Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I kind of hate the swordlance because it's one of those 'this is so much better than any other possible option for what this kind of trooper does' things. It's useful as hell, but still.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011




Yes, I'm aware of all that. I checked every town for hires, I'm pretty sure I've hired literally every poacher that I've ever seen. Which is 3, they just seemed not to ever even be available. One of them had no ranged stars and then died, the other two are my ranged guys. I lucked out into having a super good gunner but the other two are mediocre. As for resolve: my current gunner has fantastic resolve(like, 100+, he basically routs anyone he manages to deal damage to), the other ones have like 30, it's pathetic.

As for Walter, the entire point of him is that he holds the banner and has like 150 resolve. He exists because he gives everyone around him like +15 resolve, which they need because half of them are deserters. He never runs out of fatigue because he never does anything other than poke people with his banner and position swap wounded guys to safety.

Decent polearm guys I have plenty of, them and my gunner are what carry me while everything else is just to stand between them and danger.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

The Lord Bude posted:

Similarly good tanks are easy to find - if he can get to 80 matk and 130+ stamina and isn't super low in both health and resolve he's tank material. My tanks end up with 100 health, 60+ resolve (with a +4 trinket and +5 from arena) 80+ matk and as much stamina as I can give them. If you hire farmers or lumberjacks you can find dudes that will hit 140 plus. I notice Walter has way to much health and not enough fatigue - I don't know what his attack score is, but if he can't get to 80 he doesn't get hired in my company.
This sounds weird to me. Tanks need Mdef first and foremost and Matk is the last stat they need to do their job. I mean sure the perfect recruit could turn out like that but my early tanks are dudes that start below 60 Matk and I only level that stat if they can reach 60 in like three rolls. After that I look for dudes that can beat my old tanks in Mdef and hit 60 Matk and 70 is pretty much the top tier for tanks. I just find it hard to see how you get enough stats if you level Matk that heavily. Mdef gets rolled on every level and stamina too if the roll isn't absolute rear end in comparison and the third roll then has to be split between resolve and health. Especially hires like farmers and lumberjacks have crappy bases in Matak and need a ton of points to hit what you describe. I guess due to the arena you can shave some points from Res but 60 isn't exactly a great base. It's a benchmark for sure but having a bit more is better when your tanks often get surrounded by multiple enemies to bind them

TheBeardyCleaver
Jan 9, 2019
You can do a lot with just a mass of polearms though. Good positioning and focus fire can break up an enemy formation just as well as some 2H god in the front. I'm not saying don't have a 2H god of war in the company, but 3 lancers can do the same job and go all day being more or less fatigue neutral. This is what I used to do before I got good at acquiring a full 2h frontrow that stomped everything, and it still worked. Some shield specialists to run interference, and you have a viable company. Add in fearsome and whatever material you can find for gunners and full swordlancers it should carry you through.

Edit: It's nice to have high MAtk on tanks, so that you can hit things on occasion, but the way I use them the just knock things around with the shield which usually hits, and stand there with shieldwall up so that others are free to do the murdering.

TheBeardyCleaver fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Oct 18, 2020

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune

Night10194 posted:

I kind of hate the swordlance because it's one of those 'this is so much better than any other possible option for what this kind of trooper does' things. It's useful as hell, but still.

I feel that way about the armor attachments. None of them are anywhere near as good as the unhold fur and bone plating. Maybe hyena mantle for dodge/overwhelm backliner dudes. I wish the other attachments served some useful purpose besides being temp durability buffs until you farm up enough unhold bits.


cock hero flux posted:

half of them are deserters

I think I've identified the problem

TheBeardyCleaver
Jan 9, 2019

800peepee51doodoo posted:

I think I've identified the problem

Don't think I've ever hired a deserter that I've kept for any amount of time. Would be interesting to run a full company of deserters with maybe an old solider that tries to keep them alive. Then you lie, cheat and steal your way through the game :v:

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
Deserters were fine, maybe even pretty good, way, way way back when the only thing that really tested resolve was getting hit, and sometimes spooky ghosts. With things like Hexen running around, the last thing I want is a guy who might be above average at killing his friends, and way below average in resisting his urge to kill his friends.

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011



800peepee51doodoo posted:

I think I've identified the problem

the game keeps giving me deserters through events that have like, actual stars in MATK and Fatigue and stuff instead of every guy I actually hire who has like 1 star in RDEF and nothing else and immediately gets hurled out of the back of the wagon in disgust

as long as they stay near the banner their resolve is okay enough, I take what I can get here

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune

cock hero flux posted:

the game keeps giving me deserters through events that have like, actual stars in MATK and Fatigue and stuff instead of every guy I actually hire who has like 1 star in RDEF and nothing else and immediately gets hurled out of the back of the wagon in disgust

as long as they stay near the banner their resolve is okay enough, I take what I can get here

Deserters are a trap, imo. They have decent combat stats for a lowborn background but the abysmal resolve makes them near useless, I find, especially in the new expansion. Having ok MSK and MDEF stats isn't super helpful if they're always wavering and breaking, plus you have to pump up resolve more than you would with other backgrounds so you end up not making much use of the higher initial combat stats. In my peasant run, I prioritized militia, manhunters, thieves, and poachers. They were still poo poo but they were at least slightly better poo poo.

