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.


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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?