gaydwarf of course.

Originally posted by Danson:

Originally posted by Polonius Ulf:

Past the bronze age, greydwarf battles are for skilling-up. I like to preserve the Shamans as long as possible.

I try to get at least one parry in on every enemy that attacks me, even if I can one shot them, and as a result my block skill is quite high. I also use basic workbench weapons on weak enemies so that I'm not damaging the durability of my weapons that require a forge to repair while I'm out and about. Bonus points if that makes the enemies take two hits to kill -- double the XP.

Well met in the wild!

I like to find a rancid bone pile in a burial chamber and just back into a corner with a #1 wood club (or whatever) but a good shield. You can get three or four skeletons pounding on your shield at once, and it takes at least a couple of hits to turn each of them into bone piles. Put on some war music and plan long-term strategy.

You can nerf bow-shots, and take three-to-five hits for a skeleton. With greylings and greydwarfs, too. This is huge help in the early game, when low archery skills are so painful.

I agree with everyone calling Greydwarf Brutes "Block Trainers". They're really good for that provided the ground is pretty level so they don't do that wander away and come back thing.

Aaah, the patrol of Greydwarves in the sunny morning.

It is excellent for training parry (two at a time, if you move well), and when I am in the mood, they can last as long as my rest bonus lasts.

the shaman was worse early game but they nerfed poison damage and since then its been a joke. Now the shaman is a priority target because it heals the rest of them, but its otherwise near harmless unless ** which may put out enough toxin to hurt you. Also the toxin attack is stupidly easy to avoid.

the brute is more dangerous, it attacks more rapidly than any other and hits harder.

Sword skeletons are much better block trainers IMO. Their stagger animation is funnier, and skeletons don't do the silly avoidance dance. They just come at you.

But, that's fun for about a minute, then it get boring.

Also, brutes are a good practice to feel in your flesh the difference between a successful parry and a lame block, with enough health and stamina or not.

brute hands down.

It's very easy to dispatch a shaman even in meadows gear... unless you are also chased by brutes at the same time

The brute is the most dangerous one-on-one, but as @RequiemRose points out, the Shaman heals other mobs, so they become the priority in a group. You can also take them out faster.

Past the bronze age, greydwarf battles are for skilling-up. I like to preserve the Shamans as long as possible.

Originally posted by Polonius Ulf:

Past the bronze age, greydwarf battles are for skilling-up. I like to preserve the Shamans as long as possible.

Finally I see someone in the wild who gets it! The folks who complain about greydwarves just being "an annoyance" are also the people who complain about skills taking too long to level up and the death penalty to skills being too severe. Then they complain about standing torches needing resin, like it doesn't just walk up to you. Then they complain about long corpse runs because they don't have an abundance of convenient portals since they can't be bothered to collect greydwarf eyes.

I try to get at least one parry in on every enemy that attacks me, even if I can one shot them, and as a result my block skill is quite high. I also use basic workbench weapons on weak enemies so that I'm not damaging the durability of my weapons that require a forge to repair while I'm out and about. Bonus points if that makes the enemies take two hits to kill -- double the XP.

When it comes to how many hits they can take or how hard they hit overall, I believe the brute wins. Though the brute might just be the easiest mob in the entire game to lazily perfect parry as well.
The shaman only takes like 2 hits to kill (0 star at least) but it's kind of a support role for greydwarfs. Not only are they the earliest enemy that can poison you (for like 5 seconds which you pretty much always survive unless you haven't eaten a single thing), they heal any nearby greydwarves and even trolls.

In a group (especially "the forest is moving" raid) I prioritize the shaman first, mostly so it can't undo all my other work in the fight. I tend to save brutes for last but that's because they CAN go down in 2-3 hits if you parry them and get the staggered crit, and its much easier to time blocks perfectly when you dont have like 8+ incoming damage sources.