People play this game for different reasons, and not everyone are into the whole better class > fun class thing. Obviously we play an open pvp game because we enjoy competing which involves using the tools available to your advantage, but there are different shades of "playing to win" and "playing because you have fun trying to win".
I'm a religious follower of the latter, and is why I stuck with the class I picked.
If glad is your first main, there is no doubt that you will have a very hard time pulling your weight for a long time, both in terms of the class being a late bloomer and hard to play well.
It all depends on if you enjoy being the most competitive possible, or if you enjoy being the most competitive possible using the class you have the most fun playing.
I'm too noob to be able to give any hard tips on how to play glad, other than what I've observed from other people playing it. While they get blunt masteries I've never seen a glad use a blunt as their primary weapon. A lot of them keep a cheap one as a secondary weapon for stunning though.
Other than that, I guess I could try to give some advice based on my WL since we get a lot of similar skills.
You can use a dagger to reduce the recharge of some selfbuffs (primarily warcry), as the skill's recharge is solely based on your attack speed as you cast it. Defense wise, light armor is inferior to heavy. The only reason to even consider light as a secondary set is if the benefit from the set bonus outweighs the increased damage you'll take. Do not train/buy light armor unless you have a primary heavy set.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, it might be different for glads, but this is how I feel about Vicious Stance on my WL:
It's "ok to have", but of low priority and is the last thing I trained when I ran low on skillpoints. Reason for this is that VS adds a fixed amount of damage on your crits, which means you get a relatively reduced benefit the higher your patk is. Barely noticable if you have buffs and a good weapon. Guzzles MP, expensive to train.
Well you can’t go wrong playing a Gladiator imo. Each weapon type has its bonuses, just try out which you like the best. For example Blunt/Shield combo is rarely used after second change but I could see its benefits. You can use two handed swords and still do fine. You got sword skills/masteries and some of the Sonic skills work with them also. You will have the same patk as a dual sword (?) but its more Soul Shot efficient since a missing doesn’t mean wasting a SS charge.
As for PvE I would suggest to AoE only. Get a pole and wack the mobs. While you lack the second class masteries, Gladiators still can AoE pretty decent compared to other classes. Warcry 2 makes up for the patk difference between a warlord to some degree. If done correctly, you won’t ever kill mobs 1 at a time anymore.
As for PvP, you are kinda pushed towards using Duals. The best skills of the Gladiator are only useable with duals. I find it lame that Sonic Rage is only useable with duals while you can charge up normally with blunts and swords.
Unlike most classes, you will have to suck it up in the beginning. While most classes start strong, gladiators true strength lays in the higher levels. If you seek instant “pwnage”, the gladiator isn’t your class. Another strength of this class imo is that you don’t rely on buffs that much to do your damage. The damage comes from your skills and not from your regular hits like archers. In minimal buffed situations you will shine compared to the classes that rely more on buffs.
It’s true that a 78 Gladiator is very strong, but it is not a requirement to PvP after C5. Before every sonic skill you used consumed all your recharges, so you had to recharge back up from 0 all the time. Now skills only consume a portion of the charges and if you know what you are doing as in managing your sonic charges, you can do fairly well even when you are not 78.
Odds are your probably not going to get all the in's and out's of one of the most complex classes in Lineage2 judging from your questions so far.
Because people start out knowing everything right?
The term learning curve exists for a reason. The potential to learn is always there.
You just want easy targets ;)
You and I both know Glad is the most complex class in L2, and for a new person to just pick it up and start with it.... is almost a 0% success rate for them to actually be a half decent Gladiator.
How many scrubs play Glad's and have absolutely zero clue how to chain their specials or when to use any of their numerous skills?
Help the guy out frankly, start with a easier class so you can learn the *game* first, before having to learn a class and the game mechanics at the same time.
Armor set up is usually FP for C, BW for B, Tallum heavy for A+, B and A armors listed are for pve of course. Currently at 79 I use IC for pvp. 1400pdef is nice to have with Greater Shield. I usually add zerk and POF to offset not having Greater Might. If you're in a huge zerk you can go GREATER MIGHT, MIGHT, SHIELD, ZERK, POF, BD DANCES+ SELF BUFFS and have 2400patk which is quite substancial.
The Glad is hard to play at first using all the skills and knowing when to use them, and the downtime you have to take to charge can get you killed, until 78 of course with Sonic Rage.
TATOOS: +5 str +4 dex if you're primarily just leveling, but just +5str if you're heavy on pvp, the +5 str gives you 25% dmg bonus on your skills so that's always nice too...Anyways, just my two cents.
Armor set up is usually FP for C, BW for B, Tallum heavy for A+, B and A armors listed are for pve of course. Currently at 79 I use IC for pvp. 1400pdef is nice to have with Greater Shield. I usually add zerk and POF to offset not having Greater Might. If you're in a huge zerk you can go GREATER MIGHT, MIGHT, SHIELD, ZERK, POF, BD DANCES+ SELF BUFFS and have 2400patk which is quite substancial.
The Glad is hard to play at first using all the skills and knowing when to use them, and the downtime you have to take to charge can get you killed, until 78 of course with Sonic Rage.
TATOOS: +5 str +4 dex if you're primarily just leveling, but just +5str if you're heavy on pvp, the +5 str gives you 25% dmg bonus on your skills so that's always nice too...Anyways, just my two cents.
ebaycharsmoar
I was thinking that with Light Armor also. but + Dex
taking both armor and jewels off will have the same effect. just go naked, its cheaper ;/
Armor set up is usually FP for C, BW for B, Tallum heavy for A+, B and A armors listed are for pve of course. Currently at 79 I use IC for pvp. 1400pdef is nice to have with Greater Shield. I usually add zerk and POF to offset not having Greater Might. If you're in a huge zerk you can go GREATER MIGHT, MIGHT, SHIELD, ZERK, POF, BD DANCES+ SELF BUFFS and have 2400patk which is quite substancial.
The Glad is hard to play at first using all the skills and knowing when to use them, and the downtime you have to take to charge can get you killed, until 78 of course with Sonic Rage.
TATOOS: +5 str +4 dex if you're primarily just leveling, but just +5str if you're heavy on pvp, the +5 str gives you 25% dmg bonus on your skills so that's always nice too...Anyways, just my two cents.
ebaycharsmoar
eh? i've managed to follow this line pretty **** nicely on my glad and i only played a dorf to 62 as my first main, and now i would be able to follow the buffset too thanks to a pretty **** nice Hierophant BD's and Sws's in clan too, and in 2 years i've not subbed. Wanna accuse me of ebaying chars too? I'm a slow leveler in general too... its not impossible for him to have a glad with access to all that stuff these days, really.
I was thinking that with Light Armor also. but + Dex
taking both armor and jewels off will have the same effect. just go naked, its cheaper ;/
naw, its not that bad i can't imagine, its been discussed and somewhat "tested" before and what i could figure out from people talking is that a light armor glad would never beat a heavy armor glad of equal level unless extreme luck but they would still do fairly ok in pvp And pve... i dont know of personal experiences though, i only have from debates and discussions and testes from these participants to go from so it could all be wrong what i'm saying of light armor vs heavy armor glads