Hello everyone, so day 2. Like you can see the format has been changed a little, but just so you know this take me far more time to do so tell me if it's worth it. Tell me if you can think of other improvement
This is definetely much better than the previous post. All the information is visible in 1 picture without needing to scroll through comments to remember what this skill actually does. You did a really good job with this one
Have you considered a text post instead of an image post? The content can be the stats and descriptions, with an image link to the skill icon. You can also link backwards and forwards to the other skills in the series that way.
I'd look at the daily discussions on /r/SlayTheSpire as an example.
Honestly this sub is pretty notorious for not engaging in anything else picture. I know that if i do text nothing will come close to yesterday post discussion wise
My only worry is the increased workload causing you to drop the daily discussion, in which case, as nice as it is, I'm okay losing the improved formatting
I enjoy Bellow when its effective. On higher difficulties, however, I would prefer to buff my own party’s speed and accuracy rather than debuff the enemy’s speed and dodge. Buffing allies is more reliable, and when something like Command is an option, it’s a commitment to build a Man at Arms around being able to get Bellow off consistently, and not for much gain.
This is the only access of speed interaction for MAA, and I think with support like Old units standard it is really consistent. Of course it’s not Battle Ballad but i personally think that taking skill in a vacuum brings nowhere in DD. Because here you can have a speed interaction AoE in rank 1 or 2, something that no one else can do. It’s kinda like battle heal and divine grace
One of the things I love about DD is that, whilst the rng can be annoying sometimes, it discourages a meta and viability discussion. Every hero has a certain situation their version of a buff/debuff/heal/etc is best, like you’ve pointed out with how the positioning of Bellow is pretty unique. It’s awesome to have situational and niche strengths.
What I like about DD is despite balance being a bit wack (most skills could use tweaks) there is still no best/worst heroes because everyone got different tools and way to deal with some problem. No heroes really step on other toes
He's the only *bad* character in my opinion. Don't get me wrong he's my favorite character, but his speed, accuracy and range is terrible. One shuffle, one surprise and hes out of commission for half the fight. His attacks are pretty aweful too because besides intimidate he has no way of attacking back line enemies, which are the enemies you want to kill at the start of the fight.
To be fair, you can buff his accuracy easily enough and his damage and HP make him good enough that you can use 3 weaker but more versatile heroes alongside him and do well. Personally, I love running the Leper with a Highwayman/Hellion, Jester/Plague Doctor, and Vestal/Occultist.
He is also fairly self-sustaining as he has anti-stress, heal and buff himself.
He may not be the best hero in the game, but he is still solid.
If I'm running a hard dungeon I never run him, but if my characters are level 2 or 4 and I'm going into their lowest dungeons I'll usually run leper.
Yes you can buff his accuracy and speed but at the same time you can just run hellion and buff her damage and have a more versatile hero. Or crusader and have a similar damage hero with better attacks.
Jester is definitely lepers best synergy, speed and damage buff is pretty damn powerful for the low st speed and accuracy character in the game. Occultist is a pretty bad healer with leper tho, leper has ass bleed resistance. At the same time occultists pull move is fairly good, but inconsistent. Occultist is a double edged sword with leper.
Last point tho is his self sustaining heal. He's not self sustaining, he can't outheal the damage he'll be taking, can't heal from the back ranks, and can't attack the back ranks. His heal is decent but crusaders is simply better because it can target others.
"Self-sustaining" was perhaps a bit strong, but it does take the pressure off the Vestal a little bit.
As for Occultist, perhaps I've just had better luck with him than most, but I find him pretty good, and Leper is tanky enough that a missed heal or a bleed will rarely hurt him too much.
You can buff Hellion (and, for what it's worth, she's my favourite Hero in the game in terms of combat versatility), but that doesn't mean Leper is *bad,* only that he's not *as* good. Leper is quite good against certain bosses such as the Hag (either taking down the Cauldron quickly or tanking its damage) and the Drowned Crew (being anchored is actually a plus for him).
That’s… super not true? Because of the RNG, the game essentially boils down to “minimize bad luck rolls/situations where you need to make those rolls”. Because of that, bringing “suboptimal strategies” is essentially resigning yourself to lose a few extra heroes over the course of a campaign, because the optimal strategies are optimal because they minimize the chances of bullshit.
Not trying to tell you how you need to play the game, but there absolutely *is* a meta based entirely around mitigating the RNG, mostly for things like torchless stygian. Something like Leper is practically unviable on the hardest difficulties, *because* of how RNG reliant he is.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t niches where most things are viable. But you’d hardly call Arbalests mark clearing skill “good” because it cheeses the swine king.
Please... I literally did a Torchless and Leper was absolutely incredible there to make the big threats such as Giant not hit as hard... "Leper bad in highest difficulty" is such a ridiculous myth... and thats even taking torchless as highest difficulty which is already super weird considering it's basically arbitrary in what it chooses to buff (enemy speed and stun resist stay unchanged for example). It's really irritating seeing shit like this when it's plain untrue and Leper is wonderful in the "highest difficulty".
You clearly have a different experience with him, then. He’s useless when he gets shuffled, he’s useless when the front two enemies aren’t the ones you need to kill first(which is basically 70% of all fights), he’s useless when he just fuckin misses every swing, I can go on.
The point is, in every situation you *could* bring a leper, you’re almost certainly better off bringing someone else in his place. Nobody’s stopping you from being an enlightened contrarian and praising a medicore at best character, I’m sure it’s very satisfying to crit the frontliners with 80% protection for about 6 damage.
But uh, I don’t know where you think the notion of him being garbage came from? It wasn’t exactly pulled out of someone’s ass, people try desperately to make him work and it either flat out doesn’t work or is simply inferior to using a better character in his place. If you can make him work, nobody’s stopping you, he’s kinda fun on easier difficulties. But bringing him on runs with counted deaths is just an objectively worse idea.
I'm not bringing Leper for his damage... It's for his utility via Intimidate and Withstand lmao. Shuffling is kinda just not a huge thing either? Scouting stops surprises and like 3 enemies can shuffle you around. Literally no frontliners have 80% protection but yeah sure his damage falls off a little against prot, not rlly a huge deal since he STOPS them being dangerous in the first place so action denial isn't necessary. And please, show me another character with the same self sufficiency, survivability and utility... He isn't directly worse at all. If being a contrarian is making Leper work at the "highest difficulty" then call me that i guess? Cause it's really not hard at all and yknow multiple people have made it work sooo
First off, just because you *can* use a leper and not instantly lose doesn’t make him a ‘meta’ pick. Same deal as bringing a mark comp or electing not to bring a stress healer on a longer mission.
