gladiator origin builds

[Tephros83]

Hey, I recently started a gladiator origin and have thought a bit about what role each should play.


The game seems to push towards the viper being a dagger duelist, but his ability and stats seem better suited to endgame swordlancer to me. Why? Getting 1 extra ap synergizes better with the 5 ap attack of polearms, because you'll have berserk, so now with a swordlance you can do a berserk-recover with your primary weapon. It also allows at least 3 aoe attacks with at least 1 kill on the first 2 attacks. Also, getting 1 ap per kill seems better for aoe, assuming it can proc multiple times if killing more than one at once? The viper's hp isn't great for frontline nimble, though defense can be solid, and his starting init isn't very good either, which is against using daggers. Still, it's tempting to make him dagger though given you start with the quatal.

The bear - he's going to have to be a nimble, indomitable dodge tank I think. His lack of talent in melee defense makes me unsure if he'll amount to anything, but at least an extra damage reducer means it takes a lot of hits to take him down. He could really use deathwish trait for ancient undead.

The lion, his resolve trait makes him good for being surrounded, so he should be on the front flank and either greatsword, 2h hammer, or 2h axe... probably 2h hammer as that's a harder role to fill otherwise.

Your thoughts?

[turtle225]

I made my Viper a Qatal duelist as he was awesome, but you are correct in that his unique trait isn't really doing much in that role. It does feel like a waste of the trait, but Qatal Duelists are fun.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2223289524

I made my Lion a Lone Wolf Duelist Sword. He was awesome. His trait makes it so that you can get away with LW without pumping Resolve which is fun.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2216875803

I made my Bear a balanced tank with a 1H Mace to setup Stuns for the Viper, or to just spam Indom. I went NimbleForge for fun even though I never found great armor for it. Indom + the Bear's trait stacks very well.

I don't have a picture for him.

[JCSato]

Just chiming in that, last I checked, Fearsome ignores Deathwish.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by turtle225:

I made my Viper a Qatal duelist as he was awesome, but you are correct in that his unique trait isn't really doing much in that role. It does feel like a waste of the trait, but Qatal Duelists are fun.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2223289524

I made my Lion a Lone Wolf Duelist Sword. He was awesome. His trait makes it so that you can get away with LW without pumping Resolve which is fun.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2216875803

I made my Bear a balanced tank with a 1H Mace to setup Stuns for the Viper, or to just spam Indom. I went NimbleForge for fun even though I never found great armor for it. Indom + the Bear's trait stacks very well.

I don't have a picture for him.

Yeah lone wolf makes sense for that trait. I don't get the adrenaline over sword mastery though. Seems like it'd be nice to get surrounded and riposte them to death.

Originally posted by JCSato:

Just chiming in that, last I checked, Fearsome ignores Deathwish.

Well that would make the trait not that great then. Just from experience or the code says that?

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Tephros83:

Yeah lone wolf makes sense for that trait. I don't get the adrenaline over sword mastery though. Seems like it'd be nice to get surrounded and riposte them to death.

I don't like Riposte very much. I don't really want to be surrounded. Generally he was fighting no more than 3 enemies at a time. Ancient Dead were the only faction that aggressively wanted to gank him, and I didn't try to LW against them unless I was going for a distraction tank where I wouldn't be able to sustain Riposte anyway without Recover.

Adrenaline lets him avoid things like Nomad sand or dive into backlines, or attack a few times and then pull the shield up at the start of a turn if I think he's in trouble.

Since playing Gladiators I've tried different Lone Wolf setups and I like having Dodge+Relentless instead of Adrenaline as it achieves a similar purpose while giving a bunch of defense that gets further multiplied by Lone Wolf.

On this bro I also tried Resilient because I was afraid of Shaman Flies, but it never came up. It was nice against Hexe but I've dropped it for other stuff on later Lone Wolf bros I've tried.

