Help with Handmaiden

I would like to create an Handmaiden usefull for crowd control, and also specialized in boss melting with hagbane. Could you give me some advices about melee weapons and perks on every item?

Going to be a bit difficult, as her more effective crowd-control or crowd-clear weapons are also the ones less effective against armor, and you can’t compensate for that using Hagbane. That said, Glaive is good against both crowds and armor as long as you learn to use it well. Its best attack pattern against hordes is push-attack, attack, push-attack, attack, but that requires some building with Stamina Regen in mind. That isn’t such a big issue with her, though. I can’t say anything about specific breakpoints, but Attack Speed never goes wrong and Parry can also help survivability. The Spear is her best control weapon, but unless you can headshot very reliably, it suffers against armor (and likely even then). For the bow, getting some ammo retain in the form of Scrounger and Crit chance would probably be good, as you likely will struggle with ammo on Hagbane. To deal with Bosses, Power vs. Monsters is a useful addition, and if you decide you don’t need extra ammo retention, trading Scrounger for Barrage could be worth it.

Anything else is hard for me to pin down at least from memory, but for lvl25 Talent you might want to consider Handmaiden’s Grace (or Bladedancer, but that seems to be broken for now) instead of Gift of Ladrielle, as you may want to be able to keep the enemies’ attention on yourself even when using Dash.

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I cant’ give you an exact build… what you want is a little too broad with not enough detail to know how you want to deal with elites and specials. does your party makeup have someone to kill these?

Crowed control - spear or perhaps dual swords. Glaive if you need to kill elites.
Avoid invisibility on the Dash -
Your going to need the extra ammo on the bow for boss fights. though personally I’d go with the push strength.
Take 15% attack strength, or perhaps clear wounds on boss death.
Improve stamina regen or push strength, on swords.
quicker cool down on dash or stronger effect…

I don’t have time right now to be more specific sorry.

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Speccing for boss killing is a waste. Bosses are a cakewalk as it is.

That would all depend on your skill, while I can semi-reliably solo all of them I know people who struggle with them. (and I certainly don’t have boss dancing down pat for all of them yet.)

Also deeds can make it more worthwhile to kill bosses quickly.

For melee weapons, you have a bunch of different options. One obvious one is dual daggers. They absolutely murder armor (one charged attack will one shot stormvermin), they one shot fanatics with bleed damage, and they have the mobility to dance around hordes all day long. Their weakness is that they have minimal cleave, so they are weak vs heavy crowds. However, handmaiden ult will kill skavenslaves, clanrats, and fanatics by itself, so you can rely on ult to handle hordes too dense for your daggers to deal with. This is a very fun playstyle for handmaiden, but you won’t be a reliable frontline for your party – you are too reliant on dashing away from your party for damage. Here, take whatever you want for properties – there are no really important breakpoints to hit. Trait is also pretty wide open.

Your next option is glaive. You will get much better horde clear (you really can hold a choke if you use it well), and it is still solidly effective against armor. You need 10% vs infantry to one shot fanatics on legend, you want swift slaying, and you want all the attack speed and crit you can get. By default, it is definitely a bit slow, but you can turn it into a very solid weapon with the right build. Your basic anti-horde combo is push-stab/slash/repeat, and with handmaiden, you have the stamina to do it all day.

Next is 1h sword. It’s very mobile, it is decent against armor, and it is decent against hordes. I almost think of it as a baby glaive. Half(ish) the damage output. less stagger, more mobility, and it can use the same push-stab/slash/repeat combo. Personally, I switched from the 1h sword to the glaive, so that should tell you my relative opinion of the two weapons. Still, though, it works. You need 1.1% vs infantry to 2 shot fanatics on legend, which is probably the most important breakpoint available. Beyond that, up to you. Traits are also pretty fluid.

The final weapon I’d recommend is sword and dagger. It’s decent against hordes, and the second charged strike is really good (it’s the same as the first dual dagger charged strike). The downside is that their left clicks are a bit lower on damage than you’d really prefer, and the first charged strike is terrible vs armor. In practice, you often have to intentionally miss the first charged strike so you can land the second charged strike on an armored target at the right time, and that can be a bit of a pain. I’ve never used them much myself, so I can’t recommend a build.

