Warrior General Games

I saw TJ Spikes post in the other thread that the minimum agility is 80 for creative running.

What are the minimum requirements for Stiff Arm to trigger regularly?

I would like you to clarify the question.

Is a "trigger" (A) when the SA fires and it gives a flat boost to your break tackle vs make tackle battle roll?

Or is a "trigger" (B) when the SA fires and you also happen to win the break tackle vs make tackle battle roll, so it shows up on the PBP?


I want to note that people generally care about (b) more than (a), but seem to think that (a) = (b) which it absolutely does not. Nothing in this game is auto-win, everything is a 2-sided battle roll.

I meant option B, but feel free to answer both if you have insight.

Last season my HB broke 66 tackles, 32 registered as Spin, but Stiff Arm only showed up on the PBP once. Half (33) of all broken tackles didn't credit an SA.

I have 2 young HBs that I'm developing and I want to avoid the mistakes I made on the last one.

Keep in mind (A) or (B) only happen when Spin doesn't fire. It's the stronger break tackle skill, so it gets rolled first and if it activates, Stiff Arm isn't checked at all. Only Hurdle would then have a chance to stack with the Spin. (and then only on a dive attempt, see below)

85 is my target number for agility on a power rusher that's going to invest in Stiff Arm to any significant degree. Any less and I feel the points are better spent elsewhere. eluHBs are going to destroy that number easily, but have less strength so not sure how helpful that is, since it may require more agility to compensate for not having 100+ Strength, like a pHB or power rush rQB.

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Originally posted by Q&A thread, 9/19/2011

Couple things to note about Hurdle.

---Hurdle is the only SA that can trigger along with all of the other broken tackle SAs, and is also overwritten. If both Power Through and Hurdle fire at the same time, it only says Power Through even though you get both bonuses.
---A hurdle can take place only on a very specific event (a diving tackle).
---Hurdle is much more effective with higher jumping and higher points in the SA.

I've never taken enough jumping to think about Hurdle on an eluHB ... the opportunity cost would likely mean taking little to no catching, and not being a dual-threat for DCs to worry about. Would have to be a serious boost to their tackle breaking for that to feel good IMHO. Curious if anyone has tried that experiment though.

Gamble is correct on things like power thru and spin getting a chance before stiff arm.

Unfortunately while power thru needs (x) strength to fire, and spin needs (x) agility to fire, the wording of stiff arm implies it actually fires based on the lower strength+agility of defenders, which seems problematic for top leagues with high strength/agility dots. This is perhaps why we don't see it fire much.


At the end of the day (A) is just going to be the firing based on a roll, which may be based on defender attributes. Then the strength of (A) is based on how many pts you have in stiff arm. This gives a flat break tackle value "boost" when any break tackle SA fires.

(B) Then you Calc your break tackle score which is likely Str=>Car>Agi>>other attributes plus the SA bonus, all times. The bt% equip+VA you have + a RNG roll value. This is compared to the defenders make tackle roll and you either win (see in pbp) or lose (get tackled).


Fwiw if I was making a break tackle RB at this point, I don't think I'd invest in anything besides power thru, spin, and hurdle. Maybe maybe lower shoulder since it's favored, but only if I can get it to 11. I wouldn't touch stiffarm since I've never seen it activate enough on any high level dot.