Barbaric YAWP! Overrated?

[Fennec Fawx]

Warning: This will take a while to read. Sorry xD

I love the hellion class like no other, part of my top 3 favourite classes in the entire game (beaten by the Bounty Hunter and my Beloved Abomination <3). After 300 hours of playing darkest dungeon since the days of EA, I've been shoving halberds into the faces of undead, beasts and eldritch alike. What have I not been doing for about 299 hours of darkest dungeon? Using barbaric YAWWP!
I hear people talk of it all the time, I always see people using it in videos and in character breakdowns and saying it's a must have or it's just super duper good. And I can see why. But I feel it's just not that good, like, not nearly as good as stated by many.

Here are my problems with it:

1. The Debuff, now before you say "Let her blaze up some herbs you scrublord", tell me how many herbs do you bring per expedition with your YAWWWPING hellion? Do you use them all on her? Is it really worth shelling 200g PER herb to nullify the debuff, and on longer missions, your gonna be stacking up so much gold and/or heirlooms you'll run out of room and possibly at some point just toss the herbs. Yes they help but if your gonna YAWWWWWP often, use them on provisions or want to make more roomin the inventory, they're not gonna last long and it does take a lot out of your town money.

2. It's better to just slaughter. And I'm not just talking about the front two enemies, she can easliy remove a enemy in the backlines without a hitch the same turn you could use barbaric YAWWWWWP! provided there is enemies in the back lines. Hell half of the time the enemies in the front lines dont have much PROT, if any at all so they can go down just as easily, sometimes yes it may come down to a dice roll sometimes due to min - max damage, but it usually (in my experience) pays off a hell of a lot more to just slice them to bits.

3. Larger Sized Enemies, now stunning a large enemy can be really useful, but it's only one enemy at the end of the day, it doesn't get an extra action to make up for the extra slot it takes up, once again like I stated previously there's usually a nice squishy target sitting in the back rows the hellion can just massacre. And YAWWWWWWP!-ing 1 enemy for a large debuff at the end of the day isn't worth it, especially since larger enemies aren't always that horrifying anyway. I will give an exception to the blighted giant cuz no one likes him. Possible exception to the Undead Tubby in the ruins (Not to be rude but eat a salad dude)

4. Stuns are common as muck. No jokes, 10 out of 14 Playable Heroes in the game (Possibly 15 tomorrow <3) have stuns of varying use. And 9 of those classes can be brought with a hellion on a expedition and use their stun reliably, Only the Graverobber suffers in this regard as it moves her back, but it can still be used on a hellion team, just not reliably without lunge. So many classes can stun enemies for the hellion, while she does the muder.

Final Point:
5. Seemingly crap on most bosses. Now I cant confirm this myself and this is more of an assumption so dont quote me on this one I will take full responcibility if I'm chatting ♥♥♥♥ here. But I do see any use for it on boss fights, I certianly cant see it, bosses her good stun resists usually anyway. The only boss I can see some use for it on is the Siren fight, YAWWWWWWWP the siren and anyone she takes from your team or summons via High Tide, but that runs the risk of her nabbing your Hellion away and YAWWWWWWWWP-ing on you.

Because of these reasons, I never run with the YAWWWWWWWWWP. It doesn't offer much help, feels kinda specific in it's usefullness and can take away from her versatility depending on the moveset you give her.
I personally for every single hellion I have, in all save files I run:
Wicked Hack, If it Bleed, Iron Swan, Adrenaline Rush.

I'm sure people will say I could replace adrenaline rush, or use YAWWWWWWWWWWP with it, here's the problem though. Replacing adrenaile rush means no way to save herself from death, or remove a super nasty bleed/blight stack, she is pretty squishy for a heavy hitter character so having the ability to cure without a provision helps out a lot. And having the two means removing one of her, what I believe to be, neccessery moves. WH, IIB and IS make it so in the first position she can attack any enemy in any position. Plus she can use bleeds for PROT enemies, and since if it bleeds hits the 2nd and 3rd position, she can hit large enemies in either the front or back lines.