There are a bunch of other weapons with solid horde clear (dual swords and spear come to mind), but they are mostly really bad against armor. The standard workaround for that is to bring a longbow, but you want to use hagbane instead. If you are playing on a lower difficulty, you might be able to take one of those weapons and pray that your team can handle stormvermin on their own, but I wouldn’t recommend that strategy on champion or legend.

For talents, you really want eldrazor’s precision, health on kill, and stealth on ult. Every breakpoint I mentioned relies on eldrazor’s precision, health on kill is standard on everyone, and stealth on ult is amazing. The ammo talent at 5 is probably the most useful one available (particularly if you are going hagbane). At 15, any of them are plausible, though I go with more dodge range.

Also, consider switching to waystalker. Hagbane’s big weaknesses are that it is meh at special sniping, weak vs elite (unless you have a strength pot), and is low on ammo. Waystalker covers all of those weaknesses nicely – ult is good against specials and armor, and waystalker gives plenty of ammo regen. You still can’t spam hagbane arrows at every single skavenslave, but you will have plenty to shred bosses and hordes. For melee, take any weapon I mentioned above, though dual daggers are probably the best option. Just remember that the breakpoints may change a bit, since you no longer have eldrazor’s precision.

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Feedback is not “general discussion”.

Wrong section, but I main HM/WS. Over 200+ levels on the elf, most on the HM which I call the daggermaiden.

http://verminbuilds.com/#af8fa7d5a647-4b7e8c953a12

That’s your build, weapons at the bottom. Daggers are amazing once you learn how to use them. Because of the massive stamina regen on HM, make sure you’re throwing out pushes every few attacks. The daggers are putting DoTs on enemies as well, so when they get knocked down, they are still taking damage. Normally I do a few light attacks, block push, few more dodge right or left, repeat. If you really can’t get used to daggers, glaive is still really good, even after the nerf hammer hit it hard. You do the first two light attacks then block to cancel and repeat or you can just do the first attack and block push, similar to Krubers halberd.

With this setup of Power VS, you will melt the most dangerous bosses with the hagbane. 30% more damage on Choas Spawns and Trolls, 20% more on Stormfiend, and for the easiest, 10% on Rat ogre. This is ontop of the 25% more damage from barrage on the hagbane, and with your talent you have another 15% more power. If you drink a strength potion and use the hagbane, you are hitting well over 1,000 damage per DoT. You’ll also deal 30% more damage to CWs with daggers and you can 1 shot storm vermin in the face with said daggers.

Also, when you use your ult, you can cancel; it mid dash with right click. This is useful for staying at the front, or if the enemies are coming in a massive line, dash through, with the 20% more dodge talent, you can back stab slashing enemies on the floor as you get back to your starting spot. Very useful.

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My recommendations for builds that have good CC potential and are still more than decent against armour and bosses (I am in the very fortunate position to have all of Keri’s weapons as reds, so it is very easy for me hit all relevant break points)

  • Glaive: I omit attack speed in favour of 10% damage vs. armour and chaos chaos damage on the glaive itself. The additional break points you hit justify the drop in attack speed imho, since the push attack combo described by @retief is fast enough in itself and fast enough that you pretty much have swift slaying up all the time during a horde. The additional 10% chaos damage mean you can 2-shot marauders with body shots, deal with maulers more efficiently and together with the armour boost, let you dispatch CW with (I think 4, nor sure, have to look that up later) heavy attacks. The 10% armour boost is also enough to kill stormvermin with one heavy attack combo without the need for hitting the head, which is easy enough with the glaive, but can become more difficult to hit if there’s more enemies around. Also, knowing that you can guarantee a SV kill with one heavy combo landed is just very reliable. The armour damage also helps the hagbane to skill SV (and especially: SV patrols). The glaive paired with the hagbane is, imho, Keri’s most well rounded setup. No real weakness, strengths, in horde clearing and boss killing and very satisfactory armoured elite killing.

