Kamau finished a dungeon! He can gain one new ability from this list:
Adrenaline I: +1 Atk if HP is 5 or lower.
Dauntless II: Once per dungeon when reduced to 0 HP, regain 2 HP at the end of the turn.
Heavy Strike I: Once per dungeon can make a melee attack with +3 Atk.
Heroic Effort II: +2 Atk against enemies with twice as much HP or more.
Shield Bash: Gain an Atk bonus from a wielded shield equal to its Def bonus -1.
Throw Shield: Can use a shield as a ranged weapon, dealing damage equal to the shield’s Def bonus. The shield must be retrieved afterward.
Heavy Strike I
We have started using him more as an attacker and this works well with Cleave.
I would otherwise go with this, but Nekopot makes a good argument for Shield Bash
Throw Shield: there’s a few situations where having a ranged attack makes a world of difference mechanically and Kamau generally can take a retailatory ranged attack pretty well.
Plus most of Kamau’s other options suck with how situational or limited they are.
Attendance 1 or heroic effort 2. Then we can have our allies attack kamau to make him stronger
Attendance? You mean Adrenaline?
I did, thank you
LSN has mentioned that we can’t make character do something out of character like deliberately attack each other. That said, he may allow it in certain circumstances. Not sure if this would count
Shield Bash. Wielding a Tower Shield with Shield Bash puts Kamau at 5atk/8def before other equipment. The additional defense from the Tower Shield lets us swap in attack rings, making up for the slight attack penalty from not wielding the hilt.
Comparisons:
Tower Shield + Shield Bash, 1 Gold Ring of Attack, 1 Gold Ring of Def: 8 atk, 11 def
Hilt, 1 gold ring of attack, 1 gold ring of defense: 11 atk, 6 defense (Plus e.g. Heavy Strike 1x/dungeon)
Hilt, 2 Gold rings of Defense: 8 atk, 9 def
Since we’ll probably want Kamau carrying the Tower Shield for times when we need to max out his defense anyway, Shield Bash is going to allow us the most flexibility in his build, and has the better stat line for anything except absolutely maxing out Kamau’s attack, in which case we’ll still be able to use the Hilt.
Shield bash
Shield bash has always been a tempting pick because it allows to benefit twice from an item. It was overshadowed by hilt, but tower shield makes it even.I’ll elaborate:
Hilt is a +5 atk (3 base + 2 from sword profs) which he carries around anyway.
Tower Shield with shield bash is +2 atk/+5 def (4 base + shield prof) for 2 enc.
atk, def and enc are somewhat interchangeable, so it seems equal on the surface level. But consider 2 seemingly similar loadouts:
hilt, +3 def ring, 2 enc worth of armor vs tower shield, +3 atk ring.
Both sum up to 5 atk/5 def/2 enc, but the latter also allows switching to hilt for a situational 8/0/2.
Since we outfit Kamau in as much armor as possible anyway, it’s entirely possible that he has 5 def to spare in some fights which would benefit from additional cleave.