There's lots of lovely recruits out there and I found the peasant start to be a really difficult run because of how bad the bros are. You need to be extra picky and kill/dismiss the dead weight ASAP. I don't know how you feel about mods but the expanded try out mod is a huge time saver for helping to pick out useful bros since you can pay a relatively small amount to see if they have decent talents, as well as their traits. Also, there's a mod that lets you hover over the background icon in the recruit screen and it shows you their stat ranges. Its a nice QoL mod that means you don't need to memorize background stats or keep a second screen open to the wiki. It really helps for selecting good bros.

You might also take a look at your builds. I don't think you can use a lot of the same builds that you can get away with for good backgrounds. Take a look at zero stam 2H builds, nimble tanks, throwing archers, etc - stuff that lets you maximize the utility of the marginal backgrounds.

I don't see any famed gear in that screenshot? You should have several pieces by the third crisis if you're consistently taking camps. Also, no whips? Whips are OP as a motherfucker and I generally run at least two - one cleaver specialist and my banner - if not more. Disarm is incredibly strong.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The Peasants can be rough but once you're rolling you're super rolling. Similar for the Cult because it turns out Davkul making your weedy little psychos into giant potato men is pretty helpful.

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune
Yeah, I'm gonna give that start another try at some point. I haven't had as much time to play as I'd like since I'm finishing up a master's atm but getting them snowballing was a chore last time I tried.

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011



800peepee51doodoo posted:

Deserters are a trap, imo. They have decent combat stats for a lowborn background but the abysmal resolve makes them near useless, I find, especially in the new expansion. Having ok MSK and MDEF stats isn't super helpful if they're always wavering and breaking, plus you have to pump up resolve more than you would with other backgrounds so you end up not making much use of the higher initial combat stats. In my peasant run, I prioritized militia, manhunters, thieves, and poachers. They were still poo poo but they were at least slightly better poo poo.

There's lots of lovely recruits out there and I found the peasant start to be a really difficult run because of how bad the bros are. You need to be extra picky and kill/dismiss the dead weight ASAP. I don't know how you feel about mods but the expanded try out mod is a huge time saver for helping to pick out useful bros since you can pay a relatively small amount to see if they have decent talents, as well as their traits. Also, there's a mod that lets you hover over the background icon in the recruit screen and it shows you their stat ranges. Its a nice QoL mod that means you don't need to memorize background stats or keep a second screen open to the wiki. It really helps for selecting good bros.

You might also take a look at your builds. I don't think you can use a lot of the same builds that you can get away with for good backgrounds. Take a look at zero stam 2H builds, nimble tanks, throwing archers, etc - stuff that lets you maximize the utility of the marginal backgrounds.

I don't see any famed gear in that screenshot? You should have several pieces by the third crisis if you're consistently taking camps. Also, no whips? Whips are OP as a motherfucker and I generally run at least two - one cleaver specialist and my banner - if not more. Disarm is incredibly strong.

My deserters, despite their atrocious base resolve, never seem to break because they all stay in the banner aura, and my banner guy has sky high resolve, plus having a wall of shields and armour and my gunner continuously plowing the enemy's centre group with Overwhelm and Fearsome means that they don't actually get hit with resolve checks particularly often. I genuinely can't remember the last time I had a guy break.

I have exactly two pieces of named gear: my sergeant's body armour and the gunner's gun, I've done a lot of camps but I really just never seem to find any. I found the armour in literally the first camp I ever did, and I bought the gun. I've seen some other named gear in shops but honestly, nobody other than the gunner(and polemace guy a bit, but I've never seen a named mace) is individually effective enough for me to want to drop 10k on getting them a special weapon. And I've got a whip guy but he was out for that fight, and he's not leveled fully yet.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Disarm is indeed an incredibly good control skill. My banner bro pulls whip duty too and with 80 Matk and the cleaver spec he's real consistent at shutting down high threats like 2h orc warlords. Taking the spec just for disarm is sorta costly since I dropped the polearm spec for it but the banner isn't really doing much damage anyway

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

cock hero flux posted:

Yes, I'm aware of all that. I checked every town for hires, I'm pretty sure I've hired literally every poacher that I've ever seen. Which is 3, they just seemed not to ever even be available. One of them had no ranged stars and then died, the other two are my ranged guys. I lucked out into having a super good gunner but the other two are mediocre. As for resolve: my current gunner has fantastic resolve(like, 100+, he basically routs anyone he manages to deal damage to), the other ones have like 30, it's pathetic.

It's incredibly strange to me that you've been playing for so many days and not a single village has anyone with 40+ ratk and some stars; you must have the worst luck of all time; or really bad seed with no forest towns or something. Remember shepherds and militia often end up as good ranged units. Every single background you have access to is capable of spawning with over 40 ratk. If you hire everyone in every town you come across you should be able to find someone.

There's absolutely no reason for any of your gunners to end up with 30 resolve though - if you level resolve every level up you will gain 30 points by the time you hit level 11. Then you've got +5/+10 buffs from the arena; and + resolve trinkets. Gunners can get by perfectly well with around 100 stamina (nude value), so you don't need to level stamina at all. Just increase resolve every level.

cock hero flux posted:

As for Walter, the entire point of him is that he holds the banner and has like 150 resolve. He exists because he gives everyone around him like +15 resolve, which they need because half of them are deserters. He never runs out of fatigue because he never does anything other than poke people with his banner and position swap wounded guys to safety.

Decent polearm guys I have plenty of, them and my gunner are what carry me while everything else is just to stand between them and danger.

