Gladiator PvE build: skills, stigmas, boards and gear priorities

Gladiator stands in front of the boss with a greatsword and never stops swinging. Most of your damage lands on four enemies at once, you heal off your own hits, and a well-timed block buffs the whole party. Pick it if you want to be in melee all fight and keep it simple: one macro does most of the work, and the skill is in your cooldowns and your blocks.

Train every skill you use to 10 first. The level targets below count what Daevanion boards and arcana add on top, and that total is what opens the later specialisations: options 1 to 3 open at skill level 8, option 4 at 12, option 5 at 16.

Passives are always on, so the only question is which to level first. Take them all to 10 eventually.

Blood Absorption and Survival Stance come next for sustain, then Protection Armor and Survival Willpower.

Four slots, four picks. The order is the order to level them.

Lifestealing Blade and Wave Armor are the swaps for solo farming and long trash pulls: Lifestealing Blade hits four targets for 1,522 and can share Predation with the party, Wave Armor ticks around you for 10s and multiplies Murderous Burst by 1.5. Neither beats the party buff from Focused Block in a dungeon.

Path toward the four big corner nodes on each board, and pick up the skill-level nodes for Overhead Slam, Rending Blow, Ruinous Blow, Keen Strike and your top passives on the way. Those skill levels are how your skills reach 16 and 20.

Azphel (Gladiator) is mostly PvP stats, but it runs on its own points, so open it anyway. In a dungeon its HP, MP and status resist nodes are the ones that count.

Genus Insight has its own boards: Cogni, Natura, Fera, Varian and Special, with nine lines each. The same lines want the same stats on almost every board.

Line 4 is where the boards differ: Critical Damage Boost on Cogni, Multi-Hit or Perfect Chance on Natura, Weapon Damage Boost on Fera, Front Damage Boost on Varian (you fight from the front), Double Chance on Special. Mastering Genus Insight gives the title Unbound by Genus.

Run four pieces of Vigor and a Mirror of Magic. Four Vigor gives Primal Vigor's +150 PvE Attack while you are above 70% HP, and with Blood Absorption healing every hit you usually are.

Put the arcana skill levels into Overhead Slam, Rending Blow, Ruinous Blow and Keen Strike. Wisdom on the Mirror is Smite, the best single Empyrean Lord stat for this class.

The other split you will see is two Vigor (Chalice, Parchment) and three Magic (Compass, Bell, Mirror). It trades the 4-piece +150 PvE Attack for Death (Critical) on the Compass, Destruction (Attack) on the Bell and Magic Armor's MP refund below 20% MP. Take it only if mana is still a problem after Rending Blow's option 5.

Later arcana slots: on a Key, keep Boss Damage Boost and Critical Damage Boost, then Max Attack, Boss Attack and Critical Attack. The Hourglass only rolls defensive lines, so keep Boss Damage Tolerance and Damage Tolerance there.

Soul binding gives each piece four rolled lines. Each slot has one line nothing else gets; keep it. After that, skill lines for Impact Hit and Attack Preparation beat flat stats.

Your Season 1 ceiling is Aulamus Greatsword at +15 with Vakron armour such as Vakron Helm at +10. Your first week at 45 is Spiritforged Greatsword at +10 with Divine Canyon armour at +5.

On junggeup-maseok the only damage rolls are Attack, Critical Hit and Accuracy Bonus. Keep those. Damage Boost, Weapon Damage Boost, Critical Damage Boost and Frontal Damage Boost only roll on sanggeup-maseok, each under 0.25% per stone. If one lands, Frontal Damage Boost is the best for you, then Weapon Damage Boost and Critical Damage Boost, then Damage Boost. Never spend stones trying for one.

Engrave Theostone: Aultross's Promise on one piece and Theostone: Zikel's Vestige on the other. Two identical theostones only apply once.

Wings: debaui-choesanggeup-nalgae is what the build wears, for Penetration and Defense Bonus. jamsikdoen-geumbit-nalgae is the damage pick if you own it: Max Attack, 5% Multi-Hit and Front Attack Damage Boost all fit a Gladiator. gongheoui-talriseura-nalgae gives Attack Bonus, Accuracy and 4% Cooldown Reduction. ilkkaeun-geungjiui-nalgae is built around Back Attack, which you rarely land. Level the wings you own for their owned effects too: pureun-jeongwangui-nalgae, pureun-padoui-nalgae, deuramata-dungjiui-nalgae, sup-jeongryeongui-nalgae, heosangui-meari-nalgae and guwonbateun-tarakui-nalgae all add up.

Pantheon: start with colossus-of-zikel or colossus-of-disbelief for the colossus. For the rest, chase Freedom and Death (fafnirs-poison-blood), then Wisdom (sigil-of-lumiel) and Illusion (veil-of-kaisinel), then Space and Life.

Bind a macro that holds right and left click. Right click is a stack: Rage Burst at the bottom, then Overhead Slam, then Rending Blow. The game fires the lowest skill that is ready, so Rage Burst goes out the moment it is up and turns Overhead Slam on for 10s.