Best weapons for late game?

[UnknownHacker]

Currently using 2 hammer bro for my flanks, 1 greatsword/swordlance and 7 axeman with named bardiche/longaxe with quick hands. I use mansplitter or named greataxe for schrat/unholds/orc warlord or targets I need to burst down asap. So I have 3 questions (sorry for asking so much in advance)

1: Greatswords are kinda useless to me at day 500+ right now because the damage is too low against enemies that are even a threat which usually comes with high armor. Do I need to have mace or cleaver bro instead of so many axe users?

2: Against lindwurms I know its safer to just have mammoth stand in front and shieldwall/indom, have the rest just use 2 tile weapons/whip. But if we are talking about best dps melee against that, would bardiche with split hitting tail and head do more total damage(if it even works) than mansplitter's split man on just tail? I am confused about the head and body logic of lindwurms.

3: Is 2h cleaver or 1h cleaver with duelist stronger for late game?

[turtle225]

Originally posted by UnknownHacker:

Currently using 2 hammer bro for my flanks, 1 greatsword/swordlance and 7 axeman with named bardiche/longaxe with quick hands. I use mansplitter or named greataxe for schrat/unholds/orc warlord or targets I need to burst down asap. So I have 3 questions (sorry for asking so much in advance)

1: Greatswords are kinda useless to me at day 500+ right now because the damage is too low against enemies that are even a threat which usually comes with high armor. Do I need to have mace or cleaver bro instead of so many axe users?

2: Against lindwurms I know its safer to just have mammoth stand in front and shieldwall/indom, have the rest just use 2 tile weapons/whip. But if we are talking about best dps melee against that, would bardiche with split hitting tail and head do more total damage(if it even works) than mansplitter's split man on just tail? I am confused about the head and body logic of lindwurms.

3: Is 2h cleaver or 1h cleaver with duelist stronger for late game?

1. On day 500, you are at the point where you can use whatever and probably crush the game. Greatswords aren't useless, they deal less damage than Hammers but have the line AoE for a bit more versatility.

2. A Bardiche using Split into both Head/Tail will outdamage a Mansplitter, but only if armor is stripped from both the Head/Tail. Generally when fighting Lindwurms you tend to focus one body part, and since the armor isn't shared between body parts using Split may just get wasted on the undamaged armor of the other body part. Handgonnes are pretty good against Wurms so if you have some of those that would help with the Bardiche plans. Greatsword would do better than the Bardiche once the armor is down.

3. Duelist Cleaver will often outdamage 2H Cleaver against anything armored due to the higher armor ignoring of Duelist. If the Head Chopper is being considered, then hands down it is easily beating the 2H Cleavers. If that's not on the table, then even the Military Cleaver can still often beat the Rusty Warblade. Famed items also favor Duelist more than 2H, since Duelist is a force multiplier that stacks favorably with famed item damage or armor ignore buffs. You do get a guaranteed famed Rusty Warblade though from the Icy Cave, so there's that.

[UnknownHacker]

1: I was comparing greatsword vs bardiche split. Bardiche split seems to give me more firepower at late game when I am taking on chosen/warlord camps etc. I am actually sometimes torn between deciding whether its better to use greataxe and normal attack chosen or using bardiche to split. Tbh, I find that versatility more often saved my life therefore I used bardiche more than greataxe. But yeah at day 500 nothing can kill me anymore except kraken on some bad rolls (even when doing solo strategy) I am just trying to find a way to improve my team now and give some of my named maces some purpose.

2: Interesting suggestion with the handgonnes, I never tried them before due to bad reviews when I google whether its worth using. I will try them out thanks. I was thinking of trying them when I lured lindwurms to southern army and saw how effective they managed to debuff them. Can you please kindly help provide me with a perk build for that?

3: Thanks for the answer I will try the duelist.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by UnknownHacker:

2: Interesting suggestion with the handgonnes, I never tried them before due to bad reviews when I google whether its worth using. I will try them out thanks. I was thinking of trying them when I lured lindwurms to southern army and saw how effective they managed to debuff them. Can you please kindly help provide me with a perk build for that?

