Thrall Damage/Information Guide

My brother and I have been testing Thrall Mechanics for over 1000 hours. This guide will reveal what we have discovered in regards to Thrall Damage calculations, armour pentration, differences in stat modifiers, and random other things.

The Thrall's Stats: What Do They Do?

In addition to a base amount of HP (Hitpoints), your Thrall has 4 other stats with different effects:


Strength:
- Determines the amount of Damage your thrall does with Strength based weapons.
- Strength based weapons refer to any weapon that is NOT a Bow, daggers, a katana, or a short sword.
- Different thralls receive different bonuses from their Strength Stat. For example, Cannibal Brute/Ritualist receive a ~0.8% damage bonus per Strength obtained. That means if your cannibal brute has 20 strength, they get a 16% damage bonus (0.8 x 20) when using strength weapons.
- Strength adds a small gain to agility based weapons as well. I'm not exactly sure if it is the same across thralls or somehow related to the thrall's specific gains.

Agility:
- Determines the amount of Damage your thrall does with Agility based weapons.
- Agility based weapons refer to daggers, bows, katanas, and short swords. There are some legendary weapons too I believe, such as whirlwind.
- As with strength, different thralls receive different damage bonuses for their agility. This appears to be the same scale as with strength. So in our example above, Cannibal Brute would get ~0.8% extra agility damage for every point in Agility.
- Agility adds a small gain to Strength based weapons. Again, I'm not sure exactly what these values are.

Vitality:
- Higher levels of Vitality gives your thrall additional HP.
- The amount of HP earned is also dependant on the type of thrall. I'm still working on exact amounts, but weaker thralls generally receive higher amounts of HP per unit of vitality. For example, a Cannibal Brute will get more HP/Unit of vitality than Berserker will.

Grit:
- Higher levels of Grit gives your thrall additional armour.
- The trend is generally the same as with vitality. Weaker thralls receive more armour per unit of Grit than stronger thralls.

Base Stats:
- Thralls start out with different base stats. The above 4 stats are obvious since their base stats are the stats they have at level 0. HP is a little different. Thralls have varying amounts of base HP that is not necessarily related to their starting vitality.

The Damage Multiplier:
- Thralls also have a hidden multiplier for both ranged and melee attacks. For many thralls, the multipliers are the same; Cannibal Brute for example has a ~1.5 ranged and melee multiplier. Hundred Arrow however, has a melee modifier of ~1.6 and a ranged multiplier of ~2.0. Generally, higher faction thralls have better multipliers with the best multiplier being 2.34 for Berserker.
- The multiplier is what determines the base damage of the thrall. For example, If your berserker is using an Obsidian two-handed sword with a base damage of 41, the base damage of the Berserker is calculated by multiplying the weapon damage by Brute's Multiplier like so:

41 DMG [Weapon Damage] x 2.34 [Multiplier] = ~ 96 DMG

- It doesn't matter whether the damage is agility based or strength based. Daggers and Maces both use the melee modifier when determining Damage while ranged weapons use the ranged modifier. Throwing weapons is dependant on the stat they use. For example, throwing axes uses strength and javelins use agility.

The Thrall's Attribute Bonus Section:

The game shows your Thrall's current Bonuses due to stats, equipment, potions, etc.


Strength & Agility Damage bonuses:
- This shows the additive total of all the bonuses your Thrall has for each stat.

It Includes:
-Potion Effects
- Food Effects
-Armour Effects
- Berserk Effects (This is one of the corrupted Authority perks for the player. It only shows here when berserk is active)

It does not Include:
- Sated Damage bonus (This may not apply anymore for the new sorcery update)
- The player's Authority Bonus
- The thrall's Multiplier

For example, if your thrall has 0 Strength (0% STR), a potion bonus (15% STR), and a piece of armour that gives 5 % STR, then this total is added together and a total Strength Damage bonus will be listed as 20%.