His build is kind of weird, so plenty you could change to make some kind of Lone Wolf build to your preference if you wanted to try that route with him.

[Hairy Coo]

Originally posted by JCSato:

Just chiming in that, last I checked, Fearsome ignores Deathwish.

Deathblow you mean? He probably uses it for basic attack together with Overwhelm? If its Deathblow candidate, he is probably going down regardless of morale break.

[JCSato]

Originally posted by Tephros83:

Originally posted by JCSato:

Just chiming in that, last I checked, Fearsome ignores Deathwish.

Well that would make the trait not that great then. Just from experience or the code says that?

From the code.

Originally posted by Hairy Coo:

Originally posted by JCSato:

Just chiming in that, last I checked, Fearsome ignores Deathwish.

Deathblow you mean? He probably uses it for basic attack together with Overwhelm? If its Deathblow candidate, he is probably going down regardless of morale break.

No, Deathwish, the trait. I was responding to this.

He could really use deathwish trait for ancient undead.

[Tephros83]

Does anybody know the answer to the other question? Does the +1ap trait proc multiple times at once if you kill more than 1 enemy with one move?

Also this discussion reminds me, how does fearsome work from undead who have unbreakable resolve? Would be nice to get an idea of how high resolve needs to be on nimble guys who face ancient undead, or if I should even have nimble guys on the front line vs ancient undead.

[suejak]

We've always said that you get multiple AP back from killing multiple things in one skill use, but I can't remember any specific examples offhand that weren't potentially explained by the 5 AP gain from Berserk+killing one thing. So I think it works, but I can't remember any specific evidence of it working. Not too helpful, sorry.

Curious to hear from somebody who's made 2h hammer, 2h sword, or roundswing Viper where this worked out

As for how Fearsome works from Ancient Dead (if I understand you correctly), all skellingtons were given specific resolve levels in this DLC to work with new Fearsome: https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Dead

I haven't heard of anybody trying to pin down exactly how much resolve you'd need to minimize spook chances versus the various skellington types, though. (Are people finding them more difficult this DLC? Their AI was buffed too...)

As for Viper, he is the protagonist of Battle Brothers and also he is my boyfriend. I love that trait. I agree that swordlance is the most devastating build, although I always go Overwhelm on that, even if fatigue is given preference over initiative. I think 2/3 swings of Overwhelm AOE is just too good. Also great with mushrooms.

I don't follow how qatal doesn't synergize with the trait, though. A kill and Berserk proc will give you 5 AP. Another kill will give you 6. That's 2 extra attacks -- a total of 5 in one turn. Of course, you would have to proc the 5 AP on the second or third blow for this to work, and then you'd have to kill something else -- a tall order, but qatal is one of the strongest weapons in the game, so maybe not so tall ;)

To give this some context via comparison, 5 Duelist Deathblows in a single turn would be the equivalent of 5 winged mace Duelist swings in a single turn. That's a lot of death.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by suejak:

We've always said that you get multiple AP back from killing multiple things in one skill use, but I can't remember any specific examples offhand that weren't potentially explained by the 5 AP gain from Berserk+killing one thing. So I think it works, but I can't remember any specific evidence of it working. Not too helpful, sorry.

Curious to hear from somebody who's made 2h hammer, 2h sword, or roundswing Viper where this worked out

As for how Fearsome works from Ancient Dead (if I understand you correctly), all skellingtons were given specific resolve levels in this DLC to work with new Fearsome: https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Dead

I haven't heard of anybody trying to pin down exactly how much resolve you'd need to minimize spook chances versus the various skellington types, though. (Are people finding them more difficult this DLC? Their AI was buffed too...)

As for Viper, he is the protagonist of Battle Brothers and also he is my boyfriend. I love that trait. I agree that swordlance is the most devastating build, although I always go Overwhelm on that, even if fatigue is given preference over initiative. I think 2/3 swings of Overwhelm AOE is just too good. Also great with mushrooms.

