Insanity

[Team Kaos]

OK, time for a vent break.

Let's review here.
Rages maintain their initiative to swing first in most rounds....
now have the benefit of swinging a 2H (slow) up to 3 times per round without needing ultra high agility, just high activity.
maintain thier ultra high rate of crits per swing
Are capable of landing 400 pt hits nearly every swing
Have regained the ability to land 800-1200 pt hits
No longer suffer from extreme fatigue, they can still land 400-600 pt hits on virtually 0 health.
Can still punch through heavy and medium armor as if it wasn't there.
Capable of activating an active skill every time they swing
Shorter rounds mean more swings. Instead of 3 rounds 3-4 total swings...now 3 rounds means 7-9 swings from 2H, dual wield still swing
forever and then some.

Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of balancing?


Wars - gain additional defense
Armor encumbers them much more, a small stature glad cannot wear heavy any longer and be viable against most other builds.
Shields have gained in absorbing damage
Heavy armor deflects smaller weapons more often
Gain DFA, perhaps the most devastating attack outside of crippling might, Crits nearly every time
Erratic activated skills, especially NSD

Theatrics
Basically the same as they were before
Bleed rates have increased
Signature move reduced in effectiveness
Knockout reduced in effectiveness
Counter attack swing rate reduced
Suffers highly from increase in armor weight
Highly erratic activated skills, especially Surprise Ending


Just venting

[Narol]

Agreed, theatrics needs a boost for game fairness... But it was even worse before the small rebalancing that occured, I can testify...

[oedi]

Agreed, theatrics needs a boost for game fairness... But it was even worse before the small rebalancing that occured, I can testify...
I guess we run very different types of theatrics, because i disagree totally with this statement. Because before the rebalancing I had 4 theatrics in the top 20, and for a short time i had ranks 4, 7, and 11. After, all but one dropped out of the top 15.

[Kreegan]

Theatrics bleeders can drop both Rages and Wars (and not just once in a while), I'm not really sure why do you find them inefficient. The only somewhat underpowered Theatrics build at the moment seems to be Axes/Maces-armed gladiator (especially Maces) because he can't take much advantage of the bleeding boosts available to the Theatrics tree and may not be able to deal enough "immediate" damage to heavily defensive fighters (though it's possible).
Other than that - in my experience a bleeder will almost certainly drop a tank if he doesn't switch to something more offensive at some point and through the other skills (Hamstring and Signature Move mostly) will have fairly good chances even against the most aggressive Rages. Signature Move is the same thing as before, only now it uses all the moves, not just one of them 95% of the time and some of the others in the remaining 5% (and yes, no Stun, but I find it a bit overrated anyway - certainly not much more useful than the rest).

On the other hand, I agree that the 2H Rages swing a bit too often and too hard. Before the last update it was somewhat possible to exhaust them before they drop a tough defensive fighter but now that's not an option at all. Moreover, their strikes seem to get deflected and parried very rarely - which is easy to explain because the fewer number of hits compared to the speed Rages means that either of Crippling Might, Rampage and Sunder Armour will trigger more or less every round along with a big hit and the defending gladiator will gain nothing from his attempts to defend. So again it's either going as offensive as possible against them or just losing.

[Team Kaos]

Just a quick step in here. I agree Theatrics did not have much of a change between any of the updates, they actually I believe stayed basically on par to what they always were. Outside of some different skill sets, but basically the same.
I believe they remain the most balanced in the game overall in a defensive/offensive nature. They can do both well, none off the charts great...but both very well.
Rages are just monsters attacking relentlessly dropping mammoth damage, perhaps not as much as 2 months ago, but now its just a bit less but more often. And War's are much better defensively, got a major boost in offensive from specific skills, and gained a huge step up with Light/Feather by being able to wear heavy armor without as much of a problem as Theatrics.


On a side note..

I just watched Spiritual Pain lose to a HOL glad that had 234 points more in attributes...234!! Consider that for a second. Wow!!

