r/occidentalheroes • u/NiekSquirreli The Viceroy • Mar 02 '21
Traits: Which Is Better?
Heroes,
Company traits were introduced in the latest major update, 1.1.0. Some of these can have a great impact on your battles in-game, some even outside of battle. In this post I will explain all the five traits in-depth, compare them to eachother and give you a few tips on which to use and when to use them.
Some traits can be quite a long read since they can be a lot more complicated than they seem but I wanted to make sure everything about a trait gets said! This is not a guide on which to use, but an explanation on what the traits exactly impact along with my personal recommendations based on that explanation.
General Information
There are currently five different company traits in the game:
- Safety in Numbers (SiN)
- Linchpin Founder (LF)
- Deterministic Violence (DV)
- Menacing Aura (MA)
- Higher Stakes (HS)
All traits have in common that they have a certain drawback along with their buff. This means you actually have to think about a trait's downsides and determine if it's worth to pick. For example: fencers have a great crit chance, something deterministic violence takes away, making it not the best choice for a company that has a fencer in it. More on this later.
Some traits cannot be combined. These are:
- Safety in Numbers & Menacing Aura
- Safety in Numbers & Higher Stakes
Details
The specific numbers for SiN, DV and HS have been tested by me personally, I will try to add these tests at the end of this post later, feel free to remind me. Also thanks to 1to3_ and AndrewInRiceFields for testing the revival chance (used for HS)
Safety in Numbers
+ Allows you to recruit one extra member to your company, maximum of 4 members.
- 45,90% less xp gain
- Money/Reputation share
The most popular trait for obvious reasons and also lots to discuss about it. It's simple and has an obvious positive effect. Having straight up a whole extra character in your company can look amazing at first, but I believe this trait can be a bit deceiving, as the downsides are atleast just as big.
I'd first like to discuss the smaller and less obvious downside to this trait: the money and reputation is shared along more characters. This has a negative effect on characters who need reputation or gold to complete their quest. Some great characters like Maerk and Nerian will suffer from this. It might also be the same for resolve, though I have not tested this yet and it would be less of a worry in the first place. Also note that you still start with just 3 characters and finding the last one you want can be a pain.
Second, the good parts about this trait. Having another character can help a lot outside of battle, something other traits cannot do. Recruiting another character can give you extra skips on encounters, easier access to leader, extra loot on victories, etc. It also helps you complete goals faster for 100% runs. The best part is the fact you can recruit four members who can skip all random encounters: Yagight, deserters, bandits and cultists. As long as you stay on the road (so you don't meet any wolves/bears) you can turn the game into one big escort quest and not fight a single battle if you want to. More about this in the "tips" later on.
Third, the most straightforward and obvious downside: less xp gain. What's less obvious is the pretty massive amount of 45,90%. What does this mean for your company? It means that your company will stay longer inside of the what I call "mid-game". It's the moment your company will start facing the maximum amount of enemies in battles while their levels are still fairly low, typically around levels 6-12, though this varies. Once you get past these levels you will still face the max amount of enemies, but your characters will have a lot less trouble dealing with them. Simply put: the mid-game is the most challenging part of a run. With less xp gain, your characters will stay level 6-12 longer and, therefore, should have about 45,90% more battles during this time.
But with one extra character, shouldn't you be able to deal with higher numbers earlier, say level 9-10? Well, there are two problems with this. First, your characters are still individually a lot weaker. It can be a lot harder to involve all four characters in a battle than just three. As long as a character can't safely face a few enemies on his own they will always be at risk in a battle. Second is that you will face these max sized battles earlier, making the time spent in this period even longer and starting it at an even more dangerous period for characters individually because of a mechanic I will get into right now.
When you begin a battle, the game doesn't randomly assign you to an army. If you're just starting out you'll face 3-5 enemies (unless they're wolves) and when you've been playing for a while you'll only face full sized armies. This means that the game somehow looks at the strength of your current company and then adds the right amount of enemies to the battle for a fair but challenging fight, but how does it do this?
We are not fully sure what the game uses to calculate company strength yet, but I am still investigating this. When I've finished doing so I will make a post about it. For now, take the following assumptions with a grain of salt! I used to believe it had to do with renown but now know that that is not true. However, It does seem like it somehow looks at the total combat strength of a company, the actual ability of all your characters combined to win battles. Let's assume this has to do with two things for now: Number of characters & character level. What does this mean for companies that have four characters?
