Utility Skill Tree Discussion

[madmansam]

The utility tree is weird. It has really nice perks, a few of which would be more at home in the offense or defense trees.

Tier 1
Bags and Belts – An ok perk. It’s not a must have on its own but it’s nice. It becomes incredible when combined with Quick Hands.

Taunt – Still waiting for this perk to be useful. Most of the time it’s far easier to shieldbash the enemy away from a vulnerable target. It would be great if there was some feedback on if you have to be in contact with the target, or if it’s ranged, what’s in range, and if a taunt was successful or failed.

Quick Hands – A very good perk. Being able to swap to a spare weapon or shield for free is great. It makes spear walls far more viable when you can put the spear away after they get into contact with you. It really shines with Bags and Belts. Being able to carry a small arsenal of weapons and switching to whichever is most needed is incredible. It’s absurdly, brokenly, good to be able to switch to a billhook once their immediate threats are dead, take a step and then make an attack.

Student – Useless perk. You’re going to level up anyway eventually, it’s not worth sacrificing a more useful perk point. If the perk was a Teacher and the brother gave other a small XP boost to other brothers I might consider it.

Shieldbash – A very lackluster perk. The damage is so poor it may as well be nonexistent. The fatigue damage is kind of nice but only in extreme cases.

Pathfinder – A very useful perk.

Tier 2
Brawny – A great perk if you want to have a chance of wearing the heaviest armour and moving. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the defense tree, the concept of the perk is defense, not utility.

Battleflow – Another great perk. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the offense tree, especially as it triggers when you kill an enemy.

Footwork – Yet another great perk. An archer with this can escape from anything that traps them, it also lets them dance past enemies caught on your front line and shoot them in the back. It’s also great for running straight past melee enemies to get to their archers/necromancers. Also good for a guy with a greatsword/great axe to get into a good position to use the AOE attacks. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the defense tree.

Captain – A good perk, it really helps shore up resolve in your mercenary band, which really helps with getting your guys to confident fast and avoiding wavering/breaking.

Weaponmaster – An ok perk, but again the concept fits better in the offense tree. It’s also made almost obsolete by Quick Hands. I think this perk should be a tier 1 offense perk.

Fearsome – A good perk, it’s very good for orcs with their tough armour but low resolve. Again though this feels like an offense perk.

Tier 3
Rally the Troops – Literally the reason to go deep into the utility tree. It’s an amazing skill that can turn a battle around and save lives.

Inspiring presence – Very overrated for a tier 3 perk. Confident is a very nice bonus, but your guys will get to confident very quickly anyhow when they have a decent Captain around. Originally I took this to work with Hold Out but I’m very underwhelmed by it, especially when it’s competing with Rally the Troops.

[GOD]

Quite a few of those perks not being in other trees is because those trees are already full, to maintain balance and to make a utility build viable on its own. Otherwise you’d end up mostly with resolve related perks and make utility the tree you’d use the least.
An example of this is Battle Flow, which is good for the utility build, but gamebreaking for the offence build if made a part of it. Having it in the offence build would make the tier 3 perks way too powerful, especially in combination with berserk. You can use it with Berserk right now, but you need to actually invest in it and you’ll lack the destructive power of the tier 3 perks.

Agreed on Shield Bash and Student not being very useful right now.

[RVallant]

Shield bash should do stun damage imo, to represent the opponent falling back and having to recompose themselves for another attack. Alternatively a defence penalty for 1-2 turns (or to expire on the second action basically) as they have to rebalance their defensive positioning.

If that is too overpowered then having a failed shield bash cause you to get the defensive penalty might be a negative to ensure that people don’t go out bashing willy-nilly, it could represent a shield bash being withstood, causing the ‘basher’ to fall back / be disoriented / lose balance and require them to adjust. Pointedly, I think it would also need to cancel any pre-applied shield wall.

I think that would be a viable, if risky method of breaking down that last guardian or pest that you’ve surrounded but won’t let his defences down whilst being extremely punishing is misused at the wrong time.

