Bullshit fights (Arena)

[Zakusho]

So this is one of the many examples of such fights I have encountered during my stay in Pit of War and for the record I have reset my stable a lot of times.
Examine this fight and explain.
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You can also find the fight via Arena Results as #46 under the Veteran bracket.

[Kreegan]

Care to clarify what's wrong with this fight?

[Apoca1ypse]

so, you're level 14 against a lvl 4 gladiator and losing... Sounds like you have incorrect strategies.

Make sure you are using the right strategy for your gladiator. you are currently using a 2H sword, so make sure you are using slash. also, try setting activity and bloodlust to 5.

Lastly, what level is your weapon skill?

[Zakusho]

I am using Slash and I know what to do. My weapon skill is at 7 on that one. I just can't figure out what that guy has that could defeat me. He's clearly a guy that stopped playing hence the amount of loses. At that level he can't possibly have a higher weapon skill or any other skills for that matter. What happened here and why? Can someone explain these kind of fights?

[Apoca1ypse]

it's just the luck of the dice.

[Adoede]

1. What happened is that your 2H weapon has a weight rating of 6. The other guy is using a weapon with a weight rating of 3 and 4.5. Both of you are probably running at very high activity. That's why the other guy got the jump on you (weapon weight is a big factor in first strike).

2. Next, the other guy's first attack knocked you to the ground - where you suffer many penalties and can't use your "activated" attacks.

3. It doesn't matter what the other guy's weapon skill is because you are a Rage with no defense. Weapon skill boosts attack power to allow a glad to hit an opponent despite their defense. In the case of a Rage, their defense is so marginal that even a noob can hit them with their eyes closed. That's why you're getting hit for decent damage by a vastly lower level glad. If you don't like that, you should try building a War or a Theatrics instead since Rages don't get any defense to speak of until skill level 10 of Hit 'n Run.

4. In Round 3, the other guy's attack knocks your EPIC weapon out of your hands. The arena enforcer throws you a REGULAR falchion to use instead. Your weapon skill is still only a 7, so you just get a bad roll here and fumble your next attack. Having your weapon knocked out of your hands and fumbling an attack both effect your initiative, so if you would have potentially attacked one or two more times that round, those attacks are now wasted in "recovering" your equilibrium.

5. The other guy knocks your weapon out of your hands again and this time, you don't pick up a replacement. That's why your next attack hits for a mere 10 damage - you're using your fists and you're slashing with them...not going to "bring the hammer down" doing that.

6. The other guy hits you twice more before you get to attack and ends the match.

Any questions?

[Zakusho]

Wait. About the weight thing. Should one go with more or less activity when it's 6 as a 2hander?
Anyway I will admit this was not the best example to show since it's a rage. What I actually meant is that I encountered this before when I was building like 1 of each (I could only get 3 glads so I decided to test out each class and now I'm just focusing on Rage)
I didn't mean to make my post look like it's some sort of hate post I just wanted to know like realistically speaking how is it possible for a level 4 which if we think about it he can have a max of I believe 3 weapon skill or so get consistent hits like that in one lucky match as it seems to be the case in the example shown? I'm trying my best to think of strats and all so don't get me wrong it's just curiosity.
Thank you Adoede for your insight it's just still hard for me to imagine all those consistent shots I took from him and just every time I go into arena and I get this random low level I'm scared of scrolling down because of these kind of fights.

[Adoede]

You can read my post about "Understanding Strategies" if you want to get a better understanding of how Attack Power and Defense work in this game.

In short, this game is not like WoW where your character automatically becomes more effective with every level gained. The main benefit of levels is more hit points and qualifying for the higher tier skills. But just about all of your glad's attack power and defense is based on your glad's skills/stats/race. So, you could have a glad that is level 14 that has the same attack power as a glad who is level 4. That's why this is more of a thinking person's/strategy game than other MMO's...you have to carefully consider how to design your glads to maximize their strengths.

Another thing to note is that anything under lvl 30 still hasn't unlocked nearly half of the skills in the skill trees yet. So everyone under lvl 30 is pretty much a noob just hacking away and hoping to win. In fact, I don't even pay much attention to a glad until they're in their 40's - that's when their build design begins to come into play more and they get more interesting. Up until then, I just let them fight and develop without too much concern about their records. All that to say, the difference between lvl 4 and 14 isn't that big. Both still noobs with probably less than 2 weeks development time under their belts.

As for why that lvl 4 glad was hitting you so consistently - I addressed this in point #3, but I'll try to clarify again. The way attack power and defense work is that a glad's effectiveness in attacking is partially based in their attack power and partially based on their opponent's defense. If they have a good ratio of attack power to opponent's defense, then they will hit their opponents well and not fumble much. Since you are a Rage, you basically have no defense. So anybody looks like an attack expert when attacking a Rage.

You've also run into the style differences issue and have seen how some styles are simply well-suited to defeat other styles. Even in the blood gods level, a good speed rage or theatrics will take out a good 2H Rage the vast majority of the time. 2H Rage will take out defensive glads most of the time. Defensive glads will take out speed glads most of the time. Etc... Creative managers try to find ways to make their glads effective against even their counter-build types...Of course, you can use this to your advantage too - by challenging those opponents you are well-suited to defeat and not sweating being defeated in the odd fight against those styles suited to take you down.

If you haven't already, take a look at the many fine guides that have been written to help orient newcomers...that'll help answer a lot of your questions.

[Kreegan]

Weapon skill doesn't affect only defense penetration but also the chance to hit/miss, i.e. higher weapon skill reduces the number of fumbles.

@Zakusho, if your fighter is losing in a "strange" manner from some opponent, that's probably not a bug - it's more likely you're doing something wrong. Post in the respective sections, people will advise and you'll fix the "bug" yourself. Of course it's possible to encounter a glitch but poor performance has never been in that category so far.

[Adoede]

Weapon skill certainly does effect fumble rate and critical rate...though even at skill rank 10 you'll find you still fumble a lot more against glads with high defense.

I should preface my remarks by saying that they are my own opinions and observations and don't necessarily reflect the actual game dynamics - only Nate knows how the game really works...