Survey about.....

[crow]

Just wanted hear folks opinion on the value of 2 rage skills.

the 1st is Devastating Power. It is a newer skill for the rages so it is hard to compare with the old skill tree.

the 2nd is Brute Force. It this now as critical as it used to be?

[Cynaidh]

I like both, there are so many defense glads out there now I still feel brute force is almost mandatory. And Devastating power is just a nice increase in all your crits, and as a rage you get a lot of crits.

[Alba Kebab]

I kinda feel both are mandatory. Although I only have 1 rage to comment on the matter.

[Stormcloak]

I'm running a rage and I have both. I've passed on sunder armour for now, figuring I'd rather have passive skills that always work instead of an activated skill that may/not fire and may/not be parried. I don't have another rage to compare to though.

[Prinny]

Sunder Armour has a big chance to trigger each round if you get it to 10 ;)
Brute Force is I believe a great addition to break through the parry styles of gladiators, Devastating power im not sure of how well it works but I guess it depends on the weapon/weapons you're using if it's important or not

[Sotc]

for Brute Force I would say that its definitely worth taking due to stacking defense becoming more popular.
for Dev Power, it seems to increase crit damage a decent amount. In a few weeks I may be able to provide some numbers here after I de-train sunder armor for dev power.
You might also want to consider Blood Drunk, a few people have been saying in chat that the attack power bonus grows the more you swing which is pretty neat.

[Apoca1ypse]

I've been running Dev Power and Brute force for a while on all my glads. I found a massive boost in 2H glad performance with DP.

[crow]

As for my 2 cents.

For me I have had a few glads without Dev. Power and I can tell you it makes a big difference. Unless I decide to go for theatrics specialist or war specialist, then this is a mandatory skill for my guys.

As for Brute force, it was such a difference maker on the old fight engine, but in this one it does not seem to making as much of a difference as it did before. With the added defense to this engine, special activated attacks are now much more important, when going against defensive type glads.
If running a rage, crippling might is the best option to get through a def. war that is tanking. rampage is awesome when they are parrying or attacking.
The other 2 great options to get through on defensive fighters is Feint, and death from above. With the activated attacks being so much more vital now than before, higher levels of intellect is needed to help them "go off" more.

[Kreegan]

High defense blocks even the activated abilities though. I've had my Feint and Death from Above parried on multiple occasions.
There also seems to be some "defense threshold" (compared to the attack of the opposing gladiator of course) or something like that after which ALL of your attacks get parried. You can see fights where one of the gladiators emerges victorious without taking a scratch just by parrying every single strike and counter-attacking from time to time.

[Pit Lord]

Death from Above is the best ability against defensive gladiators. It is like improved Feint + bonus damage, but it cannot be used as often as Feint.