Wow... The Wolf Priest

[Silverquick]

I have to give a glowing endorsement to the Wolf Priest...

This is one of the most effective characters in the game. He's strong enough to double as a Champion, and stand in for him when you put Heavy Armor on him along with the Armor Proficiency skill along with his two handed axe. (Level 7 by the way).

Add that to his Snow King's Curse, and the other buffs he provides and this guy is a serious tank/priest. Well worth the money on him.

Fits right in with the Mercenary Band I'm running. He's definitely front line support/attack material.

I am truly impressed with him. I promoted my Champion to Commander status, but didn't have a Champion to fill his spot.... sure the Youngbloods are very staunch fighters, but the Champion is the king of melee, the Youngbloods are a combination melee/ranged unit given their max weapon and ballistic skills. But the Champion is pure melee... WIth the Wolf Priest I don't miss a beat when going without a Champion.

[uddhava]

His only downside imo is that he has virtually no defense. With guardstance you can get his armour abs up, but he is vulnarable to crits.
Conversely, the champion excells in defence.

[Silverquick]

Actually he's got great defense. without even trying and with a Fine Set of Heavy Armor he's at 40% damage resist. WIth Guard Stance it could be even more. At this point even my Champion/Leader is only at 45% before Guard Stance. (Level 8 Warband, first Warband)....

His real knock... is his chronically low initiative... this guy is slow as hell... almost as slow as the Warrior Mercs... and definitely the lowest initiative for Heros... I don't even remember the Champion ever being this slow.

Great defense, Great attack, Great buffs.... and a really good DoT that ticks everytime your enemy attacks you, and you can cast it on multiple enemies.... especially those speedy ones with multiple attacks....

But... slow as molassas.... and takes forever to get into combat. But he's a great finisher... and you can put him right out on the front line and he'll survive.

[miniaaar]

He doesn't take forever if you give him Exhaustion and Armour Proficiency, which you should do.

Low initiative is a given though.

[uddhava]

Originally posted by Silverquick:

Actually he's got great defense.

It depends how you define great and how you define defense.
A Champion with the right skills and defensive stance will easily have 80% meleeresist, and coudl prolly squeeze in some more. Thats only 20% chance to be hit, if he attacks first that round, he can knock off on average another 12% (adaptable defense). If he has anticipation, he will lose another 6% if he does get hit. To me, thats great defense.
And while armour abs can be good (even better with ignore pain), its not defense in the sense of not getting hit. It means you get hit always. And as I said, one critical and all that absorption is worthless. Thats why I dont term it defense. Dodging and Parrying are defense, which both your champion and captain can be very good at. It prevents you from being hit, instead of being hit less.

Originally posted by Silverquick:

WIth Guard Stance it could be even more.

As I already mentioned yes, but as I explained above I dont term it defense in a literal sense, and far from great, at least imo.

Originally posted by Silverquick:

At this point even my Champion/Leader is only at 45% before Guard Stance. (Level 8 Warband, first Warband)....

I would frankly never take guardstance with either of those, since the champ is so good at meleerresist and the captain is made for parrying.

EDIT:

Originally posted by miniaaar:

He doesn't take forever if you give him Exhaustion and Armour Proficiency, which you should do.

Low initiative is a given though.

He has it, but yeah the Initiative is hard to break.

[Silverquick]

Ahh you were talking melee resist... as in their chance to miss you...

I thought you were talking actual defense...

Originally posted by uddhava:

It depends how you define great and how you define defense.
A Champion with the right skills and defensive stance will easily have 80% meleeresist, and coudl prolly squeeze in some more. Thats only 20% chance to be hit, if he attacks first that round, he can knock off on average another 12% (adaptable defense). If he has anticipation, he will lose another 6% if he does get hit..

Ahh you were talking Melee Resist... as in their chance to hit you... not actual physical defense...

You're right as far as melee resist (Percentage to be hit), no the Champion is better.

But armor wise and health they're identical. I was wrong earlier... the Champion/Commander I made actually has a 50% damage resist before Guard Stance, and the Wolf Priest has 45%, but the Champion has a shield with +5 damage resist. The priest is using a two hander so doesn't have the Shield.

Still I can't complain, I could build the Priest similarly to what you describe, and I suspect he'd still be very close on all the things you talked about.

[Kernest]

It's not really defense if you're getting hit, not a great one anyways, and the Wolf-Priest does get hit a lot, which is what Uddhava was after. EDIT: ninja'd.

His agility sucks and if wielding the Great Ulrican Axe, as he should, he can't Parry. Also, without a shield or any Agi, his melee resist is too poor to seriously consider Defensive Stance.

Given all these caveats, I still think that the Wolf-Priest is awesome. I don't think he is really vulnerable to crits, as you'll probably take 15 Toughness on him. Just throw in basic Resilient or Northern Tenacity (worse, but I did it for luls) and the AI won't really ever crit him.

The best defensive method IMO is the Guard Stance, as that's easy on the ol' SP pool, and given his low initiative I usually ended up being able to pick whoever I wanted so smack down with him, as everyone else either ambushed the enemies or got charged by them.

