Bannerlord Skills Tier List

[@kristijanknezevic2389]

mandatory algorithm comment & like for the overlord of bannerlord content.

[@Strat-Guides]

Much appreciated!

[@lovesosa3837]

yes

[@gogetterkidsgaming9207]

Brother thank you I needed this so I can get my gameplay way better

[@sanshineh2360]

Spot on

[@captainuzumaki6992]

0

[@myfacewhen]

Just a small nitpick but there is never a situation where you have to waste attribute points in the case of Engineering because those same attribute points are needed for Medicine.

[@hilburnlayton]

Or steward

[@Strat-Guides]

I agree, one of my favorite builds is intelligence focused! I'll generally fill up steward and medicine first, then charm and leadership and go back to engineering last. Usually by the late game you'll have extra points and nowhere good to put them and engineering makes a logical choice. I hope that makes sense!

[@jamoecw]

yep, this is the real balancing act. only a dedicated engineer will dump focus points into Engineering, but any party leader should have some attribute points into intelligence making the engineering skill a freebie (at least in part). this is what hurts the combat skills as well, as you only need one of them and so attribute points are mostly wasted on them. scouting is even worse as you really only want that one skill, so any attribute points spent are a nearly a complete waste, especially since you can get a dedicated companion for such.

[@amesbrice]

@@jamoecw the problem is compainions dont get the same out of certain skills...if ur player uses them.. Much more usefull perks are earned.

[@jamoecw]

@@amesbrice absolutely, but is it worth the points?

[@csfelfoldi]

Tactics is pretty decent in a campaign late game where the enemy can't peace out and sends a billion small armies unsieging everything you do so you just go around with your 400 party and whack everyone quickly and put them into jail or under the axe. Losing as few troops as possible to keep the ball rolling. Losing a few noble troops against 500 recruits isn't really an issue when you save yourself hours of gametime by not playing out every single battle.

[@vanthomias5538]

I know it is easer to defend a siege by auto-resolve somtimes.... but everyone who uses the auto-resolve button did not understand this game.

[@csfelfoldi]

@@vanthomias5538 So you'd rather fight out every last battle the infinite enemy noble armies throw at you? Have fun with that. Vlandia was down 40k casualties, lost 6 towns and 10 castles to me by the time I managed to peace them out in the conspiracy war mission. I had 32 nobles in prison and they were still sending out 500 armies one after another sieging back everything if you gave them a second more than necessary. I was assaulting towns with ladder only because by the time I set up siege camp they were already at one of the previous towns that had 100 defenders because it was recently sieged.

[@AnotherDuck]

Yeah, late game tactics saves time by making auto battles not suck as much. At that point you can (with the right perks) recruit and level soldiers very quickly, so some losses are easy to replace.

[@ice20861]

This!, it saves tons of time late game. I recommend putting some points in tactics after putting points in the most required skills for me for example every skill in the intelligence tree and charm/leadership

[@mortache]

@@csfelfoldi i mean, if I am getting bored of the battles its time for me to move on to a new campaign or a different game like CK3 etc. Why would I play Bannerlord if not for the battles?

[@whoopontrose2517]

One thing to remember with Medicine: If you take the "Doctors Oath" so that it works on enemy units too, it reduces the loot amount/quality. (Killing provides more/better loot then KO). So consider disabling the perk after you leveled medicine up Another thing is, i prefer Leadership to Stewardship. The additional Clan Party makes it a big deal In addition: I think Scouting, Riding, Roguery with the reduced prisoner lord escape chance for your party, is a very good thing to stack, especially if your "new". That way you can control the enemy. If you have like 50 Sturgian lords prisoner which nearly cant escape, who will oppose you taking their lands?

[@chrisrudolf9839]

Agreed on stewardship vs leadership, because you can almost completely delegate stewardship by having a quartermaster with a high stewardship skill (also you can train a future governor's stewardship skill faster if you make him quartermaster in your party than if you just make him governor right away). Having the high stewardship yourself is nice, but you can get the main advantage of having a bigger party and the benefit of most of the perks with a good quartermaster. The leadership skill on the other hand has many very useful perks that only work on the party leader or clan leader., and you can never delegate leading your main party.

[@michaelsanders7484]

… I just… ummm… execute them?… I mean… they want to go to Valhalla I think, so I’m kinda just helping them?

[@Jasta85]

Tactics, when high level is a fantastic time saver, when you are ruling a kingdom at war and have to deal with army after army being thrown at you. I'll manually control key major battles or castle sieges because they are fun but for every one of those there will be like 3 or 4 battles that I just auto resolve and tactics really cuts down on your casualties during those fights.

[@Strat-Guides]

I agree, tactics can help speed up those repetitive battles. It's just hard to rate a skill high when all it does is add QoL to a campaign. That seems like something the devs should add to the game without having to level up a skill. Fighting those battle in person will always have better results if you fight it in person, so that's what my logic was. I agree with you though, late game gets tedious and this skill can help.

[@Snikwald]

Nice video! You might want to follow that up with companion skills tier list, because some of them can move up and down quite significantly.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a good idea, I'll add it to the list and try to get to that topic!

[@DrZaius3141]

For world conquest, I'd rate trade higher. Smithing will get you infinite money and the final trading perk will allow you to turn that money into fiefs without any effort at all. It is technically possible to do a pacificst world conquest. Buy all the fiefs from a noble (if you do it on the map instead of inside a fief you can even trade them smithed weapons directly). Since they're now landless, they are more likely to join your kingdom. Invite them in, give them the fief you just bought and get some of them swords back. For bandit campaigns, throwing weapons are superior to bows/xbows for another reason: More "civilian" missions (mostly to level up roguery, but with Fourberie mod, there's even more) where thrown weapons are the only ranged option. Ultimately though, focus points are very cheap in comparison to attribute points, so every skill that is OP will automatically pull it's companions for an attribute up. Unless it's VIG/CTR where the skills are redundant.