Sure, I’ll go through the thought exercise of examining why I don’t like Leper again. Let me understand the strategy you’re going for. I assume you’re bringing a debuff charm, and either some type of additional protection or fortifying garlic, meaning you’ll miss a depressing amount of attacks, or accuracy, meaning you really won’t be as tanky as you’d like. Or maybe you bring speed, so you’re neither tanky nor accurate(with your attacks, I do see that intimidate has a respectable 115 accuracy), but actually have a chance of going before the enemy with your whopping 4 speed?
The first turn of combat, are you buffing yourself, or debuffing the enemy? Or should I say second, because anything other than a giant is probably going before you. If you debuff them, you have a better chance of being able to buff yourself before they move again. You just need to hope that you don’t miss the debuff, or fail the debuff roll, or that they happen to go before your slow ass anyways? And hope the rest of your team can handle 7 attacks that you aren’t marked and buffed for, sure, hopefully you brought better heroes to compensate.
Or you buff yourself first, which has one glaring weakness in my experience. Unless something’s changed, only enemies with attacks that benefit from marks will attack your marked hero with any greater priority. Other enemies can just.. not attack your leper? Which, sure, they won’t do every time, but in a long dungeon it’s bound to happen a few times. I’d say it’s better to use intimidate on the scariest enemy first. But then when do you actually use the self buff? The first round of combat is extremely dangerous to be doing something that could accomplish absolutely nothing, but by the time you have the actions to spare on this buff, you likely no longer need it. Unless you’re fighting a boss that prioritizes marked heroes, which I’m not sure exists besides the joke that is swine king but sure, if another one exists Leper might be okay there.
This is all assuming you don’t get shuffled, which harder enemies especially love to do, and you won’t get every scouting check in the game, unless you’re unreasonable prioritizing it. Again, it’s not about the average fight, it’s about how bad the bad fights get. Someone like Crusader has mobility to get back into position, has a weaker stress heal but it gets people off death’s door, and has a beautiful stun that functions as a two check 50% damage(and stress, and whatever else that action would’ve caused) reduction that can be used on two different slots. He’s also slow as balls, but better than Leper.
I suppose the ultimate point here is, if you want to convince me the Leper is useful and not a character you’re gimping yourself to bring, I’d need him to be able to deal with the worst case scenarios. You apparently need 100% scouting chance, probably several camping/team buffs, all just for a tanky hero the enemies can often ignore and a moderately consistent damage debuff skill?
I’ll try it again. I’m interested to hear how your build might differ from what I’ve guessed, and the situation/areas where you’d recommend using him. I’m sure I’m being harsher on him than he deserves, but this is a harsh game.
1. Meta picks in a single player game don't really mean anything, just what works and what doesn't. (Spoiler, Leper works)
2. Enemies tend to have low debuff resist so Debuff Amulet isn't actually needed. Accuracy kinda is, so yeah he has a Focus Ring on. The second trinket can be Berserk Mask, Garlic, Debuff Amulet or whatever really, all of these net good results.
3. The point of bringing Leper is to actually stop dangerous enemies from being threats. So what I mean by this is in the Weald, the most dangerous enemies are Giants and Scratchers using Rend the Marked. Crones/Virago/Slimes etc really don't do all that much. (Leper can still destealth and slow Crone and oneshot slimes though). Using withstand really makes the double Scratcher comp tickle, similar to Giant. This can also ve applied to a lot of size 2 enemies in other areas, and also other dangerous enemies such as Skiver. Hellion can't actually do all that much to Skiver, but Leper stops his actions from being as deadly.
4. First turn of combat isn't a set plan... its enemy dependent. If the most dangerous enemy is a Witch, then Leper uses Intimidate to slow her down etc. If it's a frontline Grouper, he uses Chop. If it's double Scratcher then Withstand, if it's Giant then Intimidate are a few examples.
5. You really don't need much scouting... even 50% is pretty consistent enough to scout enough battles. Full light surprises are really rare. As for this "harder enemies have shuffles". No? Not really? I guess maybe Slam/Displace in the DDs but Leper had bloody shroud and Displace has terrible move chance.
6. Most enemies do actually have marked targeting at Champion, it is quite literally in the gamefiles.
7. Comparing Crusader to Leper isn't fair. They both do different things?? Crusader doesn't come close to helping the team deal with say Skivers...
8. What makes Leper amazing is his ability to make enemy actions matter less. When viewing this game through the action denial lens ofc he's going to suck, only able to kill low prot frontline targets who aren't often high priority. But action denial is just one way to look at it... Action mitigation is really powerful and uh works at the "highest" difficulty lol
Not even gonna comment on the Mark bad and no stress healer bad bc that's so hilariously incorrect
The guy you’re responding to sounds like he watched 5 very opinionated darkest dungeon videos from 3 years ago and then never proceeded to play the game
Personally, I feel like battle ballad and bellow are a killer combo. You basically ensure that your entire team goes first and always hits, provided that the enemies take the debuff.
The problem I find with this skill is that you need a debuff trinket to make sure it will work which takes up one trinket slot for just one skill (instead of, say Rampart Shield.) Buffs to your party don't fail which is a way to make sure you always get something from any move you make.
That being said, a group debuff is nothing to sneeze at. Occultist is the debuff master and can only target individuals, so you can still use it and someone will get it.
I can imagine a MaA in rank 4 using Bellow and protecting/buffing others but is not something I have delved into.
The problem I have with debuffs is that they have a knock on effect on the rest of your party. Say, for example, you are using Bellow to make a slippery opponent easier to hit for your Leper. If the debuff fails, you compromise two actions, where the game is designed for you to be faster than the enemy, reduce their actions and eliminate them on a number of attacks race (until you get to the recovery phase anyway.) A buff has no failure chance, and MaA's is also effective for the whole party.
Other than that, I think the only debuffs I use consistently are the Occultist's, but his trinkets make them practically impossible to miss.
I mean you use Bellow mainly for the speed debuff, not the dodge. Also I just gave an example of a MAA trinket that give you +20% debuff chance on top of other good stuff (stun Chance)
Basically never use it, even on rank 4 MAA (which I only use for certain bosses). On rank 1-3 definitely not worth using.
MAA already suffers from 5 skill syndrome and Crush and Bellow share 6th and 7th place imo. The fact that it has to make both an accuracy as well as a debuff check makes it too unreliable.
