Defensive war, can't seem to beat 2 handed rage and other heavy offensive builds

[lamejake]

I just started the game a few weeks ago, and I am having a few troubles with my human war glad. Here is his strategy:

Start of Fight/Standby 6 Parry-Lunge 5
I Have Less Endurance 4 Tank 4
Opponent is Very Tired 8 Tank 5
I Have More Health 7 Slash 5
I Have Less Health 7 Tank 4

The opponent always seems to get those heavy red hits, even when I'm tanking. I have all medium armor, any idea why it's not working?

Edit: I seem to do better in pit fights than in arena, is my gear the problem? I also can't beat the last arena challenge in tier 1.

[Apoca1ypse]

Tanking at early levels is difficult because your gladiator wont have access to efficient heavy armor (it'll be really heavy, and burn endurance fast) but things will become much better once you gain access to Armor Movement and Create Distance. You'll also be at a level where you can get a decent amount of extra stamina from your gear, which means more HP against those big hitters, and more endurance for those longer matches.

For now, I would recommend changing your start of fight strategy to 8 Tank 1

[Stormcloak]

Hi Lamejake,

It's hard to analyse what's going on without knowing your entire build - if you could let us know your skills (and levels) it would help. It would also help to see a few matches posted or give us your glad's name and tier to look him up.
It sounds like you're relatively low-mid level, so keep in mind that at that point glads pull ahead and fall back fairly often since they're nowhere near complete and a lot of the time it's an attribute battle.
Also, heavy hitters do punch through defenses, and medium armour doesn't absorb as much damage as heavy (although you do get better mobility which lets you be more aggressive).With tanking there's no need to have a bloodlust higher than 1 when tanking (as you're not really going to be hitting back).

With your strategy try focusing on a few lines to get them working well. The strategy you have is very defensive - you only attack if you have more endurance and more health (hint: you can't wear down your opponent's health if you don't attack). Look through your matches and see if you can pinpoint if there's a particular condition or strategy line that's causing your losses. I suggest you try a more moderate approach with your strategy - warriors tend to do well in the endgame if they can withstand the initial onslaught. Perhaps you may want to get more aggressive as your opponent tires out, or as you lose health -> keep in mind that, other than line 1, the higher strategy line items will over-ride the lower ones if the trigger is true.

[Dainoji]

You're always going to struggle against 2H glads, they are a tanks Cryptonite. The Rage tree has a lot of skills to punch through armor and increase damage. As your glad matures you'll gain access to skills and gear that can help you combat this though.

[Kreegan]

2H Rages are tanks' bane and it's good that it is so because these loafers are nearly invulnerable to everything else. You can mitigate that to an extent but generally you have to get used to the idea that you'll normally lose to such opponents.

[lamejake]

Hi Lamejake,

It's hard to analyse what's going on without knowing your entire build - if you could let us know your skills (and levels) it would help. It would also help to see a few matches posted or give us your glad's name and tier to look him up.
It sounds like you're relatively low-mid level, so keep in mind that at that point glads pull ahead and fall back fairly often since they're nowhere near complete and a lot of the time it's an attribute battle.
Also, heavy hitters do punch through defenses, and medium armour doesn't absorb as much damage as heavy (although you do get better mobility which lets you be more aggressive).With tanking there's no need to have a bloodlust higher than 1 when tanking (as you're not really going to be hitting back).

With your strategy try focusing on a few lines to get them working well. The strategy you have is very defensive - you only attack if you have more endurance and more health (hint: you can't wear down your opponent's health if you don't attack). Look through your matches and see if you can pinpoint if there's a particular condition or strategy line that's causing your losses. I suggest you try a more moderate approach with your strategy - warriors tend to do well in the endgame if they can withstand the initial onslaught. Perhaps you may want to get more aggressive as your opponent tires out, or as you lose health -> keep in mind that, other than line 1, the higher strategy line items will over-ride the lower ones if the trigger is true.

My skills are sort of all over the place, I wasnt going for defensive at first.

I have: Barreling attack 5, Devastating Power 3, Blades 8, Shields 3, (I am not using a shield, should I change to one?), Grim Determination 5, Iron Jaw 3, Battle Hardened 5, Death From Above 4, Feint 5, Called Shot 4

Right now, I am level 29. Stable name Cthonians, the gladiator is Lamejake. Right now, he is in the Elite bracket.

