Dead In Vinland – Battle Guide

This guide covers the combat aspect of the game, including trait selection, combat personnel arrangement, tactic strategy and boss fight tips.

Guide to Battle

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The contents of this guide come from my own personal understanding and experience after playing through the game, I do not suggest this is the best or the only way to manage the battles. Thank you for reading this guide and I hope it would be helpful.

Preamble

Combat and looting is an important and helpful (even necessary in Extreme Condition difficulty), the guide is meant to provide some guidance on who should fight, how to fight, and what the fighters should focus on trait selection. This guide is divided into the following sections

1. General analysis of different fighter classes and trait selection priority for them.
2. Character selection and battle team arrangement.
3. Tactic strategy in the battle.
4. Boss fight tip at the end of the game.

General Analysis of Different Fighter Classes and Trait Selection Priority for Them

In the game, characters are divided into five different classes: Warrior, Protector, Mythic, Shooter, and Civilian. The skills for the class are identical regardless of the specific character.

1. Protector

Protectors have the highest health and relatively low damage, like the name suggests, they can provide protection to their teammates and battlefield control to enemies. They have relatively high minimum damage and low maximum damage with high initial accuracy, so they would not be your main offensive character. When selecting trait for protector, the priority goes as the follow:

• Heath > Action Point (AP) > Damage Resistance > Minimum Damage > Initiative > Accuracy > Dodge > Critical Chance > Effect Resistance > Maximum Damage > Critical Resistance

For a protector, extra heath matters the most as it boost your survival and reduce your chance of gaining injury after battle (why it takes priority over damage resistance), with high health, you can use your protection skills on your teammate without concerning about yourself. Dodge is great but less reliable than damage resistance and health, additionally, a protector can stack up damage resistance for herself with Turtle Strike with some bonus damage than stacking up dodge.

AP allows a character to perform more action in one turn, and it is generally important for all combatants, with higher AP, a protector can stack up the defense and provide some debuff to the other side for the team, with high initiatives, you can make sure the protector always act first and their teammates can enjoy all the buffs they provided when they act.

In terms of damage, protector should not be your primary firepower, and they have relatively low initial critical chance and high accuracy, therefore, accuracy, critical chance, and maximum damage receives low priority; but with high minimum damage, they can be a reliable source of damage supplement.

2. Warrior

Warriors have the second highest health and highest base damage with relatively low initial accuracy and extremely low critical chance, warrior should be one of your primary damage source and they can absorb a solid amount of damage. When selecting traits for warrior, the priority goes as the follow:

• AP > Accuracy > Maximum Damage = Minimum Damage > Health > Damage Resistance > Critical Chance > Dodge > Initiatives > Effect Resistance > Critical Resistance

As mentioned above, AP is important for all combatants, but especially for your offensive character (warriors and shooters). High AP allows they to end the battle quickly to increase efficiency (you got other stuff to do in the game other than fight) and reduce the risk of injury.

Accuracy should take priority, but not excessive. Warriors has relatively low accuracy on their most powerful skills, but it was made up by War Cry, which increase your accuracy by 15%, so generally, an additional 10-15% accuracy should be enough. Warriors have such a high base damage range (as high as 8), increasing max and min damage has a great return, depends on your style, you can focus on one or the other, or balance the two. Critical Chance receives the lowest priority in offensive trait because warriors’ initial critical chance is way too low, even with the additional 7% from war cry it would still be far from reliable to bet on critical strike

Defensive traits generally take lower priority for warriors as they should be one of your main firepower. Due to the debuff from Berzerk Attack (warriors’ most powerful single-target skill), warriors are not as tanky as their health suggests, but stacking up health is always the most reliable way to increase survival and decrease injury.

3. Shooters

Shooters have moderate damage range, low health, and high critical chance and accuracy. Shooters should also be a primary damage source. When selecting traits for shooters, the priority goes as the follow:

• Critical Chance > AP > Maximum Damage = Minimum Damage > Dodge > Health > Accuracy > Effect Resistance > Initiatives > Damage Resistance > Critical Resistance

The most important trait for shooters undoubtedly would be Critical Chance. With high initial critical chance, stacking up critical chance can make it relatively reliable. For example, Sniper Shot has a 30% initial critical chance, with the 7% boost from War Cry, an additionally 13% Critical Chance would increase your CC to 50%, high maximum and minimum damage are also important as they are the base for critical strike’s modifier, accuracy matters the least as shooters have very high initial accuracy.

As mentioned above, generally speaking, health is the best defensive trait, but shooters make an exception to that. Shooters has the skill to increase their dodge by 40%, with some help from teammates, their dodge could easily go above 60% even 70%, with some additional dodge chance from trait would make it almost impossible to hit the shooter.

4. Mythic

Mythic has the lowest health, low damage, and moderate accuracy. Their main function would be buff up teammates and debuff the enemies. When selecting traits for mythic, the priority goes as the follow:

• AP > Initiatives > Health > Damage Resistance > Accuracy > Critical Resistance > Effect Resistance > Dodge > Minimum Damage > Maximum Damage > Critical Chance

Since the game does not have trait to improve buff efficiency or success chance, the only thing that matters for Mythic would be how many times they can use their skills and if they can use it before their teammates act. Then improve their chance to survive on the battlefield.

5. Civilian

Civilian is not recommended for battle.

On top of class categories, each character also belongs to one of the following secondary classes:

• Sturdy (cannot be critical stroke).
• Fast (increase initiatives when hitting enemies).
• Looter (increase loot obtained after winning the battle).
• Healer (decrease injury sustained).
• Precise (Critical Strike modifier increase to 2.5 instead of 1.5).

Character Selection and Battle Team Arrangement

The purposes of battle are simple: maximize the loot obtained and minimize injury sustained. Depends on how much you enjoy the fight, you could also want to end it quickly or enjoy every moment.

