Theatrics Gladiator Guide by Oedi

THIS GUIDE IS OUT OF DATE DUE TO A CHANGE IN THE SKILL TREES AND GAME ON 1/12/2013. GENERAL INFO MIGHT STILL BE USEFUL BUT ANYTHING PERTAINING TO STRATEGY OR SKILL BUILDS IS LIKELY OUT OF DATE.

Generally id say, don’t go lower than 950 gold on the slaves, unless they have some exceptional stats. I love big gladiators and run a size 90 , and a size 94 which both sadly started with less than adequate strength.

Strength - I generally don’t go lower than 65, and of course higher is better.

Intellect - I like high int, but as far as i can see it only helps speed up skill trains (on the few skills that use int) and since there is a limit of skills you will get them eventually. I have a few low int gladiators that does well, but i see a tendency that they stop in their progression. I think/hope they will catch up again when the skills get there. So if you don’t bother to much about your win loss record, be patient.
Int also helps you to pick up your weapon again if your so unlucky to loose it.

Agility - Again i generally don’t go below 65, and higher is better.
I actually run 4 gladiators with a low 60 in agility, and in the lower brackets that’s working just fine. But if you plan on running your gladiator in to the top brackets you want something that you can bring over 100. At the top end an agility of 115 to 140 should do the trick for your gladiator.

Stamina - I’ve started to really like stamina on my gladiators. In my oldest lot i neglected this stat, and that really hurts their performens now. My defensive styled theatrics is far better than my offensive styled. I no longer run pure offensive theatrics in the ranks above juggernauts.
Don’t go below 70, but if you like a real challenge try something around 60 or lower.

Size - I run both large and small gladiators. largest being 94, smallest being 48. The tiny guy is sold off and i try not to go below size 70. Size is the most important factor in both health and your carry capacity, and both are very important.
Small gladiators sadly lacks the ability to carry armour, which i find somewhat strange. And i cant see any defensive benefits either. Still couldn’t see any benefits after the change that should give small gladiators a defence benefit.

Presence - I can only see that it helps speed up certain skills.
Most important are signature move and gracious violence. Those 2 are key skills for you theatrics so you don’t want to go to low.
And if my assumption is right it might lose you some fights with high presence. I’ve lost far more fights when ive got more hit points than my opponent than the opposite, while both gladiators are in the `danger zone. I connect that to high presence and crowd pleaser.

Chi - My high chi gladiator do slightly better than my low chi ones. Again a stat i don’t pay to much attention too. If you’d like to go Ormgar styled theatrics go high chi. His current chi 115.

I let the higher of strength and agility decide my weapons choice. I like swords and axe/mace best. unless the strength is much higher than the agi ill go for blades. I rarely use exotic weapons. I run a few theatrics with shield, but I think those skill points will be of better use in an other skill.
My absolute favourite is duel wielding bastard swords, or actually it used to be my favorite. some changes to the game made this choice less good. Nowadays i usually go for axe/mace when i can.

With skill trains i make 3 different types of theatrics, rager, war or pure.
For the rage oriented i use these skills: blades, barrelling attack, brute force, feint, create distance, iron jaw, devastating power, blood drunk, signature move, gracious violence, last stand.(death from above and strength of the crowd can be useful additions). Ormgar use this set up.

war oriented: any weapon, barrelling attack, brute force, feint, create distance, iron jaw, grim determination, death from above, signature move, athleticism. Flesh out the skill pool with your personal favourites.
Farum use this set up. Farum is now retired to hall of legends, but new slaves will be skilled this way.

pure theatrics: any weapon, brute force, feint, create distance, called shot, iron jaw, signature move, gracious wound(if you use axe/mace skill use an axe), armour movement, knock out, show off.
Oedi is my current best example of this version, but Novalar will be my next contender in the top ranks i believe. Novalar never got as good as I hoped for and is now retired to hall of legends.

Fighting styles: I mainly use defensive fighting styles with counter strike as my personal favourite. Early in the career you’ll be better off only using offensive styles. Play around with triggers to find what suits your gladiator best.

Activity: i find that my guys respond best to medium to high activity. I use low/very low if i try to outlast my opponent, either on endurance or letting them bleed out. Very high activity i use when my opponent is unable to defend himself one way or another.

I see many advice young gladiators to use an activity of 3 to 5, or even lower, personally i usually don’t go lower than 6 and often all the way up to 8 even for my level 1 gladiators. Once again when you get triggers start play around with them to se how you can control your gladiator.
I use endurance triggers most, then some combat effects(usually stun) and health triggers.

