Have you ever wondered how much XP that looter kill is worth? Do you get more for killing a tier 6 troop compared to a peasant? And why didn’t I get more XP for getting that awesome headshot kill? I’m your host Strat, and today we will look at these questions and much, much more in this episode of “The Ultimate Guide to Bannerlord: XP and Leveling”. By the end of this video guide you will know everything there is to know about melee combat XP and how to efficiently level your character, companions and troops.
I’ve broken this video up into several chapters so if you’re following along you’ll be able to easily navigate through relevant segments. Check down in the description below for the time stamps. Also, if you stick around until the end of the video, I’ll show you my absolute favorite weapon to use in all of Bannerlord. With all that being said, I hope you enjoy this guide and let’s get started!
First we will take a look at how you gain XP with melee weapons. There are 3 categories: one handed, two handed and polearms. Fortunately, TaleWorlds made each of these the exact same when it comes to earning XP. You earn XP with melee weapons in four different ways: striking an enemy, having your attack blocked by an enemy, getting the killing blow or pommel striking an enemy. Let’s take a closer look at each of these:
- Starting with the least complicated first: The pommel strike from any weapon will give you about 2XP of that weapon’s skill.
- The next 2 categories can be lumped together as they seem to give exactly the same XP: a single non-lethal hit or blocked attack will give anywhere from 8-50XP with the majority of hits being 8-20XP.
- The final and most important category is killing blows: Each kill yields 100XP plus whatever you earned for the hits leading up to the kill.
- A few miscellaneous items: There was no connection to headshots or body-specific hits and gaining more XP. There was also a very weak connection to your speed, both on foot or horse to how much XP you gain. There was no difference between tier 6 troop kills and tier 1; a kill is a kill. All XP values listed in this video are base values, before your XP multiplier.
Here are 4 examples from my data set of well over 100 runs: (The most interesting of which was the couch lance hit for 592 damage, the highest damage but gave the lowest XP at 119. Huh??.)
- One handed weapon – 1 hit dealing 116 damage which yielded 119XP
- Polearm couch lance – 1 hit dealing 592 damage which yielded 119XP
- One handed weapon – 2 hits dealing 145 damage and 1 blocked attacks yielded 144XP
- Two Handed weapon – 4 hits dealing 158 (blunt) damage and 4 blocked attacks yielded 246XP
In summary: You get your most XP value with killing blows, followed by high damage strikes that land or are blocked, followed by low damage strikes that land or are blocked, and finally a tiny amount from pommel strikes. Hit locations had zero effect on XP gains and relative movement speed had a weak correlation to XP gained.
Now that we know how XP gain works with melee weapons, let’s look at some of the most efficient ways to level up. While killing looters and fighting smaller battles with other kingdoms is the safest way to gain XP, it is not the fastest or most efficient way:
- Fighting bandit hideouts can be a great way to gain XP in the early game if you know which ones to go for and how to approach them. I find the most efficient hideouts are in the Aserai lands fighting desert bandits. They have no ranged weapons, no shields and the map is easy to navigate. As long as you avoid being ganged up on by 3 or more bandits at once (Like you see here) and you focus on blocking more than attacking, you will be in great shape to solo the entire hideout. Remember, a missed attack lets the enemy live a little longer, but a missed block ends your fight right then and there. This whole run took one minute and forty five seconds to complete, although with a lower athletics skill and weaker weapon it will take longer, probably around three minutes or so. You’ll notice from the Kill count and XP gain, we are gaining the vast majority of our XP from kills, so try to focus solely on getting those last hits. What would a run like this mean in terms of actual leveling? A character with a 10x multiplier for XP would have gained 35 levels if they started from level 1, 2 levels if starting from 100, 1 level if starting from 150 and 40% of a level if starting from 270.
- The next method works really well in the early game when you don’t want your army to be sacrificed by the allied AI commander: Gather 50 or more melee troops with shields and follow any large allied army around until they engage in a field battle with another large army. Be sure to wait until after the battle has already started to join and not as part of the allied army. By doing this, you can maintain control of your troops and leave early if things go south. Once in the battle, bring your troops up with the main allied infantry formation and flank the enemy. Be sure to keep an eye on the enemy’s flanks as that’s where your biggest threat comes from – mainly charging cavalry. Don’t allow your small force to engage anyone. Their job is to form a square shield wall and keep you safe.Once the main battle line from both sides meet up, move your square forward and backward as needed. If you’re too far forward, you will get swallowed up by the enemy’s main line. If you’re too far back, you won’t get any kills.We sally out of our protective square to engage a few enemies and then fall back once we need to move on. This will protect you from stray arrows and random cavalry charges.The enemy has formed a circle shield wall, which means getting kills becomes exponentially harder. In order to bait them out of their circle, you can move your square closer to them causing a few enemies to peel off and aggro towards you. Take care not to go too close, as that will cause their entire line to envelope you.Don’t be afraid to fall back from time to time. You can always move back up and reengage, but not if you’re down.Once you go down or your ally’s army is close to being destroyed, tab out and retreat. This will allow you to leave the battle while it’s still going on and avoid being captured, losing all your troops and most of your items.With a base XP of 3200 and 10x multiplier, a character would have gained 47 levels if they started from level 1, 5 levels from 100, 2 levels from 150 and 81% of the way to level 271. Not bad for 10 minutes worth of fighting and only losing 5 troops!
