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I think that you need an Archer Infantryman at first, 4 attack of opportunity are a lot! About warriors i prefer the barbarian, 3 times the damage if the enemy have more life of you (it mean nearly always) is a lot, but this is a small difference.
Then i prefer the pikeman as spearmen, but i haven't found/unlocked the Halberdier class...where did you found it?
So taking into account my overarching reasoning for these rankings, I rated Infantryman below Hunter due to the Hunter spec being far more adaptive, with greater killing potential. Infantryman was and still is likely to be the most popular Archer class cos of it's skill but you have to optimize positioning with it. On top of that, Infantryman costs alot more VP over time. Granted, for what it does, it IS cost effective but it will only be MORE THAN cost effective if at least 3 shots have been used up. Otherwise, it makes turn ordering on the following subsequent rounds cumbersome. Also, Infantryman is not that great when undertaking certain missions. Namely, exploration of Ancient Tombs. Visibility is at an all time low in these battle scenarios, making the Infantryman unable to hit anything with its zoning strength. Archers in general are at their weakest in these scenarios but Infantryman have it particularly hard. Hunters can at least get up close to their target and shoot em point blank at least.
As for Pikeman, kinda the same reason as Infantryman and the Archer line as a whole but in the case of Pikeman, it's more to do with the cost of it's skill. Before official launch, Pikeman was busted. Spear Wall wasn't restricted for starters and also it cost 1 VP for usage. Now it's abit more debatable.
As for the Halberdier class, you can unlock it in the Arthes Region. Just complete the Arena there and then go to the main town's Church. One of the priests there will teach you the skill set. Also, Halberdier is ranked above Pikeman cos it's far more cost efficient and unlike the Pikeman, has a more versatile Crowd Control AND deals massive damage.
Here are a few of things I tested-
Infantryman Archers in Tombs:
Equip with Fugitive bows, drop a blob of fire then plant the cone of Attack atop it. You get illumination, plus Fragility on the monsters. Best Archer in Tombs.
Beastmaster Archer in Region-Locked:
Unlimited control of wolves/bears, can overpower any enemy party by simple recruitment mass. Overpowers any party, doesn't need any other mercs.
Poisoner Ranger with Bomblets and Paralyzing oil:
Application of Strong AOE DOTs, plus Slowdown permits a single merc unit to kite and kill whole groups of enemies, and simply disregard their Armour and Guard. Requires high mobility from upgraded Instinctive Throw, and Strategy Table Repositioning. Doesn't need a weapon except to get the Oil.
Spearman Harpooner with CrocSwine:
The CrocSwine throwable spear applies Slowdown. Harpooner applies Bleed. Use Sweet Spot to add Destabilize, Aim to hit a long line. Fantastic addition to a small team.
Tanks:
Brute Destroyer with Rivalry and Alazarian Mace.
Swordsman with Disarm
I genuinelly don't understand people's obcession with the harpooner in a game so well known for being easy to overpower and oneshot everything in the first turn even on higher difficulties; anything short of arena/world bosses.
I don't get why people value this unit/spec so highly, who's sole purpose is to setup for less capable characters to compensate for their lack of damage, when you could easily replace them with an Executioner Warrior or a Vanguard Brute that seriously don't care about armor or low guard units when properly specced and do away with everything before they even get a chance to move.
Also if not used as the very first unit in your first turn it's going to get increasingly harder to get value out of a harpooner as enemies start to spread out and eventually tie your units in ways such that you can't do anything without hitting your own men/women in a line. And I didn't even touch on how movement-centric/movement-dependent this spec is for it to do "something".
For all the units the brutes/warriors (or even swordmasters I guess) cannot oneshot you got fighters to tie them up in combat and destabilize and hopelly have been smart enough to spec them for riposte so they kill the unit afterwards anyway if they manage to get a turn off.
Unless we're talking meme-worthy builds like harpooner coupled with a bunch of archers (any kind) / pikemen I just don't see what's so darn amazing about this spec. Everything it does other classes do better.
Now another observation, this time in regards to Halberdiers (again another one of those specs that seem to get a lot of clout for no logical reason): The multiple targets hit multiplier can only carry it so much when the base damage is just 30% of the unit's strength stat. The damage just isn't there compared to... (you guessed it) ... an executioner. If you are using it for damage and/or the disengage/push potential why not just settle things with more damage (by using an Executioner/SM instead) such that you kill everything without resorting to yet another cleanup crew strat afterwards?
Why, oh why, does this spec seem to get all love it does?
If I was the one making that tierlist I'd pretty much flip the spearman section upside down.
