Hello and welcome back to another Strat Gaming video guide. In this episode of the Bannerlord Perks Guide we will look at the two handed 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 – Strong Grip: In the previous perks guide, I said handling increase isn’t that good and I mostly stand behind that. But with high damage 2H weapons we can make an exception. We test by striking the enemy with the extreme edge of our swing and test with and without. Without the perk, most blows end up in the low 70s. With the perk, in the low 80s, which is a decent increase. It’s especially good for 2H axes where the cleave damage will never be right in front of you, making handling very important.
The captain perk adding 30 skill to all two handed troops is great if you plan on using large amounts of 2H shock troops.
Level 25 – Wood Chopper: A 30% increase in damage to shields is a big deal! Using a 2H axe, we can see that without the perk it takes 5 direct hits and with the perk, only 4 hits. This is especially useful during a siege assault where breaking enemy shields from a siege ladder or gate breach can help a lot.
The captain perk of +15% increase for troop damage to enemy shields feels underwhelming. The AI doesn’t attack as often or quickly as we do and unless you have mostly axe or falx troops, you won’t be destroying any shields.
Tough pick here. If you plan on using mostly 2H axes, then I would recommend Strong Grip. For a 2H Sword focus, go with wood chopper and use a Falx blade when you need to take down lots of shields.
Level 50 – Head Basher: 10% extra damage is pretty big, although damage is rarely a concern with 2H weapons.
The captain perk is great as 2% damage for ALL troops in the same formation is amazing. Stack a few of these and you have uber-troops!
Level 50 – On The Edge: Bias alert – I love using two handed swords and attack speed is crucial. Testing with and without, we can see that with the perk, we complete the combo 7 frames faster than without. There are 258 frames for this combo from start to finish, so we see and increase of 2.7% in speed! I love TaleWorld’s maths when it’s in our favor!!
For the captain perk, the same logic applies here – If your troops are faster to hit, then you cancel the enemy attack and deal damage in the same blow.
If you are planning on ax Axe of Mace heavy playthrough then head basher is the pick, but for me personally, it’s On The Edge 100% of the time!
Level 75 – Baptised in Blood: 284, 290, 310. 322, 322, 338 (294.6, 327.3 – 32.7 & 11.1% Increase) I couldn’t get the first part of this perk to work, but the second part does increase melee infantry XP. In several tests, our troops averaged 32.7XP more with this perk, which was an 11.1% increase. TaleWorlds Maths!
Level 75 – Show of Strength: We have a 30% chance to knock someone to the floor if we do over 25% damage. I have mixed feelings about this one: the majority of the time we are going to 1-shot people, but for those times when we don’t it knocks them over, making it take longer to get the killing blow in. It can be nice if you’re surrounded and need to buy some time as they can’t attack you if they are on the floor.
20% discount to troop recruitment is decent, especially since we can get it fairly early on at level 75. If the average troop recruited is tier 3, which normally costs 100 denars, and we recruit 500 troops per year, then for a 20 year period we would save 200k denars.
If you’re really struggling to level infantry then take Baptised in Blood, but otherwise Show of Strength is the pick here.
Level 100 – Beast Slayer: This is the type of bonus I like to see, 50% makes a huge difference! Dispatching 5 horses without the perk took 2-3 hits, but with the perk most were done in 1 hit. The extra 10% for infantry against mounts is laughable, especially since the AI rarely target mounts on purpose.
Level 100 – Shield Breaker: Almost the same as the level 25 perk, but we get 40% damage boost against shields. I’m a fan!
Again, the 10% for infantry damage to shields is laughable and not worth discussing.
This pick here is easy: If you took wood chopper at level 25, take shield breaker. If you took Strong Grip, then go beast slayer. Stacking the shield bonus is AMAZING, taking our earlier example to destroy a shield from 5 hits down to 3!
Level 125 – Berserker: 20% is a huge increase to damage and since we are fighting without a shield, the likelihood of us taking heavy damage is high.
10% decrease to all garrison wages is very nice [Borat Is nice].
Level 125 – Confidence: 15% is still a good bonus, but we would have to maintain 90% of our HP to gain the bonus, which is fairly unlikely. A single arrow will remove the perk from battle.
Faster build time for town projects can be nice, but there are better ways to boost a town’s build speed.
Berserker is my pick 100% of the time.
Level 150 – Arrow Deflection: While the concept of this perk is pretty cool, in practice it’s extremely difficult to use! Don’t count on it working when you need it as even with a bit of practice I was blocking about 10-20% of incoming arrows.
I’m not sure what they were thinking with this governor perk, but it’s about as useful as the siege towers in the current patch.
Level 175 – Hope: While this perk may work, it was nearly impossible for me to test it’s effectiveness in a rigorous way. It seems like we need a big battle for the kills to have an effect, but the more troops we have the more randomness and less control we introduce, making results noisy and useless.
