Bleeding vs. Heavy Armour/Armoured Fortress

[Kreegan]

So this is a bit silly - one can constantly observe fights where a Theatrics (in much rarer cases a War) scores very low damage hits vs. a heavily armoured War but inflicts bleeding which can easily get above 150-200 points in a few rounds. Needless to say, the War drops soon after. The armour just adds encumbrance and while it protects against big hits, it does next to nothing against bleeding triggers. This basically makes the defensive War builds useless vs. most Theatrics builds which at some point will take Gratuitious Violence and probably Bloody Spectacle.

Given the above, going for Armoured Fortress in full Heavy Armour doesn't seem very attractive any more. Such build performs decently vs. some Rages but is extremely vulnerable to bleeders and with some strategy adjustment can be handled even by "standard" damage-dealing builds. Frankly, Crowd Pleaser + Shield seems to prevent more damage than all the defensive-orientated War skills combined.

The heavy armour on the other hand greatly encumbers the wearer and if you don't get both Armour Movement and Light as a Feather (and max them), you might as well forget to act before round 3-4 at the earliest.

Anyway, the question is - do the Wars, particularly the defensive types, need their protection boosted - either the armour or the skills - so they can at least stand a chance vs. bleeders? Or you think that a rock-scissor-paper approach is fine?

[Stormcloak]

I find my wars have difficulty against the bleeders as well, but my glads aren't high enough level for me to comment fairly on how balanced it is. I guess the way to check would be to look at a few typical length matches, add up all of the cumulative bleed damage and divide by the number of hits that cause it to figure out how much bleed damage is being caused. Then compare it to how much damage/benefit another skill adds?

For example in round 1 bleed for 50 points, then in round 2 bleed for 50 more points, or 100 total, the average would be 75 damage per round.
FWIW, if every round a bleeder causes 10 points of bleeding per round consistently, that would be an average of 55 points of damage per round over 10 rounds!

It does seem silly though that a knuckle scrape can cause more bleeding than hacking off a glad's arm. Maybe if bleeding was left the way it is, but gratuitous violence was changed to 'poison weapon' or something I could rationalise that a bit better in my own little world. Any idea how much GV improves bleeding?

I don't have armoured fortress yet. Are you suggesting something like, for every level of armoured fortress that bleeding is reduced by 5% or something similar?

[Alba Kebab]

Here's a novel idea, how about swinging at your opponent instead of turtling?:p

[Kreegan]

Very innovative but it doesn't work (tried it in many forms). Defensive Wars have pathetic offence and Theatrics have two very good defensive skills which help them block (more than) enough attack to prolong the battle and make the opponent bleed out. Try it yourself and tell me how it works. :)

[crow]

I have seen this myself with my wars when I run them defensively. The old adage of rock,paper,scissors does not apply as much anymore. Nate designed this engine with builds more in mind. Against a tank, a non bleed theatric has an extremely tough time getting through the armor, whereas a bleeder will get through enough to drain them. There are triggers for this, so when to know to go offensive and fight back before your war is bled dry.

[Kreegan]

Question is how to fight back. A War who has gone all the way down to Armoured Fortress has very poor offense and his attacks can easily be parried (at the moment most bleeders have both Crowd Pleaser and Strength of the Crowd which are more than sufficient even without shield). At the same time the bleeder needs to pierce through the heavy armour just a few times - and the direct damage isn't even all that important - to score 100+ bleeding and win the battle after several rounds. I've tried various triggers but all of them encounter the same problem - can't deal enough damage before the bleeding brings my gladiator down.

[Prinny]

Give them a bigger weapon and Death From Above and they can do more than enough damage~

[Kreegan]

Problem is not with the amount of the damage but with its frequency. If your attacks get constantly parried, it doesn't really matter how hard they could have been.

[Dainoji]

A War who has gone all the way down to Armoured Fortress has very poor offense

If you've placed 100 skill points in the war tree and grabbed AF then your build is most likely a defensive one and you shouldn't be expecting to shower the crowd in an explosion of bone and blood. If you want an offensive war glad put points in Devastating Power, Brute Force and possibly Blood Drunk in the Rage tree and for sure grab DFA. You can't expect to have a maxed out war tree focused on defense and also have a great offense, just as a maxed out rage glad won't be exhausting anyone anytime soon.

[Dainoji]

It does seem silly though that a knuckle scrape can cause more bleeding than hacking off a glad's arm.

Of all the silly things in this game you pick that one? ;) Have you seen the graphic images of rib cages exploding and giant holes through vital organs? Any one of these hits would end any "real" gladiator's life in an instant! This is a fantasy game with Elves and Faeries (ok maybe no faeries and Elves are called Elaar...) running around a fictitious land with Dunders and Urks and Trugs OH MY and fun and balance trump reality thankfully. :p

[Alba Kebab]

Give them a bigger weapon and Death From Above and they can do more than enough damage~
What Prinny said.

[Stormcloak]

"fun and balance trump reality thankfully."