This is where you're going wrong. A guy that just stands there to use the banner is mostly a waste of a guy. If your shieldbros can't make a meaningful offensive contribution to combat; they aren't good enough to be in your company.

You need a sergeant of course, but they have to be able to hold their own weight. Mine always have 80+ ratk; and they carry both the banner and a swordlance or warscythe. The banner only ever comes out when there are geists on the field, or hexen; or he needs to do an emergency rally. 9/10 battles the sergeant doesn't even come to the fight because with 2 perks spent on rally and fortified mind he isn't as good as my dedicated polearms; and my gunners with high resolve can just use rally in a pinch. If your guys can't hold the line without help from the banner then you've underinvested in resolve and/or you're not killing the enemy fast enough. Every single guy in my company apart from the archers and throwers (who don't take fearsome) has 60+ resolve. I pretty much only need rally the troops for Geist fights.

Deserters are a trap - you'll never get their resolve to decent levels without neglecting other stats, you should never hire them. All of my shieldbros get to level 11 with 80+ matk, 130+ stamina, 100hp (with colossus) and 60 resolve. defence is whatever points I have left over. They all have indom and fearsome.

If you can't kill the enemy fast enough; you're setting yourself up for failure, you can't afford to have people who can't carry their weight.

Tin Tim posted:

This sounds weird to me. Tanks need Mdef first and foremost and Matk is the last stat they need to do their job. I mean sure the perfect recruit could turn out like that but my early tanks are dudes that start below 60 Matk and I only level that stat if they can reach 60 in like three rolls. After that I look for dudes that can beat my old tanks in Mdef and hit 60 Matk and 70 is pretty much the top tier for tanks. I just find it hard to see how you get enough stats if you level Matk that heavily. Mdef gets rolled on every level and stamina too if the roll isn't absolute rear end in comparison and the third roll then has to be split between resolve and health. Especially hires like farmers and lumberjacks have crappy bases in Matak and need a ton of points to hit what you describe. I guess due to the arena you can shave some points from Res but 60 isn't exactly a great base. It's a benchmark for sure but having a bit more is better when your tanks often get surrounded by multiple enemies to bind them

Perhaps I should call them shieldbros rather than tanks. A purely defensive bro like you describe is not someone I would ever have in my company. A shield bro is anyone who doesn't have the stats to be a 2hander or duelist, but is still good enough to meet my shieldbro standards. The key to success in this game is hitting the correct balance between offence and defence. If you don't kill the enemy fast enough, you won't succeed. All of my shieldbros can reasonably consistently hit the enemy with their mace to do chip damage and apply fearsome. I've never had an issue with keeping them at 60 resolve, because even when surrounded they don't need to hold it that long, because you back them up with a swordlance or a ranged attacker. I very rarely have guys drop to fleeing outside of geist fights. Remember that killing enemies boosts your morale as well.

I level matk every turn (if their starting score is on the better side I'll skip the occasional +1 rolls) and stamina every turn. I level whichever of health or resolve is highest every turn until they hit the level I want; then if they're not at level 11 I raise mdef for the last few levels. Once you add a shield (+18 minimum, and named shields are super common so they all end up with one pretty quickly) they will all end up with at least around 30 mdef. Checking my peasant save; my lowest mdef on a shield bro is 28, and that's because he's using a named shield with 32 rdef and only 15 mdef, everyone else is over 30 and the highest is 42. You really don't need to go higher - they don't get hit much, when they do they all have armour in the very high 200s or low 300s with additional fur padding; and between indom and shieldwall they can survive for ages in an emergency. Plus peasants have extra men so the damage gets spread around with 9 on the front line.

By comparison, it took ages to find decent 2hander bros, and they have mdef ranging from 22-31 - you wouldn't accept it in say a gladiator company or most companies with access to the full range of hires, but it's more than good enough for peasants - I have a ton of experience playing peasant companies now and as I said between the extra men, and having a bunch of guys applying fearsome and overwhelm, they have absolutely no trouble staying alive. I have zero deaths on record, I haven't had to reload a save to do that since probably the sunken library that I did shortly after the first crisis. I cleared the black monolith in one try, it took 12 rounds and none of my guys came close to dying.

TheBeardyCleaver posted:

Edit: It's nice to have high MAtk on tanks, so that you can hit things on occasion, but the way I use them the just knock things around with the shield which usually hits, and stand there with shieldwall up so that others are free to do the murdering.

This is a waste. Everyone should be able to land hits consistently, that way you kill the enemy as fast as possible. IF they're dead they can't hit you any more.

cock hero flux posted:

I have exactly two pieces of named gear: my sergeant's body armour and the gunner's gun, I've done a lot of camps but I really just never seem to find any. I found the armour in literally the first camp I ever did, and I bought the gun. I've seen some other named gear in shops but honestly, nobody other than the gunner(and polemace guy a bit, but I've never seen a named mace) is individually effective enough for me to want to drop 10k on getting them a special weapon. And I've got a whip guy but he was out for that fight, and he's not leveled fully yet.

named items have a higher chance of spawning the further away the camp is from civilization. But part of your problem I think is that you're not going to be able to clear the really difficult camps where the gear is hiding. At that point in my run I could melt large camps full of barbarian chosen.

800peepee51doodoo posted:

You might also take a look at your builds. I don't think you can use a lot of the same builds that you can get away with for good backgrounds. Take a look at zero stam 2H builds, nimble tanks, throwing archers, etc - stuff that lets you maximize the utility of the marginal backgrounds.

