Appreciate the video and you are correct about pure polearms, however a few things probably should have been addressed: - Polearm AOE should have been discussed. The polearm AOE still has inferior damage to throwing spec, however the math to show this isn't immediately obvious, so people are going to come in here talking about how pure polearms are good because of the AOE. It would have been great if you had shown the mathematical weakness of the AOE polearm build, because that's what people are going to use to argue in favor of pure polearms. - Polearm spec is still a great pick, the pure polearm specialist build is the problem, characters who newer players build as pure polearms should simply raise melee defense and pick up a high damage weapon and quickhands, becoming a frontliner with an polearm/pathfinder addon package. Polearm and Pathfinder fit perfectly on a generic dodge quick hands nimble zerk frenzy build. The primary weapon is a 2handed Axe or mace but the polearm adds flexibility and allows the team to concentrate more damage due to the greater mobility and respond more quickly to trouble spots, not to mention how polearm spec lets you manipulate the AI. The mistake newer players make is pure backliner polearms who don't raise melee defense.
polearm aoe is kay but does very little against the hardest fights in the game, orc warriors and chosem namely. yes you can make a bro that would be serivceable in those circumstances with that build but that is likely because you comitted a god tier bro to that kitted out in famed gear, and that means that you lost the opportunity cost of making him a frontliner.
The nerf to the bill hook didn't help. I still build a polearm bro though it's a bags/belt qh net thrower along with the banner sergeant. Oddly enough, the adrenaline 2h Spear has been getting more kills from finishers and alpha striking goblin shaman. Perhaps a brute or drunk headhunter will work better with a polearm. Attempted a fearsome pole lance sweeper. Was hot garbage due to negligible armour penetration.
If you build a polearm bro, it is because he isn't suitable for anything else. What else can you do if you recruit a bro in the early game with 67** melee attack and 0 melee defense?
Once I ran a 12 polearm roster, mostly pikes with repel First 60-70 days were good, nothing could get to my line But the minute you start fighting enemies that can break or disrupt your formation its game over hahaha
I think an important polearm advantage was missed: there is only 6 tiles of surrounding area for any entity. And those will be filled with tanks, their allies, obstacles, etc. Thats where polearms comes in handy: they increase the amount of tiles for enemy entity to be hit from by your melee damage dealers. There are situations where you really need those extra hits, you cant get them any other way. You dont build polearem only DD, roster versatility is always a sign of a good tactician.
This why most people put QH + reach weapon on their frontliners. Like a 2h axe with pocket long axe, or 2h mace with pocket polemace. One less tile of effective range than a polearm spec build but with better damage at 1 tile and in the case of mace bros, superior utility at 2 range. I don't think that the extra tile of movement of polearm spec is relevant anywhere near often enough to be worthwhile. And backline builds have better options (javelins) for attacking at 2 tiles so they aren't going to use a polearm in that situation either.
Well, if you consider adding tiles from which an enemy unit can be attacked as an advantage of the polearms, bad news, every ranged weapon, most importantly throwing weapons, can do exactly that too, and often better.
Whole point of video is "quickhands is good". I dont think anyone will argue against that Reap brought up but not discussed. Are lindwurms easy? Because thats where Swordlance aoe is easily the best damage option alongside handgonne, who has positioning issues polearm doesnt. Yes, lindwurms have armor (400 body 200 head) but they also have over a 1000 health, meaning that most of your hitting will be on bare hp. Meaning armor shredding is less important and ignore wholly irrelevant. Dealing 120-160 damage to one wurm (not counting the possibility of head hits) and landing a blow on a third is very relevant. The encounters where reap is really bad are chosen, unholds, honorguard (whom in truth arent very difficult), against orcs you usually still have the young blob you want to kill/mass rout quickly which someone with a weapon that hits 3-6 times in one turn does very well. Add fearsome if you want Thrower has a range advantage but the reason why he has better damage is because of the buff he gets at a 2 tile distance that combines with duelist. At 3 tiles its much worse and lets not bring up 4, or the accuracy falloff for that matter. Thrower is indeed better at single target damage (and op) but understanding why it is so is important instead of just saying it is. Same how its important to realize the inherent advantage all aoe has in this game, and that polearms have the most flexible one both due to 5 ap to attack and considering its done over a distance. Both have merit. Again, theres fights where one or the other is preferable. The game is not that simple.
I was a bit scared when I saw the title because I’m a new player and was about 40 days into a campaign following your polearm duelist builds you posted 2 years ago. And then I read the title properly. The problem is ALL my frontliners are either stam neutral tanks or polearm duelists because I don’t know how to build properly :(
Hey, that's part of the learning process. My first campaign I built flail/mace shield hybrids because I watched a challenge run and that's what the player had to do. They were REALLY BAD. We learn lol
My first shield bros/mammuths had Spears mastery... for pure SHIELD BROS😅 and archers ( currently, I stopped using them. Yes, they have some utility... they can help you somewhat to win a battle but just underperform in every way) Still making crossbows/gunners, but I preffer to make trowers. And of course, everyone had brawny and was BattleForged bro, not matter that he gonna end up with 120 fatigue.
Sometimes you just get a bro with Melee Attack = 67**, Melee Defense = 0 and ranged Attack = 34 and a polearm bro is your only option. I had such a bro in my Northern Raiders campaign and I gave him Adrenalin and Rotate, rather than defensive perks like Nimble or Dodge. He was very versatile, very mobile, a lot of fun and pretty good on top of that.
Polearm vs 2h is not relevant, completely different weapons. Polearm vs thrower, assuming you got your hands on relevant bros. Pure polearm bros are a lot less perk starved than throwers, so besides doing damage, they have the extra perk slot for rotate to save bros in emergency, they benefit from huge while the drawback is mostly negated.
Do you even know what meta is? It's when you watch videos about the game you like and actively participate in the society of its' gamers by idk... commenting videos here maybe? 😅
@@abcede3897uh…. No, he’s talking about “meta-gaming,” (i.e. doing the best thing possible in a game for every situation) not making “meta” comments 🙄😂
My battle-to-kill ratios say otherwise. My polearm guys (billhook + swordlance + whip + net + smoke bomb) kill significantly more than my throwers. The only reason I continue to use ranged units is because you need at least one to prevent enemies from turtling. Yes, the thrower can take a single target down faster, but polearm guys can still fight in melee range and they don't have to worry about bushes getting in the way or friendly fire. Throwers also have significantly worse access to named weapons. Most named throwing items will be worse than the heavy barbarian versions. In my current run, one of my swordlances has about +20 to both the high and low damage ranges. I don't think a max rolled named throwing weapon could compete with that.
Well, my huge, 3* fat, no md, avg 2* melee farmhand who became the god of dps with a swordlance disagrees with your conclusion, they are not bad builds depending on the bro and they can be really useful. Colossus, adrenaline, recover, pathfinder, gifted, backstabber, polearm, nimble, berserk and killing frenzy. He fulfilled his purpose wonderfully, hitting as many things as possible and finishing wounded enemies at the beginning of a turn. He was the AI preferred target though.
I think that you aren't so making a counterexample but pointing out how these builds can still work (which is my initial statement in the assumptions). That being said, you haven't countered the arguments I make in the video which is that other builds are stronger than pure polearm bros.
@@CarveaHole Well, you made your point about how dedicated polearm bros are bad builds with the assumption that a Swordlancer is only good against spiders, which it's "true", but not really. You explained really well why you build a polearm bro, but you missed their biggest asset, the ability to burst damage consistently where you need to, which is finishing off already weakened enemies. The damage dealt by that farmhand was amazing, bursting 2 aoes per turn at times and what that means in terms of the game?, killing and wounding multiple enemies with the flexibility that adrenaline gives you? That's not a bad build.
