Excuse me, how exactly is Fast Adaption a good perk?

[Caerold]

I just crunched some numbers and I'm really not seeing it.

I was originally trying to compare fast adaption to head hunter, expecting the first to be a boon to FNBs swinging away at around 50% chance to hit and the latter to come into its own once a merc was more like 70% to hit. I'm jonesing for the new update to hit beta, ya see, and can't stand to play a new band until then with a save wipe coming down.

From what I'm seeing, Gifted would be a better perk even if it only gave a boost to one stat like melee attack. To get even a 4% damage boost an individual needs to be under 47% hit chance for two swings or 57% for three swings. 50% chance is trivial to achieve. Give the n00b a militia spear and he's 50% against a bandit thug with a wooden shield. Use remedial tactics to get even a few percent more from surround bonuses and you've obviously wasted a feat.

One thing the devs got dead on is that combat is fast and vicious, usually over only a handful of rounds after the initial clash. How often is a single guy going to be swinging more than four times at a target? We're talking level 2-3 here, with most guys still basically in rags and crap for health. If you're not concentrating your attacks from multiple brothers you're aren't doing it right.

Realistically, how many <50% chance attacks are you taking once your guys have a couple levels under their belts? Are you expecting to kit a new brother out in armor and send him mano a mano against a raider leader, leaving everyone else to watch? If you're fighting fair you aren't trying hard enough. By the time your seasoned troop is used to being outnumbered (remember, the key is concentration of force) you should have several other perks picked and are probably trying to squeeze in pathfinder or student.

Yeah, I'm just not seeing it, despite everyone seeming to swear by the perk. Did I not go deep enough? Should I be expecting less from a first level perk?

Head hunter, by the way, is even worse. Even with a 100% chance to hit (unrealistic, much?) you're only getting about a 2-3% damage boost before you've done enough damage to take down the opponent. At least head hunter creates more injuries and makes collecting armor easier early on, but still a horrible waste of a perk. Just grab a flail if that's your thing, I guess.

[WarWise]

Im not that impressed by the skill itself.

Some people argument that in early game, just a single hit can kill someone. ANd that someone could be you or the enemy.

So missing the first atack on your round and having another shot at +7% could be the diference between killing him or be killed. If you miss twice, then you get +14% in the next round, if you survived.

I favor gifted more because instead of having +7% on the second atack, I´d rather have +4% on the first and second atack due to the skill increase. Both together? Why not.

I usually choose fast adaptation for my archers, since they can shoot up to 3 times/round. For front liners, I´d rather have more defensive/survivability skills.

[Caerold]

Yeah, I can see that. Again, Gifted is just such an awesome perk early on, it's really hard to overstate it. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but these are the same boards I was reading that seriously discussed whether gifted would be any use in the late game compared to another perk.

To be fair, your archers only get in a third attack when they successfully kill someone. For that to be procing often I'm assuming they're probably hitting 1-2 times per round, which is resetting the perk anyway. You really need to be missing at least one in two attacks for it to have any meaning. It's fairly easy to get off 10-11 attacks from a well positioned archer, the very reason I was considering these two perks in the first place, but there are certainly better perks to choose from.

I really am amazed at how much easier the early game became for me once I realized how awesome pathfinder is, especially since I'm a junkie for retreating to good ground to fight on. I actually like swamps now.

[Twogun]

how can an archer shoot 3X in one round? what am i missing?

[sffrrrom]

Originally posted by Twogun:

how can an archer shoot 3X in one round? what am i missing?

Berserk, if he kills someone with one of the attacks.

[Doombrew]

You're talking about level 2-3 - For that levelrange you're right. I prefer Student and Gifted too, however encountering other Mercenaries, Lost Souls and Vampires this Perk is quite useful, because they're hard to hit. Havn't done any number-crunching, but I doubt my feeling is wrong there.

[Loot Hroar]

I feel that 7% is also a slightly odd number, i think the old version before their remake of the skill tree was a 15%? that was quite powerful as far as i remember, so maybe if they buffed the 7->10% it would be more appealing, but as other have said, i would just pick gifted instead.

It does give me an idea for the Dagger Master character tho, since he can attack 3 times per turn...

