Weapon mastery a must have perk? or not always prudent?

[revjwh]

I'm curious on people's thoughts.

I've noticed some builds on the forum that don't use any weapon master perks in order to gain others instead.

??

[Pringles™]

If you use weapons, you would logically want all the bonuses you can get for that weapon of yours, right? The lowered fatigue penalty can allow you to dish out more strikes than you could without the perk, before you run outta stamina and become a punching bag clad in mail. Also they introduce these little mechanics, like bonuses to spearwalls or secondary skills in general, so I really like those effects. Would not trade them for some other perk that just gives some small bonus instead.

But they arent incredibly must-have either. You can perfectly win fights without the little bonuses they give. I really like them personally though, dont see why someone would want to avoid them, although there are some good perks out there instead of them, as well.

[WastedTrojan]

Its not essential, just really nice to have. If I have somebody that has really high fatigue and weapon skill already, he probably wont need the weapon mastery to use anything that I give him.

[Guurt]

I tend to hold off on weapon mastery until I am positive what weapon I want that brother to use.

Most of the time it doesn't matter too much if I hold off. However, the exceptions are with daggers and spears.

Dagger and Spear mastery make a huge difference early on. The same could be argued with Flails (if you want to use head shots to get armor) or if you want a mace brother to do lots of stuns.

I really like daggers and flails. I find dedicated dagger and flail brothers as early as possible can really help with getting good armor.

In my most recent game one of my first brawler I hired was ripe for daggers and he has used daggers for the entire game (all of my brothers carry daggers of coarse), but I bought him the rondel dagger during the first couple of weeks for 600 coin or so. Well worth it. He is now my dedicated bandit leader killer.

[DuckAndCower]

Any advice for how to build a dagger user?

[Horoai]

I think sword mastery is not mandatory and neither is axe mastery or the one for polearms.

[The Iron Duke]

The fatigue benefits alone make weapon mastery worth it. The only one I might consider skipping is pole-arm mastery, unless you get a war-scythe for the character.

Though there is something to be said for a bags and belts w/quickhands type character that pulls out whatever weapon is appropriate for the situation. This was actually my favorite build in early EA, before they nerfed bags and belts.

You have to probably have an iron lungs character, or extremely high fatigue to go that route in this version though.

[Guurt]

Originally posted by DuckAndCower:

Any advice for how to build a dagger user?

There are two ways to go, in my opinion.

The one I am using now is all about initiative. He actually goes before my archers in most rounds.

So I can move him into position, take a shot or two, and then be guaranteed to take 3 more shots at the beginning of the next round before the enemy can react. A lot of times I just use Stab as it doesn't waste much fatigue and I can lay down 3 levels of Overwhelm that way and maintain my Dodge. When I feel it is safe to waste my fatigue then I will use 3 Punctures or some combination.

So with him I use Dodge, Dagger Mastery, Pathfinder, Footwork (in case he needs to get out), Overwhelm. I also took Brawny so I could try to have somewhat decent armor.

He started with 3 stars in initiative and I took a lot of it (which is easy getting 5 or 6 per level up). I didn't put much into melee or ranged defense and at this point he uses a shield and relies on Overwhelm... getting 30% if need be.

I have his melee skill at 70, which seems to work okay, but would work even better higher.

I will probably take Recover and maybe Duelist and Fearsome.

Maybe Nimble, but not sure as that may limit my armor choices too much. The thing is that Brawny and a high initiative and the lack of dagger weight makes it possible to maintain a great Dodge bonus with pretty heavy armor. Nimble is all about the armor, and there is no reason for him to be a paper tiger.

He can also move forward one, take one shot, and then use Footwork to backup. In certain situations this is useful.

Also, he is amazing against Geist. As he can move 3 and take 1 shot, which gives him a lot of versatility that the other brothers don't have.

At some point he may not be able to keep up, but we will see. He can always lay down 3 Overwhelm which can be very useful for crippling a heavy hitter.

The Other way to go would be all fatigue. Don't use Overwhelm, have strong armor, and use Recover and Puncture to really lay down the hurt. The dagger weighs nothing so that helps with fatigue.

Honestly, I think the dagger brother is really great. And a lot of fun to have something totally different to play with.

With that said, I will give him a spear for spearwall against Skeletons and some other targets that Puncture isn't going to be useful on.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by The Iron Duke:

The fatigue benefits alone make weapon mastery worth it.

