Current State of Primus

[Prinny]

Oh don't get me wrong Cyn, I was just stating that while Last Stand is strong it is not necessary, Certainly with Last Stand instead of his Shield skill Belca would rock especially since he would be making use of 100 skills instead of the 90 he uses now

[Team Kaos]

With Wars losing their initiative boost and Theatrics their weird Counter Attack pattern, I don't think there will be a problem for the 2H Rages to stand their ground. In fact, with faster 2H weapons, these Snivler Rages will become even greater pests.

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True, it seems like an enhancement for them by swinging more often, but they will still need to deal with an enhanced Knockout.

Knockout
Strength, Agility
Passive
Requires Theatrics specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Theatrics skills.
Every crowd loves a knockout and every hit your gladiator delivers to their opponent's head has a chance to do just that. In addition opponents wearing no helm or a lightly armoured helm are at risk of being dazed by each hit to the head leaving them unable to attack until they get their bearings again.

In other words, Aimed Blow plays an even bigger role for a Knockout skilled Theatrics.

My money is on Wars coming out ahead though.

[Alba Kebab]

Pure theatrics do exist, I believe Oedi still has a few. I started the game with pure theatrics(hence my theatrics avatar) the fast parry/counter/bleed was very fun to run and I plan on going back to theatrics for my next batch.
I'm just waiting for the new skills to come in for some real fight tests so I can better plan everything, plus my current eligible retirees haven't run out of steam yet so I'm in no hurry to retire them.

[Rhyss]

Interesting statistics... I wonder... would there be a way to break it down by the type of Weapon used as well? I made an early choice to go with dual use of Mace & Axe, but I seem to get destroyed by both Rage and War who use two-handed weapons.

[Lunarion199]

The new skill tree seems much better in terms of fight strategies than the current one. Every specialty has got both offensive and defensive skills to balance the glads the way we want. By the way last stand has not gone; it has been shifted to the wars. 'Never Say Die' is a partial but deadly combination of today's Last Stand, Battle Prowess and Combat Instincts!

Never Say Die
Strength, Stamina
Activated (Defensive)
Requires War specialization.
Requires 30 trains in War skills.
Soldiers of the Great Realm never lose heart regardless of how bad the situation might be. If they should ever find themselves with less than half their health and losing the battle, they will fall back on their legendary discipline and be rewarded with increased health to continue fighting and the ability to reduce the debilitating effects of low heath and endurance!

[Prinny]

Lunarion aslong as it doesn't give the initiative boost it doesn't count as Last Stand, Battle Prowess and Combat Instincts were so useless they didn't even deserve to be called skills

[Lunarion199]

As the health and stamina drops the attacks slow down (battle descriptions indicate it very promptly in yellow); and the damage done and the ctitical hits reduce. As such, battle prowess and combat instincts are two of the best passive skills the wars could have. It's just that they come into play silently and nobody ever directly realizes that.

Also, the skill tree description of last stand reads: "When your gladiator is on the verge of losing he goes into berserking rage giving him a boost to health and endurance allowing him to fight longer than normal..." It nowhere mentions anything about a boost to initiative. And a berserk glad hits more often and hits hard but burns stamina at alarming rate. Thus I suppose a glad on last stand will start making more and stronger attacks compared to his now relatively tired opponent, which appears to us as a boost to initiative

So the wars with Never Say Die are going to be very hard to be taken down by tired out rages I suppose. Although the game still seems balanced, I wouldn't wonder if some well-built wars dominate the Primus bracket once again..

[Kreegan]

Man, if a gladiator who is near exhaustion and has one spit of blood left in his veins manages to score red criticals with pretty much the same power as if he's fresh and without a scratch, then the penalty in question is not worth mentioning. And this happens all the time. Simple as that. So yes, in essence you currently have two totally useless skills in the War tree.
On the other hand, Nate mentioned that the said penalty will play a bigger role after the update.

[Prinny]

That "berserking rage" could indicate a boost to initiative
We wont know if its the same as Last Stand untill it gets released so no use to worry about it.

On note of those 2 skills I call bullshit, ive had them for quite some time on Laharl and there was barely any difference when I took those 20 poins to do something usefull with them. No loss of attacks, no real lesser damage nothing.