First impressions with the update

[Cynaidh]

So we have had it for a couple of days now, whats everyone's first impression with the update?

For me by specialty i'd say:

Theatrics - So many options! I wish I had more of them to try out the various builds, it seems like every time i fight a theatrics they are a different build.

Offensive warrior - BOOM i jumped on your head! Haha that about says it all, they do look to be a lot of fun if you can keep them from passing out from the new weight of heavy armor.

Defensive warrior - OMG Scum are back! Already have seen 100 round fights between 2 scum, cant wait for challenges... me and Prinny will be going for a 20 minute fight as our first goal.... a stare off. :)

Rage - Still working on this one. I run a lot of rages and am not sure how i feel yet as massive strategy changes are needed with this update for rages, Adrenaline Rush is an amazing replacement for last stand (until surprise ending steals your buff anyways!), the new endurance rules are interesting to say the least, and these new scum warriors are very tough nuts to crack open.

[Kreegan]

these new scum warriors are very tough nuts to crack open. Sunder Armour + Called Shot + Rampage could get you there easier than expected. Especially the two-handers.

[oedi]

Im very happy with the update, especially the impact on when to use the different activity settings. I now run gladiators using the whole scale, where i used only from 6-10 before and usually only avery small difference between the various triggers. Im mostly happy with my own decissions with a few theatrics and war that look really good. Im sad to say that i made a terrible mistake with 011, and she is now totally out. Hopefully ill be able to repair the damage when we can start to retrain again.

[Cynaidh]

Im sad to say that i made a terrible mistake with 011, and she is now totally out.

I know others have done this too, Nate is there any chance of maybe like 1 redo per stable allowed for us that made errors?

[Dainoji]

I'm very happy with the update, like Oedi I find myself using the entire spectrum of options now. Where I used to go full tilt berserk with my rage glads I now use all of the fighting styles in combination with a wide range of activity levels and blood lust. Personally I hate defensive war builds who sole purpose is to make the other glad pass out as the fights are rather boring, but they are a great addition to the game because it adds another dimension that wasn't really there previously and it causes everyone to take notice and build something into their strategy to handle them. Each tree has great skills and I found myself really torn when doing the respec because there were just so many cool skills. It's too early to see how balanced everything is, but so far it looks to me like it's balanced fairly well based on my fights.

Bottom line, I think the update just added a ton of new options and depth in a way that made everything feel new yet familiar.

[sevenseas]

I'm still undecided, My rages are really needing some help. I was just starting to get the hang of things too....but my theatrics seem to be doing much better than before, and i'm not even trying with them yet.

Yeah Oedi, i was wondering what happened with 011, i expected her to still be dominate...now Snot Rocket can eat her alive....what do you think you did wrong?

[Lunarion199]

I am happy that my wars have started defeating ragers based on damage rather than tiring them out! But my ragers are still not having luck with berserk and kill shot yet :(

War vs war is now taking about 40-50 rounds but I personally don't like gladiators fighting like, "hi, please let's fight carefully ok?" I wish the enforcer or the crowd hit one killing blow to such a 'fighter' if it is too much or declared the fight as over with nobody getting the win... well, can't this be appropriate?

Overall it seems the new update has indeed more options and more chances of witnessing more varying builds compared to the previous one. I would just like to see in future how good could hybridization prove to be a viable option in the game.

[Narol]

Sorry Nate but I won't join the concert of praise, so far I am quite unhappy with the changes.

My feeling is that defense got too much of a boost and that often makes fights long, boring and in the end frustrating...

I'm also under the impression that the previous rock/paper/scissors mechanics between styles got even dramatically accentuated... Theatrics especially had already a hard time against defensive warriors before, but it got even worse as they hardly land any hits on them anymore... To make the game interesting all styles must have a chance against each others...

The fact that 7/10 of the Top 10 of Primus are now war style, almost all of them being tanks, quite confirms those first impressions and make me think that game balance is currently quite broken...

On the positive side, some new skills are very fun and nice, especially Adrenaline Crush and Surprise Ending...

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm liking everything about the update so far especially the changes to defense actually being viable. i dont run any defensive glads (yay rage stable!) but i think it is healthy for the game to have it.

my only bit of annoyance is how surprise ending also crosses over buffs/debuffs and injuries. I dont have issues with damage being swapped, even if it a 1000pt rampage as that is the whole idea of the skill, but the other interactions piss me off, especially because some just dont make sense.

