Hi all, this is ButterZack from Westwood and I am a Gladiator. I really love this job and would like to share with everyone my insights about the job. There are of course other guides around like AikawaKazu's, Trishula's and AceofSpade's but I would like to share my insight and also serve as an inspiration after I manage to achieve enough. Do note my build revolves around my play style of maximizing PVE damage but retaining important skills I need for PVP.
Why Gladiator? I am quite a PVP lover and Gladiator has such superb combo abilities and one of the most beautiful ones, with T4, Gladiator became PVE viable due to the amount of buff he received and of course Finish Attack. Dealing million damage burst is just really satisfying.
Skill Build
I want to say that I am slightly more PVE orientated but also made to be able to PVP at the same time. Okay so here goes my skill build.
Why these skills?
Warrior
Evasions, Physical Mastery, Dash, Relieve, Highlander - MAXED
Self explanatory
Drop kick, Dash Kick and Sweeping kick - 1
For PVP purpose
Rising Slash - 6
For PVP combo chaining
Circle Break - 1
A good PVE AOE skill. I would have skilled it higher if not for lack of SP and the need for Rising Slash in PVP.
Sword Master
Triple Slash - 16, Front Shove - 11, Hacking Stance - 11, Rage - 6
To maximize damage output. Most skills are left at 16, 11 or 6.
Eclipse - 1
More of a utility skill now for the suction due to it's low damage growth and longer CD compared to other skills in PVE. In PVP it still does superior damage. You can choose to max it if you PVP more often.
Dash Slash, Dash Combo, Aerial Combo, Counter Exile - 1
For utility. Some may ask if it is worth to max Dash Slash/Combo for more DPS in a PVE build but I personally hate to tumble unnecessarily. So yup, 1 is enough.
Brave, Provoking Slam - MAXED
Your 2 debuffs, Brave allows you to cast skills without enemies breaking your super armor which is highly useful because interrupted skills = less DPS. It also gives you a sweet damage increase for incredible burst. Provoking Slam, one of the best debuffs around, max it, no questions.
Parry Stance - 3
Your "keep safe" skill, use it when Serpentra drops purple rain, use it when you know there is something you cannot avoid. The extra duration provides a lot more safety in my opinion and it allows you to outlast certain other classes skills in ladder PVP (e.g. Merc's Iron Skin). I did not have enough SP and therefore left it at 3.
Moonlight Splitter - 1
Purely for PVP purpose, your ticklish harass skill, range stopper and your combo links. In PVE, there may be time you cannot go near the boss to deal damage, better tickle them than do nothing. However, I almost never use it in PVE.
Cyclone Slash - 0
After having Front Shove EX and Hacking Stance EX, gladiators really do have enough lifts to continue combos without the need of Cyclone Slash. Taking it would mean sacrificing some other skills which I prefer to take.
Great Wave, Infinity Edge - MAXED
Infinity Edge damage in PVE is very high, in fact one of the highest among all the ultimates if you manage to full hit everything, hard to use but still worth it. In PVP though, it is close to useless in group PVP and hard to land in 1v1. For that, I took Great Wave, typically, Gladiator's magic attack is about 1/2 of his physical attack, meaning Great Wave damage will be 1/2 of your Infinity Edge. But considering the utility, the crowd control ability and Infinity Edge impractical usage in many situations, Great Wave is well worth it both in PVP and PVE.
Why no Counter Slash/Wave?
In my opinion, I use parry stance in PVE only when it is not viable to attack (e.g Serpentra's purple rain), in these situations, the counters do nothing and even if you are faced with a situation that you can counter, the damage merely tickles. In PVP, due to my LV 1 Parry of 3%, I would have thanked god if I ever passively parried anything. In non-softban PVP, parry stance last 15s at level 3 and I normally only cast it in response to other skills like Iron Skin or Block which makes the 2 counters kind of useless.
Gladiator
Max all skills
All your signature OP skills are here. Max them.
Skill damage
Basing all active DPS skills on Infinity Edge cooldown of 125s. This is a DPS chart of each skill (at maxed level) over a 125s time frame.
You can use this as a guide as to which skill is best for PVE DPS so as to max which skills. But of course take note of feasibility and cast time.
