Never Say Die question?

I wondering why sometimes NSD triggers and other times not. I have run with many different strats, but see no consistent patterns. Anyone have ideas?

Well the skill tree description suggests that the skill triggers when a glad has less than half health remaining and is losing the battle. The question is how exactly the system calculates whether the glad is losing the battle. If both the fighting glads are in bad situation but still going neck to neck, that is if none can really be said to be losing the battle against the other, the skill may not trigger.

This is just my guess though. I did test it on my wars for a while but then replaced it with other skills.

My bet is that it has a certain chance to trigger on every attack of the opponent (successful or parried) after the health of your fighter drops below certain threshold but the dice will not necessarily make a successful roll until the battle ends. I've seen it trigger on a gladiator with more than 50% health left, effectively restoring his bar to green, I've seen it trigger on a gladiator who receives a blow which would otherwise drop his health to or below 0 and so on. I don't think there is a way to guarantee that it will always work except investing heavily in Strength and Stamina.

Why strength and Stamina ?
Shouldnt strength and stamina only affect the effect of the skill ?
And intelligence being the attribute, who determines how often the skill is used.
At least thats what i thought.

Attribute scores and best guesses aside if you aren't using a defensive fighting style the chances of it triggering are going to be close to zero.

Not true Dain, Belca triggers it often enough when he needs to although I would like him to trigger it each fight :p

Interesting. I hadn't seen that myself. Have you tried fighting defensively and seeing how often it triggers? Maybe Belca is just special. :p

I tried defensives styles when the skilltree changed but I saw no real improvement between the 2 different styles, I have no intention of testing anything out at the end of the blood gods season either :p
Mind you we all know belca is special, he gains 782 health when he triggers never say die btw xD

I'm a noob and I have no excellant fighters, however I just thought to throw my two cents in, I bet that little stat that we can't see, "luck" effects that skill, try in achievements to add luck to your character and see if it triggers a little more often. I might just be talking stupidity, but I read what nate said about it, and he didn't really nail exactly what all luck effects, and I'm not saying this attributes huge, I'm just thinking it effects it a little at least.

Just curious if anyone has verified how much of an effect using an offensive/defensive strategy has on NSD triggering?
It does mention it's a defensive skill in the description, but it seems a shame that your best chance for it to trigger when loosing a battle would be to try to weather the beating and hope it goes off instead of hitting back.