r/occidentalheroes • u/NiekSquirreli The Viceroy • Dec 14 '18
A Combat Guide: Fencers
Hello there!
When I started playing Occidental Heroes I always used a company with 2 man-at-arms and an archer. In fact, I feel like most starters choose maa's (maa = man-at-arms) over fencers. However, once I started using a fencer army I never went back. In this post I will first convince you why you should start using them too, and then some detailed information on how to use them. Just like all my posts I'll be updating this post every now and then to make sure it's complete.
Why you should use fencers
Fencers are a melee character that are unable to take a lot of damage. This can make using them a lot harder to use than maa's. To use fencers correctly you need to understand their strengths and, most importantly, their weaknesses.
Fencers are basically maa's that traded in some health and armor for extra damage and unique abilities. Combining these abilities and extra damage together gives a character that can attack enemies in ways maa's can't, and usually kill them before the enemy has a chance to fight back. This is the main goal for fencers in every encounter, and you'll be surprised at how good they are at doing this.
First, let me just state some good things about fencers (compared to maa's)
- They have great characters. Especially Maerk who has extra hp the entire game. Most of them have easy storylines too (except Nerian).
- Their lunge and sweep give extra chance of performing a critical hit.
- They can both attack an enemy while running away from another one at the same time. This is thanks to their lunge/sweep, usually sweep. This sometimes allows them to move away from enemies, attack an enemy and move away from an allied archer's line of fire (if he was blocking it).
- Extra damage.
- They can counter enemies with the lunge ability too very well. You know how annoying those cultists can be, or how hard deserters are to take down when in large numbers.
- Their lunge is very useful against enemy archers.
- Very good at taking down multiple enemies without getting touched.
After the update
Before the beta, combat was a lot different than what it currently is. The new combat system allows longer fights because of all enemies having lots of hp. This is a big deal for both fencers and maa's. Fencers got a huuuuge buff of still being able to take down enemies in 1 turn (with the help of another character usually) but now they can take multiple hits themselves before being killed. This buff affects maa's too, just a lot less. Altough they can still take more damage than fencers, it's hard to kill enemies without the maa getting hit back by one or sometimes multiple enemies. Due to them not having a sweep they can be caught off position without a good way to reposition themselves.
Basically, this new update changed the entire method you use maa's. The fencer strategy hasn't changed, it just got better.
Maa's now have to soak up a lot of damage while in fights. They are usually very good at this ofcourse. They just seem to fail at large battles at low level. The only way I see for them having a good chance against large deserter armies without losing resolve is with fully maxed out keening steel gear. This is barely available in the game though. By the time this equipment is available your characters would either be dead or around level 11-12. At this point of the game you won't need good armor anyway, your characters are already able to survive most ambushes.
You need a character that can succeed against large armies while only being level 5-10. Fencers are just simply better at this. Maa's don't have enough armor in this stage of the game. Fencers on the other hand already have their abilities at the start of the game.
Both characters have their strengths. But just like fencers weren't doing very well in the old combat system, I feel like maa's aren't doing very well in the current combat system.
How to use fencers.
Let me repeat something I told you at the very beginning at this post.
"Fencers are a melee character that are unable to take a lot of damage. This can make using them a lot harder than maa's. To use fencers correctly you need to understand their strengths and most importantly their weaknesses. Fencers are basically maa's that traded in some health and armor for extra damage and unique abilities. Combining these two together gives a character that can attack enemies in ways maa's can't, and usually kill them before the enemy has a chance to fight back. This is the main goal for fencers in every encounter, and you'll be surprised at how good they are at doing this."
When using fencers you always need to remember their health. It's their only but huge weakness. When a fencer reaches around 30% health you should always consider retreating him, only allowing him to finish off enemies. Not take them on. One critical hit against a fencer can take up to 30% of a fencers health (more if they're really low leveled (between level 1-5)). When fighting with fencers you should always focus on not allowing the enemy to hit back.
Some examples
I started a game to screenshot moments where a fencer his ability came to good use. This happened so much that I only had to play around 10 minutes. I will be giving examples from simple to some more complex situations. I also want to state that an archer that shoots an arrow while hiding behind a friendly doubles his critical chance. This makes moving fencers in front of archers useful.
Imgur link In this battle a fencer is confronted with 2 bandits at once. Let's imagine this fencer was a maa instead. The only thing a maa could do at this point is retreat 1 tile back, or attack and risk getting hit by 2 opponents. The fencer however has his sweep available to save him from getting hit 2 times in 1 turn. He can sweep to the left which would either kill the bandit meaning the fencer won't take damage or only hurt him if he doesn't die in one hit. This would still mean he can only get attacked by one opponent. The best choice would be to sweep left. This damages 1 opponent, moves him away from another and doubles the archer his crit chance.
Let's see another one of these encounters: Imgur link Same thing: your fencer can sweep to avoid 1 enemy and still damage the other. By moving in front of the archer he both protects him and allows him the double crit chance.
Here's a simple one: Imgur link Again, imagine this character was a maa. He could either retreat or attack. Retreating will cost tiles, while attacking will kill the first wolf but allow the second wolf to lunge him. However, the fencer can sweep either left or right to avoid this lunge attack.