[Prinny]

Exept for their attack rate Theatrics skills improved alot as far as i can tell theyre a buffed version of the old war that can't carry heavy armour now...

Which glad did Spiritual Pain fight? it could be a combination of HOL glad stats (which are simply better, I don't know how expensive Spiritual Pain was either because that could factor alot in this), Good equipment and Achievements giving that boost...

[Cynaidh]

Insanity - good title.

First a disclaimer... I only fight in the top 50 of primus, with over half my gladiators in the top 10, and over half my glads being Rages, so my view point is from maxed out glads all using all 6 achievements, full purple gear, full stat and skill trains. My view point may not be the same of other managers who play in different parts of the game.

Rages my topic of the day:

The Big Update brought insanity to duel wield mace power rages, they went from attacking 4-5 times a round to attacking 3 times a round running 10 berserk 7, and after attacking for 2 rounds they would just stop attacking due to the new endurance system if you kept running berserk. This was a massive change to the type of Rage that I mainly play, and we all had to come up with new strategies to get them working. Before this update i was the only manager who kept rage glads in the top 10, a lot of the time my rages where the only ones in the top 25 and I saw a massive change in the effectiveness of the mace power rage specialty at this level. My rages fell out of the top 10 and a couple out of the top 25. After that first week new strats where in place and i had a couple of them back in the top 10 by figuring out that rages where now much more dependent on their defensive skills, Adrenaline Rush especially, and longer fights, most wins where 6-7 rounds long. Rages could still win, but in my opinion they played and felt nothing like rages did for the past year of me playing this game, they felt more like playing the old version of an offensive theatrics. At this point I did the only thing possible and cried as hard as i could in PM's to Nate, to Prinny in the chat, and then went on a 4 day cruise to drown my sorrows in alcohol and string bikini's....

While on the cruise ship the first patch to the Big Update came out and I found a nice surprise when i went and played the next day, Nate put the "Rage" back into the rage specificity, the silly strats i had come up with that had them winning where thrown out and berserk was back baby! Rages felt like Rages again! Not only did that happen but the big "D" in Defense had been totally neutered and now this little limp lower case "d" that looks very emaciated is in its place. Not only did this make the super tanks warriors starting going down like fly's but defensive bleeder type theatrics where just getting turned into goo. We now have 5 Rages in the upper top 10 of Primus, with Arnnold and little Vyers popping into the top 10 also, hell ARG is in the top 25 (GO Arg! Top 10 baby!).

What this patch did was give rages their offensive back but at the same time they kept these new defensive toys they got in the big update: Adrenaline Rush and Heavy Scarring. This is just insane if you ask me, rages now are just super over the top strong. They still loose some yes, but they win a lot more then they did before the Big Update by a lot. Hopefully they get adjusted some but still keep the offensive ability that makes a rage be a rage. I think that the amount damage is lowered from endurance/hit point loss should go back up to maybe not exactly where it was with the Big Update but more then it is now to give defensive guys a better chance. And speaking of defense, Nate really should give defense at least one of its balls back, maybe not both but at least one.

But my biggest concern with the rage specialty has to be: Adrenaline Rush. To be perfectly honest I hate this skill. In a rage vs rage fight whom ever has Adrenaline Rush go off first will win 99% of the time. Its just that good, 60-64% damage reduction for 2 rounds....If your fighting a rage or theatrics and your Adrenaline Rush goes off early, they are done, fight over. IF rages are going to keep their offense where it is at from this 2nd update then i think this skill really should be changed. Its just too much defense on a specialty with this much offensive in my opinion.

Anyways there is my long winded post on the insanity these two updates have had on Rages.

[Nate]

beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep......We take this moment for a short message from the Great Realm broadcasting agency....this is not a test.

Below are the current win/loss percentages for specialty matchups for the entire arena over the course of thousands and thousands of fights since the last update.

