Are whips really THAT useful?!

[Lampros]

It seems to me that every Youtube video I see seems to have at least one whip specialist for disarm. Have they become the new meta while I was not playing the past year? How useful are they really - and are there any encounters where they are necessary?

[Estieukua]

Well, Disarm is obviously useful, since it's tantamount to a stun but with a 3-tile radius. Why use 23 fatigue (with a weapon with a -14 fatigue penalty) to stun enemies within a 2-tile radius, when you can use 19 fatigue (with a weapon with a -6 fatigue penalty) to disarm enemies within a 3-tile radius? You don't even need to move into range of enemy pole weapons to effectively cancel their turn.

Whips are also great for finishing off any enemy within a 3-tile radius and then Recovering with the Berserk APs.

[laveley]

Specialist or hybrid?

I dont like whipping specialist. But having a whip in your pocket with your hybrids for eventual CC is wel worth the cleaver mastery perk in an otherwise common hybrid build.

[Hykal]

Every polearm bro gets a whip and cleaver mastery. A dedicated cleaver has QH and whip, even on the frontline.

Why wouldn't you use whip? It's basically a better net except it can be applied to enemies that use weapons.

The whip damage isn't half bad either. You can use the normal whip attack to kill gravely hurt enemies from a distance.

Lastly, they're amazing at killing geists.

[nightworg]

Originally posted by Lampros:

It seems to me that every Youtube video I see seems to have at least one whip specialist for disarm. Have they become the new meta while I was not playing the past year? How useful are they really - and are there any encounters where they are necessary?

Yes they are very useful on strong enemies with deadly weapons. Knight with axe and Orc's with mansplitter.

You can stun human but not orcs for instance, so you are left with no tools other than prey he don't land his hit, if he gets in melee contact. They are still pretty good against geist and alps also. I find them very useful.

[Estieukua]

With double-grip, and applying 4 stacks of 10 bleeding from 2 long-range hits, a whip can do as much as 114 HP damage to a large naked enemy (e.g. an unhold). Against a naked, non-Resilient enemy (e.g. a giant nachzehrer), 8 stacks of 10 bleeding would be applied over 2 turns, and the total max HP damage from 2 hits on a single turn would be 154 (better than the max damage from non-cleaver 2H weapons).

[Heron]

I build at least two whip polearm hybrids in every run. Bonus points if they have the fatigue to run a 2h scimitar on top of this. Extra bonus points if they come with good mdef: You now have a dedicated backline frontliner with reach 3 CC and kickass damage from any distance.

[bulbatrs]

it's a questionable weapon that is mostly usefull against orks and some humans. nobody mentions here, but it has -25% chance to hit with a disarm making it bad against southern troops and anybody with high melee def. is it the best use of very high melee skill bro to just waste all of hist turn doing close to 0 damage and disarm on 1 opponent? sometimes there are key enemies that it's great against, but weak most of the time
out of all the beasts it's only ok against nachz and very rarerly good to finish off opponents as it requires them having 0 armor

[Heron]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

it's a questionable weapon that is mostly usefull against orks and some humans. nobody mentions here, but it has -25% chance to hit with a disarm

Cleaver mastery cancels that penalty. Voilà, normal hit chance. Now you're ready to disarm that annoying gunner. Or just use your billhook or any other 2 tile weapon of your choice.

[Hykal]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

is it the best use of very high melee skill bro to just waste all of hist turn doing close to 0 damage and disarm on 1 opponent?

I can't kill that Orc Champion in one turn. I can disarm him.

Yes, it is extremely worth it.

[jpinard]

Originally posted by Hykal:

Every polearm bro gets a whip and cleaver mastery. A dedicated cleaver has QH and whip, even on the frontline.

Why wouldn't you use whip? It's basically a better net except it can be applied to enemies that use weapons.

The whip damage isn't half bad either. You can use the normal whip attack to kill gravely hurt enemies from a distance.

Lastly, they're amazing at killing geists.

What does your perk build look like? And what do you keep in your pockets?

[Hykal]

Originally posted by jpinard:

What does your perk build look like? And what do you keep in your pockets?

There are two types of bros that use whips: frontline cleaver bros and polearm bros.

The frontline cleaver is basically a 2hander using the barbarian cleavers or the new 2h saifs in the south. He uses Quick Hands to switch to his whip. The cleaver bro can stand in front of a zombie horde to decapitate wiedergangers and whip geists.

The polearm bro has both polearm mastery and cleaver mastery, for the sole purpose of using whip. Any bro with high MAtk but low Mdef stays in the back to bonk heads and disarm hedge knights. He may carry a shield in tougher fights.