[@leobastian_]

i guess trade is ranked low because getting 300 is near impossible without exploits? but yeah the 300 skill is really good if you do have it, it opens the option of just pacifist run

[@michaelh2282]

For your World Conquest ranking, if you're going to bump Engineering to Good because of it's one use in taking the first fief, then I'd probably boost Athletics to Good as well. The "Having Going" perk nearly guarantees a persuasion success in recruiting friendly clans, which is big when you're trying to recruit clans in your first few vulnerable days as a weak kingdom. Otherwise agree with your lists and love your content!

[@baran-sama964]

Finally, S+ Tier Bannerlord Content From Strat Again, As Always…

[@dylanstanfill2897]

Love all your bannerlord content, glad I found you, I've really improved my meta game and feel like I'm playing way more efficiently. You do a great job of conveying complicated data into easily digestible content. I've mostly been watching pre release content and I'm not sure how much has changed since release, but I look forward to more post release content and hope you revisit things as they become patched.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thanks for watching! I'm glad the videos have been helpful :)

[@seventhsuns3580]

Tactics is also important in a bandit run because you will be battling a lot of small skirmishes (villagers etc) that turns actually fighting each battle a slog

[@DNH17]

Can I ask you a question? I am new. But "running an experience as a bandit" is the vanilla equivalent to the mod "serve as a soldier"? but you are not a soldier u are just a bandit serving a warlord?

[@Crispebakein]

I literally only put points into endurance, control, and vigor. I’ve maxed out every combat skill to 330, and completely neglected cunning, social, and intelligence. Time to take a fief single handedly and probably lose it the very moment a 1000+ stacked army attacks me.

[@andrewriker9029]

Beast whisperer in scouting is kinda nice, getting a noble mount is a good emergency income. Usually people are not strapped for cash late game and no units upgrade with the noble mount so maybe less important later.

[@arrynroyce72]

Surprised you didn't put riding and scouting higher for world conquest just for the mobile prison trick ( Mounted Patrols + Keen Sight). I guess it does involve a lot of focus points in scouting to get in a reasonable time frame. I haven't played the most recent version of the game so I don't know if they nerfed it either. Great video though!

[@kristijanknezevic2389]

It is not nerfed. Still op. Doesn't even take that long to reach if you max out focus points on scouting.

[@preserveourpbfs7128]

Can you please explain this mobile prison trick for the uninitiated?

[@shi7196]

Teach me senpai

[@bossman983]

@@preserveourpbfs7128 With the two perks mentioned, you get -100% prisoner escape chance, which allows you to take an entire faction's lords captive within your party.

[@user-gi6mq2qf5w]

@@preserveourpbfs7128 Both perks remove the chance for prisoners to escape by 50% so you can basically hold them forever

[@notsorrystory]

Good vid. I find I get so burnt out trying to min/max that I never make it to the point where my kids are old enough to be heirs. Just takes too long. I'd like to see some strategies around the most enjoyment. While I appreciate the guides around solo looter flighting and bandit camps, I just don't have it in me. At the same time, I'd like to be somewhat efficient. So I guess what I'm asking for is a guide for just playing the game, but still making skill progress effeciently (getting good perks and such). Not sure if that makes sense or if it's really possible. Maybe you'd have to accept not reaching any slillcaps, but can you run a kingdom that way? One idea I had was to maybe have a two generation approach to a playthrough. Say a bandit lord who's kids are more suited for ruling a kingdom. That way you can more easily ignore certain skills, but set the kids up to more easily transition to the next stage. Less unique skills to focus on for each player character. Maybe that's dumb, but idk. Anyways, thanks for the guides, and I look forward to all your content going forward.

[@Strat-Guides]

I have a video in the works that might interest you. It's not quite what you're asking about BUT it should show some interesting results - I'm going to do 2 world conquests back to back. The one will be with a maxed out character in all skill - 10 attribute points in all categories and 5 focus in all skills. The other will be 0 attribute and 0 skills for the whole campaign, no skills to level up and no perks allowed. Then I'll compare the two results and show once and for all that skill and perks add flavor to the game, but are mostly irrelevant to achieving just about any goal.

[@RKGrizz]

Every time KZbin recommends me one of your videos I end up launching up Bannerlord. You make great concise content.

[@paoloperona5894]

Trade is a good skill and can be OP depending on the type of run u are doing. For example, the 125 perk that gives you renown for every profitable caravan can raise your clan to tier 6 in no time, reaching tier 4 in about 2-3 years while just goofing around the map in a very suboptimal way. That perk is definitely an early game exploit. Also the last perk that allows you to trade fiefs can be use for some fun(and advategaous) shenanigans in late game.

[@DrRizzyPlays]

Thank you! Watched most of your videos since began and this exactly what i was waiting for to make my first playthrough!

[@nicolascordier12]

Riding and Scouting go straight to OP without any doubt simply because of the 225 perk. When you combine Mounted Patrols (Riding 225) with Keen Eye (Scouting 225), you guarantee that prisoners in your party can never escape. This trivialise the game as once you have captured a lord, he or she is gone until you decide to release them. This makes it possible to annihilate factions in one sweep.

[@blackwaterwolf]

I think it's so funny that your prisoner train is inpenetrable and a city's dungeon holds them for only a few days, but I hope that gets patched out someday. But yeah, that's basically the strat for minmax conquering, definitely OP

[@tdotfun]

Nice video, appreciate the effort. Mostly agree with everything. Medicine and steward great for 8 int and 5 points; charm and leadership also 8 and 5. Then its just a matter of what you want to do next. I personally find scouting and tactics as my next points. Scouting is just lazy leveling (you get it running around), and tactics helps with the tediousness of the end game (I find myself more and more just auto resolving). Trade with the town/caravan trick really makes this one also easy and I already have 8.

[@Vok250]

Scouting and riding are OP due to the -100% escape chance for lords.

