Fun & strong gladiators / team combos?

[Lukasek97]

Want to hear about what worked well for people - any particular gladiator classes? Any particular good teams?

[SEND 'EM TO THE RANCH]

You can try the rhino with any summoner. Shaman is the best unit in the game without much setup and the warlock is also good if you can summon his titan.

[kuroneko]

#1 Anti-mage
- (optional) rhino/drummer with jumping taunt trait to pull in as many as possible
- Hook bots on front line with boom bots besides them (you see where this is going?) with priorities set on the same target as hook bots
- Necromancer to revive those boom bots and whoever died from the initial blasts LOL
- Rest of the team can be whatever you like, mainly to mop up
Totally useless against boss or Ancient Doors, but just fun to pull off.

#2 Warlock and followers
- Basically have a decent frontline and healers/invigorators to keep your warlock functional as long as possible
- Pile on Int-maxxing items (Diadem and similar) and Int-related traits on the Warlock BUT give him the level 2 trait to restore health on every summons. You probably wanna give him 5k or more health just to be on the safe side and synergy with the heal-on-summon trait. A lvl 15-20 warlock should end up with 700+ Int and maxxed CD on Titan.
- Watch the lvl 200+ Titans sweep away everything (possibly bosses too if 2+ are summoned in time).

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

My most recent playthrough was as a bandits/raiders sorta vibe! I got 3 Marauders, 2 Spear-throwers, and Dwarf warcrime thrower. I took that all the way to the end of the game, but picked up a lizard tank since a super good one showed up in the shop. Really fun little squad, but dependent on Bandit units. Once they're gone they seem to be gone for good, so it was hard to expand the roster.

Shamans+Archer+Rhinos+Druid is fun too! Very powerful, very durable, and works well throughout the whole game.

I like keeping to aesthetic/narrative themes as I play. The undead playthrough was a good time with Warlocks all over the place - I think I'm going to do an Elven Supremacist type playthrough next.

[HoHoHO]

I think the strongest unit is the executioner (an undead faction unit). He has a very strong AOE nuke. Too bad he's slow, the skill has short range, and has a long cooldown. But what if there's a way to bypass that range problem?

unit 1: any unit with maxed out lvl 3 "Hold my Beer" trait (tier 3 trait that teleports into middle of enemy group and taunts). Even better if he has "Guardian Veil" (tier 4 trait that absorb all dmg done to teammates).
unit 2: executioner with full int, and lvl 1 "Hold my Beer". He has an AOE attack that has insane scaling off of int. Too bad he's mislabeled as a str unit so none of your traits will scale int. So you have to give him other traits that scale dmg (like a crit trait). Items is full int and a reckless artifact.

Basically, both of them will teleport into the enemy team at the same location. Unit 1 will use taunt and it has a range of 4, which will pull everyone in. The executioner will also teleport in with taunt, and then will use his AOE skill which will one-shot everything. Fights will last 1 second before ending.

During the final arena, he did a total of 350k+ dmg while everyone else only did about 1k dmg. My executioner died pretty often since he only had 20 hp, but everything dies after his attack so it doesn't matter. The dieing stopped after I gave someone else "Guardian Veil" though.

technically, you can give the executioner lvl 3 "hold my beer" and it'll do that same thing, so you don't even need another unit.

[HoHoHO]

and I think 2nd best unit is probably the spearman (royal faction unit) since he has the "power in numbers" trait. Full agility build. His spear stab is 0.6 speed with 0.2 cooldown. He was doing 50k dmg stabs every second at lvl 20. If a boss doesn't die in one hit, he'll die on the 2nd hit. Even at lvl 15, he was doing 24k dmg stabs.

Just put a tank with taunt in front, and let the spearman stab everything to death. Fights will be over in seconds. The spearman is much easier to get working than the executioner. Executioners can't kill bosses. But spearman can easily kill a boss by himself in seconds. Spearman needs "adaptive marksman" trait just in case though.

It's also the reason why I never bothered using the warlock. By the time the imp/titan gets close to the enemy, the spearman would have killed everything already. So the warlock had 0 dmg done for every fight he was in.

[Joikax]

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

I think the strongest unit is the executioner (an undead faction unit). He has a very strong AOE nuke. Too bad he's slow, the skill has short range, and has a long cooldown. But what if there's a way to bypass that range problem?

unit 1: any unit with maxed out lvl 3 "Hold my Beer" trait (tier 3 trait that teleports into middle of enemy group and taunts). Even better if he has "Guardian Veil" (tier 4 trait that absorb all dmg done to teammates).
unit 2: executioner with full int, and lvl 1 "Hold my Beer". He has an AOE attack that has insane scaling off of int. Too bad he's mislabeled as a str unit so none of your traits will scale int. So you have to give him other traits that scale dmg (like a crit trait). Items is full int and a reckless artifact.