I used my Wolf-Priests as sort of mini-impressives that went around finishing off enemies that everyone else was fighting. No need to defend if you don't get hit.

Also, just in case you've missed it, look up Ulric's Chosen passive, and learn it, heck, master it even.

[Silverquick]

Oh yes... that

Originally posted by Kernest:

Also, just in case you've missed it, look up Ulric's Chosen passive, and learn it, heck, master it even.

Oh definitely I love that one... also that Group Buff... the group buff spell that gives the +5 crit chance and +10% crit damage.

You can't even imagine how well that goes with my Musketeer firing line who already have good crit skills.

Edit: just for reference... my commander is a pistol wielder, with 23% crit before we add in the +20% for vital shot... that buff just sends it over the top.

[Kernest]

Originally posted by Silverquick:

also that Group Buff... the group buff spell that gives the +5 crit chance and +10% crit damage.

You can't even imagine how well that goes with my Musketeer firing line who already have good crit skills.

I went with both that (Blessing of Ulric) and Howl of the Wolf for my primarily melee focused Witch Hunter warband. Howl of the Wolf would definitely be better if it had 2 turns duration, but it still lasts until the Wolf-Priests next turn, so I just used it (and BoU) at the end of the turn before I thought/knew that the fighting would start, often enemies would be dead, dying or stunned by the time the Wolf-Priests next turn would roll around.

[Silverquick]

Wow... I did not know that, if you can get this guy with the Witch Hunters too... that would be spectacular...

That was the next Warband I wanted to try out after I finished the Mercs... but their distance attacks were kinda skimpy and there were no mages... but with this Wolf Priest... I can only imagine how strong they could be.

[Kernest]

IMO the Witch Hunter Captain, the Witch Hunter hero and Zealot henchman can all be used as exclusively ranged units, and are great at that, despite what their starting skills would suggest.

They also have this unique ranged skill called Trial by Pain, which is more or less the same as Snow King's Decree, and yes, they stack with each other.

[uddhava]

Originally posted by Kernest:

It's not really defense if you're getting hit, not a great one anyways, and the Wolf-Priest does get hit a lot, which is what Uddhava was after. EDIT: ninja'd.

Yeah to be clear, defense in my book is to avoid getting hit so either parry, dodge, or meleeresist. Armourabsorption is just migitating and as such I feel he's not good tank material but good support.

Originally posted by Silverquick:

That was the next Warband I wanted to try out after I finished the Mercs... but their distance attacks were kinda skimpy and there were no mages... but with this Wolf Priest... I can only imagine how strong they could be.

You could also slap on a smuggler to compensate for the less shootyness of the warband, but as Kernest said, the heroes do fairly well at shooting, allthough I found the WHI hero to be a good meleecritter too.
Finally, while no mage, the witch hunter priest has some really interesting spells.

[Silverquick]

Well I disagree, so far he's been up on the front lines with the rest of the crew and his kill ratio is even better.

He can't compete with the Orge, but he's only a little bit behind the Champion.

[uddhava]

Originally posted by Silverquick:

Well I disagree, so far he's been up on the front lines with the rest of the crew and his kill ratio is even better.

He can't compete with the Orge, but he's only a little bit behind the Champion.

No worries, if it works it works. But on Deadly difficulty, I find he gets beaten pretty quick and the Champ is just more reliable.

[Greybush]

Uddhava's right, up to a point.
At Rank 10, 45-50% Armour isn't going to be enough for tanking (though, pretty decent for support units).
But if you give him Armour Proficent mastery, Helmet, and Guard stance, he'll be at 65% in stance.
Add a quick buff from a Warrior Priest (Armour of Righteousness and lasts 2 turns)), and you've got 85%.
Throw on a Rune of Toughness on Armour, and maybe a Rune of Constitution on Helm.
To up his Crit res, you've got either Resilient or Rune of Luck on Weapon (Luck, if you want to spend points on other skills).
And that's one beefy, Armoured, high HP Wolf Priest ready to do some tanking.

[uddhava]

Originally posted by Greybush:

Uddhava's right, up to a point.
At Rank 10, 45-50% Armour isn't going to be enough for tanking (though, pretty decent for support units).
But if you give him Armour Proficent mastery, Helmet, and Guard stance, he'll be at 65% in stance.
Add a quick buff from a Warrior Priest (Armour of Righteousness and lasts 2 turns)), and you've got 85%.
Throw on a Rune of Toughness on Armour, and maybe a Rune of Constitution on Helm.
To up his Crit res, you've got either Resilient or Rune of Luck on Weapon (Luck, if you want to spend points on other skills).
And that's one beefy, Armoured, high HP Wolf Priest ready to do some tanking.

Greybush is right, up to a point. And that goes for most builds that utilize runes and what not: you need to have them and that will take a long grind. Your warband(units) will be rank 10 long before that, and the question is if you are willing to grind that on. Offc, you can be lucky and find enchanted weapons (you will find quite a few in fact) but it is not guaranteed you will get anything you need very soon. Certainly not for all units in your warband. I still need mastered rune of misfortune on most of my warbands. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just will not spawn.

TLDR: in sum, most optimal builds are hard to attain, and without some of those runes and stuff, the build is just a lot less good.