Insanity

[Team Kaos]

OK, time for a vent break.

Let's review here.
Rages maintain their initiative to swing first in most rounds....
now have the benefit of swinging a 2H (slow) up to 3 times per round without needing ultra high agility, just high activity.
maintain thier ultra high rate of crits per swing
Are capable of landing 400 pt hits nearly every swing
Have regained the ability to land 800-1200 pt hits
No longer suffer from extreme fatigue, they can still land 400-600 pt hits on virtually 0 health.
Can still punch through heavy and medium armor as if it wasn't there.
Capable of activating an active skill every time they swing
Shorter rounds mean more swings. Instead of 3 rounds 3-4 total swings...now 3 rounds means 7-9 swings from 2H, dual wield still swing
forever and then some.

Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of balancing?


Wars - gain additional defense
Armor encumbers them much more, a small stature glad cannot wear heavy any longer and be viable against most other builds.
Shields have gained in absorbing damage
Heavy armor deflects smaller weapons more often
Gain DFA, perhaps the most devastating attack outside of crippling might, Crits nearly every time
Erratic activated skills, especially NSD

Theatrics
Basically the same as they were before
Bleed rates have increased
Signature move reduced in effectiveness
Knockout reduced in effectiveness
Counter attack swing rate reduced
Suffers highly from increase in armor weight
Highly erratic activated skills, especially Surprise Ending


Just venting

[Narol]

Agreed, theatrics needs a boost for game fairness... But it was even worse before the small rebalancing that occured, I can testify...

[oedi]

Agreed, theatrics needs a boost for game fairness... But it was even worse before the small rebalancing that occured, I can testify...

I guess we run very different types of theatrics, because i disagree totally with this statement. Because before the rebalancing I had 4 theatrics in the top 20, and for a short time i had ranks 4, 7, and 11. After, all but one dropped out of the top 15.

[Kreegan]

Theatrics bleeders can drop both Rages and Wars (and not just once in a while), I'm not really sure why do you find them inefficient. The only somewhat underpowered Theatrics build at the moment seems to be Axes/Maces-armed gladiator (especially Maces) because he can't take much advantage of the bleeding boosts available to the Theatrics tree and may not be able to deal enough "immediate" damage to heavily defensive fighters (though it's possible).
Other than that - in my experience a bleeder will almost certainly drop a tank if he doesn't switch to something more offensive at some point and through the other skills (Hamstring and Signature Move mostly) will have fairly good chances even against the most aggressive Rages. Signature Move is the same thing as before, only now it uses all the moves, not just one of them 95% of the time and some of the others in the remaining 5% (and yes, no Stun, but I find it a bit overrated anyway - certainly not much more useful than the rest).

On the other hand, I agree that the 2H Rages swing a bit too often and too hard. Before the last update it was somewhat possible to exhaust them before they drop a tough defensive fighter but now that's not an option at all. Moreover, their strikes seem to get deflected and parried very rarely - which is easy to explain because the fewer number of hits compared to the speed Rages means that either of Crippling Might, Rampage and Sunder Armour will trigger more or less every round along with a big hit and the defending gladiator will gain nothing from his attempts to defend. So again it's either going as offensive as possible against them or just losing.

[Team Kaos]

Just a quick step in here. I agree Theatrics did not have much of a change between any of the updates, they actually I believe stayed basically on par to what they always were. Outside of some different skill sets, but basically the same.
I believe they remain the most balanced in the game overall in a defensive/offensive nature. They can do both well, none off the charts great...but both very well.
Rages are just monsters attacking relentlessly dropping mammoth damage, perhaps not as much as 2 months ago, but now its just a bit less but more often. And War's are much better defensively, got a major boost in offensive from specific skills, and gained a huge step up with Light/Feather by being able to wear heavy armor without as much of a problem as Theatrics.


On a side note..

I just watched Spiritual Pain lose to a HOL glad that had 234 points more in attributes...234!! Consider that for a second. Wow!!

[Prinny]

Exept for their attack rate Theatrics skills improved alot as far as i can tell theyre a buffed version of the old war that can't carry heavy armour now...

Which glad did Spiritual Pain fight? it could be a combination of HOL glad stats (which are simply better, I don't know how expensive Spiritual Pain was either because that could factor alot in this), Good equipment and Achievements giving that boost...

[Cynaidh]

Insanity - good title.

First a disclaimer... I only fight in the top 50 of primus, with over half my gladiators in the top 10, and over half my glads being Rages, so my view point is from maxed out glads all using all 6 achievements, full purple gear, full stat and skill trains. My view point may not be the same of other managers who play in different parts of the game.