Basically, both of them will teleport into the enemy team at the same location. Unit 1 will use taunt and it has a range of 4, which will pull everyone in. The executioner will also teleport in with taunt, and then will use his AOE skill which will one-shot everything. Fights will last 1 second before ending.

During the final arena, he did a total of 350k+ dmg while everyone else only did about 1k dmg. My executioner died pretty often since he only had 20 hp, but everything dies after his attack so it doesn't matter. The dieing stopped after I gave someone else "Guardian Veil" though.

technically, you can give the executioner lvl 3 "hold my beer" and it'll do that same thing, so you don't even need another unit.

I'm not convinced Executioner is better than Storm Bringer (especially without an Afflictor bubble on the Exe to curse everything that touches him; Every other means of applying curse is too impractical (single target and long cooldowns) to make a difference in his overall damage outside boss fights) but they both perform a similar role well enough that they can be interchanged with some caveats.

The power of traits such as Crimson Lungs and Unyielding cannot be ignored yet Executioner can't benefit from them towards Shadow Burst since his main stat is strength.

Between 300% extra inteligence on an *17 factor (SB's aoe smash ability) and on a *5.5 factor on a stat you're not prioritizing (Exe's singletarget melee) the winner is quite obvious.

Exe also has no means to boost his Shadow Burst through traits, so assuming a base 100 inteligence character that 75% damage increase against cursed targets (conditional) is competing against a flat ~300% damage increase. (0.75 versus 2.99295774648 to be exact)

I assume you'll equip Exe with an epic Ring of Malevolent Whispers for the added damage against cursed targets but that's 150% damage increase on his singletarget and 110% on his aoe. Looking at the numbers above It's still far outclassed by Stormbringer without any universal item equipped.

Not only that but he can't strike from stealth (without an item) so there's a high chance he gets stunned, frozen, feared, netted, focused down, pushed back, knocked down, etc... especially while using Hold My Beer.

(Short reminder that in order to get the most out of Exe you'll need an Afflictor tag-along whilst Stormbringer functions entirelly on his own. Might not be a big deal with large parties but otherwise it can be very restricting)


You mentioned using Hold My Beer and that's certainly an option, but with Stormbringer you can just manually target someone in the center of a large group and he'll stealth his way into a smash directly in the center, you don't even need any points in HP if using Unyielding... try that with Exe and he'll be dead before he swings the sword though.

The other thing worth noting through using HMB is that you're trading away the T3 slot that could be used for Greed Is Good (the other stupidly good mainstat boosting trait besides crimson lungs and unyielding) so it's another wasted 120% mainstat boost (as if Stormbringer wasn't already overkilling everything at this point; you get the idea)



Forgive my nerdiness, I love discussing balance and minmaxing.

TLDR: If you enjoy(ed) Executioner you'll love the Stormbringer.

[Joikax]

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

and I think 2nd best unit is probably the spearman (royal faction unit) since he has the "power in numbers" trait. Full agility build. His spear stab is 0.6 speed with 0.2 cooldown. He was doing 50k dmg stabs every second at lvl 20. If a boss doesn't die in one hit, he'll die on the 2nd hit. Even at lvl 15, he was doing 24k dmg stabs.

Just put a tank with taunt in front, and let the spearman stab everything to death. Fights will be over in seconds. The spearman is much easier to get working than the executioner. Executioners can't kill bosses. But spearman can easily kill a boss by himself in seconds. Spearman needs "adaptive marksman" trait just in case though.

It's also the reason why I never bothered using the warlock. By the time the imp/titan gets close to the enemy, the spearman would have killed everything already. So the warlock had 0 dmg done for every fight he was in.

Another solid suggestion to which I yet again have a counter proposal: Purifier.

Minmaxed Purifier + (root focused) Druid = easy boss kills, no need for tanks or healers against melee bosses.


In regular fights she's much safer at the edge of the map thanks to her 14 range compared to the spearman and just about everyone;

Doesn't need to move in order to engage;

Doesn't come close to getting melee'd and focused down all the time;

If anything comes close she can knock them down in an aoe and proceed to wipe them afterwards;

Applies her own burn dot that she can pair with Ring of Fire;

Can make use of the insanelly good 200% INT boost item "Sages Sacrificial Diadem".

Can either go for Unyielding trait (200%) against regular mobs or Grateful (150%) (and skip T4) against bosses (paired with Diadem's forced HP loss and Druid providing sustain, quickly building up Grateful's stacks to max, while also rooting the boss)




Just overall she's a ranged singletarget damage beast despite seeming really weak at lower levels.

