2H styles suffering. What are people's thoughts?

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm bringing this up because I'm feeling rather frustrated at how 2H styles are working. 2H Rage enjoyed a whole week at the top of the game, and that was about it. 2H war (Different to polearms) is suffering even worse in Blood Gods but has at least been a pretty successful formula in the past. The latter is not my forte, but it's got a mention at the bottom of this post.

It is important to note that these styles were already struggling BEFORE the influx of speed styles.



Current rankings of 2H ragers:

Flonne: 22nd (61.1%)
Ahhnold: 23rd (60.1%)
Zeta Ii: 36th (50.4%)

They're just above the middle of the Blood Gods pack

After trying all sorts of stuff with Ahhnold, I just cannot get 2H rage to work.

These are the most recent thing I've tried:


Version 1: Strength/Chi Barbarian

Race: *****
Health: ~2500
Endurance: 156
Strength: 238
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 146
Size: 87
Presence: 173
Chi: 206

Notes: This was what I ran prior to the HP stacking. I tried it as Trug, Dunder, Sniveller, Human and Urk. Performed like ass. Maybe land 1 good hit, then get eviscerated worse than some naive hippy at Thulsa Doom's temple. HP is approximate because I lost my exact notes on it (other stats are accurate).


Version 2: HP Monster

Race: Trug
Health: 2984
Endurance: 156
Strength: 223
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 156
Size: 97
Presence: 173
Chi: 178

Notes: This was something Nate suggested to me over PMs. It's the best performing build I've had, but with Ahhnold barely scraping into the top 25 with those ridiculous stats, it makes me a little sad.


Version 3: Initiative testing

Race: Sniveller
Health: 2033
Endurance: 146
Strength: 223
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 146
Size: 87
Presence: 205
Chi: 178

Notes: The idea was to try and get the biggest speed advantage possible (given the gear available to me) to land some good hits early on. Sniveller, Strength and Presence over 200, Agility just shy of 140. Performed pretty poorly. Even fully clad Wars were still getting the jump pretty frequently. It's a bit depressing really.


So now, Ahhnold is back to HP stacking and hoping to drop other rage glads before they can land a Rampage. Already given up on trying to even just land a hit on the likes of Arrrrrghpirate, Amon Djinn and any of the other speed builds.





And now, 2H War, which is a trickier subject because only Bruce Willis (barely top 40, 49.7%) is representing, and extrapolating results of a single sample is a really bad move. The only other glad to represent 2H War afaik was Belca last season, who switched back to 2 maces because that style actually works.


I lack the gear to test everything with Willis, but current stats are:


Race: Dunder
Health: 2718
Endurance: 130
Strength: 169
Intilligence: 88
Agility: 142
Stamina: 130
Size: 147
Presence: 92
Chi: 115


This is not the best performing version I've had, as I have too much invested in Size. This Dunder version does perform better than the 3100HP Trug version at least. Unfortunately with the nature of how gear works in Blood Gods, it will be a while before I can even test if something else will be better. It probably will be once I drop 30 size for more str and chi (and a splash of int) but even when I had that with the old incarnation of "best gear" it was barely top 20 material (and still the top 2H war).

I will concede however that with Willis being the only 2H War (and run by me, who's a war noobie), extrapolating anything from him is somewhat pointless. I still think it has some relevance though because 2H War has been bad enough for people to just jump ship instead.

EDIT: There is Cyn with the Behemoth, who is very low in the standings in full purple gear.

Edit 2: Derp, forgot Lord Brutish, who confirms how I feel about needing more str and chi.


=========================================

Anyway, what are people's thoughts on this 'issue'? Do others even perceive that there is one, or am I just talking out of my ass?

...does anyone else have suggestions on what could be done to 'fix' things, or for me to try?

[oedi]

Not sure why you dont know Lord Brutish, hes been a 2h all his career. He performs decent with a 66,7 W/L and currently ranked 14.
http://i59.tinypic.com/dz9wm8.jpg

[Adoede]

Hi Apoca1ypse,

Lord Brutish is also a 2H Elaar rage ranked at #14. He always seems to get the jump on my guys - even my speed builds. Maybe you should check him out?

Also, Ahhnold may not be the best build in the arena, but I gotta say he is awesome in Conquests. Most of the best combos I've found feature him in them. I'd keep him an HP monster even just for that.

I'll PM you one strategy I think would be worth trying.

[Apoca1ypse]

Not sure why you dont know Lord Brutish, hes been a 2h all his career. He performs decent with a 66,7 W/L and currently ranked 14.

I derped and forgot. I knew there was 1 more but it was about 4am my time that I posted the thread (sleepy). Seeing the str and chi he runs instead of size, that confirms what I felt about about the overinvestment in size (missed last season's window to get new gear). It does sort of make me feel like 2H war isnt as naffed as some of us made it out to be in another thread.



Crow and Prinny, how are you guys going with Zeta and Flonne? What things have you tried/not tried?

[crow]

2-hand Rages IMO are doing okay. With the huge presence of speed glads in the blood gods, they have to get their wins off non speed glads. The 2 biggest issues with the speed glads right now are 2 fold. The huge amount of damage they inflict per shot and the compounded critical effects they get per round. I have seen way too many fights in which a 200+ strength power rage get less damage per hit versus a speed glad. The game is truly set up right now for the speed glad.

As for 2-hand wars, well they just flat out suck right now. The only way I see them being some what successful is loading them up with full legendary gear and making them more defensive oriented, and try to outlast their opponents. A true offensive 2-hand war can not be done successfully right now in the blood gods bracket. One major issue I see with them is their lack of damage per hit. They consistently are being out damaged per hit versus even small blade speed glads. They stand absolutely no chance. Then of course power rages are their natural counter build and it is very ugly against them. Also WAY TOO many rounds they do not even attack even with a Activity setting of 10 and with no critical effects.

I am optimistic that Nate will get around to balancing out these issues once he is done with conquests and other to do items. Till then I just plan on getting my power guys ready for when these changes to occur. Enjoy it now speed boys. :)

[Prinny]

Im a noob when it comes to rages apoc, All Flonne does is stack Strength, presence, chi and abit of agility and smash at 8-8 berserk.
Something to factor in however~I gave her a 2H 1.1 speed weapon instead of the 1 speed ones so she is a tad bit faster, 2H rages hit hard anyway so I figured she might aswell hit 3 times more often.

[Kreegan]

The problem doesn't seem to be so much with the weaknesses of the two-handers but rather with the tons of advantages which the speed builds enjoy in the late game at the moment. The fighters with slow weapons are doomed to take no less than 5-6 hits, usually criticals which largely bypass the armour of the Wars and could gut most of the Rages, before they can even act. This way your fighter is usually half-beaten, prone/stunned/hamstrung, bleeding like a pig and with at least one serious injury when the time comes for him/her to return some damage. Tanking at the beginning of the fight doesn't help as it means double the hits that your gladiator gets before he/she acts, which in turn means double bleeding vs. Theatrics and double damage received vs. Rages with Annihilate who are pretty much all Rages out there. In the end, your fighters end up dealing much less damage per round than they take and lose without putting up much of a fight.

[Pit Lord]

Anyone tried to run war with full 196 armor, extra armour rank, full war skills, block rank, extra hp? Don't tell me Devastating Power makes that big difference in damage dealing. And don't tell me Adrenaline Rush is helping much when you land it AFTER you are cut to pieces already.