If u got swordlance early, u can carry early game with it. But that bro will be worthless when attacking orcs or South brigands. Polearms are good early weapons when u dont have 3tier 2handers and you are without nimble. I really don't use them anymore when thrower do the same work and much better.
@@velgazor4739 Nah, orcs stacks usually field plenty of obnoxious young and bersekers, so the swordlancer shines against them, and if if you need extra damage you can always give him mushrooms, since his purpose is not tanking but obliterate things. I begun a northern raider campaign and the 2* melee/fat barb has the huge trait so i made him a swordlancer but i dropped adreline and went for the dodge build with overwhelm, and he is insane without a famed swordlance. Not only he does twice as much damage as anyone else, this build can tank single enemies and debuff multiple targets now.
From my point of view your arguments would be reasonable if whips and cleavers did not exist, and also if hybrids were not the optimal choice for ranged units. Also the combo pole + cleaver spec is also optimal from my point of view. A brother with a pole, a 2h cleaver and a whip is better than a brother without the pole if he doesn't have the melee defense. At the end I think that if you want to use whips and crossbows the pole spec is great to have. The added accuracy from the back row which gets increased with backstabber is also another factor that becomes very relevant in the game and I don't think you took that into account.
ive played the game for 4 years and never has a backline whip been a necessary part of my copany kit. i dont find it necessary. there are very few enemies and situations where disarming someone is more valueable than just putting more damage into them. there are case specific scenraios wher eit might be nie to have whip but almost all of those situations can be either managed with more thrower dps bros, or can be averted all together by having more thrower dps bros. conversely, there are way more situations where a whip + polearm cannot solve the problem that would be solved by dps throwers.
@@er4din903 they are very useful for gheists, and can be quite helpful against the skulls in the sunken library. I dont often use disarm, but sometimes it can save lifes xD I like it on the banner tbh. I dont think there is any other way you can kill 3 gheists with one guy in one turn from 3 tiles away, that is the niche of the whip for me
You're talking about two hybrid builds (cleaver+whip and then ranged). I'm talking about pure polearm bros. Thus sure those may be good builds, but that's not a response to my arguments in this video. Hybrids are their own topic (and I praise them towards the end)
@@albertgrau4076 i argue that building any sort of primary polearm user is not ideal. Especially if your argument for doing so are gheists. They are dealt with good positioning and quick hand polearms on regular bros
That's Carve. "Here's what you're doing wrong. Here's why. Also, here's what you thought you're doing right is also wrong. Here's why. Basically anything and everything you've ever done, are doing, will do, is wrong. Here's why. Have fun!" Yup, that's Carve all right. 😂
frontline polearm is good. If you got a brother whos not squishy and not too shy to be in the frontlines (battleforged definitely better), a polearm/1handed weapon build is great. Reach ancient auxiliaries, reach brigand arbalests OVER palisades (once you run over there), reach any enemy an entire 4 tiles away (better with pathfinder). 1handed weapon is to make good use of the remaining 4 action points with quick hands. With berserk, it'll occasionally be extra 8 AP. Duelist isnt even that necessary i think
Making a pure anything will be worse than having diversity. Quick hands, even after being nerfed several times, is still an insane perk. The 0 stam builds are a great example. Polearms (including polehammer, polemace) as a weapon type are the most versatile in the game and anyone with decent melee skill can benefit from carrying one. Even without quick hands, it allows an injured brother to retreat to the backline while still contributing. Polearm mastery is definitely something for a hardcore support unit. I put it on brothers with good melee skill and stam/HP but just unworkable melee defense, initiative, resolve. Possible builds are bannerman so they can do damage, sword lancers, or dedicated arena fighters. To make it to late game one does need to find a particularly exceptional famed pole weapon for it to be truly useful, but they're very convenient and fun to play with if you do. Good sword lancers decimate goblins and nomads, polehammers can one shot ancient honor guard, I've never really had any success with polemaces though.
Interesting take, and to your point that we shouldn't deliberately try to find and level up a bunch of Polearm brothers, then yes, no arguments here. But as you said a few times in this video, this game is about making the most out of what you get. Trying to get optimal brothers is a joke unless you heavily mod the game or play hundreds of days. I can't tell you how many times I get 3 star 90-95 MATK potential brothers with shit MDEF and INIT for that matter, so Dodge ain't happening. Quick switching from a Swordlance to a Billhook isn't terrible in general, and the mobility is nothing to sneeze at. I've been experimenting and trying to get more out of my Polearms though. I'm going to experiment with Cleave so he can disarm if needed. And if you get one with good RES, then why not make the most of it and get Fortified Mind + Fearsome? Is that optimal, no, but wasting a 2 star RES on a Polearm doesn't seem great either.
I mean, I hope you covered the different weapons. The goblin polearm is a beast weapon, at least until day 100. Rupture is a 5AP huge chunk of damage to low armor targets and can one shot brigands. Basically a free mastery, goes very hard with killing frenzy on a half decent backliner.
Gobbie forks are mean. Rare ones with boosted head hit chance are great for QH Headhunter builds, and they're great for inflicting bleed stacks while having decent damage on-hit. Also they always have 5AP basic attacks and are ultra-light on fatigue demands, so you don't need Polearm Mastery to use them.
Your conclusion is correct. Sadly, I'm not sure anyone can ever "prove" this, or really prove anything in BB since it's such an open-ended game. What makes someone a true expert at BB is that they understand why certain builds are good and why some are suboptimal, even if they choose to play with the weaker builds. I tell my viewers to not replicate my builds because I understand they are usually just me doing random things. But I get myself out of trouble through superior tactics.
I think you "proving" things is possible but it's not as helpful as proving a theorem because the game is so open-ended and you can win with suboptimal things. For people that want to minmax or just do more, then I think you can certainly make assertions like this. Others are more than welcome to not care though, which is equally valid but doesn't make them "right" or "disprove" anything. It's often a tricky line to walk without falling off.
as a fellow mathematician i feel i must object to the second assumption of this analysis. bannerman *is* the ideal AoE swordlance bro. i will leave the proof of this assertion as an exercise for the reader.
I like my banner as a swordlancer because I want high fat and matt anyway, but the banner does shit dmg against ancient undead. I don't have the points to raise his mdef, they're going towards matt, fat and res after all. So melee is out of the equation. As is throwing since I do these builds for bros with high fat, matt and res. Sure you can also make a throwing banner, but that's just a different build for a bro with different talents. In the end this game is still rasy enough that you can just do whatever you want. I play ironman with mostly nimble overwhelm guys and I'm doing fantastic. There's more than one way to play this game and that's a good thing.
The main application of polearms is to give your non ranged Frontline 1-2 range w/quick hands Sometimes the priority enemies are behind other trash enemies (ie arbalests/billman behind footmen) Ranged units have a lower accuracy to target these same enemies when they are hiding behind the first line. Backline polearm dudes can not actually target these priority enemies Only Frontline with polearm side weapons can consistently and accurately hit the 2nd row
As somebody who is slowly sucking less at battle brothers, I feel polearms have carried me quite a long way and they are at least good with lower-level brothers that I don't want ded. Overall good video and I appreciate the insight.