[ManaSeed]

Fearsome: This is a good skill, and again don’t make my mistake, it is far more useful if taken by an archer or a 1h char. Simply cuz they attack twice or more. The 2h dudes can release its full potential only at specific times with the area of effect (aoe) attacks. Good as is.

（・□・；）

1 captain guy to solve any fatigue issues (monk is good potential background for high resolve) – sundering strikes, fast adaption, colossus, taunt, student, pathfinder, footwork, captain, fearsome (not the best way to spend for 2-hander arguably,) rally the troops.

( ꒪Д꒪)ノ

Fearsome: Interesting perk for 1-handed weapon users, just too many uninspiring choices required to get to it.

(」゜ロ゜)」

#Fearsome – useful, especially for archers and one hand users

（°o°；）

Fearsome – A good perk, it’s very good for orcs with their tough armour but low resolve. Again though this feels like an offense perk.

(○o○)

　　　　　　　　S. 　 　E. 　 　R. 　 　 I. 　 　O. 　 　U. 　 　S. 　 　L. 　 　Y. 　 　?

After I started a topic asking for confirmation on this perk, which ended up with no reply, I tried to perform more detailed experiment. I’ve weakened a band of orcs into a group of 2 orcs: 1 orc young and 1 orc warrior. And I’ve never lay my hands on these experiment target in previous mentioned battle. Then I saved the game.

I tried using the same brother (which has 10 unspent perk points) to compare the effect of Fearsome on these two targets. I align ruler with morale bar on monitor to check the morale changes. With or without Fearsome, the effect on morale reduction is EXACTLY THE SAME.

Fearsome’s skill description: Even attacks that only damage armor trigger a morale check for the opponent.
I think there are two ways to interpret this sentence, if you wanna be very precise.
1) the most reasonable interpretation ==> You were not allowed to reduce enemy morale by damaging their armor, but now you can do it
2) the literal viable interpretation ==> Nothing changes except the warhammer’s skill Crush Hammer(it’s a skill that can only do dmg to enemy armor, but not to body) can now reduce enemy morale when you hit enemy body with it

But according to my experiment, you can’t reduce enemy morale by damaging his armor, even with Fearsome.

I was about to report this as bug but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything first. So I google “battle brothers + forum + fearsome” which leads me to this thread. Then I saw everyone praising the godlike perk. You won’t able to imagine my expression.

　　　　　　　　　　O|¯|_
What have I done wrong? Can someone come and tell me what should I do now?

[Sky]

At that time it did seem to work for me just fine(enemies did tend to flee more often against the fearsome guys), but never did any specific testing so could have been wrong and it was just the usual morale damage.

Tipps for new players
BB Wiki

[JavaJavaJava]

@ ManaSeed:

I can’t say this with complete certainty, as I’ve always considered Fearsome ‘Meh’ and never gotten it after the first couple play throughs, but Fearsome does seem to work for some enemies: Specifically, the Fallen Heroes undead type. They do morale damage (pops up the little negative morale check flags) when they hit for only armor damage, I’ve had a shielder Brother fall to Wavering morale from confident when facing two of them (only) and not taking any Hitpoint damage.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Fearsome didn’t work properly for Brothers, the game IS in developement still and I’ve seen uncertain cases of other skills not always working right in some circumstances…. actually, against Orcs as well, now that I think on it.

[JavaJavaJava]

Tier 1:

Once I got to my second play through (‘beating’ the game, full party of lvl 11’s with a few in plate), I have never gone into the Utility tree for anything other than:
Bags and Belts + Quick Hands, and Pathfinder, not necessarily in that order, culminating with Brawny for most of them.

Student is pretty much useless: Trading 10% of you maximum potential levels for getting there 20% faster? A waste. Personally, I’d take it if the level cap was 20 or 30, maybe. Maybe.

Shield Bash: Why? I could just hit them if I wanted to do damage. The knockback is very situational, and does damage already if you push them down height. Very weak.