I don't follow how qatal doesn't synergize with the trait, though. A kill and Berserk proc will give you 5 AP. Another kill will give you 6. That's 2 extra attacks -- a total of 5 in one turn. Of course, you would have to proc the 5 AP on the second or third blow for this to work, and then you'd have to kill something else -- a tall order, but qatal is one of the strongest weapons in the game, so maybe not so tall ;)

To give this some context via comparison, 5 Duelist Deathblows in a single turn would be the equivalent of 5 winged mace Duelist swings in a single turn. That's a lot of death.

I have nothing against the dagger but I meant to say the viper trait is more powerful on a swordlance.

With a dagger if you kill on the first attack, the trait is wasted. If you kill on both the 2nd and 3rd attacks, you get one extra attack vs berserk alone. That's pretty specific so will get less potent use than the uses of swordlance I mentioned, particularly if swordlance can get multiple procs on one attack but even if not. The issue with 3 swordlance aoe's is fatigue, but berserk recover with a polearm attack is the solution.

[flameDjinn]

Originally posted by turtle225:

I made my Viper a Qatal duelist as he was awesome
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2223289524

A little offtopic.
Can you say something about fearsome? Is there any benefit from it?
Also i see, he has no recover. Does he feel good without it?

I also have a qatal duelist, and now i am thinking about dropping recover for fearsome. Because i almost never need it, or i just don't notice it.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by felix:

Originally posted by turtle225:

I made my Viper a Qatal duelist as he was awesome
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2223289524

A little offtopic.
Can you say something about fearsome? Is there any benefit from it?
Also i see, he has no recover. Does he feel good without it?

I also have a qatal duelist, and now i am thinking about dropping recover for fearsome. Because i almost never need it, or i just don't notice it.

I almost never felt like he needed Recover, and I thought Fearsome was great on him. 3 attacks + Overwhelm + Fearsome is ridiculous in 1v1. Felt especially good in the arena.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Originally posted by felix:

A little offtopic.
Can you say something about fearsome? Is there any benefit from it?
Also i see, he has no recover. Does he feel good without it?

I also have a qatal duelist, and now i am thinking about dropping recover for fearsome. Because i almost never need it, or i just don't notice it.

I almost never felt like he needed Recover, and I thought Fearsome was great on him. 3 attacks + Overwhelm + Fearsome is ridiculous in 1v1. Felt especially good in the arena.

Not using berserk would certainly reduce the need for recover. But skipping berserk also seems odd to me.

[Tephros83]

As cheap as it is, I find myself wanting to use the bear to dance around an enemy with a whip to build up the buff, ha..

[Unislash]

I personally have a lot of experience with the swordlance viper build. It's amazing guys. Yes, he does get the additional AP from killing multiples with one swing. Not only is it great for damage, it's also an excellent pair with recover as you can reap with a polarm, and if you get one kill, go straight into recover. Or, if the stars align, you can reap 4 times for a total of 10-12 kills in a single turn. More commonly it's 4-5 kills a turn, but the reach he has keeps that quite consistent. The amount of value you can get out of the build is pretty crazy.

Additionally, the viper's stars make him very effective in the front-line. This is very valuable against southern armies where you truly need to deal with their backline firepower. Polearm viper doesn't care if there's a shieldwall in front of them--he just keeps on reaping past it.

In my current playthrough, Jabir the Viper is pretty much a one man army. He has a third of the kills in every battle. I mentally split the enemy line in half--the top half is Jabir's half, and the bottom half is everyone else's. Even before veteran levels, he was always the key to winning a battle.

If you haven't tried it yet, you should give it a go. It's fun as heck.

http://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=Swordlance+Viper&perks=hgYAAhii&stats=003070104042106068040017005&stars=00032020&gear=EYEoCiDzAAAABbAGAAAA

In roster screen: https://i.imgur.com/iRwiryN.png
Jabir's stats: https://i.imgur.com/JZgt6TG.png