2H styles suffering. What are people's thoughts?

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm bringing this up because I'm feeling rather frustrated at how 2H styles are working. 2H Rage enjoyed a whole week at the top of the game, and that was about it. 2H war (Different to polearms) is suffering even worse in Blood Gods but has at least been a pretty successful formula in the past. The latter is not my forte, but it's got a mention at the bottom of this post.

It is important to note that these styles were already struggling BEFORE the influx of speed styles.



Current rankings of 2H ragers:

Flonne: 22nd (61.1%)
Ahhnold: 23rd (60.1%)
Zeta Ii: 36th (50.4%)

They're just above the middle of the Blood Gods pack

After trying all sorts of stuff with Ahhnold, I just cannot get 2H rage to work.

These are the most recent thing I've tried:


Version 1: Strength/Chi Barbarian

Race: *****
Health: ~2500
Endurance: 156
Strength: 238
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 146
Size: 87
Presence: 173
Chi: 206

Notes: This was what I ran prior to the HP stacking. I tried it as Trug, Dunder, Sniveller, Human and Urk. Performed like ass. Maybe land 1 good hit, then get eviscerated worse than some naive hippy at Thulsa Doom's temple. HP is approximate because I lost my exact notes on it (other stats are accurate).


Version 2: HP Monster

Race: Trug
Health: 2984
Endurance: 156
Strength: 223
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 156
Size: 97
Presence: 173
Chi: 178

Notes: This was something Nate suggested to me over PMs. It's the best performing build I've had, but with Ahhnold barely scraping into the top 25 with those ridiculous stats, it makes me a little sad.


Version 3: Initiative testing

Race: Sniveller
Health: 2033
Endurance: 146
Strength: 223
Intilligence: 89
Agility: 139
Stamina: 146
Size: 87
Presence: 205
Chi: 178

Notes: The idea was to try and get the biggest speed advantage possible (given the gear available to me) to land some good hits early on. Sniveller, Strength and Presence over 200, Agility just shy of 140. Performed pretty poorly. Even fully clad Wars were still getting the jump pretty frequently. It's a bit depressing really.


So now, Ahhnold is back to HP stacking and hoping to drop other rage glads before they can land a Rampage. Already given up on trying to even just land a hit on the likes of Arrrrrghpirate, Amon Djinn and any of the other speed builds.





And now, 2H War, which is a trickier subject because only Bruce Willis (barely top 40, 49.7%) is representing, and extrapolating results of a single sample is a really bad move. The only other glad to represent 2H War afaik was Belca last season, who switched back to 2 maces because that style actually works.


I lack the gear to test everything with Willis, but current stats are:


Race: Dunder
Health: 2718
Endurance: 130
Strength: 169
Intilligence: 88
Agility: 142
Stamina: 130
Size: 147
Presence: 92
Chi: 115


This is not the best performing version I've had, as I have too much invested in Size. This Dunder version does perform better than the 3100HP Trug version at least. Unfortunately with the nature of how gear works in Blood Gods, it will be a while before I can even test if something else will be better. It probably will be once I drop 30 size for more str and chi (and a splash of int) but even when I had that with the old incarnation of "best gear" it was barely top 20 material (and still the top 2H war).

I will concede however that with Willis being the only 2H War (and run by me, who's a war noobie), extrapolating anything from him is somewhat pointless. I still think it has some relevance though because 2H War has been bad enough for people to just jump ship instead.

EDIT: There is Cyn with the Behemoth, who is very low in the standings in full purple gear.

Edit 2: Derp, forgot Lord Brutish, who confirms how I feel about needing more str and chi.


=========================================

Anyway, what are people's thoughts on this 'issue'? Do others even perceive that there is one, or am I just talking out of my ass?

...does anyone else have suggestions on what could be done to 'fix' things, or for me to try?

[oedi]

Not sure why you dont know Lord Brutish, hes been a 2h all his career. He performs decent with a 66,7 W/L and currently ranked 14.

[Adoede]

Hi Apoca1ypse,

Lord Brutish is also a 2H Elaar rage ranked at #14. He always seems to get the jump on my guys - even my speed builds. Maybe you should check him out?

Also, Ahhnold may not be the best build in the arena, but I gotta say he is awesome in Conquests. Most of the best combos I've found feature him in them. I'd keep him an HP monster even just for that.

I'll PM you one strategy I think would be worth trying.

[Apoca1ypse]

Not sure why you dont know Lord Brutish, hes been a 2h all his career. He performs decent with a 66,7 W/L and currently ranked 14.

I derped and forgot. I knew there was 1 more but it was about 4am my time that I posted the thread (sleepy). Seeing the str and chi he runs instead of size, that confirms what I felt about about the overinvestment in size (missed last season's window to get new gear). It does sort of make me feel like 2H war isnt as naffed as some of us made it out to be in another thread.



Crow and Prinny, how are you guys going with Zeta and Flonne? What things have you tried/not tried?

