Destroy Armor Abiltiy needs attack penalty

[Styxwash]

Title mostly says it, the Destroy Armor ability feels very to pull of. You don’t even need the mastery perk for it to be worthwhile and it’s easy for any merc to just pick up and use the pretty easily obtainable Military Picks to destroy expensive armor entirely in possibly just one round.

The high armor damage is fine, but imo. the ability needs at least -5 hit. Possibly -10 and a +5 from mastery. Alternately it could cost 10 more fatigue to use.

[nope100500]

It’s NOT worthwhile without specialization. It has best 1h fatigue to armor damage efficiency when specced, but quite bad when unspecced. Both cases are below 2h weapons fatigue efficiency!

Let’s just compare damage per fatigue point spent (fatigue costs with specialization):

fighting spear, basic attack 37.5 100% armor 8 fat – 4.6875 (there is also +20% hit bonus)
flail. basic attack 40 avg 100% armor 10 fat – 4 (hit bonus vs shields, up to +25)
fighting axe, basic attack 45 avg 130% armor 10 fat – 4.5 / 5.85
warhammer, basic attack 35 avg 225% armor 11 fat – 3.18 / 7.13
warhammer, destroy armor – 8.28 armor (that’s best efficiency for 1h weapon ever)
warhammer, destroy armor unspecced – 4.73 (barely better than spear, while doing only 10 hp damage and risking hit on wrong bodypart that may have less/no armor)

billhook, basic attack 75 150% 12 fat – 6.25 / 9.375

greatsword, overhead strike 117.5 100% 12 fat – 9.79
greatsword, split 97.5 100% 23 fat x2 – 8.47
greatsword, swing 97.5 100% 23 fat x3 – 12.71

mansplitter, split man 157.5 160% 15 fat – 10.5 / 16.8
greataxe, split man 135 150% 12 fat – 11.25 / 16.875

If anything, 1h weapons need to cost less fatigue in general (or 2h more).

[Styxwash]

Perhaps more fatigue is not a good option. It was just a offhand alternate suggestion.

I think the hit penalty is better. Atm. the military pick just feels very strong early to mid game, even as initial weapons for lvl5-6ish mercs with spec in another weapon. Ofc. after hitting a Destroy Armor, you switch to Axe/Sword for high HP dmg or a 2H.

I think -5 hit penalty without Spec would make the ability a little more balanced.

Atm. theres almost no point spending fatigue on the standard hammer attack. Might as well save the fatigue for Destroy Armor on another target if your current one is busted already and let someone with another weapon do the finishing job.

[nope100500]

Styxwash wrote:

Perhaps more fatigue is not a good option. It was just a offhand alternate suggestion.

I think the hit penalty is better. Atm. the military pick just feels very strong early to mid game, even as initial weapons for lvl5-6ish mercs with spec in another weapon. Ofc. after hitting a Destroy Armor, you switch to Axe/Sword for high HP dmg or a 2H.

I think -5 hit penalty without Spec would make the ability a little more balanced.

Atm. theres almost no point spending fatigue on the standard hammer attack. Might as well save the fatigue for Destroy Armor on another target if your current one is busted already and let someone with another weapon do the finishing job.

It *feels* strong, when it hits, sure. But actual efficiency (calculated without taking hit chance into account!) without spec is on par with specced spear, while spear also enjoys large hit bonus. I don’t think there is any need to further discourage unspecced hammer use.

And about using hammer on flesh targets – of course, it’s intended to be bad against them. That exactly the work distribution between your band members the game aims for.

[Styxwash]

Comparing the statistical values in this case isn’t showing the optimal potential though. Imo. even specced use is to strong. Why? Because of the high impact per hit. Many enemies, especially in the War crisis, I’ve been finding, seem to have Battle Forged, but not very heavy armor (footman unit). A hammer pick will remove a targets armor quicker round for round, meaning you can kill targets faster.
The Spear hit bonus is only good early game or if you have a particularly tanky high level merc with below 65 base to hit bonus (unless you have at least 5-6 high hit mercs for a very strong combined dedicated Spearwall)

My exact point was that the standard hammer attack feels useless, considering it does less armor damage and very weak HP damage. Why waste the fatigue? I never said I didn’t understand the aspect of distributing roles.

I just find that frontline hammerguys outshines other 1H/Shield types alot (aside from flails). Mace and Spearmen on the frontline have good tactics, but without at least one Warhammer going at your targets after taking down the shields, you are at such a disadvantage, that on hard mode, you really need at least 3-4 people using hammerpicks initially. Relying on Mace stun (low dmg output), 1H Axes destroying shields or Spearwall seems alot more up to chance imo.

Military Pick/Warhammer, Flail and Warbrand/Greatswords seem to outshine most other setups for the frontline. I’m not saying the other tactics can’t work, but the are unreliable and have low dmg output round for round. Dagger spec, both tanky or initiative based is awesome too, but I think you only need one or maybe one of each type.

[Sekata]

I’m not sure why this is a huge issue. Soldiers with military picks can usually be targeted by archers before they even close the distance. Failing that, focus aggression from pole-arms takes out what health they have left. In other cases, a good brother with a shield can avoid/block most hits no problem. Either that or using a character that doesn’t rely on heavy armor reduces the risk that your armor dependent soldiers will be taken out of combat-ready form.

Even if a 300+ piece of armor gets destroyed in a fight, good management makes the problem null. Is your heavy’s armor gone after a nasty fight with a military pick wielding raider? That’s ok, you have replacement armor in your inventory. Pop it on and start repairing the old one before the next fight.

[Styxwash]

Some times you will face Bandit or Footman group where more than half of them are wielding military picks, on expert that amounts to some times 5-6 military picks. I will try to take screenshots in the future, but it has happened at least 3-4 times last few weeks playing alot.

Sure, good shieldmen can avoid alot of hits and I always keep up shieldwall until my mercs are fatigued, but one hit with a military pick will leave 100-150 chainmails very low, so it only takes one hit to disable a merc.

Fights against most enemy types are considerably easier when you use at 3 military picks and fights against human opponents are that much harder when they randomly decide to bring a bunch of them.

With some more consideration I suppose the military pick isn’t all to bad unspecced, but the Warhammer does crazy armor damage and if you can get your hands on a few of them, I see no reason not to have equally as many Hammermasters.

Again, I would never buy any other 1H T3 weapon aside from Warhammer (and Rondel) because Flailers, Daggers and 2H Swordsmen usually perform alot better. But I do save most of my cash for armor and replacement mercs, so I generally prefer capturing T2-3 weapons. Spear and Mace tactics are fickle and I see no reason to have axes on the frontline after mid-game.

My main concern is still that the standard attack on hammers feel useless. Only reason I ever use it, is later in a battle when most enemies are dead or have damaged armor. Some times maybe to finish of a tough gravely wounded enemy with no armor, late in a round, to prevent it from attacking again. But generally it’s just a waste of fatigue.

I do always carry spare armor, helms and shields + some extra weapons of different types. Buying tools is also a high priority for me.

[Styxwash]

Here we go, I think it happens pretty often with Footmen. Five out of eight footmen have a Military Pick. For once the Sergeant has a Cleaver and not a Warhammer.

This is from a beginner ironman test game I’m playing atm. Fight would turn out alot easier if the footmen had more varied weaponry.

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