Dragon Nest (Gladiator Build)

Introduction

Hello all, recently i was asked to write a bit about Gladiators despite me being the most terribad warrior around. So, what are Gladiators you ask? Well... they are fun as heck slice and dice heroes with gorgeous superfluous animations who are good at dealing consistent damage. Hopefully this guide will be of some use to you fledgling warriors though!

Skills

So why have i picked what i picked?

As a physical swordmaster you may find that the cooldown for the bulk of your abilities are very slow. More over, the damage on many of your abilities are lower in comparison to other class's abilities. This is why many swordmasters tend to go hybrid as having both trees provides alot of versatility. In terms of skill builds, there are many other ways to build a Gladiator so feel free to experiment a little as you get several skill reset scrolls as you progress throughout the game. Here's a run though of the bulk of my abilities.

Warrior Skills

So, warrior skills. What do you get? Well the obvious ones are Dash, Tumble and Aerial Evasion. Beyond that its useful to get the extra HP boost and MP regeneration because dash will consume alot of mp.

Relief is worth maxxing if you PvP alot as the reduced CD helps alot. In terms of PvE maxxing it isn't that important.

Rising Slash

This level 6 for the extra jump! This follows nicely into Aerial Combo, but don't get into the habit of always using the Aerial Combo in PvP unless your opponent has already used their aerial evasion otherwise they can escape from your combos.

Moonlight Splitter

Moonlight Splitter is a very useful skill for PvE and PvP. This is mainly because Moonlight Splitter has a lower cooldown than all of the physical skills (9 secs!) and as a result is a useful opener and bridger between your moves. It also gives you something to do when outside of melee range which will happen often in group pvp, especially in the opening stages of protection rounds.

Cyclone Slash

A gladiator lacks any much crowd control with physical skills alone so i got cyclone slash to assist my character in PvE. Its also a useful catcher in PvP, albeit difficult to land.

Triple Slash

Triple Slash is an okay skill. Most of its usefulness comes from the fact that it's instant (like all physical skills) and that you can stop mid-way and dodge/tumble and do whatever generally. I've levelled it to 11 so that i can use Triple Slash EX. This provides you with another method of 'lifting' your opponent like in impact punch in order to continue your combos. There are various ways to use triple slash ex as well as you can interchange between the left and right click button throughout all 3 slashes making it quite versatile for pvp but largely useless for pve as it doesn't give extra damage.

Physical Skills

The other skills such as Aerial combo and Deep Straight have been left fairly low. The reason for this is that the damage from these abilities is poor unless you pour all of your skill points into the physical tree and worse still, their cd is fairly long. Deep Straight is still useful because it has a brief i-frame (the pull back animation), and like triple slash, can be cancelled throughout its casting. Hacking Stance is another skill you could afford to spend less skill points on as well. Its damage and growth per level is decent but its cooldown is still too long.

Similarly, Dash Combo, Eclipse and Counter Exile are all useful skills, but their damage capability is low, so its better to spend your extra skill points elsewhere. Eclipse is a great skill for when you're surrounded, but when your in a party with people casting AOE abilities, it might be better to save it rather than using it to spread out a group of bunched up enemies. Its main use however comes from its debuffer.

Alternatively you may consider levelling Eclipse to lvl 4 or even maxxing it. This will allow you to reduce your opponents super armor ATTACKS by 50% (Their chance to flinch you basically). For a swordmaster this is pretty important because we lack skills like the iron skin or panic howl of a mercenary, which means our moves are easily interrupted. This is baaad in pvp and bad in pve because our damage output relies on our ability to combo as we lack high burst damage. So overall it can also be a useful debuffing ability in parties, even though it doesn't quite match the panic howl of a merc.

Line Driver

Line Driver rewards good positioning and is a great damage dealer on large and trapped targets. It does slightly less damage on smaller single targets as it has a tendency to shoot you right through them. Recent patches have altered the max number of hits from 6 to 4 i believe, so it doesn't quite have the hitting power it once did.

Utility Skills

Skills such as Highlander and Hemorrahage are important skills to have. Highlander is also free... so definitely grab it. It's a good skill for keeping your teammates alive! So if you keep an eye out for drastically falling health bars when in a party, you might just save someone! Hemorrahage benefits the whole team, enhancing everyone's damage GREATLY, infact, it is the greatest debuffer in game as it works multiplicative instead of additive like a priest's or merc's damage buff. So whatever you do, max it if you want to be useful in parties!

The Parry Tree is a necessary skill if you intend to go into Sea Dragon Nest parties and survive more easily. It can also be useful in dodging some of those boss attacks in regular dungeons and nests, particularly if you solo abyss dungeons. In PvP its duration is the same as the mercs iron skin if you add more SP into it, meaning you can wait out a merc rush.

Evasion Slash

It does exactly what its name suggests as it provides you with another i-frame which is crucial in pvp. I've left it at 1 as i feel the damage growth isn't that great as in the time of its cooldown i can almost do 2 heavy slashes which would provide more damage. Evasion slash can be used to cancel almost any skill in the SM tree meaning it is a useful skill to use at the end of slow skills like heavy slash however. Otherwise i simply love its animation as it provides great fluidity in your animation combos ^^.

Finishing Attack

Another nifty skill, and straight forwards to use. Use it on a boss under 40% hp to get the most out of this ability. Finishing attack is decent in PvP also as it has high super armor breaking capabilities.