[crow]

2-hand Rages IMO are doing okay. With the huge presence of speed glads in the blood gods, they have to get their wins off non speed glads. The 2 biggest issues with the speed glads right now are 2 fold. The huge amount of damage they inflict per shot and the compounded critical effects they get per round. I have seen way too many fights in which a 200+ strength power rage get less damage per hit versus a speed glad. The game is truly set up right now for the speed glad.

As for 2-hand wars, well they just flat out suck right now. The only way I see them being some what successful is loading them up with full legendary gear and making them more defensive oriented, and try to outlast their opponents. A true offensive 2-hand war can not be done successfully right now in the blood gods bracket. One major issue I see with them is their lack of damage per hit. They consistently are being out damaged per hit versus even small blade speed glads. They stand absolutely no chance. Then of course power rages are their natural counter build and it is very ugly against them. Also WAY TOO many rounds they do not even attack even with a Activity setting of 10 and with no critical effects.

I am optimistic that Nate will get around to balancing out these issues once he is done with conquests and other to do items. Till then I just plan on getting my power guys ready for when these changes to occur. Enjoy it now speed boys.

[Prinny]

Im a noob when it comes to rages apoc, All Flonne does is stack Strength, presence, chi and abit of agility and smash at 8-8 berserk.
Something to factor in however~I gave her a 2H 1.1 speed weapon instead of the 1 speed ones so she is a tad bit faster, 2H rages hit hard anyway so I figured she might aswell hit 3 times more often.

[Kreegan]

The problem doesn't seem to be so much with the weaknesses of the two-handers but rather with the tons of advantages which the speed builds enjoy in the late game at the moment. The fighters with slow weapons are doomed to take no less than 5-6 hits, usually criticals which largely bypass the armour of the Wars and could gut most of the Rages, before they can even act. This way your fighter is usually half-beaten, prone/stunned/hamstrung, bleeding like a pig and with at least one serious injury when the time comes for him/her to return some damage. Tanking at the beginning of the fight doesn't help as it means double the hits that your gladiator gets before he/she acts, which in turn means double bleeding vs. Theatrics and double damage received vs. Rages with Annihilate who are pretty much all Rages out there. In the end, your fighters end up dealing much less damage per round than they take and lose without putting up much of a fight.

[Pit Lord]

Anyone tried to run war with full 196 armor, extra armour rank, full war skills, block rank, extra hp? Don't tell me Devastating Power makes that big difference in damage dealing. And don't tell me Adrenaline Rush is helping much when you land it AFTER you are cut to pieces already.

[Adoede]

That full defensive build is what I'm working on...it'll be a while though - just about got my guy to lvl 50 and starting to gear him now. I haven't seen any glads around that are going for what you suggest though. Mostly offensive War/Rage hybrids or Polearm agility wars around these parts.

[Sotc]

As a manager that has run speed builds, offensive wars that speed builds and even power rages struggle against most are those that are able to withstand the initial onslaught well enough to drag the speed build into the deep waters of later rounds and return fire. Ideally this would entail much of what Pit Lord has described (Create Distance, Fully Heavy, Full War Tree, etc.). At the moment glads like Erupt, Hubba, and even my war pirate (med armor with some block rank) have sufficient defense to do this quite regularly while having much less defense than the defensive ideal; HOWEVER the wars that I described are able to attack more than 2-H builds ending the match faster and therefore don't need to defend for as long as a 2H would.

In order for the 2-H to be more viable, it must either a) attack more or b) defend better or both. The most successful 2-H'er rage at the moment, Lord Brutish, does both (kudos Oedi). Lord Brutish attacks 3x per round while defending better than any other rage in the pits with large block rank, armor movement and heavy scarring. I think this is a roadmap for a more successful 2Her. However, wars cannot match the attack rate of a rage and cannot match the damage output either (especially if they drop the rage skills for full war).

People have been focusing on the damage aspect and following in the footsteps of The Returned by making their 2H wars rage hybrids (but with adrenaline rush). Adrenaline rush is NOT a substitute for adequate defense especially since a 2Her must survive longer than a A&M to return fire. Packing on more of the defensive options that BG gear has to offer could result in a 011 style war (huge block rank, heavy armor, create distance, extra armor rank, etc) that can mitigate most of the damage for long enough to return fire with a defense piercing 2Her.

I would argue against wholesale buffs to wars (someone suggested a pretty wild buff to iron jaw in another thread) since it is mainly a problem with 2-H'ers (as of this writing 5 wars occupy the top 10, 2 war/rage hybrids, 1 polearm, 2 tanks). The weakness of 2Hers may be able to be addressed with the build and gear design changes proposed in this thread. If that is not sufficient, Nate may also want to consider adding buffs to the 2H weapon skill itself to address the inequities between the 2H and its more successful cousin the polearm.

*Note: I'm quite convinced that the length of knockdown on war glads is a class penalty. The number of times that my war has sat on the ground all match while having 21% encumbrance is pretty ridiculous. If this is true this class-based knockdown length penalty should be reduced or capped.