Outclassed

[Team Kaos]

Anyone else noticing that of the top 12 elite fighters none are theatrical? Coincidence? or just a matter of them being unable to defend the fast and heavy onslaught of a raging opponent or being able to wait out or break through the total parry war tank.

There are theatrical fighters in the Vet catagory with 54,53,52,51,51,47,47 fights, and all seems to come up short vs the same elite non theatrical fighters the big majority of the time.
3 of the top 4 Vet fighters are also non theatrical fighters, although they have 10+ less fights then some of the theatrical fighters in the catagory.

Not sure if it is truly skill of the fighter or strategy of the manager but they sure seem to be outmatched at the higher level.

Anyone else with thoughts from what they are seeing?

[Dainoji]

I don't think they are outclassed, I think they are just harder to run and figure out. This is how I break things down.

War - these guys are maybe the easiest to run if you go defensive. There isn't much brain power required to set one row to total parry and then wait for the other guy to pass out and in the process fall asleep at your pc.

Rage - the next simplest to run, set a few strat rows to berserk and zero in your activity level and blood lust until you aren't passing out all the time. Takes a bit more calibration than war but the rewards are worth it.

Theatrics - counter attack is obviously their specialty but it is entirely dependent on who you are fighting so it is harder to have a standard strategy that works well against everyone. I think though that they are probably the one specialty that has the best chance of beating anyone if the manager does their homework on the other guy.

The other thing that might be skewing your numbers is I don't see very many theatrics gladiators in general. Maybe we could get Nate to post an arena percentage of the specialties. A few weeks back when Voltar was top dog it stands to reason maybe a bunch of people decided war was the way to go and flooded the arena. Now we have some rage guys up there and maybe new managers will decide rage is where it's at.

I read a post earlier about exotic weapons being crap but I'm not so sure about that. The falchion is just as good as any sword and the trident does good damage for its speed. The kris and cestus while small give a pretty big boost in attacks and I've read a number of fights where the other guy got turned into a sieve 2 points of damage at a time.

What is more than likely going on is we have local min-max events happening as gladiators level. Levels X-Y favor War and then Rage unlocks some skills that remove war's advantage and then maybe push them more in the lead, and then Theatrics gets some skills that levels the playing field and so on. Looking at the skill tree for theatrics it looks like they could get pretty scary when they unlock the bottom tier skills because they'll be able to outlast tanks with second wind, cause rage to use more endurance with show off and they'll be able to use counter attack to meet the offense delivered by war or rage all the while making them bleed with each counter attack. Just a guess though.

[Team Kaos]

If it is way to simple for a war fighter to total parry and just tire out a theatrical fighter no matter what offense or defense the theatrical fighter tries...he is simply outclassed. There seems no way for a theatrical fighter to break through even a decent total parry. At least those are the results thus far. To say eventually it may even out is moot since the theatrical fighter will have fallen so far behind the war tank that I think most managers will just give up the theatrical fighter alltogether. Who would want to invest so much time in a fighter that will be passing out through is first 120+fights just to hope to attain a miracle skill at the upper levels.

And so far a manager cannot plan for a tank with a theatrical fighter, he has no offense to break through a total parry and he has no chance to outlast him in endurance due that his strats are purely high energy. He has no strat to counter the parry such as an aimed blow that would peirce a parry due to its precision that a theatrical fighter should be skilled with (called shot??).

There are plenty of Theatrical fighters, in fact there are more Theatrical fighter then Rage warriors in the Vets catagory, they just don't move up because they are near automatics to lose vs the war tanks that dominate the elite cat...and today was the first day that the first Theatrical fighter moved into the Elite cat.

I think it's pretty clear so far that there is 1 sole theatrical fighter in elite (rank last) while there are 6 rage and 7 war, and 3 of them have less then 50 fights. While there are 4 Theatrical fighters with over 50 fights sitting in Vets ranked no higher then 4th with, you guessed it ...2 wars and a rage ranked 1-2-3 with as low as 42 fights.

If it is easy to run a rage or war and difficult to figure out a theatrical...it basically means they are outclassed.
For the future of the game, why would any manager even want to attempt to run one if he knows it is an uphill battle vs 2 kings of the hill.
Also another thing I noticed is the defensive create distance (war) is way superior to the offensive called shot (theatrical).
You can review fights and see war fighters kicking back theatricals all day and the theatrical fighter not land a single blow.

Believe me, I have 3 theatrical fighters that fall to the same fate with different builds and different strats. Not sour grapes but just pointing out the weakness of the specialty compared to the war and rage. It has no strat to counter a parry.

[Dainoji]

I never said it was so simple that the theatrics gladiator has no chance against war, just that theatrics might take more skill to to run. Why would someone choose to do that? For the same reason people played nightmare mode in Diablo or one shot kill mode in FPS games, for the challenge. Also a manager can plan for a tank by scouting and then challenging a tank. You aren't guaranteed to get the challenge but you do have options. I use the avoid option a lot because i know there are some gladiators around me that give me trouble and thus far it has been pretty effective in keeping them off my back. Obviously since you run a lot of theatrics gladiators you are going to have more experience in this than me, however maybe you are going about it the wrong way. Sounds like you are trying to use offense to break through their defense. Have you tried using counter attack against total parry? If you only counter when they attack then you'll be using your endurance much slower as well and maybe you can outlast them or get them to trigger out of it assuming you have equal or better endurance. Just an idea.

Another thought that just came to mind is maybe a good theatrics build would be one where you don't pump points into your theatrics skills right off the bat. Maybe you should try and train in the other skills that you think are better like brute force or create distance and then once you have those under your belt you can start training in the ones that you feel are weaker but unlock stronger ones while the cross skill selections keep your winning percentage in the green. Recently I've been looking at possible cross skill selection builds and there are a few in there that look interesting. Obviously you'd want to be able to do a pure theatrics guy at some point but if you are running three right now maybe you can change course with one or two of them and see how it goes for you while you keep playing with your pure bread.