Build

This build gives me:

742 FD

18297 Crit

7325 dmg

Alternatively i can use my dire necklace and earrings and get:

620 FD

18889 Crit

8025 dmg

As a Gladiator you're going to get up close and personal with a lot of bosses. Its vital then you can deal damage and have the survivability to withstand the damage you fail to dodge. My build is still far from optimal but i've chosen to take the critical damage route. Why did i take the critical route? Mainly because Final Damage as a 3rd stat is incredibly hard to find on crests, making it harder to stack effectively and also because Totam Armour doesn't provide any dark %. You should also consider getting Magical Defence crests as Swordmasters typically lack in MDEF. (A word of note for SEA and NA players, unless you are in  CN, KR or JP, you can't get the old manticore weapons which turned all of our attacks into dark, so ignore dark builds)

As mentioned previously, there are many ways to build a Gladiator though, such as stacking dark % or Final Damage. You can see here all of the Swordmaster skills affected by dark damage... which is basically all of the physical ones! For myself, the gears i've gotten are an attempt to balance good damage, consistent criticals and survivability.

There are many paths you can take depending on whether or not you intend to focus on PvP or PvE, here are some examples:

Equipment (PVE)

A standard damage build might consist of:

Great Sword: (Destructive)

Gauntlet: (Destructive)

Head: (Dire)

Top: (Wind)

Bottom: (Dire)

Glove: (Life)

Shoe: (Life)

Equipment (PVE)

Another possible combo maybe:

Great Sword: (Windswept)

Gauntlet: (Destructive)

Head: (Dire)

Top: (Wind)

Bottom: (Dire)

Glove: (Life)

Shoe: (Life)

In my opinion life/dire/windswept are the standard/safe suffix combinations to go by for armors. Most will interchange between a combination of wind, dire and life for pve armors depending on whether they need more crit/dmg/survivability. Its important to build a solid basis for your character first and dmg/crit is often the most straight forward method for us warriors to take, hence the destructive suffix for more base damage or windswept for increased crit chance. However at the moment i am using:

Equipment (PVE)

Great Sword: (Light)

Gauntlet: (Fatal)

Head: (Wind)

Top: (Dire)

Bottom: (Wind)

Glove: (Life)

Shoe: (Wind)

With my current stats i can deal good damage with a 90% (max) crit rate so i decided to experiment with other suffix for my weapons. The light suffix is only activated once every 30 secs (it can proc on AOE damage). This makes it relatively easy to time my biggest attacks to increase the chance of it activating on my higher damaging skills, plus i can be buffed by priests and paladins which is a fun added bonus. Fatal i feel is a decent suffix for SM despite the low proc chance because many SM skills are multi-hit. You can be time accelerated also and this will reduce the cd on the suffix abilities for more added fun.

Images

HEAD


BODY


LEGS


GLOVES


BOOTS


SWORD


GAUNTLET


ACCESSORIES

PvP builds, in terms of ladder at least, tend to be different.

Equipment (PVP)

A PvP build may consist of:

Great Sword: (Paralyze)

Gauntlet: (Knight)

Head: (Mana)

Top: (Life)

Bottom: (Life)

Glove: (Life)

Shoe: (Life)

Running out of mana is a huge problem for warriors, hence the mana helm. Life is self-explanatory and the knight and paralyze suffix enable you to combo and catch your opponents more easily.

Accessories

Accessories depend on what type of damage you want to build.

For Critical: Fatal Rings and Wind Necklace and Earrings

For Damage: Destructive Rings and Dire/Wind Necklace and Earrings

For Dark Damage: Tough Necklace and Earrings, maybe brilliant rings or rings with dark % potentials.

For Final Damage: Using Set items such as Discipline Apocalypse Rings are the best way to stack final damage.

Crests

Wind Crest: For better agility/critical

Barrage Crest: For higher MDEF (this is where warriors are typically weak in)

Destructive Crest: For higher physical damage

Fatal Crest: For higher criticals

Life Crest: For additional health

Healthy Crest: For better defence

Dire Crest: For increased strength & damage

Skill Crests (PVE)

Infinity Edge: +20% damage

Finishing Attack: 20% CD reduction

Parry Stance: +20% Duration

Hacking Stance: +20% damage per second

or

Infinity Edge: 12% CD reduction

Finishing Attack: 20% CD reduction

Line Driver: 12% CD reduction

Crescent Cleave: +20% damage

Crests depend on your build and playstyle but if your following this build i'd reccomend any of the plates above, of course any of which you are able to interchange according to your preferences. I like the finishing attack and parry plate because you gain the most out of these in terms of duration and CD reduction, particularly when most other SM CD reduction plates only have 12% CD reduction

Skill Crests (PVP)

Dash: -50% mp consumption

Side Kick: 50% faster animation

Impact Punch: 12% cd reduction (this can be swapped out)

Triple Slash: 12% cd reduction

For PvP many people tend to focus on their ability to combo more effectively. Dash consumes alot of mana so an mp reduction gives you alot more freedom in terms of tactics. Triple slash (EX), impact punch and side kick are common skills used to juggle/combo opponents so its natural to want to reduce their cd/increase their speed.

If anything, i'd suggest reading some of the fantastic guides here on Final Damage, and Weapon and Armour Prefixes to get a good idea on the direction you may want to go with your build. Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to ask!