[crow]

I have to admit even though my guys are getting their butts kicked especially against the tanks, I am enjoying the update. I know there are quite a few folks frustrated with major boost to defense and especially shields, but I'm sure Nate built in ways to overcome it. The main problem is we have been used to running a different fight engine for 2 years now, we have to readjust our thinking and try new strategies. I personally have changed everyone of my glads strats daily just to see how each works against different builds. Problem is with so many different builds out there it is extremely difficult to account for everything. strat for tank and bleeder comes and gets you or a tank busting 2hander knocks the bejesus out of you. Just gonna take awhile before a few of us start to figure things out. Be sure to try out different aiming points and not just look at activity level and blood lust all the time.

Also when I do figure some things out, I'm keeping it to myself :)

[Tarot Cards]

Share some tips with us new players! :P I've only played a day or two before the changes happened, but I've been watching Primus tier, hoping to learn something from gear setups as a percentage of the top 50 or so. Definitely a lot more Shield and Mace Wars. In the lower tiers, (Veteran and under) I've seen 2H Ragers and Wars in general doing better than others, such as Theatrics. Or maybe that's because there's just so many more of them. Anyways, looking to see how this pans out. I've gotten about 6 or 7 of my friends interested in the game, and we're all climbing the tiers slowly together!

[Apoca1ypse]

with the old game engine, 2H styles did well in lower tiers but sucked in primus, especially 2H rage. I'm starting to see some good results with 2H rage post update, but i'll have to see how that goes once everone is dialed in with their builds. it may become OP with some tweeking or go back to being one of the weaker builds.


I can say with certainty though that Total Carnage is amazing and a must for any rager!

[Cynaidh]

Sorry Nate but I won't join the concert of praise, so far I am quite unhappy with the changes.

My feeling is that defense got too much of a boost and that often makes fights long, boring and in the end frustrating...

I'm also under the impression that the previous rock/paper/scissors mechanics between styles got even dramatically accentuated... Theatrics especially had already a hard time against defensive warriors before, but it got even worse as they hardly land any hits on them anymore... To make the game interesting all styles must have a chance against each others...

The fact that 7/10 of the Top 10 of Primus are now war style, almost all of them being tanks, quite confirms those first impressions and make me think that game balance is currently quite broken...

On the positive side, some new skills are very fun and nice, especially Adrenaline Crush and Surprise Ending...

I agreed with what your saying threw the first couple of days of the update, but now I am beginning to believe it is more balanced. Part of the problem was that the "tank" or "scum" spec for warriors is very straight forward, it's an "easy" spec to plan out. So a lot of people, myself included, jumped on it cause it was clear it was going to be effective. Another part was that they game changed so much that all our existing strategies where now not nearly as effective, this hit rages especially hard i believe. So on day 1 and 2 these glads where hurting as we tried to find strategies that somewhat worked on them and they bombed down the ranks as they lost time and time again, I know i am still struggling to find good overall strategies for my rages, but some of them are turning around i believe or at least hope. Theatrics where the same way, they have so many options now its hard to even get a grasp on them. But I am becoming a fan of the tier 5 talent and a bleed spec, my bleeder is even getting these scum warriors to bleed out with success now. Subject31 is in the top 5 and has a crushing 10 point lead in the BG, so he is showing us all how to get it done as a bleeder theatrics. Again looking at the top 5 you got Prinny, The Returned, Beltank, and Valnoar showing that yes the tank warrior can work.... are they going to stay there, I don't think so personally, they just got to rocket up while rage, theatrics and offensive warriors are figuring out whats going on right now. I know my rage sitting in 4th place has beaten i believe all of them that aren't in his stable already and is getting more and more regular at beating these tank warriors (ironically he is one of the rages i have who doesn't Adrenaline Rush, maybe its overrated). Then if you want to look at offensive warriors Belca, Alpha III, and good old Laharl are all right there in the top 15ish pushing up to the top 10.

The fact is all the specialties changed so much I am not surprised that as it was put yesterday a "low hanging fruit" the tank warrior spec was jumped on so fast and has become dominate. But as the rest figure out their new strategies I'll be surprised if they stay at the top.

Heck right now there is 5 defensive warriors, 4 rages and 1 theatric in the primus top 10, the defensive warriors are already starting to fall out some. :)

[Kreegan]

Theatrics bleeders certainly CAN drop defensive Wars.
Rages who actually apply some strategy certainly CAN drop defensive Wars.
And the defensive Wars themselves certainly CAN hold their ground, although they are far from invincible. I too expect their popularity to decline (except some uber-powerful HoL slaves doped-up with achievements who will be in top 20 with pretty much any build) when their counters become more obvious.

