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

[Pit Lord]

I know there are str skills that reduce you opponents defense in the rage tree

It may be the reason but we cannot expect gladiator with build focused on destroying defenses to perform good against a speed build.

[Dainoji]

I've read a comment or two about war glads being knocked down and having trouble getting back up. There is already an option available to players to mitigate this. Choose Dunder for your glad's race. You will get knocked down a lot less. Just as being an Urk makes getting stunned a very rare event. It will still happen but not as often.

[Kreegan]

Strength-based weapons don't get through armour because they are Strength-based weapons. Try to run some gladiator without any skills from the Rage tree, Feint or Death from Above and you'll rarely see any major hits against heavy armour even with maces (which have greater armour-piercing capabilities than bladed weapons, that's for sure).

And by the way have you checked how much each point of Strength increases Health? 1-2 initially, 2-3 points on high level gladiators. If you need Health, you go for Stamina and Size, not Strength.

[Alba Kebab]

I suggest you scout Arrrrrghpirate, the long-time-number-one in Blood Gods and compare her Strength and Agility. Then you can edit your post.

Edit: Actually Cyn already pointed this out.

Try to think of what NORMAL speed theatric looks like, the ones that don't have 200+ stats and aren't clad in full legend gear. Top line examples NEVER resembled the rank file glads in the arena, they will always be able to do things in ways most of you cannot.
Cyn can make his point because he can get 200+ stats if he wants to, but if you can't do the same, then it won't work for you, it's that simple.

[Pit Lord]

And by the way have you checked how much each point of Strength increases Health? 1-2 initially, 2-3 points on high level gladiators. If you need Health, you go for Stamina and Size, not Strength.

The point is it is added bonus when you are stacking damage.

[Cynaidh]

Alba i am looking at top end play for sure, and glads who go 200+ in their main stats are becoming more and more common at the top, i looked at quite a few glads yesterday when i was compiling data for my above post and its surprising how many have stats like that in fact it was so common i think 250+ is now what i would consider top end now.

Bottom line for me is i see no point in running a strength weapon based offensive gladiator at this point if your goal is to compete in blood gods, with agility being used for bonus damage on agility weapons now the balance is way off, it used to be you picked one or the other, a few big damage hits per round (str) or a lot of medium damage hits per round with faster initiative (agil), now after the change its a few big damage hits per round (str) vs a lot of big damage hits per round with faster initiative (agil). I think the balance issue here is obvious. Really this hurts Rage gladiator's the most as 2 out of 3 of their weapons are str based. Warriors at least have swords and pole-arms (Hubba Gubba is showing us that stacking agility with a pole-arm rocks).

I think this trend can be seen in the top 10 with 80% of the glads being agility weapon users, including a glad with 250 agility using a purple main hand weapon who is in the top 5. I don't think a strength based glad could pull that off with that level of gear. I expect that as more and more agility based glads get leveled and geared up will see more and more of the strength based offensive gladiators pushed down the ranks. A part of this is due to how most of the strength based i have looked at are running 170+ agility so they are having to split there stats to stay competitive where the agility glads get to use str as a dump stat. Overall agility focus just seems vastly better then strength.

[Kreegan]

Try to think of what NORMAL speed theatric looks like, the ones that don't have 200+ stats and aren't clad in full legend gear. Top line examples NEVER resembled the rank file glads in the arena, they will always be able to do things in ways most of you cannot.
Cyn can make his point because he can get 200+ stats if he wants to, but if you can't do the same, then it won't work for you, it's that simple.

So you basically suggest to look at a speed Theatrics which is built so badly that he/she can't compete properly? Good advise, sir. What's unique about Arrrrgh's build? Typical Theatrics/Rage hybrid Elaar with short swords. If you so need "low-standing" Theatrics which deals ridiculous damage through heavy armour, then scout the crowd of Seraphs at the mid-low end of the bracket. They score 150-200 damage through Blood Gods purple heavy piece with Claws. Per hit.

[Nate]

Very interesting debate we have going here with some very good energy and ideas. Some of the observations that are being pointed out no doubt seem true from the perspective of each manager. One interesting omission in the debate is talk of fight strategies. I suppose that is because everyone is of course using perfect and optimal strategies for their build. Besides, those silly little things couldn't possibly be a factor and the notion that one manager might be better at setting them than another is absurd!

I have a two question for all those interested:

1) If we had the ability to go back and look at all the fights over the past months what do you think the "agility based weapons vs strength based weapons" win ratio would be for agility based weapons? We're only talking about when a gladiator using an agility based weapon is matched up against a gladiator using a strength based weapon.

2) What win/loss ratio would you consider to be "balanced" enough as to be acceptable? e.g. 50%-60% win ratio for either agility or strength based weapons.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

I suppose that is because everyone is of course using perfect and optimal strategies for their build. Besides, those silly little things couldn't possibly be a factor and the notion that one manager might be better at setting them than another is absurd!

Well of course everyone here is using perfect strategies, I'd expect nothing less from my fellow managers.

1) If we had the ability to go back and look at all the fights over the past months what do you think the "agility based weapons vs strength based weapons" win ratio would be for agility based weapons? We're only talking about when a gladiator using an agility based weapon is matched up against a gladiator using a strength based weapon.

I think this depends on the level of the game, at the early game i would think it would be very even, once your in primus i'd expect it to start leaning towards the agility winning more, and at the high end of blood gods i think we know in equal gear agility will be much higher. But what level of the game the glads are at would really change the ratio I believe.

Honestly though i'd love to see averages of high end simulated gladiators, i know you have a nice simulator to do mass fights for data

If these two glads fought each other 1000 times what do you think the win/loss would be would be?

Rage 250-100-150-100-90-100-150 axes and maces spec with duel fast axes
Rage 100-100-250-100-90-150-150 blades spec with duel short swords

But an even better question how would their win loss ratios be vs theatrics/warriors with the same type stats.

2) What win/loss ratio would you consider to be "balanced" enough as to be acceptable? e.g. 50%-60% win ratio for either agility or strength based weapons.

Overall I think the closer to 50% the better for the health of the game, cause if one is even 5% better then the other then that is a significant advantage just based on if your weapon is agility or strength based. This leads to less diversity as lets be honest we all want to win and be at the top, so any advantage is huge!

[Sotc]

I think you guys might be getting a bit premature saying that agility is the end all be all. In your discussions of strength based glads needing copious amounts of agility you have ignored the example of my war pirate who has a mere 121 agil and 109 pres. It is true that agility builds are proliferating now, but strength builds are in no way impotent. I will elaborate more and give suggestions later in the week when I have more time (getting swamped at work).