Nimble vs. battle forged?

[ChemicalBacon]

When should I use nimble? I have seen some people swear by nimble being better than BF for most units but if I was to make a nimble character what stats should I look out for/prioritise?

Furthermore, how does nimble fit into the roster and what weapons/armour should a nimble unit use?

[turtle225]

In the early game imo 80+% of your units should go Nimble. There's two main reasons for this. Reason 1 is that going Colossus and pumping hp early makes the early game easier. Reason 2 is that getting 300/300+ armor takes a long time, especially for many bros, and Nimble will outperform low Forge easily, especially Raider tier Forge. Not having to spend money on heavy armor means you have more money to spend on weapons, recruiting, or famed items.

For Nimble stats you want as much hp as possible. 120+ is ideal, 100 is still decent, 80 is kind of sketchy if you intend to be tanking, but it can still work if you are careful. So you tend to favor hp, Skill, and Defense on level with an occasional Resolve and maybe Fatigue. You can use whatever weapon you want.

For armor you generally want to stick to whatever costs 15 total fatigue (head/body) to wear. If you have only 80 hp then going a bit heavier is recommended if you don't mind the fatigue loss. If you have 120 hp then definitely stick to -15 fat armor.

[Estieukua]

Indomitable, with Nimble and Battle Forged as mere options for those with an appropriate level of armour :-).

But I've seen this conversation so many times. The calculations are always based on the assumption that you'll just let your merc stand passively to be hit repeatedly with an average damage roll from an average weapon. Apparently, BF allows you to be hit slightly more often by the typical attack than Nimble. But I'm not very interested by that.

What does interest me is that BF sucks worse than Nimble against devastating attacks from many tough enemies. For example:

- orc warriors with axes can take away a lot of armour in a short space of time (BF or not), and head-hits do 200% damage to HPs;

- orc warlords/berserkers with mansplitters, and barbarians and hedge knights and leaders with greataxes, can easily inflict injuries in 1 hit through heavy BF armour;

- unholds, schrats and lindwurms can quickly inflict injuries through heavy BF armour, especially if they catch the head;

- little-♥♥♥♥ goblin ambushers have a secret perk that transforms 5% Puncture attacks into 95% Puncture attacks;

- big-♥♥♥♥ goblin overseers have a secret perk that allows them to shoot the heavily armoured opponent of their choice in the face in the first round of combat, and other crossbow-bearing enemies can easily inflict injuries through heavy BF armour on head-hits.

Against such attacks, Nimble is better at preventing injuries during the initial onslaught. And, in the face of such troubles, my intention is never to stand around to be hit again but to do something in reaction against the predicament (e.g. escape from trouble with Footwork/Rotation, tank damage with Indomitable, kill/injure/demoralize threatening foes before they get the chance to do further damage, and/or debuff them in various other ways etc.).

BF is slightly better against average enemies, but you can easily beat those enemies without either perk.

And, while Nimble is better at preventing immediate injuries against high ignore-armour attacks from dangerous enemies, it's boring (and even sub-optimal as well) to just keep standing about to be hit again and again. Increasing HPs at every level (and ignoring fatigue and/or resolve) is only mathematically "optimal" if you plan to stand in the same spot to be hit repeatedly. If you want to react to tight situations with high-fatigue skills and/or by making use of alternate 2H weapons, fatigue is still very important (as is resolve if you don't want to cheese through geist/priest/warlord/witch fights with an OP cultist-sarge).

Indomitable makes you Nimble and BF at the same time, and allows you to wear whatever armour is most fitting for the occasion. It has high fatigue requirements for continual/cyclic use (easier to meet in Nimble-ish armour), but you can avoid having to keep Indomitable active all the time (which gets monotonous and formulaic) if you make use of other tools for getting through tight situations.

Additional Fur Padding (AFP) reduces the base ignore-armour % of enemy weapons by 33% (i.e. mastered crossbows do 37% ignore-armour damage instead of 70%, and hammers do 17% ignore-armour damage instead of 50%) and thus reduces damage through body-armour about as effectively as Nimble - but without requiring you to be in light bandit gear. Heavy body-armour with AFP is brilliant at preventing enemy access to HPs. The addition of Steel Brow (and/or the situational use of Indomitable) provides additional assurance against head-hits.

2H maces and the daze effect make you 70% Indomitable (in regard to incoming damage from the dazed enemy) and can spare you from needing to use Indomitable or other high-fatigue skills to avert peril. Rather than putting mercs in heavier armour with BF, I generally prefer to give them Quick Hands and a 2H mace for situational use, while still having lots of fatigue free to use on interesting skills.

Adrenaline and/or net-throwing and/or daze/stun/stagger effects are all great for allowing lots of your mercs to gain consecutive attacks to neutralize/debilitate/slaughter threatening foes before they get the chance to do harm.