If the bro has high RAtk he keeps a bow, a crossbow. He gets a gun if he has high stats in Resolve alongside Overwhelm. Poleam bros usually have good enough MAtk not to use Backstabber. He usually has Bags and Belts and may carry a sword. He carries two nets when fighting Lindwurms.

They're not complex builds by any means, you just need to have good MAtk.

[laveley]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

it's a questionable weapon that is mostly usefull against orks and some humans. nobody mentions here, but it has -25% chance to hit with a disarm making it bad against southern troops and anybody with high melee def. is it the best use of very high melee skill bro to just waste all of hist turn doing close to 0 damage and disarm on 1 opponent? sometimes there are key enemies that it's great against, but weak most of the time
out of all the beasts it's only ok against nachz and very rarerly good to finish off opponents as it requires them having 0 armor

No penalty with the mastery perk.

As for the other points; thats why you use it on hybrids, you will only use the whip at situations it is great to use it, and they arent that rare as it seems. One perk for another useful tool is a great tradeoff, no reason not to use it.

In fact, whip is just another tool for hybrids, i wouldn't call them whippers at all.

Thats why i questioned the OP if he was talking about hibryds or specialists.

I think the last time i saw a whipper specialist was before the nerf to disarm AP cost.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Estieukua:

Well, Disarm is obviously useful, since it's tantamount to a stun but with a 3-tile radius. Why use 23 fatigue (with a weapon with a -14 fatigue penalty) to stun enemies within a 2-tile radius, when you can use 19 fatigue (with a weapon with a -6 fatigue penalty) to disarm enemies within a 3-tile radius? You don't even need to move into range of enemy pole weapons to effectively cancel their turn.

Whips are also great for finishing off any enemy within a 3-tile radius and then Recovering with the Berserk APs.

Got it. Would one use it with a shield? (That would look aesthetically stupid.) What would a build using whips be ordinarily?

Originally posted by laveley:

Specialist or hybrid?

I dont like whipping specialist. But having a whip in your pocket with your hybrids for eventual CC is wel worth the cleaver mastery perk in an otherwise common hybrid build.

It seems like the videos I've seen had the whipper also armed with reach weapons. So hybrid, I guess.

Originally posted by Hykal:

Every polearm bro gets a whip and cleaver mastery. A dedicated cleaver has QH and whip, even on the frontline.

Why wouldn't you use whip? It's basically a better net except it can be applied to enemies that use weapons.

The whip damage isn't half bad either. You can use the normal whip attack to kill gravely hurt enemies from a distance.

Lastly, they're amazing at killing geists.

I guess my resistance for me was aesthetics/role-play.

Originally posted by nightworg:

Yes they are very useful on strong enemies with deadly weapons. Knight with axe and Orc's with mansplitter.

You can stun human but not orcs for instance, so you are left with no tools other than prey he don't land his hit, if he gets in melee contact. They are still pretty good against geist and alps also. I find them very useful.

Yes, I saw Youtubers use it consistently against Berserkers and Warlords.

Originally posted by Heron:

I build at least two whip polearm hybrids in every run. Bonus points if they have the fatigue to run a 2h scimitar on top of this. Extra bonus points if they come with good mdef: You now have a dedicated backline frontliner with reach 3 CC and kickass damage from any distance.

Yeah, I guess I think I will experiment with one guy, since it seems like the meta now, and I don't want to be too sub-optimal! ;)

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

it's a questionable weapon that is mostly usefull against orks and some humans. nobody mentions here, but it has -25% chance to hit with a disarm making it bad against southern troops and anybody with high melee def. is it the best use of very high melee skill bro to just waste all of hist turn doing close to 0 damage and disarm on 1 opponent? sometimes there are key enemies that it's great against, but weak most of the time
out of all the beasts it's only ok against nachz and very rarerly good to finish off opponents as it requires them having 0 armor

Thanks for the counterpoint!

[Hykal]

Yes you can use it with a shield.

I actually disagree they're weak against most enemies. They're good against wolves, hyenas, goblins, literally any humanoid enemy (humans of all kinds, orcs, undead) and can even do go against Unholds who have their armor stripped. They're horrible against ifrits, armored unholds and lindwurms. So they're basically good against 90% of enemies.

And because whips fall under cleavers, you can use cleavers too. As lavaley said, the disarm debuff is gone if you have Cleaver Mastery.

Yes, you can roleplay a Belmont legitimately. It's great.

[laveley]

Whips are also great against iljirok and lindwurms.