I don't agree with this; you can use the same builds just fine as long as you're selective with your hiring.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

The Lord Bude posted:

Perhaps I should call them shieldbros rather than tanks. A purely defensive bro like you describe is not someone I would ever have in my company.
Yeah with that naming it does make more sense to me!

However I think you're vastly undervaluing the impact of a pure tank by focusing on the lack of offense. 1h weapons are by default not very offensive aside from duellists. Even with high Matk you still need several hits(and rounds) to even kill a raider. So to me a sword&board bro is never ever a canidate for damage since the game gimps them in that regard by default. But they have the option to scale their defense way up instead so that's the strenght of the role for me. Like if the choice is between mediocre damage and defense or mediocre damage and excellent defense then I know which role I would take into my group.

I run exactly two tanks in my active group with two in reserve when I have to switch them or bring more to fight unholds/lindwurms. Also I usually switch in a third in the center against orcs. These guys all have 30+mdef before the bonus from shields and rock 300 chest and head armor with enough fatigue to hold indom up for like five or six rounds before they need to recover. They are tough as gently caress and happily draw everyone in with taunts to just waste their time on trying to hit them. So while you're saying you would kill fast by having a few more 1h strikes land, I'm saying that I'm also fast by tying up a bunch of enemies so that my core of 2h bros has less heat and just snowballs through the ranks after frenzy procs. Pretty much every serious fight in the game has you outnumbered by a fair bit and just invalidating a portion of the enemies by having two rocks in my line has been very valauble to me every time. And as said my serious tanks also have 70 Matk which is enough for what I want them to do. They contribute hits against humanoid enemies just fine with that score. No need to lock them to a sword or spear for the extra hit chance. And in fights where their hits don't contribute much anyway they don't lose out on anything by being on strict defense duty until the mop up starts.

The Lord Bude posted:

I level matk every turn (if their starting score is on the better side I'll skip the occasional +1 rolls) and stamina every turn. I level whichever of health or resolve is highest every turn until they hit the level I want; then if they're not at level 11 I raise mdef for the last few levels. Once you add a shield (+18 minimum, and named shields are super common so they all end up with one pretty quickly) they will all end up with at least around 30 mdef. Checking my peasant save; my lowest mdef on a shield bro is 28, and that's because he's using a named shield with 32 rdef and only 15 mdef, everyone else is over 30 and the highest is 42. You really don't need to go higher - they don't get hit much, when they do they all have armour in the very high 200s or low 300s with additional fur padding; and between indom and shieldwall they can survive for ages in an emergency. Plus peasants have extra men so the damage gets spread around with 9 on the front line.
This is something I'm going to contest. No way is 30 mdef enough to realibly dodge orc warriors/ancient undead/chosen hits. And that's the enemies you're mostly building your band towards imo. Also you're completely hosed if they ever break your shield since your natural def is so low. I'm sure your style works out for you but I would never neglect mdef like that in my front

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Oct 19, 2020

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Tin Tim posted:

Yeah with that naming it does make more sense to me!

However I think you're vastly undervaluing the impact of a pure tank by focusing on the lack of offense. 1h weapons are by default not very offensive aside from duellists. Even with high Matk you still need several hits(and rounds) to even kill a raider. So to me a sword&board bro is never ever a canidate for damage since the game gimps them in that regard by default. But they have the option to scale their defense way up instead so that's the strenght of the role for me. Like if the choice is between mediocre damage and defense or mediocre damage and excellent defense then I know which role I would take into my group.

I run exactly two tanks in my active group with two in reserve when I have to switch them or bring more to fight unholds/lindwurms. Also I usually switch in a third in the center against orcs. These guys all have 30+mdef before the bonus from shields and rock 300 chest and head armor with enough fatigue to hold indom up for like five or six rounds before they need to recover. They are tough as gently caress and happily draw everyone in with taunts to just waste their time on trying to hit them. So while you're saying you would kill fast by having a few more 1h strikes land, I'm saying that I'm also fast by tying up a bunch of enemies so that my core of 2h bros has less heat and just snowballs through the ranks after frenzy procs. Pretty much every serious fight in the game has you outnumbered by a fair bit and just invalidating a portion of the enemies by having two rocks in my line has been very valauble to me every time. And as said my serious tanks also have 70 Matk which is enough for what I want them to do. They contribute hits against humanoid enemies just fine with that score. No need to lock them to a sword or spear for the extra hit chance. And in fights where their hits don't contribute much anyway they don't lose out on anything by being on strict defense duty until the mop up starts.

I'm inclined to disagree. In bulk the chipping away helps. At a minimum you can strip away a bunch of armour to maximise the chances that your swordlancers will land a kill in order to trigger beserk and killing frenzy, and as I said I give them fearsome and I want that proccing twice per turn. I tend to hold pretty solid formations, I try and avoid splitting my guys up

Tin Tim posted:

This is something I'm going to contest. No way is 30 mdef enough to realibly dodge orc warriors/ancient undead/chosen hits. And that's the enemies you're mostly building your band towards imo. Also you're completely hosed if they ever break your shield since your natural def is so low. I'm sure your style works out for you but I would never neglect mdef like that in my front

Again I disagree. As I said I've cleared the monolith in one go, 12 rounds and none of my guys came close to dying. I've fought against 45 orcs when I attacked a camp that had a wandering party right next to it and I ended up fighting both groups at once. Again, easy. Large groups of chosen? Also no problem. Shield breaks don't happen often, especially now that you have Sipar shields with 60 durability. Named shields are also super common and many of those will have better than 60 durability. The gilder's embrace has infinite durability and it's a guaranteed item in every run.