I'm not sure what bad reviews you are seeing, I feel like more people are in the camp of Gonnes being strong to OP rather than being bad.

The only mass debuff potential you have on Wurms is with Overwhelm, which is alright. Fearsome is a pretty standard pick on Gonnes but won't do anything particular against Wurms as even with Fearsome you are rolling on minimum 5% drop chances.

For Handgonne builds in general (and not just for Lindwurms), I would say the "core" is Quick Hands, Xbow, Nimble, and Fearsome.

Then you need an alternative weapon for single targets. So that's Throwing + Duelist, or Polearm (or some other melee spec) if you have good Melee.

So that's 5-6 perks as your base. Rest kind of depends on your personal preferences. I like Pathfinder, so for me that's "core" but I know some don't care for it.

If you want to lean into debuffs, then Overwhelm is nice if your Initiative is reasonable. CS can kind of work, but even with CS you have pretty poor first hit injury consistency against most enemies. You often have to shoot them twice or more.

You can always take damage perks, particularly if you have Throwing as your secondary.

Gifted and Fast Ad can help if you are worried about accuracy or specifically looking for anti-Goblin.

[Estieukua]

2H cleaver vs cleaver duelist:

Duelist has more impact against enemies in medium-to-heavy armour.

2H cleavers have more raw damage and are great against enemies with little armour and loads of HPs (e.g. unholds, schrats, wurms, orc berserkers). They're also great against high-HP enemies that have already lost most of their armour (e.g. fallen heroes, orc warriors/warlords), and for Decapitating anything that's been reanimated.

Duelist with military cleavers still struggles on its own against enemies in especially heavy armour (e.g. orc warriors/warlords). Against such enemies, 2H cleavers have a bit more raw damage and more armour effectiveness, and the barbarian rusty warblade has just enough innate ignore damage to start inflicting bleeds when there's still quite a lot of armour.

Duelist with orc cleavers has more impact than military cleavers and 2H cleavers. Rare orc cleavers with a bonus to raw and/or ignore damage can have more impact than 2H cleavers even without Duelist. The fatigue cost of their basic attack (with mastery) is only 1 higher than that of a 2H cleaver (or might even be the same or lower if a rare one gets -2 or -3 fatigue per skill use).

The downside of standard orc cleavers is that they are a lot heavier to carry and their Decapitate attack always costs more than 15 fatigue. That means you reach a fully fatigued state sooner and then don't have the option of simply decapitating an adjacent enemy that still has a lot of HPs (after which, if you have the perk and Berserk as well, you can use Recover). Orc cleavers still allow you (with Pathfinder) to move 1 tile and use a basic attack on standard terrain, but that's less reliable for finishing blows than Decapitate, and it also means you can't Recover.

The effectiveness of cleavers is relative to the overall composition of your company.

If you have lots of cleaver users versus other weapons, taking Duelist on most of them would be best.

On the other hand, if you have only a couple of cleaver users working in close proximity to users of other weapons that do more armour damage (e.g. hammers, axes, maces), it's almost always the case (once battle is fully joined) that there are several enemies within reach that have already lost quite a bit of armour (or that, in the case of large beasts, are left at around 50% HPs). The natural role of cleaver users in this context (with their 4-AP costs and consequent greater mobility) is to move around finishing those enemies that allies have already rendered killable. In this context, 2H cleavers are mostly as or more effective than Duelist 1H ones, and don't demand an extra perk.

Since cleavers can be more fatiguing than other weapons, it's relevant to note that anyone with Iron Lungs will be fatigue-neutral with a 1H cleaver (always able to use two basic attacks per turn), and will also have a fatigue-neutral Decapitate on any rare orc cleaver that gets -2 or -3 fatigue per skill use. A rare 2H cleaver with -3 fatigue per skill use would also allow endless x2 basic attacks per turn.