In this episode of the Bannerlord Perks guide we will look at the Athletics skill perks. By the end of this video, you will have a complete understanding of what each one does and which to pick based on your specific needs. I put timestamps in the description for your convenience and without further ado, let’s get started!
Level 25 – Morning Exercise: Starting off this perks guide with a movement speed perk, my favorite! We can see from testing, over 20s of run time resulted in 3m closer with the perk. The captain perk gives foot troops 5% faster movement speed, which seems decent.
Level 25 – Well Built: Adding 5 HP to our main character by itself isn’t great, but can make a big different when combined with others and good armor. The secondary perk is tagged party leader and increases our foot troops HP by 5, which is amazing!
Tough pick here – The best way to approach this is to determine if you will stack HP or movement speed perks and stick to it. If you aren’t stacking either, then take well built for the troop HP gain. Morning exercise is the only pick for captains.
Level 50 – Form Fitting Armor: Decreasing armor weight is essentially a movement speed buff when wearing heavy armor. As we can see from the testing, it does reduce the armor weight for any armor type, but the different is much bigger when wearing heaving armor. With light armor, there was no difference with and without the perk. Wearing the heaviest armor in the game produced a 4m difference by the end of the run, which is even more than the 25 perk! The captain perk increases movement speed of tier 3 and higher foot troops by 4%, which can stack nicely with the previous captain perk.
Level 50 – Fury: This perk increases the handling of all weapons while on foot by 10%. This generally helps the most with weapons like 2H axes and swingable polearms that have huge swinging arcs, although by itself it was difficult to see a difference with the perk. The captain perks does the exact same thing for foot troops.
The pick here is usually Form Fitting armor, although there is an argument to be made for stacking handling perks from the melee perk trees. Or if you’re mostly doing mounted combat, but have a few points into athletics for sieges, then I think Fury is a good pickup, otherwise Form Fitting Armor is the pick. For captains perk, I still prefer Form Fitting Armor.
Level 75 – Having Going: I expected some TaleWorld’s math when testing this perk, but to my shock it actually made a huge difference. We have an 84% and 36% chat check pass, 14% critical failure without the perk. With the perk, these numbers change to 100%, 47% and 9% respectively. Not only does it help pass chat checks, but it decreases the failure chance as well! The secondary perk is tagged party leader and increases party size by 5, which is great!
Level 75 – Stamina: The most annoying part of crafting is waiting for stamina to recover. This perk increases recovery rate by 50%. We tested how much stamina recovers after 12 hours. Without the perk, only 60% was recovered, but with the perk it shot up to 95%. The secondary perk is also tagger party leader and gives a flat 5 increase to prisoner limit and 10% less chance of prisoner’s escaping.
The pick here is easy – Having going is just too good to pass up. Waiting for stamina to recover isn’t a big deal and prisoner limit or 10% escape chance are rarely a factor. Having better chat outcomes is great for getting married and recruiting nobles to our kingdom, which is amazing. Party size increase is equally amazing.
Level 100 – Powerful: This perk increases all melee damage by 4%, which isn’t a large amount but it does work for all weapon types. We see in testing an increase of about 9 damage at the high end of the range. The low end will vary widely depending on weapon handling. The captain perk picks up the signature TaleWorld’s special – 2% increase to damage.
Level 100 – Sprint: TaleWorlds is on a roll – another movement speed perk! This one works when we don’t currently have a shield or ranged weapon in hand. We can see in the testing that we close the distance 5m sooner with the perk, which is more than the previous perks. The captain perk gives a 3% speed boost for foot troops, which can stack nicely with the others previously.
Similar to previous picks, this one will depend on what you plan on stacking. If stacking movement speed, then sprint is the pick. Otherwise, Powerful is the pick. For captain picks, the same logic applies.
Level 125 – Braced: If you’ve seen the polearm perks guide, you’ll remember this exact same perk in that skill tree. From testing, we see it works the exact same taking charge damage from 4 down to 2. If we pick up the polearm perk as well, we see charge damage going to 0. The captain perk reduces charge damage for our troops by 50% as well.
Level 125 – Surging Blow: This perk increases the speed damage bonus while on foot by 30%. In the testing, I had a hard time noticing any difference, but I think I was moving perpendicular to the targets rather than straight on. Speed damage while on foot is small since movement speed is slow. The captain perk does the same for our troops.
Braced is the pick for both main character and captain since Surging Blow is so underwhelming.
Level 150 – A Good Days Rest: I’ll save some time here – in testing we see the perk makes no difference and appears to be bugged as there is no difference in healing rate with or without the perk while waiting in town. The secondary perk does work and gives 10XP per troop per day while waiting in town.
Level 150 – Walk It Off: I wish I had better news for this perk, but it seems to be suffering the same fate as the previous. In testing, we see no difference in healing rate with or without the perk while moving. The secondary perk does work and gives 3XP per day per troop while moving.
The pick here is exclusively based on the secondary perk – If you find yourself waiting in town frequently then A good days rest is the pick. Otherwise, walk it off is great since it will be working for you frequently. Both perks are great for leveling up large groups of low tier troops.
Level 175 – Energetic: If you constantly have too much stuff in your inventory, this this perk can help as it reduces speed penalty of being overburdened by 20%. In our testing, we see it doesn’t actually reduce the overburdened penalty, but adds speed bonus that is 20% of the size of the overburdened penalty. This means it cannot be exploited like the riding perk for herding penalty. The governor perk increases hearth growth by 20%, which is actually really good for making villages produce more good and earn more profit for the owner.