Wait. I can remember the last one… Um…

Taunt: Whether or not it works, I’ve never had problems controlling ‘aggro’ with opponents thru careful tactics and Zones of Control. Unless it can actually pull enemies off of friendlies, which it clearly doesn’t do, I don’t think I would ever take it. Why Taunt When you can Shield Wall? Shield Wall has the added bonus of reducing the chance the next attack will hit, anyway.

Something I would LIKE to see at Tier 1, IMO replacing Student at this point; Sight Range increase, or some other Archer love… Range increase?

Tier 2:

Brawny. I go no further (for total level reasons) for any of my Brothers save the one Captain who gets all the morale and Rally type Utility stuff. That 50% Fatigue reduction for armor is essentially a 33% Hitpoint boost, or thereabouts.
I get that skill on nearly EVERY Battle Brother I command. Totally worth it, and if everyone has Bags and Belts + Quick Hands, they can carry a full run of weapon types for every situation, and I don’t have to worry about moving different people to the other end of the battle-lines to deal with those turtling Orc Warriors or Fallen Heroes.

[ManaSeed]

@ JavaMaster:
>> I wouldn’t be surprised if Fearsome didn’t work properly for Brothers, the game IS in developement still and I’ve seen uncertain cases of other skills not always working right in some circumstances…. actually, against Orcs as well, now that I think on it.

Sorry for being misleading. Well it actually worked. Because it has low trigger rate so I made a mistake as it never triggered once in my previous experiment. In my latest experiment I found it has about 20% trigger rate (11 proc per 52 hits to armor). I can’t say it is a bad perk, but I won’t say it’s a good perk too.

If you have offensive perks and go for offensive style, it’s not easy to make an enemy flee before you kill it. Even if the enemy has 300 body armor. Unless you purposely equip a low damage weapon for this. So adding 20% chance to reduce enemy morale while damaging their armor won’t impress you or convince you to spend the hard earned perk point on Fearsome. Also, most of its alternatives (tier 2 utility perks) are better than it.

I suspect it’s the same thing even if you’re going for defensive style (about Fearsome not being useful). But I’ve never tried defensive style before….. the effects and abilities for defensive perks are too weak…. are too complicated for my intelligence to make full use of them. I don’t have courage to try any of them after I’ve read the skill description and tested them a little with my brother with 10 unspent perk points.

[Sky]

In my experience it has a use mid combat when you already have killed off few enemies. If lucky you can make the already wavering enemy flee or further decrease the morale for the debuff. If you were waiting for a 1hit flee effect well this is not it. The more hits youa re able to make a round the more opportunity you have to route your enemy. For a test all you need to do is get a guy with focus and fearsome, get tons of fatigue and chop away.

Tipps for new players
BB Wiki

[ManaSeed]

[Game version 0.4.0.44]

Bag and Pelts ==> DOUBLE inventory slot, NO FATIGUE COST for inventory items. If copyright is not an issue, we can actually call this perk Batman Belt.

Taunt ==> If you find this perk useful, congratulations. You’re probably the first person.

Quick Hands==> You probably can’t see the real meaning of this perk because its name is rather misleading. At first glance, it’s not easy to understand the aftermath to switch items without AP. So for the sake of convenience, let’s call this perk “It’s Super Effective!”

See an enemy with high armor?
I choose you, Warhammer!
Warhammer used CRUSH ARMOR!
It’s Super Effective!

See an enemy with high hp?
I choose you, Military Cleaver!
Military Cleaver used CLEAVE!
It’s Super Effective!

See an enemy with enough dmg to kill you?
I choose you, Heater Shield!
Heater Shield used SHIELDWALL!
It’s Super Effective!

See an enemy with distance you can’t reach?
I choose you, Billhook!
Billhook used IMPALE!
It’s Super Effective!

Not only this perk has stunning effect, it gave purposes to so many weapons. From effect to purpose, it has to be best tier one perk among all categories.

Also, you probably know you need Batman Belt to put all your pokeballs, right?

