Offering tips: how to survive and thrive

[Hermit]

1. Move your cursor and point it at the body part you want to hit (I know, many people seems not to know that), master the overhead slashes, i.e the CTRL+LMB and ALT+LMB.

2. Forget about two-handed weapons early on especially in 1 vs 1 or 1 vs many.

3. Use the Flail, so overpowered, kills anyone in 2-5 head shots and smashes their shields in few hits, I used 1 handed sword as backup when repairing my flail. ALWAYS HIM FOR HEAD !

3. Train your stamina and movement early on using the trainer function.

4. Pick your fights very very very cautiously, don't try 1 vs many matches unless you are 95% sure you can win them.

5. Upgrade your auxiliary slots, empty your hands and pick the "Keep any equipment after match" matches, especially when it is Many vs 1, pick the most expensive weapon/shield and sell it after you repair it.

6. Create two sets, one with high fame % and one with high damage absorption for the very hard matches, Fame will be your main source of income.

7. Upgrade your healer/doctor and the blacksmith.

I played 14 hours in less than two days and after losing 10 gladiators finally was able to get my latest one to 120+ kills, I picked the thrill-seeker backstory which is a very good one for beginners. Hope you find this helpful.

----------
Update: more tips after I won 3 different backgrounds:

* Keep the Lionhead Helm (golden helmet) as an Heirloom, one of the best items to start with.

* The 2-handed Heavy Hammer is my new favorite weapon, very easy to hit heads and can smash most armors very easily, doesn't consume a lot of stamina,c only down side is that it gets damaged easily, so I have two hammers that I keep switching around.

[tempast2003]

Originally posted by Hermit:

2. Forget about two-handed weapons early on especially in 1 vs 1 or 1 vs many.

3. Use the Flail, so overpowered, kills anyone in 2-5 head shots and smashes their shields in few hits, I used 1 handed sword as backup when repairing my flail. ALWAYS HIM FOR HEAD !

Try the Impressive Cleaving Flagga you won't regret it. With or without a shield it doesn't matter you will pwn

And I don't know about the movement thing because i haven't messed with that but I train 1h Maces and it is that more brutal cleaving the enemy in half

[LUV]

mace is OP it carried me farther than i should have gotten

[JordyL]

Excellent advice, pinned for now!

[Patton]

2H Polearms are great weapons when starting out. A few overhead swings to the dome and most enemies go down.

[soul like that be capable of]

2 hand sword i was able to beat level 25 1vs1 he has shield too .

[Mike Honcho]

Originally posted by tempast2003:

Try the Impressive Cleaving Flagga you won't regret it. With or without a shield it doesn't matter you will pwn

And I don't know about the movement thing because i haven't messed with that but I train 1h Maces and it is that more brutal cleaving the enemy in half

Impressive Cleaving Flagga is my favorite heirloom. Can't lose those early matches with it

[geras]

For spear + shield overhead strike I advise to ignore the cursor, but rather aim by looking at the tip of your weapon for sniping those behind-the-shield headshots consistently.

[Vik]

I don't know how you even manage to get something to be an heirloom, all my money gets soaked up healing and trying to get a decent weapon or armour.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Vik:

I don't know how you even manage to get something to be an heirloom, all my money gets soaked up healing and trying to get a decent weapon or armour.

plus frantically training stamina.

[But I Am A Robot!]

Fame is much easier to earn than gold, even as a Pro Aspirant. I suppose that's realistic. Don't forget you have the ability to convert one into the other.

Also, it would great if there was a bonus trait to some arm armors that you can hold onto the flails better.

[Wawaweewa]

You mentioned 1 vs Many, how are you winning when they all gang on you at the same time with no room to pace? And what difficulty are you playing on? Seems outrageous on Gladiator difficulty. I suggested that they implement waves, as honestly it's suicide if you aren't on Commoner. An interesting feature of waves could be that the last remaining combatants are shrouded and cannot be revealed.

[Kosmodisk]

* Keep the Lionhead Helm (golden helmet) as an Heirloom, one of the best items to start with.

Strongly disagree there. If you wan't to help your next character the most with 1 item, body armor is the best thing to leave him. You get hit in the body more often and with a little investment you can easily buy a decent helmet in the first week or two. Currently the best body armor is the masterwork scale armor. Really the best thing you can do for your next character is to spend 20 fights just farming gold for him(and sell all your gear at the end for investment money too).

[Mr.Damm]

Originally posted by Okey:

You mentioned 1 vs Many, how are you winning when they all gang on you at the same time with no room to pace? And what difficulty are you playing on? Seems outrageous on Gladiator difficulty. I suggested that they implement waves, as honestly it's suicide if you aren't on Commoner. An interesting feature of waves could be that the last remaining combatants are shrouded and cannot be revealed.

That's a really good suggestion that 1 vs. many could be done in waves, with the final wave being a 1 v2 or 3 even. But the 1v6+ out of the gate is just way too risky. The only time I've done 1 v many is early on in a run when I have an OP weapon to start with (like a cleaving flagga).

[Wawaweewa]

But when you do have an OP weapon, is that consistently fun? Or do you just feel like you're cheesing the game without a sense of accomplishment... There seems to be a huge lack of balance here, it's either a death simulator/cheese simulator.

[soak314]

Finished all 5 backgrounds today! All these tips assume gladiator difficulty. Have some general run tips. Spoilers for legacy passives.

***BACKGROUNDS***

-The Pro-Aspirant background is by far the easiest. Just pick the safest fights and get to the Aspirant tier. LEGACY PASSIVE: Match option unlock is helpful, it'll potentially save you a lot of grief with the slave background especially.

-Thrill seeker seems simple, but if you don't get your killcount up earlier on it can start to be more challenging. Lategame opponents have much better gear. You'll need to do lots of Many v Many matches with this background. LEGACY PASSIVE: Fame multiplier unlocked up to 3x is great, potentially letting you clock in huge fame bonuses. Remember that fame can build up in excess and is a great source of money. Another potential candidate for first finish.

-Soldier is likely going to be the most tedious. Not necessarily harder, but having less stamina regen initially hurts, and 100k coins can take a fair bit of work to reach. LEGACY PASSIVE: The skill bonuses to new fighters are random but they can save you a few weeks of training on a good roll.

-Slave is both the hardest start and the easiest finish. 100k fame is easy to reach, with some late game fights reaching 20k for the one victory. This one can be really rough going into, since you only have 2 match choices to begin with. Getting a few of the other victories before going slave really alleviates the experience. LEGACY PASSIVE: 1k fame per rank up is okay. I interpret it as 1 free store reroll per rank up, which isnt bad early on.

-Criminal is the more interesting version of soldier's cashout victory. It involves way more cool decision making. However, you currently do not get full benefits from having everyone's favor so high up, since the patron events are not yet in place. LEGACY PASSIVE: 15% bonus to all favor isn't really a big deal at the moment, again because the favor effects aren't fully in place. Do criminal last if you're able.