Arena Enforcer

[Team Kaos]

What's up with the new change with the enforcer handing out so much punishment. The last couple days now Parrying at even 7 activity unleashes the Enforcer. I get the beat down on the tanking turtles, but even parrying now brings the hammer down.

The defensive war is nearly extinct as it is, now a war is caught with his pants down against a tired low activity theatrics.

Lets not make it a near automatic win for the bleeder theatrics and beserking rages to finish the defensive wars.

After all it is what they are trained to do, parry and block with little attack. To be so heavily penalized for it is just cruel.

[Nate]

Hi Kaos,

Nothing has changed with the fight engine in many, many, many moons, probably more than six months ago. If a gladiator is not making enough attacks in a given period of time the Enforcer will encourange you to do so. If you are parrying but are very tired and thus not attacking, think of a way to trigger into something else or set up your strategies so that condition doesn't happen. There are numerous ways to do this. I always do a detailed balancing pass every so often so next time the detailed pass is at the top of the todo list if anything stands out as being off I'll take care of it. It is possible that the tactic of running your opponent out of energy is lagging behind some of the other win conditions and if so we'll address it. :)

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Team Kaos]

Good to know Nate, just seems a couple of glads that parry have been taking a hefty amount of damage while parrying lately.
in fact i have even sped them up and added additional stamina to them to attempt to combat the enforcer getting involved.
The last thing i want to do is completly change strats to O minded.
I see no reason for the enforcer to get involved while parrying at med activity and the opponent swinging at least once per round.
Just something i have not encountered in a very long time.

[Kreegan]

The problem with the defensive Wars is not that the Enforcer punishes inactivity too often but that they are once again in a position where their armour doesn't offer nearly as much protection as they need to remain competitive against the current mainstream builds. It's rather silly to have a Tower shield, all the defensive skills including Armoured Fortress maxed, to run a strategy with parries and occasionally tank and still receive 200-300 damage per hit from a Theatrics or War dual-wielding bladed weapons (not even hammers or heavy axes). In my opinion that's mainly because low-level skills like Called Shot and Devastating Power effectively ignore the heavy armour so going deep down the War tree for something different than Create Distance and Light as a Feather is pretty meaningless.

[Dainoji]

Not sure who you are fighting, but anytime I have a blades vs heavy armor fight those blades don't fare so well and that is with many of the skills you mentioned.

[Kreegan]

Here's a fight from yesterday 100/100 War with 10/10 Armoured Fortress, Intercepting Guard and Battle Hardened vs a Theatrics with a falcion and a cestus (Barrier vs. Prodigal Son):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/801/2ehe.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/wnlx.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/rxf.png/

If the images are not showing up, here are the links:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/801/2ehe.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/wnlx.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/rxf.png/

All of these are regular hits, no activated abilities (which score similar damage), vs heavy armour (Barrier is wearing full heavy).
Additionally, I have plenty of fights each day where Theatrics gladiators armed with knives score several criticals above 100 damage per fight vs. heavy armour.

[Alba Kebab]

A sabre is not a puny knife...

[riggen]

I believe Kreegan was stating that he had experienced fights other than the one he posted (In which his opponent wielded a saber) in which opponents with knives would score crits that dealt over 100 damage, as well as the unreasonable bleeding we're all used to by now.

More to the point, I'm currently attempting a defensive 2h warrior build. I've failed to stand up to bleeders with a decent shield-tank and was advised to go on the offensive. Going on the offensive should be easier with a big-ass weapon I hope. Wondering how it will stand up versus bleedy theatrics...

[Dainoji]

as well as the unreasonable bleeding we're all used to by now.

