PunchDrunk

So I postponed staying out of retirement a few more days so I could be a whiny little bitch, but then I got fed up and joined the tourney after seeing a bunch of other brutes jump in. PunchDrunk is feast or famine these days. Last night, about 14/15 fights, but the night before it was smooth sailing, 20 fights and beating nearly everyone. (Except nexgokumelun, he's gotten really tough!) What seems to mess me up the most is gaining a level. Whenever I go up a level, all of the easy brutes get flushed out of my arena and replaced with much harder ones. Last night was no exception as I lost an incredibly bad seed to Forza, started to recover, but then leveled up after 3 fights and suddenly everyone was 5 levels higher than me.

So. Two more days of good training (or three bad ones) and I'll be up to level 22 with 39 agility. Then another 3 will get me Tornado. Three or four more, Herc. It looks really unlikely that I'll be able to squeeze in 9-11 days of training before the tourney that needs only 15 more brutes, but it's definitely possible.

PunchDrunk has now moved up to level 22, and by the end of the weekend will be level 23. This level brings him up from 34 to 39 agility, and already I notice a really significant boost in dodging ability. I suspect that it's a calculation based on sets of 3 agility points, so this boost would bump him up two levels in that calculation. The next level will bring him tornado, and he's likely to make it all the way to 24 (herculeene) before the tourney starts, which is as good a position as I could hope for.

The other positive development is that the renforts, BillySilly, won his tourney today at level 17. Naturally I haven't advanced his rank, because I really need him around still. But it does mean that no matter when PunchDrunk wins his tourney, I can move the renforts up at the same time, ensuring that he'll be ready to help PunchDrunk as soon as possible. In the meantime, I can keep training him to see what other goodies pop up, and he'll move up to level 18 tonight.

Nice, your account his doing his best to help you out !

Yes, Billy is definitely important, I win lots of battles by small margins and he really makes the difference sometimes, especially with that flail. Nice to have someone who can come in and flatten a bear in one round.

The competition is still fierce, so much so that I won't get to level 24 in two days, it'll take me three. But I'll certainly get there before the tourney, which is my goal.

Hats off to REJT, by the way, whose Nexgokumelun has progressed from an easy win to someone who beats me almost all the time now.

a flail renfort, so cool!
my lvl 13 renfort suck, only tete de fer good
only the level 19 renfort whos pretty good, but still a bit of time

yes, rejit's brute is so good
chuck fought him 2 times, and lost both, cause of those damn pets

I have finally reached level 24 and got Force Herculeene back just in time for the tourney. The next level is 40 xp away, and that will take me three days (unless I'm extraordinarily lucky and get two straight days of 20 fights) and all that's waiting at level 25 is 3 Endurance so I'm not worried about getting there. I've made my goal, and I'm as strong as I was in Biceps, so I'm cool with that no matter what happens -- perhaps as early as tomorrow. If by some miracle I make it more than one more level, I'll be able to say I made it to the level I was at when I won Biceps before the Dentist tourneys started, but so what? I'm not going to be much closer to winning than I am now. I managed to squeeze 9 fights out of the front set, but unexpected losses to Forza and Kemkem meant I couldn't take out any of the monster brutes by throwing away fights, so my back 10 was much tougher. Tanya got a good seed on me and so did Adrien, plus a very close loss to Foufounaite bounced me out right away with just 14 fights on the night. On the other hand, I won't be getting any more bad seeds from the guys who've been dogging me this week because I do a lot more damage now.

Congratulations for get you herculean du strenght again, hope you win soon !

Last few days of training, I've been rocking it, 20 fights easy. Especially with the renforts now level 20 with lots of agility and a net, although even without his help I'm really kicking butt.

