Developing a Human War for Blood Gods

Humans in general receive very little love. I’ve been trying to produce a decent end game gladiator out of this outsider race for quite some time and so far the only somewhat successful result is a Power Theatrics (Arkal), although I’m not yet convinced that his… humanity directly affects his battle performance in a positive way (judging from the fact that about half of his losses are due to knockdowns, I suspect that he’ll gain quite some performance if I make him a Dunder but that’s not relevant now). Every attempt so far to make a good Human War however has been either a failure or a struggle against some of the game mechanics which are quite unfavourable to that race. Or maybe I’m doing something wrong. I would like to hear some other opinions if it makes sense to keep trying to make a well-performing Human War.

Note: I’m not trying to develop a shield-bearing tank so the below considerations are for the rest of the possible War builds.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

Racial Strengths – it’s only one actually and it’s the lack of penalties - normal damage, normal initiative, normal everything, which in theory is a good base for a versatile race which can do well in many roles. The extra Attack Power is completely negligible.

Racial Weaknesses:

- The biggest one is the HUGE susceptibility to critical hits. This isn’t written anywhere but the Blood Gods realities are such that the majority of the gladiators spam critical hits like there’s no tomorrow and the racial resistances begin to matter a lot and the lack of resistances starts to be a major problem. Knockdowns in particular are a big issue for every heavily armoured War (especially the ones who switch between defense and offense because during the defensive rounds you are just nailed to the ground no matter what) and in Blood Gods all non-Dunders and non-tanks* get knocked down very, very often. A bit more than a month ago Nate doubled the efficiency of Stuns and Disarms as well, effectively further enhancing the power of gladiators who rely on critical hits.

- A smaller, yet notable issue is the lack of distinguishable racial strength which is also a nice thing to have in Blood Gods. There are multiple builds revolving around the AP power of the Elaars, the stability and hitting power of the Dunders or the durability of the Trugs and the Spites. It wouldn’t bring you many benefits if you substitute one of those races with a Human for the respective build because you would lose a distinctive advantage to remove a penalty which might not be (and usually isn’t) so problematic for the given build.

*Tanks in this context are defensive Wars with shields.

To mitigate the issues and emphasize on the good sides, the following things might be done in theory:

- Invest in equipment with Critical Protection Rank. This SHOULD decrease the amount of criticals received and therefore address the biggest racial weakness. This however is no panacea. My experience with Arkal shows that even at 200/1000 Crit Protection rank, the critical effects and especially the knockdowns are still very frequent and powerful. Also, like all “ranks”, this bonus is expensive and will reduce the amount of other bonuses and particularly the attribute buffs on the respective item.

- Invest in the Plate/Full Plate Armour only. The heaviest armour offers decent protection against critical hits. The problem here would be coping with the weight, i.e. extra Size, Agility and Presence will be needed to ensure that there will be enough swings every once in a while.

- Invest in Defense, if the build is predominantly defensive. High Defense is proven to positively affect the damage resistance of a gladiator and help him/her parry when the strategy allows it. Something around 80-100 extra Defense from gear only for a gladiator with full legendary equipment will probably do the trick to an extent.

- Invest in Size and Agility or Presence for offensive builds in order to reduce the heavy armour penalty. This partially applies to defensive builds as well but to a lesser extent.

Theoretically the above sounds nice but finding the appropriate gear is usually easier said than done.

What else can be added to the list or removed in your opinion? I’m aware that this will be largely a philosophical exercise as there are no Human Wars in Blood Gods belonging to other managers but give it a shot anyway.

I like that you've put thought into this, but have you considered that it's more a case of "X race is better than humans for the currently known tank builds"

Humans have a niche, I'm sure of it. I just believe that it hasnt been found yet, and I doubt it will be as a tank, which is a difficult build in its own right. I doubt elaars would be good for tanking either, but for them we at least know that speed builds are good for elaars.