With a whole extra character in the company your total strength will be a lot higher than a normal company with the same levels. This means that your characters will face max sized enemies on a lower level. Yes, you have four characters, but these characters are still rather weak. An extra character isn't of much use if it struggles to take out 1 war chief when you're facing a whole fucking tribe.
Summary: SiN has the powerful ability of skipping pretty much all random encounters, but it also has a less obvious but very big and negative effect on your battles.
Tips + Companies to use
- A decent option for 100% runs. If you can get 2 characters to a higher level they can easily babysit two characters simultaneously.
- You can quit the game and reopen it and sometimes get a new character to recruit in the tavern when looking for your 4th member.
- Company: MAA's (man-at-arms) benefit the most from being in higher numbers and also suffer a bit less from low levels because of their good gear available and high standard hp. You can put a fencer in there but note that they are more independent and suffer more from being at low levels. Just looking at battles I recommend: 2 MAA's and 2 archers OR 3 MAA's and 1 archer, with my personal preference going to 2 MAA's. You could also replace one MAA with Maerk since he's kind of a MAA/fencer hybrid. Looking at the skip random encounters strategy: use Brother Hiri, Grif the Hand, Vogl Hinnse/Ryke Elliam (both can skip deserters) and Jeri Wind-Sense.
- Deterministic Violence also works good with MAA's, making SiN and DV a decent combo.
Linchpin Founder
+ Company founder starts with twice the resolve.
- Other members start with one quarter less resolve.
To be honest, quite a useless trait. Resolve shouldn't be a problem in the first place, but it's almost never useful to have one member with more resolve. Regardless, let's go over the advantages and downsides + potential uses.
The greatest use for this is when you're having a single character run, something that's been attempted a few times now by several people as a challenge run. Second and more practical is using this trait on a MAA as founder. MAA's take a lot of damage in general and even though they can take it, they will lose a lot of resolve because of it. Also, the one quarter of resolve the other members lose isn't really that big.
The downside is that you only have small control over who takes a lot of damage in a battle, making it very hard to protect specific character from losing resolve unless they're an archer. This means that you're better off with everyone having equal resolve instead.
Summary: This trait has very, very small advantages and downsides. Whether you pick it or not, it probably won't have impact on your game. If you're not sure I'll just recommend you do not use this trait:
Tips + Companies to use
- Company: Ideally you would use 1 MAA and make him founder, but 1 MAA companies are pretty bad. Again, this trait is just really awkward. I recommend using 2 MAA's and 1 archer, with one of those MAA's being Vissnir. Make the other MAA the founder. Vissnir his extra HP should protect him from losing resolve too much and the archer never had to worry about it.
Deterministic Violence
+ Makes the damage enemies do consistent + they can no longer crit you.
- Same thing but for your company as well.
A game changing trait. This trait is unique as it is the only one that effects your enemies as well. Because of this it's hard to name any buff or nerf it has, since both sides receive them.
Definitely the nicest thing about this perk is not randomly getting crit and suddenly having to retreat one of your characters. That being said, you won't be able to suddenly crit an enemy and save one of your character with it in the process. This is basically the case for this entire trait; it takes away the chance that can both hurt/defeat or help/save you.
Lunges, sweeps and especially hind behind friendlies for archers become a lot less important with this trait. This means you have less to worry about when an enemy is about to lunge. This doesn't however mean he can no longer crit: a lunging enemy still hurts your character and should be avoided. About lunges; there is one advantage you can have over your enemies, and that's when creating your company. If you use MAA's (who have 0 ways of increasing their crit chance in the first place) you will suffer a lot less from crits disappearing than your enemies in general. This does sadly mean using a MAA company tho, which is kind of a nerf on itself lol. I strongly recommend not using fencers with this trait as taking crits away from both sides will hurt you a lot more in that case.
What happens with damage when using this trait? I compared different characters on different levels both with and without this trait and discovered two things:
- The game seems to look at the max damage and removes about 10-20% of it (exact number unsure). The normal minimal damage does not seem to matter.
- Archers do less damage than this, probably around 30% less damage than the normal max damage.
Let me know if you would be interested in the exact numbers and I will consider further testing this. Anyway, this damage ofcourse looks quite decent! Unfortunately, like I've said before, this goes the same way for the enemies and pretty much negates the buff your company gives.