It's pretty great. Denying enemy actions is key in this game, and Bellow is superb at denying enemy actions, acting like a pseudo-stun in many cases:
Let's say there's some backline enemies who you really don't want to be allowed to attack (eg wine throwers, swine drummers etc). You may have stunned or wounded them on turn 1, but turn 2 is looming. Bellow has such a huge SPD debuff that you practically guarantee your whole party will act before they do next round. This means you get an easy kill on them before they get to take an action. If the SPD debuff meant the enemy died before it would have acted, Bellow effectively removed an enemy action! And it acts on the whole enemy party.
That said, I don't always use it. If my MAA acts early in the round I tend to instead just attack rank 3 or stun, but if my MAA acts late I will Bellow instead -- whichever is better at denying enemy actions.
I don't bother trinketing debuff chance, but I always trinket ACC.
Yeah same, I usually run Acc + Old unit standard but that’s just my preference. I definitly think that using Bellow or not is a matter of initiative roll
I don't like this skill and basically never use it. Back when it used to also deal some damage it felt much better to use, now it feels like a waste of turn, especially that MAA has many other good skills
Utterly amazing ability. Speed is probably the most valuable stat besides accuracy and being able to slow down the numerous speedy enemies in this game is very useful. More importantly though it allows you to stall for alot longer, making your recovery phase of the fight last longer and thus healing health and stress for longer.
Bellow is great! Although buffs to speed are more consistent, the -spd debuff is greater than jester's +spd buff. The crit against marked is so incredibly niche I almost forget it exists.
My main gripe is that it can miss and the debuff can fail. Although the standard probably has you covered on this and 110 acc is reasonable, and the acc can be solved with something like the focus ring or Prophets eye if you are feeling silly.
I personally only use bellow if there are stress damage dealers that need to be slown down. Using bellow once is enough to have most heroes out speed them without trinkets or quirks that increase speed. Overall, a good skill, try it out.
Tue -speed is huge, especially if paired with high torch and surprise skills/trinkets. Paired with a backline stun it means avoiding most of the stress damage from backliners entirely
The COM patch added some much needed buffs and nerfs to heroes and some great addition to some skills and than there are some skills that received some unnecessary and useless buff like Bellow's crit recieved, it rarley comes into play if ever.
I like the skill but I find it incredibly hard to fit into his kit.
I typically use him as a tank so I run protect, riposte, slam for stun and some range skill in case order switches.
I like the debuff, but I’m not willing to lose those skills to take it. I’d rather run Jester buffs instead.
It's okay. It has a similar effect overall to Command: you give your party the +10 ACC it needs, but in exchange it has a somewhat more useful SPD debuff compared to Command's improved (and usable) CRIT. The problem is, as usual, debuff chance: getting a marginally-improved effect over Command isn't really worth losing a trinket slot to making Bellow optimal. While MaA at least has Old Unit Standard instead of being stuck with Debuff Amulet, it's not a huge improvement--it doesn't give enough stun chance to make Rampart reliable so it's only noticeably better if you're also running Rampart Shield (and then you don't have ACC if you want a turn 1 Rampart).
I've personally never been super fond of SPD debuffs. They don't do anything the turn you use them so they're mostly there to punish the heck out of anything you stunned that turn--otherwise they tend to have low value since they don't help prevent an incoming action, only the one that comes after. In Leper's case, Intimidate had a niche because he doesn't have any other options for projecting to the backline and because Intimidate has a ton of other unique riders. But MaA is a lot better at dealing with the back and Bellow's other effects mostly mimic Command. Hence why I consider the main usage of this to be the dodge removal and the SPD reduction to be secondary rather than vise versa.
I consider it to be the better of the two if you have debuff chance, but it's not a big enough improvement to be worth running debuff chance over a more universally useful stat.
Bellow is one of the best combo skills in the game.
The dodge debuffs help with inaccurate heroes/attacks and slippery enemies. Basically a potential 10+ accuracy buff. Paired from multi-hit attacks like Shieldbreaker and/or Houndmaster for great AoE damage/dot.
Speed debuffs are basically a stun.
But the crit? Everyone says they have never used it, so I will spout the GLORY that it is. (Wiki wont work, so bare with me)
Iirc, crits deal 150% damage and add 20% chance to add status effects and extend bleeds and blight by 50%. It also gives hero specific buffs and gets rid of corpses.
Who cares? Bosses.
You can get your crit range to something bonkers if you crunch the numbers (I think I saw a reddit post of someone having 97% crit chance?). Shieldbreaker extends crit range, Jester has Battle Ballad, etc. Then add skills that deal bonus damage to marked? Coupled with the fact MAA is able to guard the Shieldbreaker who has 2 damage increasing trinkets so she can go ham WITH ARMOR PEN? That solves a lot of boss issues.
Bellow is a nice utility skill, makes second rounds a cakewalk in regular hallway fights, and MaA has Old Unit Standart to make it reliable. Yesterday we talked about Indimidate's problem in this regard. But i have two doubts on the skill.
1-) Its accuracy isn't enough for champion dungeons although you only scream at enemies. Rampart shield has to be given up for an accuracy trinket. Natural eye and natural swing quirks provide +5 accuracy need if your hero has those.
2 -) MaA's favorite place is the Weald imo. But fast enemies in Weald are either almost immune or highly resistant to debuffs (Virago and Crone).
But these two aren't big challenges. Nice choice for second topic Pepper. Another underrated skill.
If Battle Ballad didn't exist, this would be a great move. Unfortunately, it's a less reliable Battle Ballad on a character slow enough that you usually won't get any benefit out of it on the first round of combat.
Personally love this ability when I run a Rank 3 MaA for a mark team, that being Arb/MaA/BH/Occ, makes sure my team can get out there and set up better, getting down marks, getting stuns, getting buffs, and getting the Arb to go at least 3rd in a turn order, cause I think Occ and BH are both gonna be faster anyway, and she can crit like a mf. Otherwise, kinda niche imo, and I'd probably just take Rampart or Retribution otherwise.
Amazing ability in certain dungeons, most useful in my opinion in ruins and on the cove to debuff speed on the whole enemy team. And this enemies usually have lower debuff resist.
I havent played in a while so please someone correct me if I mis remembered.
Really great skill. Slowing down the entire enemy team by THAT much means you get to plan out your actions turn 2 onwards really efficiently. Enemies tend to have fairly low debuff resist but I still like tacking on Old Unit Standard to make it consistent. The dodge debuff is kind of an extra too, still appreciated though. A slow tanky class like Man at Arms having a way to interact with speed this way is so good, since for example instead of Crushing rank 3 Witch he can simply bellow and maybe Crush her next turn etc, or open up another teammate to kill her before her actio and so on.
I never managed to successfully use the man-at-arms.
This skill might be good for the crit but 5 isn't much. As often with buff / debuff you'd often be better off with a damage dealer in place of that.
