Thralls and their "preferred" weapon

[[Ar]Curry]

Most people say, give your thrall a 1H mace and let them go. But I also read something about a thralls "preferred" weapon, mostly on reddit. They should perform absolutely perfect when using this particular weapon. But I'm curious about that rumor. Is that true, have thralls a weapon type they prefer? And how do I know what weapon that is?

[HikariLight]

depends on the stats.
If the have high STR give them a STR weapon.
HIgh AGL, give an AGL weapon.
Fighter, Dancer, Archer, none of that matters with their weapons.

[[Ar]Curry]

I mean the weapon type, not the affinity they have. But if I read you correctly, thralls don't "prefer" let's say, a 1H mace over some daggers? Or a 2H sword? The important thing here is just the affinity?

[Morbid Gamer]

Thralls do light attacks. So best to give them a weapon that has good light attack combo. That's why so many people use momentum.

[[Ar]Curry]

They do heavy attacks too. Not only light attacks. Currently my thrall swings a 1H mace and sometimes it glows blue. This is the heavy attack with hyper armor. Correct me if I'm wrong

[Xevyr]

Originally posted by ArCurry:

Most people say, give your thrall a 1H mace and let them go. But I also read something about a thralls "preferred" weapon, mostly on reddit. They should perform absolutely perfect when using this particular weapon. But I'm curious about that rumor. Is that true, have thralls a weapon type they prefer? And how do I know what weapon that is?

Mainly BS / highly exaggerated :)

Basically where this originates from is the fact that NPCs have a set of pre-defined combos they can perform..
So we're talking combos such as Heavy-light-light-heavy for example...
(Lower tier NPCs have a limited number of hits within a combo - at least they used to, haven't really looked in the last two chapters, so T1 thralls would only perform 2 hits in a row for example, max 3 and never a full 4 hit combo)

Anyway, these internal profiles are named as "weapon presets" for example 1h mace basic / advanced.. 2h sword basic / advanced etc.
They each have several variations of attack chains.

Now firstly, these profiles were named by Funcom (and some of them a very long time ago)... they do NOT actually represent the optimal way to fight with said weapons... and a lot of them are redundant and repeat patterns.. I mean there's only so many 4 item combinations of a sample size of 2 you can have (6.. ) even with the advanced full combo profiles..
The end result is that it's completely negligible... most T4 fighters will have an advanced (4 chain) profile named after a weapon, however they will perform roughly the same when it comes to damage / dps with the same weapon.
Subtle differences you might notice is that some profiles have the special attack in it, while others don't (if you noticed the cannibal brute never did an overhead swing with a 2h sword.. but Thugra did for example.. their DPS equaled out in the end regardless of that)

TLDR: the advice of "just slap the best 1h mace on them you can find (momentum) without any shield or anything" is pretty much valid and the "preferred" weapon thing is mostly speculation originated from people who simply saw these internal profile names, however there can't really be enough difference between them to make a dent :P

[[Ar]Curry]

So, you can say the fighting system is old, if not ancient :D well, at least the mace combo is working pretty well. And thx for always providing us with your expertise, Xevyr

[cattibria]

There were changes to the thrall AI with Chapter 3. Archers now have a decent range, comparable to a player specced out for archery and they do hit their targets. As for fighters, I have not noticed a change in their combat style due to the changes in player combat. I am having to relearn combat due to the changes.

[Athos42]

I am slowly getting tired of thralls with 1-handed maces. Yes, they do combos, but SO often they combo enemies and continue to do so even when the enemy has long moved from that location, dancing around and hitting only air.

Until Age of War hit, I prefered a Two-Handed Sword because of this, the attack pattern was much better to hit faster targets. But know, if things so pretty wrong, two Skeletons with swords can keep your level 20 Thrall in Epic armor and weapons perma-staggered and and knocked down, and I had the same thrall nearly die to a level 2 dancer and a level 1 cook armed with daggers, so I really cannot give you a good advice. One of my thralls runs with a 2-handed hammer (Hannuman's Gadda) and does relatively well because of the burst damage, another uses Feroxic Daggers and does pretty well, too.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Depends on YOUR character tbh. If you wanna go ranged id give em a mace cuz stun. If YOU have a mace than whats the point?

if you're just gonna sit back and watch your thrall fight, sure. go mace because the stun will allow them to get more hits. But if youre actively joining the fight (as you should tbh, good thralls are a pain in the neck to train up) than do whatever works most efficiently for YOUR build and the THRALLS stats.

to me its like the 1 super thrall vs 2 regular thralls w no authority bonus. the whole debate seems to be "which is better for killing" but honestly its a silly debate. The two thralls can stack effects and carry more stuff. the super thrall KEEPS your authority buff, and gets +20 to all stats (picture your lvl 20 bearer thrall with 14K health and add an ADDITIONAL 20 vitality on him).
Its situational for which is better and the majority of it depends on what else the player specced into, what kind of thrall you have, and what you're doing.

So like... yea. did you yeet your points into vitality, carrying capacity, and armor buffs? if so how much is the stun from the mace REALLY helping you in most situations? Get a friggin war axe or something. does he have accuracy for days? why doesn't he have a bow then? is he a high vitality bearer thrall you need to soak up damage while you either shoot arrows or deal damage yourself? sure give him a mace and maybe a shield so he can perform his role even BETTER with that stun.


I seriously feel like everything regarding thrall combat gets viewed with this "X thrall beats Y thrall in 1v1 so X thrall is clearly better" mentality. They are support NPCs for the player, and ultimately they should be viewed as role specific.

[[Ar]Curry]

Originally posted by SpiffyGonzales:

Depends on YOUR character tbh.

I think you misunderstood the main topic. My question was if thralls can handle some wepon types better than others, and perform better with weapon type A than weapon type B. My question and the answer I was looking for had nothing to do with my personal playstyle or stats. As Xevyr mentioned above, the handling of the various weapons depends on the code and the presets funcom gave them. And my question was especially about the myth I read that the thralls all have a "prefered" weapon type, in other words, a weapon type they will use to the full potential and mostly with a full hitcombo. I was asking about some code stuff.

So, yeah, it's cool how you see this, but it doesn't contribute to the main topic at all, especially as the mentioned topic is already answered.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by ArCurry:

Originally posted by SpiffyGonzales:

Depends on YOUR character tbh.

I think you misunderstood the main topic. My question was if thralls can handle some wepon types better than others, and perform better with weapon type A than weapon type B. My question and the answer I was looking for had nothing to do with my personal playstyle or stats. As Xevyr mentioned above, the handling of the various weapons depends on the code and the presets funcom gave them. And my question was especially about the myth I read that the thralls all have a "prefered" weapon type, in other words, a weapon type they will use to the full potential and mostly with a full hitcombo. I was asking about some code stuff.

So, yeah, it's cool how you see this, but it doesn't contribute to the main topic at all, especially as the mentioned topic is already answered.

OOF. my bad man. Misunderstanding of the question on my part