Frustrated right now because it's BE right in the middle of the tourney and it was such bad timing. I beat AngeLudo pretty solid in the first round, and the second round was Xcpistou, tough fight I'll probably lose, but I only had 3 XP to go and the day turned about half an hour before the second round. So, plenty of time to jump on, run my three fights, level up and my choice is:

Cri-qui-poutre vs. +3 Agility

At first, I was pretty happy about the Cri, it's a nice bonus skill and I almost clicked it. Then I thought about my opponents. Tanya, Nuno, Forza, and Nex have bears, Adrien has a wolf, that's it. And the pets haven't really been a factor now that I am strong enough to take them out quickly. I can take out a dog with one throwing star, guaranteed kill. (That's awesome btw.) Wolf takes two stars or two punches or two whips. Bear can go down in two shots of the sword. So what am I gaining from Cri? Not that much, and agility will help me so much more, so (xteen will be happy) I clicked +3 Agilite... and the game crashed. And it's three hours on and it's still crashed, and the tourney will run on without me and I won't get a chance to use my new agility against Xcpistou or anyone else. Oh well! I just hope they get things sorted out soon. It would stink to lose my entire training day to this BE.

Great choice +3 agility at high lv in BL u won't need that skill so much as low lv.

Well, it turned out that Xcpistou crushed me, oh well. My next choice was Lance vs. 3 Agilite, a pretty easy choice there. That brought my agility up to 48, the same level it was at level 25 in Hemogrobil when I won there. And the next level I got Baton vs. 3 Agility, which puts my agility now at 52, a ridiculous level. And still I get hit! What does it take?

I now have some new theories about how agility affects accuracy.

1. There is a maximum level that your dodge % can rise to. I dodge no more frequently now than I did at 48 agility or even 43 agility. It's the same, trust me. High accuracy weapons like the sai, the whip, and the knife hit me a whole lot, especially the knife. And since I get my own whip stolen a lot, that makes thieves a huge problem for me.

2. You're much, much easier to hit when you're attacking than defending. I estimate it's about 3 times easier to hit me with a 6th sense, pugnacious, or contre attack than it is with a regular attack. This makes contre brutes a big problem for me, especially ones that steal my whip like Vakol. I have about 95% loss against her, she's dead impossible for me to beat.

3. High strength helps accuracy. Otherwise Kruwel would have much more trouble hitting me. Otherwise Dernier Mohican would never hit me at all. It's a small effect but it's real.

My last level up I could use some feedback on -- at level 28, 3 Endurance vs. 2 Rapidite and 1 Force. I took the endurance, because it'll give me the best protection against the small weapons that hit me the most often, but I'm not sure -- my rapidite is really low and the force boost would only be up to 16.5 but it's amplified by MA. My rationale was that rapidite would actually hurt me against contre/6th brutes because of #2 above but I'm curious what the rest of you think. It looks like this will be my last level unless I get a bad case of Steele Syndrome.

Teethy wrote:

High strength helps accuracy. Otherwise Kruwel would have much more trouble hitting me. Otherwise Dernier Mohican would never hit me at all. It's a small effect but it's real.

I disagree with this. My theory is that speed improve accuracy. I was more accurate against Punchy after FE.

I think +3 endu was the right choice, you're too "light" in hp. You have armor and thick skin afterall.

Last night leveled up to 30 after quitting the tourney and got Lance vs. +3 Agility. Took the agility, of course, and now I'm up to 57. I think I've definitely hit some sort of ceiling because it's not any easier to hit my targets and it's not any harder for them to hit me.

There may be something to your idea, Tama -- or it could be all three, with different weights for each, agility 1/3 and strength and speed 1/6, that would explain the great effectiveness of str/speed brutes. But really I think there's a ceiling you hit with the stats as far as dodging goes, and the weapon bonus adjusts it after that ceiling rather than before it. So it doesn't matter whether I have 7 agility or 57, someone with a knife is going to hit me most of the time.

First a cross-post from the Current Rank thread:

Teethymo wrote:

Well, last night PunchDrunk made it to Brutal Legend.

First up was Snoopitt, not a bad brute, used to fight him every day in Hemo:
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130871027?chk=0e9d

Next was Rafilone, sacrificial lamb at level 6:
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130880300?chk=27a3

Then my first serious opponent Cherok, who seems different every rank. This time he's a ninja-thief, a type I can have some trouble with, but he stole my sword first off and it was basically over.
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130888171?chk=509d

Quarters was Nuno. I beat him every day in training but he pulls an upset once in a while, his flail-contre has tagged me once or twice and he had plenty of shots at me this time, but I wisely kept the sword sheathed and he didn't touch me at all:
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130902680?chk=88c3