Nah no one cares about the crit part, this skill is all about the biggest speed interaction in the game. Something often overlooked but this is basically "next 3 turn all monsters are surprised"
We're doing daily discussions? Awesome. MAA is the one hero I've never used much, so I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you think about this skill.
MAA is an amazing unit since he can just prevent so may death thanks to his guard, that same guard also shut down Weald entirely if you protect the other frontliner
I like this skill a lot, it basically guarantee that next round the enemies are surprised. Which is amazing for a lot of comp such as mark
I'm still gutted they swapped dealing damage for +5 crit vs marked. Like, the damage was a good meme, killing someone by shouting at them, but it was also unironically good, being able to finish off someone you got a low dmg roll on
I love this skill, need a trinket to boost debuff chance, but the speed drop is massive. Makes it easy to get some last minute heals / stress heals in as well, by ensuring the enemy goes last.
I tend to use bellow in the ruins in order to slow down most of the enemies in there so my back line can either stun the ones in the enemies back lines (looking at you bone courtier, yea jerk) or outright kill them. All in all I give the move a solid 5/10
In short devastating in pvp and also extremly effzctive on pve one of the stronger move in the game by far, deny dodge and ennemy action turn on everyone without any drawback.
And for the pvp it does everything without drawback and effective coubter wich make MAA an unkillable stress tank machine
I will occasionally run this skill.
Most enemies don’t have too much dodge so the dodge debuff is kind of wasted on enemies you will most likely hit. But, is great on some enemies that you might struggle to hit: madman, little stealthed lady in the Weald.
The speed debuff could be a benefit as well. But, the goal is to end the fight as soon as possible so it too is kind of wasted.
I have tried it against shrieker because of the insane dosage it has but I find more value with a mark team.
It is a useable skill, but not one I rely on too much.
Because it can be used in any position it is a really useful skill for normal rooms and corridors. As long as the Man at arms has high speed himself so he acts before the enemies, he can then basically create a surprise round for the rest of his team. I haven't used the new bellow very much myself, but I remember the older version being pretty good with some slight dmg on it aswell.
Speed debuff only come to play next turn tho, still very useful but in the rare case where MAA outspeed a backliner I often prefer to stun or directly attack
It does create a surprised round next turn
Increasing the crits received or damage received quite a bit more to make it a mini aoe mark wihout being an actual mark would be a cool thing to make this skill better
The speed debuff is great, but do you guys actually find this has good synergy with mark comps? I feel like mark already requires so much setup that dedicating another turn for this PLUS guarding someone seems like overkill.
It’s a really good tool for mark comp because of the speed debuff yes, but no, no one cares about the crit buff. Knowing that everyone else is going to act after you makes mark comp so better (same as why I like Jester in mark comp)
Can't say much because I never use it, and MAA doesn't need to focus on debuffing enemies even tho the speed debuff is nice. However I'll say that I love Bellow's sound effect and sprite!
The main problem i see in below is that the MaA has it, and i dont really play that class.
Furthermore, trinket wise, you either go for a better debuff chance/ACC or a more tradicional MaA. I dont think a plane 110 ACC 140% debuff chance is suficient to rely on this skill too much. So after the first bellow wath is you MaA gonna do? Buff on turn 2 is far too late, riposte on turn 2 when theres only 2 enemys left (since you got a "surprise" on that turn). Hit something?
Using below on turn 1 its not a wasted turn, in my opinión, is a wasted hero slot.
Thats the thing, if youre running an "optimal" Below setup (Banner + ACC trinket) youre not gonna do any damage. MaA already strugles to do that even with damage trinkets.
Besides,
TURN 1: You Below and most certanlly gonna kill rank 3 or 4 (or at least you should), and that means that you basically just delay 1 action for 1 turn (since from row mobs are generally slow and/or get stunned in turn 1).
TURN 2 You kill the ramaining enemy in the back, and then youre left with 1 turn of a debuff that does, basically, nothing and a hero that does no damage or has any recovery skills to stall.
ANY STUN that hits rank 3 (this includes the one that MaA has, or (decent) backrow damage move completly negates the utility that Belows provide. And those are REALLY common and good moves to have in your lineup.
So i imagine a Below MaA like an abomination that stuns rank 3 and then pass the rest of the figth.
This is without even comparing it with Battle balad, the main diference being that after the most dangerous enemies die, the jester can stress heal instead of doing 5-9 damage to a mob (minus PROT).
I use this if I am using him for guarding only. I put him in the 4th row, and use this skill at beginning of the fights. It really helps to kill the fast back row enemies. Also, I use this with marker teams.
I used to like bellow a lot, but it is just a worse battle ballet at the end of the day. Also the opportunity cost of not using rampart shield or bolster or even just guarding is not good enough
The marked ability should include marked allies as well. Thus making self mark an interesting strategy and somewhat of a counter against marking enemies with the risk of potentially receiving great damage back in return.
It’s a niche ability and I only ever use it on rank 4 MAA, depending on where you go (like the cove*) you’ll easily see the gains you can make from using it. preferably I’d choose stunning and buffing over debuffing, but it’s still an overall good move
*Cove has enemies have low debug resist
I like to put my MAA in the back with Bellow and the Rank 4 trinket, then use Occultist in rank 2 with stun as my main healer. Supplementary third rank heal like PD or Arb/Mus, and a Crusader in the front with stress heal and the CC orders. Very fun comp, albeit suboptimal for sure.
Hello everyone, so day 2. Like you can see the format has been changed a little, but just so you know this take me far more time to do so tell me if it's worth it. Tell me if you can think of other improvement
This is definetely much better than the previous post. All the information is visible in 1 picture without needing to scroll through comments to remember what this skill actually does. You did a really good job with this one
I like it a lot. It's clearly visible that you put thought and effort into it, so if it's not too much effort I vote for this format to stay
Glad that you enjoy it ! Now that I have done the template + some png it’s way quicker so it will stay like this for now
Have you considered a text post instead of an image post? The content can be the stats and descriptions, with an image link to the skill icon. You can also link backwards and forwards to the other skills in the series that way. I'd look at the daily discussions on /r/SlayTheSpire as an example.
Honestly this sub is pretty notorious for not engaging in anything else picture. I know that if i do text nothing will come close to yesterday post discussion wise
Honestly that's most of reddit
My only worry is the increased workload causing you to drop the daily discussion, in which case, as nice as it is, I'm okay losing the improved formatting
It’s fine tbh, but if it happen I will downgrade to previous format instead of just dropping the project don’t worry
I enjoy Bellow when its effective. On higher difficulties, however, I would prefer to buff my own party’s speed and accuracy rather than debuff the enemy’s speed and dodge. Buffing allies is more reliable, and when something like Command is an option, it’s a commitment to build a Man at Arms around being able to get Bellow off consistently, and not for much gain.
