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Overview

Gladiator is a neutral element DPS class that excels on dealing fast and strong attacks.

This class is a physical damage type that utilizes STR stat to increase its damage.

With its quick and smooth movement, Gladiators provide a fun but thrilling experience.

Pros

• Combat Abilities
  • Gladiators can deal a decent amount of damage while also raising its survivability with its fast and smooth movements. This class also has defensive skills that will also highlight the unique gameplay of this class.
  • Utilizing skills like Parry and Side dodge, Gladiators can easily dodge attacks or even skip some of the in-game mechanics to ensure survivability.
  • One of Glad’s best damage dealing potential lies in its skill called Finish Attack which also happens to deal a huge amount of damage depending on the target's remaining HP percentage.
    

Cons

• Durability
  • This class is high risk, high reward. While dealing damage potential is great, the downside of playing this class is its low defenses. This class heavily relies on using its defensive skills like Parry to be able to withstand or dodge attacks.
• Not suitable to butter fingers / Trigger happy players.
  • Are you the type of player who keeps mashing random buttons? Well my friend, you will have a lot of hard time playing this class because of its sensitivity to skill inputs. You will unintentionally break the skill rotation with random side dodges and evasion slash.
• Consistent Skill Rotations.
  • This class also demands a consistent skill rotation. Like I said above, this could be easily broken by random inputs so it will take a lot of dinner dates with the golem in BTG to be able to perfectly execute Glad’s full potential.

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Skill Breakdown

Skill Build - PVE

Offensive Skills

• Heavy Slash
  • Warrior skill that perfectly aligns with CM3 Class mastery.
• Triple Slash
  • Does three consecutive slashes ( five after learning EX skill) that deals a decent amount of damage.
  • Could use another variant by tapping RMB which makes it more grounded and used to maintain position.
• Front Shove
  • Deals decent amount of damage and provides split second iframe before the stabbing animation .
  • The Awakened version could provide more stable and decent damage by holding the backwards button while casting this skill.
  • Also reduces the target's critical resistance by 20%.
• Hacking Stance
  • One of the best skills available on Gladiator’s arsenal. By holding LMB, it provides consistent slashes with decent damage. However, its capabilities lie on RMB which triggers a jade variant of the skill.
• Line Drive
  • Skill that provides multiple heavy hits. This is also a jade variant which shortens the dash for better positioning.
  • Partnered up with CM2, it will provide an instant slash and shorten the animation.
• Eclipse
  • Deals mediocre damage under iframe. Although it can’t deal a huge amount of damage, you can still use this to dodge incoming attacks.
• Provoking Slam
  • Deals decent amount of damage but its capabilities lies on the debuff it provides - reduces enemy’s def and mdef by 10% for 60 seconds.
• Infinity Edge
  • Gladiator’s ultimate skill. Also in jade variant form, makes it deal more damage and shortens the skill animation suitable for flexible skill rotation.
  • With also its awakened passive, IF’s cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds and 2 second reduction when Main Skills hit the opponent. Making this skill perfect for fast usage and actively making this skill a part of your rotation.
• Evasion Slash
  • I consider this skill as one of the best even though it doesn’t deal much damage. Due to its invulnerability when casted, It will be useful to utilize at the right moment.
  • When the skill hits, it will also reset the cooldown of Triple Slash and Front Shove.
  • Can be used by tapping the space bar during any attack.
• Finish Attack
  • Gladiator’s bread and butter skill. Normal variant provides damage that depends on the enemy's current HP. The damage bonus starts at 60% below and it provides bonus damage of 22% per 1% HP lost.
  • CM3 combo makes it an instant skill but IT DOESN'T provide the extra bonus damage.
• Hyper Drive
  • Deals six consecutive dash attacks that deals heavy damage to the opponent. You can use this for fast reposition OR you can use it with RMB to deal damage while maintaining position.
• Phantom Slash
  • Deals multiple damage while under iframe. Also, charges Hero Skill on normal instances.

Defensive Skills

• Courage

  • Warrior’s basic buff that provides 8% additional attack and stat increase.

• Relieve

  • Warrior’s self cure skill. Removes a maximum of five debuffs per cast.

• Brave

  • Provides additional 15% damage increase for 600 seconds.
  • Creates 10 Physical Rising (bubble) when the skill hits the enemy.

• Parry

  • Gladiators main defensive skill. Can block most attacks. With the right timing, it will perform a counter slash under iframe.

• Side Dodge

  • Performs a multi directional dash mainly to avoid attacks. Under Iframe and can be triggered by pressing RMB + directional button during any attack.

• Harmony [Courage]

  • Invincible while casting and provides 10% attack speed for 40 seconds.

Class Mastery

• Class Mastery I
  Skill Type: Passive

  • Permanent Effect STR increased by 50%
  • Gain 1 Physical Rising everytime you land any Physical Attack.
  • Physical Rising limit: 20 lasts for 60 seconds.

• Class Mastery II
  Skill Type: Passive

  • Use of Dash Kick and Dash Combo changes Line Drive EX into an Instant skill momentarily, enabling immediate use.
  • In addition, a successful Dash Combo restores the cooldown of Line Drive Instant 23 sec.
  • Line Drive EX and Line Drive Instant do not share the same cooldown.

