War Cry / Down & Dangerous redesign

[weaw]

Perhaps it's time to redesign War Cry skill as the defensive [using Dirty Tricks experience].
Then, exchange War Cry for D&D. 5th tier for defensive War Cry, 3rd for D&D.
// The idea of the "wrong" D&D location on the War tree several times was suggested by Kreegan.

[Kreegan]

I've been thinking about suggesting the same thing but only if War Cry receives a massive boost and Down and Dangerous gets nerfed (to mitigate only the initiative and the damage loss but not to enable activated offensive and defensive skills when prone). Otherwise we will have a very powerful skill at tier 3 and an even more useless one at tier 5.

[weaw]

... but only if War Cry receives a massive boost ... Some of these "new" and new changes: early Entangle (4th tier, not 5th as for Theatrics), Blindness for 2 rounds -- have a positive effect.
We had a choice to use some [previously] useless triggers. Like: "I'm/Opponent is Entangled/Blinded".
The defensive form of War Cry could allow switch into "Opponent is Stunned/CanNotDefend" which is really massive boost, as i think.
// Though, humor is that the War don't have enough strategy rows to use these triggers. %)
// Need a try... Perhaps, it's not so funny.

But i agree: the numbers and even the "core" must be corrected for both of the skills. If Nate to take this option.
The chances are too little...

[Kreegan]

War Cry has different issues - the Stun effect gets resisted very often (I'd say in around 80% of the cases) and sometimes the skill deals no damage so you can and often will end up in a situation where your gladiator will waste his attack for no-damage, resisted Stun. Back when I was still trying to make use of that skill I lost many fights because of that (up to 4 wasted attacks per fight, pretty ridiculous). Also, due to the Wars' bad initiative the Stun effect usually triggers when the opponent has already done his attacks for the round so more than half of the desired effect is lost. Right now War Cry is the only skill in the game which can make your gladiator perform worse and that needs to be addressed, even if the skill is to remain where it is.

[weaw]

Right now War Cry is the only skill in the game which can make your gladiator perform worse ... I do not look at this point, but it seems it's true. Real argument to ask do something with the skill... And i forgot about resistance, yes (the initiative issue strong enough to refuse the skill). Necessary to strengthen it, regardless of other changes, you're right.

[Aphexii]

Isn't the "main" effect of War Cry to debuff your opponent with "you can't defent yourself"? most of the time for 2 rounds and looking at the lack of high offense from pure war trees it's actually a good debuff. which is rarely resisted. The stun effect is just the icing on the cake. But yes, those zero damage War Cry's are truly devastating.

[weaw]

Isn't the "main" effect of War Cry to debuff your opponent with "you can't defent yourself"?
It's "Can Not Defend", good effect.
But effective Wars are heavily equipped, at first, and they use relatively slow weapon (due to its length/penetration), at second, and they use at least half-defensive strategy, thirdly. That means they attack after opponent and they attack relatively rare.
When a gladiator uses effecting skill at the end of round, it means the effect's duration will be reduced by 1, in the fact (i.e. 0-1 duration in the case of War Cry).
Also, there's an old bug, when You see only one effect-resistance message, while in the fact both effects were blocked.

[Kreegan]

Cannot Defend does not always trigger and when it does, it could be for just 1 round - just like Stun it goes to waste if it activates at the end of the round, even if it's not resisted. There are just waaaaaay to many "ifs" about War Cry to be even remotely useful.