Sentinel at the bottom of the warrior section is a sin. They might be practically useless in combat by themselves but upgraded Ovation by itself makes it worth having one in your party at all times. Why is Barbarian still ranked higher than Sentinel when all it does is rendered moot by the Berserker's existance and you already put Berserker at the top? Very weird pick there. I have an odd feeling no one ever picks barbarians in their runs, so why is it above sentinel again?
How Cutthroat managed to be at the bottom, under strategist, is one hell of a headscratch... I came to the conclusion that this whole tierlist you made is very much biased given your own playstyle and not so much a general tierlist, and that's fine (except for how much headscratching it induced on me for a while)... Unfortunatelly (or rather fortunatelly) every ranger spec is well balanced and powerful in different circumstances so I don't even know how I'd make a tierlist out of them; given that this is your personal playstyle tierlist I guess it's fine as it is. For me strategists barelly ever come into play and when they do they're more like cleanup crew rather than used for their disengage/AoO bomb. They're really good early on when your units get wrecked if tied up but lose relevancy the further a game goes.
Brutes: Put vanguard at the top and drop everything down one line to accomodate for that change. Upgraded Vanguard simply sinergizes way too well with the rest of the brute's kit and weapon selection; Use it as an opener and everything falls to the regular swing afterwards.
Actually Smasher should be below Destroyer aswell.
Smasher's AoE value is overtaken by Vanguard and those 2 poisons applied (+2 on bleeding, upgraded) are a big whatever, if you need poisons that's what a poisoner is there for. If you can't or don't want to have a poisoner then those few poisons aren't enough to justify having that smasher in your party; There are other classes/specs that can burst through 10/20% worth of health/armor without requiring dots to do so. Destroyer's weakening and the extra 15% possible damage roll far outweigh the value of two/four poisons that realistically you're only going to get value from by stacking them for the ultimate Viper knife oneshot, and you really don't need anyone else but a single poisoner to achieve max stacks before going for the stab stab. (Also may the gods save you from fights against the plague ridden if you relly on abilities that cause poisons in order to deal damage)
In case you haven't noticed I'm extremelly biased against dots. I just don't see their value other than for buff/debuff/meme exploiting purposes in a game you can oneshot just about most enemies you come across and those you can't usually fall over to the second unit that hits them.
As for swordsmen all I can say is that duelist can either stay under fighter or go right down to bottom of the list depending on how you build it up and if the counter-attack passive is taken over another. It also requires a lot of preplanning and you may end up barelly making use of the 50% damage bonus on riposte buff from the upgrade if the stars don't align. If not planning on upgrading that skill you might aswell just build a regular riposte fighter instead. Simply too finicky of a spec, it's the kind of spec that can either be broken powerful or absolutelly useless... but the potential is there so I can see why it didn't end up at the bottom; just saying that it's the kind of thing that is hard to put into perspective on a tierlist.
For archers, big props for putting beastmaster in the ground where it deserves to be. Another one of those specs that gets far too much attention for how weak it actually is. "but muh bears!" well those bears not only count as two units for balance purposes against the player's party but they're just oversized tanks/fighter-swordsmen with no riposte or destabilization, absolutelly no utility outside their stupidly high hitpoints and they've got a massive swipe / massive hitbox you have to avoid / circle around at all times. And for that you're still required to feed them buckets of food per bear... yea right.
As for the other 3 specs well... the more I play the more I think Infantryman is kind of weaksauce especially when pikemen perform the same role and their AoO stop enemies in their tracks. Barrage has no business being a 2VP ability as it stands. If you can't kill off all the rat growths and queen in one turn then these guys are of some use for rat infestations but outside of that their role very quickly gets relegated to cleanup duties, for which you'd rather not waste 2VPs and just shoot the bow once, get your free VP from valorous support/victory and be done.
As such I wouldn't put infantryman over marksman.
That's because the play style & power level changes vastly with complimentary companion builds. That also has to take into account the gear & skills. So the permutation starts to grow exponentially as you increase your party size.
Different types of fights have different optimum companion teams.
Emphasis on types of fights & teams.
That being said, I think Ive found the most optimum endgame solo build.
Even then, there are multiple viable variants.
I guess the only real criteria is if it wins fights in the first turn or not.
I use the archer with barrage, a fire bow and the boss bow.
Heavy armor brute with the weakening blow and shield+hat to counter, mace that crits if str is higher
swordsman with counter shield and hate to gain damage stacks per attack engaged
Dagger with whatever, dagger with double damage if no enemy is around
All i use is infectious oil now.
