Lord Skills?

[Magigubben]

What skills are good to take for lords blue red or fighting/spells?

[DaBo81]

You normally want a mix from all 3 branches as they're all good. There isn't a one size fits all though and you should consider both the race and general when picking skills.

[Sometimes_Consistent]

Depends on the situation, they are all three good in their own way.

[Ysthrall]

I tend to work my way along the blue line (campaign buffs) till I get quick strike. I haven't needed it for a while, but it's better to have than not, and there's usually some good stuff on the way.

Then along the red line (battle buffs) till the first battle cry, after which the skils get quite specific.

And then the rest is divided between mounts and special abilites, and a few melee skills.

If playing a wizard lord, they get their bonus spells interspersed witht he blue line stuff.

[Vacca]

Campaign movement and AoE morale effects are what you're looking for.

[DaBo81]

If you're planning to build an army of elite units then you're going to want lightning strike from the campaign branch but if it's a backup army with lots of rank and file units then you should pick from the army branch - the red branch also includes bonuses for elites when you go deep into it but sometines the bonuses are fairly minor. The red branch is good if you're planning on having lots of the same units but loses value if you're planning to have a wide mix in the army.
Yellow is often seen as the lowest priority but you want to pick up at least some of these skills so that the general has more impact - a magelord should pick up some more spells quickly and combat lords are better with special mounts and the skill that restores vigour so that normally involves taking at least 6 yellow skills. The close combat monsters like Grimgor and Karl Franz are definitely worth picking lots of yellow skills for.

[Sometimes_Consistent]

Actually, the best advice I can give you is this: Read every single skill very carefully, and not only the first one, but also its upgrades, if present. There are some very good ones out there that most of the people have never heard of, because they overlook it.

[-Singularity-]

Lightning Strike first for me, especially on harder difficulties. It is an essential. Another bonus to going for Lightning Strike first is there is a campaign movement booster required to get there. Always use every opportunity as soon as possible to improve campaign movement.

[Brakier]

r ead and takes whats suits your playstyle, i normaly go for more armor to all units first in leadership, then i go hero upgrade makes my hero stronger, last i got the management where i normaly take suppresse vamprism and chaos, and one to public, then i take reduce upkeep in the second bar, fills it all full. but thats late game when you need that extra money.

[Panfilo]

It depends on the hero. The legendary lords have a lot of skills that only require being at a certain rank, and many of them are quite decent.

Red tree: Invest in this tree for legendary/lords/heroes that are melee powerhouses. Extra charge damage and /or movement speed is useful for heroes that eventually get upgraded to a mount/chariot since you will be cycle charging. Note that armor has diminishing returns past 100,so a hero with 135 armor won't necessarily be 35% more resilient. +15% HP is universally good. If you notice your lords melee defense is rather low, putting skill points in it helps them stay alive when getting mobbed by elite infantry.

Red tree: This is your army buffing skills. The more 'generalist' they are, the better. Empire lords Honest Steel, for example, buffs ALL barracks melee units, vs other races whose counterpart only buffs their tier 1 and 1.5 infantry units. These type of skills, combined with research upgrades, can make your tier 1 infantry's melee attack/defense nearly as high as their tier 2. For Empire and dwarves any bonus to ranged or artillery units are really good because these units can often rack up the majority of your kills.

Blue tree: The bonus movement is a must and you should take it no matter what. Decreased corruption and attrition is situational, but +15% bonus replenishment saves you a ton of downtime. Price discounts and public order bonuses can be good. Many people swear by lightning strike (personally I don't think it has synergy with the rest of the blue tree).

Mounts: Mouse over it and you can see stat changes. Generally you get a big speed/charge damage /HP bonus but often your melee attack/defense is capped (so be careful putting a lot of points in +melee defense/attack). If you focus on cycle charging, or in the case of a caster, staying out of harms way, they can be good. Some are really good ; Franz's Deathclaw wrecks enemy morale when charging. Kazraks chariot is a deathmobile that plows through anything.

[lucibuis]

lightning strike and casualties replenishment from blue and rally from red are the most important

[Sometimes_Consistent]

Originally posted by jerjare:

Mounts: Mouse over it and you can see stat changes. Generally you get a big speed/charge damage /HP bonus but often your melee attack/defense is capped (so be careful putting a lot of points in +melee defense/attack). If you focus on cycle charging, or in the case of a caster, staying out of harms way, they can be good. Some are really good ; Franz's Deathclaw wrecks enemy morale when charging. Kazraks chariot is a deathmobile that plows through anything.

The downgrade of MA and MD and such is (at least most of the time) either not true or bugged. I think it tells you what it would be without any changes from skill and items and such. When you equip the mount and go back to the skill tree you can see that those values will be back to normal, unless purposely changed by the mount, but I don't know if there are any that do that.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Depends on what you want to build.

For example:
I useally build karl franz as an army buffer.
Increasing my troops defends so my sheild wall can keep my range units alive.

But i can build him up as one man army.
Upgrade armor increases his chance's to survive increase melee will increase his chance to hit's etc.
General speaking tho i prefeer to have my leaders make my army strong and my heroes to be the one man armies.

Unless a leader exist purely for reqruiting i useall dont go the army route.
Replacing losses is fine and all but preventing losses is better.

Magic i useally dont bother with.
Damage spells are pafatic and buff spells....while passive upgrade's are always on.
That said spells shoud not be underestimated.
They can turn the tide.
There just not worth it useally.

[Panfilo]

Note however that being on a mount makes the Lord count as 'large' which makes them vulnerable to different units

Going all in the blue tree is good for a rear echelon lord. He can buy discounted troops and distribute them to other armies as needed. Public order and corruption reduction buffs are more useful for a Lord that will be loitering in his own province.

With heroes, it's a bit different. Often you're either going to want to focus on either in-battle skills or map skills, but rarely both unless you're very high rank and have nowhere to put skill points. 'assasin' heroes like with Hunter banshee and Goblin boss can max out assassination chance very early and it's totally worth it. Increasing block army, assault army/garrison, bonus discounts and bonus income are all very good (pay attention to see if you need to 'deploy' the hero to get the effect, some require the hero to be embedded in a lords army).

The exception is bonus exp/veteran you, these are good to have for a 'combat' hero like Thane or Marshall because combined with research upgrades can get you units of very high veterancy right away.