[Adoede]

That full defensive build is what I'm working on...it'll be a while though - just about got my guy to lvl 50 and starting to gear him now. I haven't seen any glads around that are going for what you suggest though. Mostly offensive War/Rage hybrids or Polearm agility wars around these parts.

[Sotc]

As a manager that has run speed builds, offensive wars that speed builds and even power rages struggle against most are those that are able to withstand the initial onslaught well enough to drag the speed build into the deep waters of later rounds and return fire. Ideally this would entail much of what Pit Lord has described (Create Distance, Fully Heavy, Full War Tree, etc.). At the moment glads like Erupt, Hubba, and even my war pirate (med armor with some block rank) have sufficient defense to do this quite regularly while having much less defense than the defensive ideal; HOWEVER the wars that I described are able to attack more than 2-H builds ending the match faster and therefore don't need to defend for as long as a 2H would.

In order for the 2-H to be more viable, it must either a) attack more or b) defend better or both. The most successful 2-H'er rage at the moment, Lord Brutish, does both (kudos Oedi). Lord Brutish attacks 3x per round while defending better than any other rage in the pits with large block rank, armor movement and heavy scarring. I think this is a roadmap for a more successful 2Her. However, wars cannot match the attack rate of a rage and cannot match the damage output either (especially if they drop the rage skills for full war).

People have been focusing on the damage aspect and following in the footsteps of The Returned by making their 2H wars rage hybrids (but with adrenaline rush). Adrenaline rush is NOT a substitute for adequate defense especially since a 2Her must survive longer than a A&M to return fire. Packing on more of the defensive options that BG gear has to offer could result in a 011 style war (huge block rank, heavy armor, create distance, extra armor rank, etc) that can mitigate most of the damage for long enough to return fire with a defense piercing 2Her.

I would argue against wholesale buffs to wars (someone suggested a pretty wild buff to iron jaw in another thread) since it is mainly a problem with 2-H'ers (as of this writing 5 wars occupy the top 10, 2 war/rage hybrids, 1 polearm, 2 tanks). The weakness of 2Hers may be able to be addressed with the build and gear design changes proposed in this thread. If that is not sufficient, Nate may also want to consider adding buffs to the 2H weapon skill itself to address the inequities between the 2H and its more successful cousin the polearm.

*Note: I'm quite convinced that the length of knockdown on war glads is a class penalty. The number of times that my war has sat on the ground all match while having 21% encumbrance is pretty ridiculous. If this is true this class-based knockdown length penalty should be reduced or capped.

[Cynaidh]

Just throwing in I agree that 2H warrior seems very low in the power rankings for styles.

Really to me the 2 of the bigger issues with 2H warriors are knockdowns and rounds with no attacks. Running at 10 activity level and have 10 points in light as a feather for it to still take 10+ rounds to get off the ground most of the time is just a huge deal break to me, its fairly much an instant loss if they get knocked down. Second is how often 2H warriors just wont attack at all in a round, even if they just are not stunned/hamstring'ed/knocked down it seems if you get attacked too many times before your turn to attack you just wont attack at all.

If light as a feather was buffed to be made more effective vs knock downs, and if some skill in the top of the warrior tree was added that gave them the ability to attack 1 time a round min (maybe on never say die since that skill is so hit and miss would make it more useful) that would do a ton to making 2H warriors more viable I think.

I myself wanted to stick with 2H warrior on The Behemoth but this past week i have given up on it being effective and am going to try out a defensive shield build on him.

[Kreegan]

Anyone tried to run war with full 196 armor, extra armour rank, full war skills, block rank, extra hp? Don't tell me Devastating Power makes that big difference in damage dealing. And don't tell me Adrenaline Rush is helping much when you land it AFTER you are cut to pieces already.Why don't you try it? See, there are a lot of potential builds that might theoretically work - even in our own universe - but it takes... how much?... maybe half an year to get a new gladiator, bring him to Blood Gods and equip him with oranges, even if you spend lots of trophies on him and choose the ultimate best strategy for the end game. Without trophies - one full year or so. Chances are, the game will see quite some changes while you're experimenting.

Theoretically - and practically as you can easily check in the arena - a War in full heavy is incredibly slow if you don't stack Size and Agility. Slower than any type of Rage or Theatrics, no ifs. Size and Agility won't help you deal a lot of damage with 2H weapons, axes, maces, etc. heavy stuff. So back to an Agility-based build, which is already the crowd's favourite.

[Sotc]

I think Cyn's suggestions sound pretty reasonable. Just to belabor the point I made earlier I think knockdowns should have a hard cap (maybe scales to encumbrance or something if you really feel the need) much like stuns and blind have since they are similarly game changing.

[Alba Kebab]

Got nothing to add for 2h rage.
As for 2h war, I'm not sure if there are enough 2h wars running different builds atm to make any comparison meaningful. As far as I can tell most of the 2h wars that I see(of the few that exist) tend to lean more heavily on offence side, so I suppose I'm just echoing what the guys above already said about the need to have a balanced defence...

As for the knockdown penalty for wars in heavy armour, I'm fine with it, every class needs an inherent penalty somewhere to balance it out.
It prevents min-max power gaming so you can't use agility as a dump stat and still rock with heavy encumbrance and low agility, it forces you to strike a balance somewhere. That is a good thing.

[Kreegan]

Following your logic, the speed builds should deal low damage to compensate for their high attack rate. Where exactly is the balance in having one stat boost your initiative, attacks per round, damage and defense?

[Alba Kebab]

The speed builds still need enough strength to punch through armour, they can't run on agility alone. The ones that don't have semi adequate strength do deal low damage and have most of their hits deflected against armour.
You still need to balance strength somewhere when running a speed glad.

[Cynaidh]

Kreegan that's a very good point.

Back when the new skills trees came out it was added that agility weapons got there bonus damage from agility instead of strength, this allowed sword/exotic/polearm users to completely dump strength. The exact wording from the patch notes is "Agility based weapons get to use their agility to help boost damage instead of their strength."

So now you have when comparing strength vs agility and the information we get from the tool-tips of these stats in the game:

Str:
Increases damage your gladiator can inflict
Factors into how much armor/weapons you can carry before being encumbered

Agility:
Increases damage your gladiator can inflict with agility based weapons
Increases number of attacks per round
Increases your defense
Increases your initiative

Well this certainly is effecting 2h weapon users as they are stacking strength instead of agility and loosing out on really a ton of combat bonuses you get for stacking agility.

Looking at the top 10 of Blood Gods only 2 of the top 10 are using str based weapons, and those are gladiators by Sotc that are in full optimized legendary gear.

What i am wondering now is maybe 2h weapons aren't actually in a "bad" place but just that agility based weapons are way over powered at this point in the game, purely based on how much more combat effective agility makes you over strength. There is no reason for an agility glad to run strength as can be seen by the number 1 glad in the Blood Gods Arrrrrghpirate who has a 93 strength but does massive damage every blow from his 273 agility with his agility based weapons. But at the same time a strength weapon using glad has to increase his agility in order to increase his number of attacks per round and initiative, again one of Sotc's glads is a perfect example of this in having Arghpirate having 178 agility even though he is a strength weapon using glad. So while this thread started out about how 2H weapons are behind maybe its really strength weapons being behind agility weapons.

