Most effective chatacter builds

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Hi everyone.
I would like to discuss most effective strategy in developing your characters.

It is very easy to botch your character progression without experience. If you invest learning points like "little bit of everything" you gonna hit the cap on level 20-24.
Obviously, it's better if you aim to hit maximum available level in preferred skills, like 250 and more, and best of all, if those skills are tied to one attribute, so you can use attribute points with maximum efficiency. Higher skills - higher level cap.

I would like to read what your maximum level was achieved without cheats, and how you've done that.

Also , would be good to read your opinion what kinda of skills are must have, and what are not.
 
Here is mine : my last playthrough I hit 27 level as endurance / vigor warrior. I could more , but I got bored and started new character with more satisfying (in my opinion) roleplaying - endurance / social character. I'm level 20 now , but I want to beat level 27 and more .

I just realized there are not so many good perks in vigor after 150 . So I'm gonna hit every melee skill to 125 and vigor level 3 with help of endurance perks. Gonna hit all endurance skills to max and do same with social. Lil bit tactic and roguery, lil bit crossbow. Should be done by level 30 , if I can reach it , let's see.
 
Here's my best character I used in 1.5.6 beta, I got a couple more levels too before shelfing that playthrough for updates.

I look at the char creation choices as a big problem for "builds" because you kinda stuck with crappy packages to get the attributes you want.
I usually got with the bow and riding packages because I do think they're good and might as well because I will absolutely be making massive raw exp from shooting down enemies, so might as well get the perks. Bit I don't want more then 250 perks as the 275 perks are pretty unneeded. Really I could skip the attributes and be fine with 200 in bow and riding, but I don't really like most of the other options in char creation. and the 225 and 250 perks are pretty good IME. My horse is going to be taking massive beatings in battle :smile:

After that you can get enough attributes (:cool: in the game to fully max out 1 skill group, regardless of starting choices, so really there's 3 choices.
I went with Cunning for the uncanny insight perk in scouting, very good for my playstyle, I hate armies and perfure to be fast single party that can kill an army in it's tracks. Roguery and tactics are okay too. I will say in 1.5.8 and 1.5.9 scouting seems significantly slower so if this keeps being true I might not use this build again in future games, as getting 275+ in a timely manner was the main point.

If they fix medicine then int may be better as getting max in medicine, steward and engineer could be very useful, as it is though medicine and engineer are pitiful slow.

Social would be good for leadership IF you can stand being a vassal to get it early, but the leadership becomes pretty slow after a certain point so getting the 275 may not be that viable if you're gonna re-start the game every 2 -3 weeks :smile: Trade and charm are absolute garbage. 5 FP in leadership can get my the most important veteran's respect to mass produce noble troops, so that's enough. The perk to give _5 party size per town really benefits me too.

Vigor is not needed, I'll take polearm FP to 200 just because, but offensively you can 1 shot guys with zero skill....

I used to always max endurance for the HP athletics skill at 275....however I never ever got close to getting it in and un-modded game :sad:
If they improve it then I may go back to that build.
 
I believe that over-reaching for efficiency can be a detriment to enjoyment... I kept trying doing a "troop max hp run" in which I try to level every combat skills (one-hand, two-hand, polearm) until I get the perks that give my troops +Hp. Also paired with endurance of course. But, focusing on combat so much has killed my joy for the game... it felt like I was forced to grind A LOT to reach my purpose. Of course endurance is a must-have for efficiency and max level, because it gives you +2 endurance and +2 vigor, so paired with vigor you can get easily 10 attributes in endurance and vigor. But the amount of grinding you're supposed to do is not worth it I'd say.

So all this said, as the progression stands right now (it will get improvements in the near future hopefully), I really wouldn't focus on efficiency. Or, if you do try to do what I said with endurance and vigor, do smithing LAST. It will lower your leveling speed for the combat skills and for the athletics, and you really don't want that. At first it may seem like smithing is a no-brainer choice, since it's easy to level, gives you tons of money, and you get the endurance and vigor attribs really quickly. But it will be the biggest kill-joy of all... and no more economy management is just another thing that makes the game feel very stale, it will not be enjoyable (it feels like you just cheated). An idea for smithing is to limit yourself to smelting the weapons you create (never sell them), if you want a semi-enjoyable gameplay experience.

