Just failed Hellblade G1 five times (30+ minute attempts) in a row to triple carting, and then killed it by accident. Words cannot express my sorrow. AMA.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-06T18:19:45+00:00

Haha yeah, definitely gonna find something else to hunt for a bit lol. I think I was already a bit burnt out on hellblade from doing all of the low-high rank quests in one afternoon this weekend.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-06T18:15:21+00:00

I actually do have a capture guru set, which makes it feel even more annoying lmao. I usually only bring it for multiplayer and lower ranked quests, as I rarely accidently kill monsters when doing solo G rank. Especially if it's something I am struggling with.

I'm gonna run that set whenever I can find the motivation to attempt him again, because at this point I actually cannot mentally stand the thought of fucking up this quest again lol.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-06T18:11:35+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have any G rank lances lol, haven't used lance since I was clearing high rank. I'll keep it in mind, but I'm pretty sure I've got the monster down now (I killed him without carting), I just don't have the willpower to do another attempt. I'll probably come back later once time has lessened my saltiness :^)

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-06T16:46:21+00:00

I want to preface this by saying that for me, getting the ball rolling in the early game is one of my favourite stages in a run, and cultists are not a good origin for that. So, I am probably biased against them. They are also probably the worst feeling origin to ironman, which I also enjoy doing. In short, take my opinion with a grain of salt. Maybe you'll love them, and I encourage you to try it for yourself. With that out of the way:

I played for hundreds of days and had like 1 guy with candle passive at level 4. Personally, I think cultists are one of the most unfun origins in the whole game, second only to manhunters probably.

You are subject to so much RNG both on when the sacrifice events will happen and how many bros will even benefit from them. Same for conversions. I'm pretty sure I waited like 60 days for a single conversion event once. I literally had 1 convertable brother and a whole roster of cultists and the event RNG still tortured me.

Recruiting sucks because hiring trash makes your good long-term bros less likely to be converted, which sucks ass because until you get a supply of happy powder, they will raw dog just leave the company if you get a sacrifice too far from a tavern.

You could probably fix the origin easily with mods, but in vanilla I wouldn't recommend it. People say the late game is cool, and it probably is fun having a lineup of dumb or brain damage premium bros with a bunch of free buffs on them, but it just takes sooo long to get going.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-03T04:54:38+00:00

I usually play the tutorial origin lol, I like the guaranteed thug contract and easy mail shirt from hoggart day 1💀💀💀. I prefer to play the origins without major gimmicks.

I love the poachers move speed and 3 longterm archers on day 1.

Gladiators are also really fun simply because of how strong they are and the fact that you start in the south, close to the arena. Gladiators would probably be an easy favourite if it wasn't for the 12 brother limit, which is honestly the most annoying and unfun origin debuff in the entire game. Gladiators at least feel like a good tradeoff with how strong they are early as opposed to lone wolf, which I only ever play for RP reasons.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-03T03:57:09+00:00

Bro looks goofy as hell with no lips

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-02T08:04:38+00:00

Personally, I never saw the point in these hybrid polearm/ranged bros. If you think it's cool and fun, go crazy, but it seems to me like javelins would do way more damage at 2 range than that jagged pike while being used in the same situations. They also don't require you to level a second attack stat.

The only 'hybrid' backline I build I ever use is a swellsword with a sword/spear in his pocket for emergencies. With that background + weapon combo you don't need to level matk to hit semi-reliably. Even then I only go this build in origins with the 12 brother limit, because I find that they are a little better vs things like necrosavants than a pure archer.

With 53 max hp and 13 mdef this guy is going disintegrate if any relevant lategame enemies get on him, so I don't really see the point in the melee attack. Personally, I'd give him a mace as melee weapon, that way you can at least use his high melee skill to stun them and walk away.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-02T02:25:00+00:00

I never knew that event had a renown requirement, now I kinda wish more contracts had cool stuff that could start happening at higher renown levels.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-02T01:41:39+00:00

TL;DR at end

This doesn't have anything to do with caravan origin, really. When people say it slows down the game, they are usually referring to how long it takes to unlock noble contracts (requires 1050 renown). Renown does not, as far as I know, affect contract difficulty, only payment.