In addition to that, Disarm with whips (and/or Overwhelm with light ranged troops) is great for neutralizing threatening foes.

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by Estieukua:

<snip>

Thanks, this was a long read but the part about hidden perks makes a lot of sense as to how goblins can just bleed me to death or how my pikeman almost got 1 shot by an overseer when he had 80 hp and 240 head armour.
I've always gone the dodge --> heavyweight --> BF route but this time i'll try something a bit differant and play around with it a little

[suejak]

Haha, the hidden perks thing was a joke. Goblins don't actually have those perks. They have perks like Crippling Strikes and weapon mastery, though. (IDK, maybe you got the joke.)

I am a little too sleep-deprived for a long response, but the more interesting point, I think, is that basically 90% of bros you find in a normal, vanilla, ironman-ish, E/E/L game of Battle Brothers are now viable. In 2017 it was all fatigue and big armour (the meta, at least), but in 2019 you can leverage almost every single bro's unique qualities to build a viable, coherent company that clears crises. I think the Nimble redesign was the biggest reason for this. Now, bros who used to be impossible garbage can take Colossus, then Nimble, and be pretty good. Surely not optimal (whatever that means), but good enough to beat the game and get the "You won" message. Bros specialized for HP become very durable Nimblers who can wear very light armour, freeing up tons of fatigue, and these bros are arguably stronger than even the best BF bro in some situations. But even bros who are not specialized for HP can reach 100ish HP relatively easily and be durable enough, especially if they have great defense.

This means that if you play the game as an ironman permadeath roguelike with tight finances (and, like me, you're too busy saving money for cool stuff to roll a bunch of new bros hunting for stars), you can forge a viable company of 12 unique builds, each playing a different role in the constellation that is your party.

Actually, my current company is almost entirely nimblers. Half of them have Dodge and only half again of those have Relentless. Several (backliners) have Adrenaline. The company theme was "Overwhelm on everybody," but it's ended up being "Overwhelm on half." Inspired by Sarissofoi on the Discord - pretty fun, I recommend it :)

[anaphylactic god]

i think nimble's problem is that it only reduce health damage - barbarian can hit you once for 200 damage and thats it, even if you take no health damage - your armor will be in shambles. And without any armor that 60% damage reduction wont really halp much.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Estieukua:

Additional Fur Padding (AFP) reduces the base ignore-armour % of enemy weapons by 33% (i.e. mastered crossbows do 37% ignore-armour damage instead of 70%, and hammers do 17% ignore-armour damage instead of 50%) and thus reduces damage through body-armour about as effectively as Nimble - but without requiring you to be in light bandit gear. Heavy body-armour with AFP is brilliant at preventing enemy access to HPs. The addition of Steel Brow (and/or the situational use of Indomitable) provides additional assurance against head-hits.

This is incorrect. It does not provide a flat reduction like that. It applies near the end of the damage formula to the piercing damage you would have otherwise taken.

Originally posted by anaphylactic god:

i think nimble's problem is that it only reduce health damage - barbarian can hit you once for 200 damage and thats it, even if you take no health damage - your armor will be in shambles. And without any armor that 60% damage reduction wont really halp much.

You pick an odd example, because Nimble actually survives better against Barbs than Forge does, except against the Cleaver.

[ChemicalBacon]

My late game crisis is looking like war, I'm only on day 81 so I'm expecting it any day now.
With how many enemies have armour destroying hammers and pole hammers I think nimble may be the best choice.

[suejak]

Fun new guide that helps illustrate the billion viable builds now in the game, running the gamut from traditional BF to hardcore Nimble scrapper to wacky Overwhelm warscythe and Relentless stuff:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1790093811

Take a second look at that Juggler, or a third look at that Swordmaster. Lots of stuff you can do in this game :)

(EDIT: Just keep in mind that this guide seems to actually be missing [!] some very viable buillds, like the 120+ HP Nimble frontline melee beast. This guy can be built like a standard BF build, only replacing Brawny/BF with Colossus/Nimble.)

[Estieukua]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Originally posted by Estieukua:

Additional Fur Padding (AFP) reduces the base ignore-armour % of enemy weapons by 33% (i.e. mastered crossbows do 37% ignore-armour damage instead of 70%, and hammers do 17% ignore-armour damage instead of 50%) and thus reduces damage through body-armour about as effectively as Nimble - but without requiring you to be in light bandit gear. Heavy body-armour with AFP is brilliant at preventing enemy access to HPs. The addition of Steel Brow (and/or the situational use of Indomitable) provides additional assurance against head-hits.

This is incorrect. It does not provide a flat reduction like that. It applies near the end of the damage formula to the piercing damage you would have otherwise taken.

You've looked at the actual calculation?