[Narol]

Theatrics bleeders MAY drop defensive wars, but only if they are lucky enough to go past their defense to hit them a little, which happens rarely...

No surprise then that there is only one theatrics in top 10...

[Prinny]

Theatrics bleeders MAY drop defensive wars, but only if they are lucky enough to go past their defense to hit them a little, which happens rarely...

No surprise then that there is only one theatrics in top 10...

Laharl beat Beltank yesterday...meaning offensive wars can win from def ones so don't sweat it and figure out some strats to work out the skills youve picked while you wait untill we can unlearn and finish our builds ;D

I don't think you should look just at the top 10 anymore, glads points in the arena are gradually becoming closer and with that a lose can drop you from rank 13 to 20 or from rank 1 to rank 4 followed by a drop to rank 7 (yes ive seen those cases already) Once the dust settles I think more off gladiators will join in at the top especially when we can unlearn again to get those unwanted skills outof the way to get different ones.

Edit: forgot to add that Laharl also has beaten Aegis, Doofus and Barrier which are def wars aswell though not of the caliber of Beltank with his 189 endurance

[Narol]

Prinny, Laharl is a war, not a theatrics, and he has some armor penetration achievement due to his past victories in the BGs... That's a special case...

Offensive wars have at least Death From Above and Battle Hardened that helps them against tanks, that pure theatrics do not have...

Cyn, if you watch the match in the BG today between S31 and Lavnoar, you'll see that even him has a problem against tanks... His few successful hits did only 1-16 pts of damage and even with the bleeding he did not took his opponent under 50% hp before losing from exhaustion...

[Team Kaos]

So far I have seen a pretty good balance. Theatrics still dominate Rages, though have a tendency to have a tough time with 2H Rage.
They have a difficult time breaking defensive shields as well as giving up some big blows vs 2H Wars.

Wars seem to do well vs all, and seem to be able to actually Parry a Beserking Rage better then ever.
Wars with shields do well vs Theatrics and also with 2H as they seem to land a big shot at least every other round.

I have seen however Brute Force and Death from Above make a deadly combo against any tanking or shielded War.

Speed Rage seems to have lost its devastating advantage. When a War and Theatrics can parry and make it past the 2nd round it's pretty much spells doom for the Rage.
2H rage seem to be doing a bit better then expected.
Dual power Rage so far is a mixed bag. Not really sure what you will see fight to fight.

[Alba Kebab]

Edit: forgot to add that Laharl also has beaten Aegis, Doofus and Barrier which are def wars aswell though not of the caliber of Beltank with his 189 endurance

Doofus is not a real defensive war, just fyi, he just still haven't finished his build yet on account of him being a dumbass. He's in no way like Aegis and Barrier who'll never even try to hit you.
And even though I have a tank, I do have to agree some of these tanks are just waaay too cheesy.

[Prinny]

Prinny, Laharl is a war, not a theatrics, and he has some armor penetration achievement due to his past victories in the BGs... That's a special case...
The fact that a war bleeds out a defensive war is even more special seeing as theatrics can cause way more bleeding with their Bloody Spectacle skill. Laharl's armour penetration triggered 3 time sin his fight against Beltank causing a wooping total of 6 bleed and 9 damage from 3 attacks 2 of them being DFA. Not quite game changers considering Beltank was bleeding with 99 now are they?

I will agree Laharl is a special case but I would suggest you study the succesfull bleeders well and see what they have in common...

[Prinny]

Doofus is not a real defensive war, just fyi, he just still haven't finished his build yet on account of him being a dumbass. He's in no way like Aegis and Barrier who'll never even try to hit you.
And even though I have a tank, I do have to agree some of these tanks are just waaay too cheesy.

He carries a shield hence he is a defensive gladiator! I did note that he isn't on the same lvl as the top ones didn't i? :P

[Alba Kebab]

......Fine, I won't argue with that.:p

[Jelle]

Been about a week now and I've still not fully tweaked the strategies, that's great! I'm really loving the new viable strategies and how the entire spectrum of activity and bloodlust can be used, instead of the usual 6/7+ on both.

Both offensive and defensive war seem viable options, though there aren't that many offensive skills to be had in the war tree. Seems like death from above is the real centrepiece for an offensive war build, and going hybrid for the rest.
Lots of skills that promote use of a shield, I sort of wish there was something similar in the theatrics tree. I don't even know entirely how armored fortress works yet.