[Kreegan]

The speed builds still need enough strength to punch through armour, they can't run on agility alone. The ones that don't have semi adequate strength do deal low damage and have most of their hits deflected against armour.
You still need to balance strength somewhere when running a speed glad.I suggest you scout Arrrrrghpirate, the long-time-number-one in Blood Gods and compare her Strength and Agility. Then you can edit your post.

Edit: Actually Cyn already pointed this out. :o

[Pit Lord]

Cyn you forgot two additional things about strenght based weapons:

1. Strenght based weapons increase hp.

2. Strenght based weapons ignore defense.

The second is very important for the metagame.

The metagame flow is fast/sharp/agility > slow/blunt/strenght > defense > fast/sharp/agility.

It is just a general flow of the metagame.

[Cynaidh]

Cyn you forgot two additional things about strenght based weapons:

1. Strenght based weapons increase hp.

2. Strenght based weapons ignore defense.


Yes I totally forgot that str does increase your hp some, good point!

The 2nd one i don't know anything about this, is this something that Nate confirmed while i was out? I know there are str skills that reduce you opponents defense in the rage tree, but i was not under the impression that strength itself did so, the tooltip for it doesn't mention that i dont think.

[Pit Lord]

I know there are str skills that reduce you opponents defense in the rage tree

It may be the reason but we cannot expect gladiator with build focused on destroying defenses to perform good against a speed build.

[Dainoji]

I've read a comment or two about war glads being knocked down and having trouble getting back up. There is already an option available to players to mitigate this. Choose Dunder for your glad's race. You will get knocked down a lot less. Just as being an Urk makes getting stunned a very rare event. It will still happen but not as often.

[Kreegan]

Strength-based weapons don't get through armour because they are Strength-based weapons. Try to run some gladiator without any skills from the Rage tree, Feint or Death from Above and you'll rarely see any major hits against heavy armour even with maces (which have greater armour-piercing capabilities than bladed weapons, that's for sure).

And by the way have you checked how much each point of Strength increases Health? 1-2 initially, 2-3 points on high level gladiators. If you need Health, you go for Stamina and Size, not Strength.

[Alba Kebab]

I suggest you scout Arrrrrghpirate, the long-time-number-one in Blood Gods and compare her Strength and Agility. Then you can edit your post.

Edit: Actually Cyn already pointed this out. :o
Try to think of what NORMAL speed theatric looks like, the ones that don't have 200+ stats and aren't clad in full legend gear. Top line examples NEVER resembled the rank file glads in the arena, they will always be able to do things in ways most of you cannot.
Cyn can make his point because he can get 200+ stats if he wants to, but if you can't do the same, then it won't work for you, it's that simple.

[Pit Lord]

And by the way have you checked how much each point of Strength increases Health? 1-2 initially, 2-3 points on high level gladiators. If you need Health, you go for Stamina and Size, not Strength.

The point is it is added bonus when you are stacking damage.

[Cynaidh]

Alba i am looking at top end play for sure, and glads who go 200+ in their main stats are becoming more and more common at the top, i looked at quite a few glads yesterday when i was compiling data for my above post and its surprising how many have stats like that in fact it was so common i think 250+ is now what i would consider top end now.

Bottom line for me is i see no point in running a strength weapon based offensive gladiator at this point if your goal is to compete in blood gods, with agility being used for bonus damage on agility weapons now the balance is way off, it used to be you picked one or the other, a few big damage hits per round (str) or a lot of medium damage hits per round with faster initiative (agil), now after the change its a few big damage hits per round (str) vs a lot of big damage hits per round with faster initiative (agil). I think the balance issue here is obvious. Really this hurts Rage gladiator's the most as 2 out of 3 of their weapons are str based. Warriors at least have swords and pole-arms (Hubba Gubba is showing us that stacking agility with a pole-arm rocks).

I think this trend can be seen in the top 10 with 80% of the glads being agility weapon users, including a glad with 250 agility using a purple main hand weapon who is in the top 5. I don't think a strength based glad could pull that off with that level of gear. I expect that as more and more agility based glads get leveled and geared up will see more and more of the strength based offensive gladiators pushed down the ranks. A part of this is due to how most of the strength based i have looked at are running 170+ agility so they are having to split there stats to stay competitive where the agility glads get to use str as a dump stat. Overall agility focus just seems vastly better then strength.

[Kreegan]

Try to think of what NORMAL speed theatric looks like, the ones that don't have 200+ stats and aren't clad in full legend gear. Top line examples NEVER resembled the rank file glads in the arena, they will always be able to do things in ways most of you cannot.
Cyn can make his point because he can get 200+ stats if he wants to, but if you can't do the same, then it won't work for you, it's that simple.So you basically suggest to look at a speed Theatrics which is built so badly that he/she can't compete properly? Good advise, sir. What's unique about Arrrrgh's build? Typical Theatrics/Rage hybrid Elaar with short swords. If you so need "low-standing" Theatrics which deals ridiculous damage through heavy armour, then scout the crowd of Seraphs at the mid-low end of the bracket. They score 150-200 damage through Blood Gods purple heavy piece with Claws. Per hit.

[Nate]

Very interesting debate we have going here with some very good energy and ideas. Some of the observations that are being pointed out no doubt seem true from the perspective of each manager. One interesting omission in the debate is talk of fight strategies. I suppose that is because everyone is of course using perfect and optimal strategies for their build. ;) Besides, those silly little things couldn't possibly be a factor and the notion that one manager might be better at setting them than another is absurd! :p

I have a two question for all those interested:

1) If we had the ability to go back and look at all the fights over the past months what do you think the "agility based weapons vs strength based weapons" win ratio would be for agility based weapons? We're only talking about when a gladiator using an agility based weapon is matched up against a gladiator using a strength based weapon.

2) What win/loss ratio would you consider to be "balanced" enough as to be acceptable? e.g. 50%-60% win ratio for either agility or strength based weapons.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

I suppose that is because everyone is of course using perfect and optimal strategies for their build. ;) Besides, those silly little things couldn't possibly be a factor and the notion that one manager might be better at setting them than another is absurd! :p

Well of course everyone here is using perfect strategies, I'd expect nothing less from my fellow managers. :)


1) If we had the ability to go back and look at all the fights over the past months what do you think the "agility based weapons vs strength based weapons" win ratio would be for agility based weapons? We're only talking about when a gladiator using an agility based weapon is matched up against a gladiator using a strength based weapon.

I think this depends on the level of the game, at the early game i would think it would be very even, once your in primus i'd expect it to start leaning towards the agility winning more, and at the high end of blood gods i think we know in equal gear agility will be much higher. But what level of the game the glads are at would really change the ratio I believe.

Honestly though i'd love to see averages of high end simulated gladiators, i know you have a nice simulator to do mass fights for data :)

If these two glads fought each other 1000 times what do you think the win/loss would be would be?

Rage 250-100-150-100-90-100-150 axes and maces spec with duel fast axes
Rage 100-100-250-100-90-150-150 blades spec with duel short swords

But an even better question how would their win loss ratios be vs theatrics/warriors with the same type stats.


2) What win/loss ratio would you consider to be "balanced" enough as to be acceptable? e.g. 50%-60% win ratio for either agility or strength based weapons.