There is nothing unreasonable about it. It's a part of the game just like anything else and a main feature of an entire specialty. Is rampage also "unreasonable"? How about DFA? What about the "silly" damage a 2H rage glad can deal in one hit without any activated abilities? Ever been on the receiving end of a 1800 damage bomb from Ahnold? Ever had Belca jump on your sorry ass a few times in a fight? Every class has numerous skills that make life tough for the opponent. I'm sure if you added up the damage dealt from a rampage hit or a couple DFA it would be comparable to the bleeding inflicted by a Theatrics glad. Rage gets it in one hit, War needs about 2 DFAs and Theatrics builds it up slowly over numerous rounds in which any number of things could happen ending the match before the opponent bleeds out. If you are having a hard time wrapping your head around how bleeding wounds can happen though heavy armor think of it as a result of masterful skill and training on the gladiator's part. Perhaps as part of the Gratuitous Violence skill gladiators are taught about all the weaknesses of armor and in addition about anatomy, pressure points, the locations of major arteries. It doesn't take much to spill a lot of blood if you know where to cut or poke. Use your imagination. We're building gods and heroes here, it's not a stretch to think they are capable of superhuman feats.

[Dainoji]

All of these are regular hits, no activated abilities (which score similar damage), vs heavy armour (Barrier is wearing full heavy).
Additionally, I have plenty of fights each day where Theatrics gladiators armed with knives score several criticals above 100 damage per fight vs. heavy armour.

Sure it happens, but I can assure you gray and white hits happen a lot more. Seems you want heavy armor to reduce all weapons to negligible hits which not only would be overpowering, it would be boring. Start stacking defense along with your heavy armor, it's not a strategy just for defensive theatrics. It's a two step combo for defensive theatrics glads to bleed you out while maintaining their defense just as it is a two step combo to wear heavy armor and stack defense to run the opponent out of energy albeit I'll concede this is actually harder to do than bleeding someone out since there are many ways the opponent can control their energy expenditure.

[Team Kaos]

Here's a fight from yesterday 100/100 War with 10/10 Armoured Fortress, Intercepting Guard and Battle Hardened vs a Theatrics with a falcion and a cestus (Barrier vs. Prodigal Son):

Prodigal Son also benefits from Devastating Power and ONLY with a large weapon like a Sabre or Falchion does he get up over 250 in hit points.
If I gear him with a cestus or small knife he is consistent in the 90's to mid 100's. Yes, the smaller blade causes more bleed but sometimes it takes to long before a DFA comes down on his head a couple times.

[Kreegan]

Sure it happens, but I can assure you gray and white hits happen a lot more.Yes, they do and they wield bleeding on top of the regular damage, hence it doesn't really matter if they are weak or not - they can only hit good or better. The point is that the heavy weapons combined with some low-level skill get through heavy armour way too easily. What's the point to invest heavily in one build only to get it easily countered by pretty much every decent gladiator which has 1-2 low-level skills? So no, I don't want the heavy armour to reduce the damage too much, that would indeed be dull - but at the moment it does not reduce it enough despite the major investment in defensive skills, i.e. the problem is more with the high tier defensive skills in the War tree than with the armour itself. Rages have no issues with it if they use Kill Shot, Theatrics can bleed the crap out of any defensive War (and score serious damage with heavy weapons) and 2H Wars will very often force a War with a shield to surrender way before they run out of endurance (as well as an sub-offensive or offensive War build actually). Moreover, you can never stack more defense than a Theatrics and have Armoured Fortress simply because Theatrics have two major defensive skills in their tree on top of the other defense bonuses so at best you end up slowly bled out.

Anyway, even though I'm not making these things up and taking them from everyday experience - which people who don't run defensive Wars just don't have, period - can you name a successful defensive War at the moment? The best one is placed 20th in Blood Gods, nothing notable in Blood Games. And that's not recent.

[oedi]

I do agree with Kreegan that the defensive war build just suck atm, but im not so sure its a game flaw. Take a look at the current environment, the most popular build in blood gods right now is the defensive theatric bleed build, which i agree that a defensive war must be very lucky to beat. So in a round robin of 50 and i would guess its about 20 bleed theatrics in the mix(#10 theatrics is ranked 20) its near impossible to keep anything better than a 50% wl.
My advice would be, sell the defense and build some offense with a lot of rage skills, atleast thats what ive done ;)

[Team Kaos]

I don't think the problem with the defensive War is with damage reduction, as a fully skilled War will reduce damage nicely, and can outlast nearly any build especially if you can get up around the 2000 health mark, they can parry the bleeders and withstand a couple Rampage's or DFA's. The bigger problem is they just don't block or parry very much at the upper level (Blood Gods), as can be seen by the lack of upper end defensive War's. The once dominant Imperial Guards toil well below 50%.