In my peasant game most of my 2hander damagers don't have the best mdef either - My 2handed hammer bros have 30 and 24 respectively; My 2h swordsman has 29; my 2h axeman has 31; my 2h cleaver has 24; and my plate based mace duelist has 35. My two nimble duelists (dagger and orc cleaver) have 22 and 29 respectively, although they also have dodge which would add an extra 15 to that number. My 2handers all take reach advantage, so most turns they're getting at least +10 from that. And these guys are all in their late teens so they've been getting extra def from veteran levels.

Those numbers wouldn't fly in a 12 man company; but it does when you're playing peasants if you accept that you're not going to have a bunch of supermen with 40+ def and you adjust your builds accordingly - that's what you absolutely have to do when playing peasants. People are locked into this dogma of having the highest possible mdef at all times and they don't think outside the box; then when they play peasants they complain that it's too hard.

1. The extra men. In a peasant company I have a front line of 9 vs 7 in a regular company. That's 2 extra guys taking hits; or roughly a 28% reduction in overall damage being dished out to any given bro.

2. Fearsome and overwhelm. I can't beat this drum enough. This is the key to a successful peasant company. In my company every front liner who carries a 1h weapon gets fearsome, along with my 2 gunners and 3 polearms that I bring to pretty much every fight. Every nimble 1hander gets overwhelm, along with the polearms and the gunners as well. Every single fight I have 5 back liners applying overwhelm and fearsome procs to multiple enemies per turn. Most of the enemies engaged in melee with me will have at least 2 stacks of overwhelm applied to them.

A barbarian chosen has 75 matk. Each stack of overwhelm reduces their matk by 7. Chance to hit boils down to attacker's attack minus defender's defence (with various modifiers adjusting each of those values). Reducing a barbarian chosen's attack by 7 is functionally the same as each guy in melee with that enemy having 7 extra defence. Being able to mass apply overwhelm more than makes up for having lower defence scores and it's much easier to achieve in a company that can only hire cheap backgrounds (of course I do this in all my companies now but it's a more pronounced effect with peasants because you have more units in the back row to apply it with)

With fearsome, I can have most of my enemies fleeing within a few rounds. Every drop in morale level represents a 10% drop in their attack and defence. And, it snowballs - the lower it drops the easier it is to drop it further.

TheBeardyCleaver
Jan 9, 2019

Tin Tim posted:

I run exactly two tanks in my active group with two in reserve when I have to switch them or bring more to fight unholds/lindwurms. Also I usually switch in a third in the center against orcs. These guys all have 30+mdef before the bonus from shields and rock 300 chest and head armor with enough fatigue to hold indom up for like five or six rounds before they need to recover. They are tough as gently caress and happily draw everyone in with taunts to just waste their time on trying to hit them. So while you're saying you would kill fast by having a few more 1h strikes land, I'm saying that I'm also fast by tying up a bunch of enemies so that my core of 2h bros has less heat and just snowballs through the ranks after frenzy procs. Pretty much every serious fight in the game has you outnumbered by a fair bit and just invalidating a portion of the enemies by having two rocks in my line has been very valauble to me every time. And as said my serious tanks also have 70 Matk which is enough for what I want them to do. They contribute hits against humanoid enemies just fine with that score. No need to lock them to a sword or spear for the extra hit chance. And in fights where their hits don't contribute much anyway they don't lose out on anything by being on strict defense duty until the mop up starts.
Pretty much this. Of course I circumvent the whole problem by not having tanks and going full offense :v: In a peasant run I suspect that won't be viable. I used to run a couple of rocks in front of my polearms, and that did plenty of focused killing, plenty fast. I also agree with nimble tanks and stam neutral builds, though I tend towards actual polearms for stam neutral, just because they have a higher chance to be in position to hit what needs hitting.

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune

Tin Tim posted:

I run exactly two tanks in my active group with two in reserve when I have to switch them or bring more to fight unholds/lindwurms. Also I usually switch in a third in the center against orcs. These guys all have 30+mdef before the bonus from shields and rock 300 chest and head armor with enough fatigue to hold indom up for like five or six rounds before they need to recover. They are tough as gently caress and happily draw everyone in with taunts to just waste their time on trying to hit them. So while you're saying you would kill fast by having a few more 1h strikes land, I'm saying that I'm also fast by tying up a bunch of enemies so that my core of 2h bros has less heat and just snowballs through the ranks after frenzy procs. Pretty much every serious fight in the game has you outnumbered by a fair bit and just invalidating a portion of the enemies by having two rocks in my line has been very valauble to me every time. And as said my serious tanks also have 70 Matk which is enough for what I want them to do. They contribute hits against humanoid enemies just fine with that score. No need to lock them to a sword or spear for the extra hit chance. And in fights where their hits don't contribute much anyway they don't lose out on anything by being on strict defense duty until the mop up starts.

This is pretty much how I use tanks too. They exist to soak up hits and let the big boys swing hammers and axes. MSK needs to be at a minimum level to do attacks of opportunity and make sure the enemy can't just walk away from ZoC but otherwise I'll ignore that stat in favor of MDEF, stam, HP, and resolve.