TL;DR, Yawp is not that good. If you want reasons, read.
Thank you for reading ^-^

[Sunwave]

1) Debuff is only a problem if you use her for damage (which she seems built for, but I don't care what the "intended use" is). I use her as crowd control + finish low-health enemies with breakthrough. Also, as a front tanker who can heal herself from bleed/blight. Though, it's true you can't YAWP + deal damage very well. So you'll take 2nd and 3rd row damage dealers.
2) Later dungeons, there is no "slaughter them instead of stunning" because all enemies require multiple hits to go down, even the back rows. Even with great damage, you will at most kill 2 enemies the first turn. Unless they're all squishy for some reason (like the worms in the warrens).
3) True. Though I usually use "demonic pull" to get one enemy in front, so the larger sized enemy is in spot 2/3 instead of 1/2. Then you can still stun 2 enemies.
4) The only other class that can stun 2 ppl at the same time is plaguedoctor. The rest is all single-target.
5) True, it's crap on most bosses. It's great against the collector, though.

BTW, my hellion has:

Wicked hack, breakthrough, YAWP, adrenaline rush. Yes, I hardly use her as the damage dealer, so the debuffs don't matter. Bosses is just adrenaline rush + hacks.


Bascially, most of your points are valid, but only situationally valid. Just as my points are only situationally valid. Is YAWP overrated? Mabye. But it's still very, very useful if you use the hellion for the right purposes.

[Kuga]

Honestly, if you want to go the stun control "divide and conquer" route, PD's backrow stuns with trinkets + reliable POS 1/2 stunner like HM/MAA (with trinket) will do wonders. The ability to prevent most enemies from attacking for 2+ turns while leaving two people (POS1/2 BH or LEP + POS 3/4 hero) to do damage is probably going to work better than a Yawp strategy which causes constant bebuffing. Hellion is best suited for POS1 damage IMO.

[Fennec Fawx]

Originally posted by Sunwave:

1) Debuff is only a problem if you use her for damage (which she seems built for, but I don't care what the "intended use" is).
Bascially, most of your points are valid, but only situationally valid. Just as my points are only situationally valid. Is YAWP overrated? Mabye. But it's still very, very useful if you use the hellion for the right purposes.

Thanks for the responce, and I agree completely with this. I'm glad to see different style's of play too since I never really take demon's pull personally on my occultists so I can see why it works for you and not for me. I cant get into breakthrough either but I see maybe just a little more use in it possibly? Plus people dont praise it to oblivion so it kinda just bypasses me unlike the YAWP!

[Sunwave]

Try both plaguedoctor with blinding dust and hellion with YAWP in a single party. Go venture into cove. It's a stun/anti-bleed festival.

[Nasty_Bdfp]

I wouldn't take if it bleeds on Cove or Ruins... Having a blind spot on position 3 isn't that bad. Especialy if you're also running an arbaletist that can snipe any far away ennemy. Once If it bleeds removed, it's a Perfect spot for yawp
1-The debuff isn't as bad as you think it is. You usualy can live through it.
2- Stun allows more turns to heal your party. Also since usualy the front line is where most of the damage is, while the backline is mostly stress and debuffs/ ailments (mostly, not always) Yawp is a good way to buy a turn for healing.
3-Agreed, but that's marginal anyway. I'd rather debuff them anyway (with an occultist for exemple) and use iron swan to kill the one behind the big guy.
4-But the helion is the only character able to stun 2 characters at the same time (with the doc). I also think yawp has a high success rate to stun, making it sometimes worth to use it twice in a row.
5-Definitely crap on bosses, but nothing prevents you from switching skills just before the boss (I did that against several bosses).

[sc2819]

You have some good points, although I think what they prove is that YAWP is "overused" more than "overrated". Almost any given team comp will have secondary sources of damage that can kill at least one member of the backline while the front two ranks are stunned. So using YAWP in that case (provided your hellion has the requisite speed) is like starting off a fight with at least one less enemy, at most one hit from the enemy, and one (admittedly significant) debuff on your hellion. YAWP also has a pretty high success rate so it's frequently the case you can use it twice in a row.