Level 175 – Healthy Citizen: This is one of the S tier perks and gives a +1 attribute gain to endurance. One quick note here, you don’t get the attribute gain until you actually click done. Double check by going back into the character screen. The governor perk adds +1 loyalty to the settlement, which is great for stabilizing towns and getting better bonuses when above 75.
When picking for our main character, healthy citizens is the pick. Be aware, if you are already at 10 endurance then this perk will be wasted as there is no way to go above 10. The governor perk is a much more difficult choice – If you own a fief that is not on the front line of a conflict zone, then energetic is an amazing pick since your villages will likely not be raided and hearth growth will be useful. If you need the extra loyalty gain for stability or getting better loyalty bonuses, then healthy citizens is the pick.
Level 200 – Steady: Another S tier perk – this one increasing out control by +1. The governor perk increases production of farms, mines, lumber camps and clay pits by 10%, effectively earning 10% more profit from those village types.
Level 200 – Strong: This perk is the same as the previous, but giving a vigor attribute point instead. The secondary perk needs a closer look though as it’s not working as described. Looking at our movement speed without the perk, there is no extra bonus. With the perk and 200 foot troops we gain .19 movement speed. We up the troop count to 1 million and see the bonus reduce to 0.01. Scaling the troop count back to 400, we see the bonus change to 0.16. At 100 Troops, the bonus increases to 0.21. Finally, with no troops, we see a 0.25 increase. I decided to test with cavalry and we see the exact same 0.21 speed bonus with 100 troops. To sum this up, this perk gives a campaign speed bonus between 0.01 and 0.25 depending on how many troops are in our party, regardless of the troop type.
The pick here is tough – if you’re planning on a mostly ranged play through then steady is a great pickup. However, if you’re doing primarily melee or even an equal balance between the two, Strong is the pick as the secondary perk is amazing! The campaign movement speed is really nice to have!
Level 225 – Strong Arms: This is another one of those great perks, giving +1 focus point into throwing. Again, be sure do click done after selecting to get the focus point. The captain perk increases troop throwing skill by +20, which is a big increase! When paired with throwing captain perks, we can get a total of +65 to our troops throwing skill!
Level 225 – Strong Legs: This is an interesting perk as it reduces fall damage by 50% and increases kick damage by the same. We can see from testing, taking this fall without the perk deals 14 damage and only 8 damage with. For kicks, we see 2 damage per with without the perk and 4 damage per kick with. The governor perk reduces food consumption of the settlement by 20% during a siege. This can help a lot in avoiding prosperity loss during a long siege as well as keeping the garrison from starving.
The pick here is situational. If you’re not using a throwing build, then strong legs can be nice. Fall damage isn’t used much, but if you like to fight in sieges it can be fun. If you get cornered by defenders, you can always jump the walls and survive! The kick damage is dumb, ignore it. For captains, strong arms is the only option and for governors strong legs is the only option.
Level 250 – Ignore Pain: This is an interesting perk as it’s use is situational, but can be amazing. We can see from testing that damage absorbed for the high end increased from 55 to 59 with the perk. These loots have lots of blunt weapons, which mostly ignore armor so we tested against arrows as well. We can see in increase of damage blocked by more than 10% here, going from 40 to 45 on the high end and a huge difference. Once thing to note, this was tested with end-game armor. If you’re using low or mid tier armor, the difference will most likely not be noticeable. If our chest armor is 30 with low tier and over 80 with high tier, then perk will give +3 in the first scenario and +8 in the second, which is nearly 3x the difference! The captain perk adds +5 armor to all body parts for foot troops in the formation, which is a huge increase for low tier troops and moderate increase for high tier troops.
Level 250 – Spartan: This perk increases the damage needed to stagger our character. In testing we were staggered by all hits except the 5 damage shot without the perk. With the perk, we avoided stagger more frequently and up to 6 damage. These are incredibly low damage numbers and very few units in the game hit that weakly. The secondary perk is tagged party leader and reduces food consumption by 20%. Be aware, this perk will reduce food consumption, but it will also reduce your quartermaster’s XP gain by 20% as well since steward XP is directly tied to food consumption.
Personally, I pick ignore pain 100% of the time because I like to use end-game armor. Ironically, you need really good armor to reduce incoming damage into the stagger range to begin with, which means without good armor, spartan is useless. Spartan is also terrible for Quartermaster XP gain, so something to consider.
Level 275 – Mighty Blow: The final perk has two parts – one increasing the stun duration of our attacks that are blocked and the other increases HP for each level above 250. In testing I couldn’t see any difference between with and without the perk for blocked attacks. However, the main perk is amazing and can add as much as +80 HP to our main character at level 330.
We are nearing the end of the video, which means it’s time for the bonus!
The Terminator: If enjoy playing on hard difficulty, but don’t enjoy being 1-tapped then this is the build for you. The terminator has spawned into Calradia and seeks his target, ignoring enemy’s blows in pursuit of his objective.
In order to make this build work, we will select all of the perks in the game that will turn us into a tank. Every HP increase perk is picked up, along with both charge damage reduction perks, 2 projectile damage reductions and an armor increase perk. A few shield perks can help as well, but it’s not necessary. The end result is a build that can tank 20+ hits and keep on going.
For the first demonstration, we will solo a group of nearly 30 bandits. Target Acquired, target eliminated. Notice the biggest threat to us at this stage are blunt damage rocks. We have nearly 200 HP and each arrow deals roughly 6 damage, so we can tank quite a few hits.
Next we look at dealing with cavalry. We take no charge damage, so getting rushed by cavalry isn’t much of an issue. A quick sidestep and overhead strike makes quick work of the enemy.
This build does even better in normal battles with a full army to support us. No more worrying about being 1-shot from a sniper in the trees!
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