[BloodBalloon]

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

I think the strongest unit is the executioner (an undead faction unit). He has a very strong AOE nuke. Too bad he's slow, the skill has short range, and has a long cooldown. But what if there's a way to bypass that range problem?

unit 1: any unit with maxed out lvl 3 "Hold my Beer" trait (tier 3 trait that teleports into middle of enemy group and taunts). Even better if he has "Guardian Veil" (tier 4 trait that absorb all dmg done to teammates).
unit 2: executioner with full int, and lvl 1 "Hold my Beer". He has an AOE attack that has insane scaling off of int. Too bad he's mislabeled as a str unit so none of your traits will scale int. So you have to give him other traits that scale dmg (like a crit trait). Items is full int and a reckless artifact.

Basically, both of them will teleport into the enemy team at the same location. Unit 1 will use taunt and it has a range of 4, which will pull everyone in. The executioner will also teleport in with taunt, and then will use his AOE skill which will one-shot everything. Fights will last 1 second before ending.

During the final arena, he did a total of 350k+ dmg while everyone else only did about 1k dmg. My executioner died pretty often since he only had 20 hp, but everything dies after his attack so it doesn't matter. The dieing stopped after I gave someone else "Guardian Veil" though.

technically, you can give the executioner lvl 3 "hold my beer" and it'll do that same thing, so you don't even need another unit.

Storm bringer is a better version of the executioner. Int is its main stat and has highest possible scaling for its melee AOE at +17 per INT. It also has stealth. It does not need hold my beer as it can stealth in to oneshot reliably enough.

Darkmage is even better than storm bringer though as it is more reliable. Stormbringer takes a long time to channel its attack and can be easily canceled, where as darkmage doesnt have this problem. If you max hp and give it INT items because it is ranged it is in a much safer and reliable position to oneshot their team. It has a lower int stat but still plenty to oneshot even with 16k hp as the cooldown is far lower at a blistering 0.7 sec aoe. It also pulls units together during its AOE rather than pushing them apart.

Try drummer with lvl 3 hold my beer as the lvl 3 is a whopping 4 range and 10 second taunt. 4 range is enough to cover their entire enemy team and stunning them for 10 seconds is easily oneshottable.

[HoHoHO]

Originally posted by Joikax:

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

I think the strongest unit is the executioner (an undead faction unit). He has a very strong AOE nuke. Too bad he's slow, the skill has short range, and has a long cooldown. But what if there's a way to bypass that range problem?

unit 1: any unit with maxed out lvl 3 "Hold my Beer" trait (tier 3 trait that teleports into middle of enemy group and taunts). Even better if he has "Guardian Veil" (tier 4 trait that absorb all dmg done to teammates).
unit 2: executioner with full int, and lvl 1 "Hold my Beer". He has an AOE attack that has insane scaling off of int. Too bad he's mislabeled as a str unit so none of your traits will scale int. So you have to give him other traits that scale dmg (like a crit trait). Items is full int and a reckless artifact.

Basically, both of them will teleport into the enemy team at the same location. Unit 1 will use taunt and it has a range of 4, which will pull everyone in. The executioner will also teleport in with taunt, and then will use his AOE skill which will one-shot everything. Fights will last 1 second before ending.

During the final arena, he did a total of 350k+ dmg while everyone else only did about 1k dmg. My executioner died pretty often since he only had 20 hp, but everything dies after his attack so it doesn't matter. The dieing stopped after I gave someone else "Guardian Veil" though.

technically, you can give the executioner lvl 3 "hold my beer" and it'll do that same thing, so you don't even need another unit.

I'm not convinced Executioner is better than Storm Bringer (especially without an Afflictor bubble on the Exe to curse everything that touches him; Every other means of applying curse is too impractical (single target and long cooldowns) to make a difference in his overall damage outside boss fights) but they both perform a similar role well enough that they can be interchanged with some caveats.

The power of traits such as Crimson Lungs and Unyielding cannot be ignored yet Executioner can't benefit from them towards Shadow Burst since his main stat is strength.

Between 300% extra inteligence on an *17 factor (SB's aoe smash ability) and on a *5.5 factor on a stat you're not prioritizing (Exe's singletarget melee) the winner is quite obvious.

Exe also has no means to boost his Shadow Burst through traits, so assuming a base 100 inteligence character that 75% damage increase against cursed targets (conditional) is competing against a flat ~300% damage increase. (0.75 versus 2.99295774648 to be exact)

I assume you'll equip Exe with an epic Ring of Malevolent Whispers for the added damage against cursed targets but that's 150% damage increase on his singletarget and 110% on his aoe. Looking at the numbers above It's still far outclassed by Stormbringer without any universal item equipped.

