2-handed Rage

[Cynaidh]

I don't know about the rest of you but i have been in the dumps about my 2 handed rage trying to figure out what to do to make them be competitive as compared to a duel wielding rage set up for power (str, chi).

I've been comparing several of the top glads for each type for awhile now, my own and others,

For duel weild i looked mainly at Caine, Belgarad, Summit, and others for two handed i looked at LULWUT, INCREDULOUS D, Smak, and others. From what i have seen now you start to see patterns:

Two handed users are hitting from 600-1500, rampage doesn't play that huge of a deal cause in many of the fights sunder armor/shock and awe hits are the same damage as the rampages, they attacked 0 - 2 times per round, some fights they didn't attack until last stand triggered, they never attack first unless going against another 2 hand rage.

Duel wield damage ranged from 200's - 700's normal hits with 900-1200 rampages, the duel wields attack 4-5 times per round. They get the jump on their opponents frequently. Several of them are using lightest mace weapons possible to do this but still get the above damages.

Just looking at pure potential i can see the two handers putting out a realistic max of 2800 per round, that would be two shots at 1400 each, super rare but doable, normally i would expect 1800-2000 per round if they attack twice in a round. Now again a realistic max for the duel wield is the same 2800 per round, (1200 rampage, and 4 hits of 400), i would expect their average per round to about the same also. Now Caine and Lulwut are exceptions to these i am looking at averages, those two muscle bound killing machines with their 200+ strengths are capable of higher numbers but again about the same amount of potential damage per round.

So the potential damage i think is about about the same.... but realistically duel weilders get to hit that potential a lot more often then two-handed users, the negatives to me for 2 hand rage start to show up when you get into the battles:

Initiative - the Two handers are wielding the slowest weapons in the game, I saw very very few fights where they get the jump on their opponents (again talking about in primus here), the duel wielders are all either using two fast weapons or a heavy weapon main hand and a light weapon off hand. This allows them to get the jump on opponents very frequently. It is also seen that the two handed users do not attack at all in round 1 (even with berserk) in some fights.

Loosing Initiative = More Crit effects on you, since they go after their opponents, their opponents have hit them with War Cry, Hamstring, bleeds, stuns, knockdowns, hell it even appears if they attack you enough times you just wont attack at all. It also means more damage on you before you attack which = less attack power.

Max of 2 attacks per round, even with 160 agil a 2 handed weapon using rage with berserk will attack twice per round, i've never seen a 3rd attack ever in regular attacks, you can however see it with Last Stand rarely. So each fumble, miss, create distance, "you just only attack once per round for some reason", parry, block, or trip has the effect of lowering your potential damage for the round by 50%.

My personal experiences with Belgarad and Smak have shown me that even though Smak has better stats, they have equal gear, Smak has more trains done then belgarad, Smak has never and will never hit the top 10 with how it is currently, while Belgarad went all the way to the top.

Also i can compare Smak with Zmash, they are both 2 handed glads with last stand... the warrior version is better, Zmash has no where near the trains of Smak, less strenght but he has made it up to 4th in primus. There are currently THREE two-handed/polearm with Last Stand Warriors in the primus top 10, ZERO two-handed rage.

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What I think might would bring some balance to 2 handed Rage:

1. Reach should be a factor in round 1's initiative, in boxing and MMA a 4 inch reach advantage is huge, a 2 handed rage with a great sword is going to have a 4 foot reach advantage over a person with a hand axe or a war hammer in each hand. I think this should be given as a large initiative bonus to a highly mobile leather armor wearing rage gladiator using a two handed weapon for the first attack in round one only.

2. Less "0 attacks per round" rounds, I am not sure how anyone running 10 berserk 10 doesn't attack in a round but it happens way too much I believe.

3. Remove the 2 attacks per round cap for high agility 2 hand rage.... by having it we are just taking out a whole subgroup of glads, we have speed duel wield rages and power duel wield rages, but two handed rage only has power.... I'd personally love to see a 2 handed rage sniveler with a great axe getting 3-4 attacks per round, they would be for less damage then a 200 str power two hand user for sure but hell at least it be fun to read.

I think that would make them more competitive without drastically changing anything.


Anyways this long ass post is sponsored by Samuel Adams Black Lager and by the fact that my wife and kids are off to visit in-laws for a week so i have way too much time on my hands.

[Team Ziggler]

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=samue...fzp2wCA&zoom=1


wow thats a bigass link.

[Cynaidh]

i raise a beer for the carnage INCREDULOUS D is throwing down!