The Vitality and Armour bonuses refer to how much HP/Armour your thrall currently receives from these stats alone.

The sated bonus gives 10% extra DMG when your thrall as food in their inventory. Cooked Pork gives 25% and also has priority. So you can give your thralls a single piece of Cooked Pork for the 25% Damage boost and it will not be replaced by the 10% sated effect of other food.

Leveling up your Thrall:

Your Thrall starts at Level 0 and can reach a max level of 20. Your thrall has a growth chance for each stat which determines the likelihood that the stat will increase each time your Thrall levels up. The Growth Chance is circled in the picture below:


Every time your thrall levels up, the game makes 2 checks for each stat with each successful check resulting in a +1 increase in that stat. The first check is for the listed value of the growth chance. The second check is for the growth chance divided by 2. For example, the Cannibal Brute in the picture above has a 100% Strength growth chance. That means the first check will always be successful and will add +1 Strength every time she levels up. The second check will be at 50% (100% divided by 2). This means that there will be a 50% chance for an additional +1 Strength for each level up.

As you can see, Each of the thrall's stats can increase to a maximum of 2 for each level up. If the growth chance isn't 100%, there is also a chance that the stat will not increase during a level up.

Food Effects:

Thralls can be fed food which provides valuable healing for them during battle. Certain food also increases the growth chance of certain stats. For example, in the picture above the thrall was fed "Enhanced Gruel" which increase the Thrall's growth chance for Agility and Strength by 7%. Regular Gruel on the other hand can be fed to a thrall to increase it's Strength growth chance by 14%. The amount the food increases is shown on the right hand side of the growth chance section.

The food growth chance is simply added to the base growth chance. The Brute in our example would have 107% Strength growth and 79% Agility growth chance.

Perks:

Thralls will receive 3 perks as they level up at level 10, 15, and 20. The perks will add or decrease stats as seen with the brute below:


These changes are reflected in the green brackets next to the stat and represent the sum of all the perk bonuses. The brute in our example has 39 Strength (34 base + 5 perk bonus) and 18 Vitality (20 Base - 2 Perk Bonus)

Experience Points:

As thrall's gain experience points from killing enemies they will level up. Thralls require more experience points to level up at higher levels.

There are three classes of thralls that require varying amounts of experience to level up which I will label "Easy", "Moderate", and "Hard". Cannibal brutes belong to the "Easy" class and therefore are easy to level up to 20 (they need less total experience). Berserker on the the other hand belongs to the "Hard" class and is difficult to get to level 20. The only human thralls I have found that belong to the "Moderate" class are Janos and Lian.

In order for your thrall to gain experience they do not need to get the kill for the enemy. As long as you do damage to that particular enemy, they can be killed by any other source and your thrall will be credited experience.

Calculating the Thrall's Damage:

Note: This is based on my own research in single player. There may be discrepancies and changes as new information is obtained.

The basic formula for Melee Weapons is this:

Thrall DMG = Weapon DMG x Thrall Melee Multiplier x (Thrall's damage bonuses + Player bonuses) x Off-Stat Percentage/10

The thrall's damage bonus is the SUM of:
- Potion Effects
- Food Effects
- The thrall's Strength/Agility Bonus (depending on the weapon)
- The thrall's armour bonuses

The Player bonus includes the SUM of:
- Authority Bonus Damage
- Follower Bonus Damage Equipment
- Follower Bonus Damage Potion
- The Berserk Effect

The wiki notes that the off DMG stat (the stat that isn't used for your DMG calculation, such as the agility stat for strength based weapons) gives a damage bonus at 10% of it's value. So if your thralls has 20% agility, they do an additional 1.02x damage with strength weapons. The same is true for Strength and Agility based weapons.

The weapon damage uses the listed weapon damage. That means that a weapon forged by a blacksmith and/or with a damage kit will have a higher base damage for the calculation.

