The best combat build has been discussed bazillion times in this forum.
If we are going to include player's skill, preference or "compactibility" (such as player A sucks with bow but good with crossbow) in such discussion, it will either never ends, or everyone can simply shut-up and say "there's no best build but only best player".
And then of course, there's argument about "situations". Such as: "Horse archer sucks when the enemy is a legion of footsoldiers with large shields", or "Mounted Swordsman sucks when enemy is full of spearsmen". Such discussion will get even messier if you put "Player's skill and compactibility" and "NPC's AI" on top of it, because everyone is different: some horse archers can take out a legion of footsoldiers with large shield before version .808, some just can't in later version (while some, still can
).
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Side notes:
Before version .808 when archery has not yet been nerfed, a good horse archer can solo a legion as long as he has enough arrows stored in his baggage.
In .808, Archery is nerfed and AI (except archers) are pumped-up. Since then, much more points in Power Draw, Archery AND Horse Archery are needed to achieve high enough accuracy for a horse archer to be as formidable as in pre-.808.
If we only talk about Vanilla (not any mods), in early game, crossbows can be more powerful and more accurate than bows. But as a player progress in the game, by the right build, bow can outdamage crossbows due to the attribute and skill bonuses that crossbow does not enjoy.
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So, in the end, what's the best combat build? or is there even any?
To know what's the best combat build, we must first know what "the best combat build" can do, or more precisely: "What objectives it must achieve to be considered the best?"
For each person, the best answer is his own.
For those who enjoy forming, commanding, and fight alongside his army throughout the game, he must assume some roles that normal soldiers/AI/NPCs cannot: intelligence, charisma, first aid, tactics, pathfinding, etc. But I guess this is not what we are interested in in this thread. This thread is more like asking: "What is the best solo combat build?". We can leave all those supportive skills to our companions, and try to make ourselves the ultimate killing machine on battlefield.
BUT, mind you that, those supportive skills of your companion will not work to their fullest potential if you yourself lacks the skill, there's penalty, which you can easily learn by searching this forum.
Also know that, such build willl not have an easy early game, for it requires higher levels (to build up attributes) and good equipments before it becomes formidable.
And, do NOT assume that once your build is completed, you will always rule the battlefield...well, you will rule most of them, but there's one such battle that you will most likely always suffer greatly: Offensive Siege battle, you will need enough soldiers to breach the wall and share the enemy's missles.
You will love such a solo character, for your battle will be very intense, the triumph you feel willl be very immense, especially when you regained yourself from your bloodlust and find nothingelse but you alone standing last on the battlefield with heaps of corpse of friends and foes alike. I first started M&B as purely a commander of army (lancer + supportive skills), taking pride in victory when the army I command wins with very few casualties but high kill-counts. Then I became a horse archer because killing with lance is becoming too easy that it is very boring. After archery is nerfed in .808, I became a mounted swordsman with javelins for just a very short while...why just a shot while?
That day, I fell from my horseback when my loyal desstier tore by a rhodok's spear. I am forced to fight on foot like any footmen with just a trusty sword and shield. It is only then that I discovered the true excitement of battlefield cannot be achieved by merely commanding army and fighting a battle like a calm strategist, or shooting from afar while staying away from enemy. There's not much fun defeating AI army with a human-brain commanded army, or bullying those AI footsoldiers on a heavy armored horse with lance (which, in reality, should not be usable anymore after jousted the 3rd enemy at most...). The thrill of battle emerges when my feet itself is marching on the soil, and my adreline rushes as I exchange swords blows with my enemy, parrying axe chops, while my shield on my back taken a few enemy's filthy arrows. Drown in the cries of my companions, the mourn of my enemies, ("and smell of the blood and torn flesh"...yea right...it's in computer), I have fallen from a calculating strategist, a calm commander into a mere beast, a killing machine...crap, let's get back to topic:
Where were we? Oh, ultimate killing machine...Ehem, to construct such a machine, we must first grab some nuts, nails, screwdrivers, and a hammer...JK.
A chinese saying goes: For a good crafter to produce any good craftings, he must first excel in using his tool, (as well as sharpen it). So, we must first consider our choice of weapon.
