Rage guide for the new updated Rage Specility
Please Note: This is my first guide and is a work in progress, and will be updated as my views on the Rage specialty grow and change. This guide will try to help answer some basic questions about making a Rage Gladiator. I hope it will be helpful to new players in the Pit of War!
1. What is a Rage?
The Rage specialty is the offensive specialty of Pit of War. Rages fly around the pit looking to smash and rend their opponent into shreds before they have a chance to do damage to the Rage. If you believe the best defense is amazing offensive then this might be the specialty for your slaves.
2. What stats are good for a Rage?
Now that stats affect skills much more it is easy to answer this by looking at how often each stat shows up on the non-weapon Rage skills:
Strength: 11
Intelligence: 0
Agility: 2
Stamina: 3
Size: 6
Presence: 1
Chi: 11
So by looking at this we can see that Strength and Chi are very important stats for Rages, and Size is quite good also. But we also have to consider the other stats for other reasons besides skills: Intelligence affects no rage skills except for the weapon skills BUT it also effects how often your Rage will use his activated attacks. Rages have more activated attacks than any other specialty so making sure they are firing off quickly is very important, this has made intelligence a very important stat for Rages. Agility is a factor in how many attacks per round you get so the more the better. Stamina increases both your hit points and your endurance during a fight (a low stamina can be mitigated some by using the Urk race, as it gives an endurance boost). Presence is use for helping to attack first in each round and helps your gladiator both kill other gladiators and be saved by the enforcer when someone is trying to finish your gladiator off.
By taking all of this information in I place the stats into 3 groups of importance:
Group A: Strength, Chi
Group B: Intelligence, Agility, Size
Group C: Stamina, Presence
This is the order of stats I look for in a slave to determine if it will make a good rage.
3. What races are good for a Rage?
All the races can make a fine Rage; this is really down to personal preference and some common sense. If you want a Rage that attacks first don’t pick Trug or Dunder but look at Snivler instead. If your rage has low stamina really consider the Urk race. If you want to build a stun machine consider the Spite race. All of them are completely viable.
4. What types of Rages are there?
Too many to count! But most rages fall into 1 of 3 categories: Speed Rage, Axe/Mace Power Rage and Two-Handed Rage
Speed Rages – These are the rages that had a high agility and normally use bladed weapons to take advantage of their high agility. They get more attacks per round than any other type of rage.
Axe/Mace Power Rages – These are the rages who duel wield axes/maces with large strength scores. Landing fewer attacks per round then a Speed Rage but doing much more damage per hit.
Two-Handed Rage – Similar to an Axe/Mace Power Rage these rages normally go for a very high strength only attacking one to three times per round they try to do maximum damage every hit.
5. What Rage skills should I use?
This is again personal preference but I will go over each skill and give my opinion on it:
The Weapon Skills: You only need 1, pick the best one that soot’s the type of rage you want to build and the stats your slave has.
Tier 1:
Barreling attack: This skill is one that I currently avoid, it does not do damage on each it (some times it does some times it doesn't), it does not attempt to knock down your opponent every time it goes off (there is some type of hidden check to see if it does or not) and then if it does attempt to knock down your opponent there is a chance they will resist the knockdown. All these taken together end up with a skill that a fair amount of time hits for no damage and does not knockdown your opponent.
Devastating Power: More damage on crits, Rages crit a lot… can’t complain about this skill.
Tier 2:
Sunder Armor: Great damage on this skill, it can go off 1 time per round.
Blood Drunk: Bonus attack power again can’t go wrong with this.
Brute force: Lower opponents defense, again can’t go wrong with this.
Tier 3:
Armor movement: Since most rages want to attack first, this is a must have skill.
Rampage: Yes just put 10 points in it…. It’s Rampage the largest hit in the game, every rage should have this.
Adrenaline Rush: The first and only one of 2 defensive rage skills. This activated offensive skill when it goes off does a medium amount of damage but then for rest of the round and the next round you take 60-65% less damage per hit depending on your stats. This is crazy land… if it goes off its basically a two round boost that more than doubles your effective hit points. I would include this in almost any build UNLESS you believe your build has so much offensive you don’t need any defensive help.