Not really. -2 fatigue per attack is peanuts.

[The Iron Duke]

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Originally posted by The Iron Duke:

The fatigue benefits alone make weapon mastery worth it.

Not really. -2 fatigue per attack is peanuts.

Most of the masteries it's higher than that. And that's each attack, over the course of the battle. It's like giving your mercenary Iron Lungs.

[MYSTIC]

If you want to use splits and swings or anyting other than primary attack, you definitely should take mastery.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by The Iron Duke:

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Not really. -2 fatigue per attack is peanuts.

Most of the masteries it's higher than that. And that's each attack, over the course of the battle. It's like giving your mercenary Iron Lungs.

Hammer ----------- 14->11
Spear --------------- 10->8
Sword -------------- 10->8
Cleaver ------------ 12->9
Axe ----------------- 13->10
Pikes -------------- 15->12
etc...

Sometimes it's 2, sometimes it's 3. Considering perks like gifted, brawny or nimble can get you 15 max fatigue (and more) it takes 5-8 turns to break even. Not many battles last that long in my experience.

No, the fatigue reduction is necessary if you use orc weapons, for duelists with berserk or when you plan on using you secondary attack a lot (but then you get the mastery anyway) but on everything else it is just "nice to have" and completely outshined by other perks.

Mercs that won't use their secondary attack very often can easily skip the mastery, that is especially true for longaxes and polearms (except warscythe).

[Mandarga]

What kind of Merc wouldn't use his secondary attack? Two handers use it a lot, hammerers too, the only purpose of the mace is to stun, dagger mastery is a must if you plan on using it, bow and crossbow are must haves, the only ones I wouldn't take are polearms (except for the warscythe which is incredible) and flails. I don't use one handed swords, the 10 of bleeding for cleavers is nice too. Really, what kind of merc doesn't use the secondary attack?

[MYSTIC]

Originally posted by Asmarth/Mandarga:

What kind of Merc wouldn't use his secondary attack? Two handers use it a lot, hammerers too, the only purpose of the mace is to stun, dagger mastery is a must if you plan on using it, bow and crossbow are must haves, the only ones I wouldn't take are polearms (except for the warscythe which is incredible) and flails. I don't use one handed swords, the 10 of bleeding for cleavers is nice too. Really, what kind of merc doesn't use the secondary attack?

Maybe it's skippable on fighting axe duelist with high melee skill (so no need to break shields) or taunt tank builds.

[The Iron Duke]

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Originally posted by The Iron Duke:

Most of the masteries it's higher than that. And that's each attack, over the course of the battle. It's like giving your mercenary Iron Lungs.

Hammer ----------- 14->11
Spear --------------- 10->8
Sword -------------- 10->8
Cleaver ------------ 12->9
Axe ----------------- 13->10
Pikes -------------- 15->12
etc...

Sometimes it's 2, sometimes it's 3. Considering perks like gifted, brawny or nimble can get you 15 max fatigue (and more) it takes 5-8 turns to break even. Not many battles last that long in my experience.

No, the fatigue reduction is necessary if you use orc weapons, for duelists with berserk or when you plan on using you secondary attack a lot (but then you get the mastery anyway) but on everything else it is just "nice to have" and completely outshined by other perks.

Mercs that won't use their secondary attack very often can easily skip the mastery, that is especially true for longaxes and polearms (except warscythe).

I assume you would attack twice most turns, maybe even 3 if you get berserk.. Two attacks it's 4-6 each turn, three that is 6-9. A 30 fatigue split or swing turns into 23.

Also, if you factor in that you recovery 15 fatigue on a normal character each turn, if you take sword mastery that means you are spending 16 fatigue in a round of two swings, and getting 15 losing only one fatigue (plus any spent on defense) vs losing 5 plus what is spent on defense.

Gifted gets you 4 fatigue total, you can't even compare that savings to what weapon mastery gives you.

I would take brawny as well as weapon mastery, it's definitely not an either/or perk, both are part of almost all my builds.

Nimble doesn't give you any fatigue. It gives you a little more safety when wearing lighter armors (which take less fatigue), but this is an apples to orange comparison.

As far as your last point, I said polearm, unless warscythe, is the one mastery I would normally skip. If you are just using Longaxe for primary attack, then this would be another spot you could skip it as you said, however I think if you had a dedicated longaxe you would be using it to bust shields, in which case you would want it again.

[Engi18]

.