[@msj1117]

End of the video: we

[@Strat-Guides]

:D

[@Fernando-qk9fd]

I really missed having this amount and quality of content. Thanks for returning at full speed.

[@irish2772]

Smithing will always be OP for me. Since my first campaign years ago, I've used it to make millions of denars in a very short period of time. I've used it to wage wars, buy heavy armor for my entire party, recruit enemy lords, buy fiefs, gain relationship with friendly nobles through smithing orders etc. Like you mentioned though, that's just my style and may not be for everyone. To make it work properly you're going to need to max the skill out to get the reduced sale penalty and added perks to smithed weapons. Great video as always, brother. 🤙

[@longlee2098]

Just found your videos because I was looking for m&b2 guides and loving it so far. Also, you should make a unit tier list too.

[@VeikSan]

Maybe an update is necessary ? I will speak for general campaign skills tier list. I think OP category should be apart. I mean, you need medicine clearly even if it’s op. But you don’t need forge even if it’s also OP. I think commercial skills is clearly underrated and even more if forge is op. But also you can exchange colonies. And this perk is absolutely amazing for trade and better control on the map with your own kingdom. One handed skill should be in OP category far from all. First you are literally invincible because it’s very confortable to block from every ways with shield. You can be fast and OS everyone. So no point to play other weapons skills unless you want more difficulties or fun. Very important skills also for you every companions. They will never dies. It gave you also tankiness and foot speed for you and all your troops. I mean one handed is not a needed thing but clearly a OP one. The game become much more easy in this way is absolutely factual. Finally, I think « charm » is good but not a priority thing you absolute need. You gain more relation but there is so much ways to be friend with everyone and have better influence on your kingdom that is secondary for me. Thanks for your videos it helps a lot !

[@filbertlin1265]

can't believe I get to be the first view for a strat gaming video

[@TheHappyTau]

You know what would be a stellar video? Skill combos! For example, riding and scouting might just be okay as skill trees, but the two of them have two perks that make for a REALLY powerful combined ability! Riding 225 and Scouting 225 both have -50% prisoner escape chance, meaning any lord you cap into your party is stuck there! :D Awesome if you're fighting an enemy kingdom and need to level the playing field lord wise, IE defending a single city state against a huge kingdom and you need to make sure those lords don't reinforce! Another more obvious example I feel is polearm and throwing. You make a good case that throwing weapons usually don't have that much ammo, but they also can have multiple modes! IE a javelin, which in a pinch can be used as a polearm (when used in melee stance, javelins give polearm XP). Some javelins are quite long and can be used as respectable spears, and with smithing you can make some truly insane creations. These are just two ideas, but it would be sick if you went through the skill tree and identified these perk combos for 1.2! They might really help frame character builds for more experienced players looking to up their levelling efficiency (or which companions to find early so they can level their skills instead). Thanks for the video!

[@tjmoon1857]

Engineering is very strong! Time is precious when you're at war and you have to attack and defend multiple fiefs. Quickly setting up siege engines, overwhelming opposing siege engines and destroying walls can take too long without high level engi. Don't sleep on engineering, it's super easy to level up and extremely valuable imo.

[@lvetg8928]

The 2 handed level 225 perk 25% armor penetration for all damage is pretty good.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's one of the best perks in all the melee skill trees!

[@sethyboy0]

I feel like throwing is the ranged skill for melee builds and generic companions. You trade long-term and long-range damage for a tactical “fuck you in particular” when appropriate that fills up the fourth slot. Going bow/crossbow means you can’t go 1h + shield + polearm which is the safest and most versatile weapon loadout for companions who are either skilled for that or not skilled in combat at all. It also performs better with low investment because of the crazy base damage.

[@RightfootWestHam]

1. Medical 2. Athletic 3. Smithing 4. Whatever combat ability you want 5. Steward 6. Leadership 7. Whatever In a non-city/town battle 275+ riding skill with charge damage is EXTREMLY OP , basically you can ride over an entire army alone. But its super-boring to play that way and you dont really need to use any weapons. Just make sure to get the first skill in the Charm tree, "Virile" as it is very op.

[@henkweijs3414]

Does virile work for male characters? I always just thought it was for female spouses

[@RightfootWestHam]

@@henkweijs3414 I would think so(?) IT doesnt specify anything else and it just says 30% increase of having children. I have not looked at the code or anything like that though. Its still one of the best skills as children in this game is EXTREMLY op, they dont take up a companion slot and you can customize them a lot. You cant get 25 or more skills in for example charm unless you put atleast 1 point in to charm or 1 point in to Social. I prefer just putting 1 point in to charm. If you keep it at 0 focus and 2 social you can max reach 18

[@warandconquest6522]

One thing I found that elevated throwing weapons from good to great to me was during sieges. Being able to drop people while climbing and helping to keep from getting swamped if your position is being overrun on the walls. Black heart, custom javelins and hickory crossbow is basically my permanent loadout

[@ParikshitBhujbal]

I was surprised to see that ATHLETICS got no love in this video, for me, its one of the most OP skills in the game , the 2 free attribute points and the bonus HP for character makes it MUST HAVE for any playthru, yes?