Student ==> Yeah I learn stuff 20% faster! But…… I’ll never learn that perk point which was gone. A forum member has said this before, this perk should be “Mentor” which enables other allies to gain 20% extra exp.

Shield Bash ==> Knock Back skill now also inflicts 17 dmg (10~25) and 10 fatigue to enemy. First thing, you’re not Captain America. Your attacks with shield won’t hurt enemy for good. Second thing, enemy always have at least 15 fatigue at start of his turn. Inflicting 10 fatigue to him has no significant or meaningful impact.

Pathfinder ==> Unless you decided not to step into forest again, you must take this perk. If you have taken Perfect Focus, you MUST take this perk. Otherwise, moving to tile with height difference (3AP) will stop you from using Perfect Focus (7AP).

Brawny ==> Good but probably will never be taken by anyone. Because its tier two alternatives are far more useful than it.

Battle Flow ==> Fighting is so tiresome. You know, raise the blade, swing the blade. Kill enemy, gets tired. Kill enemy, gets energized. What the f- did I just said? That’s right. YOU MUST TAKE THIS PERK for all of your attackers. Rally the Troops can be its alternative, ONLY IF you’ve decided not to move your attackers or deploy them slowly.

Footwork ==> allows you to move ONE TILE without triggering free attacks, when you’re next to an enemy, by using 4AP and 25 FATIGUE. This perk doesn’t really give you any advantage to win a battle, it just provides you an emergency plan at relatively high cost. I don’t know if anyone considers this as a “perk”.

Captain ==> Wide radius of effect. Your brothers can get confident more easily, and harder to waver. Other brothers can use Rally the Troops with satisfying effect if your Captain has high resolve. If you have a brother with high resolve, this is good perk for him.

Weaponmaster ==> -20% fatigue cost, by this description alone you know it is useful perk. HOWEVER, you can skip this perk because we have Battle Flow and Rally the Troops.

Fearsome ==> It gives you a chance to reduce enemy morale when you hit their armor. In my experiment with limited data, it has about 20% proc rate. The success rate relies on enemy’s Resolve value, but I don’t think they vary a lot unless they have Captain perk. If you’re going for offensive style and take offense perks, you will usually kill the enemy before you waver them with Fearsome. Could be handy for defensive style.

Rally the Troops ==> One of the only 2 tier three perks that lives up to the name of “Tier Three Perks/Ultimate Perks”. Wide radius of effect.
1) If you have two or more Rally brothers, you can have INFINITE STAMINA for your troops, at expense of reduced attackers and delayed advance/march.
2) This effect is rather deadly. If you wait turn until enemy comes rather close, you can ACT TWICE IN SUCCESSION. Wait turn for enemy to approach, attack them at end of this round, Rally, then you can attack them AGAIN at start of the next round. BECAUSE you have higher initiative as you’re fresh as new due to Rally. This gives so much advantage which is enough to turn the tide of a tough battle.

Inspiring Presence ==> Not bad as a perk, but not worthy of the title “Tier Three Perks”. You can replicate its effect to a lesser extent with Captain perk. Even if you can’t, you will never choose this over Rally the Troops. Not to mention your brothers will get Confident status in middle of battle, so does it really matters to begin the fight with Confident status, by using tier three perk?

[Sarissofoi]

My three pennies.

##First tier(from best to most disliked):

Great:
#Pathfinding – great perk that increase mobility in hard terrain greatly, also reduce fatigue cost of moving on it
#Quick hands – another great perk, must have if you go into utility three

Bad:
#Student – let character gain level faster, when have no effect of its performance and is worthless on maximum level its have some use if you want level up some characters quickly9like you lost your sergeant with rally the troops perk)

Terrible:
#Shield bash – worthless, bonus to small to have any use
#Taunt – is it even work? My high resolve ‘Rally the troops’ characters are armed with pikes or billhooks so its have no use for me