  • 1h Sword: Has many break points to consider. Kills SV out of the box with 2 heavy attack headshots, only needs minimal vs. infantry or chaos damage to 2 shot fanatics with light attacks. With 10% damage vs. chaos and infantry, you can 1 hit kill marauders with heavy attack headshots, though you gotta know if this is worth it for you. My recommendation here would be also chaos and armour on charm for fanatic killing and crit chance and skaven on sword since 20% vs. skaven and armour allows you to 2 shot bodyshot SV and the extra damage vs. CW is always welcome. The 1h sword is an almost criminally overlooked weapon considering its versatility and very favourable attack patterns. For horde clearing, my recommended attack combos would be “light, light, block cancel”, “light, light, heavy” for wider sweaps on the third strike and if needed, open your combos with push, push attack, which is also very good on sword ( so push, push attack, light or push, push attack, light, heavy). Trait depends on where you want to go with it. SS slaying always works on a fast weapon like sword, but the sweaps also make it very good with RC - and horde clearing with HM dash is always a good option.

  • Sword and Dagger: Light attacks are weak, but can be pushed to 1h kill slave rats with 20% damage boost. 1st heavy attack can kill fanatics in 1 hit with 10% infantry/chaos bonus. 2nd heavy kills SV out of the box with headshot, but can be tricky to apply properly. My setup goes for skaven damage and crit chance on weapon (RC) and chaos and infantry on charm. Hits most relevant break points and allows for very agile play. Attacks are either light, light, block cancel or light, light, light, block cancel (for that nifty dagger swing and DoT) and the occasional heavy attack against chaos hordes. RC allows for frequent repositioning and even better horde damage.

As for dual daggers, they are not designed as CC weapons, but can be made such with HM mobility, swift slaying and hitting all relevant break points. @SmokerT69 gives a good build and one of two I use myself. For better horde clearing, I’d recommend the same setup as Sword and Dagger, as it allows to kill slave rats in one hit (yes, they die after one hit, anyway, due to damage over time, but clearing them faster is preferable as they might eat hits that result in overkill. Also, your charm’s properties improve your dash bleed damage, so anything that kills chaos hordes faster is good for horde clearing). SV killing works without any additional bonus power, anyhow, and the 10% bonus damage vs chaos is enough to, hypothetically, kill CW with 4(?) headshots. They still die fast enough, anyhow, and since you wanted a more horde-cleary build, try this one. It is, however, reliant on ALOT of moving and dodging.

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I peronally despise hagbane and glaive, so won’t be able to give you my opinion on that (while at the same time remain objective). I tend rotate through all of HM’s weapons quite regularly to keep my skill with all fo them as high as possible.

That said I find Spear and 2h-sword very effective CC weapons (with the same properties: 5/5 attack speed/crit chance + Swift Slaying). Both of these weapons have pretty good (although not great) charged attacks, useful agains armored enemies. However you have to aim these quite well (which can be difficul in certain scenarios).
As my main AP and Monster melting weapon I use LB (monsters/armor + Conservative shooter) as I’m able to hit headshots very reliably.

My current HM build: http://verminbuilds.com/#af6b5709538e-122520798ea9

As a short end note… I’ve always been the guy who sticks to the idea that you can make every weapon/trait/whatever combination work in any situation if you try and train hard enough.
So my final advice to you is, ignore the so-called “meta” and all these randoms kicking you for not following it.
Pick whatever you find interesting and fun to play and stick with it. It may be hard in the beginning, but eventually you will get there!

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You can’t get power Vs armour on the glaive O_o

He actually asked for a boss killing build with hagbane, which is what I built for him. xD The build I gave is certainly not meta. Most skilled players don’t have to build for bosses as they can easily kill them. None the less, the build I gave is a good carry build for randoms. You can delete Chaos bosses with around 10-15 hagbane arrows. As bosses during hordes tend to be what normally wipe QP parties. Ontop of that, you take zero risk, because with your 20% dodge, the chaos spawn can never catch up to you, and if you run out of room to dodge, simply use your ult and it will lose agro on you. Continue killing.