Overall I think the closer to 50% the better for the health of the game, cause if one is even 5% better then the other then that is a significant advantage just based on if your weapon is agility or strength based. This leads to less diversity as lets be honest we all want to win and be at the top, so any advantage is huge!

[Sotc]

I think you guys might be getting a bit premature saying that agility is the end all be all. In your discussions of strength based glads needing copious amounts of agility you have ignored the example of my war pirate who has a mere 121 agil and 109 pres. It is true that agility builds are proliferating now, but strength builds are in no way impotent. I will elaborate more and give suggestions later in the week when I have more time (getting swamped at work).

[Adoede]

Hi Kreegan - yes I have a few theatrics that score a pretty consistent amount of damage per hit - and they have decently high agility. But none of them is even at 50% win/loss yet in Blood Gods. They lose quite often to the strength builds, actually...especially the ones stacking HP and armor. But my strength builds definitely have a harder go at it. I can't get them very competitive without better gear - but they're not rising in BGP fast enough to get it.

Also - why don't strength builds simply stack equipment that boosts both Strength and Agility? There's no reason you can't have both 250 strength and agility. I'd do that...if I could get some gear of my choosing.

[Kreegan]

V1) If we had the ability to go back and look at all the fights over the past months what do you think the "agility based weapons vs strength based weapons" win ratio would be for agility based weapons? We're only talking about when a gladiator using an agility based weapon is matched up against a gladiator using a strength based weapon.

2) What win/loss ratio would you consider to be "balanced" enough as to be acceptable? e.g. 50%-60% win ratio for either agility or strength based weapons.
For 1) I guess it depends on the match. If you match a gladiator with full Blood Gods gear equipped with Strength-based weapons with a newbie in the bracket with Agility-weapons, I guess the former will win pretty often. If you match gladiators who are equally well-equipped, I'll certainly bet for the Agility guy.
2) 50% is quite enough, there's nothing more balanced than an eye for an eye. :)

And Nate, the problem is not necessarily with who scores more wins in the long run, it's more with the manner in which a certain build can overpower another. A Strength-based gladiator can lose a fight against some Agility monster in round 1 and will lose it quite often no later than round 1. All it takes is a single successful stun, knockdown or hamstring. If none of these trigger, the fight will still not be exactly even because of bleeding and the high damage output per round of the speed builds but if they do, the fight just ends because your fighter's overall activity changes from slow to crippled (no matter how high you set you Activity level :p). The Strength guys can't do that because they can't land that many attacks per round even if they manage to disable the opponent for a while - hence one of the reasons why War Cry is usually wasted on a gladiator who can't attack frequently.

@Aboede, if you manage to make a gladiator who has 250 Strength and 250 Agility, he'll probably nail him/herself to number 1 in Blood Gods. I doubt that this will ever be possible, even if you have incredible luck with the Blacksmith items.

[Pit Lord]

My scribe says Erupt hit for 400-500 while Arrgh and Amon hit for 150-250 so the claim they hit like strength based gladiators doesn't make any sense.

1. All it takes is a single successful stun, knockdown or hamstring. If none of these trigger, the fight will still not be exactly even because of bleeding and the high damage output per round of the speed builds but if they do, the fight just ends because your fighter's overall activity changes from slow to crippled (no matter how high you set you Activity level ). The Strength guys can't do that because they can't land that many attacks per round even if they manage to disable the opponent for a while - hence one of the reasons why War Cry is usually wasted on a gladiator who can't attack frequently. - if you go berserk type war you must expect this will happen to you :D.

War is defensive by design. The skills, the armour and their strategy show this.

If at some point of the arena history offensive type of war was possible it was due to their opponents not developed/setup correctly.

[Kreegan]

Does your scribe also say how many attacks each of them makes per round?

Edit: and as your probably only look at Blood Lady who counter-attacks against speed builds from what I've seen, so you won't get the real number of attacks against a Strength-based gladiator, maybe you should check something else than your scribe too.

[Pit Lord]

You should not expect to match the speed build number of hits when you are in full heavy and using heavy/slow weapons. You did expect it?

[Kreegan]

If you actually follow the logic of the whole discussion so far, you'll find out that the damage output of the speed builds per round and not per hit is one of the major concerns of the people running Strength gladiators. No, I'm not expecting a Strength gladiator to attack as often as an Agility gladiator but if the former attacks twice per round for 300-400 damage and the latter attacks 6-7 times per round for 200 damage and is the first who will land strikes, it's not that hard to do the math, even if you don't consider critical effects and activated abilities.

[Pit Lord]

If you actually follow the logic of the whole discussion so far, you'll find out that the damage output of the speed builds per round and not per hit is one of the major concerns of the people running Strength gladiators. No, I'm not expecting a Strength gladiator to attack as often as an Agility gladiator but if the former attacks twice per round for 300-400 damage and the latter attacks 6-7 times per round for 200 damage and is the first who will land strikes, it's not that hard to do the math, even if you don't consider critical effects and activated abilities.

Following the logic and the flow of the discussion so far you would had noticed that the war type from your examples have bad skills/strategy/gear/setup and was given hints how to change this.

[Cynaidh]

War is defensive by design. The skills, the armour and their strategy show this.

I'd agree with this except for why do they have the two handed weapon skill and one of the largest damage skills in the game Death From Above. Since the option is there to use a purely offensive weapon it would be nice if it was viable. Again my opinion is variety is better, if warriors have to be defensive to be successful i'd consider that a fail.

Really before the skill tree revamp in Jan 2013 warriors where much more balanced at that time there where very effective defensive warriors and very effective offensive warriors both, they had hamstring to keep the mass speed attack glads from swarming them every round to get stuns/knockdowns to keep them from attacking, and they had a skill that a lot of the time let them attack first in a round , even if it was their only attack in the round at least they got to make it back then. Throw in how much more powerful theatrics and speed rages have become due to the agility damage change (and for theatrics picking up both of those skills warriors lost) its not really surprising we are having this conversation.

Now i mainly talk about warriors as its was a fun class that i used to enjoy running but really its the same for theatrics all i hear is how the strength based theatrics are in a much worse place then the agility based ones (the only opinion have on this is my guys seem to beat the strength based ones more then the agility). And Apoc started this thread about how strength based two handed rages are having issues. So i dont see this as a "warrior" issue more but again really the effectiveness of strength based weapons vs agility based weapons based on the fact that they both get bonus damage from there main stat (strength or agility) now but agility gives a lot more additional offensive beneficial stats to an offensive gladiator (attacks per round, initiative bonus).

[Cynaidh]

Also - why don't strength builds simply stack equipment that boosts both Strength and Agility? There's no reason you can't have both 250 strength and agility. I'd do that...if I could get some gear of my choosing.

Actually your seeing that in the top of the blood games several of the strength based glads i looked at the beginning of the week are running 150-180 agility to be competitive.

The issue i have with this is strength based offensive glads still need agility (for extra attacks per round, improved initiative, and the extra defense doesn't hurt) but agility weapon glads can completely dump strength and get gear with the other stats that help you in combat like Chi or even Presence for more initiative.

[Cynaidh]

I think you guys might be getting a bit premature saying that agility is the end all be all. In your discussions of strength based glads needing copious amounts of agility you have ignored the example of my war pirate who has a mere 121 agil and 109 pres. It is true that agility builds are proliferating now, but strength builds are in no way impotent. I will elaborate more and give suggestions later in the week when I have more time (getting swamped at work).

