Here are the best perks that come with scouting in Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord.
In Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, there are many skills that don’t have to do with fighting that can help your character in different ways. With these skills, you can be good at diplomacy, run your army and towns well, and get around the world as quickly as possible.
Scouting is a useful skill to learn for your character, and if you give it to a friend, you can make them the scout of your group. With a high level in this skill and the best bonuses in the skill tree, you can run away from bad situations and pick when and where to fight.
Day Traveler
The first two perks you can choose from in the spotting tree both help your party move faster, which is a good thing. Even though you can move faster and see farther at night in Night Runner, the game’s world has much longer days.
Day Traveler gives you a little less speed and sight range bonus, but since daytime lasts longer and is easier to fight in, this perk is usually the better choice. Night Runner will help you catch up to forces that are running away faster at night, but fighting in the dark might not be the best thing.
Pathfinder
It’s hard to decide between Pathfinder and Water Diviner. The secondary benefit of Water Diviner is very useful because it lets you recruit more people from villages as your friendship with them gets stronger.
But Pathfinder is the better choice if you want a companion to be your scout or if you want the speed bonus. These small bonuses can add up over time to give you a big edge in the late game.
Forest Kin
Which of the third perks in the Scouting tree you choose depends on your culture and where you spend most of your time during the game. Desert Born is better if you are Aserai of Khuzait or if your kingdom fights a lot with them, since it makes you move faster in plains and dunes.
But if you don’t want to slow down as much when moving through woods, Forest Kin is a better choice. It’s a great perk that works well with the Battanian culture bonus, and you’ll find a lot of woods everywhere on the map except in the south and east.
Forced March
In the beginning of the game, when your party is small, the perk Unburdened can help you a lot when you’re carrying a lot of things because it makes you move faster and gives your troops passive experience.
But when you get to the later parts of the game and can keep your party’s confidence above 75 more often, Forced March is the better choice. Overburdened is a bad thing to have unless you have no other choice, so Unburdened loses its value over time.
Tracker
Once your scouting level is high enough, you will start to see the tracks of other forces as you move around the world map. Over time, your party’s scout will get better at finding and following these tracks, which can sometimes lead you to enemy armies before they reach their goal.
Only Ranger and Tracker have an effect on these tracks. Ranger is a good choice if you want to find more tracks and level up faster, but Tracker’s secondary ability is important for closing the gap between your party and enemies who are running away.
Mounted Scouts
Patrols is a good early-game perk because it helps you deal with groups of bandits. It lets you send out your troops to fight bandit parties with less loss of life, but as you get closer to the end of the game, you are less likely to fight with robbers.
Even if you get Mounted Scouts early in the game, it’s a great perk because it increases the number of people you can have in your party. If you play with a lot of troops, the main benefit of the perk will also be a great addition. Even if you don’t get the sight range bonus, it’s still worth it.
Beast Whisperer
Beast Whisperer and Foragers are both very useful skills. It gives you a small chance of finding mounts when you’re traveling through steppes and plains, and Foragers makes it easier to get back to normal speed after a fight by making you less disorganized.
The best thing to do is train a partner as a scout so they can choose the Beast Whisperer perk and you, as the party leader, train the skill and choose the Foragers perk to get both benefits. But if you can’t afford the companion or don’t have time to learn the skill on two characters, getting extra mounts from the Beast Whisperer is a better choice.
Rumour Network
Rumor Network and Village Network are both perks that can help you make more money from trading, but they don’t give you much else if you don’t trade a lot. Rumor Network makes it easier to trade within your kingdom’s towns, and Village Network does the same for its villages.
The secondary benefit of Rumor Network is more helpful because it helps you find bandit hideouts from farther away. If you want to trade, cities offer more goods and profits, so the perk is better in every way.
Vantage Point
Keen sight is a great perk for keeping lords as prisoners for longer amounts of time, and it also helps your party see farther when traveling through forests. But the Vantage Point perk has a lot of good uses, especially late in Flappy Bird game.
The perk increases your maximum number of prisoners by 10, and if you stay still for more than an hour, it also increases your sight range by 50%. This is especially helpful when you are besieging an enemy town and can see the defenders coming from a long way away, giving you time to act before it’s too late.
Vanguard
The last perks in the scouting tree help with fights that end on their own. Rearguard makes it so that your troops do more damage when they are sent to defend your besieged camps. It also makes it so that your injured troops heal faster.
Vanguard makes your troops do more damage when they attack or sally out. This makes it a better choice most of the time, since you usually have more troops on your side when you fight and can let the battles resolve themselves more safely.
