Total Parry - Tank

Time for some armchair managing. I've read the changes to total parry (now known as Tank), and have yet to see them in practice. My war gladiator is doing well and I don't want to mess with success.

Some observations:
You would likely not use Tank when you are low on health. The best time would be when you have an adequate amount of heath to maximize your 'soak'.

Activity still reads as needed, but experienced players are running a '1', and getting away with it. I don't really follow this.

Parry, block and dodge still seem to live under one roof in terms of characteristics (agility) and strategies (parry-whatever).

Day 96, which i believe would be the 2 a.m. bout on the 19th, saw my fighter Wermacht gas out against Midgard without ever having to dodge a single shot. Midgard simply stood there, as usual. Neither the Enforcer or the Crowd did anything. This may have been prior to the change.

This morning's fights (Day 98), however, saw quite a bit of pummeling from both the crowd and the Enforcer.....which has me concerned, since a few of my guys are on Counter-Attack or Parry-X, and we're getting shot/hit/punched by the crowd just as much as the Tank. This makes it dangerous to use these techniques against a Tank, because the low activity level due to the opponents lack of attacks makes the Counter/Parry fighter just as liable to get hit as the Tank.

And forget about trying to use these techniques on someone like Panzer in the Arena Challenges.....Had it not been for the Enforcer shooting me with countless arrows/cudgels/shoes etc, I may have actually beaten that guy this time.

I think this technique still needs quite a bit of thought....it's still broken.

In reading the fights over the last couple of turns I think you are only going to have a problem if your activity level is too low as I haven't come across any fights where a gladiator is attacking and was getting things thrown at them.

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This makes it dangerous to use these techniques against a Tank, because the low activity level due to the opponents lack of attacks makes the Counter/Parry fighter just as liable to get hit as the Tank.

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In reading what Nate said about the direction Tanks and defensive gladiators in general are moving I think what you said is accurate and by design. It never made sense to me to use counter attack against total parry as the tool tip says it has an advantage over offensive styles. Now instead of setting one row to total parry and walking away it looks like you have to make some calculated risks when running defensively. Some re-thinking of your strategies is probably in order if you are trying to use old techniques against tanks.

I for one like the change, the only time I've seen major crowd involvement is when two war gladiators decide to stare at each other and in that case I'm happy they get smacked around, and if you decide to drop your activity level into the boredom range and you aren't attacking for numerous rounds in a row then you deserve to get smacked around too! You are of course welcome to do so and make those calculated risks i mentioned earlier of trading possible damage for endurance reduction but that's just too much thinking for me, if you are having trouble just make a rage gladiator! :)

The problem is, you rarely know who, exactly, you are going to be matched up with, even if you issue challenges. This means that at least one of your technique rows must be dedicated to "Opponent is Slightly Active" in order to insure that you do not inadvertently opt for Counter-Attack or Parry/X against a Tank. That's not so much a problem, I guess, as a nuisance. Particularly when you are at lower levels, and haven't opened up too many technique rows. Requiring that one of those rows be constantly set to "Slightly Active" limits the lower level fighters quite a bit.

I was reading a few fights yesterday (I think it the one that stood out was Captain America vs .. hell I don't remember). Anyways, the Capt didn't throw a swing, and never was taunted by the outside. The fight went about 4-5 minutes.

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It never made sense to me to use counter attack against total parry as the tool tip says it has an advantage over offensive styles

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I don't think anyone would use counter attack vs a tank or total parry, but they may want to use it vs a rage warrior that runs at a low activity or really any warrior that may be offensive at a low activity, but when matched up vs a tank now the counter attack warrior becomes at a disadvantage even further against the tank at times being that they are usually the fighters wearings less armor and take more of a beating from the enforcer and crowd simply because they have nothing to counter attack and stand around getting pelted.

If there were triggers that went off based on the opponents fight strategy I think that would help alot. So if faced witha tank a manager could set a warriors strategy to trigger to something a little more active like parry so that they avoid getting beat down b the crowd.
Because one is a tank sometimes the opponent ends up getting punished for his foe's tactic as well.

As with all strategy games with limited resources (i.e. # of strategy rows and options) the job of the player is to find the best set of options for his gladiator based on the goal they are trying to achieve. There is of course no "one size fits all beat any gladiator I meet" strategy and that is by design. If you'd like to counter attack against rage then use the "my opponent is rage" trigger and give it a higher priority than other triggers that you don't want to go off when fighting a rage gladiator and place triggers that you do want to go off against a rage gladiator above the "my opponent is rage" trigger. Obviously you don't have enough rows to handle all situations so there is an element of risk involved when you specialize, but if the gamble pays off (i.e. you get your challenge, or you happen to be surrounded by rage gladiators in the rankings at this particular time) then the risk will likely be worth it. You can instead choose to have a more general Fight Strategy and that may better suite your needs and risk tolerance given your current situation. As someone said on another thread, there is no one setting to victory and the diligent manager who keeps his finger on the pulse of what is going on at all times will have an advantage.

Dainoji is on the right track in that if you want to go very defensive for a long time or late in the game there is some risk associated with it now and that is by design. The crowd gets angry when you haven't been attacking for a certain period of time so use your triggers to mitigate this if you are still going for a "tire my opponent out win". I'm testing some new triggers right now that would give you the ability to trigger off the fact that the crowd is angry with you, and this will likely help many of you.

The goal of the change was to prevent standing around being a path to victory and in my opinion that has been accomplished while still allowing the player to try and win via having the other guy pass out. It isn't as easy as before, there is a fine line to find to do it successfully due to the risk involved but in reading the fights I'm seeing it happen and the fights are quite exciting coming down to the wire where it is a race against the one guy keeping enough health as he is assaulted by the crowd and the other guy losing steam. The rules have changed considerably where tanking is concerned so I would encourage you to test out new techniques in how to use it successfully and how to beat it.

Good Luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

My fighters The Preacher and Wermacht have had some pretty decent success lately using Tank as an opening strat, with the Priority 2 trigger set at "Opponent is Moderately Tired". Once that trigger hits (usually around Round 8 or 9 for most average Stamina opponents), they bust out with an 8/3 or 10/4 barrage, and thus avoid the penalty for standing around.

This doesn't work, however, against a very high Stamina opponent, who doesn't hit the trigger until much later (which appears to be roughly 50% Stamina). It also won't work as well against another Tank. It's certainly not my favorite tactic, as I like to run my fighters on high offense, but it has it's place.