Adoede's Guide for Beginners

[Adoede]

Weapon Selection
The main thing to note here is that your gladiator's initiative in battle (first strike, number of attacks) is noticeably influenced by the weight of his weapon. So glads wielding lighter weapons like daggers, claws and hatchets will often strike first, even before some glads who might have higher agility or presence. The drawback of these lighter weapons is that they are deflected by armor more often than heavier weapons (something you can mitigate somewhat with armor penetration buffs)

For strength-based weapons note that there is a big difference between hatchets (weight 1.33) and warhammers (weight 4). Hatchets will strike quite a bit earlier...but might have trouble against tough armor.

For 2H weapons, just know that 2H sword uses Slash while the other 2H weapons use Bash. (Slash does more damage vs. light armor but is deflected more often against heavy armor. Lunge and Bash don't seem to have as big a variance across armor types.)

As for polearms...ask Albakebab or Oedi since they're the only ones who use them (and quite successfully) - Since the latest update, they do get a defensive bonus that reduces the number of their opponent's attacks due to the length of polearms vs. other weapons.

Tip - It took me two months before I realized that each of my glads could refresh the items in the blacksmith once per day for free. Your first glad to visit the Blacksmith automatically uses their update, but your other glads can refresh the inventory at no trophy cost.

Race Selection
While it is true that each race has its own advantages and disadvantages, there are reasons why four particular races dominate the Blood gods bracket. Elaar and Dunder excel at offense. Trug and Spite excel at defense.

That said, here are some thoughts on each race's peculiarities:

Human - They get added attack power that allows them to better break through the defenses of "defensive" glads. And having no penalties is nice.
Elaar - Armor penetration means less deflections and more damage...second only to Dunder in damage. Crit resistance helps you take some hits and still hit back w/o being stunned as often. Health penalty is about 15% or so.
Spite - Extra defense seems significant. And additional crit effects are nice. That reduction to damage penalty is noticeable, however.
Dunder - Resistance to knockdown is great for heavily-armored Wars. And that damage boost is weighty, indeed. The reduced initiative isn't a big deal if you're a power-build anyway.
Urk - Big endurance boost is useful for Rages running Berserk. Stun resistance also allows them to take hits and still come storming back. Lowered defense is nothing if you're a Rage and defense doesn't matter to you anyway.
Snivler - Easily the fastest race in the game. And that extra bleed is about a 25% boost or so compared to other races. However, their health penalty is severe at about 25%.
Trug - Bleed resistance is nice (especially when paired with heavy armor). And hit point bonus is around 20%. You'll likely not miss the initiative you lose with this tank.

Skill training priorities
The most common recommendation is to train your weapon skill to level 10 FIRST. I know it feels like a waste of training points and it seems better to spread the points around. But training weapon skill to level 10 first will allow you to use the aggressive strategy I mentioned above without fumbling your way into mediocrity. You'll get there by around level 20 if you stay focused (about 2 weeks time). Even a defensive gladiator needs weapon skill at 10 for both offense and defense. (If you really can't handle the psychological strain of pushing to level 10 straight away, Kreegan and Apoc suggest at least getting to level 8 before developing other skills. If you manage your activity and bloodlust accordingly, this is also a viable approach)

After you get to weapon skill level 10, you can go ahead and spread your training points around as you see fit. Just keep in mind that skills increase in effectiveness exponentially, so a level 10 skill is almost twice as effective as a level 9 skill. This is why nearly all the top glads pick 10 skills they want and max them all to level 10.

But if your goal is simply to retire your glad you can be a little less stringent if you like. (By the way, if you want to un-train a skill, just hold down ‘u’ as you click and the roll will go towards lowering your skill instead of boosting it.)

Stable Upgrades
You'd be well advised to upgrade your barracks so you can have a full stable of five glads as soon as possible. This will help you grow your gold and trophy stash more quickly and just makes the game that much more fun and immersive. And in case you didn't know, your main source of additional trophies will be from winning Arena Challenges from tier 2 and on. (Check the Player Guides for tips on how to defeat each of them).

