Warrior General Games

1) How do other people utilize your ROLB's? Ours is primarily a pass rusher, he does a little coverage out of the backfield, usually the FB.

2) What should a pass rushing ROLB look like build-wise. I know he needs decent speed to support the strong side runs, but what is more important for pass rushing, my current ROLB spent a lot of time on his ass this season. So how should str and agil stack up?

depends what kind of scheme you're going to use and where you're blitzing from. any LB will have a tough time coming up with comparable strength+agility to the better linemen, not to mention the relatively high cost of getting shed blocks up high.

Yeah I have a few different defensive players and I feel like the LB is the most difficult to build...

You need to do whatever you can to consistently get around the left tackle. Watch your dot and make adjustments.

You should position yourself to going AROUND lineman and not through them. So speed builds are ideal for this. You could potentially build a high agility build with moderate speed... but I don't think they would bode very well compared to a raw speed rusher. Not to mention you won't be sacrificing as much by doing this.

Originally posted by John Smashtown
Yeah I have a few different defensive players and I feel like the LB is the most difficult to build...

LBs are probably the hardest position to build. You need a ton of stats to the 2nd cap or beyond (speed, agility, strength, tackling, vision, confidence) and several others could really use attention too (jumping for diving tackles and deflections, catching for pass defense, stamina especially if you play ST). That leaves punting, kicking, throwing, catching, and blocking as "dump stats", and even blocking has a little use. Most other positions can get by with 2-3 more dump stats.

LB is the one position that I'd actually advocate spending bonus tokens to get skill points for. You just need soooooo many SP as a LB (just for stats, even; I'm not counting SAs, here, and there's some really vital SAs too).

No way dude, a truly worthy piece of AEQ is still completely worth it on an LB, even with how much you need every SP. I thought that way too but man am I glad I have my +First Step/+%Break Block piece upgraded now after a couple seasons.

Also, why would you need double cap confidence at LB? I don't think you do at all, myself.

Originally posted by John Smashtown
1) How do other people utilize your ROLB's? Ours is primarily a pass rusher, he does a little coverage out of the backfield, usually the FB.
Blitz and cover the weak side runs. Usually it's elusives and rushing qbs going to the left. Neither has very much strength.

Originally posted by John Smashtown
2) What should a pass rushing ROLB look like build-wise. I know he needs decent speed to support the strong side runs, but what is more important for pass rushing, my current ROLB spent a lot of time on his ass this season. So how should str and agil stack up?
I like a solid mixture of speed/agility (either equal or very little disparity in either direction) at the top, followed by strength for breaking blocks and making the tackles guaranteed. Vision is obviously useful in avoiding fakes and knowing what the best route is for pass rushing and all other pathing.

Originally posted by CapnEnnui
Also, why would you need double cap confidence at LB? I don't think you do at all, myself.

Experiment with Heart of a Champion and/or Home Town Hero for your answer. Confidence is a huge boost to every defensive position. It does more than just affect your morale.

I've experimented and have not seen any benefit to confidence since the change in the way LBs attack plays.

I have.

my next LB is going to be all attributes with no SA's and slow starter/heart of champion VA's.

I am interested in this talk of confidence...I wanted to try a high confidence LB and see how that goes. I figure worst case scenario, he is a kick ass special teams player...

My ROLB played a ton of zone coverage this past season. He did well defending the WR hooks and RB patterns to the weak side as I pushed vision past the second cap.

Originally posted by John Smashtown
I am interested in this talk of confidence...I wanted to try a high confidence LB and see how that goes. I figure worst case scenario, he is a kick ass special teams player...

I've got a high confidence LB (into 5:1 territory, though I stopped spending SPs at 3rd cap), but the rest of his stats aren't high enough to draw any definite conclusions from it yet, and won't be for another couple seasons. The only thing I can tell for sure is that 80 confidence is enough to never, ever have to worry about morale. He ends every single game, even when we lose by huge amounts, at 100 morale.