Right now I'm doing a little bit of everything and I am enjoying it more. I started with social. At the beginning you do quests, and quests = charm. It's a nice way to get into the game, felt pretty immersive. Also after a few tournaments, can do a little trading. You don't need to go all the way at the end of the perk tree, you can get a few perks that help the playthrough. For example I'm aiming for the "more workshop production", but I'm really in no hurry to get there. It feels nice to only trade sometimes, and not trade 24/7 until it gets boring as hell. Leadership is a nice skill that won't level that much if you are not in an army, so it feels like a late-game insurance kind-of. Like, if my level really got stuck for a while, I know that I can start creating armies at one point and level up leadership and gain some more levels. So it's some psychological benefit in that way.

I wanted to do social to 10, then add endurance and vigor. But I changed my mind and I'm keeping social at 7 for now, and now I'm going for intellect for the steward skill. Currently I'm level 16, I have 7 points in social, 4 points in intellect, 3 points endurance and vigor. My plan is also to get some scouting skill at one point (2-3 focus points), because inevitably my scouting companion might die at one point, and the very first movement speed improvement perks + the extra sight radius is really handy. My companion has almost 100 scouting and it feels like enough for my party, so don't need to go all the way, again. The only things I do want to go all the way eventually are the +party limit perks, like steward, leadership. But, this might inevitably fail if I don't level up anymore, so I don't have my hopes that big but at least for the time being the gameplay has been enjoyable.

7 attributes and 5 focus points = lets you to reach over 274 skill, for the last perk (well, not trading though). So I'm going to try to stop at 7 attributes from now on and get a more balanced character, because it's simply unenjoyable to go max in something and only focus on that...
 
Here's my best character I used
It is hard to see , but looks like level 34 ?
If so, it is impressive. And still you have room to expand. I have 800 hours in steam , but never got level 34.
Trade and charm are absolute garbage
Indeed. I hope they add secondary effects to charm. Right now only 1 decent perk - champion (gives you 10 influence after winning tournament). But since it in social, I prefer to level it up to get higher level cap.

Trade is meh too , there are some nice perks , but most of them are meh. Only reason I bother - I never tried this "buy a fief " perk , just curious about it.

Vigor is not needed, I'll take polearm FP to 200 just because, but offensively you can 1 shot guys with zero skill....
Funny thing is you can be a death machine with level 75 to 100 in any combat skills. I tried to push it to the max and realized it was pointless. There are no game changing perks in there , and 2h sword's last perk is on 225, what a joke, no point get 2h more than 225. Just get these funny dismount and knock down perks for fun and you are good to go.


I used to always max endurance for the HP athletics skill at 275....however I never ever got close to getting it in and un-modded game :sad:
I got level 220. Then I started new playthrough. Athletic is very good skill. And it gives you more attribute points and focus points.
Smithing is almost pays for itself. It gives you 2 attribute points and 2 focus points. I think it must have in endurance builds.
 
I believe that over-reaching for efficiency can be a detriment to enjoyment...
I feel same when I hit level cap. I think it's personal though, sure some people are ok when they hit level cap and keep playing.

An idea for smithing is to limit yourself to smelting the weapons you create (never sell them), if you want a semi-enjoyable gameplay experience.
So true , once you start to sell it - you're done with this playthrough. It's ok to sell something for 1k and not ok to sell something for 100k

Also after a few tournaments, can do a little trading. You don't need to go all the way at the end of the perk tree, you can get a few perks that help the playthrough
Why do that ? There is nothing in trading unless you want last perk. Only last perk is game changing, and few late perks are good.
 
Obviously, it's better if you aim to hit maximum available level in preferred skills, like 250 and more, and best of all, if those skills are tied to one attribute, so you can use attribute points with maximum efficiency. Higher skills - higher level cap.
You would think so but I don't agree.

