pretty catastrophic in this game; and the Shield bonus (admittedly only good for shielders) is just plain awesome for survival– as the first perk purchased, along with a Heater Shield, you’re pretty much set to avoid all damage until you’re up against mid-level foes.

I can understand wanting to be tankier, but honestly, taking Colossus over any other perk– especially the ones that lower your chance to be hit outright — seems sub-optimal. On top of that, you can have 300 total armor points, but less than half that of Hitpoints, and you can’t swap out your damaged Hitpoints between battles for fresh ones, like you can with armor and shields.

IMO, I might consider taking Colossus if it added flat HP in addition to the % max, and/or increased the Healing rate — there are some heroes that really can use more hitpoints, but it’s tough to take one of your 3 level up boosts in hitpoints. Fatigue, Weapon Proficiency, and Melee Defense trump, it would seem to me.

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