The Lord Bude posted:

I don't agree with this; you can use the same builds just fine as long as you're selective with your hiring.

I guess it depends on what your typical builds are. I was thinking of the traditional BF 2Hander + Indom type builds you can throw on good hedge knights but if you're already running efficiency builds its probably not going to be any different with a peasant start.


TheBeardyCleaver posted:

I also agree with nimble tanks and stam neutral builds, though I tend towards actual polearms for stam neutral, just because they have a higher chance to be in position to hit what needs hitting.

?Por que no los dos? Take QH and throw a polearm in that 2Handers back pocket and they can serve double duty.

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

800peepee51doodoo posted:

This is pretty much how I use tanks too. They exist to soak up hits and let the big boys swing hammers and axes. MSK needs to be at a minimum level to do attacks of opportunity and make sure the enemy can't just walk away from ZoC but otherwise I'll ignore that stat in favor of MDEF, stam, HP, and resolve.


I guess it depends on what your typical builds are. I was thinking of the traditional BF 2Hander + Indom type builds you can throw on good hedge knights but if you're already running efficiency builds its probably not going to be any different with a peasant start.


?Por que no los dos? Take QH and throw a polearm in that 2Handers back pocket and they can serve double duty.

2hander indom builds don’t really work now that you can’t attack and use indom on the same turn.

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune

The Lord Bude posted:

2hander indom builds don’t really work now that you can’t attack and use indom on the same turn.

True, bad example. Just goes to show I'm still stuck in pre-expansion thinking in some ways. I haven't been using those builds in any of my current runs but its def one I've used extensively in the past.

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?
1h weapons aren't for killing, you're all right. They're for stunning some bastard repeatedly with a mace, which is all you need.

rideANDxORdie
Jun 11, 2010
yeah when it comes to 1h+shield bros it's pretty much maces only for stun potential and decent armor damage

vyelkin
Jan 2, 2011

rideANDxORdie posted:

yeah when it comes to 1h+shield bros it's pretty much maces only for stun potential and decent armor damage

Also fearsome, since maces will reliably get a couple points of damage through even heavy armour.

The more I play since the new expansion, the more I'm tempted to take fearsome on just about everybody.

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune
I would think if fearsome is the goal then hammers would be better since they guarantee a minimum 10hp damage and do more armor damage. Stun is good but its not 100% unless you spec for it. I don't know though, since I haven't set up tanks like this in my runs and usually just give them spears to make it harder for enemies to walk away.

I'm hesitant to go all out on fearsome since I haven't personally seen it do much and there are a lot of enemy types that are completely/mostly immune. All undead, lots of big beasts, even barbarians are tough to break. Its not useful in the library, watermill or monolith so leaning on it gimps those fights. I don't know, seems limited. I guess it depends on what you give up to build around fearsome though.

Donkringel
Apr 22, 2008
I havent done the numbers myself but didn't filthyrobot state that fearsome was somewhat of a trap? That additional resolve doesn't give a good enough bonus to make fearsome worthwhile if you aren't applying it to large groups of enemies all at once (guns, round swings etc).

I still use it for my gunners, 2 hand sword/hammer/axe since you can strike multiple peeps mind you.

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune
I'd take filthy's analysis with a grain of salt tbh. I've watched a fair bit of his stuff and there's certain things he's solid on and some things that he reacts to, uh, emotionally. He's dead wrong on some stuff - ie 1H hammers are not "trash" and are, in fact, one of the strongest 1H weapons in the game. The vids I've seen where he talks about fearsome are based on chat convincing him to put it on his whip banner and then him proceeding to sarcastically point out every time he missed the resolve check roll. I don't think anyone would consider putting fearsome on a dedicated banner that rarely attacks a pro move but he seemed to take it as fearsome being universal garbage for all builds and then creating post hoc rationalizations to explain it.

I personally haven't tried it very much and I'm skeptical about it's overall utility. I don't know of any way to really test it outside of installing a mod to show resolve checks and then keeping a log of all of the times fearsome caused a resolve hit that otherwise would have missed and then comparing it to the lost opportunity costs of not taking other perks. It may be completely awesome? Lord Bude swears by it and I have no reason to doubt their analysis but they also seems to play differently than me generally so its hard to say.

vyelkin
Jan 2, 2011

Donkringel posted:

I havent done the numbers myself but didn't filthyrobot state that fearsome was somewhat of a trap? That additional resolve doesn't give a good enough bonus to make fearsome worthwhile if you aren't applying it to large groups of enemies all at once (guns, round swings etc).

I still use it for my gunners, 2 hand sword/hammer/axe since you can strike multiple peeps mind you.

I don't know who filthyrobot is but I disagree and the super in-depth perk guide also disagrees. Every perk is better on an AOE weapon, but fearsome is still really good on 1-handers. In fact, fearsome is probably better on a per-attack basis on a 1-hander than on an AOE weapon, because AOE weapons tend to do more damage and so will more often be hitting the 15 damage threshold to trigger a morale check compared to lower-damage 1-hand weapons that are more likely to be doing 1-14 damage through armour. Of course, an AOE weapon gets more attacks so gets more fearsome procs, but that doesn't mean 1-handers don't benefit from it.

Fearsome tends to be really good for a few reasons.