Take Charm as an example. For a ruler I consider Respectful Opposition and Young and Respectful mandatory to maintain relations. However there is nothing I care about in Charm beyond level 125 and I don't need more influence and relationship bonuses past that. In fact I wish I could lock it at 125 and keep it from ever leveling even a single point beyond.

There's actually a number of 100, 125 perks in various skill lines that I would much rather have over many of the 200+ perks in the skills I put the most focus points and attribute points into. When you consider the insane grind of many skills past 200+ it makes things even worse.

I would like to read what your maximum level was achieved without cheats, and how you've done that.

Also , would be good to read your opinion what kinda of skills are must have, and what are not.
Usually hit around 24-28 before I restart due to a major update.

Charm to 125 for Respectful Opposition.

Leadership as high as possible, too many good perks including level 200+ that will significantly increase army size for the clan.

Trade as high as possible, too critical for earning money due to limited options, also includes a 1,000 denar passive income (which is bugged and is >1k right now).

Steward for Frugal, Drill Sergeant, Efficient Campaigner, Sweatshops all the way up to Gourmet. I don't think it's mandatory because the party size bonus isn't that large and there's not much worth talking about past Gourmet.

Medicine for at least Preventative Medicine. I don't care for a lot of the 100 - 200 perks and the 200+ perks are too hard to reach.

Engineering up to around 100 to speed up and beef up the engines. Military Planner is nice but you can always cheese for ammo.

Overall, Intelligence is probably the most primed for delegation to companions. However a number of perks are personal not role based, and I prefer not to use companion slots on these, and it's hard to find companions with the correct perks for these. Basically I generally end up with 4-5 points in Steward and 2-3 in Medicine and Engineering each. They climb up to around ~100 while Steward is able to shoot up to 200+.

Roguery is all but useless to me and hard to level. Tactics has the same problem. That leaves Scouting alone, so I usually put a companion on that one, scouts are one of the easier things to find.

Smithing I never touch.

Riding is particularly useful for map speed and cavalry bonuses. Bow is particularly useful due to prevalence of archers and horse archers. They often get up to 5 focus points each. I also find the battles my troops need help with the most are sieges, taking out the siege engine users and enemy archers with my bow is usually more productive than trying to climb a ladder or tower to melee.

I usually want at least some Athletics, but there's not much critical here unless I'm playing hero on foot.

1H/2H/Polearm/Throwing I try to take to 100 - 150 for the bonuses to troops.
 
I would like to read what your maximum level was achieved without cheats, and how you've done that.
Not my highest, but my current playthrough is level 35, by just playing the game. I don't do anything special.
bGCIm1O.jpg

Also , would be good to read your opinion what kinda of skills are must have, and what are not.
Maxed-out Stewardship for the wage savings, maxed-out Scouting for the party speed boosts, near maxed out Leadership for the +1 clan party if you're creating your own faction or want to be the premier vassal clan.
 
Here's my best character I used in 1.5.6 beta, I got a couple more levels too before shelfing that playthrough for updates.

I look at the char creation choices as a big problem for "builds" because you kinda stuck with crappy packages to get the attributes you want.
I usually got with the bow and riding packages because I do think they're good and might as well because I will absolutely be making massive raw exp from shooting down enemies, so might as well get the perks. Bit I don't want more then 250 perks as the 275 perks are pretty unneeded. Really I could skip the attributes and be fine with 200 in bow and riding, but I don't really like most of the other options in char creation. and the 225 and 250 perks are pretty good IME. My horse is going to be taking massive beatings in battle :smile:

After that you can get enough attributes (:cool: in the game to fully max out 1 skill group, regardless of starting choices, so really there's 3 choices.
I went with Cunning for the uncanny insight perk in scouting, very good for my playstyle, I hate armies and perfure to be fast single party that can kill an army in it's tracks. Roguery and tactics are okay too. I will say in 1.5.8 and 1.5.9 scouting seems significantly slower so if this keeps being true I might not use this build again in future games, as getting 275+ in a timely manner was the main point.

