Any use in Poet or Wanderer?

[Lightzebra]

I'm currently trying out new team compositions in Survival, and I've been thinking of exchanging my mender for either a Poet or a Wanderer but I haven't found much use in them. Anyone else has any tips on how to play them correctly?

[Aleonymous]

Wanderer (Insult) is quite useful because he can change the turn-order. Something like the opposite of Forge Ahead (Warleader / Krumr).

Poet is less useful, imo, especially in Survival Mode, where you wanna keep you Heroes as untouched as possible.

[FunDhu]

With Survival having a permanent pillage mode, insult can be very handy for pushing a strong enemy back to the end of the queue. Whether it's too soften them up, get a chance to block them, get a team member out of their danger zone or set up traps it 'can' be very useful.

I find the Poet very difficult to use effectively in the main game or Survival mode. Unless you happen to be in a situation with an enemy with very high level strength and one of your team near death it's a useless ability, and so a wasted slot in your team (plus often the character you use Tale Worth Telling on will die before acting if you don't carefully consider turn order). I've found the Poet so useless I've never actually tried levelling him up, so maybe I should also give him a chance one game :-)

But I think you should always have a Mender on your team, they're invaluable IMO, much better than Poet or Wanderer.

[Aleonymous]

Tale Worth Telling could be useful to maimed (or low-STR) allies with high EXE/WIL and high CRIT chance. For example, getting 8=2*(1+3) damage from a crippled archer onto a Stoneguard is not bad... But, it's already bad play if you managed to get your archer crippled and also spend a slot in your Party for a "medic" unit (that "wastes" a turn to buff an ally).

[FunDhu]

I think you're agreeing with me? That's my point as well with the Poet. Far better to have a buff that protects your team from damage in the first place. In my experience I'd rather have an outright damage dealer in place of a poet. He's rarely any use in the first few rounds of a battle, and when he can be useful it's a nightmare working out turn order and range of attack on your ally and the enemy.

[Yodums]

Generally the game favors characters that either do "multiple" actions per action (tempest, overwatch), are strong force multipliers (mending onto a tank, forge ahead in survival mode, spinegrinder), or have efficient skills with a high enough upside bonus that it's virtually multiple actions (rain of arrows lock, poison tip turn waster on death, mark prey in survival mode)

The tactical problem with Tale Worth Telling is that even in its most optimal use, i.e. being in a situation you ideally wouldn't want to be in the first place, you at best maintain turn parity and don't actually come out ahead. At least other situational buffs like Zefyr's ruinic gale has some payoff when you have 4 tile varl that can eat buffs like pac man and the RNG gods bless you with the buffs and positioning you wanted.

Insult is... I guess "usable" in survival mode since the turn order is predictable. It's not very reliable in story mode turn order as the battle goes on though. And honestly wouldn't you just rather have a horseborn stun (does armor break too!) or malice (and get a body block with a 4 tile armored varl) or rain of arrows (abuse the predticability of AI pathing) to achieve a similar effect and have a more well rounded character package?

I think one possibility to slighly buff these characters without being too outlandish lorewise is to change their attack to throwing daggers. Make it same short range as Oli's axes / Cantref. Skald's Song passive might actually be tactically usuable as a substitute for rally if positioning wasn't so restrictive. Heck, even Zefyr has spear range to poke enemies behind path blocking in a pinch.

There's certain characters that are so strong you just bring with you unless you doing a handicap run for fun. I'll admit it makes sense lorewise for legendary characters in the story to be OP, but I think the game would be more interesting/replayable if other characters were buffed so that there's more choices.

[Aleonymous]

Aye, Skald units do need reworking. At first, Skald passive gave +Renown for witnessing kills (not +Willpower), which was actually more useful, but could become tedious. It's true that their puny daggers dont justify the 11-12 max Strength nor the 3 Break they have (same as most Raiders); these stats were buffed obviously to compensate their weak abilities and make them worth bringing in your team. But, I'd sooner have interesting abilities than just stats. In any case, Insult *is* interesting and could stay as it is, but TWT does need redesign.

Throwing daggers would be much more interesting. Actually, Sparr has bow & arrows slung across his back?

[Yodums]

If they can be made to be ranged attackers, can probably tweak their stats to be in line with other nonmelee humans. ~18 points to distribute between armor and health like menders/most archers, and lower break to either 1 or 2. Willpower might be bumped to 12-13. I think it would be nice to have another ranged character in the raven party in the story because you only get Oli.

One thought I had about TWT is to add a unique erfect to the base skill. If a character under TWT kills a foe while gaining a damage bonus from TWT of +3/+2/+1 (higher rank lowers requirement), they are filled with so much adrenaline from the epic kill that they can dodge with 100% chance the next strength/armor attack, whichever comes first. My line of thinking is that in a lot of situations where you might use TWT, the character is probably going to die or at least get wrecked before they can move again.

The untouchable buff disappears after dodging the first attack or when the turn order cycles back to the character who made the kill. Does not dodge passive degeneration effects like poison or passives like splinter. Killing multiple enemies that qualify while under TWT still only yields one usage of the buff (crits on tempest, frenzy). However, I think to make the proc less dependent on crits or puncture, finishing blows by sunder passive could still qualify as long as the varl had the damage boost requirement. Same thiing for guts on the 1 str pings.

As a side effect in a few scenarios, it would be possible to have some value in proactively using TWT with some armor breaks on high str enemies followed up by a crit build character. The untouchable buff can sort act as a free action to help temporarily offset for one turn the story mode mechanic that punishes you for proactively killing enemies. I normally don't take artery strike or puncture talents in story mode because it's mostly RNG except with pig sticker, and RNG killing an enemy by accident is usually bad with story mode turn order.

[Aleonymous]

Hmm, yes, an invulnerable buff would mitigate some of the trouble that comes with using TWT on melee heroes.

Your discussion about more proper Skald stats gave me the idea that maybe the Poet's WIL should also come into the formula, somehow like Menders' Mend. For example, +10% CRIT to buffed ally for each point of WIL, or something.

I honestly expected the Skalds' abilities to be some of "aura" type, maybe affecting all the party. For example, +1 to {Resist or Absorb or ARM} or +10% to {Dodge or Deflect or Crit} etc. That is, a small bonus to all party members, lasting for one Round.