With that in mind, team arrangement guiding principle should be clear: we prioritize characters with looter trait and arrange them in the best possible way to defeat the enemy without sustaining much damage ourselves. Looter can stack with each other, and two even three looters can significantly increase the amount of loot. You should make sure your team contains at least two looters.

The following characters have looter trait: Cisse, Shanaw, Eustache, and Parvaneh. Since Parvaneh is a civilian, she’s out of the conversation.

The ideal team comb should have a defensive character to decrease the damage sustained, and at least one high damage fighter, and since you probably do not want anyone but Shanaw or Kari to be your explorer, one of them would necessarily be in the team. Here are a few recommended teams:

Team 1: Kari + Eustache + Cisse

This team would have Kari as the explorer, Eustache as damage absorb and Cisse as buff feeder. Even though Eustache is a warrior not a protector, he still has relatively high health, just remember avoid using Berzerk Attack and maybe shift focus on trait selection to defense a bit. A properly developed Kari should be able to do a ton of damage as her shooter class pairs perfectly with precise trait. With the buff feeding from Cisse and Eustache, Kari can easily one-shot an enemy if she lands a critical strike.

Team 2: Kari + Shanaw + Eustache

This team can have both Kari and Shanaw exploring, and significantly increase the exploration speed as the two would have very high affinity and exploration stats. Here, Shanaw would pretty much take the role of Cisse as buff feeder and use her dodging skill to make sure she survives.

Team 3: Shanaw + Eustache + Blode

This team would have Shanaw as the explorer. It is a very standard fighter/tank/shooter combo, even though Shanaw cannot deal damage like Kari because she does not have precise, this team can have Eustache to make up the damage missed.

Team 4: Cisse + Shanaw + Eustache

If you are really greedy, you could have all three looters in the battle, the basic would be the same from team 1, but this team would likely lack damage and prolong the fight with increased risk of injury, however, the reward might be worth it depends on how you arranged your camp, and this team consist three recruited characters, you would need to upgrade your shelter once to do so.

Team 5: Kari + Eustache + Blode

This team only has one looter, but it is in my opinion the strongest team, with Kari and Eustache, the team deals extremely high damage, while Blode can ensure the survival. If you wish to play safe or efficiently, this team would not be a bad choice.

After you selected your team, you should focus on fighting traits for combatants and skill traits for non-combatants, do not mix up the two as it would be inefficient.

Tactic Strategy in the Battle

Once you picked your team, there are some general tactic strategy you can follow in the battle. The battlefield is divided into front and back row, some skills might not be used in either row and some enemies or allies can not be targeted in either row. Character’s initial row assignment is random.

Front row is generally the row for protector and warrior, and back row is generally the row for shooter and mythic, some skills might be more powerful in either row.

Warrior

Warrior generally takes the front row, however, make sure your warrior’s War Cry also buff up your shooter, the additional Critical chance is valuable to shooter, even this means the warrior would have to waste an AP to move back. Bull’s Charge can move yourself to the front while pushing the enemy back with the cost of only 2 AP, this is generally good to adjust your own and the enemy’s position for AOE skills or waste their AP since some enemies like Shield Maiden and Berserker would always move to the front.

Protector

Protector generally takes the front row, and make decisions based on enemy’s skills. Enemies like Knives Guy, Berserker, Drunkard, and Shield Maiden cannot attack the back row, other enemies like Plunderer, Slaver, and Archer can attack the back row. When there is no threat to the back row, Protector can focus entirely on front row protection and control. Taunt is another good skill to adjust enemies’ positioning.

Shooter

Shooter generally takes the back row, however, most of their skills are more powerful in the front row. When shooters are moved to the front, so one potential positioning is shooter in the front and protector in the back, shooter would buff herself up with Evasive Stance and receive Impenetrable Wall from protector, and absorb damage by dodging it if your shooter has some dodge traits. If you are stick to Shooter-Step-Back rule and you were moved to the front, do not panic, you can use you are next at the front and hit and run to move back.

Mythic

Mythic should always stay back as they are very fragile, and they do not have the nimbleness that a shooter has, be cautious to use skill that would debuff yourself when there are enemies that can hit you.

There are also some general tips:

• When all enemies are stacked in one row, consider use AOE skill like Rain of Arrows and Wild Swing.
• Do not stand together when there is Berserker or Slaver on the other side since they also have AOE skills.
• Prioritize enemy not buffed or could be killed and would act after you in this turn.
• Prioritize enemy that could hit the back row to create a safe space for your character.

Boss Fight Tip at the End of the Game

There are five boss fight at the end of game. Four for Bjorn’s lieutenants and Bjorn himself. Before you are ready to beat the game, I would recommend craft all the battle items in forge for each of the combatants. Those armor and whetstone can stack up their effect, making you very powerful and the boss fight easy.

None of the other three lieutenant fights should be a problem if you are equipped with all the fight items and have picked some useful battle traits except Gwendolen.

Gwendolen has extremely high damage and damage resistance, most importantly, all of the buff you gained from items and traits would disappear except bonus health, but all the debuffs from traits would stay. That means you are pretty much fighting as three level 1 character with some permanent debuffs. You definitely would need some luck to defeat her. Bring Kari, Blode and a warrior and try to critical strike her (or have the warrior lands a few Berzerk Attack with maximum damage) and try to avoid standing in the same row as she would blast you with AOE skill.

Bjorn’s fight starts with himself and one companion, but he would summon another every turn until there are two of them, so do not waste your time on his companion just focus on him, if he happened to summon a Shield Maiden, you might wanna save scum. Weakened Bjorn is not very challenging if you let Elof poisoned him.

Recommended for You

• Dead In Vinland – Beginners Guide