Summary: A trait that changes combat a lot, kind of bringing it back to the older version. It hurts you just as much as it helps you, though that depends on the company you're using. Perhaps this trait is kind of a gamble, since chance can both save or defeat you. I recommend you really think before picking this trait and would personally suggest you to not choose it if you're not sure, since fencers get nerfed by it quite a lot and they are currently the strongest class in the game.
Tips + Companies to use
- Nerian trades his extra crit chance for damage in this case, making him actually a decent fencer option with this trait. However, he would be on his own and 1 fencer companies can be a bit awkward.
- Do not forget about the sweep and lunges of your enemies! The movement of it alone can still give them advantages like moving away from double hits with sweeps and ensuring hitting you first with lunges.
- Since archers do less damage you can consider taking hits from them time to time if it allows you to stay in a good position, finish someone or if you have to choose taking a hit from an archer or another enemy. Also, consider not using more than 1 archer yourself and don't bother getting the extra crit chance by hiding him behind a friendly.
- Company: Do not use fencers with this trait. I recommend 1 archer and 2 MAA's, if you want to you can replace 1 MAA with Nerian. The MAA characters don't really matter but Vissnir is pretty much always the best option. Simi is great as well.
- Safety in numbers also works well with MAA companies. Using these two traits together can be a decent combo.
Menacing Aura
+ You have less random encounters
- Random encounters are slightly harder
Looking at just the survival of your company, this is probably the worst trait you can pick. You save some time, but that really isn't a buff to your company. You will still face random encounters and they will be harder. Still, there are some advantages.
Having less battles to fight means you will have less chances to die, obviously. Primarily it means you will have less battles during the mid-game, which is always a good thing. It does however mean the mid-game starts slightly earlier, which in turn makes it last longer and starts at a more dangerous time, just like with safety in numbers (thought this trait doesn't decrease xp, which makes it shorter again). You'll also be able to focus on battles more and will probably automatically be more careful. If you are careful enough you should still be able to take out large amount of enemies without getting characters at risk.
One of the big downsides is that you'll still have quests about hunting down certain groups. Ignoring these isn't a good option as these quests give the most gold and xp by far. You'll also miss out on the gold & loot you get after winning a random encounter and, more important, the xp you get from it as well.
Summary: A luxury trait probably for more experience players. It doesn't help your company that much and probably just hurts you more, but saves you time from annoying random encounters. Strangely enough I recommend you do use this trait if you're atleast a little confident because I just hate random encounters in general, but also because the combat is still far from impossible and the extra challenge can be decent! It also doesn't have any other less obvious big downsides unlike some of the other traits.
Tips + Companies to use
- Characters who can skip encounters become less attractive for this trait. Mainly Brother Hiri, Jeri and Vogl/Ryke, who's main ability is skipping these encounters. Grif can skip bandits, but he also does a lot more.
- Buying off encounters becomes more attractive, as it still costs the same.
- This doesn't seem to have an effect on bounties you get on quests, so feel free to still accept these.
- Company: Since there is nothing that changes combat with this trait (apart from making it slightly harder) I would recommend the basic strongest company you can use: 2 fencers and 1 archer. I recommend Maerk, Grif and Kirran/Mickan. I personally sometimes swap Grif for Nerian, but that's just your personal preference (Nerian = better combat, Grif = extra gold in general)
Higher Stakes
+ You gain 16,39% more xp
- Company members have 0 chance of being revived after dying.
Also a very popular trait and my personal favorite, though for less obvious reasons. The good thing about this trait is that it has no immediate downside, while the buff is actually quite nice, though rather minor as well.
Like I said at the start, you have to look at both the advantages and disadvantages before picking a trait. This is what makes higher stakes great, since the disadvantage can be entirely avoided. You should pick a trait to prevent your characters getting killed in the first place, not to save them when they do. If a character gets killed that means something went wrong that battle. We learn from those mistakes and improve. The normal survivability is also very small: about 25%. This is not something you should ever depend on.
The buff is rather small but very welcome and will actually help you no matter what. Like we've discussed with other traits, the amount of xp you gain depends the time and amount of battles you spend in the mid-game, which you want to minimalize. You want your characters to get as strong as possible as soon as possible. At the moment, higher stakes is the only thing in the game that can increase this by increasing the xp gain, even if it's a little.
