Wrapped Handles

Basher and Wrapped Handles are the first two perks you can choose from in the one-handed tree. Basher improves your shield bash and your infantry’s defence if you are the captain of them. Shield bash does so little damage that increasing it by 50% doesn’t make much of a difference, and the second bonus can be given to a friend who leads your infantry.

The Wrapped Handles perk helps your fighting skill more when you use it for yourself. Better weapon handling makes it easier to do advanced moves like momentum attacks and chamber blocking, and it also makes it easier for troops under your direction to fight with one hand.

To Be Blunt

The second one-handed perk comes down to personal choice in the end. Swift Strike makes you faster with all weapons, while To Be Blunt makes your axes and maces do more damage. The extra benefit of these perks is for governors, so your character can’t use it.

If you want to use swords, the best choice is Swift Strike. But if you want to use axes and maces, the best choice is To Be Blunt. But if you want your character’s fighting skills to be as good as possible, maces are usually the best type of weapon to use late in the game because they ignore a good amount of enemies’ armour.

Cavalry

The next perk choice, like the last one, relies on how you like to play. The first choice, Cavalry, increases your damage while horseback, and the second choice, Shield Bearer, increases your speed while on foot.

So in late-game, larger battles, it’s usually best to stay mounted. With better mobility, despite you can move your troops around the battlefield more easily and get out of risky situations quickly.

Trainer

The fourth option in the one-handed tree is a simple perk. The first choice is Duelist, but improves your damage by 20% if you don’t have a shield and doubles the renown you get from tournaments. Even with the huge boost to power, not having a shield is still too bad.

Trainer, on the other hand, improves your hit points, which is a useful effect that can be combined with other perks that make you more durable. It also speeds up the rate at which you can upgrade your troops, which is a nice bonus.

Shieldwall

The next few benefits in this skill tree are small, but they can help you in the long run. The Arrow Catcher increases the size of your shield against bullets but gives your troops a small shield size bonus. Arrows aren’t likely to hit you while you’re holding your shield, so this benefit isn’t as useful.

Shieldwall reduces the damage your shield takes if certainly you block in the wrong way and makes your troops’ shields bigger. Having a shield that also lasts longer can be more useful in long fights. Despite the second perk at this level is an improved version of the other perk.

Military Tradition

In one-handed perks, the sixth choice is a close one. Your troops gain experience in different ways depending on whether you use Corps-a-corps or Military Traditions. The best choice depends mostly on how you play Flappy Bird game and what is going on at the time.

Corps-to-corps can be more useful if you are always at war and certainly move from battle to battle. But Military Traditions is a better choice for most playthroughs because of its passive daily buff.

Lead By Example

Basically the next option is simple. Even though the second benefit of the Stand United perk doesn’t apply to the main character, it does help boost spirit in battle if you are outnumbered. This can be a big help when fighting against a large group.

Lead by Example boosts morale in battle by a smaller amount in every case, but the second benefit also speeds up the rate at which your troops gain experience, which stacks with a few other perks in this tree and lets you improve your infantry much faster.

Fleet Of Foot

Finally the results of the eighth perk in the one-handed tree are very different. Fleet of Foot makes you and your troops move faster during battle, and Steel Core Shields makes your shields last longer.

In Bannerlord, shields are already hard to break, especially if you chose the Shieldwall perk at a lower level. So it’s possible that the Steel Core Shields perks go too far and don’t do much. Most of the time, faster action can have a much bigger effect.

Unwavering Defense

At this level, the Deadly Purpose perk gives you and your troops a big boost to damage, but Unwavering Defence has a better chance of making your army better in the long run.

Although this perk gives you five more hit points and gives your foot troops ten more hit points. With some athletics and medicine perks, you can make your character and his or her troops have a lot more hit points. At this point, this makes them stronger and better than most other forces.

Prestige

Like every other perk tree, the last perk of the one-handed tree is a single perk, but we get to choose between Chink in the Armour and Prestige for the last perk. Chink in the Armour can be useful if you use maces a lot, but the side effect of Prestige is too good to pass up.

With prestige, also your damage against shields goes up, and your party size goes up by a huge +15. If you’re not doing a special run where you want to keep your party small, the best perk is one that makes your party bigger.