Before we go through the list of weapon choice, we must first list our restrictions if there's any:
1) we have 4 slots for weapons + ammunitions to take along into the battlefield. (duh)
2) we can ride a horse...but remember that we can be dismounted (but it doesn't mean we should not consider the times when we are mounted), whether we like it or not. And most of the time, once we dismount and engage in combat, it is usually very hard to mount a horse again.
3) we have a baggage, yes, but it is possible that we don't have much chance to use it in the heat of battle (but it doesn't mean we shouldn't take advantage of it). Here, I will list several such situation:
- you are unmounted, and far away from baggage. Usually happens when you started an offensive battle, but dismounted in battle far from your starting position.
- you are in a defensive battle, but too many friends and foes around that you don't have the chance to use it. Usually happens when you are in defensive position, using heavy footmen to block cavalries.
So, the build we devise must not be the one that heavily depends on horse, or baggage. However, we should consider taking horse and baggage as an added advantage to our build, so that we can always be "In superior condition <-> Normal", rather than "Normal <-> handicapped". This is especially true if we build our combat character around being solely a good lancer, because lancer heavily depends on horse.
Now, we know our restrictions, we know half of ourselves. A chinese saying also goes "Know yourself, you won half the battle; Know yourself and your enemy, you always overcome your opponent". So now, we need to know what kind of enemy we might be facing. Remember that VERSATILITY is very important, as you may not always have the chance to choose your enemy... It is ONLY after we know our enemy, we can choose finally choose our weapons.
(Ah, and some might ask "What if both you and your enemy knows themselves and each other well? Who might win the battle then?". For that, there's another chinese saying that follows...which we will just ignore today because it is not pertain to our topic.)
For all our enemies, these AI characteristics remain true (remember, they are AI, they can be as smart as human, but we will only talk about their CURRENT intelligence):
- They will not change weapon...more precisely, they will not pick up weapons from the ground. Example, an AI archer will use bow when you are far away from it, but pull out melee weapon when you are near. But that AI archer will never pick up more ammunition from the ground. Similarly, a soldier whose shield is broken will not pick up another shield from ground.
- Thus, their ammunition can be depleted. Their shields, once broken, will never be replaced until the next battle. So, if you are good at riding and if you are shielded, when enemy's archers are at defensive, you can deplete their arrows to make them completely worthless later.
- Other characteristics are trivial...such as non-mounted units will never mount a horse and etc.
(Someday in the future, these characteristic might change, but it is important to list these characteristics for now.)
Next, we need to know these
comparision between you and your enemy (either "one of you", "both are", or "equal") which is very important for deciding our combat build:
1) Damage
2) Mounted
3) Weapon reach
4) Faster attack speed (swing faster)
5) Move faster on foot
6) Armor type (some armor type renders you more vulnerable to certain type of damage)
7) Shielded (especially important against missiles)
These are all very important factors in deciding the outcome of combat. Here, I will illustrate with an example:
- you build yourself as a lancer with a sword in 1 slots (to battle when dismounted) and javelins occupying 2 other slots...you are dismounted by enemy in a lancers vs lancers charge, and now after you killed most of your enemy, what's left on battlefield are 5 swadian crossbowyer or Vaegir marksman...you are very likely dead before you manage to pick-up a shield from the battlefield. But if you equipped a shield in one of your slots, it can help in both attacking/approaching those archers, or retreating to find some ranged weapons (or even more shields! or grab a horse!) to overcome them.
Any type of enemy, be it Horse Archer, Lancer, Shielded Heavy Infrantry, can all be represented by these characteristics. These characteristics interact with each other, and the outcome of battle will favor those who uses their advantages well, while preventing their enemy from striking at their weaknesses. This is why we use shielded cavalry against archers, and Horse Archer uses hit-and-run tactics.
Now that we know our possible enemies, we can start planning our build. What's a "build"? It's a combination of
A) Attributes
B) Skill points distribution
C) Equipments
D) Battle tactics
A build will not be successful if it doesn't excel in all of these.
The overall strategy is as follow:
The best combat build must be able to fight on all kinds of situation (be it mounted or unmounted), and triumph (i.e. have advantage) against most type of enemy.
As such, it must:
- have 2 types of horse, as explained in Section C. One for catching up mounted archers, the other for other common uses.
- *uses the 4 slots available to optimal versatility with the help of baggage*
How to achieve this?