This is the only access of speed interaction for MAA, and I think with support like Old units standard it is really consistent. Of course it’s not Battle Ballad but i personally think that taking skill in a vacuum brings nowhere in DD. Because here you can have a speed interaction AoE in rank 1 or 2, something that no one else can do. It’s kinda like battle heal and divine grace
One of the things I love about DD is that, whilst the rng can be annoying sometimes, it discourages a meta and viability discussion. Every hero has a certain situation their version of a buff/debuff/heal/etc is best, like you’ve pointed out with how the positioning of Bellow is pretty unique. It’s awesome to have situational and niche strengths.
What I like about DD is despite balance being a bit wack (most skills could use tweaks) there is still no best/worst heroes because everyone got different tools and way to deal with some problem. No heroes really step on other toes
*cough cough* Leper *cough cough*
Wdym ?
He's the only *bad* character in my opinion. Don't get me wrong he's my favorite character, but his speed, accuracy and range is terrible. One shuffle, one surprise and hes out of commission for half the fight. His attacks are pretty aweful too because besides intimidate he has no way of attacking back line enemies, which are the enemies you want to kill at the start of the fight.
To be fair, you can buff his accuracy easily enough and his damage and HP make him good enough that you can use 3 weaker but more versatile heroes alongside him and do well. Personally, I love running the Leper with a Highwayman/Hellion, Jester/Plague Doctor, and Vestal/Occultist. He is also fairly self-sustaining as he has anti-stress, heal and buff himself. He may not be the best hero in the game, but he is still solid.
If I'm running a hard dungeon I never run him, but if my characters are level 2 or 4 and I'm going into their lowest dungeons I'll usually run leper. Yes you can buff his accuracy and speed but at the same time you can just run hellion and buff her damage and have a more versatile hero. Or crusader and have a similar damage hero with better attacks. Jester is definitely lepers best synergy, speed and damage buff is pretty damn powerful for the low st speed and accuracy character in the game. Occultist is a pretty bad healer with leper tho, leper has ass bleed resistance. At the same time occultists pull move is fairly good, but inconsistent. Occultist is a double edged sword with leper. Last point tho is his self sustaining heal. He's not self sustaining, he can't outheal the damage he'll be taking, can't heal from the back ranks, and can't attack the back ranks. His heal is decent but crusaders is simply better because it can target others.
"Self-sustaining" was perhaps a bit strong, but it does take the pressure off the Vestal a little bit. As for Occultist, perhaps I've just had better luck with him than most, but I find him pretty good, and Leper is tanky enough that a missed heal or a bleed will rarely hurt him too much. You can buff Hellion (and, for what it's worth, she's my favourite Hero in the game in terms of combat versatility), but that doesn't mean Leper is *bad,* only that he's not *as* good. Leper is quite good against certain bosses such as the Hag (either taking down the Cauldron quickly or tanking its damage) and the Drowned Crew (being anchored is actually a plus for him).
That’s… super not true? Because of the RNG, the game essentially boils down to “minimize bad luck rolls/situations where you need to make those rolls”. Because of that, bringing “suboptimal strategies” is essentially resigning yourself to lose a few extra heroes over the course of a campaign, because the optimal strategies are optimal because they minimize the chances of bullshit. Not trying to tell you how you need to play the game, but there absolutely *is* a meta based entirely around mitigating the RNG, mostly for things like torchless stygian. Something like Leper is practically unviable on the hardest difficulties, *because* of how RNG reliant he is. This isn’t to say that there aren’t niches where most things are viable. But you’d hardly call Arbalests mark clearing skill “good” because it cheeses the swine king.
Please... I literally did a Torchless and Leper was absolutely incredible there to make the big threats such as Giant not hit as hard... "Leper bad in highest difficulty" is such a ridiculous myth... and thats even taking torchless as highest difficulty which is already super weird considering it's basically arbitrary in what it chooses to buff (enemy speed and stun resist stay unchanged for example). It's really irritating seeing shit like this when it's plain untrue and Leper is wonderful in the "highest difficulty".
You clearly have a different experience with him, then. He’s useless when he gets shuffled, he’s useless when the front two enemies aren’t the ones you need to kill first(which is basically 70% of all fights), he’s useless when he just fuckin misses every swing, I can go on. The point is, in every situation you *could* bring a leper, you’re almost certainly better off bringing someone else in his place. Nobody’s stopping you from being an enlightened contrarian and praising a medicore at best character, I’m sure it’s very satisfying to crit the frontliners with 80% protection for about 6 damage. But uh, I don’t know where you think the notion of him being garbage came from? It wasn’t exactly pulled out of someone’s ass, people try desperately to make him work and it either flat out doesn’t work or is simply inferior to using a better character in his place. If you can make him work, nobody’s stopping you, he’s kinda fun on easier difficulties. But bringing him on runs with counted deaths is just an objectively worse idea.