Oversimplification makes part of this wrong. It goes wrong at 4:04 number of attacks. Due to increased range and mobility, and options for the aoe, the swordlance is more likely to be able to proc berserk by targeting a string of weakened enemies. Raw damage isn't everything. Overkill is pointless. We could conclude from this analysis that building just polearms for damage isn't optimal, but that doesn't mean that two greatswords are better than a greatsword supported by a swordlance. In reality the greatsword plus the swordlance does better as the greatsword can set up the kills with higher damage, and the swordlance is more likely to be able to aoe 3 targets twice given increased mobility, range, and range of AOE, and better focused damage given better overlap of aoe zones than two greatswords. I don't think ranged is really comparable. Throwing is more a ranged version of duelist, and handgonnes can be powerful but it's a bit rigid in firing patterns that avoid hitting your own guys, and it doesn't hit as hard as the polearm but can hit more targets. testing edit Speaking of hard fights, large numbers of lindwurms are definitely made easier by using more swordlance aoe and handgonnes than 2h weapons where you're next to them. But combined arms has synergy. A polehammer is great to go from wurm to wurm depleting armor first. Another consideration is value. All the masteries improve fatigue, but only polearm mastery allows an extra attack or swap all the time (which could be a shield for defense if you have bags). The benefit is more significant than the masteries for most. Like even if I wanted to use a 2h mace, the mastery doesn't make it much better. For hammers +5% shatter is also nice, but not like a whole extra attack. The mastery for polearm has a lot of value. But yeah polearm duelist is a good suggestion for making a polearm build better given the extra 4 ap available for a 1h weapon swap.
Why would you ever make a non-QH polearm build though, other than to prove it's bad? 2h doesn't have same number of attacks in practice. Two 2h attacks can only be performed by a stationary bro against two targets adjacent to him. But a QH bro can do one 2h attack + polearm attack + move, in any order (assuming you prepare by swapping to weapon you expect to need first on next turn). Which opens A LOT of options. So one of my standard backline builds is polearm/2h/1h. Duelist is extra perk cost. You can get same AP math with 2hCleaver (2 4AP attacks + 1 polearm). Less armor ignore, more raw and armor damage, and 1 more perk to use elsewhere.
Reap is better that regular melee attack, unless it's another 1tile aoe swing, which is way harder to pull off than with a 2tile wep. Fighting over your guys give you better formation opportunities and better movement flexibility, because you are not in zone of control, like in regular line fighting. You can take more offensive perks and stats using 2tile weapons. Why were you only comparing billhooks, that's obviously not the best weapon type, come on. Plus, there's always 5+4 double attack opportunity, which is incredible on it's own. I don't say it's better, but it def has it's place, it's not a BAD idea.
i think that what is being said here isnt that polearms are bad, but that in the situations where someone with your approach would make a backline reap polearm, it would have been better to do something else instead.
Yeah Er4din is getting at what I'm saying. There are better things to do than the AoE reap swordlance. Oftentimes spreading damage isn't as helpful as single-target focusing. And again, fighting over dudes is something a thrower can do whilst doing more damage.
There is...... a significant deal i'm too bad at the game to understand about this video. First thing that comes to mind for me, is terrain can be a right bastard to work with, and polearm bros help you get more hits in when you just cannot get into ZOC to save your life. Even if throwers do more damage, at least in my experience, its super rare for a bro to actually have a useable range attack stat, I actually rarely have more than 1 or 2 ranged bros because its so hard to find anyone with good range attack.
i nearly always use 2-4 2H polearms for the outsides of the back line as DPS-BF-Tanks. heavy armor, a good billhook or named 2H polearm and you get more or less 2 kills every round, you can sit behind your shield tank and the single target DPS is just plain stupid. a good famed one can mostly oneshot most enemies. (unlike PERFECT THROWING weapons) edit: i think the issue is with the role itself / how it is seen/presented here. polearm frontline and polearm backline are two totally different thing, same with other 2H weapons. TLDR: i can and will vouch for polearm-backliner DPS-Tanks all day long, but it heavily depends on the "polearm" type of weapons. i find billhooks work incredibly good, while poke-sticks are weaker than a wet noodle. edit2: yeah, thats the issue. CH has a very narrow view of utilization of 2H polearms. its a DPS dealer with more utility than the pure-DPS focused frontliners. you can for example waste a point in pathfinder or rotation or backstabber and still get away with it, though backstabber is mostly unnecessary. if you dont use sucking bros, most of your issues arent really issues. its about how you use the role, yes there are 2H "heavy" DPS weapons (which are quite good on frontliners) but from my personal experience, they are falling short on the versatility a good 2H backliner can give with just a good polearm. TLDR: you trade versatility for a tiny amount of less DPS.
oh and i dont go QH, bc its a wasted point. you can get MUCH higher DPS if you ignore fatigue and go pure HP, M-def and M. for the first 10 rounds you dont run into fatigue issues and after that you still have a single, stupidly heavy hitting attack with high connectivity. better than having fatigue but either missing or dealing puny damage.
why arent my prediction skills working or lottery numbers? dang, i would be filthy rich by now... how the hell did i know he will bring up throwers? throwers are one of THE most overRATED builds in this game BY far. period. and yes, subjectively. they literally even with a PERFECT NAMED item can not reach the damage output, damage sustainability (ammunition), range nor non-DPS-damage that other builds can. literally a god-archer (even a meh-archer) could kill more enemies BEFORE they reach the front line than a thrower can, WHEN they reached the front line. (edit. though overestimated isnt technically wrong, they are weak AF. period).
Well, the only reason to have 2h mace and a polearm only if u want to be sometimes able to move 2 tiles and hit somebody. Otherwise u would like to use 2h reach or just 2h wep.
Well if I could add Polearms have one more skill that is repel, or hook Those two have a thing in common, that is it staggers the enemy Useful to catch dodgy opponents offguard or just to put them in the back of the order:) And also Reap though can't stagger still make good use for ape damage
The part about ZOC, aren't you forgetting that throwers have duelist, quick hands and a melee weapon (probably a famed that you don't have a dedicated bro built for yet) in pocket? Even with low accuracy they likely have more damage output in ZOC than one polearm swing.
That's a lot of assumptions that while true in some cases are too specific for the video and would have I think derailed my point. You're not necessarily wrong though :)
Polearms have a very niche place, sadly. For early to mid game (that means before getting nimble) polearms can help you because they're "easy" to get and more safer than the usual system. But the same happens with spears, usefull the first 10 to 20 combats, nearly completly useless after getting raider gear and having some levels+2nd tier weapons Someone that you care enough to put him in a safer place (if you still care for your bros) or someone too wounded for being in the front row, can use a polearm (o poleaxe, pole mace...). I also help you to kill the second row weaker enemies if your bro have quick hands or help you with special fights that you need to manouver carefully your brothers (that means, Lindwurms, the tree monster and maybe the "yetis" ones) Except them, they are not usefull, much less the polearm as a weapon (poleaxes, polemaces and polehammers has some more utility, one breaks shield from the trees and can help you killing them without being easily killed by them, more if they dont have nimble, the other, help breaking the armor from orc warrios if your bro its too wounded and the polemace... for Qatal combo, maybe?) But specialized polearms bros with only polearm type of weapons...yep, not my favourites...😢
In the late game spears are more qh side weapons to ensure a weakened enemy dies (and proc'ing berserk recover). Better than swinging your 2h hammer against with 20% less accuracy and missing. Polearms start to get replaced in the late game, but not fully. Having a guy stand in the back and finish off guys weakened by the frontline still works better than lacking that focus fire capability (if only we could rotate as cheaply as the barbarians). And I don't want my ranged guys on the flank, even the back flank.
Thing is, if you have poor brothers, they are not valuable to you. The space in the backline however is valuable as you can throw 12 people in the front but you can’t make a team of 12 back liners. If you’re putting bad bros in the backline, that means you’re wasting valuebke backline space, that is necessary for some of the strongest builds in the game to function. What I’m getting at is this: if you have a bad brother, you put him in the most dangerous positions as you care the least about losing him. Give him patch perks, Fast Adaptation, dodge, shield mastery etc.one such pseudo tank can extract a remarkable amount of value for you protecting you actual backliners.