Oh, I agree completely Dainaji.
If anything, I'm a perfectionist... but am inconsistent at it, lol...

[AngryVermin]

I believe that "THE GREAT CREATOR" is balancing out the game so that no, one class, can rule and beat everything - or at least he is working towards that. In most great games with staying power there is the rule of 3 - you can beat 2 but not the third. I think it is by design and that we will see more of this and not less.

[Kreegan]

If you've placed 100 skill points in the war tree and grabbed AF then your build is most likely a defensive one and you shouldn't be expecting to shower the crowd in an explosion of bone and blood. If you want an offensive war glad put points in Devastating Power, Brute Force and possibly Blood Drunk in the Rage tree and for sure grab DFA. You can't expect to have a maxed out war tree focused on defense and also have a great offense, just as a maxed out rage glad won't be exhausting anyone anytime soon.Thanks for redundantly repeating what I already said. But it has nothing to do with my point.

I believe that "THE GREAT CREATOR" is balancing out the game so that no, one class, can rule and beat everything - or at least he is working towards that.It's not about one class beating everything else, it's about one build overwhelming another build pretty much unconditionally. And no, Death from Above + some big weapon doesn't change that, it just gets parried. You guys should try running gladiators without all achievements and see what's the difference. :)

[Apoca1ypse]

You guys should try running gladiators without all achievements and see what's the difference. :)

I did with blarg pre-seasons. Non-HOL glad on just gold achievements and frequently made top 10.....

He couldnt make #1 though because of said "X build beats Y build unconditionally"

[Kreegan]

OK, maybe some serious discussion is in order. Lately the defensive War builds seem to lose against the vast number of the other builds - in the Blood Games and in the regular arena matches. They can be dropped down by both bleeding and sheer damage and the heavy armour doesn't seem to offer nearly enough protection for the huge encumbrance that it gives. There are Rages and Theatricses armed with axes/maces, sometimes even swords, which pierce through it enough times to bring the War down before losing even half of their endurance. The bleeders beat the crap out of the tanks, this is not even worth discussing, you just need to go through the daily matches.

So, soon after the big update which introduced all the new stuff, many people complained that the tanks resist too much damage. While this MAY have been true to an extent, it was also true that people were used to the old tactics and just refused to accept that they no longer work - like the famous 10 - Berserk - 10 which was pretty much the only Rage strategy - and didn't even try something new before declaring the Armoured Fortress build broken. Now, several months later, there are many adapted strategies, which combined with the overall nerf of the heavy armour, make the tanks not-so-impressive, to say the least.

Please, consider also gladiators which do not have full arsenal of achievements and super gear. The greater part of the gladiators in Blood Gods (although not all of them) equal upper tier 6 arena challenges, you can't build something like that without cycling through the Slave Market for some super-HoL and loading him/her with tons of achievements + top gear, so they do not really show a "normal" situation (in any case, the tanks in that bracket don't really seem to handle bleeders or most of the Rages really well). The tanks in Primus - which aren't too many - don't seem to go for Armoured Fortress any longer and some of them drop parts of the heavy armour.

In short, I think this build has been nerfed way too much. There should be some extra protection against bleeders and the armour-piercing power of some weapons should be reduced to a reasonable level (one-handed weapon scoring 600-700 Rampage damage vs. all defensive skills from the tree maxed is more than a bit too much, not to mention the 2H hits).

[Cynaidh]

Not seeing it myself, in the top 10 of Blood Gods, half of the glads are defensive glads of some sort.

Rank 3 Onefortyone - 100 points in the warrior tree, defensive glad with polearm
Rank 4 Beltank - 100 points in the warrior tree, defensive glad with mace/shield
Rank 7 Bloody Lady - 100 Points in the theatric tree, defensive glad
Rank 8 ZeroEleven - 100 points in the warrior tree, defensive glad with 2H
Rank 10 OneZeroNine - 100 points in the warrior tree, defensive glad with mace/shield

So right now 40% of the top 10 in the game are warriors with 100 points in the warrior tree, 2 of them are dedicated shield users.

[Jervaj]

Pure war should be an option even if it has its clear counters. I agree with kreag there. But form what Cyna shows its seems it doesnt work that bad...

[Dainoji]

Yeah, not seeing it, defensive glads kick ass, the rankings show it and my scribe shows it!

[Prinny]

One of those tanks without armoured fortress and lower weight equipment in primus would be my glad Mid Boss and that has a very simple reason. He didn't get access to Armoured Fortress untill yesterday when he trained his 10th lvl in Light As A feather but naturally he was lvl 50 already so he needed armour to substitute for the lvl 30 equipment he was wearing when he reached that lvl ;)

[Kreegan]

*Sigh* I mentioned that the Blood Gods monsters armed with all the achievements should not be considered "normal" options... Anyway - when was the last time when some of your tanks won vs. a equally competent bleeder? Or vs. a Rage with armour-piercing weapons? Or vs. competent a War or Theatrics with such weapons for that matter? In my opinion, the only reason why the tanks can still be seen in top 10 in the first two brackets is because some people still haven't figured out the few easy ways to beat them. Those who have beat them all the time.