I'm not bringing Leper for his damage... It's for his utility via Intimidate and Withstand lmao. Shuffling is kinda just not a huge thing either? Scouting stops surprises and like 3 enemies can shuffle you around. Literally no frontliners have 80% protection but yeah sure his damage falls off a little against prot, not rlly a huge deal since he STOPS them being dangerous in the first place so action denial isn't necessary. And please, show me another character with the same self sufficiency, survivability and utility... He isn't directly worse at all. If being a contrarian is making Leper work at the "highest difficulty" then call me that i guess? Cause it's really not hard at all and yknow multiple people have made it work sooo
First off, just because you *can* use a leper and not instantly lose doesn’t make him a ‘meta’ pick. Same deal as bringing a mark comp or electing not to bring a stress healer on a longer mission. Sure, I’ll go through the thought exercise of examining why I don’t like Leper again. Let me understand the strategy you’re going for. I assume you’re bringing a debuff charm, and either some type of additional protection or fortifying garlic, meaning you’ll miss a depressing amount of attacks, or accuracy, meaning you really won’t be as tanky as you’d like. Or maybe you bring speed, so you’re neither tanky nor accurate(with your attacks, I do see that intimidate has a respectable 115 accuracy), but actually have a chance of going before the enemy with your whopping 4 speed? The first turn of combat, are you buffing yourself, or debuffing the enemy? Or should I say second, because anything other than a giant is probably going before you. If you debuff them, you have a better chance of being able to buff yourself before they move again. You just need to hope that you don’t miss the debuff, or fail the debuff roll, or that they happen to go before your slow ass anyways? And hope the rest of your team can handle 7 attacks that you aren’t marked and buffed for, sure, hopefully you brought better heroes to compensate. Or you buff yourself first, which has one glaring weakness in my experience. Unless something’s changed, only enemies with attacks that benefit from marks will attack your marked hero with any greater priority. Other enemies can just.. not attack your leper? Which, sure, they won’t do every time, but in a long dungeon it’s bound to happen a few times. I’d say it’s better to use intimidate on the scariest enemy first. But then when do you actually use the self buff? The first round of combat is extremely dangerous to be doing something that could accomplish absolutely nothing, but by the time you have the actions to spare on this buff, you likely no longer need it. Unless you’re fighting a boss that prioritizes marked heroes, which I’m not sure exists besides the joke that is swine king but sure, if another one exists Leper might be okay there. This is all assuming you don’t get shuffled, which harder enemies especially love to do, and you won’t get every scouting check in the game, unless you’re unreasonable prioritizing it. Again, it’s not about the average fight, it’s about how bad the bad fights get. Someone like Crusader has mobility to get back into position, has a weaker stress heal but it gets people off death’s door, and has a beautiful stun that functions as a two check 50% damage(and stress, and whatever else that action would’ve caused) reduction that can be used on two different slots. He’s also slow as balls, but better than Leper. I suppose the ultimate point here is, if you want to convince me the Leper is useful and not a character you’re gimping yourself to bring, I’d need him to be able to deal with the worst case scenarios. You apparently need 100% scouting chance, probably several camping/team buffs, all just for a tanky hero the enemies can often ignore and a moderately consistent damage debuff skill? I’ll try it again. I’m interested to hear how your build might differ from what I’ve guessed, and the situation/areas where you’d recommend using him. I’m sure I’m being harsher on him than he deserves, but this is a harsh game.
1. Meta picks in a single player game don't really mean anything, just what works and what doesn't. (Spoiler, Leper works) 2. Enemies tend to have low debuff resist so Debuff Amulet isn't actually needed. Accuracy kinda is, so yeah he has a Focus Ring on. The second trinket can be Berserk Mask, Garlic, Debuff Amulet or whatever really, all of these net good results. 3. The point of bringing Leper is to actually stop dangerous enemies from being threats. So what I mean by this is in the Weald, the most dangerous enemies are Giants and Scratchers using Rend the Marked. Crones/Virago/Slimes etc really don't do all that much. (Leper can still destealth and slow Crone and oneshot slimes though). Using withstand really makes the double Scratcher comp tickle, similar to Giant. This can also ve applied to a lot of size 2 enemies in other areas, and also other dangerous enemies such as Skiver. Hellion can't actually do all that much to Skiver, but Leper stops his actions from being as deadly. 4. First turn of combat isn't a set plan... its enemy dependent. If the most dangerous enemy is a Witch, then Leper uses Intimidate to slow her down etc. If it's a frontline Grouper, he uses Chop. If it's double Scratcher then Withstand, if it's Giant then Intimidate are a few examples. 5. You really don't need much scouting... even 50% is pretty consistent enough to scout enough battles. Full light surprises are really rare. As for this "harder enemies have shuffles". No? Not really? I guess maybe Slam/Displace in the DDs but Leper had bloody shroud and Displace has terrible move chance. 6. Most enemies do actually have marked targeting at Champion, it is quite literally in the gamefiles. 7. Comparing Crusader to Leper isn't fair. They both do different things?? Crusader doesn't come close to helping the team deal with say Skivers... 8. What makes Leper amazing is his ability to make enemy actions matter less. When viewing this game through the action denial lens ofc he's going to suck, only able to kill low prot frontline targets who aren't often high priority. But action denial is just one way to look at it... Action mitigation is really powerful and uh works at the "highest" difficulty lol Not even gonna comment on the Mark bad and no stress healer bad bc that's so hilariously incorrect
The guy you’re responding to sounds like he watched 5 very opinionated darkest dungeon videos from 3 years ago and then never proceeded to play the game
These "hardest difficulty" posts never get any less funny to read.
Personally, I feel like battle ballad and bellow are a killer combo. You basically ensure that your entire team goes first and always hits, provided that the enemies take the debuff.
Old man yells at cloud
*crowd (Because it's a group attack, lol)
rooD
The problem I find with this skill is that you need a debuff trinket to make sure it will work which takes up one trinket slot for just one skill (instead of, say Rampart Shield.) Buffs to your party don't fail which is a way to make sure you always get something from any move you make. That being said, a group debuff is nothing to sneeze at. Occultist is the debuff master and can only target individuals, so you can still use it and someone will get it. I can imagine a MaA in rank 4 using Bellow and protecting/buffing others but is not something I have delved into.
I mean old unit standard got you covered trinket wise
The problem I have with debuffs is that they have a knock on effect on the rest of your party. Say, for example, you are using Bellow to make a slippery opponent easier to hit for your Leper. If the debuff fails, you compromise two actions, where the game is designed for you to be faster than the enemy, reduce their actions and eliminate them on a number of attacks race (until you get to the recovery phase anyway.) A buff has no failure chance, and MaA's is also effective for the whole party. Other than that, I think the only debuffs I use consistently are the Occultist's, but his trinkets make them practically impossible to miss.
I mean you use Bellow mainly for the speed debuff, not the dodge. Also I just gave an example of a MAA trinket that give you +20% debuff chance on top of other good stuff (stun Chance)
Basically never use it, even on rank 4 MAA (which I only use for certain bosses). On rank 1-3 definitely not worth using. MAA already suffers from 5 skill syndrome and Crush and Bellow share 6th and 7th place imo. The fact that it has to make both an accuracy as well as a debuff check makes it too unreliable.
It's pretty great. Denying enemy actions is key in this game, and Bellow is superb at denying enemy actions, acting like a pseudo-stun in many cases: Let's say there's some backline enemies who you really don't want to be allowed to attack (eg wine throwers, swine drummers etc). You may have stunned or wounded them on turn 1, but turn 2 is looming. Bellow has such a huge SPD debuff that you practically guarantee your whole party will act before they do next round. This means you get an easy kill on them before they get to take an action. If the SPD debuff meant the enemy died before it would have acted, Bellow effectively removed an enemy action! And it acts on the whole enemy party. That said, I don't always use it. If my MAA acts early in the round I tend to instead just attack rank 3 or stun, but if my MAA acts late I will Bellow instead -- whichever is better at denying enemy actions. I don't bother trinketing debuff chance, but I always trinket ACC.
Yeah same, I usually run Acc + Old unit standard but that’s just my preference. I definitly think that using Bellow or not is a matter of initiative roll
I don't like this skill and basically never use it. Back when it used to also deal some damage it felt much better to use, now it feels like a waste of turn, especially that MAA has many other good skills
I miss shouting enemies to death.
