Gladiator ascendency is very lacking

Yea they really should have leaned into the "challenger" archetype a lot more.

I'm just FOREVER pissed that Gladiator lost 79% spell block, with 15-20% flat block chance from getting hit in favor of...6% extra max attack block and a handful of armour/eva. Sure, the block was powerful but its still avoidance instead of mitigation which ultimately ends up being useless 21% of all hits. And this was BEFORE recovery on block was even a real thing.

I miss facebraker gladiator with the surrender being viable and not needing much more investment than it needs now

Aside from the bleed nerfs people mentioned already, the final nail in the Gladiator's coffin was when GGG took their best block nodes and made them into keystones. Gladiator was once a great pick for ultra hard content like deep delving, because nobody else could come close to having max block and spell block without massive investment.

Take that away, while giving gladiator nothing to compensate, and you're left with... nothing, honestly. Why would anyone play Gladiator when they could play Champion, get the old block stuff anyway, and ALSO have fortify and impale scaling?

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fostaa wrote:

I just came here without reading your explanation but just the title.
Sorry if this offends you or anyone else but the Gladiator is literally the best class you can possibly choose for a pure melee physical - hits or dot.

I'm not offended, but "lolno." You are objectively wrong here, regardless of what definition you want to use for "best."

gladiator is completely useless as a competitive pick

the only good node it has is the challenger charges one. every-f-thing else can be gotten from gear or is useless anyway/to weak to care

Ive made a fun 'gladiator' build - counterattack with max block (a really great no clicking build for lazily farming t16s). as a slayer + counterattack flesh/flame. it deals like double the damage of pure glad version. and even the double damage node can be substituted with other sources of DD

block aspec of glad is completely f.. useless. the 50/50 keystone is just that - 50% of a good stuff, why settle with this if necromancer caps attack/spell block for pretty much free? and uses Aegis + ES

phys damage after block - cool, weak. the problem is overwhelm not going into negatives. until it changes phys damage in general is garbage choice

bleed nodes - 4 points for a glove slot, again - play cold, herald of ice does the same job. if you insist on phys damage - gloves are ok choice, or any of other explode sources

whats left? nothing. there is a reason Glad flash/flame are pretty much worthless


proposed changes (one or many):
generic 2h MELEE block for non-staves
no reservation Tempest Shield
doubled chance to block from shield/staff (including spell block!)
innate gain hp on block
immune to maim/hinder/impale for 'recently' after block (these effects might seem harmless but they can easily kill you in a pinch)
better stuns for counter-attack skills (these can really be strong once supported, but not strong enough to waste 4Link on one)

They could remake Gladiator uber-unique by having some nodes specializing in dual-wield blocking or counterattacking. That's something I always wished was on the OG pre-3.7 gladiator, because it was already nearly impossible getting max block dual wield without advancing fortress or that one blocking fencing sword which are both super weak.

But no matter what...until Gladiator gets SPELL BLOCK back into the fold, it is a dead ascendancy. Even if you got 100% attack block which is possible this league...its still crap because spells just obliterate you and you deal no damage. There are ways to get spell block but they are the same ways you can get max block with ANY build.

just bring back old ascendancy that made spell block equal to your attack block.

Gladiator needs some real dual-weilding theme going on for one path, and some actually good block nodes on the other. Bleed nodes need to be combined into one, maybe with the removal of maim if you have to. Add something else as a 2nd bleed node like bleed proliferation, or bleeding enemies leaving pools of blood that deal damage to other enemies.. idk, something cool & unique?

Gladiator is just super bland as is

I can't believe there are so many deluded players here.
You cannot possibly make a Champion or a Slayer better for a phys build.
Slayer is just generically oriented in damage. I only like the 20% culling strike. There's nothing special about a Champion really. While I play Gladiator, the Master of Metal is my choice for Forbidden jewels and that's it. If any duelist ascendancy is to be buffed, that's the Slayer's "Overwhelm". Melee crit is unnecessarily hard to scale generally.
For the Gladiator - totally ignoring enemy's defenses is a huge boost. Attack 'lucky hits' is literally one of a kind. Basically it provides 25% more damage, and if used with mechanics like Ryslatha belt and Volatility support (the gem was made specifically for lucky hits) boosts your dmg performance to space. P.S. I still see people using Volatility without lucky hits or even for ailment builds, and I have no words about this..)

To the guy who said there are more spells than attacks in the game that's literally the opposite. And saying that attack block is barely useful... really? It's just when you do not block an Attack, the trash monsters' attacks are generally weaker and can be mitigated by the easily scalable armour/evasion and won't feel that overwhelming, while on the other hand boss attacks that would be heavy - they are easily avoidable due to 0 new content in the past 2 years since boss tactics are well known. But spells are generally more unpredictable and players want to use Spell suppression rather than spell block because it is easier to scale and provides enough defense, and also it's aimed to be reliable with 100% uptime while the Spell block cannot be raised that much. Not more than 90% anyway. If you have 70%+ attack block and 100% spell suppression with Determination and Grace then you're considered 'tanky'.
This is why I said that if anything is to be changed about the duelist, it is to be generally more related to Spell suppression and/or spell avoiding mechanics.