[@randaru1527]

A few thoughs on the tier list: -Athletics is an S-tier skill on any combat-related character, period, end of story. Putting it below some Vigor and Control skills is a cruel joke. -Two-handed is *SEVERELY* underrated. It's a skill that requires whole 2 less attribute points to hit the peak efficiency softcap with than other melee weapons; it requires 1 less item slot, which, with conjunction with the previous point, makes it THE weapon for double-dipping into ranged skills; it synergizes the best with all 3 Endurance skills, which, 99 out of 100 times, will be maxed out on any character that goes into combat. Two-handed is easily leagues above any other melee in terms of minmaxing, especially considering that, at 5 attribute and 5 focus, you can just put 10 extra focus points into the other two VIG skills for captain and leader bonuses, and still end up using the two-handed just for convenience of having the ultimate perk at level 250, since extra attribute points are far harder to come by. -Crossbows on the same level as bows? Not a chance. Yes, it can be made *marginally* stronger than the bow in the hands of main characters, but that implies heavily that you do not plan on applying captain bonuses to a formation, because bow units are objectively better than crossbow units, and they gain way more mileage out of any captain skills due to higher accuracy and much higher ammo count. And investing into crossbows just to halve some unit costs is never worth it. -Scouting should never be picked on a main character unless you challenge yourself with playing a no-companion campaign. By itself, it's amazing, but it's a Cunning attribute related skill, so, whatever attributes you put into it, realistically will never be used for anything else. On top of that, TW made a wise decision to make it trivial to get all the good bonuses with just the scouting companion in your party. -Engineering has amazing captain/leader perk synergies with INT+END builds, and, if you're already investing into medicine, it's still a musthave skill, so, much unlike Scouting, there are situations where it's very much worth taking on your main character.

[@Arranvin9]

Honestly your analysis here is on a par with Strat's. You make excellent points about bow vs crossbow (I don't think that they can be objectively ranked equally as both in terms of dps and captain perks crossbow is behind, and badly in need of a buff) and regarding 2H. As you say, if you're playing as a mainly ranged character then being able to hit the max perk with only 5 vigor instead of 7 is really valuable. I also find it useful for archer companions as even 3 vigor is enough for vandal and allows them to make a useful contribution when they're forced into melee. I'd much rather have them running a bow, two stacks of ammo and a 2H than be restricted to 1 stack of ammo so they can have a 1H and a shield.

[@NotTheBomb]

I would imagine this would be tedious, but can you do a perk’s tier list? I find it very hard to remember to level up my companions in the right way to get the right perks for let’s say, as a governor. Like there are two good governor perks, not in leadership, not in steward, but in one handed and two handed! Something I wouldn’t have even thought of. Hope this made any sense 😅

[@Strat-Guides]

I feel like that would be a 3 hour video that takes 1 full month to make haha I'll probably do smaller videos like all the S tier perks in one video, maybe approach it like that.

[@SmolAndAngyyy]

Steward is broken and should be in OP. Get the perks for xp to troops for donated weapons and armor. Hire 50 farmers. Give them junk pitchforks. Transform to tier 6 gods of warfare. Ez win

[@gamersmodfiesta]

First of all: Very useful video, especially for beginners. Simple, straight to the point and well explained! Enjoying your content. Some nitpicking about the general skill-tier-list, but of course this is all based on personal experience. I do have 500+ hours in the game, but everyone's experience might be different still: - Smithing: Personally, I've never really used smithing in the game. It definitely belongs in the OP list, because it's an infinite money farm, but money's never really an issue in Bannerlord I've found. It's fun to create your own, personal weapons and have your companions run around with them, but there are so many ways to make money, smithing is just gonna ruin the fun if you use it like a money farm. At least, that's the case for me. - Bow/Crossbow: Completely agree they belong in the same category, but I'd put them either in 'needed' or 'op', because ranged skills are incredibly important if you wish to survive a campaign in Bannerlord, especially at the start of the game where you're usually going to be outnumbered by bandits. - For world conquest: I was kinda surprised you put all the melee skills in 'bad'. Even during end-game, you're gonna have to do a lot of the fighting yourself as well. Agreed with your explanation though; take care of the op-skills first, then start investing in combat skills. Agreed on everything else. Very good tier-list!

[@coreyostrander1763]

The last perk in trade is really good for new kingdoms. Can capture a lord in a siege then pay him his old fief to join you

[@SushiArmageddon]

I put points into scouting and steward as I figured I should be rewarded for the activity I do the most which is running around the map.

[@fenis300]

I know the video is kinda old now but i recently came back for the game, and must say i feel your tier list is on point, i felt like i got stuck three times as a vasaal cause i dint do the some right choices with perks and points but your video helped alot to see what i am doing wrong thx alot.

[@Paulunatr]

Ooh, spicy takes. -I tend to favor brutal juggernaut styles in games and seeing Two-Handed rated low pains me, even if it's true. Nothing else in the game makes my inner blood-monkey screech in delight like obliterating a top-tier knight and his horse with a single 300+ damage swing. Low-tier skill, top-tier fun. -Here's a good tagline: "Engineering: when wiping your ass with focus points isn't enough of a waste." -Kinda confused as to why Smithing is a Needed skill for World Conquest. You'll be fighting big battles constantly, which provide the two things Smithing does: gear and money from selling unneeded gear. I get that you can make incredible stuff with it, but in a 1000-man battle you and your companions are much more impactful in the commanding and captaining roles. Smithing is a great moneymaker for sure, and it's a convenient level-fodder skill as well, but I don't see it being the backbone of a conquest campaign. What am I missing? -Something that must be said about Scouting: it is practically essential to have in any campaign. Moving effectively on the world map is one of the most powerful ways a human player can outplay the AI, and Scouting makes doing so immensely easier. The caveat is that it doesn't need to be on the main character. I generally take it because I like to build the conquest character to be a do-it-all commander (removes the risk of sending my scout or surgeon off on a job by mistake and completely screwing myself over). -Skill synergies are always worth mentioning in a tier list. Roguery is relatively unremarkable for most campaigns, but it can make some incredible things happen when paired with Leadership: the ability to snap up large bandit parties at no cost AND have them upgrade into regular or noble units is just about the fastest means of building an army in the game, and most importantly, it works anywhere on the map. Policing trips turn into recruitment trips.

[@Strat-Guides]

Oh trust me, 90% of my campaigns are 2H and bow so I'm rarely using anything else lol but I tried my best to make logical picks :) Lol about engineering, totally agreed! It's fine near the end when there's nothing else better to put them into. For smithing I guess I was more thinking about a WC speedrun than just a WC. You don't need it, but if you use it, it can speed up the run by many years. You can get to clan tier 3 in less than a month, switch over to smithing and have millions of denars by the end of year 1 and ready to start taking fiefs.