Not only that but he can't strike from stealth (without an item) so there's a high chance he gets stunned, frozen, feared, netted, focused down, pushed back, knocked down, etc... especially while using Hold My Beer.

(Short reminder that in order to get the most out of Exe you'll need an Afflictor tag-along whilst Stormbringer functions entirelly on his own. Might not be a big deal with large parties but otherwise it can be very restricting)


You mentioned using Hold My Beer and that's certainly an option, but with Stormbringer you can just manually target someone in the center of a large group and he'll stealth his way into a smash directly in the center, you don't even need any points in HP if using Unyielding... try that with Exe and he'll be dead before he swings the sword though.

The other thing worth noting through using HMB is that you're trading away the T3 slot that could be used for Greed Is Good (the other stupidly good mainstat boosting trait besides crimson lungs and unyielding) so it's another wasted 120% mainstat boost (as if Stormbringer wasn't already overkilling everything at this point; you get the idea)



Forgive my nerdiness, I love discussing balance and minmaxing.

TLDR: If you enjoy(ed) Executioner you'll love the Stormbringer.

oh, you're right about storm bringer. He is better in every way. I didn't bother checking the last batch of newbies and just rushed through it. But comparing the two, storm bringer is much better and has more options. I still like Hold my Beer on the nuker since the fight ends in 1 second.

[HoHoHO]

Originally posted by Joikax:

Originally posted by HoHoHO:

and I think 2nd best unit is probably the spearman (royal faction unit) since he has the "power in numbers" trait. Full agility build. His spear stab is 0.6 speed with 0.2 cooldown. He was doing 50k dmg stabs every second at lvl 20. If a boss doesn't die in one hit, he'll die on the 2nd hit. Even at lvl 15, he was doing 24k dmg stabs.

Just put a tank with taunt in front, and let the spearman stab everything to death. Fights will be over in seconds. The spearman is much easier to get working than the executioner. Executioners can't kill bosses. But spearman can easily kill a boss by himself in seconds. Spearman needs "adaptive marksman" trait just in case though.

It's also the reason why I never bothered using the warlock. By the time the imp/titan gets close to the enemy, the spearman would have killed everything already. So the warlock had 0 dmg done for every fight he was in.

Another solid suggestion to which I yet again have a counter proposal: Purifier.

Minmaxed Purifier + (root focused) Druid = easy boss kills, no need for tanks or healers against melee bosses.


In regular fights she's much safer at the edge of the map thanks to her 14 range compared to the spearman and just about everyone;

Doesn't need to move in order to engage;

Doesn't come close to getting melee'd and focused down all the time;

If anything comes close she can knock them down in an aoe and proceed to wipe them afterwards;

Applies her own burn dot that she can pair with Ring of Fire;

Can make use of the insanelly good 200% INT boost item "Sages Sacrificial Diadem".

Can either go for Unyielding trait (200%) against regular mobs or Grateful (150%) (and skip T4) against bosses (paired with Diadem's forced HP loss and Druid providing sustain, quickly building up Grateful's stacks to max, while also rooting the boss)




Just overall she's a ranged singletarget damage beast despite seeming really weak at lower levels.

i agree that storm bringer is better than executioner, but purifier is not better than spearman. Spearman has a free 70% agi trait that's unique to their faction. And he can better use the "wildheart" trait for 140% bonus dmg on first hit, resets on kills. That trait doesn't work on DoT attack portion from purifier. Wildheart is basically a 2.4x dmg multiplier that procs after all the other agi and melee bonus are added.

Combine that with artifact whetstone (60% melee dmg), recklessness (70% dmg), swiftshot shackle (75% agi), Hare's gambit greaves (80% agi) . Melee has a lot more items that amplify damage. And since you're getting so many artifacts, you can use "Collector" trait to get +50% agi for each epic item. Greed trait gives an instant 120% agi. And you can see why Wildheart generates insane numbers.

At lvl 22, I just saw him one-shot a 74k hp boss. And I'm not even using Collector trait since most of my artifacts aren't fully upgraded yet. Fully maxed out, i'm sure the dmg should be much higher.

also no point in getting incremental buffs like Grateful. Fights usually end within a few seconds of combat. Every boss die in a hit or two from spearmans.

[Waschbär42]

Like others said, drummer or rhino plus some range dps is a very strong base right there.

I found the Pyromancer to be very nice for the dps role, but I haven't tested out all classes yet. Will have to check some of the suggestions here.