Looking forward to reading it Sotc. Arrrrrpirate is the outlier for str glads for me for sure, I just figured its from her gear advantage over the other agility glads at this point, when she matches up against Arrrrrghpirate (since they seem to be on the same gear level...amazing gear :) ) how does she do?

While they are both amazing glads just looking at the current season Arrrrrghpirate is 8.6% higher on win rate and she is 13.4% (83.3% vs 69.9%) higher lifetime compared to Arrrrrpirate so i'd have to think Arrrrrghpirate has some type of advantage over Arrrrrpirate and perhaps its the difference between strength and agility weapons.

[Apoca1ypse]

And Apoc started this thread about how strength based two handed rages are having issues. So i dont see this as a "warrior" issue more but again really the effectiveness of strength based weapons vs agility based weapons based on the fact that they both get bonus damage from there main stat (strength or agility) now but agility gives a lot more additional offensive beneficial stats to an offensive gladiator (attacks per round, initiative bonus).




Well it was more about 2H weapons, which seem to be the gimp weapon of the game. yes, str based builds are worse than agility builds currently, but 2H builds are worse than DW strength builds too. A DW strength gladiator still tears them apart. The only real chance is to 1-hit the opponent (rage + theatrics) or have a nice slow bash up against wars (all varieties) who are also really slow.

I do like seeing Lord Brutish performing well, which is interesting. I never expected +302 block to be what made a 2H rage do well. Can't argue with the results though. I also spy a speed 1.1 flail and I wonder how much of an impact that has. Regearing is going to be freaking laborious though :S

[Prinny]

Guess ill put my few cents in for now,
I agree that 2H rages get the short end of the stick and the only reason that I am running one is because I like seeing those huge hits :p

2H wars are doing fine in my opinion especially when they start getting a few oranges, Belca does do better with his DW hammer build but this was my plan anyway, to get him on/under 25% with full heavy armour and use his hammers again hence the change of weapons. Compared to last season his winrate is only a few % higher (although I blame him suddenly lacking blockrating for that) so the impact of switching from 2H to DW wasn't that huge.

Additionally dunder is my favourite race and it goes on practically any strength based glad of mine, I remember belca staying a few rounds on the ground at most with his 2Hander when he had LAAF trained at 10 so having that + the dunder race counters that problem quite well.

On getting a glad with 250 STR and 250 Agility...Lmao xD
Yukimaru is my closest glad to this with stats of 240 - 94 - 170 - 117 - 90 -161-164, he isn't focussed on the stats so it might be quite possible to reach 270 STR and 220ish agility, but I would be giving up way too much of the other stats in my opinion, I quite like him as he is after all :)

[Kreegan]

Following the logic and the flow of the discussion so far you would had noticed that the war type from your examples have bad skills/strategy/gear/setup and was given hints how to change this.
Really? Going through the thread I see people who run mainly or only speed gladiators giving advises how to improve fighters of the type that they don't have. Kind of armchair general opinions.

[Dainoji]

Again my opinion is variety is better, if warriors have to be defensive to be successful i'd consider that a fail.

IMHO the skill trees are fairly specific about what kind of specialty each tree specializes in. A few offensive or defensive minded skills in a sea of the other doesn't change what it's focus is. The variety you speak of and want is done via the hybrid route which I think allows for a lot of variety.

[Adoede]

Armchair general I am.

I'm thinking of eventually building my power DW to ~225 str, ~250 agi, ~150 chi - logic being I give up the first hit, but I'm fast enough to hit right back...and a lot harder. Even with 174 strength and 149 chi I have seen my glad do over 2200 damage in a single hit. How much more do you need than that? I figure the points are better spent in agility (or stamina or depending on your what you're going for). If I get to the mythical 250 str/250 agi/150 chi, I'll let you know how it works.

[Prinny]

A Even with 174 strength and 149 chi I have seen my glad do over 2200 damage in a single hit. How much more do you need than that?

Alot of top end glads (especially wars) tank that stuff for breakfast, Belca has 2795 health as a dunder and is in full heavy armour (over 3k as a trug but hey, knockdown resistance and extra damage ;D) If he gets deducted 2200 health im willing to bet ya he triggers Never Say Die to get 800 back on the next hit and hit your (since im presuming the 2200 health hit was from rampage) rage senseless.

[Sotc]

Looking forward to reading it Sotc. Arrrrrpirate is the outlier for str glads for me for sure, I just figured its from her gear advantage over the other agility glads at this point, when she matches up against Arrrrrghpirate (since they seem to be on the same gear level...amazing gear :) ) how does she do?

While they are both amazing glads just looking at the current season Arrrrrghpirate is 8.6% higher on win rate and she is 13.4% (83.3% vs 69.9%) higher lifetime compared to Arrrrrpirate so i'd have to think Arrrrrghpirate has some type of advantage over Arrrrrpirate and perhaps its the difference between strength and agility weapons.

Quick answer: the war pirate wins more often than not after I got her full orange gear. The month my war pirate won the Blood Games she thrashed Arrrrrgh pretty much every time they met. The lifetime difference is more due to me experimenting with different war builds before settling on the current one (I had tanked to 40% w/l on her for a season+).

[Cynaidh]

Quick answer: the war pirate wins more often than not after I got her full orange gear. The month my war pirate won the Blood Games she thrashed Arrrrrgh pretty much every time they met. The lifetime difference is more due to me experimenting with different war builds before settling on the current one (I had tanked to 40% w/l on her for a season+).

Interesting, maybe its just gear then or as Nate pointed out the strategies everyone is using, i really don't know at this point cause i say that but then in the blood god top 5 there is another speed theatrics with a purple main hand weapon that seems to be blowing threw everyone in full legendary gear. Just doesn't seem logical but really if everyone is having fun i don't guess it has to. :)

[Adoede]

I see SOTC has spoken and the discussion has ended.

Seriously, how is it possible that one manager - no, make that one team - has the top theatrics, the top war, and the top rage in Blood Gods? (And the top defensive theatrics, too)

Kudos to you, SOTC

[Cynaidh]

Seriously, how is it possible that one manager - no, make that one team - has the top theatrics, the top war, and the top rage in Blood Gods? (And the top defensive theatrics, too)

This has happened many times in the history of the Pits: Oedi, Crow, Team Kaos, and Myself have all done it some point in the history of the pits (sorry if i forgot anyone).

I have a nice screenshot somewhere where my two teams where 8 of the top 10 glads in the pits. :) It's a fun goal.

[Pit Lord]

I see SOTC has spoken and the discussion has ended.

Seriously, how is it possible that one manager - no, make that one team - has the top theatrics, the top war, and the top rage in Blood Gods? (And the top defensive theatrics, too)

Kudos to you, SOTC

There is not much competition for top spots (money factor). The stables are to a larger extent tiered.

[Narol]

B***shit, we all want top spots but he's doing it right so far and he's the best currently...

About the question of strenght-based weapons and agility-based weapons, I think too that agility is overpowered since the system changed. Maybe things would be more balanced if the damage bonus of agility-based weapons still depended for 50% of strenght and only for 50% of Agility. My 2 cents...