Rages my topic of the day:

The Big Update brought insanity to duel wield mace power rages, they went from attacking 4-5 times a round to attacking 3 times a round running 10 berserk 7, and after attacking for 2 rounds they would just stop attacking due to the new endurance system if you kept running berserk. This was a massive change to the type of Rage that I mainly play, and we all had to come up with new strategies to get them working. Before this update i was the only manager who kept rage glads in the top 10, a lot of the time my rages where the only ones in the top 25 and I saw a massive change in the effectiveness of the mace power rage specialty at this level. My rages fell out of the top 10 and a couple out of the top 25. After that first week new strats where in place and i had a couple of them back in the top 10 by figuring out that rages where now much more dependent on their defensive skills, Adrenaline Rush especially, and longer fights, most wins where 6-7 rounds long. Rages could still win, but in my opinion they played and felt nothing like rages did for the past year of me playing this game, they felt more like playing the old version of an offensive theatrics. At this point I did the only thing possible and cried as hard as i could in PM's to Nate, to Prinny in the chat, and then went on a 4 day cruise to drown my sorrows in alcohol and string bikini's....

While on the cruise ship the first patch to the Big Update came out and I found a nice surprise when i went and played the next day, Nate put the "Rage" back into the rage specificity, the silly strats i had come up with that had them winning where thrown out and berserk was back baby! Rages felt like Rages again! Not only did that happen but the big "D" in Defense had been totally neutered and now this little limp lower case "d" that looks very emaciated is in its place. Not only did this make the super tanks warriors starting going down like fly's but defensive bleeder type theatrics where just getting turned into goo. We now have 5 Rages in the upper top 10 of Primus, with Arnnold and little Vyers popping into the top 10 also, hell ARG is in the top 25 (GO Arg! Top 10 baby!).

What this patch did was give rages their offensive back but at the same time they kept these new defensive toys they got in the big update: Adrenaline Rush and Heavy Scarring. This is just insane if you ask me, rages now are just super over the top strong. They still loose some yes, but they win a lot more then they did before the Big Update by a lot. Hopefully they get adjusted some but still keep the offensive ability that makes a rage be a rage. I think that the amount damage is lowered from endurance/hit point loss should go back up to maybe not exactly where it was with the Big Update but more then it is now to give defensive guys a better chance. And speaking of defense, Nate really should give defense at least one of its balls back, maybe not both but at least one.

But my biggest concern with the rage specialty has to be: Adrenaline Rush. To be perfectly honest I hate this skill. In a rage vs rage fight whom ever has Adrenaline Rush go off first will win 99% of the time. Its just that good, 60-64% damage reduction for 2 rounds....If your fighting a rage or theatrics and your Adrenaline Rush goes off early, they are done, fight over. IF rages are going to keep their offense where it is at from this 2nd update then i think this skill really should be changed. Its just too much defense on a specialty with this much offensive in my opinion.

Anyways there is my long winded post on the insanity these two updates have had on Rages.

[Nate]

beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep......We take this moment for a short message from the Great Realm broadcasting agency....this is not a test.

Below are the current win/loss percentages for specialty matchups for the entire arena over the course of thousands and thousands of fights since the last update.

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 50.5%
* War Wins: 49.5%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 50.1%
* Theatrics Wins: 49.9%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 58.1%
* Rage Wins: 41.9%

And for those wondering about the "end game", these are the stats for just level 50 gladiators:

RAGE vs WAR
* Rage Wins: 52.7%
* War Wins: 47.3%

WAR vs THEATRICS
* War Wins: 55.8%
* Theatrics Wins: 44.2%

THEATRICS vs RAGE
* Theatrics Wins: 53.8%
* Rage Wins: 46.2%


The Great Realm has never been so balanced.


beep....beep.....beeeeeeeep...this concludes our message, please continue with your debate and as always....

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[sevenseas]

Rahahahaaa...I love this guy

[crow]

Time for my 2 cents, but according to my wife is worth way less than that; but that is another story.

1st- I am pumped to see 2hand rages doing better. We have never seen a 2hander sniff the top for long here, so to me it is refreshing. I feel the big irk with 2handers is when you lose to one, you lose BIG!!! and lets face it, we all here are a tad competitive and we hate seeing our guy get completely destroyed in fight, but they (2hand rage) also lose big as well.

2nd- I think theatrics are loaded with great skills, and I have also seen a decline in the effectiveness right now in the dual mace theatric. I attribute that to not building them right. I know some of us will eventually get some good ideas and good strategies to go with them and make an awesome mace theatric.

last as for the debuff of defensive wars. Heck my guys still are gassing from time to time so I think they are still very viable. I personally love the current set up, I feel the current shortcomings on some of our builds are due to not knowing much about the new fight engine yet. But i am personally having fun trying to figure it out.

well my 2 cents are on the table, feel free to give me change
and that is all tonight,
The Great Wise (haha) Crow signing out, YALL!!!