But again that is the highest of all levels. In Primus they can hold their own very well against any build outside of the 2H War's and 2H Kill Shot Rage.

Holy Rising and Spiritual Death easily reached the top of Primus sporting 70% w/l as defensive War's, Blood God's... well that's another story, but Holy Rising is also a bit outmatched in gear at the moment and also a non HOF slave, so it's a slow upward climb for him.

However, even in Primus towards the top...it just seems the ability to hit is superior to the ability to block or parry. When considering a maxed skilled defensive War and a maxed skilled offensive Theatrics, Rage or War....the defensive War becomes more and more inferior the closer to the top.

But I'm kinda OK with that, since this is gladitorial combat..and no one wants to watch a parry exhibition. We want blood and gore, not gladiators falling asleep on the sands.

[Kreegan]

Defensive Wars with a focus on damage reduction (i.e. Armoured Fortress builds) just don't parry 80-90% of the time so only the armour deflections negate all damage. I'm not really sure if Battle Hardened and Intercepting Guard really provide any defensive bonus - in term of damage reduction or negation - at all. So if most of the Rage builds can easily get past the heavy armour and all the defense bonuses with Kill Shot, pretty much all Theatrics builds except those with maces can drop a defensive War with bleeding and most of the remaining builds can bypass most of the heavy armour's protection by taking 1-2 low level skills which augment the critical hits, it turns out that a defensive War is only good before he reaches mid-high Primus and just against a selected group of opponents - which are pretty scarce lately. At the moment Barrier can handle only underdeveloped gladiators, certain speed Rages and certain other Rages with bad strategies and it's not like I haven't changed his strategy several times to no avail.

[Alba Kebab]

I don't really see defensive wars as being uneffective, I just don't see the notion of a being a defensive war means you have to be a maxed up endurance whore who tries to win by out turtling everyone whilst hardly ever swinging your weapon.

As for realism. The mongols were never known for widespread use of heavy weapons such as axes/maces, their standard melee weapons are your typical curved sabres, their bows are typically short horseback bows that don't pack the same force of crossbows. Yet they had no problems slaughtering european knights in full armor, whether with arrows or in full-on melee. So maybe, some of our predisposed beliefs about the impenetrability of heavy armor may not be all that realistic in itself, and I'll blame pop culture for that. :p

[Kreegan]

Pit of War realistic? Heh, nice one. I'm not talking about that of course, it's about balance. And no, the days of the super-enduring defensive Wars is long gone, right now their main issue is how to handle the swarm of bleeders that have become the most mainstream class on the arena and generally how to deal with the builds which have no issues getting through the heavy armour and the defensive skills in the War tree. The reality check says that a simple Called Shot + Devastating Power combo makes the heavy armour less protective than even the medium one and usually even one of that skills is sufficient to drop a tin can build.
And really, if the defensive Wars are not ineffective, why aren't there any of them where it matters the most - among the top performers in Blood Gods and Blood Games?

[Jelle]

Hey guys I'm back, figured I'd jump right in this discussion. The topic of seemingly assymetrical defense to offense scaling is something that annoyed me quite a bit in this game. Here's hoping I can get some more defensive glads up the ranks, but as been said it seems unlikely.

Anyway so yeah, the assymetrical scaling. At least that's what it seems like, large quantities of offense power trumping equivalent defensive power. Clearly the defensive route is working out better for theatric right now, so defense isn't all terrible. Is it the heavy armor, and the war skills that put emphasis on said armor that isn't quite as cracked up? Some good skills in the war tree to increase the effectiveness of armor and to mitigate additional damage when using a shield, but are they effective and are they at least as good as just focusing on the defense stat?

In the end I have no idea how damage mitigation through armor works in this game so it's hard to draw a conclusion, only that even weapons that don't necesarely fare well against armor have no problem penetrating whatever protection a defensive war can muster. Seems like medium marmor with an emphasis on speed and defense is where its at, wich leaves me wondering what the point of the top tier war skills are apart from create distance.


I don't really see defensive wars as being uneffective, I just don't see the notion of a being a defensive war means you have to be a maxed up endurance whore who tries to win by out turtling everyone whilst hardly ever swinging your weapon.