• Class Mastery III
  Skill Type: Passive Enhance

  • Parry is enhanced.
  • Tap [Normal Attack Button] to follow up to counter attack after casting the skill.
  • Heavy Slash is enhanced. Damage and area of attack have been increased.
  • Upon casting Heavy Attack, Finish Attack EX became an instant skill.
  • Instant Finish Attack EX will have higher damage than normal variant, but the Additional Damage effect will not take effect.

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Skill Crest

There are two routes to choose from when it comes to skill crests.

• First one is the old school pure damage type
• Second are cooldown type crests.

Now if you ask me what's best between the two, well it's purely situational and depends on your play style. First, let's tackle the core skills to choose from.

• Hacking Stance
  • This particular skill only has a cooldown crest. Considering its default long cooldown, it’s one of the best skill crests to choose from.
• Line Drive
  • Damage and Cooldown crests available.
• Infinity Edge
  • Damage and Cooldown crests available.
• Finish Attack
  • Damage and Cooldown crests available.

If your play style is a mid-paced type of gameplay, it's better to use pure damage crests.

Considering your main focus is to get a better position before doing your own rotation giving you enough ample time to cast other skills.

If your play style is a fast-paced type of gameplay, it's better to use cooldown crests.

You’d probably think why, but it's mainly because consistency is a key factor in maintaining skill rotation. Last thing you’d want is for your momentum to get easily broken just because of 1-2 second waiting time when all of the skills are on cooldown.

And for skill up crests, you should always choose Finish Attack. That’s non-negotiable.

It may seem no big deal at first, but the 4% damage bonus will have a huge impact on your total damage output.

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Skill Rotation

Just to give you a heads up, Gladiator is too demanding on consistent skill rotation. It could be hard for some people but I trust your capabilities and always remember that: perfect makes it practice…. Wait, it’s the other way around.

Pardon the lame joke, lemme just give you an example of basic rotation:

To make it a little easier, I’ll provide examples of basic skill rotation that will be divided into a few sections.

Therefore you will be able to put it together in pieces. In that way, you will have the freedom to experiment on your own.

Combo A

Skills used:
Front Shove, Triple Slash and Evasion Slash.

Rotation:
Front Shove (LMB) + Triple Slash (RMB) + Evasion Slash + Front Shove (RMB) + Triple Slash (RMB)

Combo B

Skills Used:
Heavy Slash, Hacking Stance and Finish Attack.

Rotation:
Heavy Slash + Hacking Stance (RMB) + Finish Attack Instant.

Combo A + B

Let's try combining them.

Now lets try a different approach using other core skills.

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Combo C

Skills Used:
Provoking Slam, Brave and Hyperdrive.

Combo D

Skills Used:
Line Drive, Infinity Edge and Phantom Slash

Rotation:
Line Drive (trigger instant) + Infinity Edge + [Turn/Aim on opponent’s direction] + Phantom Slash.

Combo C + D

Now let's try to combine both rotations.

Now that I’ve given you some basic examples, I can assure you that there’s still a lot of possible combinations available when playing as Gladiator.

With its flexibility and high APM abilities, I can confidently say that playing this class will provide a lot of challenges for new and old players.

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Things to Know and Consider

• Gladiators can deal a lot of damage in raids and nests. However, normal content such as Lucky Zones only provide mediocre dps results.
• Since this class is input sensitive, you might find it hard to use this at first. The only thing that can help you is to practice a bunch of times in BTG and STG. And I suggest not randomly pressing buttons as it will break your rotation.
  • Be mindful of using RMB, LMB and Space bar during attacks.
    • Randomly or accidentally pressing RMB during any attacks will trigger Side Dodge. This could put you in an unwanted position so be careful.
    • Pressing LMB during main skills will trigger Sword Charge , Dash Combo’s Awakened Variant. This will break your rotation most of the time if you’re not careful. This cannot be cancelled by main skills. Only Evasion Slash and Side Dodge can cancel this skill.
    • Accidentally pressing the space bar will result in casting Evasion Slash breaking your momentum. Or you can just act like it's part of your rotation lol.
• Many people steer away from this class because of its high risk, high reward set up. I encourage you to at least give this a try consistently for a few weeks and I assure you that you can pull off some awesome moves.
• Dummies are not fighting back. BTG is not gonna swing at you. Your rotations can still get broken when staggered. You can practice at Sunset Training Ground to test your abilities, or if you’re insane enough, you can have intimate moments with Vaseraga LB19. Pick your poison.
• Some attacks are NOT Parry-able. Front Stab of Spartan wanna be from RuDN Stage 2, Totodile's Hydro Pump from TN Stage 1 Phase 2, and last but not least, Gaya's Solar Beam alongside with Nadine's RKO Stomp from TN Stage 2 are just a few of examples of attacks that you can't Parry.
• You can also take Barnac’s Breaking Point Crest for an additional 5% damage increase for about 40 seconds.
• Since Gladiators are initially a neutral element type of class, this makes converting elements also possible through using Elemental Jades. You should totally use this to your advantage especially if your team comp relies on a single element.

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Afterword

You’re still here? Maaaaaaaaaaaan thanks for reading my guide. This is the 2nd time I made a guide and I hope you guys learned something. I really tried to keep it short and simple so that new players will easily understand how this class works.

I’m looking forward to playing with you guys in the future! There’s a lot of promising content that will come sooner or later.

I could spend some time with you playing any content so feel free to reach out In-game or via Discord.
Thank you for taking the time reading this guide and may the Gods be with you~

-Dandadan/Shinkō-Psalm