Strength is one of the most important stats in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, heavily affecting the difficulty and the dynamic nature of its melee-based combat system. If you’re having a tough time with the game’s combat and dying too quickly, this stat is the one to prioritize.

This stat mainly affects weapon control and the damage numbers of both armed and unarmed melee attacks, as well as increasing your carrying capacity, on top of affecting stamina depletion when wearing heavy armor. Given how important this stat is for ease of combat, there are definitely a few perks to keep in mind.

Grand Slam 1 And 2

Increases the weapon’s blunt damage by five percent.

Both parts of this perk increases the blunt damage of melee weapons by five percent, for a combined total of ten percent. While that might not seem like a big difference initially, these two make for a solid late-game perk once you’ve unlocked most of the other perks in the Strength category.

Given how many close encounters you can have during swordfights and often lose a good chunk of health just by taking a single direct enemy hit, that little increase in damage will help you take down enemies quicker and prevent your death in a lot of scenarios.

​​​​​Vanguard

Shield blocks now cost 30 percent less stamina.

If your combat build consists of a shield, then this one is a no-brainer. The Vanguard perk reduces the stamina cost of a shield block by a whopping 30 percent, not only letting you perform a lot more of these before you run out of stamina, but also letting you perform far more counterattacks that would otherwise not be possible if you were out of stamina.

With this perk, shield-inclusive builds with a single-handed weapon become a lot more appealing, as the amount of stamina normally drained by shield blocks is usually one of the biggest downsides.

Heracles

Your Charisma increases by one for every five levels of Strength.

If your build is focused on Charisma and spellchecks, then Heracles is pretty worthwhile. Your Charisma stat will get an additional point for every five levels of Strength.

This is a great perk to acquire anywhere ranging from mid-game to late-game sections. Your Strength will likely be around 20-30 at this point and this will give you several more Charisma points that can make late-game skillchecks, which are often influenced by higher than normal Charisma points, all that much easier.

Strong As A Bull

Increases your carrying capacity by 20 pounds.

This is also technically the third perk that increases your carrying capacity, with the previous one named Pack Mule increasing it by 12 pounds, and Hard-Working Lad increasing it by eight pounds. Strong as a Bull, on the other hand, increases the capacity by 20 pounds, being the most useful of the three. Still, it’s best to acquire all three perks for a total of 40 pounds increase, a massive jump up from the normal carrying capacity.

You can get away with the default carrying capacity, and the amount it scales to with your level-ups, but these two perks become very important if you find yourself always looting weapons and armor off of bandits. Looting and selling equipment from dead NPCs is one of the best ways to make a lot of money in the game, and the increased carrying capacity does make this process a lot smoother.

Wrestler

Makes it easier to win fights in the clinch.

The Wrestler perk gives you a big advantage during the clinch mechanism. Clinch happens when you’re extremely close to your opponent, and both of you ‘clinch’ your weapons against each other. During this, you have to mash the attack button very quickly in order to win the clinch and deal damage.

Failing to do so means that your opponent can stagger you and land a quick attack, often dealing a decent amount of damage and maybe even making the difference between life and death. Given how often the clinch takes place in melee battles, this perk gives you a big advantage.

Tight Grip

Makes it easier to knock out enemies or kill them stealthily based on your Strength stat.

Tight Grip is a perk that scales with your Strength skill, making it a lot easier for you to knock someone out or kill them via stealth. Normally when you try to knock an NPC out via choking, you get an attack button prompt that’s a little easy to miss. If you do succeed, then sometimes you get a parry button prompt that’s even easier to miss given the low timeframes for clicking it.

This perk often removes both of these prompts when you’re trying to knock someone out, based on your Strength. It also makes stealth kills easier to perform, hence being very useful if you’re going for a stealthier build.

Train Hard, Fight Easy 1 And 2

Each perk reduces the required Strength for all weapons by two and five respectively.

This two-part perk lowers the required Strength for all weapons, making them much stronger and also making them easier to handle. Since this perk applies to melee weapons of all types, it’s best to acquire it as soon as possible.

The first perk lowers the Strength by two, while the second perk lowers it by an additional five. The total value of seven can make a pretty big difference in combat, allowing you to do full damage with higher stat weapons, and making better use of weapons that match your current Strength stat.