Kamau finished a dungeon! He can gain one new ability from this list:
Adrenaline I: +1 Atk if HP is 5 or lower.
Cleave: If an attacked enemy is killed, can make another attack at -3 Atk against another random nearby enemy.
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.
Light Sword Proficiency: +1 Atk when wielding a longsword or similar weapon.
Shield Bash: Gain an Atk bonus from a wielded shield equal to its Def bonus -1.
Shield Proficiency: +1 Def when wielding a shield.
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.
Shield Bash.
With the Magma Shield’s 3 Def, that’s 2 Atk and lets Kamau not need to use an extra Inventory Slot with a Weapon.
Edit: LSN Said on stream the Counterattack can activate when Kamau is Interposing. (and that Ricki’s been taking all of Kamau’s luck for lockpicks.) Shield Bash increases damage dealt when Counterattack activates from Interposing, but a problem with Counterattack is it can only activate when Kamau takes Damage. With Kamau’s Defenses, damage might not happen very much.
Okay here’s my anti shield bash this level up argument. Shield bash is effectively a buff to Kamau’s defense when attacking – that’s all. It is, obviously, only useful in situations where we are attacking with Kamau, and because Kamau’s defense is not the gating item in determining when we attack with him, taking shield bash doesn’t make us any more likely to have Kamau attack. Generally speaking, in situations where we have Kamau attacking and not interposing we aren’t really concerned about his defense, but we ARE concerned about the attack he can contribute.
For those in favor of shield bash, I ask you to think about a situation in which you are attacking with Kamau and would rather have shield bash than cleave. Implicit in this question is that the situation also has to be one where you would choose attacking with Kamau over interposing. I honestly cannot think of any situations where this is true. Shield bash works very well with cleave, and I can imagine situations where I would use cleave with shield bash, but I can’t think of reasonable examples of the inverse.
The ideal situation for shield bash is when we have such a massively threatening enemy group that we need a shield to not spend too much HP (which we want to spend for Heroic Effort and Counterattack), and we have other non-combat actions to do elsewhere so allies with more hands for bigger weapons can’t help, and we have a source of light. If we’re fighting enemies that fixate on the nearest foe, then we can try to get by without Interpose.
I think the better argument here is letting the 2-slot shield (which we know we’ll carry around) double up as a weapon. Still, if Kamau is attacking, we probably want the big shield on an ally so that they can safely contribute without Interpose.
> I can imagine situations where I would use cleave with shield bash
I may be out of imagination, but Cleave has -3Atk to that extra attack, and ShieldBash has -1 for attacking with the shield. The best shield we’ve seen so far has 3Def.
So. Equip this shield. Do a shield bash attack for +2Atk (and any other +otherAtkBonuses like rings or potions), then if we kill the enemy, Cleave triggers with -3, meaning the second attack is effectively at -1+otherAtkBonuses. That doesn’t sound too useful. What do I miss?
We don’t have any consistent weapon that does more than +2 for Kamau to use.
It’s best to think of Cleave (and most attacks, really) not in damage but in thresholds. Having 3 or 5 or 20 attack doesn’t matter if you’re fighting a swarm of bats, since any damage beyond 1 is wasted. Cleave makes extra Attack matter, there’s a huge difference between 3 and 4 attack with Cleave vs bats in much the same way as when fighting dire rats which take 2 hits of 3 damage or 1 hit of 4 damage.
Also consider that individual enemies typically don’t add a ton of attack. If Kamau needs a shield on top of armour, there’s probably multiple smaller enemies involved. Note this also means that the defense bonus of Shield Bash will only benefit you for a short time, until you clear out some of the enemy group. The inventory benefit will still apply though, don’t need extra slots dedicated to offense.
Of course, Cleave does nothing against bosses (unless they have minions like the King Rat), but there aren’t many bosses. For bosses, we probably want Interpose so all allies can contribute, and we want to spend HP there for Counterattack.
With shield bash we will be able to have only shield on Kamau. 6Def with Magma shield, 5att (not accounting for rings). decent chance to take damage and thus counterattack and still respectable amount of offensive capabilities
Shield Bash or Cleave. I admit I’m reluctant on the latter one being first, without knowing exactly how inventory management is being overhauled, and without knowing exactly what the bond dungeon will be like, but…
Cleave!
As we saw in this dungeon with Dash, Daisy, and the Spider – action economy is incredibly important. The only abilty that we have available to us that fundamentally increases the number of attacks we can make in a turn is cleave. Furthermore, now that we have access to rings of aggression, we have the capability of minimizing the primary downside of cleave – the reduced attack on subsequent attacks. All of the other abilities at our disposal are situational, once per dungeon abilities, or simply increase Kamau’s defense. I won’t speak to the others, but as we can see from this dungeon, Kamau’s defense is never our problem. Our problems are consistently the defense of other party members and turn limits. Cleave helps with both by allowing Kamau’s additional attack to make up for the absence of other party members in a fight, freeing them up to take actions elsewhere.
With just Oxidicer and the rings of aggression, Kamau can dish out 11 points of damage a turn, in the form of one 7 dmg attack and a followup 4 damage attack. This allows us to mop up large groups of weak enemies efficiently. Cleave grows even stronger when combined with attack boosting consumables like the rat tails/rat fang, the rage potion, or cigarettes as these consumables boost not only Kamau’s primary attack but also any follow up attacks from cleave (or counterattack!).
Kamau’s defense was very much a problem before we had equipment, but plate armour basically solved that problem here.
Cleave does only help when dropping enemies (and I hear from the discord folks that nonlethal takedowns count for triggering Cleave despite it saying “killed”), but we’ve seen rats in every dungeon and bats in over half the dungeons (though only a problem in the Chapel). Bats are the biggest win here, especially if Cleave chains. If the attack penalty stacks, then a 7-damage attack could still kill three bats in one turn.
Of course we have to test that empirically to be sure, but the description says “make another attack at -3 Atk” so the extra one is not just “do damage to another enemy”, it’s an additional “attack”, so I think it chains, and I think other attack-specific abilities also apply to that additional attack.
If we also take Heavy Strike I as our next ability, Kamau will be able to make a 10 dmg attack and a 7 dmg follow-up, which will be probably enough to kill another enemy and trigger Cleave once more, allowing us to clear a large group of enemies (bats, rat, skeletons, etc.) at once. Furthermore, Heavy Strike can be upgraded to make this combo even more effective.
Unclear if the +3 effectively chains like that, but if it doesn’t as long as one can use heavy strike on a cleave it wouldn’t matter. But if heavy strike does pair with Cleave it’s a much better skill with Cleave than without.
I think it does not pair up, since HeavyStrike says “once / make an attack” and Cleave generates another attack. HeavyStrike is a bonus for attack, not for the whole the turn. If Cleave said something likes “this attack hits another enemy” instead, then it would pair up with HeavyStrike.
Cleave it be. Rather that then sheild bash
Shield Proficiency
More Def is always good.
True, we interpose 99% of the times anyway, now the plate armor is enough but we need to be ready for bigger and scarier opponents.
Currently Kamau has following Def options:
1) 3 Def innate
2) 5 Def plate armor
3) 3 Def magma shield
4) 1 Def heavy armour proficiency
5) 1 Def from Daisy
6) 1 Def ring
Total — 14 Def (15 if we make one more Def ring).
This is enough for now, so we better focus on other things.