Tier 4:
Crippling Might: Another great skill, not only does this attack do good damage but it also has a chance to stop any defensive activated skills, just a great attack.
Heavy Scarring: The 2nd defensive rage skill.
Annihilate: I am completely on the fence about this skill, even with 10 points in this skill if a warrior is running Tank your Rampage can still hit for 2 damage, have seen it so many times even after the 2nd update that lowered defense. I am just not sold this skill is worth it, even though I have it on almost all my rages. This skill will see more testing once I can unlearn skills. So right now I am reluctantly recommending it as if it works it would be too good to pass up when fighting defensive warriors and defensive theatrics.
UPDATE - After testing builds without this skill with the 2nd re-spec I am no longer recommending this skill. Even with this skill at 10, rampage and normal hits will still hit a warrior using tank for 1 or 2 points of damage. I did not notice any decrease in effectiveness while fighting defensive glads without it. So at this time i see no point in including this skill in rage builds.
Tier 5:
Total Carnage: Seems like a great tier 5 skill, I would even go so far as to say it’s the best tier 5 skill in the game.
6. What’s a good rage build:
There is really no bad way to build a Rage I am just going share various builds from the Generic Rage Build most of my rages are currently based on to some new designs i am waiting to test out on some new slaves or once unlearns are available to our glads again.
Builds last updated 2/18/2013
Generic Rage Build:
10 Weapon Skill, 10 Devastating Power, 10 sunder armor, 10 brute force, 10 armor movement, 10 rampage, 10 adrenaline rush, 10 crippling might, 10 Heavy Scarring, 10 total carnage
This build can be used for all three types of rage without any major issues. It is quite easy to level up and does not take deviation to unlock the higher levels. Sunder armor can be removed if you would rather have blood drunk, Sunder armor while being a decent hit can get in the way of Rampage going off when you want it to, even without it this build still has Rampage, Adrenaline Rush and Crippling Might for offensive activated attacks, so sunder armor is completely optional.
Super Sized 2H Slammer:
10 2H Weapon Skill, 10 Devastating Power, 10 blood drunk, 10 brute force, 10 armor movement, 10 rampage, 10 adrenaline rush, 10 crippling might, 10 Iron Will, 10 Death From Above
This build is for those super sized rages out there I would suggest no lower then an 85 starting size to try this build. The point of this build is to have both Rampage and Death From Above, the two hardest hitting skills in the game, with any luck you'll be able to get both of them to off in round 1 which should be enough damage to drop almost any gladiator in the game! This glad also has Sunder armor and Crippling might as fall back activated attacks in case the fight goes multiple rounds.
The Defensive Bleeder Rage:
10 Blade Skill, 10 devastating power, 10 Brute Force, 10 armor movement, 10 rampage, 10 adrenaline rush, 10 Called Shot, 10 Feint, 10 Gratuitous Violence, 10 Hamstring
This build is a very defensive build as rages go, having both Adrenaline Rush and Hamstring your Rage will be able to massively debuff the damage of the glad you are facing (down to 20% of normal damage with both active). Called shot will give you more crits and devastating power will make your crits do more damage. The bleed damage from Gratuitous Violence will just add to your damage potential allowing you to drop most foes in 3-4 rounds.
7. How do I run a Rage?
This question has a million answers and most of us are still figuring out a good answer to it. Rages want to be run with a high’ish activity to get a lot of attacks per round, the fighting style Berserk is available to only Rages to increase the number of attacks you do even more. BUT by doing these or doing both at the same time you will use up your endurance rapidly so you must find a balance to where you attack enough to take our your opponent but at the same time don’t fall to the ground in exhaustion in 2 rounds. Blood Lust can be used to help or again to hinder your endurance conservation; a low number will help conserve endurance but cause you to do less damage per hit, so again finding a balance of activity level and blood lust that your Rage can sustain is key to running it properly.