[nightworg]

Who say that fast adoption is good ? If it should be worth considering it should be +25%, and even with that increase I would probably not take it either.

Then again I recently tried out Nimble on my swordmaster with good melee defense. The descibtion of that perk is just very confusing.

It raised him 2 in melee defense. 8 when naked. He went from 36 to 38. So that perk is probably even worse in most circumstances. It is wierd that people are debating if Gifted is worth it.

Gifted is a strait up one maximum+1 level increase, on you 3 most importen skills. It will always be worth it, but most in low levels, and people with low skills.

[Pringles™]

I would buff FA's percentage to 10%, maybe 12%. Skills that come into play after missing are no fun :p

[Caerold]

Originally posted by Doombrew:

You're talking about level 2-3 - For that levelrange you're right. I prefer Student and Gifted too, however encountering other Mercenaries, Lost Souls and Vampires this Perk is quite useful, because they're hard to hit. Havn't done any number-crunching, but I doubt my feeling is wrong there.

Ahh, okay, I actually only have experience with the first 60-70 days or so, and mostly from the pre-injury builds. I've yet to fight lost souls or vampires. Something to look forward to in the finial release, then.

Yeah, what I was reading was how FA was a popular pick for 2nd level, especially that it was better than student since it made a significant impact to survival rates for cheap cannon fodder. I agree that hit percent is crucial, especially early on, but this perk is just a waste when you're already filling your line with spearmen. Really, if you're fielding a bunch of macemen at level two you deserve whatever you get.

[Froblex]

I agree, I've often wondered why people pick it on frontliners, too.

It's a total archers only perk for me.

[six-P-]

Great thread. I didn't know that +2 Skill = +4% hit chance, but it basically makes Gifted superior to fast adapation in nearly all cases.

[Sendos]

Remember, this is a first level skill. Fast adaptation is a good skill, because at least you can somewhat manipulate chance to your advantage after repeated bad luck (NB: it stacks for each miss). However, it's pointless getting it on spearmen because you already have a higher chance to hit. So use it for other weapons.

If you hire highly skilled mercenaries, then fast adaptation would not be needed.

Gifted would generally be a better choice, but you can't access it until level 3 and it doesn't help you if you have repeated bad luck missing attacks.

[Caerold]

I recognize that its first level, I was just surprised how little impact it actually has on average damage. I was expecting a larger boost and was disappointed by the numbers. I had been reading guide and advice posts advocating FA when there are a lot of better 1st level perks. Heck, Student getting me to third level and Gifted even one battle faster does more to keep a brother alive than FA.

Paul, Gifted does actually help a lot, by directly lowering the probability of multiple consecutive misses the same way it helps on every attack. You just don't notice it, since you see the "bad luck" occurring less frequently.

Also, six-P, I never said anything like "+2 Skill = +4% hit chance"... I'm not sure where you got that? From my reading, each point of skill (for example, the 4(?) points you can get from gifted) directly adds to your attack chance, and gets modified by other conditions (shields and shield wall, weapon choice, elevation, supporting brothers, morale, etc). It's all additive and subtractive when talking about hit chance.

It gets a great deal more complicated when you are talking about average damage. I factored in all adjusted probabilities for a run of 2-3 attacks and compared the results with and without each perk. I made an excel sheet and set it up so I could modify base hit chance and damage and watch how the projected average damage changed (crits included, naturally). Since FA and HH only take effect after one or more misses they have minimal impact on a large section of the sample and almost all the anecdotal evidence gets washed out without the usual selection bias.

[six-P-]

Originally posted by Caerold:

...
Also, six-P, I never said anything like "+2 Skill = +4% hit chance"... I'm not sure where you got that?

Ok, I'll quote from where I got this:

Originally posted by WarWise:

...

I favor gifted more because instead of having +7% on the second atack, I´d rather have +4% on the first and second atack due to the skill increase....

Can any verify whether this is accurate? Does the +2 Melee/Ranged attribute increase (minimum if selected) from Gifted actually translate to +4% chance to hit?

[six-P-]

Originally posted by steven.aus:

....Maybe he meant that you get +4 Melee and Ranged Skill with the Gifted bonus?

Are you saying that the gifted perk gives a +4 to a selected attack attribute (always? on average? or +4 if you have enough stars in the attribute?)