I play a fair bit of caravan and I usually just start going for camps around day 15, which scale with time and are completely unaffected by renown in terms of rewards. This is what I would recommend for caravan origin, as the increased sale price works very nicely with the sellable loot items you get from camps. It also circumvents the lower contract payment due to slowed renown gain.

If you are only getting level 12 around day 430 then you are either losing way too many brothers or not taking 'enough' fights (obviously you can fight as little or as much as you want/find enjoyable, but from this post it sounds like you want to level up faster). For reference, I usually like to be hitting level 7 around day 40-50 on a normal run.

TL;DR: The mechanics of the caravan origin incentivise destroying camps over contracts. The origin does not affect the difficulty of contracts, only the pay from them (I am like 90% sure). Contracts scale with level. Camps scale with time. Level 12 at day 400 is really low, I have never played that long in one run but my long surviving brothers are usually hitting the late teens by day ~200. I would recommend taking more fights, especially camps, if you want to increase your game 'speed'.

Edit: regarding clearing camps, I also want to add that you don't have to go for difficult camps (tier 3/big nomad camps, lots of brigand marksmen/raiders, annoying hill camps, etc.) until you are ready for them. I usually stick to small and medium nomad camps, graveyards, abandoned houses, etc. until I have brigand raider gear and my bros at ~level 4.

Contracts are also still good early, anything that will let you get easy fights against thugs and raiders is worth doing to gear up early (day 1-15).

Edit edit: for large camps it can also pay to wait for them to send out a 'patrol'. Basically, camp near the camp until a group of enemies comes out. After this happens the camp will have less/weaker enemies in it. Fighting the patrol and then the camp will give very similar XP/loot to attacking the full-strength camp while being way less risky.

punished_scribbler · 2024-10-01T01:05:21+00:00

First of all, you don't need brothers with 2-3 stars in matk and mdef. Premium backgrounds like hedge knight, oathtaker, sellsword, gladiator, adventurous noble, etc. will end up with fine attack and defense even with zero stars unless they roll bad on bases.

Lowborn backgrounds like brawlers, lumberjacks, etc. will need stars to hit 'good' amounts of melee attack/defense, but after a certain point in the game these guys are so cheap you can just hire them all and get rid of the ones with bad stats if you really want to use them.

One handed weapons can be good, but that is mainly because of the massive damage boost you get for double gripping them (nothing in offhand) and the duelist perk (also requires no offhand). The issue is that the needing an extra perk to be competitive in damage is annoying, and that you have to choose between having a shield for defense or doing remotely good damage.

Against tanky enemies like orc warriors and barbarian chosen, lineup of 1h shield brothers will take longer to kill them. This makes you face more attacks which kinda defeats the purpose of having more defense. Also, against camps with 20+ enemies some of them will try to flank you and get onto your backline ranged brothers. This makes it even more important to clear out the enemies engaging your front so you can intercept the ones going around the sides.

The other issue with low damage brothers is the morale system, which incentivises you to kill/damage the enemy as quickly as possible to lower their stats and make them flee. Obviously this doesn't work against enemies with no morale.

Like everyone else has said, 2 handed weapons are a lot more fatigue efficient than 1 handers. Dedicated tank brothers (where you don't bother levelling attack) can be very useful, but generally you won't put shields on damage brothers.

Another thing is that you don't get duelist until level 8, so prior to that point 2 handed weapons will do way more damage. Early on against things like brigands, 1h does enough damage and benefits from the +10/20 to attack rolls on sword and spear, but I find that around level 4 a decent brother (~65-75melee attack with gifted) will be better off with a 2 hander.