[riggen]

Now, quite honestly, I understand bleeding like a woman on her period after being critted all game long, but it's rather ridiculous to have 247 bleeding after being stabbed for no more than 11 damage(top hit, most were under 6 damage).

[Dainoji]

Now, quite honestly, I understand bleeding like a woman on her period after being critted all game long, but it's rather ridiculous to have 247 bleeding after being stabbed for no more than 11 damage(top hit, most were under 6 damage).

It's a game and in this game where make believe monsters hit each other with fantastical weapons they also have special skills, skills that don't exist in real life. Some of the fake fantasy like skills offer benefits like extra bleeding. :)

From a more real life perspective an 11 damage hit could be a small wound where a blade enters the stomach, the 247 bleed can be from the punctured organs and internal injures. It's not uncommon for people to die from internal bleeding and only have superficial looking injuries on their skin.

[riggen]

Internal bleeding. Caused by a very small knife scratching my heavy armour's painting?

[Pit Lord]

Scratching artery between the armour pieces I guess;). From wiki: Falchion - The weapon combined the weight and power of an axe with the versatility of a sword.

[Kreegan]

Just for reference, here's an example from today's Blood Games:

http://imageshack.us/a/img405/8714/111pdv.png

3 damage, 38 bleeding. That's a weeee bit over the top.

[Pit Lord]

I will provide you with some statistic:

SEASON 1 (this is since 1 april when BL was more or less developed; previous results are worse; including only matches where the related stables was not inactive)

BL - 141 14-8
BL - BEL 14-10
BL - 1122 11-9
BL - 109 17-7
BL - ASA 13-4

The gladiator was ranked first (RANK 1 in Blood Gods) one or several times for short or longer period

SEASON 2 (includes all defensive warriors matches)

BL - ASA 3-2
BL - Doofus 1-1

All provided statistics is from Blood Gods bracket. As we can see it is very hard to say one spec hard counter the other. It still vary from one gladiator to another. Also to discard defensive warriors and say they are useless is too radical. They performed and i'm pretty sure can still perform well if developed correctly.

If you need I can provide you with better examples where one spec is close to hard counter another but you got the wrong example.

I have no idea witch is your stable and who are your gladiators but I guess they are in the lower brackets where all kind of crazy things can happen. You made this thread and was so relentless in defending your opinion while most managers of the leading stables disagreed. Did you ever consider the possibility you may actually made some mistakes in developing/running your gladiators? If you think you did everything perfectly it will be very hard to improve further.

[Kreegan]

Nope, my observations were not only from the performance of my own gladiators but also from other tank vs. bleeder fights. The screenshot above is from two of the top Blood Game fighters during the respective month and the defensive War (011) lost so badly that it's not even fun. You could see similar examples on a daily basis*. I have a tank in Primus (Barrier) who's performing quite decently, except vs. defensive bleeders.

*By the way, I've noticed a drop in the performance of the defensive bleeders during the last... maybe 2 weeks or so. They still fight well but not so ridiculously well as before. Maybe something was changed?

[Pit Lord]

I think nothing has changed in skills and mechanics. The Blood Gods gear has less AP then the regular gear. The regular AP/Def primus gear is probably a bit overpowered (in primus).

[Prinny]

Hate to say it Kreegan but I don't see wielding a 2 Handed weapon like 011 does as being defensive...

[Kreegan]

Not only shield users are defensive and by the way two-handers fare far better against bleeders than shield tanks. And by the way just today your Asatsuo lost to an underequipped bleeder who doesn't even seem to be fully trained.

[Pit Lord]

There are 3 types:

1.If the gladiator has Armoured Fortress he is defensive since he can't have much offense from war tree.
2.If he has shield but no Armoured Fortress hi is again defensive.
3.If he has both shield and Armoured Fortress then he is super defensive.
And finally if he has two shields + Armoured Fortress he is omega defensive ;).

Maybe someone must create classification thread so we can speak same language.

Btw the bleeding is very random. Sometimes I see 10-15 hits for 30-40 bleeding and sometimes 2 hits for 40 bleeding (both vs heavy armour). But in the end this is the better way since if the bleeding was fixed amount the gladiators will be too ...hm - adjustable?

[Prinny]

Not only shield users are defensive and by the way two-handers fare far better against bleeders than shield tanks. And by the way just today your Asatsuo lost to an underequipped bleeder who doesn't even seem to be fully trained.

Got me there, still I don't see anything not using a shield as a defensive gladiator
I would say the topic would be most about Shield bearing wars vs Bleeding Theatrics though since those are the ones that should be the ones blocking out most hits getting a minimal amount of bleed.

@Pit Lord, When and where did you obtain this awesome second shield and where are you hiding it? Better not let the enforcer notice Bloody Lady is hiding a second shield under her own shield! :p