As for realism. The mongols were never known for widespread use of heavy weapons such as axes/maces, their standard melee weapons are your typical curved sabres, their bows are typically short horseback bows that don't pack the same force of crossbows. Yet they had no problems slaughtering european knights in full armor, whether with arrows or in full-on melee. So maybe, some of our predisposed beliefs about the impenetrability of heavy armor may not be all that realistic in itself, and I'll blame pop culture for that. :p
I'm no historian but I don't think knights were common during the middle ages? Far as I know knighthood was more of a status then anything else. Full plate armor and a well trained horse were pricy, far from what common soldiers could afford I think.
I think you're right about the misconception that full plate makes for impenetrable defense though, just as it's a common misconception that said plate is immensly weighty. I blame the d&d fantasy culture for that one. :)
Still, realism or no this game went with the heavy armor slows you down to a crawl unless you're a behemoth, so you'd kind of expect the impenetrable defense portion to follow.

[Dainoji]

And really, if the defensive Wars are not ineffective, why aren't there any of them where it matters the most - among the top performers in Blood Gods and Blood Games?

Because when Cyn rage quit :p he sent all the top war glads to the hol. Before he did that The Returned was the dominate gladiator in the arena coming in a close second in season 1. He was a heavy plate mail wearing tanking bastard. Go look at the hol right now and check the top 10 war glads, for the most part they have the best w/l records. Some were around before the skill change, others after. There is nothing wrong with defensive war glads if they are built correctly and have a proper strategy. Defensive war glads often win the battle royals or are one of the last to go due to their armor and defensive abilities. While some would have you believe they've "tried everything" in trying to get a war glad to the top obviously they haven't. Another common excuse you'll hear is "I've tried many strategies", ok, great, obviously not one that suits your gladiator and the current meta game in your bracket. This game is fluid and ebbs and flows based on where your glads are and what other players are doing at that time. The reason you don't see a lot of ultra defensive gladiators at the top is they aren't as fun to play not because they are lacking. This is a subjective statement of course but I feel pretty confident the majority of players run more offensive gladiators because it is more exciting. If there were a similar number of defensive gladiators as offensive gladiators you'd see a lot more at the top. Simple math. Yes, yes "if defensive glads were more effective players would run more of them". Sure, I agree if it were easy to win with them more people would play them, but they would still be far outnumbered by offensive glads.

And while we're talking about "realism" evolution weeds out the majority of species that develop heavy armor to protect themselves, hence why there are so few around now in comparison to non armored species. Being smaller and more agile almost always beats slow and strong. We are of course playing a game so none of that really matters, what matters is balance and from where I'm sitting I don't see a grievous imbalance at the moment. Do bleeds ruin your day? Sure, so doesn't a well placed rampage or a couple of DFAs. If your idea of a "defensive" gladiator is one who stands around on the sand like a metal punching bag then you deserve to lose more than you win. The topic of defense vs offense isn't even really a good one. Only rage glads get to be pure offense, war and theatrics glads are meant to utilize both with the player deciding how much of each to throw in there, but if you are deciding to go pure defense as a war gladiator all day every day you are discarding more than a third of your fighting styles right off the bat. If you stay away from the offensive type skills and techniques again you are leaving options on the table instead of bringing them with you onto the sands. If you are choosing to fight with a handicap for the challenge, fine, but understand you are voluntarily fighting with one arm behind your back.


Hey guys I'm back

Welcome back Jelle! :)

[Apoca1ypse]

These 2 posts are the best posts I've read on here in a while :D They're actually reasonable and stuff :P

Also WB Jelle :)

[Alba Kebab]