If they fix medicine then int may be better as getting max in medicine, steward and engineer could be very useful, as it is though medicine and engineer are pitiful slow.

Social would be good for leadership IF you can stand being a vassal to get it early, but the leadership becomes pretty slow after a certain point so getting the 275 may not be that viable if you're gonna re-start the game every 2 -3 weeks :smile: Trade and charm are absolute garbage. 5 FP in leadership can get my the most important veteran's respect to mass produce noble troops, so that's enough. The perk to give _5 party size per town really benefits me too.

Vigor is not needed, I'll take polearm FP to 200 just because, but offensively you can 1 shot guys with zero skill....

I used to always max endurance for the HP athletics skill at 275....however I never ever got close to getting it in and un-modded game :sad:
If they improve it then I may go back to that build.

The first trade perks aren't garbage, it helps you with colors. ?
 
Indeed. I hope they add secondary effects to charm. Right now only 1 decent perk - champion (gives you 10 influence after winning tournament). But since it in social, I prefer to level it up to get higher level cap.
Don't understand this at all. 10 influence from a tournament is all but useless to me. Respectful Opposition and Young and Respectful turn my ruler into the most popular person in all of Calradia. Not sure if it's related but I've never had the trouble with getting clans to join, or having clans betray me, or having my villages overly raided, or losing lots of caravans, etc. that others seem to have.

Trade is meh too , there are some nice perks , but most of them are meh. Only reason I bother - I never tried this "buy a fief " perk , just curious about it.
Caravan Master, Content Trades, Insurance Plans, Spring of Gold. The others are meh, sure, but they are worth a little bit and the color coding makes trading a trivial activity. Spring of Gold alone is like adding 3 free workshops that can't be captured.

Most of the skills and perks are pretty "meh" in my opinion to start with. Trade is so easy to level, and shares Social with Leadership which I want as high as possible, that I can't see why I would avoid the income from trading or the perks from leveling it.
 
This is me at day 1936 of campaign:

qKsPkfD.png


I started out as a polearm user with long glaive, as I like the combination of reach and safety with high damage, it's also great against cavalry.
However, towards the late game, when I got better armor, I switched to a 2h axe as I found it lets me get even more kills per battle, abusing the slash hit mechanic killing 2 guys at once. And 1h + shield is just my side combo for dealing with archers, climbing ladders etc.

Few things I would fix if I were to do it again:
- Get rid of trading and social skills in general, the little leadership you need to maintain morale can be achieved without much attribute points.
- Get more focus points in Steward earlier, the extra party space is nice (cba getting a quartermaster).
- Probably not bother with polearms at all, just get 1h+2h and that's it. Would make early game a bit harder I suppose, but that's alright.
- And most importantly, invest more points into endurance. As you can see, I'm now stuck at 260 athletics. If I could just get it to 275, I'd get a whole lot more HP from the last perk. Next lvl I'm gonna get it anyway, but it could be done much earlier.
 
The first trade perks aren't garbage, it helps you with colors. ?
What's funny is in my picture my trade is hardcapped at 21 instead of the normal 18 because dumped my entire inventory into my stash and it triggered some bug that gave trade exp as if you had sold it and, apparently a lump some of exp will go over the hard cap level :smile: Almost could got that 25 perk if I had more stuff to dump.
 
- Get rid of trading and social skills in general, the little leadership you need to maintain morale can be achieved without much attribute points.
- Get more focus points in Steward earlier, the extra party space is nice (cba getting a quartermaster).
Some things to consider:
1. Leadership has huge bonuses to army size: adds an entire party and makes all of your parties bigger.
2. Definitely get rid of trade since you're not using it, but if you do use it that's easy money and with perks like Caravan Master you can carry half of Calradia in your baggage train with nearly zero penalty.
3. Maybe move the 5 points in Charm? There's not much to talk about in the perks beyond 125 and several of them aren't implemented at all.