The basic formula for Ranged weapons is more complicated and is the sum of the bow damage and the arrow damage:

Bow Damage:
(Bow Damage x Thrall Range Multiplier x (Thrall damage bonuses + Player Bonuses) x Off-Stat Percentage/10

Arrow Damage:
(Arrow Damage x Thrall Multiplier x (Thrall damage bonuses + Player Bonuses) x Off-Stat Percentage/10

These 2 values are then added together for the total ranged damage dealt.

Weapons also have a combo damage modifier which applies to certain and specific swings. These appear to range between 0.8 - 1.2 in most cases, although the lunge of the One-Handed Axe and the overhead swing of the Two-handed Swords appear to be particularly high.

The wiki notes that the off DMG stat (the stat that isn't used for your DMG calculation, such as the agility stat for strength based weapons) gives a damage bonus at 10% of it's value. So if your thralls has 20% agility, they do an additional 1.02x damage with strength weapons. The same is true for Strength and Agility based weapons.

At the time of this writing the Conan Wiki has Authority bonuses listed as multiplicative with other effects. This does not seem to be correct based on my testing. For example, a Cimmerian Berserker has a multiplier of 2.34. With a base weapon that does 60 DMG there can be a significant damage difference in a stacked berserker, say with Potion + Food Effects + 23% Armor Bonuses and Berserker's own stats adding 17% (70% Total). With 80% Authority:

Additive Authority:
Total DMG = 140 [Base DMG x Thrall Multiplier] x 1 + (0.70 [Thrall Bonuses] + 0.8 [Authority])
Total DMG = 350

Multiplicative Authority:
Total DMG = 140 [Base DMG x Thrall Multiplier] x (1 + 0.70 [Thrall Bonuses) x (1 + 0.8 [Authority])
Total DMG = 428

This works out to be nearly 20% more damage. More testing is needed to confirm this.

Weapon Penetration & Weapon Propensities.

This section is not exactly unique to thralls, but is important when determining what weapon you want to give your thrall.

Every weapon has a listed armor penetration (AP) variable. This refers to the amount of damage reduction the weapon ignores.

For example, a spear may have 9% AP. If you or your thrall uses the weapon to make an attack against an enemy with 30% Damage Reduction, the player will have an Effective Damage Reduction of 21% (30% Damage Reduction - 9% Weapon Armor Penetration). It does not seem to be related to reducing the armor value like the Sunder Debuff. The formula for calculating Damage against armor appears to be:

Thrall's Total Damage x (1-(Enemy Damage Reduction - Weapon Armor Penetration))

This means that when you are fighting heavily armored enemies, your thrall may benefit more from armor penetration than increases in weapon damage.

Selecting a Thrall Weapon:

There will always be an element of player choice, and the player's equipment will always be a factor when choosing weapons for your thrall. With the Age of war updates, much of the annoying Thrall behaviours have been reduced or maybe even eliminated. For example, the effectiveness of spears and two-handed maces have been improved; it appears that the Thralls no longer have a kick animation (or it has been significantly reduced).

Daggers & Katanas are good choices for Agility based melee thralls. Daggers apply bleed quickly for single targets while Katanas have horizontal combos for groups. For Strength based Thralls there are more options. Spears are good for locking enemies and can be annoying, although their damage tends to be lower. Maces (One/Two Handed) have high damage output and Horizontal swings. They also apply sunder effects, which can help your other thralls do more damage. Two Handed Swords strike a nice balance in damage output, AP, and range. They have horizontal combos for groups too, and the overhead swing not only does huge damage, it can't be blocked by a shield.

Choosing Your Thrall

Choosing your thrall isn't as easy as getting to the mounds and putting berserker on a wheel. There are advantages to using other thralls from other factions.