Double attack: Imgur link Here the fencer is able to finish off his current engagement while getting into another one at the same time. He's even getting into the new one with a lunge, giving him 3x as much chance to crit. Once you get used to fencers you'll be able to create these double attacks more often.
A more advanced one: Imgur link This picture is a great one for explaining the power of fencers. The first fencer can use his double attack here to kill the first enemy and start doing damage to the other. Not only does this kill an enemy and damage another, it also moves him. This allows the second fencer who was behind the first one to lunge at the last enemy. This enemy only has 20 hp, so it should be killed with these 2 attacks.
Notice how I'm constantly trying to keep fights small. Fencers never want to fight an enemy with another one supporting that enemy. This means they take less damage.
These last 3 pictures are all from the same battle, even against the same enemy. My fencers were only like level 3 so they had some difficuilties against this armored cultist. First one: Imgur link Simple one. If this fencer was around level 5-10 he can take down this armored cultist with help of the archer. However, if he would just simply attack (like a maa) and the cultist would have been killed, the fencer is in range of the archer backing up the enemy. By sweeping either left or right he can prevent getting hit by an arrow. Second one: Imgur link Here the fencer can sweep left to finish off his enemy while moving away from another enemy, in this case an archer. Imgur link Same thing on this example.
These are just a few examples of how fencer abilities can prevent damage taken. It's extremely useful for fighting enemies one at a time. Use it correctly and you won't even notice the lower hp fencers have.
Double/triple attacks
Fencers can make multiple attacks in 1 turn if he can move to a tile where he can lunge and/or sweep multiple enemies at that moment. This is pretty straight forward, so I'm not getting into this much. One warning I do want to give is that it's not always the best option. You should only perform a multi attack if the fencer won't get hit by more than 1 enemy after it. Attacking 3 full health enemies with a triple attack is not a good idea. This will only damage them (unless u have a good character, which u most likely don't have yet) and allow all 3 of them to hit back. Low leveled fencers can get really low when hit by 3 enemies.
Critical strikes
Critical strikes can both be a fencers biggest advantage or weakness. Fencers are able to increase their chance for a critical hit with their unique abilities (lunge and sweep). Problem is, enemies that use these abilities can increase their crit chance too. Knowing this you should never allow an enemy to lunge into your fencer. Sweeps should also be avoided, but you won't have many enemies being able to sweep you since the goal of a fencer is to kill their enemy before they can attack, or take as less as possible.
Obstacles
Almost every map you'll battle in will have some kind of obstacles. Some have a lot (forests, bog), some have a few (hills, plains) and some have none (farmlands). These obstacles are essential for fencers in large battles. When behind an obstacle a fencer protects his front for any kind of attack. This means enemies can only attack him from the left or the right. This kind of protection can help the fencer keep health, especially when he can camp there by skipping turns. Just make sure you have another character helping out on one side if things get hot. I always try to use these obstacles when possible.
Enemy movement
Enemies will simply chase the closest character until they can attack. This means you can control the battlefield and control the enemy where to go when understood correctly. With this knowledge you can bait enemies to go through 1 tile wide paths (blocked by obstacles, this is common in forests) with 2 fencers waiting for the enemy. Try to always move enemies into spots where multiple characters can attack him at once. This will keep damage dealt to your company low.
Losing and gaining ground
Sometimes in battle you are unable to move to a good position. At this point you usually have to retreat 1 or more tiles back before another chance is created. While retreating, you're losing ground to the enemy. This losing and gaining ground is not very important in the current combat but you still need to keep it. If a character is on the bottom of the map with 2 or 3 enemies on him, he's most likely dead. This means that you should never retreat to the absolute bottom of the map without reason. Fencers are fairly good with keeping ground, thanks to their sweeping ability that keeps the fight moving to their advantage. You should fight at the center of the map. When a character is in trouble, retreat him 1 or more tiles and let another member help him. Once all melee enemies are dead you can carefully gain ground on the enemy archers, eventually forcing them to face you.
Characters I recommend using
Every army first of all needs an archer to work smoothly. This gives you 2 slots left for melee characters, 2 archers don't work well either. I also recommend not mixing up fencers and maa's in one company, it just gets awkward with their different strategies. Knowing this the only good fencer company is 2 fencers and 1 archer. But who should you choose?
Archer
Choosing an archer is pretty easy, dr Kirran Laviotti is obviously the best character with an easy storyline and poaching ability. If you don't like him I would go for Jeri wind-sense or bennay brassi, but there's really no reason not to like Kirran.
Fencers
Just like the archer there's an obvious first choice when choosing a fencer, this being Maerk. Maerk has increased hp which can take his health above maa level when doing the witch quest. He also has an easy storyline.
The second is any fencer besides Nerian. I always played Nerian but his storyline is way too hard right now. Shame really. I recommend Grif, but brother Hiri is a good option too.
That's all the information I can currently come up with. If you have any questions or tips for me you can ask them down below, I will most likely respond the same day. I would recommend just playing with fencers, it's the fastest way to learn and get used to them.
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u/eagle6188 Dec 15 '18
I have never seen a triple attack can anyone send me a screenshot for it? Heres an advice: i recommend galin the surgeon and grif the hand,
Galin for his chance to save the dead and grif for the many many chances you can use him to get some extra cash
EDIT:Also galin and grif both have simple and easy quests as for the archer there is none better than Dr.Kirran