Personally dislike them:
#Bag end pelts – only use them on archers(for additional arrows), perk is great but feel very cheap like cheating to carry weapons for any situation, my main line soldiers only carry side arm(daggers mostly or some portable weapon no two handers or shields) so it have no use in my company

##Second tier

Great one:
#Weaponmaster – my favourite, it lower cost of using weapons and make them lose less durability(lower cost of repairs, less need to carry a spare weapon, no need to constant checking if your weapon gonna break soon), overall good perk for any soldier and it lower need for micromanaging allowing more smoothly gameplay
#Fearsome – second one, must have for my ‘keep the line’ shield bearers, it allow them to rout or soften attitude of orcs and other heavy armoured enemy(mostly orcs), it saved my brothers more than once
#Captain – good for sergeant type characters with high resolve with combination of ‘Rally the troops’

Good but not used:
#Battle flow – it is useful perk but again I don’t use it

Bad:
#Brawny – its offer little compared to other perks on this tier
#Footwork – potentially great but too costly to use, I prefer rotation over it

##Third tier

#Rally the troops – great perk, must have for longer fights(I have two characters in company with it)

#Inspiring presence – another great perk, my ‘Company commander’ have it, great synergy with ‘Hold out’ perk(which most of my characters have)

[Saitorosan]

Utility is my favorite tree. Offense/defense builds tend to be lackluster in my experience, I’d rather specialize in one and supplement with utility on almost everyone.

Tier 1 – Strong, but unvarying.

B&B and QH

This combo is so good I only make 1 or 2 guys at best who don’t go at least minor utility for this. Only dedicated 2-handers really. Everyone else has so much to gain from this combo and with utility you can pick your other perks to supplement whatever their role is. Not saying they are OP, but it feels almost automatic to me to have this on guys as early as feasible.

Taunt

Not sure this is really working. Even on high resolve guys, there are still shieldwalls going up, people still don’t attack the taunter if there’s a better target in range, and it just overall feels like it’s a do nothing ability. Sounds great on paper if it worked the way you’d think it does.

Student

Actually useless. The cost is far too high to warrant getting (not really)maxed a little quicker. Never, ever take this.

Shield Bash

I actually liked the idea of this, when I thought it worked with Fearsome. Light damage, positional control, constant morale checks and fatigue damage all in one. It doesn’t appear to though. Also, in the testing I’ve done, it appears that even with this skill, if there’s no open spot for the opponent to be pushed to, knock back auto misses. I’m not 100% on that, but with 95% chance to hit, multiple misses in multiple different battles against varied enemies makes it seem to be the case. Disappointing.

Pathfinder

Basically the auto third pick in tier 1 since others appear broken or useless. It’s handy and gives tremendous advantage anywhere that’s not flat plains. Best for ranged and ranged hunters, but right now an autopick for anyone going into utility due to issues with the other options.

Tier 2 – Now we’re getting interesting.

Brawny

Good perk for 2-handers, and to a lesser extent melees in general. You can add a ton of survivability to them without pouring a bump every level up into fatigue. Combos nicely with full force too. Usually not the strongest option though.

Battle Flow

It’s good, but I have a love/hate relationship with it. When it’s clutch, it’s clutch as hell. The rest of the time it does very little. Usually put it on ranged with perfect focus. Works ok on 2-handers and dedicated dagger guys too. Probably wouldn’t put it on anyone else myself, except MAYBE a swordmaster.

Footwork

Put this on javelineers with bullseye, close combat archer and killing frenzy. Profit. Good on any fragile ranged/utility guys you really don’t want to die also. Otherwise there are better options.

Captain

Get one. Super helpful in tough situations, and just generally useful anyway. I pretty much always try to get a really good captain with inspiring presence and load up any basic shield/x guys with holdout. Shield wall starts with confident for +10 melee ranged mdefense and rdefense? Plus a huge resolve bonus? Yes please.

Weaponmaster

As this reduces all skill costs this is pretty good. I find it to be more useful than battle flow most of the time, as the pre-action reduction can actually help you kill the guy if it’s a drawn out battle, whereas with BF you might lose out on an action, and a kill. With some weapons, you can basically attack all day and not really build up any significant fatigue. Usually preferred over BF.