@@er4din903 Yes but most of the time you play with cheap to hire people and at End Game of course you don't need them Polearm is a perfect weapon for specific time and place + Peasant Militia LUL
I don't really think the last argument is valid, you compare two bros with difference being that one has qh+duelist(both perks for damage, QH saves action points for hitting things and duelist is a pure damage perk) and the other one has two utility perks being overwhelm+fearsome that do not really contribute to the damage output but weaken the opponents, yet do not make the bro kill things faster or better. The point overall is still valid that pure polearms are highly inefficient in terms of damage but overwhelm+fearsome might still be valid on a scythe imo. However, the hardest and strongest crowd control currently in the game is hitting every moving thing until it no longer moves and thrower/thrower+polearm backliners do a much better job at that.
Do you think you can make a guide on how armor ignore works? With the legends mod my poacher has a 93% armor ignore with a famed goblin bow for 30-50 damage, and there is no breakdown on how armor ignore works.
I believe this is how it works, but I may be mistaken. There's a damage roll of 30-50, and 93% of that will go through armor, so 27.9-46.5 which is basically 28-47 damage to HP. Effectiveness against armor is a separate roll, so hypothetically if that bow has 60% EAA then it would do 18-30 damage to armor. Battleforged and nimble (and other things from legends) reduce damage from there.
@@CarveaHole thanks, but can you make an in depth tutorial video about armor ignore and effective against armor, there are no in depth wikis or videos on them. Also the bow has 88% effective against armor.
@@CarveaHole I mostly just want a video I can reference new players to that sums up the introduction to how EAA and IA interact with one another and how certain perks interact with them due to this information not being easily found on the wikis.
Does it make sense to put archers in the first row and the melee units in the 2nd row, so they and use their range defence and can fire 2 shors at the opponent archers
No because that tactic requires archers and archers are bad... :P really though that's an okay idea but you have to watch for enemies that rush you (wolves/hyenas/dogs), and your front liners are also a tile farther away from the action which will hinder their abilities to get good positions in the first two turns.
Ranged bro in front is a bad idea in general. These are the exceptions where they're not. They're built as arrow magnets vs other ranged enemies. Specific as goblin warband or noble house counter. An arrow to a nimble anti ranged armour is one less to the dps. The band is built to alpha strike dangerous frontline enemy opponents with cripple. A hv xbow bolt into a big axe chosen is likely to cause the pierce lung or leg injury. That takes away their movement and stam recovery. Anti chosen tactics. 3 xbow bolts will kill 1 outright with crits. Otherwise put them into obsidian dagger shank range. Or the band is built with a rotate perk backline to pull the range bro out of trouble. These rangers use impalers to knock back and distrupt an offensive line. Allows hv weapon bro to jump into the gap with violence. Rotated out rangers keep knocking and nailing. Southern and noble army counter.
Usually my polearm gets 2 kills per battle, so i don't know what are talking about. Also they are good to taking enemy arrows. Hybrids can't do this, as they are locked in stats. Frontline bros can't do this, as they have no ranged defence. And, what a coincidence, they also can be your sergeant or second sergeant. So no, they are great builds than can help you from early to mid game. They have big damage output, they can help your frontline survive, they don't hungry for stats and they are replaceable. Every time your great bro gets and arrow and die, its the time where you don't have a pole arm bro to take that arrow instead.
Things like chosen (+ unholds), large orcs, southern armies. Many hard fights occur when your team is leveling because if you build well (or are good skilled enough) you can win against anything with a polished team.
@@CarveaHole Thank you! I was feeling lost during late gamy in terms of directions and your selection of fights sounds like a really nice benchmark for the company.
Is the limited ammo on throwers such a non-issue that it isn't even mentioned ? -- Anyway, I'm usually an optimization guy, but never cared much about lat game in BB (nor about bigfights locations) for one simple reason : way too much grind. Experiencing takes houuuuuuurs of leveling and farming, and leveling a bro in a wrong direction just costs too much investment. In the end, I mostly played games until 1st crisis, and end-up using simple builds like everyone nimble & many pole.. it works well enough. Can even perfect chosen camps with some nets ! I really wish the game had a faster leveling curve for bros. I'd want to play this at Slay the Spire pace... "Slay The Brothers" !
Good point! I didn't think of ammo when making this video, but because bags and belts is often taken in throwers it's becomes rare to run out of ammo. I think even without it, it's a small issue. A thrower with 12 shots is still way better than a pure polearmer
Polearm bros are basically bros that cant be anything else. So of course they're gonna suck against any decent build. Their only requirement is high melee attack. EVERY other class needs more than that. There isnt really much to prove here.
Finally, someone is talking about the weakness of polearms. It's hard to believe, but I have a really working build. It's a polearm and... a shield. Bonk. Shield. Next turn. Billhook. Bonk. Kill. Shield. You are awesome. One of my brothers get a pierced lung, but he had good stats. It was a pity to fire him and there was no replacement at that time. I called this build PolearmFatigueNeutralDefender. One of the most idiotic things I've ever done in this game. I have since stopped using brothers with polearms.
Why your arguments are invalid: 1 You dont want max damage, you want enemy dont hit you. Yes, ofc if you play wall vs wall you need max damage, but if you want control something in fight, dont pray 24/7 the Fortune God and dont waste 3-5 days to repair your armor you need abuse enemy AI to not let them hit you as long as possible. Ofc you need still do damage, and here's 2 options: poles and throwers, and... 2 Comparing trowers and poles is stupid. Yes you can trow one time and move, but it will do less damage than pole, so plus of # of attack is not matter. And luck you hit the target on 4-tiles range. All of this bc trowers and poles need for different purposes. Poles are first liners, trowers are second liners. Period. (And yes, swordlance is the best weapon for first liner) You cant just made up things from your head, dont test it and believe its true. P.S. I know my english is bad.
IMO this is a pointless video :) as you're comparing apples to oranges. a 2h sword bro has a completely different purpose and build, than a 2nd line pole bro. They share very little in how you build them and how you use them.
Appreciate the video and you are correct about pure polearms, however a few things probably should have been addressed:
- Polearm AOE should have been discussed. The polearm AOE still has inferior damage to throwing spec, however the math to show this isn't immediately obvious, so people are going to come in here talking about how pure polearms are good because of the AOE. It would have been great if you had shown the mathematical weakness of the AOE polearm build, because that's what people are going to use to argue in favor of pure polearms.
- Polearm spec is still a great pick, the pure polearm specialist build is the problem, characters who newer players build as pure polearms should simply raise melee defense and pick up a high damage weapon and quickhands, becoming a frontliner with an polearm/pathfinder addon package. Polearm and Pathfinder fit perfectly on a generic dodge quick hands nimble zerk frenzy build. The primary weapon is a 2handed Axe or mace but the polearm adds flexibility and allows the team to concentrate more damage due to the greater mobility and respond more quickly to trouble spots, not to mention how polearm spec lets you manipulate the AI.
The mistake newer players make is pure backliner polearms who don't raise melee defense.
polearm aoe is kay but does very little against the hardest fights in the game, orc warriors and chosem namely. yes you can make a bro that would be serivceable in those circumstances with that build but that is likely because you comitted a god tier bro to that kitted out in famed gear, and that means that you lost the opportunity cost of making him a frontliner.
I agree with wht youre saying, theres many builds that can be made out of low mdef bros that arent immediately polearm backline
I'm pinning this comment because you say this well yourself. Thanks!
The nerf to the bill hook didn't help. I still build a polearm bro though it's a bags/belt qh net thrower along with the banner sergeant. Oddly enough, the adrenaline 2h Spear has been getting more kills from finishers and alpha striking goblin shaman. Perhaps a brute or drunk headhunter will work better with a polearm.
