Opinions on tanking gladiators

So what is everyone's opinion on the ability for a gladiator to wear a wall of 10 foot thick steel around himself and stand in the middle of the arena until the other guy passes out?

My opinion is I hope they don't become popular. Their fights aren't exciting and if two of them get matched up it is almost like watching grass grow. Now, having said that I don't see a way around it based on the game mechanics and the specialties and I don't even think they are inherently bad, however it is my hope that offense will always have the edge over defense in order to keep things more exciting. I guess for some people though it is fun and exciting to see if they can win that way, so perhaps it is just personal preference...

I suppose like all strategy games there must be black and white to counter one another and even in real life fighting sports like MMA most people prefer to watch stand up strikers as opposed to the grapplers who go to the ground and bore the audience until a vicious elbow gets unleashed or a submission attempt is about to be performed.

Any other opinions out there?

From last runs run:

Quote:

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KOR lost a close battle with FARUHK. — 46 minutes & 5 seconds

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I agree it is kind of boring, but it is extremely effective.

Just try tanking that magnificent warrior known as RHAGIZZLEBIZZLE
and
watch all your formerly glorious defenses just fizzle.
Watch his giant Cleaver go boom, bang, and slash.
It won't be long till you're in the morgue, much the worse, from a head first crash.

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Originally Posted by Truffula

Just try tanking that magnificent warrior known as RHAGIZZLEBIZZLE
and
watch all your formerly glorious defenses just fizzle.
Watch his giant Cleaver go boom, bang, and slash.
It won't be long till you're in the morgue, much the worse, from a head first crash.

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Haha, I think I'm going to like this guy!

It takes all kinds and personally I think I would like one of this kind of fighter in my stable especially if Trolls are ever offered by the slavers.

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Originally Posted by Apparition

It takes all kinds and personally I think I would like one of this kind of fighter in my stable especially if Trolls are ever offered by the slavers.

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I do believe in further expansions we will see exotic races be offered. Those lands have yet to be discovered and unlocked through Conquests. It's rumored that other schools of fighting will be revealed beyond Arms & Armor (Rage, War, Theatrics) when that happens... so says the rumor mill down at the Tavern.

Woot! Hopefully smelly and rank-reeking orcs will be sold as well. As for tanking, seems like a good strategy for some, but pretty sure some of the skills they have will offset someone standing around like a circus clown. Or go at them with activity level of 1 and low bloodlust.

The main problem with a "free-to-play but pay-to-win" game is that those who are willing to shell out the cash can gain immediate (and, in this case, overwhelming) advantages over the regular (free) players. The gladiators who opt for all purple will, of course, be the rank leaders, because the lower level weapons cannot defeat their epic defenses. It's unfortunate, but I guess the game designers have to make money somehow.

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Originally Posted by Blackwill

The main problem with a "free-to-play but pay-to-win" game is that those who are willing to shell out the cash can gain immediate (and, in this case, overwhelming) advantages over the regular (free) players. The gladiators who opt for all purple will, of course, be the rank leaders, because the lower level weapons cannot defeat their epic defenses. It's unfortunate, but I guess the game designers have to make money somehow.

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Tell that to Vrog who was just handed an ass beating a few turns ago by my guy in greens and whites.

I agree with Dainoji, Voltar is ranked 1st, and has been on top most of his Gladiator life. He regularly hands everyone a beating, but has lost several times. All that, and all I bought was 5 dollars worth of trophies, which I pretty much wasted on random stuff except one good item (I have never really had a lot of trophies in all my time playing this game, so was buying scout reports to see what the guys on top were doing in the beginning, and seeing what the hoo-ha was in this chamber of power, which turns out I couldnt buy anything from with such few trophies).

It is possible to win quite easily with the bare minimum, paying attention to your gladiators fights, and playing with good skill selection will always trump someone who has money and no skill. Brute force, almost always, will not win you games.

Voltar in greens and blues recently beat Vrog (a tank), just like Dainoji, who is decked out in epics. Take from that what you will.

Come on then, Voltar is waiting for you. ;)

Well, it's obvious that the epics aren't quite as powerful as I had expected them to be, given the results mentioned above. I also like the recent change which divides the fighters up into the different categories, so an 'Amateur' no longer has to worry about going up against a 'Gladiator'. That seems to be a pretty fair mitigating factor, and tends to level the playing field a bit.

I do believe some type of tweaking need to be done. The defense for a total parry is just silly unless your a beserking rager.

Fights like this are just nutty.
"ULTIMO challenged LORDS FURY and took him to school with a massive beating. — 78 minutes & 15 seconds"

And it's not just because I have lost back to back matches in the same manner.

Even this match that I won is mind boggling.
"GRIZZLY failed to achieve victory in a match against SPIRITUAL PAIN. — 30 minutes & 35 seconds"

The near invincability of a total parry vs WAR and Theatrical fighters is just way overboard. Somewhere in the strategy needs to be something that can break through a parry.
And it is becoming increasingly the main forte of the elite warriors outside of a handful.

Without a counterattack the parry is becoming the most widely used tactic.
7 of the top 14 fights were decided by parry. That half the top fights decided by 1 tactic out of a choices of Bash/lunge/slash/counter/parrysl/parrylu/parryba/counter. And it appears the only tactics that actually truly counter the parry is killshot and beserk on a decent basis. But what about the War and Theatrical fighter. If you don't total parry and try to wear them out your basically done as a war fighter, and if your a theatrical fighter your pretty much out of luck because your not out lasting a total parry no matter what tactic you use and you can't break the defense.

A good defense is a great offense, but thus far parry is becoming to overwhelming and too oft used.

I am sure i am not the only one that is feeling this way.

I'm always keeping my eye on the arena and running simulations between various builds and will make balance changes as needed. The game is still quite new to most people and players are still learning how to beat the various styles and builds and how to run their own. In the Beta all three specialties were viable options and tanks were not overpowering. Some builds take more time to mature or figure out and some are more obvious than others. Rest assured though that if a balance tweak needs to happen it will. I'm already compiling a list of balancing tweaks that I'll make next time I do a balancing pass.

I'm seeing my tank start to lose a LOT at the higher level. After he took the #1 spot he hung out there for a little while and has since lost something like 12 of 13 fights. I do find that in defense vs defense wars it just comes down to who has the higher stamina. Nothing else seems to matter. I don't know how many of you played Duelmasters (Now Duel II) but this phenomenon is common there too and the total parry tank types really fall off hugely once they hit a certain point as other warriors get skilled enough to get past the parries.

I set one of my War glads on Total Parry 1/1 for my battle with Nightmare, and forgot to re-set it after I won the match. Next thing I know, I'm going 171 ROUNDS (!!!!) with a Tavern Ogre!! 28 Minutes of staring at each other until he got bored and ran off....

I do have one of my glads set with the Wall-o-Steel technique, but I try to use him only against the Purple-Clad teams, just to cut into their win-loss records. I don't like the idea of people being able to buy their victories outright...