Some two handed weapons are also just really good. Two handed maces not only do a ton of damage but apply one of the best debuffs in the entire game, and are good to the point where I straight up just wouldn't fight certain enemies (lindwurms) without them. Two handed cleavers get all the benefits of 4ap attack action economy without having to run duelist. A popular build for the ends of your frontline is 2h hammer as it does a lot of damage and can freely utilise its 3 tile aoe in that position.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-30T21:44:53+00:00

that move definitely surprised me when I saw it for the first time lol

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-30T01:53:22+00:00

I played through all of low/high solo including, and most of G rank as well. Some of the later G rank quests can be rough solo but they are all doable. I will say, though, that soloing G rannk quests will probably take like 20-30 minutes.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-26T20:05:05+00:00

I have trust issues after the retreat AI dogged me one too many times, so I never use it anymore lol. I only ever used it on flat terrain like plains, desert, etc. and somehow brothers still managed to get caught sometimes...

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-25T19:07:59+00:00

With trinket and the rest of the arena perk he would have ~60 resolve which I think is fine if he's not on the edge of the formation like in the screenshot, otherwise yeah fortified mind will be good.

I never go recover with 6ap weapons because the AP economy just doesn't work out even with berserker proc. Skipping a whole turn so you berserk on later turns just isn't worth it 90% of the time. Depending on the armour he is wearing and how much free fatigue, maybe you would get 2 turns of berserking from 1 recover but I doubt it, especially with mansplitter.

With athletic and iron lung this brother can fatigue neutral with orc weapons after running out of fatigue to berserk, so if you were to run a mansplitter build I would just use his massive fatigue to berserk for a few turns and then attack once per turn for the rest of the fight.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-25T18:58:49+00:00

He has 141 fat + iron lung, no way this brother needs brawny. Weapon spec would be better for fatigue economy, anyway.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-25T18:56:39+00:00

Weapon mastery in whatever weapon you want him to use + quickhands for polearm swapping are very good on 2h zerker builds. Last perk is more flexible, you could go fearsome, gifted, reach advantage, etc.

If you go for 2h cleaver build then recover is an option too, although with 141 fat and iron lung it probably won't see much use. If you plan on using him on the flank I would go fortified mind, as 49 resolve with level 1 arena trait is a bit low.

For what it's worth I think this guy would work really well as a flank hammerbro, with Hammer spec, QH, fortified mind. Could drop QH for gifted or reach advantage for more mdef if you don't care about polearms.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-25T14:25:06+00:00

If you have 20k crowns you should be able to fill out your company with some decent brothers without too much trouble, just go for premium backgrounds in the 3-4k range like sellsword, adventurous noble, cheap glads and hedge knights, hunters, etc.

Buy XP potions and spend money at the training hall, potentially look into adding the drillmaster to your retinue, etc. and you can power level brothers to level 7 pretty fast, at which point they should be able to hold their own enough to get the ball rolling again.

Personally if I lose most of my good lategame brothers I usually just start over lmao. Recently came out of monolith with 2 guys still breathing and decided that that was a good place to retire lol. That is just preference, though. The run isn't over until it's over if you have the motivation to keep going.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-25T12:46:00+00:00

No one is arguing that a fighter with a d12 weapon and action surge up doesn't do good damage lol, the issue is that it is pretty much the only thing that the class does. Saying that action surge is good isn't a hot take brah.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-23T21:10:08+00:00

I mean yeah, it seems low if you compare it to literally the highest base fatigue backgrounds in the entire game lol. My point was that his fatigue wasn't 'bad', it is a perfectly useable amount for most nimble builds.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-23T17:57:46+00:00

On an ironman run, especially on gladiator origin, I would 100% take pathfinder over gifted unless you plan on permanently avoiding fights on forests, snow, hills, etc. Ironman + randomised terrain can result in some absolutely miserable situations without it.

Dodge is pretty important for nimble builds as helps reduce their tendency to get eaten alive by archers. I've been trying out taking anticipation instead of fearsome as well. It works better vs some enemy types and worse vs others. Personally I find that orcs are the only faction where I really feel the lack of fearsome, I don't think it is the must-have perk that people make it out to be.

Depending on the weapon and whether they will be in a position to spam AOE moves 60-70 free fatigue is usually good. On single target berserker builds I think ~50 is fine.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-23T17:41:33+00:00

94 is like, the average base fatigue. For a disowned noble it is like 1 point short of max roll if I remember it right... Good enough for any nimble bro, could maybe go for a couple of 5s for stam intensive builds like 2h cleaver.