Attempted a fearsome pole lance sweeper. Was hot garbage due to negligible armour penetration.
Does anyone do that..? Ignore MD on any build? But we have Reddit and the internet, 3 attributes and fat neutral is all we know.
If you build a polearm bro, it is because he isn't suitable for anything else. What else can you do if you recruit a bro in the early game with 67** melee attack and 0 melee defense?
Once I ran a 12 polearm roster, mostly pikes with repel
First 60-70 days were good, nothing could get to my line
But the minute you start fighting enemies that can break or disrupt your formation its game over hahaha
Yeah exactly Orcs and ancient army just broke through and shattered my polearm bros
I think an important polearm advantage was missed: there is only 6 tiles of surrounding area for any entity. And those will be filled with tanks, their allies, obstacles, etc. Thats where polearms comes in handy: they increase the amount of tiles for enemy entity to be hit from by your melee damage dealers. There are situations where you really need those extra hits, you cant get them any other way.
You dont build polearem only DD, roster versatility is always a sign of a good tactician.
This why most people put QH + reach weapon on their frontliners. Like a 2h axe with pocket long axe, or 2h mace with pocket polemace. One less tile of effective range than a polearm spec build but with better damage at 1 tile and in the case of mace bros, superior utility at 2 range. I don't think that the extra tile of movement of polearm spec is relevant anywhere near often enough to be worthwhile.
And backline builds have better options (javelins) for attacking at 2 tiles so they aren't going to use a polearm in that situation either.
Well, if you consider adding tiles from which an enemy unit can be attacked as an advantage of the polearms, bad news, every ranged weapon, most importantly throwing weapons, can do exactly that too, and often better.
Whole point of video is "quickhands is good". I dont think anyone will argue against that
Reap brought up but not discussed. Are lindwurms easy? Because thats where Swordlance aoe is easily the best damage option alongside handgonne, who has positioning issues polearm doesnt. Yes, lindwurms have armor (400 body 200 head) but they also have over a 1000 health, meaning that most of your hitting will be on bare hp. Meaning armor shredding is less important and ignore wholly irrelevant. Dealing 120-160 damage to one wurm (not counting the possibility of head hits) and landing a blow on a third is very relevant.
The encounters where reap is really bad are chosen, unholds, honorguard (whom in truth arent very difficult), against orcs you usually still have the young blob you want to kill/mass rout quickly which someone with a weapon that hits 3-6 times in one turn does very well. Add fearsome if you want
Thrower has a range advantage but the reason why he has better damage is because of the buff he gets at a 2 tile distance that combines with duelist. At 3 tiles its much worse and lets not bring up 4, or the accuracy falloff for that matter. Thrower is indeed better at single target damage (and op) but understanding why it is so is important instead of just saying it is. Same how its important to realize the inherent advantage all aoe has in this game, and that polearms have the most flexible one both due to 5 ap to attack and considering its done over a distance. Both have merit. Again, theres fights where one or the other is preferable. The game is not that simple.
I was a bit scared when I saw the title because I’m a new player and was about 40 days into a campaign following your polearm duelist builds you posted 2 years ago. And then I read the title properly.
The problem is ALL my frontliners are either stam neutral tanks or polearm duelists because I don’t know how to build properly :(
Hey, that's part of the learning process. My first campaign I built flail/mace shield hybrids because I watched a challenge run and that's what the player had to do. They were REALLY BAD. We learn lol
My first shield bros/mammuths had Spears mastery... for pure SHIELD BROS😅 and archers ( currently, I stopped using them. Yes, they have some utility... they can help you somewhat to win a battle but just underperform in every way) Still making crossbows/gunners, but I preffer to make trowers. And of course, everyone had brawny and was BattleForged bro, not matter that he gonna end up with 120 fatigue.
Sometimes you just get a bro with Melee Attack = 67**, Melee Defense = 0 and ranged Attack = 34 and a polearm bro is your only option. I had such a bro in my Northern Raiders campaign and I gave him Adrenalin and Rotate, rather than defensive perks like Nimble or Dodge. He was very versatile, very mobile, a lot of fun and pretty good on top of that.
Not an endgame bro, just one willing to tank a hit and contribute when needed. That's usually the difference between a near win and total scrub.
Polearm vs 2h is not relevant, completely different weapons.
Polearm vs thrower, assuming you got your hands on relevant bros. Pure polearm bros are a lot less perk starved than throwers, so besides doing damage, they have the extra perk slot for rotate to save bros in emergency, they benefit from huge while the drawback is mostly negated.
You think I care about meta?
In fact I made several assumptions that you do :P
Do you even know what meta is? It's when you watch videos about the game you like and actively participate in the society of its' gamers by idk... commenting videos here maybe? 😅
@@abcede3897uh…. No, he’s talking about “meta-gaming,” (i.e. doing the best thing possible in a game for every situation) not making “meta” comments 🙄😂
@@abcede3897 so if i watch an ad of mcdonald then it means that i love and a fans of that franchise? what kind of logic is this? what a toddler
My battle-to-kill ratios say otherwise. My polearm guys (billhook + swordlance + whip + net + smoke bomb) kill significantly more than my throwers. The only reason I continue to use ranged units is because you need at least one to prevent enemies from turtling.
Yes, the thrower can take a single target down faster, but polearm guys can still fight in melee range and they don't have to worry about bushes getting in the way or friendly fire.
Throwers also have significantly worse access to named weapons. Most named throwing items will be worse than the heavy barbarian versions. In my current run, one of my swordlances has about +20 to both the high and low damage ranges. I don't think a max rolled named throwing weapon could compete with that.
Well, my huge, 3* fat, no md, avg 2* melee farmhand who became the god of dps with a swordlance disagrees with your conclusion, they are not bad builds depending on the bro and they can be really useful. Colossus, adrenaline, recover, pathfinder, gifted, backstabber, polearm, nimble, berserk and killing frenzy. He fulfilled his purpose wonderfully, hitting as many things as possible and finishing wounded enemies at the beginning of a turn. He was the AI preferred target though.
I think that you aren't so making a counterexample but pointing out how these builds can still work (which is my initial statement in the assumptions). That being said, you haven't countered the arguments I make in the video which is that other builds are stronger than pure polearm bros.
@@CarveaHole Well, you made your point about how dedicated polearm bros are bad builds with the assumption that a Swordlancer is only good against spiders, which it's "true", but not really. You explained really well why you build a polearm bro, but you missed their biggest asset, the ability to burst damage consistently where you need to, which is finishing off already weakened enemies. The damage dealt by that farmhand was amazing, bursting 2 aoes per turn at times and what that means in terms of the game?, killing and wounding multiple enemies with the flexibility that adrenaline gives you? That's not a bad build.
@@CarveaHole tbh, I kinda want to try and make a run with swordlance only for backline and see how that goes.
If u got swordlance early, u can carry early game with it. But that bro will be worthless when attacking orcs or South brigands. Polearms are good early weapons when u dont have 3tier 2handers and you are without nimble. I really don't use them anymore when thrower do the same work and much better.
@@velgazor4739 Nah, orcs stacks usually field plenty of obnoxious young and bersekers, so the swordlancer shines against them, and if if you need extra damage you can always give him mushrooms, since his purpose is not tanking but obliterate things. I begun a northern raider campaign and the 2* melee/fat barb has the huge trait so i made him a swordlancer but i dropped adreline and went for the dodge build with overwhelm, and he is insane without a famed swordlance. Not only he does twice as much damage as anyone else, this build can tank single enemies and debuff multiple targets now.
fun to have you back uploading. Love your content
Thanks! I'm enjoying coming back to it all too :D
I love my swordlance brother though. He's called Slaughter King for a reason 😂
From my point of view your arguments would be reasonable if whips and cleavers did not exist, and also if hybrids were not the optimal choice for ranged units.