Based on the damage I've observed in battles, it seems to be an initial reduction in the amount of damage ignoring armour from the weapon. However, I explained my deductions incorrectly in my above comment: rather than reducing the attacking weapon ignore-armour % by a flat 33% (i.e. from 50% to 17%), it seems to reduce it by 33% of its base value (i.e. 50% minus one-third = 33% ignore-armour damage from hammers).

However, I just experimented with being hit by the barbarian madman in the Icy Cave, and none of the possibilities seem to add up ...

The barb's cleaver did 60-80 damage (110% vs armour) with 45% ignoring armour. The first hit against my merc (in 150 body-armour with AFP) did 78 armour damage (implying 71 raw damage, of which 45% = 32). 32 (the potential ignore-armour total) minus 10% of remaining armour (7) = 25.

If, as you suggested (and as I always assumed before trying AFP out), the 33% reduction applies to the piercing damage that would otherwise have applied, 25 - 8.3ish = 16.6ish.

My merc was also Nimble and taking 61% of HP damage, and so 16 or 17 x0.61 = 9-11 HP damage (depending if rounded up or down) ... but my merc received only 5 HP damage.

If, as I suggested above in this comment, the 33% reduction applies to the initial weapon piercing %, 45% minus one-third = 30%, and so 71 x0.3 = 21 or so potential ignore-armour damage.

21 - 7 (10% of the remaining armour) = 14, and 14 x0.61 = 9ish (poss rounded down to 8) and still more HP damage than was actually received.

If the 33% reduction actually was flat, 45% - 33 = 12%, and 12% of 71 = 8.5, and 8.5 - 7 = 1.5, and 1.5 x0.61 = 0.9 HP damage (less than taken).

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Estieukua:

Based on the damage I've observed in battles, it seems to be an initial reduction in the amount of damage ignoring armour from the weapon. However, I explained my deductions incorrectly in my above comment: rather than reducing the attacking weapon ignore-armour % by a flat 33% (i.e. from 50% to 17%), it seems to reduce it by 33% of its base value (i.e. 50% minus one-third = 33% ignore-armour damage from hammers).

Yes this is correct.

Originally posted by Estieukua:

You've looked at the actual calculation?

No, unfortunately. I was going off what Abel has said.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1777136225026945777/

AFP note at the very bottom in the comments.

There's a problem that messes up all of your calculations above. The game rolls armor damage and hp damage separately. Therefore you can't know for sure that the guy rolled 71 on hp damage, it could be anywhere between 60-80 despite the armor damage roll.

If I understand Abel's post properly, then Nimble also applies its reduction before remaining armor mitigation, which you had it going last before.

So in a hypothetical roll of 71 hp damage it would go 71 * .45(piercing) *.61(Nimble) *.66(AFP) - 10%armor(7) = 5.86.

If by chance he rolled 66 on his hp damage roll it goes to 4.96 which could be a possible explanation as to what happened, assuming I understand everything properly.

[Estieukua]

Originally posted by turtle225:

If I understand Abel's post properly, then Nimble also applies its reduction before remaining armor mitigation, which you had it going last before.

So in a hypothetical roll of 71 hp damage it would go 71 * .45(piercing) *.61(Nimble) *.66(AFP) - 10%armor(7) = 5.86.

The above by itself potentially explains it, because damage-reduction perks/factors tend to round numbers down to the nearest whole number.

If remaining-armour-mitigation goes last in the calculation (which of course makes sense in hindsight, since it's a subtraction rather than a multiplication), the end result is always the same total that might be rounded down to 5, regardless of the order of Nimble and AFP:

-- 71x0.45=32, 32x0.61=19.5, 19.5x0.66=12.9, 12.9-7.2=5.7, or

-- 45%x0.66=30% and 71x0.3=21.3, 21.3x0.61=12.99, 12.99-7.2=5.79

But yeah, based on the description of AFP (damage through armour reduced by 33%), you think it'll just take the usual damage from an attack (e.g. 24 HP damage from a crossbow bolt despite 170 remaining body-armour) and reduce that by one-third (e.g. 16 HP damage - which still sounds too high to make the mod that appealing). But, because of the 33% reduction being applied before remaining-armour-mitigation, the eventual HP damage from the hypothetical attack ends up being ~10 (only about 40% of what it would've been without AFP, as opposed to 66% of what it would've been without it).

So AFP works great with light-to-medium armour and Nimble and/or Indomitable, or on its own in medium-to-heavy armour (with or without Indomitable and/or Battle Forged). Its description doesn't advertise its true strength.

I think Abel's calculations tracked down a bug that had originally reduced the effectiveness of AFP (i.e. the remaining-armour-mitigation bit was missed out altogether when AFP was on the armour, so that the mod didn't seem to have much effect). Before it was fixed, I'd had mercs with 100 HPs being injured on the first hit from an unhold. After the fix, however, they could get smashed several times in a row and lose less than 10 HPs from each attack.