I'm no historian but I don't think knights were common during the middle ages? Far as I know knighthood was more of a status then anything else. Full plate armor and a well trained horse were pricy, far from what common soldiers could afford I think.
I think you're right about the misconception that full plate makes for impenetrable defense though, just as it's a common misconception that said plate is immensly weighty. I blame the d&d fantasy culture for that one. :)
Still, realism or no this game went with the heavy armor slows you down to a crawl unless you're a behemoth, so you'd kind of expect the impenetrable defense portion to follow.
We may be going off track a little here to the discussion, but since it's interesting. :p
Of course not, no armies in history were made up of knights only, it was always knights at the core with support infantry, archers, conscripts, mercenaries etc. Whilst they are not common and only make up a small percentage in an army, maybe a few hundred knights in an army of thousands, they are typically where all the kings and princes are. Normally most of the causalities are from the grunts/fodder troops and very light for knights, but whenever an important noble gets killed in battle, it means knights died, since you'd almost need to kill an entire retinue of knights before you can kill the nobility commanding it. So whilst historic accounts on actual numbers can be vague, but when they record the high commander who's the most important or the 2nd most important noble in the land was killed in battle and almost an entire army was lost, you can safely assume plenty of dead knights happened, and there's a long enough list of important Polish/Russian/Hungarian Grand Dukes and Princes who was killed in battle with Mongols.
Of course, armor were not as heavy at the time of the mongol invasion as it was in later middle ages when things like gothic plates came into being, but nevertheless, the armor the nobles and their knights had at the time would still be miles heavier than the armor and weaponry the Mongols had.

[Kreegan]

Because when Cyn rage quit he sent all the top war glads to the hol. Before he did that The Returned was the dominate gladiator in the arena coming in a close second in season 1. He was a heavy plate mail wearing tanking bastard.Like I've said maybe a gazillion times already, pointing at gladiators who had hundreds of trophies spent on them to become as effective as they were is a poor example. Very poor actually. Not all of us come from countries where we can afford to pour 100+$ on a MMO monthly. The Returned costed how much? 1150 gold or something like that? For how long did she fight without all of her achievement slots used? I don't know if Cyn had to respec her if he didn't like her performance but we've had examples about overnight respecs worth many trophies just because some top dog was not faring well. And finally - the Returned was fighting with a 2H weapon, which was and is much more effective against most of the builds on the arena than a War with a shield + whatever.

Defensive war glads often win the battle royals or are one of the last to go due to their armor and defensive abilities.That's not even true and if it was - Battle Royal is less than 5% of the game.

The reason you don't see a lot of ultra defensive gladiators at the top is they aren't as fun to play not because they are lacking.That's just your opinion. They were just as fun or dull to play a few months ago but they were maybe 2-3 times more of them then.

While some would have you believe they've "tried everything" in trying to get a war glad to the top obviously they haven't. Another common excuse you'll hear is "I've tried many strategies", ok, great, obviously not one that suits your gladiator and the current meta game in your bracket. This game is fluid and ebbs and flows based on where your glads are and what other players are doing at that time.If you're speaking from experience, which is your defensive War glad who performs well? If not, then you're just speculating for speculation's sake.

If your idea of a "defensive" gladiator is one who stands around on the sand like a metal punching bag then you deserve to lose more than you win.It's not and it isn't for a long, long time. The defensive Wars who just sit until their opponent drops are fewer than the fingers of a hand at the moment. You're lagging several months behind, I even wonder if you check what is happening in the upper brackets.

If you stay away from the offensive type skills and techniques again you are leaving options on the table instead of bringing them with you onto the sands. The only purely offensive skills in the War tree are DFA and War Cry. DFA deals quite unspectacular damage if you don't get extra offensive skills from the Rage tree (and an Armoured Fortress build obviously can't get them) and War Cry is wasted on a defensive gladiator. So what's left?

[Dainoji]

Kreegan, you are right, I'm wrong as is everyone else when debating with you. I'm terribly sorry to have offered up information that you don't agree with, and even more sorry to have wasted your time with incorrect observations. Clearly you have it all figured out so why don't you send Nate a checklist of exactly what needs to change and by how much and we will all hail you as the savior of defensive gladiators throughout the great realm. I could point to some more good examples and offer up more good reasons that don't support your position but why bother, you've already figured it all out, so what would one or two more "exceptions" matter when you have all the facts in front of you already.

[Kreegan]

Well, I think I asked you pretty specific questions about why do you think like you do and where does your experience come from, but you refuse to answer them. I have the nasty habit to demand proofs and arguments when people persistently claim something which looks unjustified so if that annoys you, feel free not to answer me.