Also the combo pole + cleaver spec is also optimal from my point of view. A brother with a pole, a 2h cleaver and a whip is better than a brother without the pole if he doesn't have the melee defense. At the end I think that if you want to use whips and crossbows the pole spec is great to have. The added accuracy from the back row which gets increased with backstabber is also another factor that becomes very relevant in the game and I don't think you took that into account.
ive played the game for 4 years and never has a backline whip been a necessary part of my copany kit. i dont find it necessary. there are very few enemies and situations where disarming someone is more valueable than just putting more damage into them. there are case specific scenraios wher eit might be nie to have whip but almost all of those situations can be either managed with more thrower dps bros, or can be averted all together by having more thrower dps bros. conversely, there are way more situations where a whip + polearm cannot solve the problem that would be solved by dps throwers.
@@er4din903 they are very useful for gheists, and can be quite helpful against the skulls in the sunken library. I dont often use disarm, but sometimes it can save lifes xD I like it on the banner tbh. I dont think there is any other way you can kill 3 gheists with one guy in one turn from 3 tiles away, that is the niche of the whip for me
You're talking about two hybrid builds (cleaver+whip and then ranged). I'm talking about pure polearm bros. Thus sure those may be good builds, but that's not a response to my arguments in this video. Hybrids are their own topic (and I praise them towards the end)
@@CarveaHole then yes, pure pole bros are not ideal
@@albertgrau4076 i argue that building any sort of primary polearm user is not ideal. Especially if your argument for doing so are gheists. They are dealt with good positioning and quick hand polearms on regular bros
Dayum….i been using 4-6 polearmers on the 2nd line effectively until now
Orc Warrior: so you have chosen death
That's Carve. "Here's what you're doing wrong. Here's why. Also, here's what you thought you're doing right is also wrong. Here's why. Basically anything and everything you've ever done, are doing, will do, is wrong. Here's why. Have fun!" Yup, that's Carve all right. 😂
That's a little too harsh, don't ya think! I've been working on being less mean you know :P
frontline polearm is good.
If you got a brother whos not squishy and not too shy to be in the frontlines (battleforged definitely better), a polearm/1handed weapon build is great.
Reach ancient auxiliaries, reach brigand arbalests OVER palisades (once you run over there), reach any enemy an entire 4 tiles away (better with pathfinder).
1handed weapon is to make good use of the remaining 4 action points with quick hands. With berserk, it'll occasionally be extra 8 AP. Duelist isnt even that necessary i think
Making a pure anything will be worse than having diversity. Quick hands, even after being nerfed several times, is still an insane perk. The 0 stam builds are a great example.
Polearms (including polehammer, polemace) as a weapon type are the most versatile in the game and anyone with decent melee skill can benefit from carrying one. Even without quick hands, it allows an injured brother to retreat to the backline while still contributing.
Polearm mastery is definitely something for a hardcore support unit. I put it on brothers with good melee skill and stam/HP but just unworkable melee defense, initiative, resolve. Possible builds are bannerman so they can do damage, sword lancers, or dedicated arena fighters.
To make it to late game one does need to find a particularly exceptional famed pole weapon for it to be truly useful, but they're very convenient and fun to play with if you do. Good sword lancers decimate goblins and nomads, polehammers can one shot ancient honor guard, I've never really had any success with polemaces though.
Love this style. Nice to see words on the screen, to follow what your talking about.
I like this niche - Squishy, overwhelming and fearsome bro with high initiative to start a turn with AoE
Interesting take, and to your point that we shouldn't deliberately try to find and level up a bunch of Polearm brothers, then yes, no arguments here. But as you said a few times in this video, this game is about making the most out of what you get. Trying to get optimal brothers is a joke unless you heavily mod the game or play hundreds of days. I can't tell you how many times I get 3 star 90-95 MATK potential brothers with shit MDEF and INIT for that matter, so Dodge ain't happening. Quick switching from a Swordlance to a Billhook isn't terrible in general, and the mobility is nothing to sneeze at.
I've been experimenting and trying to get more out of my Polearms though. I'm going to experiment with Cleave so he can disarm if needed.
And if you get one with good RES, then why not make the most of it and get Fortified Mind + Fearsome? Is that optimal, no, but wasting a 2 star RES on a Polearm doesn't seem great either.
I mean, I hope you covered the different weapons. The goblin polearm is a beast weapon, at least until day 100. Rupture is a 5AP huge chunk of damage to low armor targets and can one shot brigands. Basically a free mastery, goes very hard with killing frenzy on a half decent backliner.
Gobbie forks are mean. Rare ones with boosted head hit chance are great for QH Headhunter builds, and they're great for inflicting bleed stacks while having decent damage on-hit. Also they always have 5AP basic attacks and are ultra-light on fatigue demands, so you don't need Polearm Mastery to use them.
Your conclusion is correct. Sadly, I'm not sure anyone can ever "prove" this, or really prove anything in BB since it's such an open-ended game.
What makes someone a true expert at BB is that they understand why certain builds are good and why some are suboptimal, even if they choose to play with the weaker builds. I tell my viewers to not replicate my builds because I understand they are usually just me doing random things. But I get myself out of trouble through superior tactics.
I think you "proving" things is possible but it's not as helpful as proving a theorem because the game is so open-ended and you can win with suboptimal things. For people that want to minmax or just do more, then I think you can certainly make assertions like this. Others are more than welcome to not care though, which is equally valid but doesn't make them "right" or "disprove" anything. It's often a tricky line to walk without falling off.
as a fellow mathematician i feel i must object to the second assumption of this analysis. bannerman *is* the ideal AoE swordlance bro. i will leave the proof of this assertion as an exercise for the reader.
I like my banner as a swordlancer because I want high fat and matt anyway, but the banner does shit dmg against ancient undead.
I don't have the points to raise his mdef, they're going towards matt, fat and res after all. So melee is out of the equation. As is throwing since I do these builds for bros with high fat, matt and res. Sure you can also make a throwing banner, but that's just a different build for a bro with different talents.
In the end this game is still rasy enough that you can just do whatever you want. I play ironman with mostly nimble overwhelm guys and I'm doing fantastic. There's more than one way to play this game and that's a good thing.
Bannerman isn't the same as a regular polearm bro because he has this unique role to fulfill and thus the assumptions aren't the same about him.
The main application of polearms is to give your non ranged Frontline 1-2 range w/quick hands
Sometimes the priority enemies are behind other trash enemies (ie arbalests/billman behind footmen)
Ranged units have a lower accuracy to target these same enemies when they are hiding behind the first line.
Backline polearm dudes can not actually target these priority enemies
Only Frontline with polearm side weapons can consistently and accurately hit the 2nd row
As somebody who is slowly sucking less at battle brothers, I feel polearms have carried me quite a long way and they are at least good with lower-level brothers that I don't want ded. Overall good video and I appreciate the insight.
Oversimplification makes part of this wrong. It goes wrong at 4:04 number of attacks. Due to increased range and mobility, and options for the aoe, the swordlance is more likely to be able to proc berserk by targeting a string of weakened enemies. Raw damage isn't everything. Overkill is pointless. We could conclude from this analysis that building just polearms for damage isn't optimal, but that doesn't mean that two greatswords are better than a greatsword supported by a swordlance. In reality the greatsword plus the swordlance does better as the greatsword can set up the kills with higher damage, and the swordlance is more likely to be able to aoe 3 targets twice given increased mobility, range, and range of AOE, and better focused damage given better overlap of aoe zones than two greatswords. I don't think ranged is really comparable. Throwing is more a ranged version of duelist, and handgonnes can be powerful but it's a bit rigid in firing patterns that avoid hitting your own guys, and it doesn't hit as hard as the polearm but can hit more targets. testing edit
Speaking of hard fights, large numbers of lindwurms are definitely made easier by using more swordlance aoe and handgonnes than 2h weapons where you're next to them. But combined arms has synergy. A polehammer is great to go from wurm to wurm depleting armor first.