So enemies usually walk through fire and get attack + infectious oil and attack my heavy armor guy who hits them back 2 times and gets brutality
Armors are crafted armors + 3 armor layers with str/dex and crit chance, even this is overkill on adaptive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0yULMYm2Q
First, the Harpooner talk. You're comparing a unit that is primarily a Support type to units that focus on Nuking the enemy. You can't really draw comparisons there due to the complete contrast in function. Harpooner's main strength lies in its ability to alternate between fighting upclose and from afar. Granted, you can have other units do this too but in their case, they have to be geared for that kind of play and you don't want to do that with some units since you'd have subpar performance with them if ya do that. Just having a unit with the option to dictate the flow of battle efficiently is always a plus. I can't speak for why other players consider Harpooner so highly myself, since I always assumed they were so hyped about Pikeman, but this is my 2 cents on the specialization.
Halberdier argument, Halberdier's initial damage isn't on par with the Executioners, this is true. I mean it's 30% vs 50% of STR essentially. Halberdier would require more targets to break even and match an Executioner in numbers, this is true but Halberdier comes out on top with a more cost efficient AoE nuke skill. On top of that, if Guard Value comes into play, Controlled Whirlwind is affected by it only once. Cutting Maelstrom on the other hand, will be affected by it multiple times. You could say by the late game, you'd have access to various Oils and special gears to circumvent those issues but that argument also holds true to Halberdiers. Halberdier is great in that it stays true to the Spearman line's primary function in Crowd Control while at the same time dishing out respectable to large amount of damage. Executioner is betr but it is still a pure nuker. Halberdier ain't. Cases like these tend to more or less be based on personal preference and approach to things. I like to keep my options open for the most part. Whereas, no offence intended, you prefer a more straightforward approach to fights.
Sentinel is a wild card and honestly, I do like Sentinel. In terms of performance though, it's a really awkward one to rank. Personally for me, Sentinel is a pure late game unit and requires full upscaling to be of relevance. To top it off, Sentinel feels like a waste as an addition to the roster unless your team is again 12+. Ovation being 2VP doesn't help its case either. It IS however, very potent in the right comp just like you said. The good news about it is that it will become more n more relevant as this game gets more content, and more importantly, since it isn't meant to be used for damage anyways, you can just focus on raising it's Movement Speed if you don't plan on respecing it any time down the road. So again, it's last on the list not cos it's bad, but cos it isn't universally useful, it's never a priority pick. Heck, if you're that desperate about getting Inspiration, you can just get an Armoured Horse. That thing may not provide Inspiration globally like Sentinel but it still covers a pretty large area. Plus, it doesn't cost any VP. Barbarian is picked above Sentinel cos you can still fit it into teams and it's signature move is 1VP. The best thing about it though is that it gets a damage boost if the target has more HP than the unit. Berserker still has the edge but depending on the matchups, Barbarian can actually do betr. The conditions have to be a bit more specific though and that's why it's at 3rd.
Cutthroat is dead last cos of the inefficient use of it's skill and more importantly, out of all the Ranger classes, it requires setup. I'm surprised you're pointing this bit out given how you prefer direct approaches. Assassins don't really care about conditions, Poisoners are the Debuff specialist in the class so no need to discuss further and Strategists, while they peak at early game, at least still provide some sort of utility without them being conditional for when they get into the later stages of the game. Cutthroats want all hostiles to be engaged in combat or in a standing overwatch state in order for their backstab bonus to proc. If we are talking about damage output alone, then Cutthroat is even betr than an Assassin, but you'd rather play an Assassin cos it's more cost efficient AND doesn't require the target to be in Engagement to get full benefits.
The Brute debate. Smasher is at the top cos it's kit over time, streamlines the killing process. I'm not using Smasher for DoT, the DoT bit is just a minor icing on the cake. I'm adding Smasher on top cos it applies a debuff, enabling you to fully abuse the Brute's overall kit, like Cruelty for instance. The damage calculation for Poisoned Impact is also 85% STR. That's a pretty big chunk of your overall STR. Compare to the Vanguard's Relentless Charge and that's 25% damage. Granted, Vanguard does gain the Fury bonus after use but that only applies if they are next to a hostile after skill use. The main edge Smasher has over the Vanguard here though is that it's easier to use despite the kit being subpar before the skill upgrade. There are moments where the Vanguard gets mispositioned due to variables that couldn't be fully managed like the targets are abit more spaced between each other or they were really far away from where your unit was so you can't optimize your post skill positioning since you're low on the number of Movements you can make, etc. Smasher, compared to that, is straightforward.
