Revised dodge perk over powerful？

[Flickering]

I think I have already seen topic like this once, but actually there seems to be few replies.

Few reason it’s a bit OP
1. compared to other perks that may affect defence, shield expert for 3 to 5melee def or 3 to 6 ranged def, gifted for 3 defence for both, reach advantage for average 20% to 40% only melee defence, anticipation for average 7+70% only ranged def. BUT, when it comes to dodge perk, you can expect to have at least 7 at most 20+ for both, as you can seldom have less than 50 initia when entering a battle with no injury. What’s more! The value of bonus is for both melee and ranged defence, BOTH! Awesome or over powerful？ It’s superior to anyother defence perk and can get access to at level 2, It’s very common in some builds everyone has this perk as it at least offer 7 for both, a huge amount.

2. as expert ironman player, dodge has become a first priority perk to invest at level no matter the brother’s tactic orientation because with this perk and a heater shield I can easily get near 50 melee defence at level2 or level 3 as in the early game, armors are light initia are high.
It almost ruined my game experiencing as I m force to choose dodge to make me more likely to survive, this is atrange for a tactic game. In 0.7 version, gifted is the first priority you nerf it, may dodge be the next？

3. Since dodge revised, the initia stat has lost its original face, we invest in intia because we want some brother to act earlier in the row, for some tactic purpose like assaulting on weak key opponent like archers and ghost, taking control of height ground. But now initia seems to be abused as part of defence, if I roll +5intia at level up, lol, 2.25 defence for both, singlely invest in melee or ranged def only comes at most +3 after all(without talent). It’s awesome for dodge.

I know devs want to phase the intiative, but in a defence-based game, everything around defence is dangerous for abusing, reach advantage in 0.7 and dodge in 1.0.

Maybe now a mechanic that any defence by shield or dodge increase 2 fatigue is dev trying to solve this issue, actually it seems it only makes fatigue more important, to be honest.

I dont really know what’s the best form for dodge, so that why this topic exist. By the way, personally I think the reformation for Reach advantage is perfect.

[hruza]

I used to think dodge is great perk when I started to play the game. I used to put it on every brother. However as I gained experience I was forced to reconsider.

Problem with dodge is that it is initiative based and problem with initiative is, that it depends on fatigue. Less fatigue you have, lover your initiative. On general level initiative gets low more armor, shields and weapons you put on, because all these things lower fatigue. In battle fatigue gets expended with everything you do. Even when enemy attacks you.

At the beginning of the game, dodge might seem useful, since your brothers wear little armor, crappy weapons and shields and battles don’t last long. However by the mid game, when you have 100-200 armors, heavier shields and weapons and battles last longer, you get very little from dodge.

Moreover increasing initiative won’t really help, since you need to invest 10 points in to initiative to get single point of defense from it (two if you count both melee and ranged defense).

Therefore the way I see it, dodge is very situational perk which can be used to complement some special builds like light nimble duelists or light nimble archers with lots of fatigue and high initiative. Problem is, game favors armor for protection, and you need very talented merc to make him durable enough with light protection. This mostly means very high melee defense to begin with.

And even with such special build, there are usually better perks to spend your limited quota.

[Namespace]

I agree with hruza. Nimble is a nice perk for early grunts who aren’t talented and probably won’t see the mid- to lategame.
I throw it on early Archers without talent in ranged defense who will end up with 80-90 ranged skill. If I get talented Hunters though I usually just take Anticipation because it will end up giving a better ranged defense bonus than dodge.
Dodge has more of an impact on Overwhelm builds. Even on Duelists I usually go for Battleforged rather than Nimble/Dodge combo because it is more reliable.

[Namespace]

Namespace wrote:

Nimble is a nice perk for early grunts

I meant Dodge ofc.