Fearsome

Very good. Awesome on ranged guys or 1-handers with good hit chance. Try putting this on your whole front line and just spread the love around on your enemies. You’ll be chopping guys down with attacks of opportunity in no time.

Tier 3 – This is why you go full utility.

Rally the Troops

Insanely good. Probably the best perk in the game right now. On the right brother you can restore 50% max fatigue to your whole team at once. Crazy good. If you don’t have at least one guy with this, you’re making your life harder.

Inspiring Presence

Also incredibly good. Starting everyone with combat bonuses and an extra step away from bad morale is huge. If you somehow don’t feel you can spare 2 slots for tier 3 utility guys, then take rally over this. Otherwise, you want one guy with this. As I said earlier, combos nicely with holdout for morale shenanigans.

In summary, tier 1 could use some work, otherwise, IMO, utility is easily the best tree right now. I’ve made guys that take 9 or 10 perks in utility (holdout being the 10th for them) with usual tier 1, all 6 (or minus footwork) and inspiring presence. Try it, they’re beasts.

[Invictus73]

ManaSeed wrote:

Student ==> Yeah I learn stuff 20% faster! But…… I’ll never learn that perk point which was gone. A forum member has said this before, this perk should be “Mentor” which enables other allies to gain 20% extra exp.

This is indeed stupid beyond belief and needs to be replaced. A perfect newb trap. And if newbs really need it because they are really clueless, then the bonus ought to be much higher.

ManaSeed wrote:

Brawny ==> Good but probably will never be taken by anyone. Because its tier two alternatives are far more useful than it.

Strongly disagree. Is likely a better option than the other Fatigue countering Perks if you are a heavy armor tank (they won’t do well with Battle Flow since they won’t kill often enough, and Weapon Master doesn’t give them extra hits without Perfect Focus). Of course, all your troops are wearing lingerie and brandishing huge sticks that require two hands to move, so I see how you feel this Perk is not worth a second look.

ManaSeed wrote:

Inspiring Presence ==> Not bad as a perk, but not worthy of the title “Tier Three Perks”. You can replicate its effect to a lesser extent with Captain perk. Even if you can’t, you will never choose this over Rally the Troops. Not to mention your brothers will get Confident status in middle of battle, so does it really matters to begin the fight with Confident status, by using tier three perk?

I take this now on my Swordmaster, but I agree it should be a tier 2 or grant more benefits if remaining in tier 3.

[Invictus73]

Sarissofoi wrote:

Bad:
#Brawny – its offer little compared to other perks on this tier

“Bad”?

Are your troops only clad in lingerie as well? :)

[ManaSeed]

>> Of course, all your troops are wearing lingerie and brandishing huge sticks that require two hands to move, so I see how you feel this Perk is not worth a second look.
You surprised me with your circumspective observation.

>> Strongly disagree. Is likely a better option than the other Fatigue countering Perks if you are a heavy armor tank (they won’t do well with Battle Flow since they won’t kill often enough, and Weapon Master doesn’t give them extra hits without Perfect Focus).
Here is the situation of my brother.

Closed mail coif + heraldic mail + greatsword = remaining max fatigue 103

103 – 42 (focus cost 40 + take one step forward 2) = 61 = 2h hits x4

Benefit of Battle Flow (assume we can kill an enemy on 4th hit) = 60×0.33 = -20 current fatigue

Benefit of Brawny = [closed mail coif -2 max fatigue penalty] + [heraldic mail -21 max fatigue penalty] = -23 max fatigue penalty

You can kill orc young in merely 2 hits, making Battle Flow provide higher benefit than the previous calculation. Also, the calculation doesn’t include the 5th hit enabled by Battle Flow at all.

If you use Full Force + Heraldic mail, you can kill orc young in only 1 hit, making Battle Flow provide even higher benefit than Brawny.

[Author]

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