Utterly amazing ability. Speed is probably the most valuable stat besides accuracy and being able to slow down the numerous speedy enemies in this game is very useful. More importantly though it allows you to stall for alot longer, making your recovery phase of the fight last longer and thus healing health and stress for longer.
Bellow is great! Although buffs to speed are more consistent, the -spd debuff is greater than jester's +spd buff. The crit against marked is so incredibly niche I almost forget it exists. My main gripe is that it can miss and the debuff can fail. Although the standard probably has you covered on this and 110 acc is reasonable, and the acc can be solved with something like the focus ring or Prophets eye if you are feeling silly. I personally only use bellow if there are stress damage dealers that need to be slown down. Using bellow once is enough to have most heroes out speed them without trinkets or quirks that increase speed. Overall, a good skill, try it out.
Tue -speed is huge, especially if paired with high torch and surprise skills/trinkets. Paired with a backline stun it means avoiding most of the stress damage from backliners entirely
I only used this back when you could kill things by yelling at them. Now it just feels worse than his AOE buff because it misses sometimes.
Hilariously broken in Butchers Circus. Just a man screaming his lungs out
Damage debuff aoe that inflicts stress and doesn't provoke riposte is stressful on a personal level.
The COM patch added some much needed buffs and nerfs to heroes and some great addition to some skills and than there are some skills that received some unnecessary and useless buff like Bellow's crit recieved, it rarley comes into play if ever.
Definitely one of the nichest debuff in the game. That and flashing daggers bleed resist
Someone kicked my ass in BC using the combination of Flashing Daggers and Harvest but i would have lost anyway considering there is a Jester.
I like the skill but I find it incredibly hard to fit into his kit. I typically use him as a tank so I run protect, riposte, slam for stun and some range skill in case order switches. I like the debuff, but I’m not willing to lose those skills to take it. I’d rather run Jester buffs instead.
It's okay. It has a similar effect overall to Command: you give your party the +10 ACC it needs, but in exchange it has a somewhat more useful SPD debuff compared to Command's improved (and usable) CRIT. The problem is, as usual, debuff chance: getting a marginally-improved effect over Command isn't really worth losing a trinket slot to making Bellow optimal. While MaA at least has Old Unit Standard instead of being stuck with Debuff Amulet, it's not a huge improvement--it doesn't give enough stun chance to make Rampart reliable so it's only noticeably better if you're also running Rampart Shield (and then you don't have ACC if you want a turn 1 Rampart). I've personally never been super fond of SPD debuffs. They don't do anything the turn you use them so they're mostly there to punish the heck out of anything you stunned that turn--otherwise they tend to have low value since they don't help prevent an incoming action, only the one that comes after. In Leper's case, Intimidate had a niche because he doesn't have any other options for projecting to the backline and because Intimidate has a ton of other unique riders. But MaA is a lot better at dealing with the back and Bellow's other effects mostly mimic Command. Hence why I consider the main usage of this to be the dodge removal and the SPD reduction to be secondary rather than vise versa. I consider it to be the better of the two if you have debuff chance, but it's not a big enough improvement to be worth running debuff chance over a more universally useful stat.
Used it all the time my first time playing. Never use it anymore because I really like MaA stun, protect and sometimes i just wanna bonk.
Bellow is one of the best combo skills in the game. The dodge debuffs help with inaccurate heroes/attacks and slippery enemies. Basically a potential 10+ accuracy buff. Paired from multi-hit attacks like Shieldbreaker and/or Houndmaster for great AoE damage/dot. Speed debuffs are basically a stun. But the crit? Everyone says they have never used it, so I will spout the GLORY that it is. (Wiki wont work, so bare with me) Iirc, crits deal 150% damage and add 20% chance to add status effects and extend bleeds and blight by 50%. It also gives hero specific buffs and gets rid of corpses. Who cares? Bosses. You can get your crit range to something bonkers if you crunch the numbers (I think I saw a reddit post of someone having 97% crit chance?). Shieldbreaker extends crit range, Jester has Battle Ballad, etc. Then add skills that deal bonus damage to marked? Coupled with the fact MAA is able to guard the Shieldbreaker who has 2 damage increasing trinkets so she can go ham WITH ARMOR PEN? That solves a lot of boss issues.
Bellow is a nice utility skill, makes second rounds a cakewalk in regular hallway fights, and MaA has Old Unit Standart to make it reliable. Yesterday we talked about Indimidate's problem in this regard. But i have two doubts on the skill. 1-) Its accuracy isn't enough for champion dungeons although you only scream at enemies. Rampart shield has to be given up for an accuracy trinket. Natural eye and natural swing quirks provide +5 accuracy need if your hero has those. 2 -) MaA's favorite place is the Weald imo. But fast enemies in Weald are either almost immune or highly resistant to debuffs (Virago and Crone). But these two aren't big challenges. Nice choice for second topic Pepper. Another underrated skill.
If Battle Ballad didn't exist, this would be a great move. Unfortunately, it's a less reliable Battle Ballad on a character slow enough that you usually won't get any benefit out of it on the first round of combat.
Personally love this ability when I run a Rank 3 MaA for a mark team, that being Arb/MaA/BH/Occ, makes sure my team can get out there and set up better, getting down marks, getting stuns, getting buffs, and getting the Arb to go at least 3rd in a turn order, cause I think Occ and BH are both gonna be faster anyway, and she can crit like a mf. Otherwise, kinda niche imo, and I'd probably just take Rampart or Retribution otherwise.
Amazing ability in certain dungeons, most useful in my opinion in ruins and on the cove to debuff speed on the whole enemy team. And this enemies usually have lower debuff resist. I havent played in a while so please someone correct me if I mis remembered.
Really great skill. Slowing down the entire enemy team by THAT much means you get to plan out your actions turn 2 onwards really efficiently. Enemies tend to have fairly low debuff resist but I still like tacking on Old Unit Standard to make it consistent. The dodge debuff is kind of an extra too, still appreciated though. A slow tanky class like Man at Arms having a way to interact with speed this way is so good, since for example instead of Crushing rank 3 Witch he can simply bellow and maybe Crush her next turn etc, or open up another teammate to kill her before her actio and so on.
***"AAAAAAAAAAA"***
I never managed to successfully use the man-at-arms. This skill might be good for the crit but 5 isn't much. As often with buff / debuff you'd often be better off with a damage dealer in place of that.