When race's came out, everyone started experimenting with them, and humans fell by the way side. they were again ignored by the community when the new skill tree came out (and subsequent balance passes) so basically, humans have had little to no exploration and development since other races came out. Add to that the fact that nearly everyone likes to copy established builds, and its no wonder humans are so unrepresented. Have a look at urks too.

Humans (and urks) have a viable build somewhere (though I doubt as a war as their benefit is offensive power) it just takes someone finding the right thing, or a change in the metagame for it to happen. Keep experimenting any you may have the next "thing" on your hands, and get to reap the benefits until everyone else catches up. Just look at SOTC with speed theatrics. It was new, and it took ages for everyone to catch up. Same goes for crowdpleasers with bloodylady's defense build.

War doesn't necessarily mean tank, at least not the regular tank that we see now in Blood Gods (shield-bearer, usually spamming Agility to get extra Defense and initiative). At the moment I'm trying a defensive Two-hander (Thornwall) and a hybrid Pole Arms (Reya) and the defensive type is certainly doing better and shows some promise... if I find the right gear for him. The hybrid will be retrained toward a more defensive stance when she reaches Olympian (her current skill set doesn't seem to get her anywhere), in general her raw stats are good for experimentation.

Anyway, I get your point but I don't agree that Humans have a niche build. They are probably the only race that can (and can not at the same time) fit everywhere because they have no penalties or serious advantages which may direct them toward a specific speciality and build. The extra Attack Power is really unimportant, if I remember correctly it's some 30 points of flat bonus or something like that, that's not going to help you to punch through any defensive type that knows what he/she's doing - and it doesn't, from what I've seen. It's probably a matter of hardening their soft spots. The idea behind the thread is not "Humans suck", mind you, it's about suggestions how to develop a good Human War gladiator and what are the limits of such a concept. Who knows, somebody might even want to try it himself. :cool:

As for Urks... well, they are natural Rages. The Endurance bonus is very handy against tanks who try to make your fighter pass out and the Stun resistance has become more important since Nate made the Stuns harder to resist (supposedly, they get knocked out less often too). You don't get a straight-forward brute like the speed Elaars or the power Dunders but it can be made a good all-around Rage. I agree that sticking to template builds which are proven to work well largely stops people from experimenting. But this is one of the reasons why I started this thread anyway.

Gear has a lot to do with this too. It takes so long to get a glad geared up to be decently competitive in BG in the first place - especially if you're using an experimental build - that I expect many abandon experimental builds long before they have a real chance to be tested. That's why I gave up on the dual-bladed war I was experimenting with - could never get enough rating points to get good gear. I've taken a new approach these days of building the glad up as a more standard build first to get the Rating Points I need to access Orange gear. Once I've geared up, I plan to switch to the experimental builds again to give them an honest opportunity. With the new level 55 gear though, this is going to take a loooong time.

As for humans - I tried my speed rage as a Snivler, a Human and an Elaar. I thought the Human's better HP would make him more survivable and the Attack Power would give him an initiative boost. I recently switched him to Elaar and he is +10% in his win percentage since.

Blood Gods is a terrible environment for experimentation, that's true - gearing up is very slow, the initial pressure on the new entries is huge, the barrage of criticals can dishearten many players (especially new ones) and so on. Still, focusing only on copy-pasted builds is getting quite tedious over time and ultimately makes the game repetitive. Nate occasionally intervenes, making balance changes, but that's relatively rare. It would be good if people tried to make the game more diverse themselves but... to each his own.

So, suggestions?

I would like to chip in here as a novice stable owner, my main gladiator (started with him, never sold) is currently level 34 a human war named Baratheonus, I made him into a dual-wield swords gladiator (due to his high agility and presence, looking back now, I should of made him a theatrics, but that's besides the point now) and so far he has performed really well for me! He is currently 169-75-9 (that's a win/loss of 69.3%) he's the least successful of my 3 glads, but given his racial disadvantage, I am overall very happy with him, feel free to check him out as well, he is currently rank 15 in the Legends category.