Odium Khan wrote:mattgslater wrote:#1: Wrestle Witch.
#2: Kick Lino or Blitzer (whoever plays linebacker), or Assassin if you don't plan on giving him Side Step (assuming the Witch is your other safety). Best skill in the game and would be #1 if not for the Witch.
#3: Side Step Lino. Nose-man on the defensive line, helps keep the net intact by always occupying the center square. As good as Dodge for keeping blocks off of him, given that he's always in the thick of it.
After that: Less important. Above suggestions all good.
What's a linebacker and what's a safety. Depending on that, I might agree about the first two. The third I disagree about for the reason you give yourself: "given he's always in the thick of it", well a lineman w/o block or dodge with sidestep is almost as much a target as an assassin with kick. Seems to me he will be in the thick of it for the first few turns of a game only. Better kitting out asap with blodgers.
A linebacker stands behind the line, soaks up inside blitzes and is ready to rush the backfield, drop into coverage, or hit back if not blitzed. A safety stands behind the linebackers, somewhere he's not likely to get hit, and either drops into coverage or rushes the backfield. On most DE teams, backers are Blitzers or Linos and Safeties are AV7 positionals.
Side Step on the LOS is better than Block, Wrestle or Dodge for several reasons. It's so good that a single SS'er can facilitate a more aggressive defense while reducing the number of casualties suffered by more than 10%.
1) Works vs. Dwarfs and CDs. So do Block and Wrestle, but not Dodge.
2) Block and Wrestle are only good on the LOS in that they stop opponents from using a Blitzer to get extra KD power. If you spend a skill to put Block or Wrestle on the line, he'll just get hit by a rookie or big guy or something.
3) Dodge and Block have no power to prevent chain-blocks. Wrestle does have some such ability, but it's relevant only one time in twelve (compared to Side Step, which matters about 1 time out of 4 on 2d blocks with potential chain-block effects).
4) Dodge, Block and Wrestle have no effect on chain-pushes. Just 1x Side Step kills just about any OTS attempt on teams you'll encounter in this format, and it prevents teams from engineering extra blocks on your backfield.
5) Side Step is the single best skill for protecting a dedicated receiver or for standing a TZ on the ball. The only way to knock him off is to knock him down, and even then he can block the carrier's path or scatter the ball if that's preferable.
6) Side Step ensures that you can virtually always dodge into the clear.
7) Side Step is great for marking Frenzy/ST3.
Side Step makes a player hard to foul.
And for the record, nobody blitzes Side Steppers for situational value. Wherever your SS guy might be right now, there's always someplace better they could be, and a push just about never gets them out of the way. Even a Blodger has an 8/9 chance to get shoved out of the action, though his chance of falling is only 11/36. The SS guy has a 3/4 chance to fall, but almost all of the falls and absolutely all of the non-falls will leave you with at least one blocked square.
The odds of taking him off the pitch with a 2d block with Block are 3/4 * 5/18 * 5/12 = 75/864 ~ 8.7%. Without Block, it's 125/1944 ~ 6.4%. Don't bank on losing him.