[Dainoji]

IMO, you're going about it all wrong. There is nothing wrong with 2H rage, the problem is there aren't enough of the "other" type of gladiators that they are meant to beat, mainly defensive minded gladiators. As has been mentioned before, Speed > Power > Defense > Speed. That is how this game is set up. It isn't a hard and fast rule, but a pretty good rule of thumb. So if you are looking to make 2H rage beat a DW rage, forget it, it won't happen and shouldn't happen at least not consistently. I realize everyone wants "their" favorite type of gladiator to be able to beat all builds, but that is bad game design. What I see as the problem right now is defense is VERY hard to pull off. I've been trying with Chuck Norris (semi-defensive theatrics) and Pharaoh (defensive war) with moderate success. I make A LOT of gladiators pass out which is great and I love doing that, but I just about ALWAYS lose to 2H gladiators (especially rage), I don't even need to read the fight if I see a giant weapon in their hand! I think this is great and working as intended. The problem is not enough players are running defensive gladiators and that is probably a combination of them not being interested in that and it not being very easy to do with only mediocre results.

We are seeing a similar issue up in Primus right now, there are so many hardcore players who love rage that Primus is full of them. I don't think this is because they are better, I think this is because more hardcore long term players simply have an affinity for rage (hence the Rage united guild, there aren't any other guilds for War or Theatrics). Right now the top 3-4 spots are Rage and then a wall of War below them which in turn is shutting out the Theatrics gladiators who would be laying the smack down on the Rage glads if they could break through the War wall. Was this planned by the Rage guild or just coincidence? I'm thinking the latter, but it is working out well for them. Crow and Oedi need to form an alliance and work together I think!

Make defense a much more viable option and the playing field really changes and fixes what many deem broken.

[BlkTmplr]

Shhhhh! Your not allowed to know our grand scheme.

[Apoca1ypse]

it's true, defensive glads need a bit of help. DW power is also good vs them though so i do feel that 2H still is lacking (both rage and war)

i'm still confused as to why a speed 1.1 maul swings once a round opposed to a consistent 4 or 5 from someone wielding two speed 1.15 bastard swords and comparable agility. does 0.05 speed really make that much of a difference? because i see none between speed 1.0 and 1.1.

[Cynaidh]

Speed > Power > Defense > Speed

I have no problem with that, what i am comparing is power duel wield rage vs power two-handed rage in my above book of a post, they should be fairly equal but they aren't.

Caine, Summit, Belgarad are all examples of power duel wielders that are rocking right now, two-handed power users are no where close to them.

SUMMIT's WYRMWOOD SPLITTER sails through the air with wicked intent.
The blow to BELGARAD's shoulder lands with mighty force! (+1334 Damage)

That says it all to me, a normal hit after 1 sunder armor 3 hits earlier, and that's a duel wielder that's going to attack 3-5 times per round, if a one handed weapon can hit that hard yet attack that many times per round then we should see 2 handers hitting for 2600-3200 with a normal hit (just like the above was a normal hit) just to keep the status quot and to be competitive against them.

Btw Summit attacked 3 times that round the damages where: 819, 384, 1334 NONE of those where rampages, if he would have rampaged on the next hit it would have been possible for him to have done 4K damage in one round, no two handed rage is pulling that off as far as i know. And i am not picking on Summit here we have seen Caine, Belgarad, Lulwut (when he duel wields) all pull off rounds like this.

So add in now that they do more potential damage per round and they have initiative over two handed rage, I really don't see how you can say power duel wield rage is equal to power two-handed rage.

Theatrics gladiators who would be laying the smack down on the Rage glads

Theatrics beats speed rage, those power duel wield rages above (Summit, Caine, Belgarad) eat theatrics alive, its why all the theatrics have been pushed out. No theatrics can meet their damage per hit so counter strike just doesn't really work on them.

[Dainoji]

it's true, defensive glads need a bit of help. DW power is also good vs them though so i do feel that 2H still is lacking (both rage and war)

Not sure what you're hoping for, but after the change my glads are losing A LOT more to 2H gladiators and I mean A LOT! It would be silly if they could attack more than twice a round with average hits being over 1000 HP at level 50, and I rarely see them attack only once a round. Those big 1000+ hits from one-handed rages are on the high side, not average, so I think it's all about balance, and to say 2H War needs a bump is just crazy talk, just last week 2H/Pole Arm War held the number 2-5 spots or something like that. Currently a 2H rage is on top in the blood games to boot!

Caine, Summit, Belgarad are all examples of power duel wielders that are rocking right now, two-handed power users are no where close to them.

That's because the vast majority of their fights are against War in heavy armor which a power rage gladiator has the upper hand. If speed ragers or speed theatrics were up there, they wouldn't be fairing so well. The War Wall is doing a great job at keeping the latter away. Take into account that most if not all of the ragers at the top are all cozy with each other cuddling between matches and are doing their best not to fight one another thus again improving their results. It's a great strategy and one I suspect will continue to do well until other managers form their own alliances against them.