1) Since the new expansion you get significant bonuses to the morale check, which apply whether you're doing 1 damage or 100 damage, so makes fearsome good even when you're dealing over 15 damage to HP. A 20% resolve penalty coming from a bro with even just 50 resolve means the enemy's check is done with at least -10 resolve, which makes getting the actual morale drops way more likely.

2) Dropping enemy morale is the best debuff in the game since it affects basically all enemy stats. Dropping their morale one level means a 10% drop to all relevant stats, including resolve, which makes getting the next drop even more likely.

3) If you get an enemy to flee, they trigger morale checks for all other nearby enemies as well. If the nearby enemies are also getting morale dropped with fearsome coming from other bros, you're likely to trigger more enemies dropping to fleeing, which causes more checks in a wave effect across the entire enemy group.

4) Fearsome applies from the first round of combat, and is a debuff your bros can apply even if they're not heavy-hitters. A shieldbro who doesn't get many kills and usually just holds the line while others deal the big damage, whacking someone with their mace once or twice a turn, with fearsome will be regularly dropping enemy morale while they're chipping away at armour, which makes you win the fight faster. Most fights in Battle Brothers are won or lost in the first few turns, when you either get a cascading victory going or you start suffering a cascading defeat. Fearsome helps make you more effective in those first few turns, by dropping enemy morale faster, which makes enemies less dangerous, makes them take more hits, and makes them more likely to start fleeing.

5) Fearsome is especially effective against some of the most dangerous enemies in the game, like barbarian chosen. Here's the math the perk guide does for chosen and orc warriors, with versus without fearsome:

quote:

For example, in a vacuum, if we deal 10 HP damage, we have a 27% chance to drop morale on Orc Warriors on first hit, and 13% against Chosen. A -12 Fearsome penalty would bring us up to 39% and 25% which in absolute terms may seem small but in relativistic terms is a 44% increased success rate against Warriors and a 92% increased success rate against Chosen. Tricky math aside, the point is that the Fearsome penalty will make it a lot easier to get morale drops and the cumulative effect of many attacks with this penalty over the course of battle will be noticeable. Recall that once enemy morale drops it lowers their RES, making it easier to get more drops. New Fearsome helps get that ball rolling and continue to feed into itself. You can further support this with things like the Direwolf attachment and/or Cursed Crystal Skull.

You can of course counter that fearsome isn't effective against certain enemies, like undead or unholds. I would respond, yeah, that's true, but so what? Every perk is situational to a degree. Berserk usually doesn't do much against unholds either, but you take it anyway because it's good in tons of other situations. Duelist does nothing to unholds because they have no armour, but you take it anyway because it's good in tons of other situations. Recover and Rotation won't get used in tons of fights, but you take them anyway because when you need to use them they're lifesavers.

Long story short, my experience is that fearsome is crazy good since the change to include a resolve debuff, and especially good on shieldbros who will spend multiple turns only doing 1-14 points of HP damage through dangerous opponents' heavy armour.

800peepee51doodoo posted:

I would think if fearsome is the goal then hammers would be better since they guarantee a minimum 10hp damage and do more armor damage. Stun is good but its not 100% unless you spec for it. I don't know though, since I haven't set up tanks like this in my runs and usually just give them spears to make it harder for enemies to walk away.

Hammers are fine but I'd take maces in most cases over them. They do enough through-armour damage and enough base damage that they'll still be doing at least 1 damage almost every time, and therefore getting a fearsome proc, while also being more effective to enemies with minimal armour, doing extra fatigue damage, and having stun in your back pocket in case you need it. I think all else being equal, maces are probably the best 1-hand weapon in the game for shieldbros.

Fabricated
Apr 9, 2007

Living the Dream

Donkringel posted:

I havent done the numbers myself but didn't filthyrobot state that fearsome was somewhat of a trap? That additional resolve doesn't give a good enough bonus to make fearsome worthwhile if you aren't applying it to large groups of enemies all at once (guns, round swings etc).

I still use it for my gunners, 2 hand sword/hammer/axe since you can strike multiple peeps mind you.
Filthy's analysis of it I think is mostly him not really being able to notice its effect- he even had some addon installed that tries to explain the math and I couldn't really follow it because it looks like a lot of enemies have absolutely absurd resolve? I've tried it with really good banners (150+ resolve) and I really couldn't notice the difference. Filthy also hated guns until he just loaded up 3-4+ guys with them and then he noticed they were really good.

It could be expectations, maybe? Like for me to think fearsome is doing work, I'd hope that goddamn near any reasonably breakable enemy should lose a resolve level every time my 150+ resolve banner jabs them with the battle standard. But that pretty much didn't happen. It feels like it'd be one of those perks where someone would have to do a ridiculously in-depth breakdown to tell you something like "ah, with fearsome on X amount of guys with this minimum of resolve you'll see orcs fail morale rolls 30% more often" to get how much work it does.

vyelkin
Jan 2, 2011
I think for me one more thing about fearsome is that the more people you give it to, the more you'll see its effects. One shieldbro with fearsome in the middle of your line won't make much difference, and you won't notice the effects when they do happen, and you'll think it's underwhelming. But if you give it to everybody, suddenly you're dropping most enemies' morale most turns, and by like turn three they're all either dead or fleeing. It's great!