You might say that this would be time better spent on the hellion actually applying damage, but a fully upgraded hellion with, say, 30% dmg mod through quirks and trinkets does an average of about 20 damage (around 14 minimum) with Wicked Hack/Iron Swan and significantly less with If it Bleeds. That's pretty high, but you'll one-shot a priority target only about half the time (at champion level). Meanwhile, the front two ranks are free to attack your team. To me that sounds like a lot of risk to be taking on, at least compared to the alternative.

Like you said, YAWP probably isn't the best thing to use on every turn during every fight, but on a hellion whose speed stat you paid attention to, it's one of the best openers in the game for e.g. dogs, spiders, 4x bandits, zombies-n-markers, brawlers-n-cultists, etc.

I do agree with your choice to include Adrenaline Rush, especially if your team includes an abomination (since you'd have to forgo a vestal). In that case, I myself would actually leave out Wicked Hack and take YAWP, Iron Swan, If It Bleeds, and Adrenaline Rush. Heresy, I know, but my reasoning is that if there are no backline targets left then there's very little risk left in the battle which I wouldn't be able to handle with YAWP anyways.

[Fennec Fawx]

Originally posted by Nasty_Bdfp:

I wouldn't take if it bleeds on Cove or Ruins... Having a blind spot on position 3 isn't that bad. Especialy if you're also running an arbaletist that can snipe any far away ennemy. Once If it bleeds removed, it's a Perfect spot for yawp
1-The debuff isn't as bad as you think it is. You usualy can live through it.
2- Stun allows more turns to heal your party. Also since usualy the front line is where most of the damage is, while the backline is mostly stress and debuffs/ ailments (mostly, not always) Yawp is a good way to buy a turn for healing.
3-Agreed, but that's marginal anyway. I'd rather debuff them anyway (with an occultist for exemple) and use iron swan to kill the one behind the big guy.
4-But the helion is the only character able to stun 2 characters at the same time. I also think yawp has the highest success rate to stun of all stun skills, making it sometimes worth to use it twice in a row.
5-Definitely crap on bosses, but nothing prevents you from switching skills just before the boss (I did that against several bosses).

Thanks for the responce. I do agree with a lot of this but my kind of playstyle makes a few of these points not as powerful. I play a very offensive hellion which pays off a lot of the time, put some very powerful trinkets on, hope for good dice rolls, either die (so far only happened once and that was only in New Game), or have your hellion feast on all the hearts! So the debuff to me at least is a lil heavier but I'll give it another shot. Cannot disagree with the 2nd or 3rd, the 3rd point is kinda what I was saying, you dont need to yawp the front, just swan or if it bleeds whoever is behind. 4th point, you forgot the plaque doctor. And I am actually not sure on the stun chance. If it's not yawp, I know for fact it's houndmaster's "blackjack" since I use that often with a cudgel weight trinket (that sweet +200% stun chance)
Thank you for responding though :)

[Fennec Fawx]

Originally posted by sc2819:

I do agree with your choice to include Adrenaline Rush, especially if your team includes an abomination (since you'd have to forgo a vestal). In that case, I myself would actually leave out Wicked Hack and take YAWP, Iron Swan, If It Bleeds, and Adrenaline Rush. Heresy, I know, but my reasoning is that if there are no backline targets left then there's very little risk left in the battle which I wouldn't be able to handle with YAWP anyways.

Thanks for the responce.
I could try that, I love wicked hack so much though it's hard to let go ;-;
I will agree with overused, I still think it's maybe a lil overrated for now but I will give it a spin again and rethink about it.
I understand that it's a great opener which I wasn't really thinking of, but I find my hellion not as fast as I want even with a berserk charm or a feather crystal and such, some enemies get serious speed buffs in champion dungeons. Since hellion (for me at least) gets crits at a consistant rate that damage average is usually way higher so I find her very reliable for taking out enemies, plus I play her very offensively.

[No One]

Nope. YAWP's the second-best stun in the game, and third place isn't close.
My hellions don't blaze any herbs and it almost never causes me issues. I even use bleed out.