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 50.5%
* War Wins: 49.5%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 50.1%
* Theatrics Wins: 49.9%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 58.1%
* Rage Wins: 41.9%

And for those wondering about the "end game", these are the stats for just level 50 gladiators:

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 52.7%
* War Wins: 47.3%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 55.8%
* Theatrics Wins: 44.2%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 53.8%
* Rage Wins: 46.2%


The Great Realm has never been so balanced. :)


beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep...this concludes our message, please continue with your debate and as always....

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[sevenseas]

Rahahahaaa...I love this guy;)

[crow]

Time for my 2 cents, but according to my wife is worth way less than that; but that is another story. :)

1st- I am pumped to see 2hand rages doing better. We have never seen a 2hander sniff the top for long here, so to me it is refreshing. I feel the big irk with 2handers is when you lose to one, you lose BIG!!! and lets face it, we all here are a tad competitive and we hate seeing our guy get completely destroyed in fight, but they (2hand rage) also lose big as well.

2nd- I think theatrics are loaded with great skills, and I have also seen a decline in the effectiveness right now in the dual mace theatric. I attribute that to not building them right. I know some of us will eventually get some good ideas and good strategies to go with them and make an awesome mace theatric.

last as for the debuff of defensive wars. Heck my guys still are gassing from time to time so I think they are still very viable. I personally love the current set up, I feel the current shortcomings on some of our builds are due to not knowing much about the new fight engine yet. But i am personally having fun trying to figure it out. :)

well my 2 cents are on the table, feel free to give me change :)
and that is all tonight,
The Great Wise (haha) Crow signing out, YALL!!!

[Lunarion199]

Personally I am glad that Arthas after the update has progressed from Legend (428/479 win/loss) to Maximus today (534/499 win/loss) and can now even dream of honored retirement which never seemed possible before. Yet short of 30 skills to complete the 100, he is a shield-wielding light armored warrior.. who attacks back at the right moment.

[Cynaidh]

And for those wondering about the "end game", these are the stats for just level 50 gladiators:

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 52.7%
* War Wins: 47.3%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 55.8%
* Theatrics Wins: 44.2%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 53.8%
* Rage Wins: 46.2%

Fine... we have different opinions of end game but yes that doesn't look too bad at all. Is there anyway we could see those numbers for the top 25 and top 50 glads of primus? :)

[Apoca1ypse]

beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep......We take this moment for a short message from the Great Realm broadcasting agency....this is not a test.

Below are the current win/loss percentages for specialty matchups for the entire arena over the course of thousands and thousands of fights since the last update.

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 50.5%
* War Wins: 49.5%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 50.1%
* Theatrics Wins: 49.9%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 58.1%
* Rage Wins: 41.9%

And for those wondering about the "end game", these are the stats for just level 50 gladiators:

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 52.7%
* War Wins: 47.3%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 55.8%
* Theatrics Wins: 44.2%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 53.8%
* Rage Wins: 46.2%


The Great Realm has never been so balanced. :)


beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep...this concludes our message, please continue with your debate and as always....

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

I love you Nate :D

I also love that rage is working for more than 1 manager (cyn, who's proven to be good with all styles) and TBH I think a lot of frustration of other managers comes from rage being visibly better than before while disregarding how they were not that great before hand.

I will agree that adrenalin rush is a little annoying in the rage vs rage matches, but oh well... nothing is perfect



1st- I am pumped to see 2hand rages doing better. We have never seen a 2hander sniff the top for long here, so to me it is refreshing. I feel the big irk with 2handers is when you lose to one, you lose BIG!!! and lets face it, we all here are a tad competitive and we hate seeing our guy get completely destroyed in fight, but they (2hand rage) also lose big as well.

Very true about when you lose, you lose big. there are also matches that are just like before the update and your 2H glad gets off 1 big swing and then dies. I'm loving that Ahhnold is making appearances in the top 10 as it fills me with hope for the style, even if he is a stat freak.


2nd- I think theatrics are loaded with great skills, and I have also seen a decline in the effectiveness right now in the dual mace theatric. I attribute that to not building them right. I know some of us will eventually get some good ideas and good strategies to go with them and make an awesome mace theatric.

