Your brothers' builds

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone!

I was wondering: how do you “build” your brothers through level-ups? Which perks do you choose, which combo, and why?
And mostly what original things you do with perk choice?

Personally, I saw some funny things to be done:
– A tank and shield destroyer with an one-handed axe and a good shield, and perks from defense tree (mostly) and some from attack tree (destroy shield)

– A throwing weapons specialist, with the perks from utility tree (bags and belt for example).

– A captain with high resolve, and perks from utility tree which let you give resolve to your brothers if yours is higher.

– A sword master with one-handed sword, a good initiative (and a light armour to conserve it), using the perk from defense tree which let you dodge untill first hit and second-tier defense tree which let you double your melee defense with left hand free. This one may be strong using “riposte” skill with a sword.

– A two-handed orcish weapons specialist? The second-tier perk from utility which lower the fatigue from using a weapon could allow that… but I don’t know which perks I should pick on first-tier actually. Got an idea guys?

Please share your strategy on leveling your guys! :)

[Meeky]

– A two-handed orcish weapons specialist? The second-tier perk from utility which lower the fatigue from using a weapon could allow that… but I don’t know which perks I should pick on first-tier actually. Got an idea guys?

Tons.

Wildmen are a great base to start from. I actually don’t take the less-fatigue-from-weapons trait on these guys because they can sling around five different massive sluggers of your choice. But I always start on the offense tree, and there’s good reasons to do so. Let me post a screenshot.

Note that Leif didn’t start carrying two-handed weapons until he had reached Tier 2 of the Offense tree. I didn’t want him getting killed by arrows. So, I got him the best armor I could afford and made sure to give him lots of HP and Fatigue.

From the Offense tree:

Tier 1 – Leif takes Sundering Strikes and Executioner for being raw damage boosts and he takes Bloody Harvest because it helps him hit with his AoE weapons (the warbrand and greataxe). He’d be in a much better position if he used a greatsword instead of a warbrand, honestly. He’s probably going to be given one soon. You can take Headhunter instead of Executioner since most enemies are gonna be dead once you get to the point where carrying two-handed weapons works.

Tier 2 – Fast Adaption is generally just good on everyone except maybe crossbowmen. It gives you a boost to your chance to hit. Full Force is awesome for two-handed weapons guys because they tend to be tromping about in the heaviest armor you can find. In this case, Leif’s armor gives him +30 maximum damage. In this case, this means his basic attack with his orcish greataxe deals an incredible 135-225 damage, or 243-405 armor damage because it hits both head and body. Nice. Just… nice.

Tier 3 – Perfect Focus is just perfect for two-handed weapons guys. It means you can activate Perfect Focus, slam your axe down a guy’s throat, then swap to your pike and stab someone else. It also means you can use Perfect Focus and potentially sweep with your Greatsword twice in the same turn. It costs a ton of fatigue, but that’s what your hornblowers are for. (If you don’t know what a hornblower is, look at Rally the Troops in Tier 3 of Utility, and imagine a character with 80+ Resolve. Now get that guy Euphoric, Eager, or Drunk. Yeah.)

From the Utility tree:

Tier 1 – You ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS want to take Bags and Belts + Quick Hands. I just can’t think of any situation where that’s NOT a good idea. This lets you swap between your greataxe, your greatsword, your pike, your dagger for stabbing dudes dead without breaking their armor, and whatever your fourth and fifth weapons are. Pathfinder is generally just good because bad terrain can make you unable to walk 1 space without needing Perfect Focus to attack.

Tier 2 – Brawny. You want heavy armor. Your fatigue is being restored by the hornblowers. So… Just get Brawny and wear the heaviest armor you can. It boosts your damage and it boosts your ability to stay alive.

A sword master with one-handed sword, a good initiative (and a light armour to conserve it), using the perk from defense tree which let you dodge untill first hit and second-tier defense tree which let you double your melee defense with left hand free. This one may be strong using “riposte” skill with a sword.

So, this is exactly how I used to make my swordmasters. However, I’ve since realized a few things that are absolutely critical to understand:

1) You want heavy armor. In the off-chance someone hits your weaponmaster, you don’t want him dying in 1 shot to an orc with a greataxe.
2) You don’t really need high initiative. Remember that the enemy will ALWAYS have at LEAST a 5% chance to hit you, so at some point there’s no return on having a super high defense. Also remember that you lose that Dodge bonus as soon as you get hit.

Now, once upon a time I had a guy with 126 melee defense, and I’m pretty sure there’s a picture of him somewhere. However, that was in an old patch. I’m not sure if that’s possible without super high melee defense rolls now.

But I do have a weapon master that I think makes a perfect example of how I’d build one now. Meet Dirk, the man with a measly 112 melee defense!