Swordsman Line. Duellist's benefit is that it gets free Riposte. That alone gives you alot of freedom with the Level 5 skills. I mean, you'd miss out on Inspiration otherwise, but the point of using Duellist is to keep 1 key hostile occupied to a fight to the death. You ain't gunna do Switch hitting with a Duellist like you'd do so with a Fighter. It does however, have more freedom to how it's built than a Swordmaster and that's why it's at 2 for me.
For the Archer Line. Hunter and Beastmaster don't even need to be discussed. The toss up between Infantryman and Marksman is more to do with the ubiquitous elements involved. Infantryman's issue is it confines itself to short range attacks but they are powerful. Marksman on the other hand has REALLY LONG RANGE, and a good chunk of damage to back it up IF they are far away enough, base damage is pretty solid too though. Honestly, I like Marksman betr but the thing is, Infantryman is actually far more cost efficient in this case. Both cost 2 VP, but the Infantryman uses that 2 VP to smack 4 times. Marksman does it only once. Marksman's damage will only match and surpass a Hunter's IF their target is far away, making it unstable. Unless Marksman's skill is given some sort of additional adjustments, it's going to be below Infantryman for me. If they dropped the VP cost to 1 or even refunded half of it after a condition is met, then yeah, Marksman is definitely betr then, but until that DOES happen, Infantryman beats it out.
If you upgrade the main skill, you can basically set up a kill chain. I have tried all ranger classes and sub classes, but cutthroat stands out the most in my mind. It is also the class to finish elites before they can do too much damage. The multiple attacks have great synergy with various oils as well. This class is basically the answer vs vastly superior opposing fighters. The fact it needs enemies to be engaged is not really an issue, you don't (or ought not) want low hp guys/girls directly engaged anyway.
Poisoner is one of the worst classes in the game, IMO at least, so I have absolutely no idea why that is ranked higher than cut-throat. Admittedly I haven't tried one in the release build but it was certainly near useless in early access.
I used the Cutthroat line for a good number of weeks that transitioned from late Early Access to Official Launch and for me, it just wasn't it. I was initially more skeptical to play Assassins and held off on them for a really long time. After I got like my 5th Ranger, I thought why not and made her an Assassin. The first question that popped into my mind was: "Why did I stick with Cutthroat for this long?"
They can't though, at least not without the target already bleeding. Cut-throats, like all rangers, can get a very high crit chance and each of the 3 back stab attacks can crit which, I believe, pushes them over assassins in effective damage output at higher levels. Obviously, there is a RNG component to this but cut-throats certainly work well for me.
Strategists have fairly limited utility for me, being able to selectively break engagements is useful but my playstyle involves locking down specific enemies if I can't kill them in a single turn which makes the strategist quite redundant.
Poisoners can stack a lot of poisons but not enough to kill an enemy in a turn (and they will only take damage after the enemy acts), I prefer to just kill things outright. Their only (limited) use for me is against world bosses, I used to rely on Dots to kill them, but I just back stab them now as you can make nearly unkillable tanks who can easily withstand their damage output.
Strategist is mainly for breaking engagements yeah but after the upgrade, you get more use out of it for combos. Like, use Smoke to push em towards an overwatching Pikeman or Infantryman for free damage for instance and other whatnots. At the end of the day though, Strategist does become more niche as you dive deeper into the game with your group since its benefits are most suited for early game phases.
Poisoners aren't shining as much right now so I can understand where you're coming from. In time, they will see more prominent use once content with high numbers come along. Also, don't use Poisoners on World Bosses. They take WAY TOO LONG to even lose chunks of their HP to Poison.
I wasn't comparing them directly, here's the point though, put as conciselly as I can:
What happens in fights where you only get one unit turn before one oponent unit gets their turn? You hit them with your poon, destabilize them, put a bleed on them... okay, all good so far but then... they get to go, they hit one of your units, potentially apply some nasty debuff, cause armor repair needs, possibly fail to die from the bleed and you end up with one of your units engaged in combat off the start assuming it wasn't the poon guy that took the aggro right after his turn.
All that for what? What did you trully gain from this unit's turn other than guard reduced to 0 and a tiny bit of armor/health damage? What does it matter now that the oponent has already done the damage they were going to?
"Wait but we hit more than one guy with that harpoon so it wasn't in vain"... okay, an Executioner would have pulled them in and killed them all on that very same turn (if it was the absolute tankiest/most dangerous oponent's turn then you should have opened with your fighter instead or a single target nuker but lets assume it was just a low threat target), what value did you actually get from getting that poon off when all is said and done?
Do you see where I'm getting at?