Finish Attack
Here I wish to give a special mention to Finish Attack, one of the most powerful skill in the whole game across 24 classes at the moment. At level 4, Finish Attack deals 1163%+24159 physical damage with additional 5% damage for every 1% HP loss from enemy after 60% of their Max HP. This is what it means and why it is powerful.
As you can see, every time you cast FA, you are literally casting someone else's ultimate and it comes close to some of the most powerful ultimates around with a casting time of only around 1s. That is how powerful FA is.
Item build
Yup. That's it.
Item Choices
Currently, The best mix of epic item set will be full Great Ancestor Set. However, it is very rare and costly, therefore, Dangerous Desire set will be more realistic. You can mix 4 Dangerous Desire with 3 Immortal or 3 Great Ancestor depending on budget to achieve more FD if you need. Weapons wise, try to get at least level 60 epic weapons as they give more stats. Alternatively, you can get GDN L grade weapons if you are lucky. You can enhance L grade to +13 with jelly now even though it is very costly
Suffix
Wind as the stat to choose gives you both critical and physical damage. Having critical on your actual equipments free up your heraldries to choose either 3rd stat Attack Power or FD (both more beneficial than 3rd stat critical in my opinion). Will for gloves gives you 3s Iron Skin when triggered which is especially good to prevent skills from getting interrupted. In my case, I have chosen Bear due to my plan on getting more critical from other sources in the future.
Wind for Sword and Iron Wall for Gauntlet gives you more debuffs to help the team and yourself (Trishula mentioned this in his Gladiator guide as well). I have chosen Destruction for main weapon as my raid party has a double wind user. In this case, I do not want to over write his better debuff. You can choose Light as well if you read AceofSpade guide but I prefer more consistent stat over Light proc which may happen on smaller hits.
Accessories
There are currently 4 different viable accessories set as level 60 accessories are not fully released yet:
Apocalypse accessories (2 by 2 piece set)
Provides the most FD (244) but the least stat
War of Immortal accessories (4 piece set)
Provides good amount of FD (175) and good stat and critical at the same time
Skill accessories
Provides no FD but superior stats compared to the 2 other sets. Pick Wind /Bear /Critical/ Attack Power as you deem fit depending on where you lack. The best choices for Skill Accessories are:
Necklace - Evasion Slash/ Rage if you happen to level Rage to 10
Earring - Triple Slash/ Hacking Stance
Ring 1 - Provoking Slam
Ring 2 - Finish Attack
Lyrica Accessories
Huge stat gain with no other benefits but the stat gain can make up for a lot of other losses.
Heraldry
Destruction - More damage
Fatal - More critical
Bear - More damage
Wind - More damage and critical
Ultimate - Boost your FD, switch one of the plate mentioned below if you are not playing a FD build
Life Vitality - Boost your HP and physical defence
Healthy - Boost your HP
Tent - Recommended as warriors typically have piss poor magic defence.
If using the 3 slot extension.. Suggestions are:
Iron Wall - PVE n PVP for defence
Blessed - PVP crit resist
Restraint - PVP paralyze
Shock - PVP stun
Dauntless - PVP paralyze resist
Skill Plates
Side Kick 50% AS - More of a PVP plate
Triple Slash 20% Dmg - Increase damage
Hacking Stance 20% Dmg - Increase damage
Finish Attack 20% Dmg - Increase damage
If using the 3 slot extension.. Look below
Other Skill Plates you can use are:
Triple Slash 12% CD - For PVP
Counter Exile 12% CD - For PVP
Rising Slash 12% CD - For PVP
Impact Punch 12% CD - For PVP
Front Shove 20% Dmg - For PVE/PVP
Evasion Slash 20% Dmg - For PVE/PVP
Finish Attack 20% CD - For PVE/PVP
Gameplay
The video which inspired me to write this for all Gladiators out there
My latest videos:
I am working on doing up more videos as well, you can check my youtube channel for other videos:
http://www.youtube.c...ck?feature=mhee
That's all I have to share, hope all Gladiators enjoy the class as much as I do. Go prove the world Gladiators
Once again, shout out to all my lovely guild mates in Domain and Cannibals guild.
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