[@СергейКлочков-ф4у]

The "World conquest skills" caption at 13:20 is probably meant to be "Bandit campaign skills"

[@Strat-Guides]

Woops, good catch. I'm not using my standard process for these videos since they are supposed to be recorded and edited as quickly as possible. I don't like making videos like this, but it's part of the experiment that will end in a week or two and we'll be back to the usual quality :)

[@nihilisticpoet]

Thank you as always for your hard work!

[@inkslingerdrew]

should say a lot of the bad skills are actually AMAZING to put on your captains. like the horse captain skills for calv, the bow skills you would normally forgo put on a captain now your archers are just mowing shit down etc.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a great point! I really don't like making tier list videos but they do well with the algorithm. My biggest issue is that almost anything in the game has a use - but some are more niche than others so they don't get used often. But they aren't bad, just not good in most situations.

[@phantom3969]

i just wanna say, having a two handed axe in offensive sieges is bonkers actually sprint to the ladder, go up, slaughter all the enemy archers and siege engine crews, with high athletics + two handed axe you just mow through everyone i realised how much better the axes where now that i'm using a two handed sword... still good, but makes fighting more people at once harder and it takes longer to kill more enemies so you take longer to clear the battlements

[@KCCOmug]

Handy Guide. Thank you. I do disagree with one aspect of the Roguery rating though. Leadership is a great one since you can turn bandits into elite troops from different cultures. Very powerful combined with roguery perks to pick up new bandits for free.

[@thomasfeinschliff1983]

My problem with this perk is that i alsways get it at a point in campaign where i barely need it anymore since u usally dont bother with bandits at the later stages of campaigns. Would be fare more balanced if you could get it faster with less efford. Right now i feels a little bit forced tbh

[@kongvealsurvives]

Thanks for these tier lists. Super informative. Are these lists based on things you should focus on for the main character or for companions/family as well as main character? It seems like it is mostly geared to main character, but I just wanted to make sure.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a good question - personally I like to focus on intelligence because I can get to 10 int attribute points and max out medicine and steward. The higher up those skills go, the more OP they are lol. If you take steward and medicine on a companion, they will struggle to hit 7 attributes and will pretty much never hit 10, which means they will struggle to hit the 275 final perk. Just something to think about!

[@kongvealsurvives]

@@Strat-Guides Good to know. Thank you for the feedback!

[@blazezz1101]

I find Polearm skill to have a larger impact on its respective weapon in melee combat than One Handed and Two Handed. You can get away with a high damage 1H or 2H weapon at low skill but not with polearms (esp. thrusting polearms). Thrusting polearms at high skill level can be more powerful than swinging polearms since it's faster.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a very good point - low skill polearm is pretty painful to use

[@sullyvanbastien4526]

thowing weapons are great. With 3 stacks we can have almost 40 ammo. The perks are very strong, and if you have some javelins throwers in your army you can still pick up some of their ammo, even on horseback. You can oneshot everything with, deal thousands of damages, and be safe by doing so. Riding in a game called "mount and blade" is absolutely needed. More movespeed on battle, stronger cavalry, stronger fighting point. At max level you just go through enemy archers multiple times and at the end you knock down a lot of them. And it increase your speed a lot.

[@alfiegleed189]

Gonna have to disagree with your roguery opinion. 1. All the money you can make from smithing you can make from selling battle loot. With 5 focus points in roguery and at least 3 cunning you can hit 200 roguery comfortably. At this stage 300 vs 300 troops in pitch battles can net you close to 150k per battle in loot. That is no exaggeration. 2. All the extra loot from battles can be used to upgrade your troops if you dont need to sell it. Roguery just works perfectly with steward, paid in promise and giving hands. This means you can recruit whatever troops you like anywhere in the map and quickly upgrade them. You can discard loot to upgrade troops until you hit the cap, upgrade, then continue to discard loot until you run out. Rinse and repeat. Smithing is not as strong, you can sit in a settlement just making 35k 2h swords which is great or 110k orders, but that wont beat the enemy so its only helpful for recruiting lords. But you can defeat the enemy AND make tons of money doing it. Also combat trees all offer hit point increases for your troops which is important for campaigns and sieges especially.

[@Jungle1000]

Oh no, I didn’t min max! Guess I’ll have to start another play through😛

[@dapizzasnake8462]

Here is the thing, two handed is op just for the fact that getting two kills in one hit is a dopamine hit.

[@tulkdog]

As someone who only leveled athletics later on, I’d say it’s OP. The last perk is nuts Riding is also pretty OP due to the final perk. When the skill is 300+ you grab a fast horse and just race through the enemy formations doing 30-50 damage to each unfortunate sod you run over

[@aapee565]

I usually start by put 5 attributes into END, level up smithing by doing smithing quests, riding by killing looters and athletics in tournaments. After you get levels in athletics and smithing you eventually get 2 more "free" points into END and can hit that magical 275. Riding 275 is trash so I just get to 225 or so. After that I put my attributes into social to get charm up to 275 and to hit 125 trade so I can passively level up my clan. Then I finish by leveling up steward, medicine and leadership in preparation for my own kingdom. Weapon categories get a couple focus points to get important perks, and if the game keeps going longer I will put more points into them, because what else am I going to do.

[@_Makanko_]

Respecing smithing and athletics is also nice because you can swap two points around vigor and control if you're hunting for perks in those trees. Also a free point you can get towards throwing.