Stacked str + counterattack doesnt work for them anymore, which is why i think they are doing poorly compared to before. there may be a terrifying build luring in there still however. Bleed theatrics is phenomenal now as far as I can tell. it is competitive vs my rage glads and there are 2-3 of them in the top 20 iirc


I feel the current shortcomings on some of our builds are due to not knowing much about the new fight engine yet. But i am personally having fun trying to figure it out. :)

Bingo. Just wait till unlearning comes along and see how things change

[Lunarion199]

Is there anyway we could see those numbers for the top 25 and top 50 glads of primus? What makes a Primus-top25 gladiator different from a level 50 gladiator?

[Cynaidh]

What makes a Primus-top25 gladiator different from a level 50 gladiator?

Well a level 50 glad could be a fresh level 50 and probably doesn't have 100 skill points yet (specifically 10 skills at rank 10) and may not have even started skill training yet. Also they might be wearing green/blue equipment.

While on the other hand the glads in the top 25 are more "finished" they have 100 skill points, they have their stats trained up (or are close to having them fully trained up), are most likely in full purple gear, and they have a tendency to run more than 2 achievement slots. Of course there are always exceptions but I'd guess that's true for the majority of the top 25 of Primus. Also the majority of the fights in the top 25 are verse glads who are equipped the same, there are no easy fights.

[sevenseas]

I guess as far as I'm concerned I feel the same as Crow and i have to agree with Cyn, Adrenaline rush seems to be a bit over powered. I thought Adrenaline Rush would be a 1-2 round bezerk on steroids that maintained your fighting style, when we were all trying to figure out what the new skills would do. And my thought is: find a nice balance between +Attack power/+ attk speed / -defense (perhaps slight damage reduction). It would sound more like a real adrenaline rush anyways and i think everyone's complaints about the balancing might be alleviated. Just a thought.






Quote Originally Posted by crow View Post
I feel the current shortcomings on some of our builds are due to not knowing much about the new fight engine yet. But i am personally having fun trying to figure it out.



Bingo. Just wait till unlearning comes along and see how things change



*7C's steeples his fingers and grins slyly*

[Kreegan]

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 52.7%
* War Wins: 47.3%Yup, but that's with a very small number of 2H Rages in Primus (4 or 5, don't have the time to count them at the moment). The other Rage builds seem balanced overall, just the two-handers currently outperform both defensive Wars and defensive Theatrics. Not sure about the offensive builds as I currently don't have a decently built offensive gladiator in Primus.

[Dainoji]

just the two-handers currently outperform both defensive Wars and defensive Theatrics

As they should. They are Two-Handed damage monsters who specialize in teeing up slow moving things! FORE!!! Don't want to get smashed? Don't stand around!

Nate didn't anyone teach you that nobody likes facts! :)

[Dainoji]

For those of you crying about Rage gladiators being powerful because "so many are in the top 10 now", the fact of the matter is they are mostly run by Cynaidh and he has proven time and time again that he can get all or almost all of his glads into the top 10 anytime he chooses. I'm sure if he had a stable of all theatrics gladiators right now he could figure out how to get them all into the top 10. I'm sure he could run rage gladiators without Adrenaline Rush and get them into the top 10. If everyone spent as much energy on figuring out how to win with their current builds as they do crying you'd all be in the top 10! :p

[Cynaidh]

I'm sure he could run rage gladiators without Adrenaline Rush and get them into the top 10.

Ya... at least one of the ones in the top 10 doesn't have it... I honestly didn't want to put it on as many as i did. Crazy ass defensive skill on my rages! It only got put on the rest when i found out it did damage at least... I still feel dirty inside for putting a defensive skill on them though. :)

[Lunarion199]

Also the majority of the fights in the top 25 are verse glads who are equipped the same. hm that makes sense.. although top25 seems too low of a sample population to test the balance of the game.