Jokes aside, let’s talk about why he has that high melee defense. There’s Nimble, obviously, and there’s Dodge… But notice how he’s also Confident. That gives him +5 melee defense, which translates to +10. He also happens to have Sure Footing along with being a Swordmaster, which helped him get that high. And, of course, I pumped my numbers into his Melee Defense every level.

But his perk choices probably look really weird, don’t they?

From the Defense tree:

Tier 1 – He’s never gonna use a shield, so I just took the basic armor / HP boosts and got him Dodge. Easy enough choice.

Tier 2 – I got Nimble before going to another tree. But notice that I came back to take Rotation. This lets Dirk swap places with a guy who’s in trouble, and it’s not like Dirk cares if he’s surrounded by 6 enemies anyway. He can hold the line against anyone and anything, even with his MEASLY 112 defense.

From the Utility tree:

Tier 1 – Bags and Belts. Quick Hands. Pathfinder. You know the reasons already.

Tier 2 – Brawny lets the old man (notice that he even has an old man face as a trait now) wear heavy armor without sweating it. 83 fatigue is plenty, and he’s got armor enough to not get 1-shot… I think. I don’t think he can be 1-shot by NPCs. Oh, and he has Weaponmaster so that his weapon lasts longer, and he doesn’t burn himself out very easily.

By the way, something to keep in mind: because a Swordmaster has a free hand, he actually gets the “double grip” bonus on his weapons. So, give him a high damaging weapon, like the sword Dirk has. The Honed Oathkeeper deals 54-60 damage, which turns into 67-75 on Dirk, and 0-15 of that can ignore armor. Not bad, old man. Not bad.

By the way, Dirk could probably get away with having a much lighter helmet, one which could increase his field of vision, but the head is very vulnerable and he’s already got bad eyesight. Might as well go all-out and give him a huge helmet, right?

[Meeky]

Oh, by the way: ditching Weaponmaster on the Swordmaster is totally fine. You can replace it with Fortified Mind so that ghosts can’t spook your guy away. You could ditch Rotation, too, but I love that skill.

EDIT: Oh, and here’s Gisbert the Graceful from a WAY older patch.

[RusBear]

I would be interested to see screenshots comparing the maximum and average values of close combat skills and def on 11 level in the old and the new patch.
Meeky,
you play with save/load ? I do not think that Leif could survive well in the early stages of the company. I must admit that as a pure situational DD he looks good. but I prefer a little more reliable build.

[Anonymous]

Wow nice! Thanks for your answer! I want to try these now :D

[Meeky]

RusBear wrote:

you play with save/load ? I do not think that Leif could survive well in the early stages of the company. I must admit that as a pure situational DD he looks good. but I prefer a little more reliable build.

Leif started off using sword-and-board, as do most of my Battle Brothers. I start planning who my two-handed weapons users will be early, but they frequently don’t start smashing faces until they’re at Tier 2 / Tier 3 Offense.

When they finally are tough enough in HP and Fatigue to take hits, I start them off using pikes and billhooks for the range (letting them stand behind the meatshields). Once they hit level 10 and have Quick Hands + Bags and Belts I shove them into the front line. By that point they have pikes/billhooks, greatswords/warbrands, greataxes of some kind, and two other random weapons that I choose based on the character. They’re also prioritized as far as heavy armor goes, and they’re actually VERY reliable once they reach the point I’m talking about.

I do play with save/load sometimes. I’ve done a couple Ironman playthroughs, but I usually prefer to just play through the game normally.

[Meeky]

Anonymous wrote:

Wow nice! Thanks for your answer! I want to try these now

You’re welcome. I actually have builds for most of the roles you listed, though not the throwing weapons guy. I… honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of throwing weapons in this game. It sucks because throwing weapons are one of my favorite things to make builds around in tabletop RPGs.

One thing I’ve considered doing is outfitting all my two-handed weapons guys with crossbows.

[Anonymous]

Maybe throwing weapons could be use by the “meat-shield” guys, so that they deal some damages before the ennemy comes at your contact?

[Danubian]

One half of my team are nimble melee fighters (they basically hold the line) – i start with defense and then switch to utility (to pick that perk that halves fatigue for armors).

and second half of my team are archers/crossbowmen who start off with utility and then switch into offense
What you get that way are superb nimble tanks that are super hard to hit – i like to arm them with maces – and you get crossbowmen that confuse the AI into thinking they are weak so it attacks them – and when they do attack i simply switch to 2 handed weapons (and later one handed once i got nimble on them as well) and slaughter everything.

This way you have everything covered – you can fill the normal enemies with bolts from crossbows (really good for picking off orc bersekers for example) and when you run into enemies that are mostly resistant to arrows/bolts (skeletons?) you can still switch to two handed weapons and help your first line.