Theatrics beats speed rage, those power duel wield rages above (Summit, Caine, Belgarad) eat theatrics alive.

An offensive Theatrics with blades or exotic is not going to lose very often against Rage if run correctly. An axe and mace theatrics or semi-defensive Theatrics will have more trouble with a power Rager since they'll attack less when counter striking but I still believe the Theatrics glad will have the upper hand against Rage. Theatrics have been pushed down by War for the most part, not Rage.

[Cynaidh]

Dainoji I am not disagreeing with what your saying, I just have seen it different with my guys in the primus top 10, Ormgar is the best speed theatrics right now and i know Oedi knows what he is doing with him, but Belgarad has no fear of him at all, i am fairly sure Bel wins more then 50% of his matches against him, if Rampage hits the fight is over unless he knocks belgarad out, if rampage doesnt trigger or misses it just takes 2-3 rounds rather then 1. So far today bel is 2-1 vs Ormgar.

If anything I think maybe the numbers have gotten too big and that is skewing everything, 4k damage potential in 1 round, that's crazy to me.

I preferred it when the 1k club was hard to get into!

now that we are seeing these:

LULWUT - 3756 Damage vs Malar (Activated attack + Old Injury) - One-Handed
Arg - 2272 Damage vs Snotshot (Activated Attack + prior Sunder Armor + Old Injury)
INCREDULOUS D - 2004 Damage vs LARSHAMIR FURYO (Activated Attack)

3.7K damage with a one handed weapon in one hit??? sure its rare but damn should it even happen at all? That is a full 1k more damage then the largest amount of life i have seen on any glad ever. Defensive glads don't have a chance in my opinion due to the inflation of damage numbers in the past 2-3 months patches, and i mean defensive glads, not Warriors with 2 handed swords who have Last Stand. And now offensive glads fighting each other a lot of the time come down to who's LS goes off first <-- yes i mean you loosing and your LS goes off first makes you win cause a lot of the time with the LS bonus you will be able to hit them hard enough that you do enough damage that their last stand doesn't go off, Zmash has won this way many, many times.

But anyways maybe the numbers have just inflated too much i think is the point i am trying to make.

[Dainoji]

LULWUT - 3756 Damage vs Malar (Activated attack + Old Injury) - One-Handed
Arg - 2272 Damage vs Snotshot (Activated Attack + prior Sunder Armor + Old Injury)
INCREDULOUS D - 2004 Damage vs LARSHAMIR FURYO (Activated Attack)

Pay no attention to hits where a injury is present. Many managers are lazy/just don't care/whatever and let their injuries stack up until they are level 4 or 5 where you could then spit on them and do 500+ damage. The higher the level of the injury the higher the damage bonus from hitting it to the point where level 3-5 injuries have pretty big damage multipliers in the 2x-4x range from what I've seen. As far as I'm concerned a hit to an injury shouldn't even be apart of Apoc's big hit club.

Ormgar is the best speed theatrics right now and i know Oedi knows what he is doing with him

I have a lot of respect for Oedi, but seems to me he's regrouping right now. I think he even mentioned wanting to switch everyone over to axes and maces which would be a huge mistake I think. I'm not sure what style Ormgar is using against Belgarad but if he is counter striking him that may be the reason since the slower weapons Belgarad is using hit harder thus the "1 for 1" clearly favors Belgarad. I remember Solstice used to change things up and go lunge or slash against slower opponents so he'd get in a lot more attacks up front in lieu of more attacks overall, granted that was awhile ago but I use a similar strategy now and have very good results. I also think Ormgar is missing some key theatrics skills for the current climate in Primus, mainly Show Off and Heavy Scarring choosing instead to dip very deep into the Rage tree. With so many mangers favoring Trugs right now Show Off would be a killer against them. Who cares if they have 2000+ health if they only have 70 endurance going berserk, they'll pass out before they can win if you can manage to make the fight last a few rounds. I have some new kids making their way up that will soon grace Primus where I'm pretty sure they'll surprise many a veteran.

It's just my opinion, but I think there are still so many builds undiscovered with the recent addition of the races. When they first came out a few managers swapped around for a few fights and then bailed on some and favored others. On such little data one can not write off a race unless you are going by gut feeling alone which is hardly scientific. Take the Elaar for instance, almost nobody is running them up in Primus. Are they really that underpowered? Doubtful, but their abilities are less obvious so they are harder to grasp. I think in the long haul the ability to keep a hold of your weapon and not get dealt crits as often will pay off after 100s of fights. A little off topic but I think with so many unexplored possibilities it is to soon and unfair to say things are...unfair.