[Gubment Cheeze]

I just remember at the end of Beta, Theatrics were starting to dominate.
Momma said knock you out....is all i'm saying.

But for really realz, the Beta test showed us that each and every type dominated at different points. There is a definite ebb and flow to the game which makes it exciting. There is no auto pilot to victory mode, the astute and diligent manager will be the most successful, regardless of which kind of gladiator(s) they are running.

[Team Kaos]

FRACK decided to be nice and allowed WOLFRAVAN to live another day. — 9 minutes & 35 seconds

GFY won a great duel against SOLSTICE. — 9 minutes & 55 seconds

GENDER BENDER was humiliated by FARUHK. — 14 minutes & 15 seconds

MERIC gave up to MOON CHILD. — 8 minutes & 55 seconds

The #1,#2,#6 and #7 ranked Theatric fighters......all losses to the
#1,#4,#6 and a below 10 ranked War Parry's.

Every Top 10 Theatric fighter that fought a War fighter (turn 70) lost due to being unable to hit through a Parry tactic.
Exception was...

HANK took home the victory trophy in a match against GRIZZLY. — 3 minutes & 45 seconds

In which Grizzly did not use a total Parry tactic vs the Theatric Hank

Maybe I am obsessing about it, but it is plain as day that a theatric fighter cannot beat a parry. Outside of some lucky rolls
Might as well just have all the War tanks challenge the Theatrical fighters and avoid the Rage's every bout and never lose.

[Dainoji]

Not that I'm going to change your mind since you are clearly convinced there is a balance issue here and maybe there is, but I just looked at the new gladiators coming up the ranks and there are a healthy amount of Theatrics guys that are on a tear with around a 70% win record and single digit losses. Yes, there are also War gladiators with similar records but somehow these Theatrics gladiators have been able to run the gauntlet and come out on top. Nate was pretty good on doing balancing in the Beta so if there are any problems I'm sure he'll address them in due time.

[Blackwill]

I have to agree that the Theatrics glads seem to be at a bit of a disadvantage at mid-levels. The weapons afforded the up-coming Theatric, while quite fast in general, are nearly useless against anyone wearing better than grey armor. Hitting your opponent for +10 damage, even if you do it several times per round, is still no match for those devastating +275 hits coming at you...

Also, one of the 3rd-tier Theatrics skills isn't really a "combat" skill at all...it's economics. I'd prefer to have a third passive combat skill over one which earns me more money in the arena...because I'll just have to spend that extra money at the Temple healing serious injuries, anyway.

That having been said, Once you pass the hurdle and start getting into the upper-level skills, they seem to do better. They are still no "even" match for a War or Rage glad of equal level, though, until they get the Knockout skill up to a decent level. Then they're a match for anyone....

[Team Kaos]

The aggravation level is becoming wall punching.

Solstice vs Theseus
Solstice takes 28 swings and connects with 1 mere 5 point shot??
And then passes out after 12 minutes.

Solstice's attributes exceed Theseus as follows. +14, +25, +10,, +3, +20, +6, -10 (in random order, don't want to give away a freebie scouting report for all to see)

His weapon skill exceeds Theseus shield and weapon skills by multiple points, and has nearly double the skill points in tiers 2 and 3 combined over Theseus but yet cannot penetrate a total parry tactic.

Seriously??

1 hit and 5 measley hit points for a warrior of a combined 69 attribute points higher and 6 skill points greater then his opponent.

What is the point of continuing to fight and build a theatrical fighter if he cannot even land a hit on a seriously less skilled fighter.

And I am not seeing how later on higher tiered skills will change his chance of landing a hit.
How exactly does knockout help you win if you can't hit the opposing fighter?
And how would finishing blow finish anything if you can barely get a blade on the opposing fighter.

There is no way to wear out a total parry by using counter attack or parry lu/sl/ba unless your obscenely higher in stamina, and even that is a long shot. Solstice is a 76 stamina and usually burns out by at least 12-20 points to a total parry who has even less stamina, and that's with Solstice set on a 1 activity.

And what is even scarier is the total parry at times doing more damage to a theatrical fighter then recieving.

The only skill that would make any difference in landing a shot for a theatrical fighter is his aimed blow and it seems it does absolutley nothing. I see no difference in a fighter landing more or missing less with the skill or without it. To have pumped in 60 training points into the skill and it to show a zero return is kinda aggravating as he misses just as much as any other non theatrical fighter and cannot even land a blow on someone standing still with a 1, 2 or 3 activity level. And it's not even like the guy is using some super nutz shield, it's a green shield with ok defense.
I had a 99 defense purple shield running on a theatrical parry slash and he was getting lit up repeatedly at both high and low activity.

Total parry is way off the charts compared to anything a theatrical fighter has and appears will have.

I'm not seeing it in my fighters and I'm not seeing it with anyone else's theatrical fighters having any noteable success vs total parry's thus far...and based on the skill tiers remaining I see nothing that will increase a theatrical fighters ability to hit a total parry.


There are 13 War gladiators in the top 20 elite
3 Theatrical
4 Rage

Is it me, or does it seem a little out of whack. It must be me because I seem to be the only one bitchin about it.

[Jaradakar]

You're slightly higher up the charts than me, so I don't want to say too much till I get higher. My best gladiator is a Theatrics schooled and he's doing very well so far.

I wonder if there is a bit of rock, paper scissors to the classes. I.E. Theatrics has an advantage over Rage, Rage has an advantage over War and War has an advantage over Theatrics. Of course this is just my hypothesis I have no idea if it's actually true.