800peepee51doodoo
Mar 1, 2001

Volute the swarth, trawl betwixt phonotic
Scoff the festune

Fabricated posted:

It could be expectations, maybe? Like for me to think fearsome is doing work, I'd hope that goddamn near any reasonably breakable enemy should lose a resolve level every time my 150+ resolve banner jabs them with the battle standard. But that pretty much didn't happen. It feels like it'd be one of those perks where someone would have to do a ridiculously in-depth breakdown to tell you something like "ah, with fearsome on X amount of guys with this minimum of resolve you'll see orcs fail morale rolls 30% more often" to get how much work it does.

Fearsome caps out at 100 resolve iirc so its kind of a bad deal for banners, counterintuitively. Banners don't get to attack much unless you do some wacky hybrid builds. If/when I try out fearsome builds, I think I would try to get it on bros with a good number of attack rolls per round like AOE guys or bowmen or 1Handers. I also don't think it would be super beneficial to pump resolve past like 50 or so just to juice fearsome but then again I feel very stressed if I'm not putting rolls into MSK, MDEF and HP/Stam every single level so

Veryslightlymad
Jun 3, 2007

I fight with
my brain
and with an
underlying
hatred of the
Erebonian
Noble Faction
I think every time a patch or update comes, I think "This is the time I build a fearsome dagger-man of some kind" and it never works out.

But fearsome on a few other guys, particularly archers, really does work. As said before me, "the more people with fearsome, the better fearsome is", which is, actually, the case for quite a few perks in Battle Brothers.

Voyager I
Jun 29, 2012

This is how your posting feels.
🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥
The Mace is basically the only choice for 1h + Shield loadouts. Their job isn't to do damage, it's to be useful, and stunning a target is more useful than anything else any of the other 1h Weapons bring to the table.

The only exception I can think of is using a Spear bro to control space, but lategame spear damage output is so terrible that I don't usually bother - if I have one it all, it was probably trying to salvage some jerk with Iron Lungs and fantastic stats except for capping out at 70 MA.

rideANDxORdie
Jun 11, 2010
1h hammers + shield isalright but should you find yourself against high-hp, low-armor targets like unholds or nimble opponents, the strengths of the weapon are neutralized. Maces are just so gosh-darn useful since they provide:

above-average armor penetration
above-average armor damage
extra fatigue on-hit
utility via stuns

There isn't a single enemy that isn't negatively affected by at least 3/4 of those. I will grant that the extra fatigue build-up on hit rarely comes into play since npc characters tend towards high fatigue and basically get iron lungs on steroids by default. Stun is one of the most useful status effects in the game and has broad applicability - only top-tier orcs and unholds are immune IIRC. Lastly, the stunning swing still does some damage - lots of weapons' utility moves don't do any (disarm, repel/hook, shield bash). The mace is just going to be the best choice for most fights.

cock hero flux
Apr 17, 2011



Voyager I posted:

The Mace is basically the only choice for 1h + Shield loadouts. Their job isn't to do damage, it's to be useful, and stunning a target is more useful than anything else any of the other 1h Weapons bring to the table.

The only exception I can think of is using a Spear bro to control space, but lategame spear damage output is so terrible that I don't usually bother - if I have one it all, it was probably trying to salvage some jerk with Iron Lungs and fantastic stats except for capping out at 70 MA.

It's very niche but I've found it occasionally useful for them to carry 3 headed flails. My entire composition is focused around breaking enemy morale, so enemies are continuously attempting to run away, and there's no weapon that fucks over enemies trying to get out of a zone of control harder than a 3 headed flail.

TheBeardyCleaver
Jan 9, 2019

cock hero flux posted:

It's very niche but I've found it occasionally useful for them to carry 3 headed flails. My entire composition is focused around breaking enemy morale, so enemies are continuously attempting to run away, and there's no weapon that fucks over enemies trying to get out of a zone of control harder than a 3 headed flail.

3 headed flails are good if the guy has low melee attack. Even if they should all miss somehow, there is good fatigue damage on it. If it can manage to do 1hp of damage it will also trigger fearsome. May be a thing to try on indebted or some other gimped build at least. Real scary slave army with nothing to lose :v:

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

If you get a guy with Brute, this is a really specific situation but a 3h flail Duelist with Fearsome who can regularly do slightly more than 15 HP damage per flail head can take enemies from 'fine' to 'flee' in one headshot cascade attack. I have a guy like that in my Cultists game and he's surprisingly useful. Because hits that do 15+ HP still trigger individual morale saves.

Fabricated
Apr 9, 2007

Living the Dream
I like three-headed flails because you can get them really, really early sometimes in the south and for super early game enemies they just absolutely shred.

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

TheBeardyCleaver posted:

3 headed flails are good if the guy has low melee attack. Even if they should all miss somehow, there is good fatigue damage on it. If it can manage to do 1hp of damage it will also trigger fearsome. May be a thing to try on indebted or some other gimped build at least. Real scary slave army with nothing to lose :v:

Not 100% sure but I believe fearsome will only proc once though.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The Lord Bude posted:

Not 100% sure but I believe fearsome will only proc once though.

It will, but as I said, any individual flail-head blow that does 15+ HP damage will also trigger a morale save. Fearsome will only proc once for the '1 damage' save.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Night10194 posted:

It will, but as I said, any individual flail-head blow that does 15+ HP damage will also trigger a morale save. Fearsome will only proc once for the '1 damage' save.

It’s the resolve debuff more than the reduced damage threshold that matters though.

I feel like 3 headed flails are a trap. Once you’re fighting anything with any serious armour each individual head does so little damage that you end up doing next to no damage through the armour and good luck causing injury which in turn means your opponents stay at their best for longer.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply