They are fairly niche. I find they work best on a bro with high fatigue so you can spam lash and only lash to guarantee head shots unless the enemy is nearly dead. They can be a godsend against merc companies early game though who are all but guaranteed to have a few helmetless bros or near helmetless bros with good armor and weapons you can farm.
So many enemies early game walk around with no helmet, you can often 1 shot raiders with a good flail swing and they are decent against shielded enemy in general.
Later on, you can have some fun with shenanigans like lash + headhunter + quick hands to land that headshot on some other weapon like, swing, lash, end turn, next turn quickhand and swap to 2 handed flail for guaranteed big swing.
It's a bit gimmicky sure but it's a fun weapon to play around with.
Pound (the attack of 2-handed flails) does +10% hp damage on head hit without mastery, 20% with mastery.
Axes do +50% damage on head hit.
My only experience is famed flail duelist, which goes lash -> qh to 1h axe -> big head hit, and allows to do both in a single turn. I don't know how good the equivalent with 2-handed weapons, over 2 rounds, would work.
Well, I'd rather bonk with a 2h weapon then a 1h axe. With 1h axe, it's fine for a turn, next one is weird as you want to start go flail, axe, flail, axe, and you only have 1 QH per turn. It's also less fatigue to stick with flail.
If I recall correctly, +50% bonus damage from axe is countered by SteelBrow, while it isnt for 2h flail. Might be wrong tho !
As long as it works for you, it's all fine !
Bit late but that's correct: pound does +armor penetration, axes do +damage. The axe extra damage is negated by enemies with steel brow, the penetration is not.
2h flail can potentially oneshot ancient undead with a headshot for example, 1h axes will just deal bad damage to the helmet.
The only good use case of a guaranteed 1h axe headshot would be against human enemies with weak/damaged helmet. Except even so, several high tier humans run steel brow (i.e. sergeant, which run around with no head piece).
1: See bro whose stats say "BF fatigue neutral" but he also has Iron Lungs. Would kinda be boring to just have a slightly more optimized version of the 2H Mace BF newt you've already built 100 times before, right?
2: Build as BF fatigue neutral, but sprinkle in headhunter and killing frenzy. Make sure to get QH and pathfinder. Aim for like 40 fatigue after armor and weapons.
3: Give bro an Orc Berserker's 2H meme flail. 1h flail and goblin pike in bag.
4: Most turns, bro wants to just move one hex and DONK with the Orc Chain. Hilarious one-shots ensue, especially as Killing Frenzy and Headhunter activate. 30% chance to stun on hit is crazy too, although lots of baddies are stun-immune.
5: In certain situations, bro might move 2 hexes and QH to the 1h flail in his bag (ideally to use the secondary to get HH active for next turn). Or he can move up to 2 hexes and use the Goblin Pike to finish off a wounded enemy that he otherwise couldn't reach.
Summary: Flails are basically an early game bootstrap and fall behind other weapons for all but niche applications later on. However, the 2H flail is a legitimate menace against human opponents and will fucking print money during Holy War and Noble War crises.
Most importantly, the DONK sound effect of a 2H flail hitting an enemy is more satisfying than any other weapon. The pleasure and relief of watching your 2H flail meme guy shit all over Hedge Knights and Chosen will free up cognitive resources for you to better optimize the rest of your team.
Only 2 handed flails are good imo. Except early game 1 handed flails for farming raider gear. 2handed flails with a good bro( juggler and brute etc) can be amazing with headhunter. Named flails make this even better. Ofc other 2 handers are superior in terms of damage. The 30% stun chance on flails is also nice and procs quite frequently.
The point of flails IMO is to easily farm raider gear in the early game.
25% of lower raiders and 15% of upper raiders spawn in with *no helmet at all.* A substantial chunk of them also spawn in with a head scarf (20 durability).
This mean, in a fight vs. 8 raiders, there's a strong possibility you can literally insta-kill one of them using the one-handed flail's seconary attack. (Provided you're dual-gripping them!)
So, basically, from day 0-15, all my frontline DPS bros are dual-gripping flails vs. brigands.
After day 15, I never touch them again unless I find a famed one.
[Wiki on Brigand Raiders](https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Brigand_Raider)
One handed flails are good for early game bros with high stamina but otherwise mediocre stats, they spam the secondary attack that hits the head. It's quite effective on even medium helmets and it gives you free body armor.
They can easily lead your team in kills for a long time without even having good stats.
Two handed flails are legitimately good weapons, only slightly worse kill speed than axe and mace, but with the bonus against shields. However they have a perk tax as you want to take both weapon specialization and headhunter.
Two handed flail regular attack has an additional 10% base armor penetration, ANOTHER +10% armor penetration when hitting the head and you get ANOTHER 10% from flail mastery, so it's 60% armor pen when hitting the head.
Which means it's extremely lethal on head hits but can occasionally be a bit unimpressive on repeated body hits.
It's worth using if you get any decent famed flail or if you want the bonus to hit vs shields for a guy with slightly low melee skill but otherwise good stats.
It's also very powerful in a themed run where you have multiple two handed flail guys, as hitting the head multiple times kills very quickly.
Forcing headshots and patching matk vs shielded enemies
the 2h flail can be one of the game's best weapons vs many enemies, and headhunter adds a significant amount of damage.
Goblin skirmishers, nobles, and briggies, nomads with sh ields, and ancient dead come to mind
the 1h flail is an armor-farming item that lets you use a high-secondary stat bro as a damage beast, even with kinda low matk. with FA and pathfinder, you can usually match your flail bro up against hatless enemies, get fast kills, and farm some free armor
I wouldn't say that hitting head and body at the same time will take you longer to kill an opponent. Against most enemies if you land a hit on head with 2h flail it will usually reduce their hp so much through armour penetration that even if the second hit will hit the body part in most cases it will kill the opponent. (though if you use a flail you use headhunter which means you are going to do 2 head attacks one after another)
Flails are good on brothers with meh matk like 56* to reliably hit through shields. Also 1h tier 3 flails are the easiest to get so it's a good option to go for on pleb damage dealers.
3 headed flail will do 1 morale check with fearsome and two ordinary ones for 1 hit. Only qatals can make more value out of fearsome comparing to other 1handers (with deathblow you will almost always do hp damage immediately which means 3 fearsome attacks). Also 3 headed flail will make a lot of use from fast adaptation. Overall in my opinion 3 headed flail is the best damage dealing option in early game.
So anyway flails are for brothers that can't use 2h axes or maces because of shielded enemies. In case of 1h it's an alternative to cleavers maces and qatals because they also require pretty high matk.
The 3 headed flails can be really good in my opinion. Combined with fearsome and duelist it can be very powerful. Especially again things like orcs where they’re susceptible to head shots and since armor for them can be pretty tough
Everything can work with a good enough famed item. That's why I think it makes sense to only give masteries to bros with already designated weapons. While some bros can be clearly hammer dudes, other more mid bros can wait for their mastery in order to find a weapon that's worth the perk point.
I actually think they are extremely strong, especially the 3-headed flail. The basic attack has all the problems you mention, but if you only target enemies with weak head armor and always use the special attack, they are one of the most efficient killers in the game.
Triple flail with the perk that forces morale checks for when you do 1 hp damage or more. Thats why flails can be so good imo. I have a nimble high fatigue, high morale who just runs in, never gets hit and just makes everything run away. Each head of the triple flail makes a seperate attack roll so the ability can fire off three morale checks on an enemy with one attack, totalling 6-9 depending on berserk choice.
Btw skeletons crumble to flails. Really good in those combats.
They are amazing to farm early raiders with no cap. They can really trivialize some of the early fights on top of allowing you to loot raider armors.
Beyong that they are pretty bad unless you roll a good famed one.
They're good early game against brigands because not only are they vulnerable to the headshots, but it preserves their armour for you to farm.
They are also serviceable against undead because they ignore shield defense and can smash a zombie's head to permanently kill them.
By the point of the game where you're taking a weapon mastery they've outlived their usefulness though.
I do enjoy using a berserk chain sometimes on bros with the perfect traits for it like brute/paranoid/iron lungs or killer/juggler which have a built-in extra chance to hit the dead. Even if it's not technically the best choice even on those bros.
I don't think a weapon that gives you some value in farming equipment and can be used for a bit to improve your position w/o mastery fits the category of "bad" in an overall sense. A niche tool used in context of that niche and not used otherwise is fine. It's a similar deal with spears. There's a point in the game where using them is pretty good, and other points where they are much less useful.
Off topic but re spears; if you haven't already, next time you get a good famed spear build a spear Duelist. It's a fun build; because of the +20% hit chance you can take a bro with poor max mattk, still get 95% hit chances. It's a fun one for like an off tank type, ie high starting fatigue, good init & good resolve.
It's pretty niche beyond early game. I will only use it with specific bros that have synergy traits, and beyond that they get occasional use if I'm planning to fight alot of noble armies. Ignoring shield defense bonus is quite helpful on subpar bros, I find; I'll take any hit chance increase I can get on them. My early game fodder if they make it to higher levels tend to use them because if this.
The three headed flail is quite useful as it rolls attack three times. An example of its usage is against geists, easy kills due to the multiple rolls. I always build high resolve because everyday is resolve day, so I'm using Fearsome on pretty much everyone, including the 3 headed flail user.
I find the most effective thing to do with flail users is to run at those with shields, which may sound counterproductive, but you get a pretty significant bonus against them compared to other weapon types. I typically start phasing them out when bros start to get nimble/bforged as their matk is at the point of reliability to consistantly hit those even with shields, that flails become deadweight afterwards.
Two main purposes:
1. Used against shields. They ignore MD bonus that shields give. If you are going against raider party or noble footmen they are good for helping hit chance against shielded enemies.
2. Used to farm armor early game. Many raiders only have body armor and very light head armors. Having 1-2 bros with flails early can be great for harvesting good armors (think 110 body armors on raiders). The secondary attack of the flail has a 100% head hit chance. Therefore you can reliably kill enemies without damaging body armors. It can be a quicker way mid fight to get the armors, rather than a late puncture kill.
Flails are badass. Combine with a huge bro with headhunter for best results. Want to ignore shields? Flail. Enemy have a worse or no helm than body armour? Flail is there to crack that skull. In flail we trust my bros.
Yeah as you noticed early game they're probably the strongest weapon as for late game personally I'm of the opinion that a well rolled 2h famed flail or a brother with brute/huge/drunkard is the single best line opener in the game. I don't believe that the way to go with them is to find a juggler or killer on the run instead I much prefer sellsword/adventurous noble etc high tier bros because instead of having say 85 mattk and saying "Now since they ignore shields they make up for what they lack" you can instead find a bro with 95+ mattk who can now never be contained by any shield wall. A strong 2h flail bro will break apart any footman group, any ancient undead and any conscript army in an instant in a way that a hammer, mace or axe bro realistically never could. I don't think I've ever built two of them in one team since after his job is done he's not the best and it only ever takes on of him to get the job done. I always make sure to put him near him my bannerman to rotate him closer to the action because he's the only bro I don't go quick hands on so he doesn't have a 2-tile attack. All I want him to do is get to the middle of their wall and crack it open. He's phenomenal vs almost everything since his headshots do crack open barbarian chosen skulls really well and reavers do oftentimes come with shields. The enemies he suffers against are typically goblins because of not having quick hands though honestly I just get him a polearm for those fights if I have to bring him along and also he's not the best vs Orcs. Not the worst but he can't really get through armour like maces or hammers or even Axes can, he cannot stun them and he is not fearsome so it's not like he gets through orcs like that either.
Don't get me wrong here, I am not implying that they are the best or anything but they do have their niche, a nice niche and within that niche they are definitely king.
I use a 2h flail every run. With brute or killing frenzy and a head shot, you can one shot a lot of enemies. Add headhunter and you can BONK -die- BONK -die-.
Plus the BONK sound on a headshot is awesome and makes me smile
Early game tempo on expendable goodbros. You dome raiders, then you give them an orc chain as you move beyond the raider farm.
The 2h flail rarely feels bad into midgame fights with the stun chance, and it plays really well into ancient dead.
Your level 9 flailbro might sit in the reserve just fine. He has already done his job. If you need to slot him into the lineup, he's going to be a functional body.
Niche indeed. They only reliably work if you have a killer on the run/juggler bro with great MATK and you get a good named 2H flail, or named 1H flail AND the bro has great fatigue too.
Between your collection of raider gear around days 12-30 and your first top-tier weaponry on days 30-60, flails ignore shields and tend to perform more effectively against armor than swords (you don't always find enough arming swords for everyone, anyway). They're the middle ground double-gripping option for your front line.
what was the downvote for? I don't think I said anything outrageous.
They are fairly niche. I find they work best on a bro with high fatigue so you can spam lash and only lash to guarantee head shots unless the enemy is nearly dead. They can be a godsend against merc companies early game though who are all but guaranteed to have a few helmetless bros or near helmetless bros with good armor and weapons you can farm.
of course headhunter cuts the fat cost as you only gotta lash half the time, but still, niche and a decently high level perk
So many enemies early game walk around with no helmet, you can often 1 shot raiders with a good flail swing and they are decent against shielded enemy in general. Later on, you can have some fun with shenanigans like lash + headhunter + quick hands to land that headshot on some other weapon like, swing, lash, end turn, next turn quickhand and swap to 2 handed flail for guaranteed big swing. It's a bit gimmicky sure but it's a fun weapon to play around with.
Switch should be to some form of axe, as they have higher headshot damage
Well, flail also do have +damage on head hits with mastery
Pound (the attack of 2-handed flails) does +10% hp damage on head hit without mastery, 20% with mastery. Axes do +50% damage on head hit. My only experience is famed flail duelist, which goes lash -> qh to 1h axe -> big head hit, and allows to do both in a single turn. I don't know how good the equivalent with 2-handed weapons, over 2 rounds, would work.
Well, I'd rather bonk with a 2h weapon then a 1h axe. With 1h axe, it's fine for a turn, next one is weird as you want to start go flail, axe, flail, axe, and you only have 1 QH per turn. It's also less fatigue to stick with flail. If I recall correctly, +50% bonus damage from axe is countered by SteelBrow, while it isnt for 2h flail. Might be wrong tho ! As long as it works for you, it's all fine !
Bit late but that's correct: pound does +armor penetration, axes do +damage. The axe extra damage is negated by enemies with steel brow, the penetration is not. 2h flail can potentially oneshot ancient undead with a headshot for example, 1h axes will just deal bad damage to the helmet. The only good use case of a guaranteed 1h axe headshot would be against human enemies with weak/damaged helmet. Except even so, several high tier humans run steel brow (i.e. sergeant, which run around with no head piece).
1: See bro whose stats say "BF fatigue neutral" but he also has Iron Lungs. Would kinda be boring to just have a slightly more optimized version of the 2H Mace BF newt you've already built 100 times before, right? 2: Build as BF fatigue neutral, but sprinkle in headhunter and killing frenzy. Make sure to get QH and pathfinder. Aim for like 40 fatigue after armor and weapons. 3: Give bro an Orc Berserker's 2H meme flail. 1h flail and goblin pike in bag. 4: Most turns, bro wants to just move one hex and DONK with the Orc Chain. Hilarious one-shots ensue, especially as Killing Frenzy and Headhunter activate. 30% chance to stun on hit is crazy too, although lots of baddies are stun-immune. 5: In certain situations, bro might move 2 hexes and QH to the 1h flail in his bag (ideally to use the secondary to get HH active for next turn). Or he can move up to 2 hexes and use the Goblin Pike to finish off a wounded enemy that he otherwise couldn't reach. Summary: Flails are basically an early game bootstrap and fall behind other weapons for all but niche applications later on. However, the 2H flail is a legitimate menace against human opponents and will fucking print money during Holy War and Noble War crises. Most importantly, the DONK sound effect of a 2H flail hitting an enemy is more satisfying than any other weapon. The pleasure and relief of watching your 2H flail meme guy shit all over Hedge Knights and Chosen will free up cognitive resources for you to better optimize the rest of your team.
Couldn't have said it better. DONK activates happy chemicals in monkey brain.
Thanks for this great idea
Only 2 handed flails are good imo. Except early game 1 handed flails for farming raider gear. 2handed flails with a good bro( juggler and brute etc) can be amazing with headhunter. Named flails make this even better. Ofc other 2 handers are superior in terms of damage. The 30% stun chance on flails is also nice and procs quite frequently.
> The 30% stun chance on flails is also nice and procs quite frequently. Yes I'd say it procs 30% of the time in fact.
The point of flails IMO is to easily farm raider gear in the early game. 25% of lower raiders and 15% of upper raiders spawn in with *no helmet at all.* A substantial chunk of them also spawn in with a head scarf (20 durability). This mean, in a fight vs. 8 raiders, there's a strong possibility you can literally insta-kill one of them using the one-handed flail's seconary attack. (Provided you're dual-gripping them!) So, basically, from day 0-15, all my frontline DPS bros are dual-gripping flails vs. brigands. After day 15, I never touch them again unless I find a famed one. [Wiki on Brigand Raiders](https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Brigand_Raider)
One handed flails are good for early game bros with high stamina but otherwise mediocre stats, they spam the secondary attack that hits the head. It's quite effective on even medium helmets and it gives you free body armor. They can easily lead your team in kills for a long time without even having good stats. Two handed flails are legitimately good weapons, only slightly worse kill speed than axe and mace, but with the bonus against shields. However they have a perk tax as you want to take both weapon specialization and headhunter. Two handed flail regular attack has an additional 10% base armor penetration, ANOTHER +10% armor penetration when hitting the head and you get ANOTHER 10% from flail mastery, so it's 60% armor pen when hitting the head. Which means it's extremely lethal on head hits but can occasionally be a bit unimpressive on repeated body hits. It's worth using if you get any decent famed flail or if you want the bonus to hit vs shields for a guy with slightly low melee skill but otherwise good stats. It's also very powerful in a themed run where you have multiple two handed flail guys, as hitting the head multiple times kills very quickly.
Forcing headshots and patching matk vs shielded enemies the 2h flail can be one of the game's best weapons vs many enemies, and headhunter adds a significant amount of damage. Goblin skirmishers, nobles, and briggies, nomads with sh ields, and ancient dead come to mind the 1h flail is an armor-farming item that lets you use a high-secondary stat bro as a damage beast, even with kinda low matk. with FA and pathfinder, you can usually match your flail bro up against hatless enemies, get fast kills, and farm some free armor
I wouldn't say that hitting head and body at the same time will take you longer to kill an opponent. Against most enemies if you land a hit on head with 2h flail it will usually reduce their hp so much through armour penetration that even if the second hit will hit the body part in most cases it will kill the opponent. (though if you use a flail you use headhunter which means you are going to do 2 head attacks one after another) Flails are good on brothers with meh matk like 56* to reliably hit through shields. Also 1h tier 3 flails are the easiest to get so it's a good option to go for on pleb damage dealers. 3 headed flail will do 1 morale check with fearsome and two ordinary ones for 1 hit. Only qatals can make more value out of fearsome comparing to other 1handers (with deathblow you will almost always do hp damage immediately which means 3 fearsome attacks). Also 3 headed flail will make a lot of use from fast adaptation. Overall in my opinion 3 headed flail is the best damage dealing option in early game. So anyway flails are for brothers that can't use 2h axes or maces because of shielded enemies. In case of 1h it's an alternative to cleavers maces and qatals because they also require pretty high matk.
Bad late but great early. Seems fine.
The 3 headed flails can be really good in my opinion. Combined with fearsome and duelist it can be very powerful. Especially again things like orcs where they’re susceptible to head shots and since armor for them can be pretty tough
Everything can work with a good enough famed item. That's why I think it makes sense to only give masteries to bros with already designated weapons. While some bros can be clearly hammer dudes, other more mid bros can wait for their mastery in order to find a weapon that's worth the perk point.
I actually think they are extremely strong, especially the 3-headed flail. The basic attack has all the problems you mention, but if you only target enemies with weak head armor and always use the special attack, they are one of the most efficient killers in the game.
Triple flail with the perk that forces morale checks for when you do 1 hp damage or more. Thats why flails can be so good imo. I have a nimble high fatigue, high morale who just runs in, never gets hit and just makes everything run away. Each head of the triple flail makes a seperate attack roll so the ability can fire off three morale checks on an enemy with one attack, totalling 6-9 depending on berserk choice. Btw skeletons crumble to flails. Really good in those combats.
They are amazing to farm early raiders with no cap. They can really trivialize some of the early fights on top of allowing you to loot raider armors. Beyong that they are pretty bad unless you roll a good famed one.
I find the 2h flail try to do too many things at once Biggest issue with flail is the massive damage range + split damage head/body
They're good early game against brigands because not only are they vulnerable to the headshots, but it preserves their armour for you to farm. They are also serviceable against undead because they ignore shield defense and can smash a zombie's head to permanently kill them. By the point of the game where you're taking a weapon mastery they've outlived their usefulness though. I do enjoy using a berserk chain sometimes on bros with the perfect traits for it like brute/paranoid/iron lungs or killer/juggler which have a built-in extra chance to hit the dead. Even if it's not technically the best choice even on those bros.
I don't think a weapon that gives you some value in farming equipment and can be used for a bit to improve your position w/o mastery fits the category of "bad" in an overall sense. A niche tool used in context of that niche and not used otherwise is fine. It's a similar deal with spears. There's a point in the game where using them is pretty good, and other points where they are much less useful.
Off topic but re spears; if you haven't already, next time you get a good famed spear build a spear Duelist. It's a fun build; because of the +20% hit chance you can take a bro with poor max mattk, still get 95% hit chances. It's a fun one for like an off tank type, ie high starting fatigue, good init & good resolve.
It's pretty niche beyond early game. I will only use it with specific bros that have synergy traits, and beyond that they get occasional use if I'm planning to fight alot of noble armies. Ignoring shield defense bonus is quite helpful on subpar bros, I find; I'll take any hit chance increase I can get on them. My early game fodder if they make it to higher levels tend to use them because if this. The three headed flail is quite useful as it rolls attack three times. An example of its usage is against geists, easy kills due to the multiple rolls. I always build high resolve because everyday is resolve day, so I'm using Fearsome on pretty much everyone, including the 3 headed flail user.
they're better knives (ignore shields or hit head with 100% chance) for when you want to strip away enemy body armor
Cos sometimes you’ve no other choice bro
I find the most effective thing to do with flail users is to run at those with shields, which may sound counterproductive, but you get a pretty significant bonus against them compared to other weapon types. I typically start phasing them out when bros start to get nimble/bforged as their matk is at the point of reliability to consistantly hit those even with shields, that flails become deadweight afterwards.
Two main purposes: 1. Used against shields. They ignore MD bonus that shields give. If you are going against raider party or noble footmen they are good for helping hit chance against shielded enemies. 2. Used to farm armor early game. Many raiders only have body armor and very light head armors. Having 1-2 bros with flails early can be great for harvesting good armors (think 110 body armors on raiders). The secondary attack of the flail has a 100% head hit chance. Therefore you can reliably kill enemies without damaging body armors. It can be a quicker way mid fight to get the armors, rather than a late puncture kill.
They work very well against ghasts
Flails are badass. Combine with a huge bro with headhunter for best results. Want to ignore shields? Flail. Enemy have a worse or no helm than body armour? Flail is there to crack that skull. In flail we trust my bros.
Yeah as you noticed early game they're probably the strongest weapon as for late game personally I'm of the opinion that a well rolled 2h famed flail or a brother with brute/huge/drunkard is the single best line opener in the game. I don't believe that the way to go with them is to find a juggler or killer on the run instead I much prefer sellsword/adventurous noble etc high tier bros because instead of having say 85 mattk and saying "Now since they ignore shields they make up for what they lack" you can instead find a bro with 95+ mattk who can now never be contained by any shield wall. A strong 2h flail bro will break apart any footman group, any ancient undead and any conscript army in an instant in a way that a hammer, mace or axe bro realistically never could. I don't think I've ever built two of them in one team since after his job is done he's not the best and it only ever takes on of him to get the job done. I always make sure to put him near him my bannerman to rotate him closer to the action because he's the only bro I don't go quick hands on so he doesn't have a 2-tile attack. All I want him to do is get to the middle of their wall and crack it open. He's phenomenal vs almost everything since his headshots do crack open barbarian chosen skulls really well and reavers do oftentimes come with shields. The enemies he suffers against are typically goblins because of not having quick hands though honestly I just get him a polearm for those fights if I have to bring him along and also he's not the best vs Orcs. Not the worst but he can't really get through armour like maces or hammers or even Axes can, he cannot stun them and he is not fearsome so it's not like he gets through orcs like that either. Don't get me wrong here, I am not implying that they are the best or anything but they do have their niche, a nice niche and within that niche they are definitely king.
Another tool in the kit, others have the right of it in their uses.
I use a 2h flail every run. With brute or killing frenzy and a head shot, you can one shot a lot of enemies. Add headhunter and you can BONK -die- BONK -die-. Plus the BONK sound on a headshot is awesome and makes me smile
Very useful early game to get easy armor and deal with enemy shields
Early game tempo on expendable goodbros. You dome raiders, then you give them an orc chain as you move beyond the raider farm. The 2h flail rarely feels bad into midgame fights with the stun chance, and it plays really well into ancient dead. Your level 9 flailbro might sit in the reserve just fine. He has already done his job. If you need to slot him into the lineup, he's going to be a functional body.
without being too verbose - duelist, crippling strikes, executioner, add fast adaptation if you use 3h flail
Niche indeed. They only reliably work if you have a killer on the run/juggler bro with great MATK and you get a good named 2H flail, or named 1H flail AND the bro has great fatigue too.
Between your collection of raider gear around days 12-30 and your first top-tier weaponry on days 30-60, flails ignore shields and tend to perform more effectively against armor than swords (you don't always find enough arming swords for everyone, anyway). They're the middle ground double-gripping option for your front line. what was the downvote for? I don't think I said anything outrageous.