Man at Arms: How?

[damocles23]

It's the third man at arms that I lose. The damage output is laughable and the defense, too. The camping skills are nice but I have no idea on how to use him effectively. Illuminate me.

[anaid]

In all honestly? He's basically a support character in my save. A replacement for the Jester's Battle Ballad, if you will. His damage is decent with proper trinkets and his debuff is good. If used properly, his counter-attack is also great, but I feel that the Guardian's Shield trinket that is activated with him on rank 4 is amazing. It nearly makes a healer unnecessary.

Just put him rank 4, put an OCC or what-have-you on rank 3 and DPS on the first two ranks. Let him just buff your guys' SPD and DODGE beyond logic, and in a pinch let him guard a hero to take the damage with about 50% PROT or more. Buff their ACC once and they'll miss nothing for the next three rounds.

[Ghin]

I give him 2 PROT trinkets and Crush, Rampart, Guard, Bellow. Keep in mind the Guard PROT bonus stacks.

[DuckieMcduck]

• Stack speed and damage trinkets. Target squishy enemies.
  
  
• Don't use Bolster/Command unless you know what you're doing.
  
  
• Guard Ally or whatever gives a decent amount of Protection for the man at arms and lets you focus the healing on him. It will also protect people on death's door in any position against most threats.
  
  
• Retribution's riposte can hit ranged enemies if they try to attack him from the back row. Don't cast it if you don't want a mark, though. Extra useful if you're Guarding someone and in some boss fights.
  
  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=610581460
  
  
  
• Shield bash can stun guarding enemies out of their state if you need to smash the tiny ones.
  
  
• MaA is probably the most versatile as well as useful class in the game, imo. If I were to roll a party of just one class it would be of him.

[IHaveLigma]

Use him as a stunbot. There is literally a trinket giving him 40% stun and move effect chance. He is the tanky frontline CC squad with a guard for clutch ♥♥♥♥.

[Cryten]

He basicly loses the hp and extra damage of the leper in echange for being able to hit the 3rd row with most abilities and the very useful guard and forward moving stun.

[Muscarine]

90% PROT potentially by round two, preferably by round 3, two denied attack positions, huge speed buff/debuff with either a bit of + or - dodge, is not "bad defense skills".
Damage is Crush and nothing else.
Don't spam retribution without guarding first or hoping the enemy will just chain suicide. Only mark friendly enemies will attack and then again they will do much more damage especially if you didn't guard before.
Rampart is a nice extra support stun and especially repositionning tool. It is not a main skill. Don't spam Rampart, don't spam retribution. Man at Arms is a squad Captain, his weapon is tactics first and foremost, he's not a berserker.

I use him mainly at Rank 2 because most high damage attacks aim at your frontline, guarding rank 1 makes sure you mitigate most of the incoming damage. Treebranch crit at 10 over 60 HP on Champion level is laughable.
But learn enemy patterns, know which ranks are most likely to get attacked, guard accordingly.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

The man at arms is a really great support character. You just need to practice to make him work. For a simple beginner's build take a man at arms and give him the following skills; Crush, Defender, Retribution & Bolster. Put him in rank 1 or 2 (preferably in rank 2 behind a frontliner of your choice). Crush is your basic bog standard attack but it can reach rank 3. Something most Crusaders and Lepers have trouble dealing with. Defender protects a fellow party member, increases the man at arms' Prot and lets him take the hits for them. At first glance Retribution may look bad because it marks the man at arms but trust me, you want enemies to be attacking him. With retribution he deals damage back to everything that attacks him for the next 2 rounds. It's pretty amazing once you get it working properly. This skill is basically the man at arms' bread and butter. Finally Bolster increases the defenses of your entire party.

His camping skills are amazing. He can provide offenssive and defensive bonuses to your entire party.

Later on you might want to experiment a bit. Try out his other skills. Rampart is useful if he's been knocked back (and has a built in knock back in addition to moving him forwards). Bellow is a bit like when teh Jester debuffs the entire enemy group and Command is the aggressive counterpart to Bolster.

He's really useful against the Sonorous Prophet where you can have him spam Bolster every round or slap Defender on a badly wounded companion if the roof's going to fall on them. Another benefit of the man at arms is that he is not a religious character so he can be put in the same party as an abomination and the hellion won't stress him out too much with some of her healing skills. His ability to consistantly reach the 3rds enemy rank with attacks puts him on par with the Bounty Hunter and when he repositions in the party he can move up to 2 spaces unlike some of the slower front line warriors.

[Muscarine]

Originally posted by Balgin Stondraeg:

Finally Bolster increases the defenses of your entire party.

Bolster is great for the speed buff, +5 speed at top level almost ensures you have the initiative for the next 3 rounds provided you didn't completely botch your team's speed to begin with. +Dodge is the icing on the cake, but it only helps a tiny bit, +9 dodge against ~130 (estimated) accuracy enemies won't get you far.

[pillar]

-MaA is not good for replacement for Jester bcause of his low spd.
-Also not good for stun bot; his stun possibility is basically too low.
-Guarding ally can be ineffective when fight huge dealers who can hit 2 or more at a time like a Swinetaur. (bosses likewise) so idiot that being useless when the most suitable situation comes
-Dmg isnt nice.

Guard Ally and Reposte are good at fight like Shambler or Flesh boss in Warren and
this is only one that i conceded.

[Aleonymous]

Actually, I really like the MaA!

(1) Crush, while not super-strong, can reach up to enemy rank-3. Useful for double-sized enemies, lurking in last ranks!

(2) Rampart is useful for combos: It Stuns while pushing enemy rank-1 tank back, where he can be set-up for a combo with Mark+Crit (e.g. with Houndmaster/BountyHunter/Arbalest).

(3) Bellow is AoE *and* debuff! It can even "clean up" when the Dungeon has the RNG-god in its favor, leaving enemies at 1-2 HP clinging to life just to push you over the brink of Madness :)

(4) His three support abilities are all cool, and can be cast from any rank. VERY useful when you're surprised or facing an enemy that shuffles your ranks.

Retribution is the most tricky ability for me. I haven't found a good use for it, so far...

[Bleeters]

I mostly just bring him out whenever I want a frontliner who can also hit position 3 (and by extension bosses). Partly because MaA is able to do that reasonably well without being highly position dependant himself, and partly because I tend to also bring out Hellions or Bounty Hunters for that and the AI seems to love beating the ever living crap out of both of them, so having guard can be fairly handy.

Liked him a whole lot more when he could guard two characters at once, though.

[dnrob7]

I just used a MaA to escort a lvl 0 Leper through a medium veteran dungeon.
Arbalest lvl2 - Crusader lvl2 - MaA lvl4 - Leper lvl0

He was screaming that this dungeon is too much for him but he came out the other end with like 15 stress and no visits to deaths door. MaA basically stopped him getting hit throughout while hopping back and forth with the damage amped crusader.
That rampart came in real handy with putting targets in range for the holy lance.. Couldn't do tactical ♥♥♥♥ like that without corpses though.

[pi73r]

While crush dmg isn't anything to write home about it's pretty reliable. He's got stun with move forward which is very useful (not to mention both can target 3rd rank). Bolster is really decent skill and guard ability is a must in some encounters.
One of the better characters in game for a lot of encounters.