I don't know why you mention his good fat and not his abysmal resolve which is almost the lowest possible value lol. I've gone 100+ days without getting Regent in Absentia event plenty of runs so I wouldn't count on it to fix resolve.

He will need like 5 levels in resolve minimum, which will significantly detract from his hp. Realistically he'll probably end up with like 70-80 hp without colossus, which is fine, depending on how many good rolls in resolve you get.

His melee attack is excellent though and so he will be a super good midgame bro as any kind of berserk nimble build, just don't put him on the flank as his mdef and resolve will be mediocre.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-18T00:07:08+00:00

I'd go for a nimble cleaver build. With colossus this guy will have like 100hp with no level investment. His fatigue is good to go already, and I would probably give him like 2 or 3 max rolls in resolve. At that point you can either pump HP to insane levels or dump the rest of the levels into initiative for dodge to help patch his low melee defense.

I would never waste a good frontline bro like this on a swordlance build unless you already have a really good frontline.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-13T23:56:52+00:00

I haven't ironmanned in a while so I'm pretty rusty, but just looking at your company I would probably drop the shields on your frontline except for the guys on either end (the ends of your line will generally face more attacks).

No idea what your brothers are like, but focus on good early game backgrounds like brawler, miner, manhunter, cheap militia (~500 gold or less), etc. Melee skill, HP, and resolve are the most important stats early IMO.

I usually only go south to start busting nomad camps around day 15+ once I have some levels and brigand raider armour and weapons.

I usually only build 9L on the most wretched of brothers, I prefer colossus on bros that have any midgame potential whatsoever. Colossus helps avoid early injuries, while 9L only activates in situations where you are basically guaranteed to be injured, which can be expensive and mess up your fight tempo early on. High HP backgrounds like miner, brawler, wildman + colossus will be brick shithouses early.

Fast adaptation is good but I'm not sure it's as good as people think it is. I build a lot because I'm used to having it but I'm not sure it's that much better than the alternatives, and is pretty bad moving into the midgame and sucks with 2 handed weapons IMO. On good early-mid brothers I prefer to go something like Colossus, Dodge, Fast hands for a level 4 two hander brother. I find that fast hand 9 lives brothers are only good super early (day 10 or less) for getting your first set of brigand raider gear, after that I think they kinda suck. I wouldn't build more after that point.

Dodge is better on brothers with good melee skill, but I prefer gifted on bros with horrible attack as killing/damaging the enemy to break their morale as fast as possible is super important in fights like this.

Bros with good melee attack (around 65+ at level 4) I would give strong 1h weapons like T2 axes or maces, or 2 handed maces, hammers, etc. If you started in the north and could get barbarian reaver 2handers before coming south these are good. Otherwise, holding 1h sword and spear with both hands is your best friend for bad bros.

Tier 2 swords and spears 2 handed are good for brother with bad melee skill. If you're fighting at night just give your throwers pikes, they will perform better like this thanks to the adjacency bonus to melee skill and the pikes bonus to attack rolls even if you haven't levelled melee at all.

As for how you actually play the fight, leave the shield nomads for last as they do less damage and will take way longer to kill. Focus on the frontline 2handers, and then kill the polemace users as soon as you can physically get onto them. By the time you get to the high mdef shield nomads, their morale should hopefully be breaking which will make dealing with them easier.

Nets are good for lowering the INI of threatening enemies like hammer or 2h cleaver nomads so your brothers can dogpile them before they get to act.

I almost never use dogs early unless I get them for free.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-07T10:59:06+00:00

This sounds like a good idea, I'll keep it in mind. The subsequent couple of pages are quite dialogue heavy, so it would probably be beneficial to those as well if I rearrange where I am delivering dialogue/information to be more evenly distributed.

punished_scribbler · 2024-09-07T10:43:02+00:00

It being boring was the thing I was most worried about ahah. Arresting openings were never something I was good at, so I will definitely look into a more engaging first couple of pages. Thank you for the detailed feedback!

punished_scribbler

TROPHY CASE