Verdict on Down & Dangerous?

[Stormcloak]

Hey all,

For those that have picked up Down and Dangerous (or faced off against it), I'm curious to know what your opinions are. I haven't picked it up - in part I don't currently have a glad going in that direction and in part because I share some of the apprehensions that were mentioned in previous threads. Would love to know what you all think.

Thanks,

[Adoede]

I've tried it for a while on Seraph Zurell paired with War Cry to try and take advantage of being able to use War Cry even from the ground. Just decided to train out of it because the benefits didn't seem to be worth giving up Armored Fortress for that build. Of course, I might have just been using it wrong and it might work very well with the right sort of build. But since it takes so many months to switch gear designs for a glad, I never quite got a chance to test it with some ideas I had.

My thoughts on it were that it did boost offense a bit, but not enough to be able to overcome highly skilled defensive specialists. On offense, my version just wasn't as effective as a hybrid war using Rage skills - especially against tanks. It was somewhat more effective against offensive styles though...for what that's worth.

[Kreegan]

The few gladiators who have it are unimpressive at best. To be really objective, it has to be evaluated on a lvl 55 fighter in lvl 53-55 gear but theoretically I still can't see a situation where you're better off skipping a skill that boosts your War's durability considerably and exhausts the opponent faster for a skill that negates the penalties in a specific scenario but doesn't add any benefits outside of it (it's like fighting with 90/100 skill points half of the time). And yes, the War specialists have abysmal offence so they are hardly getting any better if they lose defensive capabilities.

[FrosteeFyre]

Has no appeal for my defensive wars, Armored Fortress wins out on that 9 out of 10 times for me, maybe if I experimented with an offensive war, and even then it's doubtful, because then I couldn't spec into Rage tree, rendering my offensive war very weak, just doesn't seem a good contender for the other top-tier war skill which (in my opinion) compliments the point of a war gladiator.

[Prinny]

Had it on Belca, god that was horrible. The skill is everything I expected from it from the start.

[Stormcloak]

Hmm... that's more or less what I was worried about.

[oedi]

Im still working with this skill, and i think its working quite nice. At the moment Im running one glad with it at 10, one has just started training the skill. As with some other skills this is a skill that need a good combinations of glad, skill set and strat. It is of course much easier with those straight forward skills that any glad with any skill set can use, but why should all skills be like that?

[Stormcloak]

Oedi - would you mind sharing which of your glads have it?
I'd be interested in looking over a couple of their fights.

[Aphexii]

4 years later and the majority of War glads stil favor "Armoured Fortress" over "Down & Dangerous" :(
I have to agree with Oedi, "Down & Dangerous" is no straight forward skill. So far the biggest achievement from my "D&D" War is a 4th place in BG missing the 3rd place only by 1 point :(
There was nothing special about her strategy or equipment. The very basic all-rounder armor set that almost every "Heavy Armor" user has nowadays.
She has only one favorable matchup against "Power Theatrics" and loses almost 100% of the time against "Cheating Trixsters", everything else is an even matchup.

She is not always in the top 10 in fact its just her second time to place in the top 10, but hopes are high for future lime light.

[Kreegan]

Your gladiator is a Dunder, she's not even using the skill most of the time. ;)

[The Myst]

I'm not experienced with D&D but I've read somewhere that prone glads don't activate any skill so imo a prone war won't activate DFA, CD and especially the invaluable NSD so D&D seems good to me; not sure for the last tier skill but anyways; given that there're skills like Barreling Attack, Sweep, Signature move etc bent on knocking someone down.

But if D&D still sounds mediocre, what if its position were swapped with NSD?

[Ogornomus]

D&D looks like a skill more suited for offensive wars, when your win condition is to beat down the opponent. Though I think AF is still better. It helps in preventing the whole situation to begin with and is good in all situations.
Also, if you go for D&D you can get a middle of the road offensive war. Things you have to take are already defensive, so why not take more of that (AF)? It realy looks like something that hybrid offensive wars would need if they don't take Light as a Feather.

[weaw]

Hey.

If we'll try to do some conceptual formula for any skill efficiency, we'll get something like SkillPower*SkillFrequency. Objections?
So, for D&D SkillFrequency is about zero. How often you can see a War with "prone" effect?
// Specially for Aphexii: How often You can see Your Dunder War with "prone" effect?
Not even to say about "Light as a Feather".

While "Armored Fortress" is permanent (SkillFrequency=1), and SkillFrequency for D&D ... 1/10? 1/20? Regardless of the SkillPower.
Yeah, maybe SkillPower for D&D is really much more than for Fortress?
Yes, it's complex to measure it, but true answer about: "Even if SkillPower for D&D higher, it's higher how many? 10 times? No."

So, the choice is obvious. In this case. ;)