[@ricwalker6600]

Completely agree with the general camaign list. as much as i love my 2hander or a good Naginata polearm, shield and a good ol' blunt boinker beats them by a lot. would even consider it a needed tier. i would have to check again your guide for the actual perks value but gameplay wise i would put crossbow down to okay and even trash if you play without aiming reticle. You can shoot perfectly fine with a bow without it. But try that with a crossbow and in ego perspective and you can be proud if you hit an entire barn door once with a full stack of bolts. But aside from that, totally agree. Will try out your style for the next conquest run. (that reminds me to finally wtch your fiefs guide) sounded good to me. I will never play a bandit campaign, so cant say anything about that topic. but what you said sounds good.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thanks Ric! Hope all is well if you bro

[@ShivSaerdin]

Yeah, this one is definitely subjective. When my main goal is to have the biggest party size that can beat an army, and stop those little lordlings from making trouble, the most OP tree would be Leadership. + Tactics + mid level Roguery. I got by with mid level smithing and medicine. Surviving the fights means specializing in one handed/thrown and bows. One handed provides the critical skill in the arena that ends most fights in one blow. We all know how broken Javelins can be when skilled.

[@derfuerst5996]

Putting some points in riding for party speed (Sweeping winds and nomadic traditions) is not bad. It's okay/good

[@jacobbender2246]

2h is by far the best weapon skill. 2h axes can cleave through opponents, allowing you to kill about 4 enemies per swing if not blocked. You just ride/ run around swinging for backs and outmoving/ignoring the ones that turn on you and block.

[@senadk.6731]

Get two handed axe, put FP on it and defend castles near ladder. You can kill 100-200 enemies easily. With Baptised perk you can level up army very easy. So I would say two handed is OP

[@ASpicyGator]

I was surprised to see polearms being in bad for world conquest skills. At max level I've easily dropped 100 kills in large field battles because of the war razor and it allowed me to turn the tide of close battles. However I do get it's a subjective list and appreciate the content nonetheless.

[@Strat-Guides]

The reason I put all the combat skills at a low rank for the WC is because I feel like the other skills will have more impact on the campaign overall. For big battle of say 1000 on each side, I would rather have medicine 275 and save 80% of the top tier troops than get 100 kills - I just feel like it has more impact overall. The only time I feel like high combat skills can outweigh the passive skills are during a siege defense - having high bow skill can literally sway a 2000 unit battle because it's not unheard of to get 400 - 500 kills with a bow. But that's just my experience, not everyone plays the same way so it all comes down to what works for you :) Thanks for watching!!

[@ASpicyGator]

@@Strat-Guides makes sense thanks for the response :D

[@waldo2543]

Sorry, I have to disagree with bows being better than javelins (possibly crossbows haven't done a run with that yet) but after watching this video I gave bows a try again and was very disappointed by them. Let me explain my reasoning. I'm lvl 31 primarily endurance\int\soc with only 4 points in ctr\vig and those are only at 4 thanks to athletics and bs. I am 1141 days in, my bow skill is at 172 (a lot of auto battles to get medicine maxed out. worth) and Ive recently maxed out athletics and so I switched to riding which is only at 157. My combat skills are mid at best, so I know the ceiling goes higher, I also have the best bows. Put plainly I am a general type that focuses on combat skills as an afterthought as I typically do. It is not uncommon for me fighting another kingdom (obviously not bandits) not at all uncommon to only get only a single kill or two while hitting over 90% of my shots (sitting on horseback behind an enemy shield wall is easy shots on target), perhaps if I could line up nonstop headshots on a hectic battlefield on tier 5/6 infantry/cav that number would be higher but I essentially have to hit every unit two (if its a body shot on a archer type unit or other low armor unit) or more times and the very high end units a headshot will not always do the trick, siege defense it would certainly be easier to line up the head shots but that is very rare I find myself in that position. With Javelins I find that having roughly around the same mid skills to be far more likely to get kills even on high end troops on top of that if you are a blacksmith then you can craft your own javelins being capable of crafting a javelin with a base dmg of 141 pierce with all the right parts (which took me no time for the javs with the changes to bs) I have had javelins maxed out in the past and yes they are a great example of overkill although that shield pierce is really nice but that also means that they are far more lethal at a much lower skill level. (I find jav kills shots from an undamaged target that hit their foot to be hilarious) Essentially my argument is that if you're not planning on focusing on combat skills too extensively then javelins (possibly crossbows too) are the far more superior weapon since it takes far less time and stat dumping to make them efficient at getting kills and so they make a perfect general types ranged option netting more kills. Very sorry for the TLDR level of a comment that you have likely all heard before, only came back here because I'm planning on starting a new campaign now since I am very bored and disappointed with the bow. I think I am gonna try the crossbow since I am also getting bored with having only been using javelins in my last several campaigns (I really wish I could craft crossbows and bows; they would be more interesting to me). I just wanted to say that this is no attempt at taking a shot at you or the work you do, and I really love your content and I appreciate all of your help (one last thing lol, I am also a two handed axe guy, that cleave shouldn't be underestimated, a long one is amazing from horseback, cleaving those lines and the short one I craft myself I always name siege breaker, but no real disagreement here).

[@4984christian]

The perks is something I dont like. Its so much micro management. I wish they would make a mechanism that picks a perk for you depending on your play style, like stats, or something more role play related. Also the perks follow no system seemingly. Its so random. Although I like the extra complexity in theory.

[@Yokami-sama]

Funny thing is, this video seems to contradict your Beginner's Guide, most skills you recommended there were either "Okay" or "Bad" while completely disregarding the OP/Good ones here. (Starting skills recommended in your guide: 2 Riding, 3 Charm, 1 Trade)

[@Strat-Guides]

It's been a while since I made these, but if I recall a lot of the skills were changed through several patches. Also, the skills you might want to take as a beginner aren't necessarily good as a more experienced player. For example, I think 2H is a good skill, but I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner because of the high skill required to use it properly. Hopefully that clears some things up!