Now, can we talk about the Inquisitor's cringy Instrument ascendancies already? That needs a lot more attention.

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sidtherat wrote:

the only good node it has is the challenger charges one. every-f-thing else can be gotten from gear or is useless anyway/to weak to care

This is an extremely warped view of the game. Most players aren't farming literally all the side content to get all the influenced items, obscure uniques, and crutch defensive items necessary to fit all of it into a build without being as squishy as silly putty.

Counterattacks doing double damage is not at all useless. Stick Added Cold or Added Lightning onto one and suddenly your counterattacks will be dishing out some nasty ailments, or just stack strong damage supports onto Vengeance and you can go full autobomber with a 4-link, letting you focus on boss-killing with your proper 6-link.

The follow-up Reigning Veteran and Violent Retaliation are also solid. You said yourself that the weakness of Block is that 21% of the time it doesn't matter -- well Reigning Veteran makes that 40% less likely to not matter. Also, no matter how rare Attacks are you'll get a trigger once every 20 seconds to get Lucky attack damage and ignoring phys reduction.

An Ascendancy having only 1 or 2 actually unique and obviously good nodes and everything else being doable with gear is actually par for the course and is a bad criticism to make of an Ascension class.

It's amazing how players can be so active and have so much experience in PoE....and yet prove to know so little about how the game actually works. I am floored each day by some of the responses.

(paraphrase)"That's why people prefer Spell Suppression over Spell Block": let me stop you right there. This is the crux of people's WILD misunderstanding of game defenses and why they think Gladiator is good. Spell Suppression is MITIGATION, Spell Block is AVOIDANCE. They are incomparable defensive stats, unless you could get avoidance to 100% which is not possible. Mitigation is always, always, always, ALWAYS going to be a better choice. No matter what, no matter how small the amount. To bring Spell Suppression into a talk about blocking shows how little understanding is going on.

Volatility plus Lucky Hits. Wonderful! This is an excellent interaction. You know who else can use this at will? Champion and Slayer classes! And they can use it more effectively. That is the entire point. It is a "unique" effect, but it is NOT "unique" to gladiator in the current game thanks to flesh/flame. Using this node as a gladiator is making the least amount of effective use of it, thanks to the REST of the gladiator. Ignore physical reduction is almost entirely useless as a stat because 99% of monsters you encounter have no REAL PDR anyway! You will not be blocking boss attacks every 20 seconds so its useless against them. The only time this mod is actually good is when you run into a pack WITH the increased PDR mod or Endurance Charges. Otherwise, your physical damage alone goes right through their "armour".

"Scaling crit with melee is unnecessarily difficult / slayer needs to be buffed": WHAT?!! like seriousy....what?! EVERY melee build in this game eventually goes full crit with no real problems. Base weapons get high crit, and scale BETTER and easier than spells do. There is a reason Cast on Critical Strike builds are triggered with MELEE 99% of the time.

"You cannot possibly make a champion or slayer better for a physical build <than gladiator>". Again.....what?!!!! Using awakened brutality right now on PoE Ninja: Slayer 41%, Champion 12%, Gladiator.......2%. HMMMMMMM. I wonder why? Last League: Champion 22%, Slayer 12%, Gladiator......3%. Hmmmmmm. I wonder why? And thats not even including the physical classes in Marauder that are all higher than Gladiator as well. My own experience: I have at least 30 different physical builds saved in my PoB. If I take any of those, and replace Slayer/Champ with Gladiator and change nodes and supports to maximize the ascendancies powers.....the Gladiator falls short on BOTH ehp and dps, by a large margin (10% at the low end overall, 30-50% at the the high end). That's why, despite being my favorite class for YEARS, I don't play Gladiators anymore. They. are. not. good.

There are so many more comments I can select, but I'll leave it there and also bow out of this conversation. I've said what I needed to say, I'll leave it to others.

I seriously think the guys commenting on how useful or strong gladiators are have never once played a gladiator except with counterattacks, and even then never even TRIED the same counterattack build as a Slayer or Champion!

Duelist builds for this season: Champion 5%, Slayer 3%, Gladiator........0.3%. A factor of 10 lower than the nearest same class ascendancy. Last league: basically the same numbers. There is a REASON for this!!!! And its most certainly not just that gladiators are "less popular". No.....they are severely underpowered both defensively and offensively when compared to their other respective ascendancy choices. And players have figured that out! In fact, Gladiator is the LEAST USED ASCENDANCY IN THE GAME, with the next highest ascendancy THREE TIMES more used.

If you are still calling the statistics of the collective playerbase of PoE "ignorant", you are just burying your head in the sand at this point.