Another consideration is value. All the masteries improve fatigue, but only polearm mastery allows an extra attack or swap all the time (which could be a shield for defense if you have bags). The benefit is more significant than the masteries for most. Like even if I wanted to use a 2h mace, the mastery doesn't make it much better. For hammers +5% shatter is also nice, but not like a whole extra attack. The mastery for polearm has a lot of value.
But yeah polearm duelist is a good suggestion for making a polearm build better given the extra 4 ap available for a 1h weapon swap.
Why would you ever make a non-QH polearm build though, other than to prove it's bad?
2h doesn't have same number of attacks in practice. Two 2h attacks can only be performed by a stationary bro against two targets adjacent to him. But a QH bro can do one 2h attack + polearm attack + move, in any order (assuming you prepare by swapping to weapon you expect to need first on next turn). Which opens A LOT of options. So one of my standard backline builds is polearm/2h/1h.
Duelist is extra perk cost. You can get same AP math with 2hCleaver (2 4AP attacks + 1 polearm). Less armor ignore, more raw and armor damage, and 1 more perk to use elsewhere.
Thanks my backline had become way too uptight man
Reap is better that regular melee attack, unless it's another 1tile aoe swing, which is way harder to pull off than with a 2tile wep. Fighting over your guys give you better formation opportunities and better movement flexibility, because you are not in zone of control, like in regular line fighting. You can take more offensive perks and stats using 2tile weapons. Why were you only comparing billhooks, that's obviously not the best weapon type, come on. Plus, there's always 5+4 double attack opportunity, which is incredible on it's own. I don't say it's better, but it def has it's place, it's not a BAD idea.
i think that what is being said here isnt that polearms are bad, but that in the situations where someone with your approach would make a backline reap polearm, it would have been better to do something else instead.
Yeah Er4din is getting at what I'm saying. There are better things to do than the AoE reap swordlance. Oftentimes spreading damage isn't as helpful as single-target focusing. And again, fighting over dudes is something a thrower can do whilst doing more damage.
There is...... a significant deal i'm too bad at the game to understand about this video. First thing that comes to mind for me, is terrain can be a right bastard to work with, and polearm bros help you get more hits in when you just cannot get into ZOC to save your life. Even if throwers do more damage, at least in my experience, its super rare for a bro to actually have a useable range attack stat, I actually rarely have more than 1 or 2 ranged bros because its so hard to find anyone with good range attack.
i nearly always use 2-4 2H polearms for the outsides of the back line as DPS-BF-Tanks. heavy armor, a good billhook or named 2H polearm and you get more or less 2 kills every round, you can sit behind your shield tank and the single target DPS is just plain stupid. a good famed one can mostly oneshot most enemies. (unlike PERFECT THROWING weapons)
edit: i think the issue is with the role itself / how it is seen/presented here.
polearm frontline and polearm backline are two totally different thing, same with other 2H weapons.
TLDR: i can and will vouch for polearm-backliner DPS-Tanks all day long, but it heavily depends on the "polearm" type of weapons. i find billhooks work incredibly good, while poke-sticks are weaker than a wet noodle.
edit2: yeah, thats the issue. CH has a very narrow view of utilization of 2H polearms. its a DPS dealer with more utility than the pure-DPS focused frontliners. you can for example waste a point in pathfinder or rotation or backstabber and still get away with it, though backstabber is mostly unnecessary.
if you dont use sucking bros, most of your issues arent really issues. its about how you use the role, yes there are 2H "heavy" DPS weapons (which are quite good on frontliners) but from my personal experience, they are falling short on the versatility a good 2H backliner can give with just a good polearm.
TLDR: you trade versatility for a tiny amount of less DPS.
oh and i dont go QH, bc its a wasted point. you can get MUCH higher DPS if you ignore fatigue and go pure HP, M-def and M. for the first 10 rounds you dont run into fatigue issues and after that you still have a single, stupidly heavy hitting attack with high connectivity. better than having fatigue but either missing or dealing puny damage.
why arent my prediction skills working or lottery numbers? dang, i would be filthy rich by now...
how the hell did i know he will bring up throwers? throwers are one of THE most overRATED builds in this game BY far. period. and yes, subjectively. they literally even with a PERFECT NAMED item can not reach the damage output, damage sustainability (ammunition), range nor non-DPS-damage that other builds can. literally a god-archer (even a meh-archer) could kill more enemies BEFORE they reach the front line than a thrower can, WHEN they reached the front line. (edit. though overestimated isnt technically wrong, they are weak AF. period).
Well, the only reason to have 2h mace and a polearm only if u want to be sometimes able to move 2 tiles and hit somebody. Otherwise u would like to use 2h reach or just 2h wep.
Well if I could add
Polearms have one more skill
that is repel, or hook
Those two have a thing in common, that is it staggers the enemy
Useful to catch dodgy opponents offguard or just to put them in the back of the order:)
And also
Reap though can't stagger still make good use for ape damage
The part about ZOC, aren't you forgetting that throwers have duelist, quick hands and a melee weapon (probably a famed that you don't have a dedicated bro built for yet) in pocket? Even with low accuracy they likely have more damage output in ZOC than one polearm swing.
That's a lot of assumptions that while true in some cases are too specific for the video and would have I think derailed my point. You're not necessarily wrong though :)
Polearms have a very niche place, sadly. For early to mid game (that means before getting nimble) polearms can help you because they're "easy" to get and more safer than the usual system. But the same happens with spears, usefull the first 10 to 20 combats, nearly completly useless after getting raider gear and having some levels+2nd tier weapons
Someone that you care enough to put him in a safer place (if you still care for your bros) or someone too wounded for being in the front row, can use a polearm (o poleaxe, pole mace...). I also help you to kill the second row weaker enemies if your bro have quick hands or help you with special fights that you need to manouver carefully your brothers (that means, Lindwurms, the tree monster and maybe the "yetis" ones) Except them, they are not usefull, much less the polearm as a weapon (poleaxes, polemaces and polehammers has some more utility, one breaks shield from the trees and can help you killing them without being easily killed by them, more if they dont have nimble, the other, help breaking the armor from orc warrios if your bro its too wounded and the polemace... for Qatal combo, maybe?)
But specialized polearms bros with only polearm type of weapons...yep, not my favourites...😢
In the late game spears are more qh side weapons to ensure a weakened enemy dies (and proc'ing berserk recover). Better than swinging your 2h hammer against with 20% less accuracy and missing.
Polearms start to get replaced in the late game, but not fully. Having a guy stand in the back and finish off guys weakened by the frontline still works better than lacking that focus fire capability (if only we could rotate as cheaply as the barbarians). And I don't want my ranged guys on the flank, even the back flank.
Polearm have +10% chance to hit what makes it must have for poor brothers
Thing is, if you have poor brothers, they are not valuable to you. The space in the backline however is valuable as you can throw 12 people in the front but you can’t make a team of 12 back liners. If you’re putting bad bros in the backline, that means you’re wasting valuebke backline space, that is necessary for some of the strongest builds in the game to function.
What I’m getting at is this: if you have a bad brother, you put him in the most dangerous positions as you care the least about losing him. Give him patch perks, Fast Adaptation, dodge, shield mastery etc.one such pseudo tank can extract a remarkable amount of value for you protecting you actual backliners.