[Alba Kebab]

B***shit, we all want top spots but he's doing it right so far and he's the best currently...
hehe;););)

[Zakusho]

After reading all of the stuff written within this topic I decided to give it a go on a Rage. What I can say is that currently my main gladiator is pretty damn strong. Dealing heavy hits constantly before the enemy has a chance to riposte and defensive Wars couldn't resist as well so I'd say 2h is quite worth the shot. One more thing to add. I run my glad on max activity and bloodlust and I also aim for the head while defending my own head. (to avoid getting knocked out and/or stunned + the amount of armour ain't that big there so it felt natural for me to try to defend the head while also going for it on the attack)
Skills wise I simply stopped at rank 5 (the chances for me to continue to train is too low for me to waste points so I'd figure it would be better to invest in something else before maxing out say 2h weapon skill. Example of my current skills: 2h weapon skill at rank 5 | Devastating Power at rank 5 | Blood Drunk at rank 3 (almost 4). Naturally I'll grab Sunder Armour and Brute Force afterwards.

[Apoca1ypse]

About the question of strenght-based weapons and agility-based weapons, I think too that agility is overpowered since the system changed. Maybe things would be more balanced if the damage bonus of agility-based weapons still depended for 50% of strenght and only for 50% of Agility. My 2 cents...

I'm totally OK with agility taking less of a role in damage output. Bruce runs too much str in the current engine (132 str, 248agil when using achievements)

[Sotc]

Have to prep for a business trip (won't have a chance to post much for the next two weeks) so I'll keep this shorter than I'd like:

Some quick points:
1. The 50/50 Strength vs Agility suggestion is way too broad. We have tons of build archetypes in this game (power theatrics, speed rage, tank war, etc). Does it make really sense for a power theatrics counterattacker to go 50/50 with a speed theatrics for example (currently the speed theatrics usually gets thrashed)? Builds have always had favorable matchups and unfavorable matchups. Asking for a blanket 50/50 doesn't really make sense because it doesn't take the build vs build variability into account.

2. I agree that agility based offensive glads are very effective right now. I don't believe it is mainly because of the damage. If it were just simply about pure raw damage you would see speed rages performing much better. In very general terms, in a fight with an initiative gap, the faster fighter and the slower fighter each have goals that they must meet to increase their chance to win.

* A much faster fighter must be able to stem the impending beatdown to increase his chance to win through actively attacking: delivering crit effects, hamstring, adrenaline rush, sig move, stacking presence etc.
* A much slower fighter must be able to stem the incoming beatdown to increase his chance to win through passively defending: tank, parry, high armor, block rank, armor rank, create distance, resisting crit effects, etc.

As you can see, When fighters get closer in initiative things quickly become more complex (and interesting) as these factors begin interacting with each other and managers start needing to balance goal priorities and manage gearing strategies (ex. 10 more strength or 70 block rank?).

Nate has many options to address this (should be careful not to turn the dial too much, or too many dials):
1. Decrease the initiative gap by making the initiative scaling with attributes taper off.
2. Wait for glads to gear up better (many of the slower fighter's goals can only be achieved on orange gear).
3. Adjusting crit effects. (add more later)
4. Etc

3. Aligning your glad's gear with your big picture strategy for them seems to make the biggest impact on performance. I've turned around some of my glads completely around (war pirate and shield pirate for example) after I changed up their overall strategy and stuck with it long enough to get the gear to run it (even through all the frustrating losses). Even afterwards you need to constantly fine tune gear to adjust to the shifting metagame.

Good luck in the Pits!

[Kreegan]

Sotc, good points but you have to admit that at the moment one Agility gladiator needs much less maintenance than a Strength gladiator to be competitive. Who will hit first has always been very important in this game and right now the Agility builds enjoy the luxury not only to hit first but also to hit quite hard, dealing a lot of damage before the response comes and usually triggering at least 1 nasty critical effect. Tanks that soak the damage get dropped by bleeding. We had a similar situation with the old system, some 2 years ago or so, where a speed Rage wielding green weapons could drop a War in full purple heavy armour with an uninterrupted sequence of attacks in no more than 2 rounds. This was mitigated when Nate reduced the armour-piercing power of the light blades. The speed Rages remained fairly good but not so overwhelmingly good as before. I'm not saying that we need the same thing at the moment but something certainly needs to be done.

One notable thing about the most efficient speed builds is that they are all Elaars. Perhaps the armour-penetrating power of their attacks is a bit over the top. The other races also perform fairly well as speed gladiators but don't score such overwhelming victories as the Elaars and are somewhat beatable even by slow fighters. So maybe the Elaarian racial bonus needs some tweaking before something else is done.

[Sotc]

Good point about the Elaaran bonus, I had overlooked that. A change to crit effects in general would be tough to do well because often they are so game changing. Not sure what to suggest with regards to that, but a careful balance would have to be struck.

[Adoede]

So, the agility builds are easier for the low to mid-tier blood gods game, but the strength builds are more than competitive at the very top of the game when fully geared.

The main problem I see is that it takes so long to properly gear up and since the low to mid-tier game favors the agility builds, strength builds don't get access to the best gear of their choosing for a looong time...maybe never. I think there is enough a manager can do with gear, choosing races, hybrid builds, strategies, stacking rankings, etc. that many different builds can be competitive, but perhaps a more equitable way to access that top gear would help balance the scales a bit. Or perhaps the option to ultimately "design" your own gear:) It would be lame if all this discussion really boiled down to a matter of better and worse gear as the primary determining factor.

As the game now stands, the only option I see for gearing my glads to be competitive enough to get to a 1000/2000 Rating and have access to the best gear is to spam the gauntlets or conquests and hope for lucky orange drops that fit my build philosophy. Maybe that's what was intended, but perhaps a better alternative could be imagined?

Bottom line - Strength builds need near-complete gear build-up to be competitive at the upper levels of blood gods. Agility builds can be competitive with just a few pieces of agility boosting gear. Agility builds keep strength builds depressed in the rankings. A vicious cycle emerges.

[Nate]

Because everyone was so loving and kind in this thread I went ahead and crunched some data. The results were very interesting. I won't be sharing the details of the data because I'm a big fat meanie, but here is what I will tell you.

If we assume a specialty plus a weapon type they can use equals a "build" (e.g. rage + blade, war + pole arm, etc) we get 12 builds. Two handed rage enjoys the 3rd best win ratio in Blood Gods when matched up against the other 11 builds. Agility based weapons and strength based weapons both have 3 spots in the top 6 and no, agility based weapons don't hold the top 3. There are a couple of builds that could use a small nudge, but they aren't any of the ones that have been mentioned as being lacking. I hate it when data contradicts casual observations! http://forum.pitofwar.com/images/smilies/tongue.png

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Kreegan]

Not that I doubt these statistics, there are probably quite accurate, but... :) is there a way to check how:
1. The top 10 speed (Agility) gladiators fare against the top 10 power (Strength) gladiators. The point is to rule out fights between orange-clad monsters and newbies in Blood Gods which are no fights at all.
2. The top 5 Elaar speed gladiators fare vs. the top 5 Strength gladiators no matter the race. The point is to check if the Elaars don't have just a little more armour penetration and de facto extra critical power than they should.

[Cynaidh]

Because everyone was so loving and kind in this thread I went ahead and crunched some data. The results were very interesting. I won't be sharing the details of the data because I'm a big fat meanie, but here is what I will tell you.