If pit fights have a fight format of ignoring achievement buffs while fighting with grey/white weapons, they could perhaps be a great platform to cost-effectively test various builds easily at all levels based on mere skills and strategies.. particularly when advanced builds will come into picture.

[Kreegan]

As they should. They are Two-Handed damage monsters who specialize in teeing up slow moving things! FORE!!! Don't want to get smashed? Don't stand around!You're a great source of useless information as always. A War in full heavy armour + Wall Shield (you don't have one of those as far as I know so I'm not sure where are you pulling your conclusions from) running a 10 activity strategy vs. a 2H Rage gets pummelled no matter if he's trying to attack or defend. That's hardly "standing around". The other Rage builds may or may not overpower this War build, depending on strategies, gear, attributes and so on acceptable things. The 2H Rages overpower it pretty much unconditionally. That's not really "balanced".

In general however the balance is indeed much better than before the Big Bang... Update.

[Apoca1ypse]

2H rage was always meant to trump defensive glads but struggle against fast aggressive styles so I dont see what the big deal is with a 2H glad beating up a tin can like it's meant to. my glads still get exhausted from time to time too by defensive wars. Ahhnold just got 2 losses from The Returned and Valnoar for that reason.

I may be biased because I run 3 of the 4-5 2H ragers in primus, but they still get their fair share of losses, even after messing around with gear and race. I'm not expecting them to stick around a whole heap once people work out how to counter them.

[Alba Kebab]

I only have one rage in my stable now, but my 2h rage still runs out of stamina against some wars on occasion, and most 2h ragers are still swimming in the mid to low end of Primus, so I don't see anything OP about 2h rages at all.

Adrenal rush is only annoying if you didn't train it, when both rages in a fight have it, it's not so big a deal. :o

[Dainoji]

You're a great source of useless information as always.

Glad I could be of help, I actually lost sleep last night wondering if you would approve of my comment on an Internet game forum! Boy am I happy you did! *KISSES*


A War in full heavy armour + Wall Shield (you don't have one of those as far as I know so I'm not sure where are you pulling your conclusions from)

There are a lot of things you don't know and this is the least of them. *HUGS*

[Cynaidh]

I may be biased because I run 3 of the 4-5 2H ragers in primus, but they still get their fair share of losses, even after messing around with gear and race. I'm not expecting them to stick around a whole heap once people work out how to counter them.

Hopefully they do stay around, I don't currently have any myself but if we ever get to where we can unlearn i think Belwraith is going to swap over and give it a try, Zmash's old 2h sword looks good on him with 17str 5agil, it puts him at 205 str, 140 agil.... looking forward to figuring out how to smash shit with it. :)

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm still learning about 2H rage and made my guys with a few different skills. The real surprise has been Arg who has both the worst stats of the bunch and the build I least expected to do well. Ahhnold will probably be shuffling some skills around once he can.

[Team Kaos]

2H rage was always meant to trump defensive glads but struggle against fast aggressive styles so I dont see what the big deal is with a 2H glad beating up a tin can like it's meant to. my glads still get exhausted from time to time too by defensive wars. Ahhnold just got 2 losses from The Returned and Valnoar for that reason.

I think the topic got a bit off track. The original crying (by me of course) was the new found speed of 2H Rages. 3 swings per round from a 2H is just "insanity"
If he's sporting a 140+ agility I could see it as a possibility, giving up some points in other attributes in order to gain the added speed, which would result in a reduced damage. But 3 swings coming from a 80's agility?? c'mon that's nutz especially when adding on a rampage, crippling might and a sunder on each swing..
The idea of swinging that much that hard and landing crits at will..it just doesn't jive.

[Dainoji]

I think the topic got a bit off track. The original crying (by me of course) was the new found speed of 2H Rages. 3 swings per round from a 2H is just "insanity"
If he's sporting a 140+ agility I could see it as a possibility, giving up some points in other attributes in order to gain the added speed, which would result in a reduced damage. But 3 swings coming from a 80's agility?? c'mon that's nutz especially when adding on a rampage, crippling might and a sunder on each swing..
The idea of swinging that much that hard and landing crits at will..it just doesn't jive.