Move 2-3 points from Charm to Steward and then you can dump Trade wherever you want.
 
You would think so but I don't agree.

Take Charm as an example. For a ruler I consider Respectful Opposition and Young and Respectful mandatory to maintain relations. However there is nothing I care about in Charm beyond level 125 and I don't need more influence and relationship bonuses past that. In fact I wish I could lock it at 125 and keep it from ever leveling even a single point beyond.
I mean I buff charm above cuz I want get more xp to raise my character's level.
I agree there are nothing in charm after 125 , though there are some , like last perk which gives you passive influence income, but I don't know if it works at all , curious about it.

Not my highest, but my current playthrough is level 35, by just playing the game. I don't do anything special.
Nice. I really didn't now that if you put 5 LP and 3LP in riding you can hit 232 riding skill . I thought I wouldn't make it above 200 , that's a discovery for me.
Don't understand this at all. 10 influence from a tournament is all but useless to me. Respectful Opposition and Young and Respectful turn my ruler into the most popular person in all of Calradia. Not sure if it's related but I've never had the trouble with getting clans to join, or having clans betray me, or having my villages overly raided, or losing lots of caravans, etc. that others seem to have.
I prefer champion to respectful opposition because everyone likes me without it , but I fight in tournaments often. Sometimes I struggle with influence, champion helps.

Spring of Gold alone is like adding 3 free workshops that can't be captured.
I forgot about .spring of gold.
There some okay perks, but nothing crazy , but spring of gold is good, yes.
 
This is me at day 1936 of campaign:

qKsPkfD.png


I started out as a polearm user with long glaive, as I like the combination of reach and safety with high damage, it's also great against cavalry.
However, towards the late game, when I got better armor, I switched to a 2h axe as I found it lets me get even more kills per battle, abusing the slash hit mechanic killing 2 guys at once. And 1h + shield is just my side combo for dealing with archers, climbing ladders etc.

Few things I would fix if I were to do it again:
- Get rid of trading and social skills in general, the little leadership you need to maintain morale can be achieved without much attribute points.
- Get more focus points in Steward earlier, the extra party space is nice (cba getting a quartermaster).
- Probably not bother with polearms at all, just get 1h+2h and that's it. Would make early game a bit harder I suppose, but that's alright.
- And most importantly, invest more points into endurance. As you can see, I'm now stuck at 260 athletics. If I could just get it to 275, I'd get a whole lot more HP from the last perk. Next lvl I'm gonna get it anyway, but it could be done much earlier.
Nice. Thought, if you invest at least one LP in riding you can get 2 perks buffing your world map speed.

Does last 2H weapons perk any difference?
 
Can anyone confirm that skills that give some type of bonus to troops in your formation actually works for your party. I saw somewhere else that it only applies if you are in an army and you take command of a troop group as a sergeant before the battle begins.
 
Can anyone confirm that skills that give some type of bonus to troops in your formation actually works for your party. I saw somewhere else that it only applies if you are in an army and you take command of a troop group as a sergeant before the battle begins.
I second this requests.
My understanding is that your clan member/companion in the group number (in the highest slot) with your units, like gruop 1, 2, 3 and so on, will give their captain perks to that group when aplicable..... however it's kinda hard to to know if they're working. Somebody might be able to compare and contrast but really a person who looks at the code probably could just figure it out more precisely.
 
Can anyone confirm that skills that give some type of bonus to troops in your formation actually works for your party. I saw somewhere else that it only applies if you are in an army and you take command of a troop group as a sergeant before the battle begins.
They don't work if you (as player character) are a solo party leader or army commander.
 
How do you guys get 200+ in so many skills. Do you use mods? I find it very hard to level things in vanilla game without mods. I usually get to maybe 100/150 in few of them only after like 1000 days
 
qKsPkfD.png
A little bit off-topic but i think that "either with a shield or without" should be "either with or without a shield" :smile:
Is that usage of either-or duo grammatically correct? @MArdA TaleWorlds
 
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