If we assume a specialty plus a weapon type they can use equals a "build" (e.g. rage + blade, war + pole arm, etc) we get 12 builds. Two handed rage enjoys the 3rd best win ratio in Blood Gods when matched up against the other 11 builds. Agility based weapons and strength based weapons both have 3 spots in the top 6 and no, agility based weapons don't hold the top 3. There are a couple of builds that could use a small nudge, but they aren't any of the ones that have been mentioned as being lacking. I hate it when data contradicts casual observations! http://forum.pitofwar.com/images/smilies/tongue.png

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

No details.... :(

Even little tidbits like what the stat ranges where you tested? Did you go as high as 250 in the primary stat? Like 100-100-250-100-100-100-100 vs 250-100-100-100-100-100-100, well you get the idea of what I mean.

[crow]

My guess is A/M theatrics, 2-handed wars & blade wars are gonna get a boost.

[Nate]

No details.... :(

Even little tidbits like what the stat ranges where you tested? Did you go as high as 250 in the primary stat? Like 100-100-250-100-100-100-100 vs 250-100-100-100-100-100-100, well you get the idea of what I mean.


The type of test you are asking for was done back when the skill trees and fight engine changed and I was happy with the results. The data used for the test I just did were using actual fights over the past many months.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Nate]

I'm about to hop on a long flight. I'll share some more details when I'm settled in again.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

Very cool, hope you have a safe flight.

[Apoca1ypse]

Fly safe Nate :)

[Narol]

And even more important, land safe, Nate !

[Nate]

Thanks for the well wishes guys, I appreciate it. :)

Regarding the recent data, let me walk you through what I did. I break up all gladiators into 1 of 12 builds (Rage-blade, rage-axe/mace, rage-2H, war-blade, etc.) Shield using gladiators are treated as just that regardless of their main hand weapon. I then record the results of every matchup in the arena which can then be displayed in a 12x12 matrix. I am able to look at the data for a certain level or level range, or blood god gladiators only. I also track the specialty matchups at a higher level such as rage vs war, war vs theatrics, etc. The optimal balance would be if all matchups were 50% and while we don't have that we are very close, closer than I thought it would ever be. Where things diverge a little is in Blood Gods (although I'm still happy with the spread save a few minor outliers) and this is for a handful of reasons I think.

As a gladiator is making their way to the top of the arena difference areas of what makes a gladiator become more important. In the early stages of a gladiator's career attributes will be very important. Around mid career their skills start to come more into play, their strategies start opening up and gear options become more interesting and so forth. Toward their late career around Primus everything really starts to matter. Attributes are important, good strategies are important, proper gear selection that complements the build is important, careful choosing of opponents using challenges can be important, etc. Up until this point a gladiator's opponents are vast and varied and the meta game has a moderate influence on things. Once a gladiator is promoted into the Blood Gods bracket everything changes and everything matters. At the top where the very best reside the entire journey of a gladiator's career comes to a head. All the skills, plans and knowledge of the Master, the man or woman "behind the curtain" converge.

In the Blood Gods bracket we sometimes see data points that are different than in other brackets. This is because in the Blood Gods bracket there are a smaller number of gladiators and Masters and the meta game is different. For example, a build that is doing well in Blood Gods may not be out of the ordinary in the other brackets. Why might this be? A very obvious reason is their counter build(s) are absent or aren't up to snuff. One of the more dominant builds in the Blood Gods bracket currently has at least three builds that give it trouble. Those three builds are currently under represented for whatever reason. Think of the stories you heard about nature when a new species is introduced or removed from an ecosystem. What happens? The species fight until an equilibrium is reached. This equilibrium lasts until something changes (e.g. a new species is introduced, changes or is removed). Another story the data tells is some builds are faring very well vs a handful of other builds and those "losing" builds are more abundant leading to more victories for the "winning" build in that scenario. The knee-jerk conclusion is the winning builds are over powered when in fact the reality is they are simply enjoying a slight advantage based on the current conditions of the environment. We also have a bit of "monkey see, monkey do" situation which is understandable. If we see something that is successful we mimic it in the hopes that we too will be successful and in the process compound the issue. This will continue until a disruptive force changes it. To add another wrinkle to our tale two identical or near identical gladiators under the management of two different Masters behave quite different based on their choice of strategies. I saw a few examples of this when looking into some other data and doing tests of my own.

We all have our opinions and observations and that is part of the fun. It is also why I do not lay out definitive results before our community because I think the journey of discovery is more fun than the destination. Having said that, when I do find data that tells us a gross imbalance is present it gets addressed and there are some minor tweaks that I have on the todo list right now. In conclusion, there is no one switch, lever or button that will turn a gladiator into a champion, rather it is like an orchestra where each instrument and group working together in concert is important to the whole if one is to produce beautiful music.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Kreegan]

Thanks for the high level overview, Nate, but I think that you're looking from the clouds and see only the big picture in this case. The numbers might seem equal when you compare hundreds of gladiators, this build might seem about as good as that build because they both have similar win-loss ratio in general and so on, but on individual level that doesn't really matter. I'll elaborate below (I'm still interested in how the top representatives of each gladiator type of the ones discussed in this topic fare against each other though).

As a manager of one team (or several, but that's more of an exception), you don't care if the gladiator who you have spent months to train, equip, etc. fares in general, because he doesn't fight in general but against individual opponents. When one type from these opponents manages to consistently beat your gladiator no matter what you try, while at the same time the fights against pretty much all other types seem fairly even and the strategy really matters there, you can't help but get the impression that the type in question has built-in advantages offered by the game and not by his/her strategy and skill selection. And when that overpowering type of gladiator also has a fairly easy time getting to the top spots in the top bracket and staying there for a long time, your impression of imbalance is just getting reinforced. So much about the 2D thinking of us, casual managers. :p

Now, what really matters in a game is whether you're having fun or not. For me, the fun is ruined when I don't see any results from the time and efforts spent on some gladiator (I don't have such gladiators, mind you, even the worst performers aren't totally hopeless and I'm enjoying their performance enough not to sell/retire them, so this is just an extreme example to illustrate the point). Say, you have your lad in Blood Gods, he manages to win against a few guys, loses against some other, casual stuff, but for some reason he's nearly stuck because he constantly gets a beating from one fairly numerous group of bullies. That group also gets bigger and bigger because people see that it's cool to belong to it and join. OK, you change strategies, you try to adapt, you even manage to squeeze a few victories against that group - with luck or by sacrificing some efficiency against other builds. Then you notice another trend. Even if your lad has finally found a way to at least partially stand his ground against the bullies, he still keeps losing quite often due to random events. In one fight he gets knocked out in round 1. In another fight he gets knocked down quite early and refuses to get back up until he's severely beaten. In a third fight he gets serious injury from the first strike he receives and dropped by the second or the third strike which hits the same spot. After that he gets stunned in round 1 and starts round 2 with 60% less health. And then, in the end of this cool series, he finally fights against one of the bullies without getting disabled at the very beginning and what do you know - the battle is somewhat even but he still loses due to 1 fumble or one resisted War Cry which doesn't even deal damage or because he decides to throw away his weapon instead of landing a finishing blow. Needless to say, you don't give damn how the kins of your fighter perform in general after such a nice sequence. As you said it yourself, it's not just one thing, it's a whole orchestra and that applies to one's individual game experience as well but the result might be the opposite of what you see top-down when you analyze the masses.

