I’m fairly certain Firespark, and probably Wak as well, have some videos explaining diminishing return on that particular stat. I personally advocate if you aren’t pumping Vitality you are doing it wrong.
I can tell you your Conchaka with 100 str still wont do the same damage as your Berserker at baseline. The damage modifiers are far more important.
Video’s from the above folks lay it out, its quicker to search for that specific thrall on the wiki though. Conchaka is at 1.12 and the Berserker 2.24. So baseline, that berserker does twice the damage.
Or if you’re more savy than I, my understanding is they can be seen in the DevKit as well.
In my opinion, yes. I’m sure someone would disagree, but there is no diminished return on vitality. Couple that with the ability to heavily armor thralls, and it seems logical. Thralls gain a set amount of HP per point in vitality.
If you are in single player (or are admin for a server) - you can set yourself to admin, select the follower you want the info on to follow you (you don’t have to move anywhere, just need them set to follow). Then tap tilde twice (the key above tab and below escape) to open the command window (you can use the command line, but then you can’t read the results…).
Then type the following (no spaces except the centre):
GetFollowerStat DamageModifierMelee
or
GetFollowerStat DamageModifierRanged
Note also - if the follower is being fed food from their diet list, the +10% (or +25%) damage bonus will be included in this figure (so 1.5 will become 1.6 for example).
Perhaps, but with no terribly effective way to heal your thrall after taking substantial damage, I personally prefer to have as big a buffer as possible to continue running through bosses and the like. A decent thrall is going to make short work of typical enemies and boss battles are wars of attrition in general.
I’m not saying strength doesn’t help, or isn’t valuable. Its just not something I will actively try to pursue. Typically I won’t bother levelling a thrall that doesn’t have 70%+ and 60% plus in vitality and strength growth respectively.
Amusing how wraps can heal a thrall faster than the old Lifeblood spear.
Also, lot of times it is a trade off. I have tank thralls that can stand there all day taking minimal damage, but are slow on the kill. I will take a Berserker with 6k any day over them. Killing faster minimizes damage, and I do not get bored.
Thanks guys, I’ve learned a lot.
It just sucks that there are so many “invisible” factors (base modifiers) that are more important that visible ones (like stats).
I’ve spent hours trying to get Galter of Bossonia and Conchaka of Hyrkania and now I can just throw them away … yeeeeeah !
No need to throw them away - they’re a pair of decent archers. Sure, maybe they’re not quite as good as say Relic Hunters, but they’re still pretty decent - for starters they have one of the highest base Accuracy stats of any thrall, which helps close the gap between their DamageModifierRanged and that of those that are ‘better’.
Sure, if you really feel the need to have the ‘absolute best’ thralls, then you’ll need to search for them (and get yourself involved in the endless arguments over which is actually ‘the best’ ) - but you can still complete endgame content with ‘lesser’ thralls. T4 exiles, Darfari, Black Hand - they can all be enough, they just might require a bit more protection from you in some fights because they’re maybe slower to get the kill or just have lower hp. But stick them in some endgame heavy armour and they’ll still survive most things without breaking a sweat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my favourite thralls in the Exiled Lands are t3 bearers - they hit like a wet noodle, but have lots of HP and in endgame armour can pretty much withstand a direct nuke. You don’t need the best, you’re the hero
Weirdly, I find my t3s always seem to end up with more HP than my T4s (though both wind up with plenty. T4s hit slightly harder (though still weaker than dancers for damage output), but their main advantage over T3s is larger backpack space (it expands like chests do, in case you haven’t tried it).
(Also - in case you’re unaware - removing their backpack does not change their carrying capacity, so you can switch them to a regular helmet if you wish - and wearing it yourself gives a +5 bonus to encumbrance stat - useful sometimes on peaceful harvesting runs.)
I dunno why the tiering is still wonky and I do believe my recent beater acquisitions are consistent with this. I think my T4 surge bearer had not quite half of the T3 I pulled out of Sepermeru. but before you go crazy leveling him, bearers have something around a 0.6 melee modifier, so basically they do around 1/4 the damage of a good T4 fighter. Don isn’t exaggerating when he says they hit like a wet noodle.
I wouldn’t say the other stats are crap, just that most feel you shouldn’t sacrifice vitality in favor of them. If you have two berserkers with the same vitality and one is significantly stronger than the other, he’ll do more damage and defeat bosses faster, ultimately taking less damage. An archer on a raised platform would benefit a lot from Accuracy.
I don’t think anyone mentioned this but you get an extra row of storage slots, so 25 total slots with a named bearer. Named Sherpas get about 3500 fewer hit points, take longer to train and have a damage modifier that is only slightly higher than T3. It looks like the trade-off is you spend about 700 HP per inventory slot. Still, I do love me my Eina, and of course I always have a Featherstep in my inner circle.
) - but you can still complete endgame content with ‘lesser’ thralls. T4 exiles, Darfari, Black Hand - they can all be enough, they just might require a bit more protection from you in some fights because they’re maybe slower to get the kill or just have lower hp. But stick them in some endgame heavy armour and they’ll still survive most things without breaking a sweat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my favourite thralls in the Exiled Lands are t3 bearers - they hit like a wet noodle, but have lots of HP and in endgame armour can pretty much withstand a direct nuke. You don’t need the best, you’re the hero