@@er4din903 Yes but most of the time you play with cheap to hire people and at End Game of course you don't need them
Polearm is a perfect weapon for specific time and place
+ Peasant Militia LUL
I don't really think the last argument is valid, you compare two bros with difference being that one has qh+duelist(both perks for damage, QH saves action points for hitting things and duelist is a pure damage perk) and the other one has two utility perks being overwhelm+fearsome that do not really contribute to the damage output but weaken the opponents, yet do not make the bro kill things faster or better. The point overall is still valid that pure polearms are highly inefficient in terms of damage but overwhelm+fearsome might still be valid on a scythe imo. However, the hardest and strongest crowd control currently in the game is hitting every moving thing until it no longer moves and thrower/thrower+polearm backliners do a much better job at that.
what about the bannerman ? still useless to make him polearm ? or just stick the banner in the bags and not use it ?
2:20
Bannerman is different because he is stuck holding the banner, but the bannerman isn't primarily a damage bro so I think that's a different matter.
Do you think you can make a guide on how armor ignore works? With the legends mod my poacher has a 93% armor ignore with a famed goblin bow for 30-50 damage, and there is no breakdown on how armor ignore works.
I believe this is how it works, but I may be mistaken. There's a damage roll of 30-50, and 93% of that will go through armor, so 27.9-46.5 which is basically 28-47 damage to HP. Effectiveness against armor is a separate roll, so hypothetically if that bow has 60% EAA then it would do 18-30 damage to armor.
Battleforged and nimble (and other things from legends) reduce damage from there.
@@CarveaHole thanks, but can you make an in depth tutorial video about armor ignore and effective against armor, there are no in depth wikis or videos on them. Also the bow has 88% effective against armor.
@@highfivedog2336 What more would you like to hear in a video than what I've said now?
@@CarveaHole I mostly just want a video I can reference new players to that sums up the introduction to how EAA and IA interact with one another and how certain perks interact with them due to this information not being easily found on the wikis.
Does it make sense to put archers in the first row and the melee units in the 2nd row, so they and use their range defence and can fire 2 shors at the opponent archers
No because that tactic requires archers and archers are bad... :P really though that's an okay idea but you have to watch for enemies that rush you (wolves/hyenas/dogs), and your front liners are also a tile farther away from the action which will hinder their abilities to get good positions in the first two turns.
Ranged bro in front is a bad idea in general. These are the exceptions where they're not.
They're built as arrow magnets vs other ranged enemies. Specific as goblin warband or noble house counter. An arrow to a nimble anti ranged armour is one less to the dps.
The band is built to alpha strike dangerous frontline enemy opponents with cripple. A hv xbow bolt into a big axe chosen is likely to cause the pierce lung or leg injury. That takes away their movement and stam recovery.
Anti chosen tactics. 3 xbow bolts will kill 1 outright with crits. Otherwise put them into obsidian dagger shank range.
Or the band is built with a rotate perk backline to pull the range bro out of trouble. These rangers use impalers to knock back and distrupt an offensive line. Allows hv weapon bro to jump into the gap with violence. Rotated out rangers keep knocking and nailing. Southern and noble army counter.
Usually my polearm gets 2 kills per battle, so i don't know what are talking about. Also they are good to taking enemy arrows. Hybrids can't do this, as they are locked in stats. Frontline bros can't do this, as they have no ranged defence. And, what a coincidence, they also can be your sergeant or second sergeant. So no, they are great builds than can help you from early to mid game. They have big damage output, they can help your frontline survive, they don't hungry for stats and they are replaceable. Every time your great bro gets and arrow and die, its the time where you don't have a pole arm bro to take that arrow instead.
Replaceable arrow magnet isn't the best pitch lol
I love your videos. BB work in windows 10? I tried everything but it doesn't work, maybe my pc is the error. Greetings, you are great
Hey, thank you! Yeah, it works in windows 10. You using steam or GOG?
@@CarveaHole GOG, DirectX and C++ updated, but have error 0xc000007b.
Greetings from argentina
i play 2H quickhand with polearm when i cant reach with 2H, used same melee stat , unlike throwing.
I a bit clueless, what are the "hard fights"?
Things like chosen (+ unholds), large orcs, southern armies. Many hard fights occur when your team is leveling because if you build well (or are good skilled enough) you can win against anything with a polished team.
@@CarveaHole Thank you! I was feeling lost during late gamy in terms of directions and your selection of fights sounds like a really nice benchmark for the company.
But how about manhunters origin?
They can attack and whip in 1 turn.
Is the limited ammo on throwers such a non-issue that it isn't even mentioned ?
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Anyway, I'm usually an optimization guy, but never cared much about lat game in BB (nor about bigfights locations) for one simple reason : way too much grind.
Experiencing takes houuuuuuurs of leveling and farming, and leveling a bro in a wrong direction just costs too much investment.
In the end, I mostly played games until 1st crisis, and end-up using simple builds like everyone nimble & many pole.. it works well enough. Can even perfect chosen camps with some nets !
I really wish the game had a faster leveling curve for bros. I'd want to play this at Slay the Spire pace... "Slay The Brothers" !
Good point! I didn't think of ammo when making this video, but because bags and belts is often taken in throwers it's becomes rare to run out of ammo. I think even without it, it's a small issue. A thrower with 12 shots is still way better than a pure polearmer
At this point just use Frontline only.
What did the math professors say
110% would of been better with the math added in
can you make a video about your uber duelist? pls, im new int his game.
About whom?
so true!
Polearm bros are basically bros that cant be anything else. So of course they're gonna suck against any decent build.
Their only requirement is high melee attack. EVERY other class needs more than that.
There isnt really much to prove here.
New players may (and often won't) recognize that. That's why the video exists
polearm is good but use 2 handed maces
Finally, someone is talking about the weakness of polearms. It's hard to believe, but I have a really working build. It's a polearm and... a shield.
Bonk. Shield. Next turn. Billhook. Bonk. Kill. Shield. You are awesome. One of my brothers get a pierced lung, but he had good stats. It was a pity to fire him and there was no replacement at that time. I called this build PolearmFatigueNeutralDefender.
One of the most idiotic things I've ever done in this game.
I have since stopped using brothers with polearms.
Why your arguments are invalid:
1 You dont want max damage, you want enemy dont hit you. Yes, ofc if you play wall vs wall you need max damage, but if you want control something in fight, dont pray 24/7 the Fortune God and dont waste 3-5 days to repair your armor you need abuse enemy AI to not let them hit you as long as possible. Ofc you need still do damage, and here's 2 options: poles and throwers, and...
2 Comparing trowers and poles is stupid. Yes you can trow one time and move, but it will do less damage than pole, so plus of # of attack is not matter. And luck you hit the target on 4-tiles range. All of this bc trowers and poles need for different purposes. Poles are first liners, trowers are second liners. Period.
(And yes, swordlance is the best weapon for first liner)
You cant just made up things from your head, dont test it and believe its true.
P.S. I know my english is bad.
Sorry but why don't you do some playthrough ?
You're in luck, I have two completed runs and I've begun a third!
i love you bro❤❤❤
Nah, bro, polearm is good
Sweet hips you have there Carv🥴 Oh wait... Clickbait!
You don't know that I've not just put an image over my own face (and the face of my husband and child)
IMO this is a pointless video :) as you're comparing apples to oranges. a 2h sword bro has a completely different purpose and build, than a 2nd line pole bro. They share very little in how you build them and how you use them.
I played a 5K h campaign, almost wit Hedges only , so what :) 😁
PS: be patient!
sounds like you wasted 5000 hours tbh
whip. And melee/range hybrids are bullshit.
No, they are great (if "melee" means "polearm" in this case).
no fucken way
this is Glorious :D
Он живой!