The problem is that you can't do much to influence the outcome of such fights and having a gladiator which by design gets quite some hits before he starts returning hits. If you tank at the beginning, you risk getting 150-200 bleeding by round 2. Tanking doesn't save you from Sweep or Barreling Attack, nor from KOs. If you parry, you risk the same things on top of getting a few attacks through your blocking attempts if your fighter isn't very defensive. If you go for offensive, the lower initiative results in several blows and some critical effects on your fighter's head before he can fight back. On top of all that, many of the speed gladiators punch through medium/heavy armour without much problems and might drop a gladiator in light armour before he/she can even respond. In short, if you run one of them slow, hard hitting lads, you risk much more than if you run a fast, usually also hard hitting fella. And that shows.

In the end, we can wait for several months for the "natural balancing" to bring the counter-builds of the current Blood Gods finest to the bracket but what happens in the meantime? Should we be content with the secondary roles of our fighters, the stream of losses and the generally negative experience? And how can one know that the "natural enemies" of the speed gladiators will ever show up in Blood Gods in sufficient numbers? Right now the trend is actually to have more and more speed guys in the bracket - new entries and existing rebuilt gladiators. The end game is getting monotonous and downright frustrating at times. Is there really nothing that can be done about this?

[Cynaidh]

I am able to look at the data for a certain level or level range, or blood god gladiators only.

Hmm can you do say the top 50 glads of blood gods and do the same 12 by 12?

That's what i personally look at to see how styles are doing, to me these are glads who have their legendaries or who are excelling without having all of them, and i don't want to count glads that are fresh to the blood gods who don't have any gear and might still not be full builds.

Looking at the top 10, top 25 and the top 50 of Blood Gods right now you have:

Top 10:
Speed Theatrics (blade and exotic) - 3
Power Theatrics (mace) - 0
Shield Theatrics (any weapon) - 1
2H Warrior - 0
Pole-arm Warrior - 1
Sword Duel Warrior - 0
Mace Duel Warrior - 2
Shield Warrior (any weapon) - 1
sword duel rage - 1
mace duel rage - 1
2h rage - 0

Top 25:
Speed Theatrics (blade and exotic) - 4
Power Theatrics (mace) - 3
Shield Theatrics (any weapon) - 2
2H Warrior - 0
Pole-arm Warrior - 1
Sword Duel Warrior - 0
Mace Duel Warrior - 4
Shield Warrior (any weapon) - 3
sword duel rage - 3
mace duel rage - 2
2h rage - 3

Top 50:
Speed Theatrics (blade and exotic) - 13
Power Theatrics (mace) - 4
Shield Theatrics (any weapon) - 4
2H Warrior - 1 (Bruce Willis hanging in at 42nd place)
Pole-arm Warrior - 3
Sword Duel Warrior - 0
Mace Duel Warrior - 6
Shield Warrior (any weapon) - 5
sword duel rage - 7
mace duel rage - 3
2h rage - 4

So whats drawn attention to the "speed builds" is that they make up 40% of the top 50 (speed theatrics + agility rages) and like Kreegen pointed out with how critical effects, knockdowns, and just not attacking if your glad gets hit several times before his time to act, it does get quite old going against them all the time. That seems off balance since these are 3 builds (sword rage, sword theatrics, exotic theatrics - but even then most sword and theatrics build are the same basic build just different weapon, you could argue that is 1 build really) out of 12, so they should have a 25% share of the top 50 if everything was completely even across the board.

Now as for what should be beating these guys being under-represented there are some clearly under-represented builds.... duel sword warriors well there isn't a single one, 2H warriors, duel mace rages, and Pole-arm Warriors are the ones that have 3 or less in the top 50. I don't see any of these doing that great vs a speed theatrics except for maybe the pole-arm warrior if he can get some hits in, and who knows on the duel sword warrior, i know Prinny tried numerous builds on one with amazing stats and couldn't get him above 1000 ranking in blood gods, but i don't have a lot of faith there that they would counter the speed builds. Two-Hand warriors i have seen get eaten alive by speed builds and as for the duel mace rages maybe I should un-retire my army of duel mace rages in AB Gold just to see how they would do. :)

[Adoede]

Fascinating breakdown Cynaidh.

I'm on both sides of this discussion, so here's my 2 cents.

The natural counter-builds for the speedsters are counterattacking theatrics (both mace wielding and blade/exotic wielding), and defensive wars in full heavy armor. Whenever my speed glads match up with one of them its almost always an automatic loss (unless I get a lucky knockout). The speed builds do very well against all types of Rages and versus still developing offensive DW mace wars/agility polearm wars. But well-developed offensive wars (Arrrrrpirate, Belca, Erupt) destroy my speed builds all the time.

The main challenge for offensive war glads is that it takes soooo long for them to gear up to be competitive. But at least when they finally get to the end-game, they are competitive with any other build out there...maybe even dominant.

For rages, however, things are a bit more difficult. They will almost always lose the initiative battle, so they must take the first few hits before they can return fire. But since the Rage class has little in the way of defense, they are basically sitting ducks at the blood gods level. Only chance is to absorb the first few blows and then hit so hard the opponent is knocked into next week - something offensive wars perhaps do better because of their armor and tanking ability. This is why Lord Brutish stacking +302 block rank makes him effective (not quite dominant, but at least pretty effective). When my DW rage was in Primus, he dominated speed builds because he had high enough agility (and therefore defense) to lessen the speed builds attack bonus against him. Speed builds would hit for maybe 50 pts or less...and then get walloped by him. In blood gods, that agility gap expands to the point his defense is worthless. Speed builds hit in blood gods for 200+ per shot and get more crits too because the attack power vs defense gap has widened considerably. Point being, end-game Rages need to be capable on defense to be viable...but don't have many means to do that. They can stack equipment with block rank or stack equipment with HP boosts...that's about it. But that comes at the expense of better stats from less optimized gear.

A fully optimized Rage build could perhaps eventually be nearly as competitive as other fully optimized builds, but it is the mid-tier blood gods game where the imbalance is most keenly felt. The speed builds have an advantage in the mid-tier game because they can get optimized gear more quickly since they mainly just need agility. The other builds need to be patient in selecting their gear - even selling the majority of orange gear pieces they get in gauntlets and conquests because it doesn't match what they need to be competitive in the end-game. Getting hammered while they are in this long gear-up phase is what is no fun.

My suggestion: Perhaps a boost to the Hardened Skin skill would make it more effective in the blood gods end-game allowing Power rages to be more effective vs. speed builds. At the moment it doesn't seem to make much of a difference - even at rank 10. Either that or adding dodging ability to the rage's armor movement to boost their defense and achieve the same result.

In my opinion, a well balanced end game means that each style has skills within its tree to allow your glad to be effective against any other style and build. You may have to re-train your glad to be more effective against a certain build, but at least the possibility to do that should be there. If there's nothing in the rage tree that allows them to counter-balance the speed builds advantages, that style is inherently disadvantaged. Yes, speed builds are the natural enemy of the power rage builds, but it would be fun if there were ways the rages could counter this more effectively.

[Nate]

All very interesting perspectives and opinions, thank you for taking the time to share them. I feel lucky to have such an amazing community. I look forward to seeing how the ebb and flow continues to evolve over the next few months and have no doubt many a creative and keen Master will keep us on our toes! :)

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

Top 10 of this months blood games 80% agility weapons. :)