General guide on skills for theatrics.
Never ever train crowd pleaser.
Never ever train finishing blow.
Knock out is a poor skill in the daily arena game, but a very useful tool in the arena challenges.
Only train called shot if you plan on using knock out.
Always make room for brute force and create distance in your skill set up.
You probably want to use feint also. This is a skill I`m starting to have some doubts about, im taking it away on a few gladiators, because i want them to trigger other attacks.
Strength of the crowd is a useful skill, but you want it at a minimum of lvl 8 and use it with a heavy weapon.
a new favorite among the skills are devastating power, with the new amout of fights you rarely fight gladiators without some sort of injury.

my favorites among the races are:
human: most of my theatrics are humans, i like the attack bonus. Attack is very important
trug: bonus hp is the best defense for those that lack the right skills or got low agility. I use this race for subjectseven.
sniveler: can work well with a specially design theatric, i use sniveler for ormgar.
spite: this one got theatric written all over it, and works very well with any form of defensive theatric. this race is the only one i like to use a shield with.

Have fun on the sands with your theatrics gladiator.

I would say every stat is important and there are no "actual" dump stat rather a question of priorities.

This far I only have played three glad’s (all theatric - the two first counter strikers the newest protective (so I’m not sure here)).

And I would say the most important is Stamina for the counter strikers (seems to be the same for parry gladiator - but I just got there). Why? Well you lose a lot on running out of stamina otherwise. I have not gotten any "min-rule" I bought mine as soon as I had a chance but if I would put a min rule out there I would say min 65 (one of my counters are at 65 with raised and starts being able to hang in there for most battles though he still get worn out).

Second is hard to tell but I would go for Agility (if you can't hit what’s the point and were all for doing impossible tricks that’s hard without the ability to back it up).

Thirdly I have tried to keep my int/pre up since most skills (“pure build”) have either one or both (and I’m not sure how the skill/attribute system works for sure) - at least it makes it easy to raise skills (but I guess it also improves your ability to perform the skills?)

The rest are good as well but I have not any other rule but "the higher the better".

That’s it for attributes. Oh and - don't be afraid to raise them now and then don't go pure skill unless you can afford it (for example if you aren’t able to win fights because you run out of endurance raise stamina.

When it comes to weapon I always do the exotic (hey that’s our specialty so what the heck we want to look nice when we kill). I’m not sure what I prefer but I have generally used the best weapons I gotten my hands on (right now both counter strikers have tridents and offhand falchions, while my parry glad has a falchion and shield (first shield glad)).

When it comes to skills I have divided the points quite equal (among the theatric skills) this far. Not sure what I like most. I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth multiple skills and it seems to me a parry-strategy/war could do well.

Strategically I have gone "quite pure" (counterstriking based on stamina). Now I’m trying to figure out a good ”counter/parry" strategy so one can use the "best of the best" parrying when needed counter when needed but I’m not sure where they work best.

And that was some generally ramblings… I think I’m tired and need some sleep.

Strength - I believe decent strength is important for a theatrics, since they will likely be using small weapons they need to do some damage especially when going up vs full plate War's. But nothing lower then a 65. power can always be made up with good attack power gear.

Intellect - High is always a plus but some of my guys are dumb as stumps. I would aim for around 75-78, that will allow for a good chance at hitting those 8-9 skill points fairly painlessly.

Agility - An absolute must for Theatrics, nothing lower then 75, if you can find stud in the mid eighties, well you just found a theatrics. The idea of agility is to not get hit.

Stamina - I'm not overly big on stamina, there are other ways to tack on points to stamina. A theatrics also does not burn as much as a War and Rage's burn double. So IMO the only time you will feel the need for Stamina is vs a tank which can be dealt with high Gratuitous Violence, or vs another evenly matched theatrics with higher stamina.

Size - Small is bad, I really don't like anything under 65. I had what I thought was to be an attribute god, but he lacked size by being around 54. Not only did he have zippo health, he had a tough time causing any real damage. A bad combo.
Anything in the high 60's/ low 70's is plenty fine.

Presence - If it's super low you will lose a lot of matches early from the enforcer ending it, or you'll just die very often.

Chi - Unless your making a Rage forget it

For weapons Theatrics go hand and hand with fast weapons. I find it works best doing some damage and letting Gratuitous Violence and Signature Move be the deciders. Remember, using the high agility and defensive abilities, your gladiator should not be getting hit overly hard and after the 1st 2 rounds should be able to defend against most everything outside a shot here or there.

In truth I would NOT go and design any new gladiator based on any of the higher end Team Kaos or Death Faction guys. They are original gladiators when the game just began and I had little experience or idea what they would turn to become.

