Outclassed?

[Dainoji]

Since turn about is always fair play, I figured I'd run this up the flag pole!

Based on the top 40 over the last few months an obvious trend of Theatrics gladiators moving up, more recently War gladiators as well and a steady decline in Rage.

At this point Rage gladiators at the top are an endangered specialty! Never having more than 3 and now only 2 in the top 10 and the next one isn't found until the #15 spot! Now, let's just cut to the chase and put all the regular nonsense like rampage and damage stacking and blah, blah, blah are unbalanced and unfair onto the table as to not go through all that again as such statements are obviously not true otherwise the rankings wouldn't look like they do. The rankings speak for themselves.

What can explain such a glaring trend?

I can't speak for all Ragers, but I see two popular builds running around and their fatal flaw which is keeping them out of the top.

Build #1: Duel wield blades. Has too much trouble handling armor if using quick daggers or rapiers. Middle range blades handle the armor but can't handle the counter attacks by a larger wielding weapon of a Theatrics gladiator. Move up to a Bastard Sword and you solve the Theatrics problem, but now your attacks drop to a level where you no longer can handle War and other Ragers...

Build #2: Two-Hander. Quite simply they don't attack enough. Period. While they can drop a man in 3 hits sometimes 2, the fact that many of those attacks are blocked by the armor or Create Distance makes them an inconsistent gladiator at best completely at the mercy of the opponent's build more than their own.

The first build has had much more success than build #2 and I'd say Two-Handers in general have got the short end of the stick since the beginning and the fact one has never sat on the throne is proof to that. I don't think they've even been in the top 3, I think Eruption hit #5 briefly but he is a two handed tank so not surprising he made it before a two handed Rager.

Another possibility is of the top managers only a few run Rage and as such they are poorly represented.

I'm happy to deal with the status quo, but something isn't quite right.

Discuss...

[Team Kaos]

I'll be more then happy to jump into the topic as always.
Being that I have no Rage's anywhere near the top just yet, but have certainly fought them. Here is why I believe they are not "challenging" for the top.

I was thinking of listing each Rage and what I perceive their weakness to be....but decided against it...since I felt I would be giving some help to my foes, which in turn would probably come back and bite me.

So I will be a bit more general.

As you mentioned, the 2 main build are the fast Bird of Prey Rage and then the 2 handed ultra power beasts.
We have all seen the problems they face as you said the 2 handed is at a disadvantage because of his big weapon and it's slow speed. The small weapon is fast but has difficulty vs heavy armor despite all the rage stacking skills. One has problems vs Theatrics and the other vs War's

But I also see a 3rd build, which is in the middle, Delta, Summit, Laphroaig builds which are very similar to each other. They use axe/mace medium speed weapons that hit pretty hard. Truthfully I think these to be the most adaptive build but personally just don't think they are run correctly for the opponents they face everyday.

What I see in Rage's though is that most of their attributes and skills are nearly trained and buffed the same. High strength, chi and for some agility.

Skills wise though, nearly all the Rage's are built almost completely out of their own skill tree, with very few outside.

All the top Theatrics have a good deal of skill points invested into Brute Force. Oedi's Theatrics are basically as much Rage as the are Theatrics.

I think for the most part, most of the Rage's in the top ladder are and I'm not trying to diss on any managers but..they are very much 1 trick ponies. Most are built on 1 strategy and that's it. The manager has no choice but run him 1 way, none are capable of switching weapons from 2 handed to duel wield which would be in my opinion very advantageous in challenges and being challenged since at any moment they can go from one style to another.

And as we see, they have for the most part painted themselves into a corner vs certain gladiators

I just think most were built with the vision of just heaping on strength and using the stacking skills to create a 1 or 2 shot beast. Which works vs the smaller stature fights with lower health points. But some of the bigger faster none Rage guys can take a few huge shots and then return the favor 2 fold with their higher agility and ability to damage a leather clad Rage.

[Mortay]

okay well im not a big bad beast like you two but ive had a experience or two with rage and this is what i see thm as. there useless meat heads. they remind me of football players in highschool strong and beastly but dumb and slow as shit. i had my rage up to lvl 20 and finally gave up on him cuz from the get go he was getting sh** kicked after lvl five even though i tried him with axes and maces and dual wielding and then two handers. nothing seemed to work and i pretty much based my build out of strength and heavy damage weapons. seeing i bought him with a starting strength of 81 AND AN ENDURANCE OF 78 i thought he would be great considering all his stats were low to mid 70's other than those first two. he still ended up gett beat almost every matchup and never made it past grom on the arena challenges. if u want my opinion take for what u want but rages are pointless until someone figures away to make them omnidextrous like Kaos said and ale to switch between strategies at a high lvl but i guarantee u that youll be putting in all these training point in and losing all matches til u even him out in that department. just a suggestion but stick to theatrics and war. i really hate ragers they just plain out are highschool meatheads!!!!!

