What's all the fuss about the Man-at-Arms ? I'm on late game (going only on level 5 missions) and I couldn't find what his stchick is.
A attacker he is not, as his damage is mediocre.
His riposte is weak, because of his low damage (Highwayman's is light years better).
As a buffer/debuffer, I also can't see the point. He has some neat things with Guard and that debuff which makes enemies lose SPD and DODGE. But this isn't thaaaat good.
I tend to think another pure damager (like Shieldbraker) is usually better than him at any party. And if you really need a support /versatile dude, I think there are better ones like the Doggy guy (whose Mark lowers enemy Prot) or Plague Doc (stun gallore and bleed/blight treat) or even Occultist (debuff lowers DMG and Prot).
So, please , elucidated to me why Men-at-Arms has such a huge fame in the webz.
My experience with Darkest Dungeon can probably be summarized like this:
- "Ah ah ah, nice game, I'm having fun"
- "Oh, I finally unlocked high-tier quests"
- "Oh no, everyone is dying"
- "Time to try other heroes, my groups no longer work"
- "Maybe let's give the Man-at-Arms a try"
- "Nice, now my heroes are immortal, bye bye, I won the game"
Keep in mind, however, that I played the game prior to the patch of 19 June 2018, which heavily nerfed the Defender skill, from 25/30/35/40/45% to 15/18/22/26/30%. Back then, an unupgraded Defender was almost as strong as it is now when fully upgraded. You could use it two times in a row and get 90% PROT, which basically means enemies' attacks are going to always deal less than 10 damage each, even on crits. So you could put the MaA in rank 2 and endlessly spam Defender on your rank 1 guy (probably an Hellion) and, since most heavy-damaging attacks deal damage to someone in your first two ranks, you were guaranteed to never see your heroes die from damage.
Playing like this, I managed to go through the game even while being extremely bad at it; that's what the MaA represented for me: a way to breeze through the game even while being unable to play it well. I choose my party (Vestal/Houndmaster/MaA/Hellion) and I finished every single mission without switching a single character (except from very specific bosses and DD quests). My roster was something like 4 Vestals, 4 Houndmasters, 4 Hellions, 4 Man-at-Arms, a Plague Doctor and an Arbalest.
After the nerf, I was forced to learn how to play the game and now I am able to deal with different areas using different heroes, but the MaA, along with the Vestal and the Shieldbreaker, is still one of my top picks, because using him I learned to appreciate his skills: you can still gain obscene amount of PROT (it only takes longer to accumulate) and Defender is still my favorite skill in the entire game, but his other skills are almost always extremely useful. With Command you can substantially increase your damage capabilities (+25% is nothing to laugh at) and with Rampart you can competently stun the first two ranks while you deal with the most dangerous enemies behind.
To me, the MaA would be worth using even if that was everything he had going on for him, but he also has some of the best camping skills in the entire game: +10 dodge/+5% crit or +10% dmg/+8% crit to the entire party, +10 acc/+3 spd to a single companion, +15% prot/+15% damage to himself.
