Invictus73

[Invictus73]

Holy.Death wrote:

The amount you get depends on amount you have, so if you don’t level up HP per level and don’t have a character with good traits, then yes – increase will be marginal.

I thought there was a consensus that there is no room to level HP at level up, since Fatigue, Melee/Range Skill, Resolve (if Captain) and Melee Defense are more important?

Regardless, even if you start out with HP bonus Background like Hedge Knight, level HP at every level, AND get Colossus, you still won’t end up much more than like sixty more HPs. That’s one extra hit, if you are lucky. It just doesn’t seem so cost effective.

Holy.Death wrote:

I don’t take Perfect Focus, because my two-handers would still be limited by their fatigue and restrict other uses (like shield splitting, for example). So I mainly pursue traits that help their fatigue, with survivability and damage being a bonus. It takes less points to do so. While they might not be DPS I don’t intend them to fill that role. They are my heavy hitters, shield crushers and tanks rolled into one. It works great, because I also have second line of billhooks and archers who fire from behind that safe line.

So instead of separating melees into DPSers and tanks like most, you roll them into one hybrid or universalist function? Hmmm. This sounds a bit like Steel Cohort, if you don’t have any ranged specialists. Can I know what Background and Perks you take?

Also, what does the rest of your team look like?

[Invictus73]

By the way, anyone done extensive Greataxe v. Greatsword testing? I haven’t, but I have hitherto given my DPS melees Greataxes, due to their seemingly bigger raw damage numbers (on the basis of tooltip). But since I’ve started giving my DPS guys Nasal Helmet with Mail (got tired of getting their helmets broken), one of my DPS guys doesn’t have enough Fatigue to swing Greataxes 4 times with Perfect Focus. So I now have to give him a Greatsword. Am I going to lose a lot of DPS?

[Invictus73]

Holy.Death wrote:

Both Battle Forged and Collossus give you more survivability. Since two-handers can’t really effectively dodge it’s wise to have as much armor and life as possible to see them live through combat. Unless your concept is “offense is best defense”. Besides, both perks are at tier 1, so they aren’t very cost-intense. If anything I find Utility tree at tier 1 to be more a waste of skills for two-handers, but they need to spend at least 3 points to unlock Brawny, Weapon Master and Battle Flow. I think the whole concept of a skill tree should be reworked. Make it an actual tree (or trees).

A few points: First, the HP gain you will obtain through Colossus is very marginal, and HPs are not all that useful anyways in terms of survivial in this game.

Second, more importantly, I simply do not understand why you would use a 2 hander on a unit not dedicated to DPS. No, I do not mean “offense is best defense.” I mean a non DPS character using a 2 hander will neither DPS well nor be survivable. It simply doesn’t make sense. Without Perfect Focus, you won’t swing a 2 hander more than once anyways in most cases. Even with Battle Flow, the swings won’t increase that much. And with Perfect Focus, you have no room to get into the Defense tree, because you need at least one Fatigue mitigating tier 2 Utility Perk. So explain to me what build are you trying to describe?

Holy.Death wrote:

Fortified Mind doesn’t protect user against morale checks when allies who don’t have this skill start running. Just saying.

In my experience, just a few Fortified Mind tanks can by themselves annihilate Lost Souls.

[Invictus73]

So let’s review in terms of desirable Traits:
For DPS monsters, you want “Strong” for that extra Fatigue;
for tanks, you want “Quick” for the Initiative or “Sure Footing” for the Melee Defense;
for rally bots, you need Fearless for the highest Resolve?

Edit: Yehsoo! I got a Sellsword with “Strong.”

1 down 11 to go.

[Invictus73]

Hmmm, ok, I didn’t realize Wildmen have more Fatigue as a Background.

Hmmm, I must find Hedge Knights with the “Strong” Trait.

What’s the best way to recycle mercenaries on offer for hire until you get the one you want? I Just hire and dismiss nonstop to renew the hiring pool. Is there a quicker and lesss costly way?

[Invictus73]

Jaffai wrote:

My baby <3

140 Fatigue? How is that possible?…

[Invictus73]

ManaSeed wrote:

I totally forgot about this point. I agree. With higher initiative you can act fast when things go wrong, and with higher max fatigue you can use more shieldwall. So Brawny should be better perk than Battle Flow for tanking purpose.

And this is why I am a bit leery about using Swordmasters as my tanks, but I might deal with this problem in two ways:
Give them Lamellar Harness and not Heraldic Mail; increase their Initiative, rather than Melee Skill for the last few levels, since 100 plus Melee Skill (which they often end up with) may be an overkill on a tank anyways.

In fact, I might deploy 2 Hedge Knight tanks and 2 Swordmaster tanks and just compare?

[Invictus73]

ManaSeed wrote:

DIFFERENCE between Hedge Knight & Swordmaster (you can ignore the hp and resolve difference because they have minimal impact)
Hedge Knight ==> +20 max fatigue, +10 initiative, +20 hp
Swordmaster ==> +10 melee skill, +10 melee def, +5 resolve

Looking at the difference in value, I think you more or less have an answer in your heart.

Keep in mind I have three different melees: Nimble Swordmaster Riposte bots for pure “tarpit,” Hedge Knights for pure two handed DPS, and the conventional Shieldwall tank. I am looking for what I need for the last role. I had hitherto used Hedge Knights, but wouldn’t extra fifteen Melee Defense on Swordmaster be determinative for a Shieldwall guy?

