My gladiator MC experience after a full playthrough.

[Jubeithar]

I posted this on the discord but i'll post it here aswel:


I was worried at first in the early game about the gladiator but the endgame gladiator with the best possible gear did deliver some decent results. Still feel that this class needs some tweaks even after some of the bugfixing that will undoubtfully be released in a future patch. But overall both my MC and Deianeira did perform in act 3/4 and did their the roles i intended them to do.
Deianeira was a tank gladiator (murmillo/reitarius spec) and once her retalliation chance was high enough, nothing could touch her and performed the duties of a principe. I used a sword/scisor combo. if she had to keep people in place for multiple turns, atleast she had access to deflect (sword/scisor combo specific). Unfortunately, if RNG is not in your favor she will die easily if she has too many opponents to deal with even in BiS gear.
MC was reitarius/provocator gladiator with the gladiator trident as main weapon. Great weapon of choice surprisingly despite the 'bugs'. I figure that if i made my MC the same spec as Deianeira, i probably would see some juicy retalliation kills. In the end my MC was primarily acting simular to a 'destroyer triarius' as in: stay behind a principe, make use of shielded thrust synergy and retaliate kill people when they try to attack someone next to you. I did not rely too much on my 'morale' skills. I did use them and were effective but most of the time, just smacking them was better also... pikes and threating pressence dont mix well sadly . Reliable was great and usefull though.

So overall, endgame gladiators have a presence and use, which is good cause noone likes 'deadweight' classes but its not a 'required' class. The class works well in gladiator battles and has a use there.

The bad:

- this class has a very big reliance on gear/levels, require alot of RNG regarding crafting/finding items to actually do something with this class. Making this class a nightmare to use in the early/mid game. Remember the MC on the boat where you do your first battle against pirates? Wel a gladiator is exactly like that civi-MC for the early game.. I played this class on hard difficulty. I have some experience with insane difficulty and i can't see anyone convincing me to use this class in act 1. Compared to other classes: gear and skills make them do better at their jobs, the gladiator needs them to do anything (but not necissarily better at doing a job comparing to other classes)

The gladiator does have access to some great weapon skill combos depending on the weapon but the combo skill needs to be on the weapon itself. this creates the problem that you'll never ever see the weapon combo skills at all until endgame. Most people wont even know about them until they actually played the game. It feels like that this a perfect oppertunity to possibly suggest to make weapon combo skills, always available as soon as you have the weapons equiped instead of requiring the skill being on the weapon and pray to RNG gods that you find/forge such weapon.

- this class feels 'restricted' in what actions it can do per turn. Every other class when performing an ability, feels impactfull. The gladiator doesnt feel that way. There are times where i'm looking at my skills and i'm wondering if it isnt just better to hit my enemy instead of using an ability that fits the situation. Right now the only abilities that i feel that are worth the cost are the following: out-manoeuvre(retiarius), make example(provocator) and mass taunt(murmillo). Every other ability the gladiator can learn/use has a too high cost for little benefit.(improvised armor and pre-emptive strike are on the top of that list). It almost feels like i need another action point on this class. Which is probably why i liked Reliable so much.


I do add one more thing: damaging morale can be very strong (perfect example is in act 3 arena) but in endgame it feels enemies die too fast to have any meaningfull impact with morale and usually the effects are also limited to a limited area. so if you are fighting on a large map, chances are not everyone are affected
and finally: while able to use heavy armor... i never saw the appeal of using it especially when there are no heavy armors having increased retaliation chance + movement is a big issue... atleast principes and veles can improve their movement speed when wearing armor through skills, the gladiator has none of that.

the stances are an example of great abilities but the only stance i didnt use at all is the provocator stance. i felt the other 2 stances more usefull.

TLDR: Endgame/BiS geared gladiators have a use/presence but is the weakest class in the early/mid game. Gladiator feels 'restricted' in actions and needs more freedom of use OR have bigger/impactfull effects on their abilities.