The theatrics tree seems to have a healthy mix of offense and defense, still need to try out bloody spectacle but it seems to mostly benefit bleed builds. I hope bloodletters aren't going to dominate theatrics specialization entirely. One thing to note is that I've only very rarely seen surprise ending occur, even when using mostly a defensive fighting style. When it does at the right moment though, but I suppose that's a matter of luck.

Can't comment much on rage as I don't run any, but I have tried out adrenaline rush and I must say it's immensly powerful, maybe a little to much. Rampage hitting for ludicrous amounts even with one handed weapons. Hell I had a really hard time beating bird of prey with my theatrics, him hitting for over 500 with a dagger. Hard for me to say where rage is at, they really seem to be hit or miss to me now.

Overall seen a performance increase on several glads and decrease in others. Seems like Aegis is starting to actually compete at least, although she seems to have a harder time making the hits count. Maybe because of the shift from all out offensive fighting styles to more reserved ones. Staring contests still as boring as ever though, got to do something about that...

[sevenseas]

My opinion on the update and its effect on rage...it's seems to me that rage is now the hardest specialty to work in, and for me personally, it makes me want to just walk away when i see a knife continuously hitting WAY harder than my 2 hand weapon. Wars and theatrics seem to have a pretty easy time after the update...Dirty John (Perhaps my worst glad pre-update ) is maybe my best glad...a theatric and i'm not even trying with him. My rages: ..loss...loss....loss...loss. It's quite frustrating, because it seems there are no strategy combo's that will work in 2 fights in a row. It's not been fun for the rages over here at SevenSeas.

[Apoca1ypse]

On the flip side, bruce went from a steaming pile to a top 10 glad. makes me happy :D

Ahhnold is also starting to climb the ranks but we'll see how long that lasts. Sure, he's the most juiced 2H rage of all time (possibly most juiced glad full stop when it comes to starting attributes), but if he can make top 10 that fills me with some hope for 2H rage being viable.

[sevenseas]

I seem to be finding a little bit of a rhythm in rage now, but it seems what works for one rage doesn't for the other, I have 2 swordsmen and their strats as far as activity and bloodlust goes are totally totally different, and i still can't make a 2 hander do anything worth while. I'm less frustrated now, but i may still take a vacation from the pits for a while, i have things that require my attention more than fine-tuning my gladiators do. We'll see what happens.

As far balance goes we will just have to keep watching and learning...it's new game ya know...there is still alot to learn.


However, i still hope Nate thinks of someway to accommodate those of us who have spent money unlearning skills before, the fact that my guys aren't built exactly the way i wanted to has to hurt their performance. Also, I'm not too keen on the idea of spending that money unlearning...again. I know Nate tries to consider everything we say and wish for, and sometimes what we want isn't whats best for the game, so we will see what happens. Good luck, all!



7C's

[Alba Kebab]

We all have guys that aren't built the way we quite want when we did the initial respec, you are not along there sevenseas.

[Lunarion199]

Today level 4 veteran rager Riya killed level 12 theatric veteran:) (fight 505).. Agreed at low levels but she often defeats level 9-11 opponents - with only one fight strategy row yet available and a couple gear still unequipped. Got a good attribute-race-skills sync I was always looking for.. need to build up on that.

Ragers may still make a comeback..after today's update from Nate the chances seem more brightened.

[Team Kaos]

Well, whatever tweaks were made in the latest update has absolutely killed my builds and strats. My guys are getting rocked something aweful no matter what I try. Crushed by Rage, Crushed by 2H war, put to sleep by tanks and bled to death by theatrics. I thought I'd be able to tread water at 55-60% against all these HOL Primus guys until 1500...which they were doing well enough and better then hoped up until the newest tweak. Now..I'm lucky to keep them from dying every fight...

Ouch

[oedi]

same thing i experienced with my defensive theatrics bleed build. I had 4 of them in the top 15 :). after the latest update i got 1 left :(. The really sad thing is that the defense nerf was supposed to hit the war gladiators, but my 2 defensive was glads are doing just as fine, after minor tweaks and changing one from urk to spite.
so what really happend after the last updates is out with theatrics and in with rage. its 1 theatric left in the top 15.
I know im crying just because I had 4 really good gladiators, but im doing it anyway. I had everything going for them. right build, weapons and strat. now i need to reconsider the entire build :(

[Narol]

The needed rebalancing indeed changed things a lot, a free re-spec for everyone now that we had some time to test the skills and new dynamics would only be fair...