Can I ask you all for more tips about nimble builds? I must be doing it wrong, because my nimble characters keep getting wrecked. Did you all purely pump HP, Mattack, Mdefense? Did you use fencing weapons or or other one-handers?
Is Dodge ever worth it?
I don't take dodge on anyone who isn't expected to have high initiative -- your nimble melee bros will always build up fatigue, so their initiative will always be low and so the boost you gain will be minuscule. You could burn a perk to get the one that reduces initiative decay from fatigue, but it's not going to be a noticeable difference unless you're building a specific dodge/shield tank. I tend to avoid tanks but to each their own. I do take dodge on archers if I have nothing else to put points into, but generally I avoid it on anyone I expect to always be building up fatigue -- since my front liners are usually 2handers with berserk, this means they attack a lot and also get hit/swung at a lot, and so their fatigue is reduced (if an enemy swings at you and misses, it still takes 2 fatigue from you per swing/miss. Hits take 5 or more depending on the weapon.)
For a 2hander melee bro using say a greatsword or greathammer, I usually level them up using normal armor until I unlock nimble, at which point I will gear them with a chain shirt + sallet, with a leather armor addon to the chain shirt. This isn't full use of the nimble perk since you're over the 15 fatigue/weight limit, but you get most of the perk and some armor to help soak hits in general. Their end game armor is famed ofc but a good mid step is noble mail + sallet with the direwolf attachment or bone plating. If you find a very good famed armor or helmet, that works too, but the goal is to keep nimble reducing about 50% damage or more. Eventually you can use the unhold fur based addons that reduce ranged damage or armor-ignoring damage depending on what you find yourself fighting.
For build I pump Melee offense ofc, melee defense, and alternate the other point between HP, Fatigue, and Resolve depending on which you need. In my cultist run, resolve isn't an issue, so I can focus more on HP and Fatigue.
My front liners have over 100 HP all with the colossus perk (a few have 120 due to very good rolls).
They have buffed reach advantage a lot, and so I use that whenever possible. It now adds a _flat_ +5 to your melee defense per hit. So theoretically you can get maximim 95% chance to not take damage if you swing a 2handed axe at 6 enemies, kill one and use the round swing again due to berserk. This is very unlikely tho -- but what is VERY likely is hitting 2 enemies in one swing or in two swings and getting a +10 to your defense.
That's probably more than what dodge would give you in almost all circumstances for anyone running around the front line. This doesn't work so well on bros using something like the greatmace or a longaxe tho, so mind that the goal is to get AOE hits in. Great hammer is great for this.
I also prioritize causing morale damage to enemies not only to get free hits via flee, but also to reduce any confident enemies (it boosts them) and to gain confidence on my own units (boost me).
Also it's very important to have a few characters with indomitable (all my front liners take it but you don't need to go that hard with it) so you can soak orcs and unholds stun attacks (and also so you can stand surrounded by 6 people and basically take no damage).
EDIT: Perk path for me, tho not set in stone in order necessarily is, for nimble something like Student -> Colossus -> Recover -> Weapon Mastery -> Underdog (I usually play with a sub-12 company so getting surrounded is the norm) -> Nimble -> Indomitable -> Berserk -> Killing Frenzy
This leaves 2 for things like adrenaline, reach advantage, pathfinder, rotation, duelist, etc.
I don't like taking gifted in most cases but if you have a really crappy temporary brother I think it's fine. The bonuses you get from it are just sort of lack luster compared to something like 25% extra damage, being able to go first next turn to ensure a kill or to rotate/stop bleeding on one of your chars.