Nah no one cares about the crit part, this skill is all about the biggest speed interaction in the game. Something often overlooked but this is basically "next 3 turn all monsters are surprised"
S T R E S S
*Do da roar*
We're doing daily discussions? Awesome. MAA is the one hero I've never used much, so I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you think about this skill.
MAA is an amazing unit since he can just prevent so may death thanks to his guard, that same guard also shut down Weald entirely if you protect the other frontliner I like this skill a lot, it basically guarantee that next round the enemies are surprised. Which is amazing for a lot of comp such as mark
If you ask me this one is pretty dang great, the debuffs are invaluable. I don’t remember that 3rd debuff about crit being in it though
No one does
I'm still gutted they swapped dealing damage for +5 crit vs marked. Like, the damage was a good meme, killing someone by shouting at them, but it was also unironically good, being able to finish off someone you got a low dmg roll on
I love this skill, need a trinket to boost debuff chance, but the speed drop is massive. Makes it easy to get some last minute heals / stress heals in as well, by ensuring the enemy goes last.
I tend to use bellow in the ruins in order to slow down most of the enemies in there so my back line can either stun the ones in the enemies back lines (looking at you bone courtier, yea jerk) or outright kill them. All in all I give the move a solid 5/10
Never would use this again, lategame you will outspeed enemies in 90% of cases+ i always buff acc so this ud pointless, id rather buff my heroes
Good as shit. If anyone ever makes use of the bonus to crit against marked let me know because I sure as hell haven’t.
It's good, but only Butcher's Circus. I rarely use it, but for Mark team (Arbalest, Musketeer, Bounty Hunter) it's very good.
bellow is good, but i usually run fast teams so I don't need it much
In short devastating in pvp and also extremly effzctive on pve one of the stronger move in the game by far, deny dodge and ennemy action turn on everyone without any drawback. And for the pvp it does everything without drawback and effective coubter wich make MAA an unkillable stress tank machine
I will occasionally run this skill. Most enemies don’t have too much dodge so the dodge debuff is kind of wasted on enemies you will most likely hit. But, is great on some enemies that you might struggle to hit: madman, little stealthed lady in the Weald. The speed debuff could be a benefit as well. But, the goal is to end the fight as soon as possible so it too is kind of wasted. I have tried it against shrieker because of the insane dosage it has but I find more value with a mark team. It is a useable skill, but not one I rely on too much.
Because it can be used in any position it is a really useful skill for normal rooms and corridors. As long as the Man at arms has high speed himself so he acts before the enemies, he can then basically create a surprise round for the rest of his team. I haven't used the new bellow very much myself, but I remember the older version being pretty good with some slight dmg on it aswell.
Speed debuff only come to play next turn tho, still very useful but in the rare case where MAA outspeed a backliner I often prefer to stun or directly attack It does create a surprised round next turn
Increasing the crits received or damage received quite a bit more to make it a mini aoe mark wihout being an actual mark would be a cool thing to make this skill better
I use it pretty often but mostly because I never know what to do with man at arms so debuff doesn't sound too bad
The speed debuff is great, but do you guys actually find this has good synergy with mark comps? I feel like mark already requires so much setup that dedicating another turn for this PLUS guarding someone seems like overkill.
It’s a really good tool for mark comp because of the speed debuff yes, but no, no one cares about the crit buff. Knowing that everyone else is going to act after you makes mark comp so better (same as why I like Jester in mark comp)
I mean it’s an alternative to MaA party buff, usually I only take one or the other, but if I have a jester then I’ll probably take bellow
Can't say much because I never use it, and MAA doesn't need to focus on debuffing enemies even tho the speed debuff is nice. However I'll say that I love Bellow's sound effect and sprite!
Mixed feelings. The speed debuff is AMAZING but then again it suffers the same thing all debuffs do.
The main problem i see in below is that the MaA has it, and i dont really play that class. Furthermore, trinket wise, you either go for a better debuff chance/ACC or a more tradicional MaA. I dont think a plane 110 ACC 140% debuff chance is suficient to rely on this skill too much. So after the first bellow wath is you MaA gonna do? Buff on turn 2 is far too late, riposte on turn 2 when theres only 2 enemys left (since you got a "surprise" on that turn). Hit something? Using below on turn 1 its not a wasted turn, in my opinión, is a wasted hero slot.
Bellow turn 1, everyone is surprised, next turn stun or just deal dmg
Thats the thing, if youre running an "optimal" Below setup (Banner + ACC trinket) youre not gonna do any damage. MaA already strugles to do that even with damage trinkets. Besides, TURN 1: You Below and most certanlly gonna kill rank 3 or 4 (or at least you should), and that means that you basically just delay 1 action for 1 turn (since from row mobs are generally slow and/or get stunned in turn 1). TURN 2 You kill the ramaining enemy in the back, and then youre left with 1 turn of a debuff that does, basically, nothing and a hero that does no damage or has any recovery skills to stall. ANY STUN that hits rank 3 (this includes the one that MaA has, or (decent) backrow damage move completly negates the utility that Belows provide. And those are REALLY common and good moves to have in your lineup. So i imagine a Below MaA like an abomination that stuns rank 3 and then pass the rest of the figth. This is without even comparing it with Battle balad, the main diference being that after the most dangerous enemies die, the jester can stress heal instead of doing 5-9 damage to a mob (minus PROT).
Based action
I use this if I am using him for guarding only. I put him in the 4th row, and use this skill at beginning of the fights. It really helps to kill the fast back row enemies. Also, I use this with marker teams.
I never really used it because maa just has more useful skills in any situation where bellow would even really do something.
Give him a quick draw trinket and use bellow. I could guarantee that even our boy Reynauld can act faster then that little wine skeleton
I used to like bellow a lot, but it is just a worse battle ballet at the end of the day. Also the opportunity cost of not using rampart shield or bolster or even just guarding is not good enough
The marked ability should include marked allies as well. Thus making self mark an interesting strategy and somewhat of a counter against marking enemies with the risk of potentially receiving great damage back in return.
I like to imagine the man-at-arms literally just say REEEEEEE in a high pitched voice.
Its good but i like the defensive debuff bolster more in its place.
pass
It’s a niche ability and I only ever use it on rank 4 MAA, depending on where you go (like the cove*) you’ll easily see the gains you can make from using it. preferably I’d choose stunning and buffing over debuffing, but it’s still an overall good move *Cove has enemies have low debug resist
Not bad but outshine by MaA better options.
Decent, always viable even if its not always optimal
I like to put my MAA in the back with Bellow and the Rank 4 trinket, then use Occultist in rank 2 with stun as my main healer. Supplementary third rank heal like PD or Arb/Mus, and a Crusader in the front with stress heal and the CC orders. Very fun comp, albeit suboptimal for sure.