The purpose of this spotlight is to provide newer/inexperienced D2 managers with warrior and team design concepts and to assist newbies in observing the details of a real-time team who will be competing against them in their Noblish Island arena. I will discuss the following:
First you might ask, "Who is writing this?" And I answer that I am Cheerleader, manager of COLLEGE MASCOTS, a member of The Consortium who is a long, long time (30+ year) paying competitor in Duelmasters/D2. I will be overseeing this new team and will be offering you advice each round on Noblish Island. Feel free to ask me questions in the personal ads. You will get answers; often, very interesting answers.
There is no one-and-only perfect design for any warrior. You will often find that when asking for experienced design advice, varying opinions and concepts are offered. However, there are some guidelines that each manager uses. The Consortium general design principles are:
Pretty simple, it would seem. Well, we will see how I applied these principals to the COLLEGE MASCOTS Team. But first some comments on team design.
A variety of styles is important. Why?
I believe a manager, especially a new manager, should have at least these two warriors on his team: an especially fast/quick, decent damage offensive (striker, basher, or maybe slasher) and a scummy warrior with lots of physicals and who wins by wearing down foes while parrying or sucking up hit points (total parry or maybe wall-of-steel or parry strike). It is important to learn how to win with both types, and the ST (striker) and TP (total parry) are excellent designs to do both: teach and win. This combination is invaluable because each tends to challenge and avoid different styles, and most importantly, they are both easy to work with. The other warriors on the team can/should be different, but I least recommend these more difficult styles for rookie managers. AB (aimed blow), PR (parry riposte), PS (parry strike), PL (parry lunge), and WS (wall of steel).
Now on to a real life example. Below are listed the starting statistics (from the roll-up sheet) and the design statistics (filled out and sent in by me, Cheerleader) of this COLLEGE MASCOTS team just started on Noblish Island.
10-6-9-5-17-12-11 to 12-6-9-5-21-16-15 BA (basher) Design to strengths (concept #1), which means I add four each to WL and SP and DF. The remaining two points, I add to ST taking it to 12, realizing this warrior can use no weapons unimpaired, but I will change that with an early stat raise of ST to 13 for the mace and warhammer. Note that strategies 5, 6, 7, 9, and 12 are considered. I make this a basher because that style seems to work best (other than scum TPs) with low wit.
4-10-5-5-20-9-17 to 5-16-5-7-21-9-21 AB (aimed blow). Looking at the rollup, I see WL, and DF are the highest stats, so if I employ concept #1, maxing them to 21 with one and four points added respectively. Refer also to concept #4. The next highest is CN, where I add six points; my aimer may be dumb, but he is going to have some hit points! I add the last three points to ST at 5 and WT at 7, both being good skill points. (2 and 5 respectively; check out the C.I.C. for confirmation.) Note that concepts 2, 8, and 9 were employed.
12-15-6-9-12-6-10 to 16-19-6-9-18-6-10 TP (total parry; scum). Adding to the highest stats (concept #1) would mean con, will, and strength, so I place all fourteen points there. Concept two caused me to add the six to will, leaving four each for ST and CN. This design was destined to be a TP. Concepts 10 and 12 also come into play.
13-6-6-9-21-10-5 to 17-6-6-15-21-12-7 SL (slasher) Per concept #1 I would be adding to ST, SP, WT (WL is already maxed.) and I do. I start with 6 to WT, (Check concepts 2, 3, and 4.) then 4 to ST and 2 to SP. Instead of adding the other two to ST or SP, I add them to DF, which gets me some nice workable weapons. I will make this a slasher or basher, but since I already have a basher, slasher it is.
12-15-15-8-8-9-3 to 13-21-15-9-14-9-3 BA (basher). First I added 6 points to CN, the highest stat. (Concept one.) This will be a scummy warrior. Concept two led me to adding 6 to WL, giving me some options to try raising stats later. One of the final 2 points was added to ST (Back to concept 1.) And the final point was added to wit for the 3 skills that I will attain at 9 wit. I did not want another BA on the team, (concept 13) but the design simply fits a BA (basher) best. Picture a tank-basher, which is different than the first warrior, who is a speed-basher. They ARE different.
Good luck competing against COLLEGE MASCOT warriors. I suspect this team will readily meet the 60% objective and each warrior will do its part. They will be a competitive team and they will both challenge and avoid.
Now let's take a look at the overall design tendencies for this team in this situation. We had 70 points to add to the designs. Totaled, they look like this:
ST = 12 (Looks about right. About 1/6 of the points.) CN = 16 (Very high, but looks reasonable, with a scum and a scum basher made.) SZ = 0 (Cannot add to size.) WT = 9 (1 of 2 most valuable stats. But the average starting RUs were only seven; hence lower than usual .) WL = 17 (Understandably high as Will was the highest average stat for this team, and I did concept 1 well.) SP = 6 (SP and CN are usually least added stats.) DF = 10 (DF additions are often quite variable and this amount looks reasonable for this group.)The tendencies look solid to me, as WT and WL are prime stats, ST and DF are probably next, and CN/SP are usually least added. (Well, except for SZ!)
So there you have it: a new team; insight to warrior and team design; useful tidbits from an ancient veteran. May your stay in D2 be long and prosperous, and, most of all, fun. (As mine has been.)
Happy Camper, FRIENDLIES (Consortum affiliated)