Increasing Melee Resistance

[Maelstrom]

On the advice of some old hands on here, I've gone down this route with a Mercenary band and thoroughly enjoying it.

But what are the limits?

For example - can you plan to get Mastery of both Resilient and Armour Proficient considering that the one costs 15 Physical pts and the other 12 Physical pts.
I THINK I've worked out that this will always be impossible for a Merc. captain... but is it possible for a warrior maybe using a grimoire?
(Or an LGT henchman, only just considered that possibility)

[Boris Hauer]

Well, you have to sacrifice Agility, which isn't optimal for a Melee Resistance build. Anyway, it is possible to have mastery in both Resistance and Armour Proficiency. Let's see with the Character Planner[www.pyrospace.co.uk]

Champion misses two points to get 'em on his own. He either needs a Physical Grimoire or mastery in Born Leader to have three more points to invest.
Young Blood can't have both, even with the book. He can get AP mastery on his own, but if you prefer Resilient he needs a Book of Training: Toughness to set his max from 12 to 15. Same goes for Captains, except their natural maximum in Toughness is 13.
Warriors can have both, but need quite the investment: Lad's got Talent mastery, Book of Training: Toughness and Physical Grimoire.
Marksmen and Warlocks can forget ever getting mastery in Resilient and, like the Ogre (who could master both skills), they don't have proficiency in heavy armors.
As far as DLC heroes are concerned, Smugglers don't wear heavy armor, but they can get Resilient mastery with a Book of Training: Toughness, while Wolf Priests win the cup for being able to get mastery in both skills without aid from books or other skills.

[Paranoia]

And do note that Wolfies have Spells for increasing Melee Resistance. If one stacks both Basic and Mastery with two of them, that is +30% Melee Resistance for the target.

But the best case would propably be for a Maiden. If one is unhittable both in Melee and by Ranged, one does not actually need Critical Resistance at all.

[Maelstrom]

Thanks for the detailed response, boris.
The implication of your opening remark though, is that it is NOT ideal to go for mastery on Resilience + Armour Proficiency, but instead to go for just one of them plus large amounts of Agility.
Very interested to know why an old hand like you has come to this conclusion?

[Buuh]

in my opinion normal resilence is enough in most cases, especially in a melee resistance build, sure there might be situations when a vital strike or shot might crit, but combnined with decent toughness normal hits won't crit. Those 2 skill points are like a Tome of abilities, which means you can master another skill. I mean the melee resistance dude won't be hit anyway often.

I only use my 2 points in resilence, cause i like to play it save, but mastery resilence might be over the top.

So if you want to have either resilence Mastery or Armor Mastery, go for Armor, when you later have a tome of abilities you can still for for some crit res

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by Maelstrom:

Very interested to know why an old hand like you has come to this conclusion?

Not who was asked, but Melee Resistance becomes exponentially better the more one has it, which is why maxing it out on a Melee Resist Tank is prudent. Armour Absorption goes exponentially too, but you´ll not hit high enough amounts for it to counter Melee Resist lost. So you would have to choose between having Armour Absorption or Critical Resistance, since you can´t have both, since removing Melee Resist is a no-no.

Though, if you have Alertness 9 for Awareness and 6 Skill Points to spare, you could always Master Flawless Positioning instead, and go for Strength for Armour Proficient. But that depends on the rest of the Build, since Melee Resist Tanks are very Skill-consuming to begin with and AP+FP+Adabtable defense is three outta five Passive Slots already.

[Buuh]

Dang it i forgot about flawless positioning, I didnt play mercs for a while ^^

[Boris Hauer]

Originally posted by Maelstrom:

Thanks for the detailed response, boris.
The implication of your opening remark though, is that it is NOT ideal to go for mastery on Resilience + Armour Proficiency, but instead to go for just one of them plus large amounts of Agility.
Very interested to know why an old hand like you has come to this conclusion?

I wouldn't call myself an "old hand"; even with 380 hours of gameplay, I still feel like a newby. That's how it is with Mordheim.

Anyway, as Paranoia said, if you're going to rely on Melee Resistance you'll better maximize it, and every point in Agility increases MR by 1% (same goes with Weapon Skill). It might not be much (Champions only gain a 7% from maxing out their Agility, without books), so it's really your choice: you want to focus solely on that or do you have other useful skills you really want?
Notice that Armour Proficiency mastery compensates for the movement loss and gives you 5% Armour Absorption, but costs 6 skill points. Some prefer mixing its basic version with the basic one of Knowledge: Mordheim, so to compensate for the movement loss but only spend 4 skill points. Cons are that you lose that 5% in Armour Absorption (not a great loss if you got it low to begin with) and consume one more slot of passive skills.
While testing Melee Resistance builds on my Champions, I gave up completely on Armour Absorption and gave my Champion Leader light armour, freeing both skill points and slots for other yummy skills. And I gave him a spear, so to bypass dodge and parry stances, since everytime he hits Adaptable Defence increases his Melee resistance. Not a damage dealer at all, but I could use him as a door to block the way to enemies (Serenity sometimes helped, increasing Melee Resistance after passing All Alone tests).

Worse thing you could do wrong, in my opinion: copying someone else's build 'cause it looks good, and stay unsatisfied with it 'cause you wanted something else. Sharing opinions and experiences is good, of course, but at the end of the day I suggest trying out your own builds. You don't have to maximize or optimize, you gotta have fun!

[Kittenpaw]

I’d focus on either Melee Resistance or Armor. Mercs get silly armor levels with Guard Stance, Ignore Pain and a Warrior Priest unlock - Armor of Righteousness and Prayer of Absolution.

Conversely, with Melee Resist, Feint, Hand Shot, Deny the Heretic and Winter’s Chill work wonders. Armor of Righteousness as well if they fail a fear test.