I agree with most points put forth by Kaos; but interestingly enough one of my theatrics glads, Nins, is only in 53 in strength. Still his arena record is rather unbelievable: 47-8-3. With just a green old trident. Of course he is just level 15 yet, and it will be interesting to see how he flairs afterwards. I am particularly focussed on choosing the right skills for him. This has obviously stopped me though to stress unduly on strength while choosing slaves:)

ive updated my views on how to build and run your theatrics gladiator.

Quote:

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Never ever train crowd pleaser.
Never ever train finishing blow.
Only train called shot if you plan on using knock out.

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I'll disagree here, it really depends on the vision for the gladiator. Crowd Pleaser can actually be quite useful to younger stables or stables that struggle with gold, sure it has no combat affect which is why I'm guessing you've listed is as do not train, but it is not without value.

Finishing blow is another skill that depends on your vision. I see gladiators with it killing a lot more and if that is what you are after then it is a great skill to have, again, it doesn't help you WIN battles but it does help you KILL. If all you care about is your win percentage than sure, skip this skill, but if you have a vision for a flashy theatrics gladiator who kills a lot this skill is just what the doctor ordered.

Called shot has uses beyond knockout. It is very useful if you use it in conjunction with the scouting reports and find out where your opponent has injuries and then aim for those locations effectively increasing your damage each fight. If you don't want pay to see the scouting report, a simple inspection of their gear might tell you they use lighter armor on a certain body part and if you aim there and hit it more frequently, again you are increasing your damage. Bottom line if you are going to train Called Shot, prepare to also do your homework.

i have a theatrics glad that ireally think i should have went with rage as his stats are as follows.
strength:82
int:63
agility:65
stam:73
size:63
presence:base 57 but actually 58
chi:75
hes level ten but i want to know because even though he doesnt seem (to me) to have the best stats for theatrics yet his ratio is 31-14-0.

his stats are not the most suitable for theatrics, but you could turn him into a defensive theatrics later on by running him with a shield and the like. some of the other managers can probably give some better advise on how to do that though haha

Hello all, I'm new to the game and looking into the theatrics build. I'm wondering if anyone can share some of their experience with, strength of the crowd skill. Does the skill increase damage for the entire fight after the round it is activated or does it cause you to do half the attacks but more damage for one round then go out of affect. In peoples experience how significant is the damage increase. Is the skill worth leveling up to 10? Any thoughts or info is appreciated thanks.

Its not my top choice for theatric skill, but its decent. last for 2 rounds and at lvl 10 give a 50 attack bonus.

I really hate this skill, it costs you too many attacks for a not-so-big bonus... It's only useful against ultra-defensive guys that you cannot break through the parry, but then better rise brute force, feint and barreling attacks to smash through their defenses without losing attacks...

haha why not have all 3 skills as mention and strength of the crowd?



use 1.5weapon spd as main and 2.25 or higher as off hand or just use shield for added defensive

offensive with decent def glad theatrics.

i tried an all offensive equip rage and usually end the fight in winning streaks or bad loses due to low def

thanks all for your feedback. Also wondering what you all think about dual bastard swords for DW theatrics, which oedi says is his favorite set-up. (was recently a reduction in damage for bastard swords) Seems to me that two very fast weapons would best make use of gratuitous violence. What are the draw backs to small fast weapons as the damage per a round seems to be similar to larger one hand weapons like bastard sword.

They don't bounce vs medium and heavy armor is another reason why people like bastard swords. If your fighting a war in full heavy armor the 2 daggers might attack 10 times a round but probably bounce off the armor 9 of those, where if your using bastard sword the attacks wont bounce off the armor.

As noob offensive theatrics gladiator, I guess how useful is a hard-hit weapon (trident/sword/whatever) as main weapon and claw/dagger as offhand. At first sight it seems the claw/dagger will hit often due to superior speed and the trident/sword will allow me to hit heavy armored enemies that my claws bounce off the armor, also allowing some great hits here and there. Is that true? Or it's better to go off two daggers/claws?

Right now only lvl 6, and using slow weap + fast weap. I noticed during arena combats that 4 out of 5 attacks are from claw and the remaining attack is from trident. The claw ones hit for around 10 or 15 dmg, while the trident one hits for double or triple that damage, so when the enemy hit me for, lets say, 50, I already hit him 4 times for 10 ~ 15 plus 1 time for 30 ~ 40 from trident.

Thnx.

I'm new to the game and chose rage for my first glad and theatrics for the 2nd glad. I wanted to build a dW theatric and might follow some advises here, though no all.