- My personal favorite and preferred method to level up melee skills is to join ongoing battles on foot, staying near the edge of your ally’s shield wall and get easy flanking kills. This can be done with a party of any size or even by yourself. If you don’t want to lose any troops, give the retreat command at the start of battle. Feel free to skirmish with the enemy cavalry if you have a mount, but be sure to not take any damage and get back to the main battle lines before they meet up.Dismount and follow the edge of the shield wall in. Be sure to check for cavalry coming from behind you once in a while as a lance at full speed to the back of the head is a great way to cut your battle short.In this battle, the enemy decided on a circle shield wall formation, so there is no chance to maneuver. Instead, look for opportunities to hit enemies who are already engaged or don’t have their shield up.At times the enemy will break through in parts of the shield wall, or the battle will devolve into an unorganized mess, which can be a great opportunity to add more kills to your tally. Look for breakthroughs in your line and help shore them up with easy flanking kills.If easy targets are hard to come by, try to set your attacks up with a kick. You can chamber the attack, walk up to your target, kick them and release your attack immediately after for a free hit.As the battle wears on, take a step back to assess how things are going. The initial shield walls will crumble and enemy reinforcements will start to arrive. If the enemy reinforcements are close to the front line, it is easy to become encircled with no way out. While these situations can lead to epic last stands, they make for poor skill leveling.Focusing on cavalry when they can freely run through the lines of battle can be a huge waste of time. It may net a kill or two, but that is time that could have been spent getting 5 or 6 kills at the front.Try to maintain your position on the outside of the infantry mass at all times as this will give you the most opportunities for free flanking attacks.With a base XP of 6126 and 10x multiplier, a character would have gained 61 levels if they started from level 1, 9 levels from 100, 5 levels from 150 and 2 levels from 270. Not bad for 10 minutes worth of fighting!
- The final method for leveling melee skills that we will talk about is the siege assault. Sieges have the highest potential out of all the methods we discussed because the enemy will always spread their troops out and reinforce their losses. This means any given area inside the enemy walls will not have a large percentage of their total troops and reinforcements will trickle in slowly as you destroy them.The most reliable way to siege is to follow the battering ram in and assault the main gates. Once you breach the second wooden gate, you will need to keep your guard up until you can flank the gate defenders. When the main defenders start to flee, follow them on their retreat patch and pick off as many as you can. Also keep in mind, this is a very small siege and the kill count will be quite low compared to a larger siege. You can easily double or triple your XP gain with a larger siege.With a base XP of 3060 and 10x multiplier, a character would have gained 46 levels if they started from level 1, 5 levels from 100, 2 levels from 150 and 78% of the way to level 271.Next we will assault the walls on a siege tower. Some fortifications are very tall and the siege towers can be a death trap for the attackers. If the walls are low such that you can walk up the siege tower (as opposed to climbing a ladder) then the walls can be a much more entertaining fight. There are mostly archers patrolling the walls, so melee combat is simple. I do recommend having a shield for this as the archers will often get a shot off before they engage in melee.With a base XP of 3180 and 10x multiplier, a character would have gained 46 levels if they started from level 1, 5 levels from 100, 2 levels from 150 and 81% of the way to 271.A quick note about siege defense: The best way to level combat skill in the game is through a siege defense. In a large siege, it’s not uncommon to have 100+ kills. The problem is being able to fight defensive sieges in the first place. If you’re ever in a spot where you could potentially defend a castle or town, definitely go for it.
We are nearing the end of the video and as promised I will be sharing with you my absolute favorite weapon to use in all of Bannerlord!
The Falx! To build it, we start with the tier 4 Long Falx blade, which does bonus damage to shields. We will pair that with the Tier 5 Ridged Western Guard. For the Handle, we use the Tier 5 Bolted Southern Grip Two Handed and finally the Tier 5 Horsehead Pommel. Be sure to take the size of every component down to the minimum, except the blade which we take to the max size. Scale the blade down slowly until you get 117 reach, 100 swing speed, 130 swing cut damage and 90 handling. This beast of a weapon has enough reach to be usable on horseback, swing speed to match a short sword, damage to one shot tier 6 troops and handling to make even poorly aimed swings do massive damage. That’s right Billy, if you have the final smithing perk you could end up with this INSANE Falx blade, which adds an extra 4 swing speed, 4 damage and 2 handling to an already overpowered weapon. Let’s see this bad boy in action…
Blade – Tier 4 – Long Falx Blade
Cross Guard – Tier 5 – Ridged Western Guard
Handle – Tier 5 – Bolted Southern Grip Two Handed
Pommel – Tier 5 – Horsehead Pommel