In addition to the new skill trees and race balancing/tweaks the Fight Engine has also undergone some changes to balance things out. Here are a couple of the more notable changes:

1) Rounds are a little shorter. This means endurance and bleeding can/will play a larger role in the fights. This also means 2 round stuns are staying as the shorter rounds makes stuns sting less.

2) The majority of weapons have had their speeds modified. The slowest speed is still a 1 and the fastest is a 4 (instead of 3 as it is now). For the most part they are all pretty similar to what they were with slight modifications. The fastest weapons like the dagger are now a speed 4. The slowest weapons are still 2H and Pole Arms which are a 1.

3) 2H weapons have had their damage reduced and number of attacks increased. This was to help them be more consistent instead of being all or nothing. Agility based weapons get to use their agility to help boost damage instead of their strength.

4) Armour plays a much bigger role in its ability to reduce damage with heavy armour receiving a pretty good bump. As a result many fights will see a good spread of level 1-5 crits even at the higher levels and overall damage dealt with each hit will be less than you see now. (Apoc's biggest hits section will likely need to be closed and a new thread opened for the new hits so it is relative to the new engine).

5) Medium armour is slightly heavier and more encumbering and heavy armour is A LOT heavier and the majority of gladiators dressed in all full plate will be encumbered (with the bar at least in the yellow, often in orange and red for some). This will have implications ranging from using more endurance, attacking less, having a slower initiative, etc. This is the price for being a tank that absorbs the bulk of the damage inflicted upon your gladiator. Offensive and defensive gladiator builds are still viable.

5) Shields wielded with skill offer a lot more protection and as many have noticed there are skills that can help even more. This in combination with the changes to armour will no doubt give rise to new builds of gladiators who aim to make their opponent run out of endurance rather than health.

6) Counter Attack has been changed to where it will only attack as often as the opponent even if they could attack more and they will always attack last in true counter attack fashion. If the opponent can attack more, the counter attacker will only attack as many times as they are able.

7) The key attributes of a skill have the ability to push the effects of a skill up past what just the skill level offers more than they do now. So two gladiators with a 10 in a skill might see different results in the effects (e.g. Hamstring might reduce the attacks less or more than the other gladiator based on their attributes).

8) Low health and endurance have more of an effect in regards to your number of attacks, to hit, etc.

9) There have been some modifications to built in bonuses for fighting style vs armour matchups. The following matchups offer a slight advantage to the attacker regarding to hit and damage:

- Slashing vs light armour
- Bashing vs medium armour
- Lunging vs Heavy armour

Fighting styles like berserk, kill shot, tank, counter attack etc do not get the bonus, however, slash/bash/lunge and parry-x do. This advantage is not huge but might be enough to make the difference in a close fight.

10) Smart gladiators (i.e. gladiators with a high intellect) will use their skills more often than dumb gladiators (i.e. gladiators will a low intellect). Dumb gladiators will still use skills though, they aren't THAT dumb!

11) Any and all of the above items (and any not listed) are subject to change at any time for game balance reasons. (Great realm lawyers require me to state this).

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-