[Flickering]

No you dont need to attach dodge to light armor build, even when you wear 300armor and 250 helmet it’s only 38 faitigue and initiative penalty, with great sword you will expect to have 52 in total, a 11level brother expect to have about 130 base initiative unless you never invest in it. Then 80 after armed, that’s 12 both melee and ranged defence when you first entering battle, an awesome amount, nearly equal to a round shield, isnot it OP？ If you dont make him to do great labour he will only accumulated about 40 fatigue in 5 turns, and you will still have +6, much superior to pitiful +3 from shield expert or gifted even one stack RA upon brother with30 base defence.

So the only one neednot dodge maybe is only the ones do most labour, like thoes 2-h sword man keep on AOE and AOE.
Duelist build even the heaviest, are forced to choose dodge, ranged defence is OP, free me of quick hand perk.
Archer, heavy or light, forced to choose dodge, for I wont have enough stat to invest in melee defence, and dodge meet my need, even free me of footwork.

In this game, defence is everything, no one would think defence is too much.

[hruza]

@Flickering
Dodge is based on Initiative, not Fatigue. Having 2H guy with 130 fatigue won’t help. At last not with base dodge bonus. Higher fatigue will just slow down rate in which initiative drops during combat as you expend fatigue.

In my experience, once you equip your mercs with 200+ armors and 3.lv weapons, you end up with initiative somewhere between 50-60. Sometimes even lover. That’s about 7-9 dodge bonus. And only at the start of the battle. Once you start expending fatigue, it goes down. At the end, you can expect to get about 5 bonus defense on average merc. I leave it to you to decide, if that’s worth perk point. In my opinion, there are better perks.

However if you are building merc which is expected to have high initiative, it may be different case. Say nimble duelist with overwhelm.

[Flickering]

Well, you shouldnot just see how many they could get from dodge perk, but how many they get more than their companion.

Such like a brother with 80initia,
1. you equipe him with round shield that would be 15 more double defence and 70 initial,
2. while you invest a dodge perk not equiping shield that would be 12 double defence and 25% damage bonus, still 80 initial.

That’s awesome, you could hardly get huge reduce in intia using sowrd, 5 turn 40 decrese? Only 6 defence off and battle about to end.
There is actually another build with both shield and dodge he would easily get decent 50 defence at day 10 with heater shield and shield expert, that OP.

Actually, I think you are suppose to have more than 80 initia in early game and near 80 in late game, so dodge is supposed to be more powerful than what I compared above. That’s also what I’v experience, because defence is more important than attack in expert ironman mode.

Some of the experienced guy in my group, most above 500h choose dodge for everyone, because, 10defence not only means 10 defence sometimes, when you have 30base defence, +10 to 40 is a essential distinction. That means from15% to hit to 5% to hit sometimes.

[hruza]

Unless you spend points on initiative while leveling, there is no way you will have somebody in heavy armor and weapons with 80 initiative. 50 or 60 more likely. And that will nosedive with few sweeps with the great sword. And spending points on initiative just to get dodge bonus is a very bad idea, cos you get 1 point of defense for about 7 points of initiative. That’s 1 point of defense worth 2 full levels. Point which gets evaporated after few rounds of combat anyway.

[Flickering]

So, actual problem is, why donot you invest in initia？ Actually there are many adavantage of initia. with higt initia you can even act earlier than ghost or vampire. Donot believe it？ yeah, it’s about 130 you need and you could not wait the turn before(wait will decrease 25% of initia to decide the order). 130 is not a very high expectation cause you can easily get more than 150 initia.

You think 80 is difficult for heavy armor？No you only have 38 faitigue and initia penalty with 300 coat of cale, 250 kettle with male let alone named armor, only 118 needed. average initia for a 1lv sellsword is 105, only 13 point cost you 3lv up, that not difficult.
And the 13 more initia invest will insure you to act earlier than any orc warrior, that’s important because battle against orc always cost too much fatigue.

As you say initia nosedive with 2-hander, yeah, I have mentioned before only 2-hander neednot dodge. Heavy armored brother not only use 2-h weapon, double grip duelist is also powerful and only cost 16-20 fatigue within 2 attack. I hate to introduce any playing way, but 11 double grip cult, you will like it sooner or later.

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