Cannibal Brute, Ritualist, and other T4 Dafari:

- Incredibly numerous on noob river and at the summoning place.
- Easy to raise to level 20
- Have similar agility and strength growths for weapon variety
- They benefit more from their stats. This means that they can potentially become decent thralls if they land a few +15 perks and get lucky with growth stats.
- Because they start with a large grit bonus and benefit more from increased Grit, you don't need to give them the most epic armor to get them defensive.
- They are disposable and decent base defenders. They can be equipped with less valuable armor and weapons and can be mass produced/raised to be competent defenders at a low cost. Fighting 5 cannibals with 2000 HP and 850 defence is probably more of a pain for an attacker than a single 3500 HP Berserker. Plus, the enemy attacker won't benefit from taking their items if he goes through the hassel of killing them

Wave Runner, Hekkar, and Beast Master:

- Slightly better multipliers than Cannibal Brute but are agility based. This means that most of them will be using daggers. They do make good archers though.
- Easy to raise and benefit more from stats
- Extremely numerous in the jungle. Even the smaller camps seem to have a chance to spawn them. Beast Master has a 70% spawn chance and is at the same location
- Has a decent chance to reach 4000 HP & 1500 Armor.

Depends on your Perks:

More powerful thralls like Berserker will benefit significantly from higher authority percentages since they don't gain a lot from their stats. However, one of the final Authority perks gives + 20 to all your thralls stats; this can make weaker thralls like cannibal brute/Wave Runner extremely powerful.

The corrupted berserk stat is useful for the War Party perk. Both thralls benefit from it, and it can be up to 60% with full corruption. Having two fighters at a time lets you take advantage of weapons as well. For example, use a Thrall with a DragonBone Two-Handed Sword (Sunder + group fighting) with a Thrall with Venom Daggers (Bleed + Poison).

Weapons:

Most people slap a mace on their thralls and then call it all good. Maces do good damage and have great stun resist, but suffer from having difficulty hitting certain enemies (Especially players). Here are some Advantages/Disadvantages of other weapons:

One-Handed Maces:
- Good damage since they seem to have a high combo multiplier
- Have some horizontal swings for groups of enemies, plus a knock down near the end of the combo.
- Good stun resist meaning that thralls can continue combos even when getting hit
- Some enemies can be difficult for the thrall to hit, especially the starting swings

One-Handed Swords:
- Lots of variety and options for swords. Decent combos with knock down chances
- Thralls span the lunge thrust move, which misses alot, and doesn't hit multiple enemies.

One-Handed Axe:
- Excellent damage, and lots of variety for choices.
- Most have low penetration, meaning that armored enemies and most players will probably reduce the amazing damage to nothing. Use a Master Weapon Kit to give the axe at least 12% pen.
- Thralls spam the lunge attack and don't combo enough.

Two-Handed Swords:
- Good speed, decent damage/penetration, and even decent range. Thralls fight really well with these weapons, and the overhead swing cannot be blocked without the player perk.
- Tons of weapon variety, and a few legendary weapons that can reach 80 base DMG.
- Decent amount of stun resistance
- Fast enemies are hit more easily with the horizontal swings compared to maces. I find the Two-handed sword better for aggro control on enemies.

Two-Handed Mace:
- Slow speed but heavy damage in most instance. Alot of penetration as well, so an excellent choice for armored guys.

Damage Examples

Let's assume there is no Off-Stat Bonus (Off Stat = 0%) and we won't include the sated bonus:

Cannibal Brute:

Multiplier: 1.559x
Weapon DMG (Venom Two-Hand Sword Made with Bladesmith + Master Weapon Kit): 56 DMG
Weapon Penetration (With Bladesmith + Master Kit): 30%
Total % Increase from Thrall Armor: 23%(0.23)
Total % Increase from Stats: 24% (0.24)
Potion & Food Bonus: 30% (0.30)
Player Authority Bonus: 80% (0.80)

1. First Take the base weapon Damage and multiply the Thrall's multiplier bonus:
56 [Base Weapon DMG] x 1.559 [Cannibal Brute Multiplier]
= 87.3 DMG