Also, your build is very wasteful. That extra 10% attack speed does very little… You can hit 0.5 seconds faster or so. But with the proper power Vs, you would be dealing more damage to 1 shot mobs instead.

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Should have phrased that a little less… awkward. The first two go “on the glaive”, as in “my glaive-maiden build”. Chaos and armour on charm, chaos and crit chance on the glaive :slight_smile:

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Also, just to clear something up, you are asking for a legend build right? Cause that’s what I gave you… below legend, you can really do whatever you want and should be able to clear nearly everything without issues. HM is a great clutch class though with the low cooldown on her ULT, which makes you lose agro, so you can pick up downed team mates. Don’t be afraid to fire a charged(heavy attack) hagbane at a downed team mates who is being pounded on by rats. The hagbane heavy impact is massive, you will knock back everything hitting him, and any horde mobs will die from the DoTs before they stand back up or try to get in another hit.

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I didn’t refer to any particual response from people. That was just my general after-though and conclusion.

Not really, that bonus attack speed keeps my swift-slaying uptime. And about that Vs prop, which one do you have in mind in terms of one-shotting?

Fair enough.

Comply depends on the weapon, check out the breakpoints spreadsheet and then work towards what you want to 1 hit kill.

Just saying that the attack speed is pretty useless on nearly all builds. You gain a very slight attack speed increase, but you have to hit the enemies a lot more. It’s actually better to just build for breakpoints and 1 shot them instead of having to swing 3-5 times. Also, most “gud” weapons you don’t do full combo’s anyway, you do 1-2 attacks and block cancel for maximum damage output.

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IMO optimal legend build is DnD [attack speed+block cost reduction or chaos+block cost reduction] properties, [parry] trait; Hagbane [chaos+monster] properties. [barrage] trait; HP+block cost reduction on neck; chaos+monster on charm; movement speed+curse resistance on trinket; 3-2-2-2-1 tallents.

If you want more waveclear you can go SnD or Glaive, you can also run RC or SS with crit on weapon and trinket but I think it’s a little overkill, you can destroy any horde prety good just with daggers and your ult, if you have hyperstacked chaos horde and your ult is on CD you can shoot 1-2 heavy shots with your hagbane and finish them off with daggers.

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I’ve tried several “breakpoint builds” but eventually ended up using this attack speed build for Swift-slaying uptime, since I enjoy it more. It’s not like I’m dragging my team down by playing this way in any way (if the stats shown at the end of the match are reliable).

Maybe if they add harder gamemode in the future I’ll have to adjust my playstyle, but right now, Legend is way too easy to justify me minmaxing like a mandman, IMHO.

But I’m already getting way off the OP’s topic.

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Thanks guys :heart:… so whit 10% vs chaos OR infantry I can kill fanatics with one hit; same thing with 10% vs armor against SV. Nice.

Could I have the breakpoints spreadsheet?

http://verminbuilds.com/#43df51d9612c-c68fe819519f

Something like this. This honestly isn’t a difficult subclass to build. You hit all the relevant breakpoints with just Eldrazor’s Precision – especially factoring in dagger poison.

I personally like atk speed/crit (since you already have the crit increase from a dual weapon) and I find block cost reduction redundant with DD/parry in regular legend – since it already has one of the lowest block delays in the game and you have a 3 sec invisibility/escape every 10-20 seconds.

You could probably yank 5% atk speed on charm and pick Skaven instead. This is really only helping you on bosses, though. Otherwise, you’ll probably get more use out of more atk speed.

As a side note, I personally find hag a little redundant. You already have crowd control and horde clear in your ult and hag’s not awesome for specials (requiring multiple hits) or horde clear – since you presumably want to save ammo for a boss. Plus, dagger damage vs. bosses is already ridiculous, so eh? You could drop hag for LB (conservative shooter) or SB (barrage/scrounger) and probably see better overall performance in a normal group legend game. Definitely better if you are running solo.

Or just make almost an identical build on WS and it would do exactly what you want but with better ammo return and an ult that can compensate for hag’s poor long-range snipe…

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this one is up to date right?

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