[@jamoecw]

for focus points you are right, but the skills themselves also have attribute points feeding into them. smithing, riding and athletics are all under one umbrella, and they are all useful. medicine is really good, and steward is no joke, so low end Engineering should be a gimme. if you want to go for Charm then both Trade and Leadership becomes more attractive for investing focus points. Trade takes forever to max out, even if fully invested so that hurts it quite a bit, but Leadership maxed out is easy and really good making the investment of attribute points not a bad idea.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I agree with you, I find intelligence and social builds much more powerful than combat focused and usually prioritize those on my main character with 10 attribute points into both.

[@jamoecw]

@@Strat-Guides if you go with 8 then you can hit your capstones and end up enough for endurance, but i always raise my kids focused on intelligence and charm just in case i end up as one of them.

[@shawndiesel007]

Best bannerlord vids by far!

[@rignanroach1775]

Haha. I'd have trade in the middle or maybe even next to top. For quality of life, the little green and red indicators as to what is being sold cheap where are invaluable. I do a lot of trade though. Something I imagine most people find tedious. Getting to 300 has proven to be tedious even for me, but it's doable. Even doing the "exploit" you end up having to grind a ton of metals up to high tier to drive the prices up and down. I have it in my sites. (sights?) I've never bought a town or castle before, so it's on my Bannerlord bucket list. I've been thinking a lot about the best generic build and, because Steward can be farmed out, I tend not to want to take it on my main. It makes me sad Tactics is as useless as it is.On the other hand, I can't think what bonuses would be correct for it to give in the live battle scenes. It would get pretty OP pretty fast and annoying for PvP I think.

[@Strat-Guides]

I do hate making these lists because most of these are subjective. For someone doing a trading campaign it's definitely good to have. I thought about doing more lists, but it was already getting a bit longer than I wanted the video to be.

[@rignanroach1775]

@@Strat-Guides No hate no hate! It's all just geeks talking gamer geek stuff anyhoo.

[@davydovua]

I'd rate Two-Handed as Needed or even OP for one single perk on the skill tree that gives ALL your infantry +5 xp for EVERY kill you make with a two-handed weapon. It's an incredible way to quickly level up newly conscripted recruits into something actually useful on the battlefield.

[@danreyn]

Tactics is great in a campaign. Not just for the autoresolve either. Max out the tactics and it means you get a distinct advantage with number of troops on the field. You can go up against an army twice your size but wipe them out because you're allowed twice the number of troops on the field. Plus it gives you damage bonuses against attacking armies and when outnumbered. If a larger army attacks you, you get the advantage from numbers on the field, and a hefty +20-40% melee damage to all of your units. At that point, you can just charge them and win every time. But yeah, biggest advantage is the shift in numbers on the field. I won a 900 vs 300 just because tactics was high enough to allow me to field more units at once.

[@RoulicisThe]

Trade has a couple useful perks, especially if you count on passive income like workshops and caravans... But the big issue I have with it is how freaking slow it is to level it up >

[@DziaduSwierznowski]

I always level up trade to 125 ASAP, then take the perk that makes workshops generate renown. Having passive 4-5 renown points per day is really helpful

[@JB-xl2jc]

It's the only one I'm fine with using exploits on every run

[@oleksandr4371]

seems you miss combo of rougery and lidership when you get group of bandit tier 3-5 units for free and turn them in to a noble tier 5-6, so that is the easiest way yo get a lot of high tier noble units in a short period of time (yes, steward allow you discard any amount of weapon/armor to level up troops, but there is a limit for each item price category making it really tiring and consume a lot of time)

[@Strat-Guides]

The problem is for bandit campaigns you have no reliable way to earn leadership XP. If you're doing a regular campaign and use normal troops or call an army together then sure, it could work but that's not a legit bandit campaign. The list was supposed to be for a bandit campaign (bandit troops only, war with everyone on the map). This is the problem with doing these lists lol tbh I hate doing them because it's so subjective and you could argue anything 10 different ways and all be right :)

[@Nbvm0]

I donk know, double handed for me is much better, because Instead of shield I can take extra arrows to my inventory and definitely kill 1-2 people per slash, which is perfect with fast horse, just run into horde of people and kill 2-4 people in just one rush + many damaged warriors due to horse damage

[@Cassandra112]

odd you have trade so low these days. art community/great investor, insurance plans, various trade penalty perks make a solid difference. sprint of gold. and of course everything has its price being game changing. Is it just an issue of, "well I exploited smithing for unlimited cash, so all the trade $$ perks are pointless to me?) Engineering is VERY good for companions/governors. yeah.

[@Strat-Guides]

I put trade low because all of the perks become irrelevant very quickly. You can get to clan tier 3 long before you'll be able to grind out 125 trade skill, so I don't see a ton of value there. The money you can make from war will far exceed anything trade can bring in so that was my logic. For a trade-focused campaign, it's a must but in my opinion it should be avoided for anything else because I feel like there are better options. Just my opinion though!

[@TheRebelVikingYT]

You completely forgot about level 225 riding and scouting. Prisoners will have a 0% chance to escape, so you can slowly capture every noble you see until they have barely any army and take all of their fiefs.

[@MrSpresley33]

Riding is a beast when you use a Calvary army! Makes them practically invincible

[@hochmeisterr]

I don't agree that Crossbow and Archer are above Throwing Javelins. yes, you can have more arrows but with a Javelin, you are guaranteed a 1 hit KO and a ragdoll that will make you chuckle even at low levels.

[@takuoku2546]

in my opinion, 2 handed swords are OP irl. you can "end your enemy rightly" by throwing the pommel, or just thow the sword itself. or, if you are skilled enough in sword fighting, you can do the Stunning Charlotte Chuhlhourne Miracle Sweet Ultra-Funky Fantastic Dramatic Romantic Sadistic Erotic Exotic Athletic Guillotine Attack or copy demon slayer.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol maybe we can get a mod that adds that attack to the game?!