2. Then Add up the Thrall's Armor Bonus, Potion/Food Bonus, and Authority Bonus. Multiply the damage calculated in the previous step by this amount:
Total Damage Bonus = 1 + 0.23 [Thrall Armor Bonus] + 0.3 [Food/Potions] + 0.8 [Authority] + 0.24 [Thrall Stats]
Total Damage Bonus = 2.57 x

Total DMG = 87.3 [Base Weapon DMG x Thrall Multiplier] x 2.57 [Sum of Bonuses]
Total DMG = ~ 224.4 DMG

So, this particular Cannibal Brute has a Base Damage of 224.4 DMG & a penetration of 30%

What if Cannibal Brute hit a player with 65% damage Reduction?

Cannibal Brute's weapon has 30% Armor Penetration (AP). We simply subtract this amount from the player's total Damage Reduction to get the Player's 'Effective DMG Reduction:

Effective DMG Reduction = 65% [Player's DMG Reduction] - 30% [Brute's Weapon Penetration]
Effective DMG Reduction = 35%

With 35% Effective DMG Reduction, Cannibal Brute will only do 65% of his/her total DMG when Attacking the player (100% - 35% = 65%). We can Calculate it simply as:

DMG to Player = 224.4 DMG [Cannibal's total DMG] x 0.65
DMG to Player = ~ 146 DMG

Lets do the same for a Berserker:

Berserker

Multiplier: 2.34
Weapon DMG (Venom Two-Hand Sword Made with Bladesmith + Master Weapon Kit): 56 DMG
Weapon Penetration (With Bladesmith + Master Kit): 30%
Total % Increase from Thrall Armor: 23%(0.23)
Total % Increase from Stats: 15% (0.15)
Potion & Food Bonus: 30% (0.30)
Player Authority Bonus: 80% (0.80)

Sum of Bonuses = 2.48 x
Total DMG = 56 [Base DMG] x 2.34 [Berserker Multiplier] x 2.48 [Sum of Bonuses]
Total DMG = 324.98 DMG

DMG to Player = 324.98 [Berserk Total DMG] x (1 - 0.35) [Effective Armor Modifier]
DMG to Player = 211.23 DMG

Real Thrall Examples

This a Black Hand T4 that can be found at the pirate bay on the far Eastern Shore of the Exiled Lands. She has multiplier of ~ 1.4x and her base DMG increases (without potions/food bonuses/authority/berserk) are 32% Strength and 68% Agility. This means her base DMG modifer with agility weapons will be:

DMG Modifier = 1.4 [Multiplier] x (1 + 0.68) [Agility DMG Bonus] x (1 + 0.32 / 10) [Strength DMG Bonus]

DMG Modifier = 2.42 x

She still doesn't do as much damage as an out-of-the-box Berserker with full strength Armor, but she has greater than 4000 HP

[STuRoK]

Thank you very much for clearly explaining things. (better than other guides did)
I was under the impression only 1 stat leveled up and always tried to keep undesired stat % low, but that doesn't matter. All stats level individually!
And going over 100% actually helps with the 2nd chance to level. So, 114% chance, makes the 2nd roll be 57% instead of 50%.

[Arta Vulgaris]

also i can't manage to get a 0.30 potion/food bonus as yours.. food gives 0.15, player's follower potion/food gives another 0.12 max, so it's 0.27 as for me, only. or im wrong somewhere?

[Arta Vulgaris]

first of all - well made guide! thank you!
it's pretty clean, but i still can't understand seweral moments:
1. sated bonus on thrall - it is just for healing now and does not count as attack bonus? if it counts, it's additive or multiplicative?
2. you mean "bersersk" in formula. is that same as "frenzy" state, from first corrupted authority perk?

