Warrior General Games

I always put the weakest linebacker at MLB, because he never really deals with anything except runs up the middle, where he almost always has help. What would you look for in an MLB to attempt to make one genuinely useful? Speed and agility for the occasional passrush? Tackling to make sure they take down those inside runners? Pure speed so they can get to outside runners and cover short crossing routes?

Depends on your build and AI though... my MLB is having a monster year and it looks like a couple different factors are coming together for him.

Is defensive general a particularly useful SA?

I have a linebacker who has 7 points in D general (and a shitton of points in SAs in general). I tend to think that overloading on SAs has pretty much just ruined his build, but he also has several levels on my other options at MLB, and he's reasonably strong and a good tackler.

I just can't decide what to do with him.

I like D-Gen a lot, but I wouldn't overload on it. I definitely think it's been a huge help with energy and performance for the secondary. Also, it looks like the stamina boost is big for the MLB himself; I've had many a game when he's been on the field 65+ plays and is way less gassed than other players with higher stamina (my MLB has only 34 stam).

And I just noticed your LB is level 7... I would suggest capping the 3 key attributes before focusing on any SA's.

I haven't personally noticed that D Gen does as much as everybody thinks it does, other than stamina, which I don't really worry about much as my team has a lot of depth.

I'm a believer. I started a "walking aura" thread in this forum a couple seasons ago but didn't finish it due to time constraints. But basically when I started pumping D-Gen, there seemed to be a trend of the defense performing better in the second halves of games versus the first half. My theory was that the morale and stamina boosts sustained the productivity of the players later in the game when it mattered more.

Are the results concretely measurable? Nope. Does a CB lose morale for giving up a catch to the WR? Does the FS lose morale for missing a tackle on a TD run? Everyone knows that in-game morale plays a role in a player's performance but no one knows how, when, or how much. What I do know though is that when I started gathering stats to test D-gen, I found a fairly consistent trend of performance improvement later in the game when things like low morale/stamina start playing a bigger factor.

Originally posted by wallysmith
I'm a believer. I started a "walking aura" thread in this forum a couple seasons ago but didn't finish it due to time constraints. But basically when I started pumping D-Gen, there seemed to be a trend of the defense performing better in the second halves of games versus the first half. My theory was that the morale and stamina boosts sustained the productivity of the players later in the game when it mattered more.

Are the results concretely measurable? Nope. Does a CB lose morale for giving up a catch to the WR? Does the FS lose morale for missing a tackle on a TD run? Everyone knows that in-game morale plays a role in a player's performance but no one knows how, when, or how much. What I do know though is that when I started gathering stats to test D-gen, I found a fairly consistent trend of performance improvement later in the game when things like low morale/stamina start playing a bigger factor.

Your MLB's team severely outlevels most of its competition. How does the data for similarly leveled comparison pan out. I'm not being a dick but bigger, badder players are going to fatigue their competition faster by making bigger plays more often which could account for a lot of that. I am on your side about this, but the most ridiculous part about this is how ambiguous of a contribution this makes.

I'm just not about to drop 6 skill points to up D-gen up by 1 when I get no real feedback on 'IF' it works

Not sure where you're getting "severely outlevels" from, but for the competitive teams the avg level difference is very close, and I would say the Panthers are towards the lower end of that spectrum.

The Panthers don't outlevel this team, who it handled 38-3:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3343

This team's offense has scored the 3rd most TD's in the conference and was held to 3 pts:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3347

Another team that outlevels the Panthers, that got held to 10 points (7 from special teams):
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3339

Equitable levelled roster, held to 6 points:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3342

Yes, there are cupcakes in the conference but the four teams above are all perennial playoff teams in the conference.

When I originally posted the aura thread it was from Season 3, back when the conference was just created and everyone started off exactly the same. The concept was built around the complementary abilities of Aura of Int and Defense General; the morale hits from Aura and the morale boosts from D-Gen seemed to indicate better second half performance in general. By no means did I claim anything was conclusive as the study was incomplete but the data gathered to that point seemed to support my theory. Also, as I stated in a post above, I like D-Gen but I wouldn't overload on it. Mine currently is nowhere near maxxed, nor is it at the 6:1 range either, but it is at a respectable level. The focus of the post was that if you were willing to sacrifice personal stats to invest in skills that are stated to benefit the whole of the team, then it may really be worth it.

My support for D-Gen at this point in time is now from 2.5 season's worth of team analysis. I owned the Panthers for Season 3 and 4, and gave up ownership this season because it took too much time, so I transferred it internally and took over OC duties. I know the builds, performance, strengths and weaknesses of each player on the team inside and out and my opinions come from my experience with this build in this team.

Here's a preseason post evaluating the various teams in the conference before the season started:

http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=1059899

As you can see, due to the ownership uncertainty, we did very little recruiting in the offseason and other teams on the list (including 3 that we defeated handily) retooled far more. The only true advantage we had over these teams was a higher amount of chemistry.

Rod, following up on my post above...

Boxscore of our last game:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/game.pl?game_id=165964

Team we beat:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3353

Our roster:
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3351

The team that we just shutout is the #2 team in the conference, they beat us last year in the playoffs, and CLEARLY outlevels our team on average. They are also #2 in the conference in TD's scored and points scored, behind only the Panthers.

A top performer for the game is my own MLB who tied for a game high 5 tackles, and also pitched in 3 hurries, 2 sacks and 1 FFum. On the season he's the team tackle leader with 114, and also has 38 hurries, 51 sacks, 24 TFL, has 2 picks returned for TD's, 6 FFum and 6 PD's. Our defense is #1 in the league in a number of significant categories and my MLB is the best player on it.... the same MLB that I've seen do great things with high levels of Aura of Int and solid levels of D-Gen.

I actually agree with like 95% of your LB analysis but I just wanted to put it out there that there is more than one way to build an effective LB.

http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=514293

MLB. Let me know what you guys think. Where should I put his next points?

sometimes, it's best to put your best player there since your other LBs will get blocked and if your MLB is fast enough, he can get there in time to make the tackles instead of leaving it to the CBs or SSs.

I have noticed that things like DG, FG for QBs, etc (with 25-30 CONF) comes through in the 4th quarter of games. This is just based on my observations of course but if we are down in the 4th, they seem to pick it up quite a bit.

defense general is good. it gives you other linebackers, your corners, and safeties a moral and stamina boost which pays off later in big games, as already stated.

And about the aura thread I read that and started going that way with my linebacker right now.

I am hoping by season 7, when he goes to my own team, he will have about 7 or 8 in each. I think it's a solid theory and I am willing to sacrifice stats in order to make up to 6 players around me better.

I'm half way considering trash talk and the glare for him as well.

Originally posted by wallysmith
I actually agree with like 95% of your LB analysis but I just wanted to put it out there that there is more than one way to build an effective LB.

I'll admit to being wrong about you out-leveling your opposition. That doesn't bother me to say that. Your LB is having an outstanding season and I appreciate that you have a dissenting opinion which you can articulately back up with theory and production.

I gladly welcome any suggestions you have as well. I just hope Maximus can Out-sack Walbert this season. 2 games left. . . .