It's possible you are seeing the effects of Total Carnage not an 80 agility. Total Carnage awards extra attacks.

[Lunarion199]

the new found speed of 2H Rages. 3 swings per round from a 2H
That must be Total Carnage level 10 in action, which increases the number of attacks a glad gets per round. Plus Nate mentioned two handed weapons now swing more but damage less per hit to prevent all-or-nothing situations which happened earlier. With berserk fighting style at activity10 the number of attacks per round will still increase. I don't think there is any cap on the number of attacks a glad gets or should get. Again, if he has annihilation skill he may have an upper hand if the opponent is parrying and not trained in intercepting guard and by nature styles like berserk have an upper hand against parrying styles. Next, high chi + high intellect + called shot + total carnage + a lot of activated skills at disposal = great critical hits. I guess new rage tree is meant to survive on that.

All these must have cascaded together in the fights. Whether they should or should not, well I don't know..

[Apoca1ypse]

most of my time if one of my 2H ragers goes against a speed build, they get 1 swing per 5 of theirs.... it's kinda rough but makes sense so /whatever.

Total Carnage does help massively. I noticed that my 2H glads just derped around till TC was 10/10 and then they started advancing slowly in the ranks. It still comes down to what other skills compliment them though

[Apoca1ypse]

Just thought I'd post this up. I guess Kaos wasnt wrong when he said daggers can rampage for 1K damage. I agree that it's a little silly with such a light, fast weapon. sure, Ahhnold lays 2K bombs, but that's with a damn greatsword (speed 1, weight 6)

btw: I'm not posting this because I lost. I would have lost anyway in this matchup.



The Enforcer looks to the crowd and promises a bloody fight!
R O U N D 1
>> AHHNOLD SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 1
>> BLADESLINGER SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 1
BLADESLINGER moves furiously trying to gain the advantage.
BLADESLINGER's BLOODSAND DIRK darts toward AHHNOLD with unexpected speed.
BLADESLINGER roars uncontrollably as she attacks! (-Rampage-)
Devastating slash to the shoulder almost removes the arm as a huge spray of blood covers the crowd! (+1001 Damage)

AHHNOLD has small cuts and bruises from today's fight!
BLADESLINGER seeks to cleave her adversary.
A huge laceration to the lower arm exposes meat and tissue...AHHNOLD's arm becomes almost useless! (+289 Damage)

AHHNOLD has a lot of wounds on his body!!
BLADESLINGER whirls her MASTERWORK BASTARD SWORD overhead, bringing it slicing downward at AHHNOLD.
BLADESLINGER screams as her veins bulge! (-Adrenaline Rush-)
Freakish slash to the back of AHHNOLD's leg almost removes it about mid thigh...blood sprays from the wound like a fire hose! (+440 Damage)

AHHNOLD can't take much more of this beating!!!
BLADESLINGER whips around with her off hand.
BLADESLINGER's BLOODSAND DIRK twists into a mighty cutting slash.
BLADESLINGER looks to seriously damage AHHNOLD's armour! (-Sunder Armour-)
BLADESLINGER's BLOODSAND DIRK tastes victory and inflicts gigantic wounds on AHHNOLD's lower back! (+289 Damage)

Resisted Stun Effect!
BLADESLINGER rushes forward, making a brutal stab with her MASTERWORK BASTARD SWORD.
BLADESLINGER aims for AHHNOLD's weapon arm.
Massive shot to AHHNOLD's arm...The grounds keepers are going to have to work hard to clean up this mess! (+394 Damage)

Resisted Can Not Defend Effect!
AHHNOLD begins to plea for his worthless life and after a moment of thought BLADESLINGER spits on the pitiful fool and walks away!
The Enforcer kicks the beaten gladiator and orders the loser to be removed from the sands!
The fight lasted 9 seconds!