Use the baggage to store:
- 2 type of different horses (one of them very fast, the other heavily armored with high charge)
- a bastard sword (or any sword which can be used as both 1h and 2h)
- a 2h sword
- a lot of shields with high coverage value (size) just for blocking missiles.
- a bow, and about 3-4 stack of arrows.
- optional: a lance (for mowing down infrantries or even some cavalries)
- optional: a blunt weapon (for some quest when you need to knock someone out for capturing)
See:
- when you get ganged, a shield with high resistance will not do you much good. If you keep defending, the shield will break eventually...manuavability is the key to keep you alive and remember that "the best defense is offense". If you kill and move fast enough, you will not get ganged. So only prepare shields that can help when you need to protect yourself against "missile rain". With 2 shields and a good horse, it should be enough to last before you exhaust enemy's missiles by circling them in zig-zag.
- a 1h sword won't enable you to kill fast enough when you fight against higher tier troops, 2h swords are the ones that help. Plus, pure 1h swords are short, you will be in danger of getting ganged if you keep using one throughout battle because you can't kill fast enough with shorter weapon reach. So don't even think about 1h swords for solo killers.
- When you use a bastard sword with a shield (thus acting like a 1h sword), you lose 25% of damage and speed, but that's enough for you to approach and kill ranged units. Bastard swords can also be used as 2h weapon when you keep your shield at your back (thus helping defense too), it is really a good choice for added versatility.
- A good 2h weapon is a neccessity for you to rule the battlefield, almost chopping down an enemy with every strike. A 2h sword is recommended because it has no weakness in speed, damage or weapon reach...although not excel in any, it gives huge allowance in mistakes.
- the bow by far is the best ranged weapon because it has longest range, very high damage and good accuracy. Although it uses 2 slots, the remaining 2 slots should enable you to equip other weapons (or shield) to overcome anything else that a bow and arrow can't kill. You shouldn't use bow against those who has shield, or you are really just wasting arrows. Other than shielded enemy, nothing you can't kill if you are on a fast horse, plus it is almost a neccessity if you are fighting against horse archers.
- You do not need to especially focus in obtaining Polearm proficiency...as long as you get a good horse and good lance, the damage of your joust is enough to kill any enemy eventhough your proficiency is low. Proficiency of polearm is only important if you plan to use polearm to fight on foot...which is really not recommended.
In early game:
- focus on melee combat, because you will not gain enough accuracy to effectively use ranged weapons yet. But, start to invest in ranged combat skill points because they will pay-off later starting mid-game, and become very powerful late-game (yes I am talking about bow).
- use whatever you can find on enemy, and do not spend too much denars on purchasing equipment yet. You need a lot of denars later for good equipments.
Middle game (about lv16-20):
- your melee combat prowess should enable you to defeat most units in game already, except those highest tiers one.
- train-up your archery proficiency whenever possible. Melee combat should still be your bread and butter.
- focus on gettin good armors and melee weapons only. Do not spend denar on ranged weapon yet.
Tips:
- To train up your archery proficiency is unlike melee proficiency, where you can just gain proficiency by hitting enemy and do damage.
- Training archery proficiency requires you HIT and enemy AT LONG RANGE, i.e. it depends on the score you get every time you hit an enemy.
- Better bows will actually making it harder to train, due to the higher power draw requirement will reduce your accuracy. So just use bows with lower power draws to train.
About lv25,
- Once you get your power draw up to 6, trained up your archery proficiency about 250, buy a War Bow and you will be able start your slaugthering even before you reach your enemy.
- Focus on equipping yourself, getting the best armors, filling your baggage with backup shields and arrows, as well as good horse for different situation and proposes.
A) Attribute
What good is a heavy punch if it cannot touches your enemy?
What good is a fast sword if it cannot even scretches your enemy's armor?
Speed and Strength must exist altogether to be powerful/useful.
STR and AGI will be your 2 most important attributes. But which is more important than the other? Are they equal? Certainly not!
For a killing machine, you often find yourself doing "1 vs many". It is very important for you to kill fast, BUT remember you can only kill one at a time!
"Two arms are hard to beat 4 palms". You must avoid getting yourself surrounded or "gang-banged". There's an old japanese saying "Victor in a sword fight is the one who can manuever faster."