My original idea was to use the first line to do a little damage, and if I had more health I would finish the enemy off. I changed it under Apoca1ypse's suggestion to 8 tank 1, so that doesn't happen too often. Here are my stats, with gear adjustment:
90, 80, 77, 76, 94, 82

[Stormcloak]

Your skills are quite scattered, which explains some of the issues you're having.
Glad's only get 100 skill points to use. Skills get exponentially more powerful as they level. Most successful glads are running 10 skills at level 10 (some may be running 11 with the last two split to 5 each).
Skills at the bottom of the tree are generally more powerful than the initial ones you get access to.
It normally pays off to focus on getting a couple skills up to 8/9/10 before increasing the other ones.
It also helps to have a focus with your attributes (for example, with blades get a lot of agility gear and take some theatrics skills which use agility to complement it)
You may want to rethink your glad and decide what 10 skills you want to end up with (instead of just the first ones that are available). If you check out the war guide, you'll see a few sample builds.

[lamejake]

Your skills are quite scattered, which explains some of the issues you're having.
Glad's only get 100 skill points to use. Skills get exponentially more powerful as they level. Most successful glads are running 10 skills at level 10 (some may be running 11 with the last two split to 5 each).
Skills at the bottom of the tree are generally more powerful than the initial ones you get access to.
It normally pays off to focus on getting a couple skills up to 8/9/10 before increasing the other ones.
It also helps to have a focus with your attributes (for example, with blades get a lot of agility gear and take some theatrics skills which use agility to complement it)
You may want to rethink your glad and decide what 10 skills you want to end up with (instead of just the first ones that are available). If you check out the war guide, you'll see a few sample builds.

Okay, I changed some of my gear so that my presence is lower and strength and stamina higher. I have two blades right now, should I change to a shield? Also, is War Cry a good investment of points? I just reached level 30.

[Stormcloak]

War Cry is good, but only under certain circumstances (it can actually hamper you if used unfavourably as it uses up an attack). I think it might help if you come up with a vision for what you want and then we can help you come up with something that would work instead of evaluating everything in isolation. Dual wield or sword and shield are both good, but they play differently and some skills are better suited to one or the other. So, if you can tell use what weapons you want to use (two swords, or sword and shield), what style you would like (aggressive, balanced, or defensive), and what armour you want to wear (medium, heavy, mix), and if there's a particular skill that you really want, we can help iron out something that will work for you to aim toward.

[Kreegan]

In my experience War Cry sucks on any build but it's even more useless for defensive gladiators. The tank aims at exhausting the opponent, not dropping him/her with hits (you won't have enough offensive power to rely on such an approach anyway).

[lamejake]

Well, after a lot of experimenting in pit fights, I think I found something that works. Here is my new strategy:

Standby: 8 Parry-Lunge 6
Opponent is Very Injured: 6 Lunge 6
I am Very Tired: 5 Tank 1
I Have More Health: 8 Parry-Slash 7
I Have Less Health: 7 Slash 5

As you can see, it is a lot more offensive. Most of my skills are offensive, and so I just decided to change my glad's focus. Thoughts? This seems to be doing a lot better than my last build. I still can't beat The Butcher, the last tier 1 arena challenge. At what level do people normally beat him?

[Stormcloak]

That's a fairly decent strategy - I like it much more than the previous one. I would consider putting your standby as Tank 8/1 if you find you're taking big hits with your opponent's first shot against you.
For your skills, you really should consider streamlining them as mentioned in my previous post. That would mean unlearning some of them which will slow you down for a while, but put you further ahead once you get to the higher tiers.
I would look at taking:
Blades
GrimDetermination (or Master of Arms if you want to use a shield)
Battlehardened
Death From Above
Armour Movement
Never Say Die
And then you have 4 skills left to round yourself out with your vision (where you can go full war with the higher level skills, or dip into theatrics or rage a bit)

With the Butcher, you might want to check out this thread:
http://forum.pitofwar.com/showthread.php?923-Tier-1-Arena-Challenges&highlight=butcher

[lamejake]

Thanks, my glad is doing much better now!