Berserk chain. Worth it?

[Kligan]

So I have one two-hander bro with man splitter and it's incredible! Damage is insane and heads flying all over the place.
I gave the other berserker chain... And I must say - I'm disappointed by it so far. The damage is "meh", stuns do not proc often enough, and as I do not have many skelletons around in this campaign (in fact, never even fought them, and it's day 62), flails do not seem like the best weapon of choise. The bro is already level 5 and with flail mastery... Is it worth trying to develop him further? I mean, if I get to berserk, what difference will it make? Man splitter can one-shot an enemy and instantly give you +4ap. Berserk chain needs 2-3 swings to kill someone.
It's probably gonna be better with head hunter... I'm not even sure now.

[gnorf73]

Depends on the stats of the bro with the chain. But what are you doing swinging orc weapons at level 5?? They take up too much fatigue to be efficient on low level bros. Other than that though, the beserker chain can be extremely deadly just like the mansplitter. It's just more of an AOE while the mansplitter has insane single target damage.

As far as flails in general go.. They are definitely worth while even if it's a regular one handed flail up until late game. Not only are they good for wrapping around undead shields but also bandit shields, and anyone wearing light head gear or none is one or two swings from death.

Anyways, that's just my 2 cents. Good luck.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by gnorf73:

Depends on the stats of the bro with the chain. But what are you doing swinging orc weapons at level 5?? They take up too much fatigue to be efficient on low level bros.

Surprisingly, fatigue is not an issue here. The bro has a star in fatigue and two stars in melee skill (other two stars in resolve, but that became irrelevant once I got my resolve high enough). With 70 melee skill currently, I still roll ♥♥♥♥ dice on hit chance lol. Last battle rolled miss four times on 72% chance to hit.
I'm mostly disappointed with damage of the weapon, as I said earlier. It's pretty low, especially when I see how man splitter bro just one-shots everything.

[Slice]

At 70 ms my bros are still 1h/shield. They don't even look at 2h weapons until they hit 80. That's why he can't hit ♥♥♥♥.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by Slice:

At 70 ms my bros are still 1h/shield. They don't even look at 2h weapons until they hit 80. That's why he can't hit ♥♥♥♥.

I have enough shielded frontline as it is. I need people who can actually kill stuff.

[Slice]

Can't kill what you can't hit. At least give him a greatsword so he has some +hit going for him.

[UR|Dialetheia]

If your bro can use it for more than 2-3 turns - yeah, it might be worth it. Iron Lungs will help. Rushing Melee Skill to ~80 will help even more.

[McGrits]

The wespon needs assistance. Its variable damage is not countered by the inherant increased head shots. It needs a little more headshot love to make it work, and you get this by giving it to a jester or killer-on-the-run. Unfortunately, these bros need good stars in melee to-hit and fatigue for this and not viable for an iron-man game. The other way to make this work is with a brute bros so that headshots truly explode. You can find a good lumberjack or wildman that will meet the fatigue and maybe a melee star, but you will suffer defense and two handers need a great base defense. This leaves sellswords and hedgeknights which is almost a waste for the money since there are better and more consistant weapons for these bros.

The weapon also needs the right kind of opponent. Ancient legion and honor guards and orc warriors are you prime target since there are usually shields to overcome and the protential damage works well. The damage is still too variable, but these are your best targets since others are too hard to hit naturally or do not have a shield and give no to-hit bonus.

A big problem is that a named 1h flail is better when used with double grip. Duelist is not even needed. The only disadvantage to this is the lack of using reach advantage.

It would be hard for any changes to the weapon to increase your own use since the orcs would make any increase to the weapon double. I have a bros with the weapon and he carries both a named 1h flail and shield and the chain with quickhands. I wish I had went the heavy dualist route with him since it would be better damage overall. Hey you need to experiment.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by Kligan:

So I have one two-hander bro with man splitter and it's incredible! Damage is insane and heads flying all over the place.
I gave the other berserker chain... And I must say - I'm disappointed by it so far. The damage is "meh", stuns do not proc often enough, and as I do not have many skelletons around in this campaign (in fact, never even fought them, and it's day 62), flails do not seem like the best weapon of choise. The bro is already level 5 and with flail mastery... Is it worth trying to develop him further? I mean, if I get to berserk, what difference will it make? Man splitter can one-shot an enemy and instantly give you +4ap. Berserk chain needs 2-3 swings to kill someone.
It's probably gonna be better with head hunter... I'm not even sure now.

Definitely worth looting. The merchants seem to think it's valuable. Using? No.

The guy you mentioned. I'd probably make him a heavy armor flail duelist. Fritz says flail duelists are fun, so it might be worth a try. I haven't tried it, but it's what I'd do in that situation. Some people think you need +head chance for it to be worth it, but if you have the fatigue to use a berserker chain you can probably use lash over and over. If survival is a problem consider a shield backup with quick hands and/or bags.

Originally posted by Slice:

At 70 ms my bros are still 1h/shield. They don't even look at 2h weapons until they hit 80. That's why he can't hit ♥♥♥♥.

For me it has more to do with wearing heavy armor. I won't let them use a 2h until they have 200/210 armor (with >70 fatigue) at the earliest. Hitting less reliably I can deal with. Dying not so much. Maybe put him next to a mace user to stun the shield guy.

[Pringles™]

From the little analysis I did, they are both quite deadly weapons, but pretty much reguire Iron Lungs to be really usable in medium to long fights with any of your potential recruits. However, I came to the conclusion that Mansplitter takes the win in that category, it just packs more punch than Chain and is not dependent on RNG stuns to proc.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by Puttiis:

However, I came to the conclusion that Mansplitter takes the win in that category, it just packs more punch than Chain and is not dependent on RNG stuns to proc.

That's pretty much what bothers me the most... When it stuns (rarely) - it's great! But otherwise, man splitter is just so much superior - it hits both head and body, deals tons more damage, and on top of that most kills with it are executions (not that it matters, but it's cool seeing heads flying around).
What I noticed about the chain, however, it adds injuries to almost every hit it lands. I see fractured ribs the most. It adds value to using the chain... slightly. The damage is still disappointing.

[gnorf73]

Originally posted by Kligan:

Originally posted by Puttiis:

However, I came to the conclusion that Mansplitter takes the win in that category, it just packs more punch than Chain and is not dependent on RNG stuns to proc.

That's pretty much what bothers me the most... When it stuns (rarely) - it's great! But otherwise, man splitter is just so much superior - it hits both head and body, deals tons more damage, and on top of that most kills with it are executions (not that it matters, but it's cool seeing heads flying around).
What I noticed about the chain, however, it adds injuries to almost every hit it lands. I see fractured ribs the most. It adds value to using the chain... slightly. The damage is still disappointing.

I'd take that other persons advice and convert him to a flail duelist. Having one of these guys is really nice as I mentioned before anyone with light head armor is gonna get pwned hard. One hit to the head, if it isn't an insta kill, almost always causes a concussion or broken nose and concussions are amazing they're pretty much a non threat after that. They can make some orc fights really easy too since a lot of them have little to no head armor.