Warrior General Games

My goal is to build a good FB that can block, run the ball, or catch an occasional screen pass. I am starting the build based on the blocking FB on the wiki page, with a few deviations to get more points in agility, vision, speed, and carrying than that build has. I will admit that I am extremely new and can use all the advice I can get, especially the softcap order to do something like this.

Here he is at level 1, including equipment (+1 to str, spd, agi, and carry), no points in SA's:

Attributes
Physical Attributes
Strength: 29
Speed: 11
Agility: 14
Jumping: 8
Stamina: 10
Vision: 10
Confidence: 10

Football Skills
Blocking: 19
Catching: 10
Tackling: 10
Throwing: 8
Carrying: 14
Kicking: 8
Punting: 8

Extra info: his first game a couple of days ago he had a 22.5 yd carry for a TD right through 5 LB's and DB's.

Research slow building and the capping method to building. Being good at Level 1 means nothing. Being good at Level 56 means EVERYTHING...and you'll be good for a lot longer.

Right after I posted this I wandered into Warlock's FB guide and I think I'm going to basically follow his Balanced FB layout, something like:

3cap str, 2cap block, 3cap agility, 3cap carrying, 2cap vision, 3cap speed, get catching into the 30's, confidence/stamina forever

or something like that.

Well, you can basically see how my FB performs in SAPL. He wasn't built very well to begin his career either, almost no cap building (at least efficient cap building, whatever I did gain, was from dumb luck) and he has a good amount of wasted SPs in special abilities (for example, I took pancake to 4). I would guess that he's the equivalent to a well built level 45, so he has 15 levels worth of waste. His only real saving grace are his number of VA pts and some good AEQ rolls.

I will be making V2.0 come next season when I retire my DE. V1.0 will play though one more season before he hangs it up.

I'll be looking forward to seeing just how awesome that FB will be, Warlock.

I have a question: Should you not spend the initial 15 Skill points that you're given until you can softcap a stat, thus keeping the skill lower for better training, or spend them right away when it tells you to assign them? I spent all of them on my FB and my LB and I was wondering if I hurt my builds significantly by doing that.

You didn't hurt it significantly. Remember, it takes over a year to build a really strong player, so spending a few points early isn't a big deal. You lost a little bit by spending them, but no biggie. Remember, back in Season 1, EVERYONE spent their points right away because training was different back then and nobody had done the math to see the gains.

Just formulate a plan for the order you want to cap things or what you want to take higher first, then cap. I took Strength and Blocking to the second cap straight away. The level up bonuses are too big not to. Next I capped Agility and then Speed. I probably should have rode Agility to the second cap, but I didn't. Again, no big deal. I can always come back to it. I just finished Stamina (I just took it to 40 and figure the level ups will take it over 48...no reason to have 56 stamina anyway) . So now I'm looking to cap Carrying, then Vision, and finally confidence. When I get to that point, Catching will probably be right at 25 or so. I can train it up more. That's my plan...today.

At that point, when I have pretty much capped every attribute that needs capping, I'll re-evaluate my build, the sim (because it's constantly evolving) , and the team I'm on. My guess today is that I won't touch Strength, Blocking, or Stamina again. I'll add EQ to Strength, but that's it (should be in the low 90s by level 40) . Will probably take Agility and Speed to 68. Will probably end up capping Catching and taking Carrying to 60. Other than that, who knows.

The important thing is to have a picture in your head of what you want him to look like and then figure out the best, most efficient way to get there. And don't blow points in SAs. Don't get antsy and spend points before you're ready or because some owner says to. There's plenty of bad info out there and some will be provided to you. Just stick with your plan. If you're not sure how you want to end up, do what I'm doing: try to get everything capped and then look around and see where you want to go from there. After being in it for 6 months, you'll have a pretty good idea where you want to go and what works. Then you can make an informed decision, not just go off what some guy or owner told you.

I typically use a cross between cap and slow building. The only real difference between the two methods is when you start putting SP into an attribute. With cap building you want to reach caps as soon as possible to get the most out of level up increases. With slow building you want to be as efficient as possible, thus you wait til a certain point before adding SP. Cap building is better on positions that get large level up increases (like 0.5 or higher), slow building is better on positions that get smaller level up increases. Super slow building is like slow building, except you attempt to level as slowly as possible to train attributes to as high as possible before spending SP.

It's roughly the same in most circumstances... say for example you get to each cap two levels sooner by cap building, as opposed to slow building. That's roughly 0.58 to that attribute more than waiting to cap it. Depending on how high of a cap you hit, that could be worth anywhere between 1 and 3 SP gained, per attribute capped early. Now, if you slow build and 25 is your target number, that could be anywhere between a couple and a dozen or so SP saved.

What I typically do is cap build the first attribute and then slow build until the next attribute hits 25 or higher via training (depending on timing, sometimes an attribute hits 30 before I'm done working on the previous one). That way it takes less SP to reach the higher caps (or I hit caps in other attributes a bit sooner) and I save SP by not raising attributes under 25+. I lose a little compared to a full slow builder, but I don't suck as long either.

That's how I do it anyways, it's not the most efficient method, but I'd rather be a little worse than give up more time in my player's career. We also have to be realistic too, how much better is a player with 1-3 more in an attribute or two... the truth is not all that much and that's basically what I'm giving up by not fully slow building. Super slow building is a different animal though, that can be a noticeable difference at the highest levels.