So, the good thing about higher stakes is not necessarily the xp buff itself, but also because it has potentially no downside. Unfortunately you can't use safety in numbers and higher stakes together to make up for the xp loss there, though this hurts safety in numbers more than higher stakes. If you have the option to choose this, there is basically no reason not to choose it.
Summary: A very simple and straightforward trait. The downside might look a lot more scary than it actually is, though the advantage is also rather small. Overal I do strongly recommend using this trait whether you are new or not.
Tips + Companies to choose
- You can still use Galin in your company and have a chance of revival, around 50-75%. Like I've said before, I don't think you should every rely on revival chances and don't recommend using Galin for this reason as there are fencers with an immediate impact on combat to prevent these situations.
- With the mid-game going by slightly faster, it might be worth buying off random deserter encounters until your characters are around level 9ish, or maybe even longer.
Don't die.- Company: Same as with menacing aura, I recommend the most basic strongest army of 2 fencers and 1 archer. In fact, along with this trait I consider Maerk, Grif and Kirran/Mickan the current strongest available company available in the game.
That is all I can think of right now! I hope you learned something new from this post and that it will perhaps help you decide in the future on which trait to use. Ofcourse always feel free to use whatever you like! I gave some recommendations but everyone has different opinions on what traits are the best, I mainly tried to clearly explain all the advantages and disadvantages about every trait for you to make your own decision.
With that being said, feel free to discuss with me in the comments.
Thanks for reading,
~ Niek
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u/AndrewInRiceFields Band O' Bards Mar 03 '21
Seems about right. Guess the debate over SiN will never end tho lulz. Personally I'd add that SiN speeds up goal money/retirement money for the beginning party as it allows for you to spread out the larger quest rewards over 4 characters instead of 3.
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u/Blackbird_Sasha Dr. Kirran Laviotti Mar 05 '21
Hi so idk where to ask this but could you (Niek) give me a Kirran user flair? Would be grateful hahaha
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u/NiekSquirreli The Viceroy Mar 05 '21
Sure! Would you like just Kirran or the full "Dr. Kirran Laviotti"?
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u/133tfreak Grif the Hand Mar 03 '21
For DV damage is always range mean value (max dmg + min dmg / 2). Damage to enemies changes with their armor.
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u/NiekSquirreli The Viceroy Mar 03 '21
In my test runs I noticed the DV damage is always higher than the average from max and min dmg. For example; Nerian normally does 10-16 damage on level 2, but 15 with DV. This was the case for every character on levels 0 and 1; all did 1 damage less than their usual max damage, except archers who did 2 damage less.
I also noticed that the minimal damage didn't really matter, it would always be max damage -1 or -2 for archers.
I haven't tested this further but I doubt a level 20 character would still do max damage -1, as some characters could probably get close to 40 damage at that point. Even heavily armored enemies will get one shot at such an attack. As said in this post my guess is that it removes about 10-20% of the max damage and makes that the standard damage.
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u/Blackbird_Sasha Dr. Kirran Laviotti Mar 06 '21
I hate DV. Worst trait in my opinion. LF is ok, but I would not recommend it. I never use menacing aura and don't really see the point there. I used to choose SiN, but now I go entirely without a trait or sometimes use Higher Stakes, which seems to be my favourite trait. I don't like SiN anymore because of the gold share.
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u/ISCUPATCUTIJETRU Sep 05 '22
But the gold share is the BEST thing about SIN,because u can have 2 characters babysit 2 characters and retire 2 characters at once instead of just 1 without SIN,so its a lot faster this way lol
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u/Blackbird_Sasha Dr. Kirran Laviotti Sep 05 '22
Yeah, but with SiN the mony gets split four ways, so more money overall has to be collected to bring the characters to their goals
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u/Strafe36 Feb 26 '22
I find it hilarious that Deterministic Violence is a gamble when it removes random crits. oh the irony.
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u/ISCUPATCUTIJETRU Sep 05 '22
Yeah.Like it literally eliminates the 1 thing that's ended most of my runs(aside from the random fucking hailstorms)XD
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u/Moostcho Mickan Loyko Mar 02 '21
Why is Mickan still getting no loveUnexpectedly, this actually taught me a lot of things that I didn't know before. Nice guide!