Then came Luccio, who bounced me in the first round two tourneys ago with four shots from his flail. I got pretty nervous when I got out the sword and he socked me once, but when he threw it at me I started my victory dance:
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130902680?chk=88c3

The final against our own Chuck Norris was not very close, but I had a really good seed. It's true that Chuck hasn't beaten me before, but our fights are often close and he's gotten a lot beefier this level with nearly 600 vie. Fortunately for me, PunchDrunk got buckets of combos with the sword and fists and made it look easy.
http://labrute.muxxu.com/fight/130934060?chk=14bf

So, now what? I'm back in training again, not sure if there will ever be another tourney, hiding in retirement and squeaking out those low-level victories. This might be the beginning of the end, though, and a bit of an anti-climax; except for Steele and Kemkem, there was nobody in this tourney who was my equal, and I didn't meet them. So the question now is, what do I have to look forward to next?

Now the introspective whining. I've made a pretty big stink about it before: the ultra high agility I developed in this rank was not much better at protecting me than the plain old high agility I had at level 24 or so. In fact, the +3 force I took at level 31 got me within a hair's breadth of beating Vakol at long last, because I was able to land punches instead of bouncing them off her shield.

There was one difference I noticed: other high-agility brutes did not wipe the floor with me. Xcpistou notably would always kill me during sang-chaud or soon thereafter; once my agility got over 50 he didn't hit me every time and I started beating him regularly. Adritaker too became like a normal brute, though Abrarakoursix didn't seem to have trouble hitting me with stars. So agility made a big difference in a small number of brutes. What would have been much better is more strength and endurance instead, so those strength/knife brutes and flail tanks would have had to hit me more often. If their worst chance to hit me is 10% but they only have to hit me three times, it's bad news for me. If their worst chance is 75% and they get 3-4 combos (knife), I'm toast.

So last rank I turned down Cri-qui-poutre because of the small number of brutes that have pets. Here's a new list: Cry would affect Fauvette, Adrien69, Forza, Nexgokumelun, Nuno, Luccio, Tanya, Adritaker, Dernier Mohican, White Pekor, Silent, Momochi, Chooco, Wings, Snoopit, Orsited, Steevenof, and many other lower ranked brutes. Of those, Fauvette, Adrien, Adritaker, and Tanya are ranked above me. That's actually not bad. My plan is to take it at level 26, when I'll have a decent 39 agilite, and I'll probably get at least one more before level 30. That should be plenty, and with luck I can add some other defensive skill and/or disarming skill. I'll post my entire path in a moment.

2 Agilite du Felin [3 Agility]
3 Armure [3 Endurance]
4 Epee [3 Force]
5 Perseverant [3 Force]
6 [Massue] 3 Agilite
7 [Baton] 3 Force
8 Shuriken [3 Rapidite]
9 [Hache] 3 Agilite
10 [6eme Sens] 3 Endurance
11 [Peau] 3 Agilite
12 Intouchable [3 Rapidite]
13 [Survie] 3 Agilite (25)
14 [Glaive] 3 Rapidite (4)
15 [Baton] 3 Rapidite (7)
16 Arts Martiaux [3 Endurance]
17 Peau Renforcee [3 Force]
18 Fouet [3 Force]
19 [Glaive] 3 Endurance
20 [Os de Mammouth] 3 Agilite (30)
21 [Lance] 3 Agilite (34)
22 [Hache] 3 Agilite (39)
23 Tornade de Coups [3 Agilite]
24 Force Herculeene (15) [3 Endurance]
25 [Baton] 3 Endurance
26 [Cri-qui-poutre] 3 Agilite (43)
27 [Lance] 3 Agilite (48)
28 [Baton] 3 Agilite (52)
29 3 Endurance [2 Rapidite/1 Force]
30 [Lance] 3 Agilite (57)
31 [Hache] 3 Force (19)

As before, there are no subpaths; last rank was the same path that stopped at 25. So following Grizzlism's dictum, where's the point of the last essential skill? That would be 24, Herc. Taking the baton immediately after would be a bad idea considering that endurance is a very good stat for me at that point and baton a poor weapon. However, Cri could turn out to be useful, so that's the first good subpath.