AGI is the stat for you to pump up your movement speed, which is very important whenever you are on foot. Also remember to check your encumberance (which is highly related to the weight of the armors you put on yourself) so that you are not moving too slow when you are on foot.
STR cannot boost AGI, but AGI can boost damage (STR)! How? There's speed bonus attached with every strike you did on your enemy. If you are moving towards your enemy when you land your swing, you will gain speed bonus onto your damage, or vice versa.
According to my experiance, before your AGI reaches 21, it is best to have just enough STR to fulfill the weapon/armor requirements. Pump up your AGI first until it reaches 21.
I usually leave CHA at 9, and only have enough INT for any book that I find useful. Do not afraid to invest in INT, as it gives you extra skill points that will improve your battle prowess too (as long as you have high enough STR/AGI so that your skills are not "capped").
After your AGI reaches 21, increases your STR and AGI according to your feeling:
- if you found that you always getting gangbanged, pump some AGI.
- if you found that enemy won't die in 1 hit (if they don't die fast enough, you will still end up being ganged), pump some STR.
BUT REMEBER: raise them 3 points in a row, so that you can remove the cap on skill point, else will find that some skills point will be unused.
B) Skill Points
You can always choose to go hybrid (investing some in supporting skills, such as Wound Treatment and etc), which is good for most beginners. But if you are going solely after an ultimate killing machine, then:
- try to max these skills first (i.e. raise them up to the skill cap as soon as you can):
Athletics (most most most important thing)
Horse Riding (another very very important thing)
Weapon Master (seriously, they should remove this skill...but before it is removed, max it)
- Power Strike (just enough for you to kill most of your enemy in 1 or 2 hits. According to my experiance, about 4-5 should be enough, with a good weapon)
- Power Draw (after you invested enough in Power Strike, up this)
- horse archery (focus power draw first, then only this)
Only invest in these after you done all above:
- Iron flesh
- Shield
C) Equipment
It is very important that you fill up all 4 of your slots smartly, and versatilely.
To fight versatilely, there are 3 things you should never ignore:
A) Shield
B) Ranged Weapon
C) Horse
For Shield, it is always a good idea to bring at least one. And store more in your baggage in case one of them broke! Against enemy with a lot of archers, it is usually a good idea to equip 2 shields. The unused shields will be protecting your back in case there's any missiles coming from behind, plus it is likely that one of your shield will break before you exhausted enemy's missiles.
Always store 3-5 more stacks of ammunition in your baggage. They are extremely handy especially when you are fighting against an army of mounted archers (you know who...).
About Horse, it is best to have 4 horses:
- A fast and good manuvering horse with feasible armor (otherwise it will be very hard for you to catch up those annoying mounted horse archers, or don't you even think of hitting them...)
- A heavily armored horse with good charge value
- plus one backup for each of above, a total of 4.
In the future when they start to implement possibility of lance breaking after charging an enemy, you might need to start storing up lances too!
Remember, the best fighter is never a one-trick-pony! And baggage is your best friend to help you achieve optimal versatility.
D) Battle Tactics
Battle tactics itself can be a long essay if written. The best build can be the worst if you do not equip the right thing, or use it against the wrong enemy.
I do not have enough time to elaborate on this, but I am sure that, if you have prepared all the equipments I mentioned, and think actively about on who and when you should use them, you will learn all you need know about battle tactics eventually about fighting (I am not talking about commanding an army here...).
So, with such build in mind:
When you are on your horse, you are a very formidable horse archer.
When you are dismounted, you are a foramidable warrior. (I love to play like this the most, I love foot battle much more than on horseback.)
With the proper equipments (shields and armors), you can 1 vs many in any given situation, against any type of enemy.
With the proper backup items in your baggage, and minimal soldiers as your support, you can be the god of war.
But again, a reminder: with your poor number of soldiers, you will find it hard to take on an offensive siege by yourself. However, you should find it very easy to gain reputation point as you can take out a lot of enemy with only a few number of soldiers. Reputation points will grant you extra slots for soldiers. The large experiance shared among only few soldiers will make them rank-up faster. You can invest points into charisma or leadership anytime you feel comfortable, without compensating your battle prowess.
Enjoy.