(By the way, Swordmaster has fifteen Melee Defense on Hedge Knight, not ten.)

[Invictus73]

Hmmm, upon second thought:

If I go with Battle Flow instead of Brawny on Swordmaster tank/hybrids, then my Initiative will be soooo low…

Will this matter though? I will have two Nimble, tarpit Swordmasters in pajamas (not quite lingerie), two archers, all units that can act quickly.

[Invictus73]

ManaSeed wrote:

I’ve said this before in this thread, but I’ll said it again in case someone (e.g. Invictus) want to find out about this.

1) melee weapon has noticeably higher damage per fatigue cost, noticeably higher damage per ammo (usability of weapon). So melee weapon is meant to be the best way to kill enemy.

2) Regardless how high the melee damage is, it might not able to replace Ranged damage, DUE TO THEIR RANGE DIFFERENCE.

3) Not sure if intentional, there are fragile enemy units with special effects (e.g. Necromancer, Lost Souls, Archers). Ranged weapon is best used against them.

4) Ranged support. Did you encounter situations where a brother failed to end an enemy’s life due to poor luck or miscalculation? Ranged weapon has wider coverage and is handy against fragile or weaken enemies, so it can handle this quite well. Oh skeletons please go to hell.

EDIT
5) Terrain advantage(when God of Terrain favors you). E.g. long cliffs that force enemy to detour while you shower them with arrows. This factor is rather minor and unreliable because you have no control over it. Also useless if enemy has necromancer that forces you to go offensive instead of defensive.

This is well put; I agree with all of it.

[Invictus73]

ManaSeed wrote:

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.

I thought you use Woven Tunics on all your melees?
I actually thought of switching all my Hedge Knight “workhorses” into Swordmasters. Basically, I thought I’d get more survivality AND DPS this way. In the first place, Swordmasters essentially get a huge Melee Defense advantage over the Hedge Knight that is tantamount to activating a Shieldwall (and Melee Defense is more important than raw HP). In fact, I’d be walking around at 70 Melee Defense or so with just a Shield; and another five or so with Inspiring Presence. This means I am hitting that near untouchable 90 with Shieldwall. So these guys will be unhittable without having to go a pure defense Nimble build. Second, as for offense, since their non Shieldwall defense is so darn high, I can take that 2nd swing instead of activating Shieldwall when surrounded. So I’d have higher DPS. And perhaps with Battle Flow even more DPS?
What do you think?

EDIT:

I reread your post, and you are actually describing Perfect Focus DPS melees, not tanks or hybrids. In that context, yes, I agree Battle Flow is better, since you are almost guaranteed a kill per turn; but I was talking about tank/hybrids who swing 2 handers twice per turn! For them, I think Brawny is still better. And most folks run more tank/hybrid melees than DPS melees.

[Invictus73]

Saitorosan wrote:

Nah they are fairly easy, but they can regular melee attack you and that can break your guys just the same if they land. Like Ivan Drago break, not just “hey guys I don’t know about this” break.

They’re really most dangerous against low level groups or players who don’t know what they do. Once you’re cruising past most other stuff they’re not scary.

Yeah, at this point every fight is a joke, and I am not even in danger of losing folks, much less losing fights.

The game needs an update with more and stronger mobs, and better rewards (hello, magic items!).

[Invictus73]

Saitorosan wrote:

Late game mass archers can tear up most enemy formations pretty effectively.

Bows; I don’t like x bows. I understand they punch through armor far better, but the severely limited range plus the inability to fire the type of insane barrages with Perfect Focus archer can turned me off from them.

Saitorosan wrote:

Late game mass archers can tear up most enemy formations pretty effectively.

You are probably right but I don’t want to invest more than 2 ranged on a 12 man team. Right now, everyone has a necessary role on my team, and I am not sure I can take anyone out without severely hampering the whole (except maybe one of the four general all purpose Shieldwall guys).

[Invictus73]

Saitorosan wrote:

No not needed at all. Lost souls are the type of enemy that will wreck you if you make a bad mistake though, and a fleeing swordmaster has a much better chance than a tanky guy, unless your tanky guys usually have high mdefense. Also, they can close on you and just flat out swing at you, it seems rare but it’s happened. Getting someone surrounded by lost souls is bad for business. As for fighting them nude, you always want to act before them if at all possible. I just don’t care enough to go through all the equipping for a slight beef against guys I don’t have a problem with.

I use hit and run, pick off as many as I can and use polearms to keep as much distance as possible. Don’t ever use 1 range weapons, too much can go wrong if you’re standing right next to one of these little punks.

In all honesty, I fought them only twice so far; so I haven’t seen when things go wrong. So perhaps it’s not quite as easy as I thought (but then, half of my team has Fortified Mind, and the other 2 Captains have over 90 Resolve, so I don’t see how things could go wrong).

[Invictus73]

Hmmm, maybe not. I got a perfect fight to test both comparatively: Orc lair, since Orcs come forward for melee convenience.

In 4 rounds, my best melee guy did 2400 (his weapon broke, and he could’ve taken one more swing but for that break); best archer did only 1200, in spite of the fact that he seemed to attack and kill more.

I am very perplexed. One possibility is: Perhaps archers tend to bypass armor and kill, whereas melee axes destroy everything, flesh and armor and shield? (I assume armor and shield damage show up in the overall final damage tally).

But then maybe this is an unfair test for archers, since Orcs come straight forward and are heavily armored and tough to kill.

Still, I can’t find a better enemy to test comparative DPS.

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