[Binkus]

Legendary posts Meeky, some really interesting stuff it makes my just hit them really hard approach look like child’s play

I will be trying out some of these tactics

[Meeky]

Danubian wrote:

One half of my team are nimble melee fighters (they basically hold the line) – i start with defense and then switch to utility (to pick that perk that halves fatigue for armors).

and second half of my team are archers/crossbowmen who start off with utility and then switch into offense
What you get that way are superb nimble tanks that are super hard to hit – i like to arm them with maces – and you get crossbowmen that confuse the AI into thinking they are weak so it attacks them – and when they do attack i simply switch to 2 handed weapons (and later one handed once i got nimble on them as well) and slaughter everything.

This way you have everything covered – you can fill the normal enemies with bolts from crossbows (really good for picking off orc bersekers for example) and when you run into enemies that are mostly resistant to arrows/bolts (skeletons?) you can still switch to two handed weapons and help your first line.

There are some weaknesses to this. Not every character will make a great Nimble fighter, so it’ll take a while to get the perfect lineup, and enemies like goblins and bounty hunters / mercenaries will make mincemeat of your shieldless army. Carrying spare kite shields with Bags and Belts ought to help.

One question that comes to mind is “How are you distributing points?” When you specialize someone, their stats tend to be easy to focus. A ranged character typically increases ranged attack at every level; a melee fighter takes some combination of melee defense / HP / Fatigue / melee attack. Etc. But when you start getting guys who you want to be good at both melee and ranged combat, your points get a little more sparse.

Basically, I’d love to know what your method is so I can try it out myself.

Binkus wrote:

Legendary posts Meeky, some really interesting stuff it makes my just hit them really hard approach look like child’s play

They’re really not that special. A lot of people have done similar things, I think.

The heavy weapons build doesn’t start playing like a heavy weapons build until later, and you really need a wildman, farmer, hedge knight or sellsword to really make it work. Traits that boost fatigue / damage (Drunkard is a godsend) are awesome on these guys. High melee attack is important, too. Extra HP or fatigue recovery sure don’t hurt.

As an aside, IMO the Tier 3 defense tree is still pretty unrewarding to dive into. Those are reactive abilities that you have to activate proactively, and the enemy AI tends to know to go for other units. Maybe they’d work alongside the Taunt skill, but at that point… Honestly, it seems like a waste of a turn.

[Danubian]

Meeky wrote:

There are some weaknesses to this. Not every character will make a great Nimble fighter, so it’ll take a while to get the perfect lineup, and enemies like goblins and bounty hunters / mercenaries will make mincemeat of your shieldless army. Carrying spare kite shields with Bags and Belts ought to help.
One question that comes to mind is “How are you distributing points?” When you specialize someone, their stats tend to be easy to focus. A ranged character typically increases ranged attack at every level; a melee fighter takes some combination of melee defense / HP / Fatigue / melee attack. Etc. But when you start getting guys who you want to be good at both melee and ranged combat, your points get a little more sparse.
Basically, I’d love to know what your method is so I can try it out myself.

-When you start you dont go around hiring just anyone. However you are sort of right, the current way leveling works with randomized stats could (and probably will) screw you heavily for a nimble build – which is one of the main reasons i ABSOLUTELY hate it. There seems to be some obsession with making the game difficult, but this is just stupid, it doesnt make the game more difficult it just prevents me from customizing my bros. /rant over

-I absolutely hate goblins so i pretty much avoid fighting them completely, other than those wolf riders. I dont have the patience to maneuver around for 15 minutes and then chase them all over the godamn map when they start running away. Plus you have to attack them during the night etc, its just too exhausting and microish and you gain almost nothing out it (why waste time doing that when you go around killing bandits who will hurt you less, and net you way more useful items and profits…).

-I dont know what bounty hunters and mercenaries are? If you mean Thugs and Raiders nimble build is perfect for them. You will however have to take at least 1 round worth of arrows/bolts. But you can switch your archers from crossbows to bows (to gain distance advantage and pick their archers out) or you said you can always take shields with you and use them until archers are dead. If the enemy has up to 4 archers i simply rush my 6 archers on both flanks, 3 each. Usually the enemy will target them, but they wont have enough firepower/luck to murder anyone (plus once i get to utility 4 they start wearing 150 armor and 140 helmet, because those cost almost the same as their old armors did). If the enemy has more than 4 archers, its shield time. Note that i only fear crossbows, bows are meh.