The secondary perk is amazing as anything increasing our party limit takes priority.
Level 175 – Terror: This one was a little easier to test. We started with a group of 20 looters. Without the perk, most ran after 5 kills and all ran after 7. With the perk, most ran at 5 and the rest after 6. In a much larger battle, this effect could be significant although, again it would be difficult to test accurately.
Increasing prisoner count by 10 seems like a good idea, but in practice it’s just not that useful.
Based on the party size increase alone, my pick is Hope – But I wouldn’t hold it against you if you wanted the 20% more morale damage!
Level 200 – Reckless Charge: The extra speed damage on foot is fairly small, so unless you are stacking damage perks then this is probably not worth it.
The captain perk is really nice though, which complicates things. Extra damage AND movement speed for all infantry is a 2-for-1 and worth considering.
Level 200 – Thick Hides: More HP for a Two Handed build is extremely important since we lose the shield.
The secondary perk here is S tier – +5 HP for ALL troops, not just infantry.
I take HP increase over damage 100% of the time, Thick Hides is my pick.
Level 225 – Blade Master: A 10% damage increase to all two handed weapons is pretty nice, but again damage isn’t usually an issue with these weapons.
However, the 2% attack speed increase makes this perk a consideration for a companion.
Level 225 – Vandal: Ignoring 25% of an enemy’s armor is huge when fighting against high tier troops! Looking at a test between the two level 225 perks here, we see an even bigger increase in overall damage by reducing the enemy armor over taking a 10% damage increase.
For the secondary perk, I see what they were going for, trying to tie in the name, but 20% damage against destructible objects is objectively bad since we rarely have the opportunity to use it.
If I’m picking for my main character, then it’s Vandal 100% of the time. If I’m picking for a companion, I would consider blade master.
Level 250 – Way of the Great Axe: This perk is similar to the one handed final perk, giving both increase to attack speed and damage for two handed weapons. Looking at the tests, we see a massive difference between 250 and 300. I’m not sure level 330 is worth it as there isn’t much difference between 300 and 330.
We are nearing the end of the video which means it’s time for some bonuses, so here we go!
Ultimate Shield Buster: Battling a shield wall with a two handed weapon can be tricky – often times we must close the distance with our enemy to get a good kick in before unleashing our 1-hit kill potential. However, kicks are not easy to land and getting that close to the enemy wall opens us up for attacks from other angles. However, if we can dispatch their shields in 1 to 2 hits, then their ability to defend themselves drops significantly. For this build, we take both shield damage increase perks as well as all damage increase perks that affect axes. Level 25 wood chopper, Level 50 head basher, Level 100 Shield Breaker, Level 225 blade master and Level 250 way of the great axe. At level 300 two handed skill, this brings our shield bonus damage to +70% and our overall axe damage to +45% just from perks alone! I don’t even need to explain, just watch this…
Hostels in Calradia: If you watched the Steward guide, then you might be familiar with this next strategy. Troops are expensive, especially the ones sitting around playing poker and drinking at the tavern, and generally not being productive. However, with the right set of perks and culture, we can significantly reduce their expense, much like staying at a Hostel instead of a luxury hotel! Some of our troops will even pay us for their lodging! To make this work, we must start out as the Empire culture, giving both castles and towns a -20% to garrisoned wages. For castles, we can upgrade the Castallan’s office to level 3, giving an extra 30% wage discount. We finish off with the level 50 & 75 Steward perks giving 5% and 20% reduction respectively. Adding all this up, we get a 75% wage reduction in total. This means our Tier 6 army of Fian Champions that normally cost 6800 Denars per day drops down to 1700. We can achieve the same results with any troop type in a castle. Towns are a bit harder to reproduce the same results, but with all of these perks we can achieve the exact same 75% for infantry and archers. However, when it comes to cavalry, if we add in the Level 225 perk, we can reduce their wages by 105% which, you guessed it, means they PAY us 5% of their daily wages! Time to open a bed and breakfast for all cavalry in Calradia!
Castle: 75% All troops
20% discount empire culture
30% discount Castallan’s Office level 3
5% Level 50 Steward
20% Level 75 Steward
Town: 55% All troops base, 75% inf, 75% Ranged, 105% Cavalry
20% discount empire culture
5% 1H Perk 150
10% 2H Perk 125
15% Bow Perk 150
5% Level 50 Steward
Infantry – 20% Polearm 175
Ranged – 20% Crossbow 100
Cavalry – 50% Riding 225
I want to thank you all for watching another Strat Gaming video guide. If you found any of this information entertaining or useful, hit the like button as that’s the best way to let the YouTube algorithm know that I’m doing something right! If you want to see more videos and guides just like this, consider subscribing. Let me know in the comments section below what topic you would like to see covered on the channel. Up next, we will be looking at all of the polearm perks! Thanks again for watching and I’ll see you… on the next one!