The next obvious subpath would be 29, taking rapidite/force which would put me at 16.5 force and 9 rapidite, and I'd be at 52 agility at that point. It's also possible to take the lance either at 27 or 30, but I'm not fond of that weapon with his low rapidite and lack of 6th sense, it would be the weakest in his arsenal including fists. Opinions?

Yeah, is not a great idea to take the lance, a great subpath will be +3 endurance at lv29 and wish you luck on finding a bouclier or frappe eclair .

My vote goes to Cri-qui-poutre as it's the first possibility after HF. If there's no reset in BL this antipet-skill might become more useful if more opponents will receive pets.

same....choose cri-qui-poutre

I like the spear but I'm not sure you have the build to use it well.
Obviously, I won't take baton because you don't have a shield.

I would take cri qui poutre and hope for something good. :)
You have too much agi and then you need to re-balance your brute.
You're lucky not to have a lot of possibilities like Kitty.

My personal gamble will be speed.

Possibilities = opportunities!

S4ntos, I don't want frappe eclair! In this mode, I'm a lot more vulnerable while attacking, especially against contre brutes. If I had a dream skill it would be implacable, but imagine if I got pugnace so I counter on 1/3 of my dodges? Or bouclier so I don't have to be afraid of knives and whips anymore? Or tete-de-fer so those accuracy weapons bounce off? Or increvable so those nets and marteau-pilons slide off and I don't have to worry about lucky shots? Or 6th sense so no one can get me with the whip or epee in my hand?

waw that is too much to ask imo , but in the Top of your List i agree that you need one of them realy badly: SHIELD, and then you can pray for counter
btw the lance should never belong to punchdrunk´s set, i know you know it , but i like to point it out in case you have some doubts or such...

Cri ... I really don't like this skill.
Can be used late, only 50% success and as you say exept the bear, you're dealing with pets fast.
(and using cri while getting shurikens in hands won't be as effective as an anti-pet, if it's taking the same amount of initiative than Bombe, it's basically 2/3 of your turn).
Plus you get armor/peau, your a dodger, get two long range weapons and you're not a vandal/marteau pillon brute.
I would take it only to get a sooner change.

The stats change seems more logical to me, even if your dodging seems to be scaled, other brutes are going to get more agi, maybe impla/perse. Does affect your multi-hit too and you got two of those weapons.
And actually reduces your malus when holding your sword.

Did you tried subpath at 17/18 and how was it if you did ? (I'm not helping here if you didn't try it but we know than your whip is playing against you a lot unless you find a shield or a disarming skill. I wish you to get tête man.)

Thanks. About Cri as a skill, I have two brutes that have this skill and I have seen them use it countless times. I have never once seen it fail to scare off at least one pet, so I am skeptical of the description saying it's only 50% effective. In my experience if there's one pet, it's 100% effective. If there's more than one, it's 100% effective in scaring off one pet. Basically if you face one pet, you scream once and it's gone; two pets, twice and they're gone. Extremely few high-rank brutes have two pets (Nex, Forza, Adrien, Momochi) and I've only seen one three-pet brute in the entire game.

But basically, I am taking it to get a sooner change. It's a niche skill, but it can open up a path that might contain more than just agility. And if it does contain just agility, I won't be worse off; I can make good use of agility, force, and endurance stats so if that's all I get, it's not a problem. The only downside would be if it gives me a bunch of rapidite vs. crappy weapons.

I did a subpath at level 18 and it was fair: 3 endurance, 3 endurance, 3 rapidite, 3 rapidite, sai, 3 endurance, 3 agilite, 3 rapidite. The sai was nice but not really better than the fouet, and the stats were poor. I have not tried a subpath at level 17. But I'm really hesitant to branch off that early because I would be giving up Herculeene at 24, and that one is critical. Without it, I'm stuck with a strength of only 7 and that's really not enough. With it, my strength is 15 and one level up gets me 19, another would get me 24.

Cri is a nice skill imo. I like it. At least, it activates more often than hypnose

Dealing with pets is not the main problem in top 20 in fact.
The main problem is that you generally waste too much time/attacks with them.
And when you challenge someone like Fauvy, flail + flail + flail = death...

You can't give up FH lvl 24 !

Go for cri so.
At least it does something, not like cook .. -.-