If the pace of skill advancement is too slow for your sanity, spend 20 trophies to get the "Champions Pack" membership buff. That buff will take you from getting 4 fights and ~14 training points a day to getting 8 fights and ~40 training points a day for the next two weeks - an embarrassment of riches, indeed.

You'll likely want to get the Undertaker upgrade to eliminate the death penalty. Death penalty nerfs your glad 10%-15% on ALL their stats for 24 hours after they’ve died in a fight. That’s not fun to deal with as you climb your way towards retirement. The undertaker costs 55 trophies.

Thus, I recommend taking Nate’s special offer of 120 Trophies, 3 extra vault slots, and a week of Memberships for $9.95. Those trophies can get you the undertaker and all four additional barracks spots for a full stable of glads. Plus you get the accountant (who doubles your gold). Beyond this, you can decide to be a freemium player or make a more substantial contribution to the game. Either way, you’ll have established for yourself a fighting chance to be competitive...eventually.

Stay in Primus or Go to Blood gods?
This may seem like a silly question – why, after all, wouldn’t you want to be promoted to Blood gods and take your place among the best managers and gladiators in the game?

Because you’ll get spanked – that’s why

Sure, you can go to Blood gods and proceed to lose your next 175 out of 200 fights. But that’s not really the big drawback. Your glads in Primus will make you a lot more money then your glads in Blood gods. A lot more. Like eight times more per glad. Trust me…you’ll want that gold stash later.

But if you really want to retire quickly and you’ve already got over 500 wins, then going to Blood gods will probably get you more fights faster – thus enabling you to retire faster as well. Your call. If you have over 340,000 ranking points on Tuesday morning, you get promoted.

Don’t enter the Bloodgames
One last thing. If your goal is to retire your glad…do not enter the monthly bloodgames. Nothing more aggravating than having a glad ready to retire and realizing you have to wait another 25 days to retire him because he’s fighting meaningless fights in the bloodgames.

So welcome to the pits and best of luck to ya. It’ll be nice having some new blood in the Blood gods bracket when you finally get there…four months from now!

APPENDIX:
Some brief thoughts on what to do with your hard-won HOL glads and about the strategies and the dynamics of Blood gods.

Picking HOL Recruits
When you finally do get access to HOL glads, take your time to find the right glad that you can commit to long-term. HOL recruits range from ~950 gold cost to 1170+ gold cost and average around 1050 gold. The good ones have been found with an average of ~550 base stat points up to a record 591 base stat points. Some managers will only take a recruit that costs over 1100 gold because these are so rare and perhaps give a better chance of having a gladiator with decent luck (you can see my thread on luck for some thoughts on how to evaluate a recruit's possible luck score). HOL recruit's stats can range all the way up to a high of 100 on any given stat.

Strategies and dynamics of the Blood gods bracket
The strategy aspect of Pit of War changes according to what level you are at in the game.
Glad Level 0-40 - Strategies are pretty rudimentary and straightforward. You can get away with one simple strategy against all foes.
Glad Level 41-50 (Primus) - Strategies become more important and counter-strategies begin to come into play. But since you can still pick your challenges, you can get away with being a one-dimensional fighter even at this level.
Blood gods Level - Strategies become extremely significant and you'll need to have effective counter-strategies for every type of opponent you will face. This is mainly because there is no more challenge system in Blood gods and you have to fight every other glad in Blood gods in a constantly cycling fight queue. This level separates the true masters from the pretenders.

If you want to learn creative new strategies to try, the best way to learn is to pick a top gladiator of the style you like and put them on your watch-list. As you read their fights, you can see when their strategies shift at different moments of their fights and can deduce what strategic triggers they are using. That will give you some fresh ideas of your own to try.