[Dainoji]

Well, seeing as 5 of the top 10 gladiators in the arena are now rage, perhaps you might want to reconsider your dumb football meathead comparison! ;) They still have trouble against certain builds but the current trend would indicate they are doing pretty good!

[Masterfist]

I like rage types.....the brute strength, inner chi, and if so one hell of a track record(stamina), but to me without intellect they seem useless unless the skills are sickly high rated and a high presence level always helps someone who wants to kill their opponents. Lucky me I stumbled onto a gladiator with insanely well-rounded stats. Thanks for the fresh meat dainoji!!!

[Mortay]

i Wont take my comment back because its the truth. a well formed theatrics glad will always beat a beefed up rage, im sorry but its true. anyone who puts their theatrics glad in a purple heavy armour and a monster damage dealing weapon or two with extreme agility will dance around a rarge any day. your rage will be beheaded with a foot standing on his greasy head after the fight anyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Masterfist]

I find this maybe true....I guess it depends on your strategy cuz im using a very well rounded rage right now(no its not the sickly rounded glad ;)) fought some purple armored theatrics dual wielding and got my ass handed to me, but then i put his strategy on high attack and bloodlust and got back in the game...soooo right and wrong I guess and how you use your weapons may have a factor as well. Test the bloody waters mortay!!!!

[Apoca1ypse]

Well, seeing as 5 of the top 10 gladiators in the arena are now rage, perhaps you might want to reconsider your dumb football meathead comparison! ;) They still have trouble against certain builds but the current trend would indicate they are doing pretty good!


one thing i think we need to factor in is Kaos' departure means that there are 20 non-rage glads competing now, namely the theatrics he ran at the pointy end of the ladder.


I still think that rage needs some help, mainly 2H rage which seems to have suffered since the change to offhand weapons. they simply dont attack enough. this extends to 2H war aswell, though they atleast have defensive goodies to get them through like create distance and hamstring.

...i think it's more an issue that 2H weapons are outclasses. a single speed 1 or 1.1 weapon, even with it's slightly greater damage range, is outclassed by someone wielding two speed 1.5-3.0 weapons.

skills such as rampage and shock and awe can help a 2H rager get some balance (or create distance/hamstring for 2H war) but once negated attacks create distance/sig move: stun/hamstring are also added in, 2H rage again seems to lag.


/disclaimer: i run an all rage stable, so i have some inherant bias, but when i hear other managers running 2H glads say the same thing, it makes me sad :(



maybe i should have just made all my guys byrd of prey style ragers... oh well

[Dainoji]

In all honesty Kaos was falling in the rankings long before his departure save one or two guys so I don't think that has mattered at all. In the last few months there was a surge of new blood at the top and it has been pretty dynamic with the top 10 being evenly spread out among specialties and then for awhile Theatrics had the lion's share and then War was the new kid on the block with 4 or 5 glads and now Rage seems to have set up residence for some reason.

2Her glads might have a tougher go of things but looking around it isn't by much as they are still quite competitive, maybe a few tweaks here and there could help, but let's say you were to give 2H weapons an extra attack per round, I'm pretty sure that would make them almost unstoppable given their damage output. I will agree that 2H War is more successful than 2H rage simply due to their defensive abilities and since Rage has none and their offense is already better than the rest what they really need is a way to nullify some of the defensive skills to level things out, or they simply need more health than the others to make up for the fact they can't wear medium and heavy armor. Having said that I imagine a 2H rage with a massive size and stamina and pumped up using the various health achievements would be quite the formidable foe!

[Apoca1ypse]

yeah, lacking a glad in the top 10 i dont really see much of what is going on there, but i have 5 in the top 50 and keep getting that lacklustre feeling with them....

i agree, an extra swing would be too much, so i'm not too sure what would be a good solution really.



and re kaos: he still had plenty in the top 50 back then.

[CaineDeSoulis]

in the top 25 currently there are 4 2handed rage. CaineDeSoulis,Sliver,Kharn and Rarg. Caine is currently using the setup Dain spoke of massive health/stamina and hope for survivability. Unfortunately the damage output from my glad at least is comparable to Eruption's Damage with the exception in Rampage. not to mention even with all the stratagy changes i could make the maximum attack's i get will always be 2 attacks per round UNLESS ive already attacked twice and then my last stand triggers in which case i will get 3 attacks. this is with a speed 1.1 weapon and 10 activity 1 bloodlust berserk. if Create Distance goes of 2 times in a 3 round fight my damage is cut by 33% if armor blocks an attack i'm up to 50% and if for some reason my 2handed weapon user decides to punch with his off hand 67% of my *MASSIVE* damage is gone.

[Cynaidh]

1 bloodlust? May I ask the reason for that Caine? Just kinda surprised, in all your fights i have never really seen you get that low in endurance, is there a different reason? Also surprised that 2handed rage doesn't get to 3 attacks a round with 10 activity :mad: my two hand rage with a 1 speed weapon is currently at 82 agil, and i run him at 8-6 bezerk (9 two handed weapon skill), and get 2 attacks every round, i was hoping for a 3rd once i have the skill to run 10-6 bezerk