[@bryanchan8888]

nitpicking here but honestly if you're warring a lot, roguery is pretty OP with the amount of loot that you get, you can make millions just from one war alone if you have roguery maxed out in the late game. Also if you have the perk from stewardship that allows you to donate gear to your troops for xp, you're leveling up troops to tier 5/6 at insane speeds due to the amount of loot you get.

[@Strat-Guides]

Those are all great points! To be honest, I hate making tier lists lol there's so much nuance to any skill/perk/build that it's hard to call anything bad, but maybe just bad in certain situations.

[@bryanchan8888]

@@Strat-Guides Well, tactics and engineering is pretty bad overall haha, I think nobody would complain about putting those two in the 'terrible' tier. Tactics is amazing for companions if you want to field parties, engineering is pretty self explanatory, but not good skills for the MC lol. I think most people would agree that it's useless hahaha

[@leonardomarquesbellini]

Bro, trade and roguery are two of the most busted skills in the game, throw smithing in as well and you don't even need vassals to completely dominate the map.

[@beans4706]

I know you hate tier lists, but if they perform well, would you make one for individual units, or castles to defend/take, or culture bonuses or something? I think they generally do very well. I found one of my other fav. creators through a memey tier list!

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah maybe I should do a meme tier list to make fun of the format lol that would be fun

[@realitycheck908]

Scouting is OP for hideout detection ( fast companion lvl up) but it can never be used on the main character , always get a scout

[@croburke]

Could you put together a tier list for which skills are best if you want a companion to lead a clan party for you? I would be curios to know which skills has the highest chance of keeping them alive and to have good units.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'll add it to the list and do my best to get to it :)

[@croburke]

@@Strat-Guides awesome!! Thank you!

[@PiepProductions]

Tactics is very good for defensive sieges, mainly because it heavily favors the defender and it saves you the boredom of having to wait for the battle to end. It's the complete opposite for offensive sieges tho.

[@whiskybob]

I would agree with 2 handed. But once I crafted myself heavy legendary bardiche rode into a swarm of fucking Khuzait mounted archers and started harvesting them like wheat - OP.

[@BracownReclidobo]

I'm on a break sir.... But this was a great video. Had to watch it to see if we were on the same page ;)

[@Strat-Guides]

All good Bracown, this string of videos are meant to be good info but low effort for a video about KZbin. Once I have all the data, I'll be delisting these trash videos lol I might keep a couple if they turned out okay, but so far they are pretty bad compared to my usual production.

[@sh11dy]

Disagree on steward and intelligence in general for warlord/conqueror runs. Use companions. Im completely ignoring intelligence skills cause i like to put pts into smth else like tactics (to not waste time on highly advantegeous battles). For a party leader steward only offers discount for hiring troops - sacrifice it and just set 8 intelligence for your brother, find 'scholar' for medicine (don't forget though 25 med upper perk is must have for main character) and thats it, so many free points left to use

[@bombidil3]

Every single time I play, I just end up being Megamind max intelligence and the rest into endurance for movement speed, no matter the faction :D

[@brentwyrick3300]

TBF I ALWAYS take tactics but I only do Roleplay runs.

[@leemccloskey]

Seemed so simple in war and. But in bannerlord being a good party leader seems so much more complex with the skills and companions and governors

[@RadishAcceptable]

Wait, huh? World conquest choices confuse me. Riding and Scouting combo together is needed, isn't it? I mean, unless you want everybody to absolutely hate you for lopping off heads the entire game.

[@BESTGINGEREU]

Strat can I ask, ive recently picked the game up and im curious how relevant a lot of this content is? Safe to assume you would do another video if this was wildly outdated?

[@Strat-Guides]

A lot of these are still relevant actually! The devs have slowed down releasing patches so most of the skills are perks are still the same :)

[@shakybill3]

I would say Roguery should at least be 2nd to bottom just because THAT skill determines how much post-battle loot you get

[@moycan87]

I like to put 1 focus point on trade to get appraiser and caravan master, which help me to earn money from smithing and to sell war equipment and weight!

[@Mardols]

Hey strat gaming. You should realy make mount and blade guide playlist.

[@Storm_Crown]

Maxing out Athletics and Two-Handed and using axes is the most broken build I've ever made. Equip some extremely heavy armor, a shield on your back to use when needed, and take the shield breaking perks, and you can clear sieges single-handedly so long as you have a couple shield walls to divide attention.

[@IDontGetIrony]

Morale is only important to get leadership upgraded

[@hedition9346]

Yea this is pretty subjective as you said. The issue with bannerlord, is that focus points are not that hard to get. Attribute points on the other hand, are sparse. So if I have 10 Int for Steward and Medicine, not utilizing it for Engineering seem like a huge waste. Having 8 End allow you to max out with extra two points from smiting and athletics so not putting into riding also feels like a waste.

[@Strat-Guides]

Agreed, planning out the attribute point placement should be the main priority and not focus points. Honestly I hate making tier list videos lol but I know they get views and it's an easy topic for me to cover for the experiment I'm running. I'll probably delist this video once I'm done later in the month.

[@jacobburch7555]

Imo two handed is good. Yes you can’t have a shield and are heavily vulnerable to range but the damage is amazing and it’s so much fun to run around with a giant two handed slashing everyone.

[@Strat-Guides]

You're preaching to the choir haha I'm almost exclusively a 2H abuser :) However I'm in the middle of a campaign where I maxed all 3 melee skills and 1H does as much damage as 2H at the higher skill and you still get the shield, so it begs the question - what advantage does 2H have if the damage is the same as 1H? Only thing I can think of it cleave with 2H axe. That was my logic anyhow, but I still love 2H combat.

[@GetAssista]

2H weapons are good, a go to choice when your att and focus points are elsewhere. The skill itself, dunno

[@silentwarrior3]

I find the only reason to level up Trade is to be able to trade fiefs but dear lord is it a grind

[@Clembo]

Engineering also sucks because your comapnions never level it up unless you're in a seige

[@user-lw6pz7pu5k]

we love you too habibi xD