So I was kinda bored, and so I did some maths to some of the guaranteed T4 fighters (strongest among the faction), where as normally with the +14% food your thralls would get an average of 25 primary stat at level 20, and an average of 10 secondary stat
Your number crunching within the table is correct, but your leveling assumptions are completely off.
+14% growth increases your favored attribute by an average of only 2.8 points across 20 levels. That is far below the influence of RNG, which is why Xevyr dismisses it as unnecessary in his thrall guide.
Personally, I think having 2.8 additional points is better than not having them, but it must be acknowledged that feeding your thrall at every level has a small statistical influence.
It is possible for a thrall that gets excellent growth in their primary attribute and minimal growth in their secondary to wind up with +25 and +10, but not all thralls’ growth rates are created equal - good luck getting a RHTS with really high strength growth and low agility growth.
Those growth points can be doubled. I don’t know what dictates that, instead of one point per level, your thralls gets two, but it can add substantially more than 20 points. Thralls pulling like 10 or more doubles is not rare. Do you know how this works, @Tephra ? Is it chance based alone?
Nobody knows how it works. When follower leveling was added to the game, Funcom mentioned this mechanic in a dev stream and were intentionally evasive about how it worked. The code that handles it is not available in the devkit either.
There are some theories about it, but we simply do not know.
Once I had a thrall getting 16 doubles in strenght or smth . Instead of 20 points, it got 36, plus perks. Add a Might of Giants and Cannibal perks to that and you’ll have a thrall with added 34 points adding to the 20 it got, so extra 54 points.. If it had already a good base score, it will be a seriously strong thrall. With a high dmg weapon and a strenght boosting armor, even without anything else (your food, their food/potions), you can end up wirh a serious beast. It will take a lot of luck and grinding (elixirs), but can be done.
Thanks! Because that would influence our diet decision when a thrall has 100% growth chance of an attribute we really want. If there’s a chance we might influence the chance of doubles, we could still give the appropriate meals to that thrall, making it go to 57% chance of it getting a double. Slim, but alas…might not even be the best choice, but we might want it still.
I honestly do not pay much attention to the theories, because I know they are nothing more than that, and the people who spread them as if they were fact are spreading misinformation.
Maybe we could test them a little. If it’s said there’s a way to increase the chance of getting doubles, that should be kind of testable on single player…
At first glance it would seem doable but would require a massive amount of time and effort. Perhaps mods and some kind of atuomated bot to run the tests and record results to a log file could make it feasible.
Guess the question is just how bad do people want to know?
Bonus question: why is a guaranteed Cimmerian Berserker stronger than a rare Dalinsia (though slightly) and the literal purge-exclusives are way weaker than him ?
Not sure about str and dmg bonus, but Cormag the Beastslayer (from purge) is getting a lot more hp with every lvl, while being a decent enough fighter as well.
If you’re going for strenght, what else would you give them, @Keldy ? Gruel is the right choice. Your zerkers already had good growth stats, so it’s natural.
You’ll only see a difference when you land an outlier, with 100% growth chance, over 10 doubles, Might of Giants and another perk in strenght, etc.
To die in the purge, don’t even bother levelling them. Levelling them used to be boring. Now it’s simply painful.
If you get an outlier, that’s your bodyguard!
Edit: btw, gruel is also a good food for them. You don’t need to get fancy. To your bodyguard, give exotic feast. Easy to cook and gives it a nice regen bonus that will be the more noticeable advantage.