I was lately experimenting with YAWP vs. swan when I have a PD. Seems pretty close, actually, hard to tell which is better. Sure with no PD def swan first. Especially as you want swan before the damage debuff.

I have other stunners if I want to hit the large guys. Though I'm skeptical about it ever since my BH missed three 60% stuns in a row on a giant.

4. Double front stun is unique.

5. Charmed heroes can use skills that aren't on the bar anyway.

I don't run adrenaline rush. Depending on area, bleed out if it bleeds yawp swan or hack yawp bleeds swan. If she gets low? That's what OCC/VES is for.
But basically most fun team PD-OCC-BH-HEL. Would be best team except squishy.

[aardvarkpepper]

screw yawp?

not because of debuff. debuff wears off over time, if you use it closing turns of a battle then often debuff wears off while walking before your next encounter

yeah multitarget stun which is rare, but you want to focus the back. that means plague doctor rear rank stuns, not hellion front rank stuns.

plus in emergency you can pop medicinal herbs.

ok ok ok so if debuff not so bad and multitarget stun is rare, then . . . well okay multitarget front row stun still not a bad thing right?

true. true if you're spamming stun / heals to avoid delay penalties of stress and enemy reinforcements. but because of debuff you have to close out pretty soon.

what about trinkets?

hellion doesn't have 40 stun trinket like plague doctor but isn't base chance on yawp higher?

what about loading hellion with defensive trinkets because of front row? plus kinda squishy well hey okay but win some lose some can't have it all

long story short yeah yawp is stupid if you just try to ham-handedly yawp all over the place, it's a situational skill.

funny thing is iron swan is pretty situational too, lot of things can move hellion out of 1st position and if everything goes according to plan probably enemy 4th rank dies pretty fast but nobody says iron swan sucks

SCIENCE

[No One]

Speaking of the damage debuff. Maxes at -40%.
So, bleed out. 10-19 base damage, av 14.5. 1.15 damage mod, 5-point bleed. Bleeds usually hit at 75% without a +bleed charm. At -40% damage, it's av 10 damage + bleed => 13.75 damage expected, barely less than a hack. Plus there's a chance the bleed manages to tick twice.

[Fennec Fawx]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

Speaking of the damage debuff. Maxes at -40%.
So, bleed out. 10-19 base damage, av 14.5. 1.15 damage mod, 5-point bleed. Bleeds usually hit at 75% without a +bleed charm. At -40% damage, it's av 10 damage + bleed => 13.75 damage expected, barely less than a hack. Plus there's a chance the bleed manages to tick twice.

Interesting, I'll keep that in mind :3 thank you

[LaserGuy]

I typically run Hack/Swan/If It Bleeds/YAWP on my Hellions. Occasionally I'll swap out YAWP for breakthrough if I'm worried about shuffles. It's a low-priority, skill, but I use it occasionally. I find it most useful for:

-Stalling. Kill the two most dangerous enemies. Use YAWP to mostly control the front two while you heal/destress. Works well enough and you don't care about the debuff anyway.

-Hellion gets low speed roll. Generally, she's busy killing the backliners in my parties, but there's the odd time where she gets a low speed roll and the rest of the party kills the backline before she acts. Then it's a situation where there's two frontliners that are too strong for her to 1 shot before the end of the turn. In this case, I think YAWP is more optimal than leaving a wounded enemy to take its turn.

-Clearing Pelagic bulwark's shield block. Bulwark is always last to die, so if he shields one of the other guys that is a higher priority target, then YAWP is a very efficient use of a turn.

I'd say those are the situations where I use it most often. Usually it isn't worthwhile to stun the front liners, though in some cases, it might be okay for damage mitigation purposes, I suppose.

[DuckieMcduck]

I only use YAWP if the back row got the round priority. If you know you're not going to neutralize anything on the front row that round, might as well stun them so they don't get to deal free damage.

That said, I only started using YAWP in NG+. Mostly because she brought it, but it's a useful skill for mitigation.

[HoneyDrake]

it seems you dont know the role of hellion that well.

like some said, its her job to control the enemy, but also for bleeding the enemy out (her bleed dmg is just one of the best) and kill off multiply low health enemies...