[Ducky]

PalmDaBomb:

Well, I kind of got that information from Conan Exiles wiki in Fandom, and confirmation from one of the Reddit post. So yes, if the weapon says it's a strength weapon, then the strength is the major modifier, and the minor, (i this case the agility), gives +(Agi * 0,1) bonus damage.

In other words, you always get that main damage modifier full, and +10% of that minor one.

And thanks for reply.

[PalmDaBomb]

Thralls for most efficient purposes should have melee weapons, whether they're archers or fighters. For whatever reason if you did want to have a follower use bows, I would recommend the wave runner/bodyguard type thralls with high agility. That way they maximise their bow DMG output, and can still carry an agility based weapon and do well in melee.

[PalmDaBomb]

Cod:
I'm not sure about the weapons specifically, but if the weapon description says "Strength weapon" then it likely uses the strength stat instead of agility for calculations. For bows, I think the arrow damage would still be calculated with agility.

Leahcim:
If you're base stats for Freya are accurate, then with 57 STR, Freya would have a 28.5% increase in damage from STR. This is a 1.285 times increase. So the damage would be:
50 x 1.58 x 1.285 = 101.5

Berserker would have a 12.8% increase from STR, so a 1.128 times increase. His DMG would be:
50 x 2.24 x 1.128 = 126.3

[Ducky]

"Strength based weapons refer to any weapon that is NOT a Bow, daggers, a katana, or a short sword."

Does that apply to Str bows, (like "Eye of the Khan"), too? Because I've been wondering how these formulas work and how rigid they are in their calculations. Started to wonder this after I got Freya as a thrall, and she had 100% chance to increase her strength. She ended up somewhere above 50 strength, and now I'm wondering should I keep her as an archer with that "Eye of the Khan", or should I make her a melee fighter?

[Leahcim Tsew]

(Continued from comment below) If that is correct and I'm not missing something, Freya has a lot more damage output than the Berserker because of the much high strength. She starts with a base strength of 30 at level 0 and the berserker starts with 15. As a side note, at leavel 20 Freya managed 5400 HP and the best I can get the berserker up to is 4500 after 75 elixers of rebirth.

It just seemed odd to me since everything I read says Cimmerian berserkers are the best or close to it.

[Leahcim Tsew]

It's really awesome that you put all that together. Thanks

I've read through it a couple times and I just want to make sure I'm calculating this correctly so if you check back you might let me know what you think. I'm asking because I'm suprised that according to my calculations my level 20 Freya is putting out more damage than my level 20 Cimmerian Berserker.

I'm not considering any buffs from food, armor, player, etc. Just a naked, hungry thrall.

Freya has 57 strength and a damage bonus multiplier of .5 per stregth point and a melee multiplier of 1.58. Assuming a weapon damage of 50 it would be...
(50 x 1.58 = 79) X (57 x .5 = 28.5% or .285) = 22.515

The berserker has a stregth of 32 and a damage bonus multiplier of .4 per stregth point and a melee multiplier of 2.24. Assuming the same weapon with 50 damage it would be...
(50 x 2.24 = 112) x (32 x .4 = 12.8% or .128) = 14.33

[PalmDaBomb]

I'm still adding to it!

I think any T4 thrall will be viable with good gear and with enough levels.

Lian and Janos are probably one of the better thralls in my opinion. They don't quite have the same multiplier as berserker, but they benefit more from their stats and roll with good HP. Virtually all of my Lians have between 3500 - 4000 HP at level 20 and they almost always do well with getting strength DMG bonuses. I also have had more than 1 Lian roll 100% in a stat like Grit, meaning they end up tanky.

If you hate the hassel of raising thralls and just want a decent thrall hot off the wheel, stick with berserkers and load em up with your best gear. If you don't mind raising thralls and don't want to farm the bestest materials for the bestest gear, stick with Cannibals and other easy to level guys. You'll end up with at least a few cannibals or black hands with amazing stats that will be able to handle the tougher situations in the exiled lands.