What does a kill make?...

[Megamieuwsel]

Just wondering what it actually takes to make a kill in this game.
Surely it's not the amount of damage, as is aptly demonstrated in a fight from Schnoll I just viewed:

Opponent is down to 545 of 1607 HP.
Schnoll pulls a rampage of a whopping 1816....
(Note how this is still a good deal more than him at full health ...)
Not a kill.

I mean; If dealing enough damage to grind your opponent to dust doesn't kill him, then what exactly does?

[weaw]

Ok. For me it looks like two-step action:
1st step: Attempt to Kill.
2nd step: Confirmation.

I'm not sure about attempt. Perhaps, it triggers every time an opponent reach 0 of health. Perhaps, depending on killer's Kill Rank and depending on something else (Chi, Pre).
// But i hope the end-measure is the Kill Rank if the attempt triggers only sometimes.

Confirmation.
It looks like a real "skill" of every gladiator. This skill could be named "Protection from Kill". It look like skill because the most common situation when gladiator killed is a situation when he is under Stun effect. And You know, the most of skills are working bad under Stun effect.
We may suggest, the skill check is something like:
-- Convert all the stats into Kill Rank for killer. Add Kill Rank from his equipment;
-- Convert all the stats into Life Protection for victim. Add Life Protection from his equipment;
-- Compare first and second.

[Megamieuwsel]

Hmmmm...
That makes sense.
And I take it, some attributes would weigh in heavier in the accumilated "kill-rank" than others.
Presesence seems to be a big player in there, or so I've heard,

[Adoede]

At least in my experience, the way it seems to work is that the glads fight until one is below 25% health. At that point they make a will-roll to see if they give up or the enforcer stops the fight.
-If they successfully make the will-roll and continue to fight, they make another will-roll when their health dips below another breakpoint...I'd guess around 10% health (Grim Determination helps make these will-rolls).
-If the glad makes another successful will-roll and continues to fight, then they basically fight until they get close to 0 health. When any hit takes them below 0 health, they have to make a will-roll to see if they are killed or not.

As for what helps lead to more kills - the most important factor is presence. I notice the most kills when one glad has a very high presence and their opponent has a very low presence. I think this difference in presence is the greatest determining factor for whether a kill occurs or not. I have a guy with High presence who killed a guy with very low presence 4 times in a row in 4 straight fights. So something about that combo makes the will-roll to resist a kill hard for the opponent.
I've also seen that decent bleeding inflicted on opponents also leads to more kills. Not sure why this is...but good bleed leads to more kills.
One of these days I'd like to try a Slayer with high presence...I imagine he'd finally live up to his style name with the massive bleed from blood bath. Too bad none of the Slayer skills benefit from high presence...

[weaw]

Too bad none of the Slayer skills benefit from high presence...
First Strike, Mystic Markings.