Trash already dies so quickly with their tiny amounts of guard, armor and health that whatever utility you have by hitting multiple targets with your harpooners is irrelevant unless he's so overpowered/well built that you oneshot everything in their path short of captains/lieutenants/bosses, in which case we go right back down to the comparison between setup vs nuke.
Again, they're great against bosses and highly tanky unit comps such as in the arena but people claim they're great all around and that's simply not true. Not telling people to not play them, I just don't like seeing this myth be perpetuated that they're somehow must-haves for AoE when all evidence points to warriors/brutes instead.
Nontaken, you read me correctly on my playstyle and preffered party comp.
You raised interesting points but I'm still raising an eyebrow at the halberdier's aoe utility... all I can think of is that in order to put that damage and disengage/push ability to use I have to be very picky with unit placements and also hope the enemy doesn't put themselves near mine or in such a way that all of them get hit at once... that's just asking too much for such a simple concept.
The added .5meters compared to maelstrom and it being a circle aoe also irks me quite a bit when it comes to the prospect of operating near teammates, which is what you'll be doing with the halberdier the majority of the time, I reckon. Just sounds like too finicky of a unit to employ in a lot of cases where you'd actually want/need it.
Forced (AoE) disengage, for me, is usually also a bad idea... because if you then attack that foe again and he happens to have a riposte/status effect apply on engage that's just extra damage you'll be taking when you could have left him engaged and killed him off with something else. If multiple of those engaged foes happened to have riposte that's a slaughter about to happen to your troops (not sure if this disengage overrides riposte, enlighten me on that if you can). If I need a disengage I'd preffer it to be a controlled, single target thing as opposed to aoe. Well lucky me spearmen already have one such lance with single target disengage potential... what do I actually trully need the halberdier for then? (sorry if this sounds condescending, I assure you it's just me acting out situations in my head as usual)
The one pro I'll give it over maelstrom is being 1VP vs maelstrom's 2VP cost.
As much as the damage thing you've mentioned sounds enticing I still see far too many cons for me personally to bother using halberds.
Interesting take. I would be compelled to agree if instead you said "if your party comp isn't big enough to get huge value out of it in one turn then sentinel feels like a waste". But to say it's only valuable at levels12+ (If I'm reading that correctly)... that's a huge stretch there.
Eeeehhhh... horses and animals in general are very poor fighters. I would rather have an actual unit I can properly gear and minmax to fit specific roles than a purelly buffbot horse. Also don't forget that that horse counts as one fighting unit for combat balancing purposes... if we're talking early game that can mean the difference between a win and a party wipe especially on adaptive mode. Still, you're right in that neither really should be invested into early on.
You forgot the part where I mentioned tying up strong units with fighters while cleaning out all the trash first... Cutthroats are used to dispatch those beefy units once they've been engaged. You don't typically use rangers before your other units except maybe for poisoner and you'd rather not run the risk of failing to oneshot an oponent and end up engaging him with something like an assassin; If you need/expect to run that risk you use a berserker instead. As such my assassins end up performing the same role as cutthroats in every run I've tried them: backstab and cleanup... so the engage condition is rendered a non-issue.
As for inefficient use of their skill, I'm not sure I understand what you mean there...
What I'll add to this topic, and this is purelly personal observation and theory, is that since assassins typically end up as inferior versions of cutthroats when employed as the devs seemingly intended (because they don't have the tankiness, dodge and crazy nonconditional damage to go off trully assassinating backliners in peace on their own and come out unscathed as you'd expect) cutthroats in turn end up as nothing more than conditional berserkers that happen to be better only on backstabs. As such I started to wonder what trully is the purpose of cuttthroats and assassins in this game when berserkers exist. (Yes I know they do more damage than them if going for backstabs, I said that much, I'm just saying that mechanically they function the same... so they're just class bloat at that point, they exist for the sake of existing... and that's bad design)
Uhm, they get to smack 4 times if and only if you let 4 entirelly separate enemies walk freely into their sightlines (or use a push combo afterwards (Ugh, setup builds... you know what I have to say about that already; though this is probably the most effective one out there especially combined with Valorous Victory)).
What are you doing with your playthrough to let 4 enemies just casually take their turns like that? Like I mentioned previously, this works in rat nests and against reinforcement waves but everywhere else you just never see it happen unless forcing it to happen on purpose; You're trading 2 VPS for one or two shots at most in every standard engagement and typically you'll be hitting full health/armor/guard targets in which case your archers deal practically no damage, the low health ones will typically already be engaged thus won't trigger barrage anyway, it's just a waste of two whole VPs... VPs that could have been used to snipe a high priority target off the field instead. (Still not excusing marksmen though, archers in general are very poor nukers afterall, but barrage is honestly overrated regardless)