[Ignorance]

Sisters are the MR wonderkids imo, my augur leader can tank chaos spawn, so long i keep mages and ranged away from her, its crazy, also the matriach is a nice MR tank/caster, i did abit with skavens then mercs and now iam crazy in love with the sister, very imba.

[Kindler]

It depends. For a henchman warrior, you can get to 60% AA between Ignore Pain and Guard Stance, and add +10% more (70% total) with a Master rune of Iron. So, if they use both skills, they'd only take 30% of damage. You only need 6 STR for basic Armor Proficiency, and you can raise their Intelligence to 9 to add Knowledge: Mordheim to make up for the movement penalty.

Personally, I usually don't bother with AA builds unless I have a Warrior or Wolf Priest handy. For henchy Warriors, I usually focus on making them parry tanks instead.

LGT warriors are a different story; you can do a whole lot more with those. Just being able to master skills makes a world of difference. They're perfectly viable as an MR/Parry tank, with some options for AA. Here's a quick example:

Mordheim: City of the Damned Character Planner Quick Summary
============================================================

Unit profile: Warrior

Attributes:
===========
Strength: 12
Toughness: 9
Agility: 7
Leadership: 9
Intelligence: 9
Alertness: 6
Weapon Skill: 18
Ballistic Skill: 3
Accuracy: 11

Skills:
=======
Momentum Basic, Armour Proficient Mastery, Resilient Basic, Lad's got Talent Mastery, Ignore Pain Basic, Defensive Stance Mastery, Web of Steel Basic, Shield Specialist Mastery

Equipment:
==========
Helmet (masterwork), Heavy Armour (masterwork), Axe (masterwork), Shield (masterwork)

That gives him a base MR of 50%, which isn't AMAZING, but is pretty good for AI games, and more importantly, he has a solid 19% crit resistance; most Vital Shots from the AI I've seen don't have a crit chance higher than 25%, so he's reasonably solid. He can reach 65% AA with Ignore Pain. Pick either a Rune of Iron or Shielding for his shield; it'll add either 10% Armor or 12% MR (I usually err on the side of MR; it's too good). With a Rune of Shielding and Defensive stance, he reaches 82%, which is pretty damn good for a Warrior. The Parry option is there too if he has a good opportunity to use WoS instead (102% parry chance, pretty good).

Wolf Priest can hit him with Winter's Chill, which is absurd. Basically adds 20% MR AND 20% AA. Basically, he won't get hit, and if he does, it'll do hardly any damage. Stack Armor of Righteousness from a Warrior Priest, which combines a Fear Debuff (net effect: more MR), and ANOTHER 20% AA.

I don't know how the game calculates Winter's Chill, however. It says it's a debuff effect, so it's not really adding to your MR and AA, it's reducing the enemy's chance to hit and damage. I don't know if it's a flat effect (basically identical to adding to your stats) or if it's a multiplicative effect (for example, it reduces max and minimum damage by 20% before it considers your Armor, or after; it could alter the absolute values). I'm bad at math, so I don't know how much of a difference it would make.

But yeah. In summary: get you some Priests.

[DocFumble]

As i said in a precedent thread, Skaven Adept Assassin is a very good candidate for an ultimate MR and critical tank. You don't really need an heavy armour if you can't be touched.

Adept Assassin lvl 10

St : 9
To : 2
Ag : 14

Ld : 15
Int : 6
Al :15

Ws : 15 (19 with Light Armour of Ws)
Bs : 4
Ac : 15

Active Skill :
- Defensive Stance (master)
- Vital strike (with Tome of Abilities)

Passive Skill :
- Defense Breach (master)
- Fatality (master)
- Swarm (master)
- Shield Specialist (master)
- Awareness (master)

Equipment :
- Sword of Luck (master)
- Shield of Shielding (master)
- Light Armour of Ws (master)
- Helmet of Courage (master)

Damage : 36/47
Armour Absorbtion : 35%
Wounds : 260
Critical Hit Chance : 32%, +10% Swarm, +10% Fatality = 52% ! (62% with Vital Strike !)

Movement : 8
Initiative : 70

Critical Resistance : 22%
Stun Resistance : 32 %
Melee Resistance : 80%, +20% Defensive Stance = 100% !

[Reaver79]

Why strength 9 ? i'd rather swap that for toughness to increase crit resist. The one you list here has what 50'ish Ranged resist ?.. With 12 crit resist thats quite a gamble. A 1 will occour ever so often and nothing kills your MR tank like getting stunned.

[DocFumble]

In PVE, I enjoy strengh 9 because is is very useful for looting (you need your 6 slots).
And with a sword of Luck critical resistance is not so bad. But in PVP versus critical specialist shooters, sure Toughness is more safe.

[Reaver79]

My tanks are not my looters, you risk getting debuffed on MR that way wich is pretty much the last thing you want when holding down 5 enemies. The only real time i'd focus on strength on a tank is if your going heavy armour to midigate the move penalty.
12 crit resist is not alot mate, last thing you want is thinking your gonna tie up the enemy impressive and he rolls a 1 to hit and still got somewhat 20-30% crit chance on you. Seen it happen and more than once.. Well twice really (then he died) after that i started to design them with more focus on toughness for better durabillity, wich is what a tank should really be about in 1 way or the other. Its about covering weaknesses in the case of a tank.

And im never talking in PvP, i have next to no experience there.

[DocFumble]

I understand. In almost 100 games with this Adept, he only died once, and indeed it was because of a crit. So i assume there is aminor risk. But you can't up Toughness above 7, that is still low.

Maybe i have a maniac playstyle, because i systematically try to loot 100% of chests, warpstones and enemy equipment. In most of my games everybody is full, including the 6-slots Assassin ^^.