-When i recruit archers i make sure that they have at least 50 or close to 50 melee. If they dont i up them to 50 melee and then add fatigue, ranged and melee defence. Before once i hit like 60 archery anything over that would be overkill, but yesterday i had situations where 4 78% shots would miss in a row (crossbows in particular feel like Russian roulette to me now). So now im considering going more. As for skills on archers i go 4 utility, 4th being that skill that reduces fatigue to armor (sometimes i take 5th, the one that lets you move back without triggering auto attack). After that i switch to nimble.

-As for melees its a pretty straight forward process, go for nimble asap, then switch for utility 4 and pick the armor -50% fatigue thingie, and then IIRC i have 2 more points or something; i believe i put one into that skill that prevents my bros from suffering fear effect and cant remember what i did with last one or w/e, doesnt really matter at that point. Stats: fatigue, melee and melee defense from level 1. p.s. thanks devs for randomized stats, +1 melee defense on like 2/3s of level ups is AWESOME. /rant over

-What do you get this way? Well you get a party that can reliably and easily take on everything, other than goblins (which is fine with me since i avoid them completely anyway). Nimble build is awesome because it turns your puny little bros into orc warrior slayers. There is nothing more beautiful than watching Orc Warriors attack them, or push them to reach the archers, only to realize that the archers simply switch to melee weapons and slaughter them (either from back line or frontline with one handers). The true melees get hit like i dont know, once every whatever attacks, and while archers start off in a different direction, near the maximum level they become like 2/3rd as competent at melee as pure melees (naturally theyll have a little less melee defense and less melee, however they should work fine vs everything other than absolutely hardest-to-hit enemies).

-This 6/6 build was the only way i could defeat 10 Orc Warriors (mixed with some berserkers) and ive also tested it against almost everything else other than goblins. It may also work against them i suppose, you just have to put the shields on for ranged defense and switch archers to melee?

[Danubian]

Wait meeky wasnt it you who originally suggest nimble build to me when i complained about Orc Warriors being too tough?

[Meeky]

Danubian wrote:

Wait meeky wasnt it you who originally suggest nimble build to me when i complained about Orc Warriors being too tough?

Yes! I don’t take it on every character, but it deals with orc warriors like a charm, yes. Since you use it on a lot of guys, I was curious what your level up scheme is. I’ve never tried taking an army of ALL nimble fighters because I’ve always felt they functioned best supporting other characters by being invincible.

Nimble fighters are a hard counter to orc warriors, fallen heroes, and basically all really nasty melee guys. I find them indispensable and always keep a few in my army (2-4 is good). However, more ranged opponents are being added, and they’re coming equipped with crossbows which means their ranged accuracy is high. The newest enemies of this nature are mercenaries and bounty hunters.

Danubian wrote:

I dont know what bounty hunters and mercenaries are?

Okay, so bounty hunters and mercenaries are a new enemy that’s appeared in Battle Brothers since the big worldmap update. They are NOT bandits. These guys are much, much tougher than bandits, and you can fight 20+ of them at once.

Think of Bounty Hunters and Mercenaries as comparable to your own Battle Brothers. A lot of them have Quick Hands, and most have a high attack/ranged ability and decent defense. They carry crossbows more often than bows in my experience, they form shieldwalls, and they hurl throwing weapons at you. The reason they’re important to consider here is you can’t predict (unless you memorize the events for contracts) when you’ll stumble into them.

See, Bounty Hunters and Mercenaries don’t roam the worldmap yet. Right now, they trigger as part of an event and attack you. I’ve seen as few as 6 attack me, but I’ve also been forced to flee from an army of 24 or so Bounty Hunters with wardogs.

They don’t have all the tricks goblins do, but they’ve typically got heavy armor, good HP, good attack, decent weapons, and lots of ranged weapons… the ranged weapons being dangerous to Nimble fighters.

If you haven’t encountered them, then I’d suggest you try out the contracts to kill bandit camps and deliver cargo in the current update. They can trigger if you…

A) Are delivering cargo and someone decides to take it from you. Those are Mercenaries.
B) Destroy a bandit camp that gets a bandit leader as part of an event (only occurs when you have the destroy-a-bandit-camp job). Bounty Hunters attack after the fight while you’re still repairing gear / licking wounds.

Get into a tangle with a couple of those groups and let me know how it works out. Again: I’ve always used Nimble fighters, but I’ve never used them to completely replace all melee characters. Kite shields are super useful vs. goblins / bounty hunters / mercenaries.

[kingslomein]

B) Destroy a bandit camp that gets a bandit leader as part of an event (only occurs when you have the destroy-a-bandit-camp job). Bounty Hunters attack after the fight while you’re still repairing gear / licking wounds.

This is the only time I have lost more than 1 or 2 Battle Brothers in a game at once. Both times this happened to me I lost about half my brothers :( and had to recruit from scratch. It’s mainly because my brothers were all wounded after the bandit leader fight. Good rewards however.

[Author]

Posts