Have at thee! The Ace Gladiator Build!

Thanks! could you give me some advise which is better Moonlord(int crit full equip) or Glad(str crit full equip)? cant decide here in SEA cap lvl32.. This is my playing style (i love to PVP and solo dungeons to farm gems)..

I think in the current state of gameplay gladiator is better in terms of potential if you're considering the crit build. Mainly because their potential for damage is far higher if you can get access to Sea Dragon Gear in our server. At the moment, Sea Dragon Gear only benefits physical builds. In addition, the stats you use to build crit such as agility also enhance physical damage. That said, things are subject to change in the future and i believe SEA still has a ways to go until reaching SDN stage so pick whichever you enjoy most. It is also much easier to shoot skills as a moonlord from afar when soloing nests as compared to getting up close as a gladiator, similarly this applies to PvP where hybrid moonlords have great utility.

Thanks!
Sir how about Gladiator and Destroyer whos good in PVE? and more faster to run dungeons..

In terms of speed the Destroyer wins out in terms crowd controlling abilities obviously. Skills such as typhoon wheel and maelstrom howl are great skills for obliterating mobs. This is somewhat balanced out by the gladiator's single target abilities, they excell at fighting bosses and are probably slightly faster at clearing nests because of this. Having a destroyer myself though, i feel the destroyer brings more to a team in terms of usefulness due to his wide variety of buffs/debuffs and super armor breaking skills. The gladiator is a dps class which enhances damage, but there are already classes which have higher dps capabilities than him.

hi there ACE do you think its worth it to boost dark attack in lvl 32 cap? thanks

Not really, unless the dark weapon prefix works well in your servers...
From my experiments in CN, the dark weapon prefix barely seemed to trigger the dark attack at all, particuarly on skills. In all honesty, it felt rather gimped. As i don't see you getting the old manticore set either i'd probably ditch dark attack all together and just build critical or final damage or pure damage instead.

Reply 83#  Ace Of Spades

Hi Ace as you stated you have a Destroyer class too..

I also have lvl32 Merc in SEA.
Due to I prepared more on PVE I guess I will focus on my Merc instead of my SM for future SDN.

Can you rate my Destroyer Build and Barbarian Build below for the updated version which is 328 max skill points distribution on Mercenary Skill as of your experience on this class.

Destroyer(Hammer Type)/ Mercenary Skill Tree:


Barbarian(Hammer Type)/ Mercenary Skill Tree:

I will be specific due to some skills are very common on mercenary tree.

Both Build:
Why Battle Howl lvl5?
- +403 p.atk/27secs duration(32.4 secs w/ skill heraldry)/58%crit/58%stun/1min CD.
Its good for boosting crit, damage and stun. If you got only 12k max crit rate on your character you can do (12k x .58 = 6960) 12000 + 6960 = 18960 for you total crit rate which is over to cap for lvl50. (I can focus more on p.atk/FD 3rd stats heraldry)

Destroyer Build:
Why I get Axe Tornado(Barbarian Ulti)?
- due to some of what I read on this forum Maylstrom Howl + Axe Tornado in Group PVP is Godly and good mob control for PVE thats why i get it.

Barbarian Build:
Why lvl9 Circle Swing and lvl8 Ring Bomb?
- bcoz on PVP I only joined on Group/Free for All modes and I dont really like 1on1 bcoz im not that good. I preferred to use CS and RB to last hit those red HP instead of using Whirlwind and Rolling Attack due to solid damage. (I know everyones aiming to last hit that red HP ) Also in PVE it is your main skill for mobbing.

Why Barbarian Hammer Type?
- bcoz of Offend Hit of Barbarian Passive skill which is boost % damage of your maximum damage once triggered.(dont really have any idea about this passive. Sir can you help me about this one if im correct.tnx!) If im right, you can have more damage due to hammer got the highest maximum damage, paralyze and stun weapon for melee which can be boost too by Battle Howl . (more stars on the head?)


I guess at this point both class can maximize there DPS.
Sir this is only a point of view of mine due to SEA cap is lvl32 only.
Do you think this would be good build? which one do you preferred most?
THANKS for reading!

