Abelard Werserian is the very first companion that joins your side inWarhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. This tanky companion is a Navy Officer Warrior, capable of dealing deadly melee blows. While controlling and upgrading your main character, you will also get to choose talents for Abelard.
Talents are passive abilities that affect the character in question. More talents can be chosen upon leveling up, and you may start to feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of possible choices. Here, we are going to go over some of the best talents to choose from Abelard in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.
7Heavy Armor Proficiency
First, we have Heavy Armor Proficiency. This is a simple talent that allows Abelard to wear heavy armor. As a tanky member of your party, this is ideal if you send him charging into a group of enemies. With powerful attacks and heavy armor, Abelard won’t instantly start to take heavy damage.
Heavy armor has a variety of effects, with Deflection being unique. This is essentially a set percentage of reduced damage due to the sheer strength of the armor. For example, the Heavy Leather Armor has a deflection of one.
6Thick Skin
Thick skin is another talent that can greatly boost Abelard’s tanking abilities. With Thick Skin, Abelard will gain one deflection. Additionally, he will have a chance to parry attacks based on your total armor.
It goes without saying, but any talent that boosts Abelard’s defensive power is worth it. Combined with Heavy Armor Proficiency, there is not much that can take down this warrior. Total deflection can be found directly under Abelard’s character portrait, displayed with the little icon that looks like an arrow bouncing off a shield.
5Contempt
Now that Abelard is tanky, it’s time to boost his damage. Contempt will increase TGH bonus damage for Abelard’s next attack after being attacked by another enemy. TGH stands for toughness, or “how easily a character can shrug off injuries”. With this in mind, TGH bonus damage essentially deals more damage when Abelard has more toughness.
As a warrior, Abelard’s toughness is increased. With sturdy armor and improved Toughness characteristics chosen, you will be able to deal heavy damage in retaliation to enemies within melee range.
4Crowd Kill
Crowd Kill isn’t always necessary, but if you favor AoE attacks, then this talent is great. With Crowd Kill, you will deal additional damage based on every enemy within the area. The damage is based on total strength, which is a characteristic that increases melee damage.
So, with Crowd Kill, AoE attacks will do more damage, giving Abelard crowd-controlling abilities. As a melee character, it can be easy to focus on taking down a single enemy at a time, but with a cleaving weapon, you may easily take out groups of enemies.
3Ramming Speed
Ramming Speed is another simple talent, which increases Charge distance by three. While this may not sound the most impressive, it can be especially helpful if you are trying to cover more ground. For example, say an enemy is pretty far away. After using up all of Abelard’s movement points, you may be slightly out of range for change.
Three extra cells added to the distance of Charge can be the difference between killing an enemy, and having them shoot you first. Additionally, keep in mind that Charge does not count towards the limit of attacks.
2Reckless Fury
Reckless Fury is pretty straightforward; gain a critical hit chance based on your weapon skill while using Reckless Strike. Reckless Strike is an AoE melee attack that deals armor-penetrating damage while ignoring parry.
Enemies that survive this attack will then attack Abelard in return. This is important for two reasons; first, when combining Reckless Fury and Crowd Kill, you can easily kill every enemy in range of the attack. Secondly, this attack essentially causes enemies to focus on Abelard and attack. There are multiple other talents that provide benefits when enemies attack him first.
With all of this in mind, Reckless Fury has a bit of a domino effect, leading to more overall damage to enemies within a small area.
1Disarm
Lastly, we have Disarm. This is another armor-boosting talent. Disarm will grant Abelard armor against the last target he hit with a melee attack. The armor is calculated with his toughness in mind, so a higher toughness will provide more armor.
It’s not necessary to have every toughness/armor talent at the same time, but with a few selected, Abelard can become a powerful tank that can deal deadly blows to anyone who dares attack him first.