Both seem to be fairly PvE focused builds and fufill similar roles. Its entirely up to you on which one to go with, look at which 2nd tier abilities interest you the most. I believe Destroyer provides slightly more utility whilst Barbarian is slightly more DPS focused. As a word of warning though, stacking FD in CN at the moment can be incredibly hard (to find) and expensive, so you may just want to focus on critical and damage instead. In this case you can then drop a few on battle howl and add levels elsewhere.

In terms of the Barbarian passive, i can't help you there as i don't play the class sorry :P I can tell you however that Maelstrom Howl + Typhoon Whirl is a hilariously fun combo to use .

Tnx Ace! I guess Destroyer Build is much better for both PVE and group PVP.

is lvl5 Battle Howl is not that worthy/good?

Its not bad, just that each SP point you spend on it doesn't add much.

in term of usefulness, are gladi really needed in SDN?
i mean, what is expected from gladi in SDN? hemmorhage skills? highlander?
there are 8 parties in SDN, how many swordmaster need it?
because in damage we lose on mage,archer. we can't heal like clerics. or give some buff/debuff like mercen. sadly being swordmaster :(

In the current state of affairs, no sadly. SDN is owned by the paladins and clerics. The other warrior class needed is mercenaries and they already have highlander + howling skills. Swordmasters, Bowmasters and alot of other DPS classes are icing on the cake and tend to be ignored until a core team of paladins - clerics - mercenaries form.

core team, you mean guardian-saint-barbarian/destroyer right?

to idolzyp:
i got some opinion for battle howl. i read somewhere on other mercenary user (i forget, ganondorf maybe). increasing battle howl mean you increasing stun rate and critical rate at the same time. but when launch some attack, only one effect that can be triggered, only crit or stun alone. i mean if you increasing both rate, some of your attack maybe got stun, whereas you wish more crit chance. IMO dont spend to much sp on battle howl, unless you are support type merc.

Yup, Guardian/Priest/Mercenary are primary classes in SDN. After that, there usually isn't much space for DPS classes

can I ask you Ace of Spade;
is a team of 8 gladiator can do SDN (and GDN?). thanks for answering

O_o as in is it possible for a full team of gladiators to complete SDN or GDN?

It would be inconceivably and unnecessarily hard but i guess if you have a tonne of SDN potions and everyone had incredibly high end gears it might be, maybe, slightly possible. Alternatively you could try and take turns highlanding each other . Basically...probably not haha.

As for GDN, the same difficulties probably apply, but we still lack information and experience, so i can't say for certain.

I see. I'm a physical gladiator (well, not even the tornadoes,Cyclone Slash I'd make).
Moonlord can still have infinity edge just fine, but we can't possibly do Great Wave without major drawback , as in low Matk.

what do you think Eyedentity will do to make Gladiator more competitive and not being discriminated? (i've heard that gladiator is unwanted in SDN.so sad T_T )

Thats a good question...

Its true that gladiators are unwanted in SDN parties at the moment. As i mentioned earlier though, almost all dps classes suffer similar discrimination so its not just a problem with gladiators. Interestingly, I've heard that in the upcoming hardcore nests patch release SDN will be made into an easier map to complete. The amount of revives per round will supposedly be increased also. If this is true than the need for a party to be filled with mostly core classes such as pala, priest and merc might be less restrictive. In turn that should make SDN possible to complete with greater class variety as dieing won't be as much of an issue as it is now.

Another thing which maybe worth keeping an eye out for is the whole class transformation series occuring at the moment. Additional changes/buffs maybe implemented to swordmasters in the future which could be just as game breaking as the elemental lord's ice/fire shield. Maybe... . Currently i feel the problem is gladiators seem to be only intended to deal dmg, yet they only deal 'decent' damage (although they have 1 great dmg enhancer (hemorrahage)), if they perhaps had greater or more damage capabilities outside of line drive/infinity edge they might go from 'icing on the cake' to 'main dps chars'.

What skill plates do you prefer?

I'd say for this mainly physical build focus on getting Line Driver damage and Infinity Edge damage as these are the SM's main damaging skills. The final 2 are your choice/depend on your playstyle. I'd suggest triple slash cd reduction and finishing attack dmg increase.