1.7 Hard Hit Gladiator Guide by Profane
This guide may be freely copied and published provided nothing is left out.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Overview
3 Background
3.1 Changes introduced in 1.7
3.2 How resistance works
3.3 How CA regeneration works
3.4 How combo regeneration works
4 Combat arts
4.1 Which CAs to use
4.2 Finding CA runes
4.3 Combos
5 Attributes
6 Skills
7 Equipment
8 Slots
9 Dying, survival bonus, and experience
10 Acknowledgements
(1) Introduction
This guide tells you how to build a gladiator that can survive with ease in all difficulties and kill monsters quickly. It is written with multiplayer (MP) games in mind, but can be adapted for single player (SP). The main differences between MP and SP are that in SP monsters are a lot easier to kill (because monster hit points scale with number of players) and runes are harder to get (because you can only complete each quest once in each difficulty). To use this guide in SP mode, it is suggested that you use Multi-hit instead of Hard Hit as your main CA.
(2) Overview
A Gladiator is a tank. The Heroic Courage combat art (CA), quite possibly the best CA in the game, makes him all but invulnerable to physical attacks. And his Strength and Physical Regeneration attributes increase more with level than other classes, giving him a huge amount of life to absorb anything else that gets through. You don't have to worry too much about keeping a Gladiator alive provided you keep Heroic Courage at a reasonable level. The challenge is to deal damage. The objective of this build is to dish out large doses of damage as swiftly as possible, by minimising CA regeneration time so that you can use a very high level CA with a 2-handed weapon.
You are going to do this by maxing the Weapon Lore, Concentration, and Constitution skills; putting enough points in either Axe Lore or Sword Lore to max attack speed; and maxing Physical Regeneration. You will use the Attack CA in Bronze and early Silver difficulties, and the Hard Hit CA from mid-Silver onwards.
(3) Some background
(3.1) Changes introduced in 1.7
The main 1.7 changes that affect how you build your Gladiator are:
CAs no longer hit automatically, making attack rating more important.
Jewellery has been toned down drastically and you can no longer rely on socketing it for most of your attributes.
It is now possible to find items with the "Regenerate special move +x" attribute.
The Armour skill no longer gives a large speed bonus.
(3.2) How resistance works
There are three things you need to know about resistances (Physical, Magic, Fire, and Poison). The first is that your own resistance gives diminishing returns - if your resistance is 10% of the damage received, it will block 9% of the damage; if it is 100% it will block 50% of the damage. The implications of this are that moderate amounts of resistance are useful but you can't significantly reduce the amount of damage you take with resistance, so it should not be a major consideration when choosing between two pieces of armour.
The second is that monster resistances subtract approximately the same amount of damage from each of your attacks, regardless of how much damage the attack does. This means that one big hit is much better than lots of little hits, because resistance is only subtracted from it once. That should influence your choice of CAs.
The third is that a separate subtraction is made for each damage type. When you whack a monster an amount based on its physical resistance is subtracted from your physical damage, an amount based on fire resistance is subtracted from your fire damage, and so on. This means that you do the most damage by concentrating on a single damage type - Physical is the obvious choice - to minimise the proportion lost to resistance.
A translation of a very good article on resistance by Boron can be found here .
(3.3) How CA regeneration works
How long a CA takes to regenerate is determined by the following formula:
Code:
Regeneration time = Base Time + (CA Level * Level Increment) * 1,000,000
------------------------------------------------------
(Phys Regen + 100)(Conc + 100)(Regen Special Move + 100)
Socketed CA runes only contribute half a level each when calculating CA level. "Conc" means the physical regeneration from Concentration, which is shown when you click on Concentration in your skills screen.
The important things to note from this formula are that Physical Regeneration, Concentration, and Regenerate Special Move all lower your regeneration time and that their effects multiply together. So raising any of them from zero to 100 would have your regeneration time; raising all of them from zero to 100 would reduce it to an eighth of what it was.
Some values for Base Time and Level Increment:
Code:
CA Base Time Level Increment
-- --------- ----------------
Heroic Courage 20s 12s
Fist Of The Gods 7s 4s
Hard Hit 5s 3s
Multi-hit 5s 3s
Attack 10s 5s
(3.4) How combo regeneration works
How long each CA in a combo takes to regenerate is determined by the following formula:
Code:
Regeneration time = Base Time + (CA Level * Level Increment) * 100
-----------------------------------------------
(Phys Regen + 100)
Everything has the same meaning as in 3.3, except that socketed CA runes count fully. To work out the regeneration time of the whole combo calculate the time for each CA in it and add the times together.
Raising Physical Regeneration is the only way to reduce the regeneration time of a combo.
(4) Combat Arts
(4.1) Which CAs to use
The useful CAs are the ones listed in 3.3 above. Everything else has novelty value only beyond Bronze difficulty. Some comparative information:
Code:
% damage of each
equipped weapon Hits multiple
CA at level 100 Dual Wielding? foes?
-- ---------------- -------------- -------------
Attack 2300/1150 Yes No
Hard Hit 2180 Yes No
Multi-hit 1080 No Yes
Fist Of The Gods 4360 No Yes
The second figure for Attack is for a 2-handed axe, which is the only weapon that hits 2 times instead of 4 with this CA. The Gladiator comes with one point in Attack, and that is all you need to get through Bronze. As soon as you can put a point in Dual Wielding (level 3) you can Attack with 2 weapons. These will hit 8 times, as opposed to the 4 hits you get with a 2-handed sword/spear and the 2 you get with a 2-handed axe. You might think the -19% damage at level 1 is a handicap, but if you add the 8 hits together it works out as 324% of each weapon damage, 648% in total, which is far better than any other level 1 CA.
You can continue using Attack in Silver difficulty, particularly if you play mostly in 1-person games. Use Attack CA runes to increase its level but don't raise its regeneration time above a point you are comfortable with. It starts recharging as soon as you fire it, and takes about 4 seconds to execute at max (220) weapon speed. The 5% damage increase per level might look puny, but remember 8 hits = a total of +40% weapon damage per level, which is comparable to FOTG.
From Silver onwards, use the Books of Wisdom quest to get as many Hard Hit runes as you can. This will take over from Attack as your main attack, using a 2-handed weapon. Try to keep it at a level that will one-hit kill most of the creatures you meet. It doesn't matter if that makes its regeneration time longer than its execution time: you will still kill monsters faster than by taking several swipes at each. You may well raise it to level 255 before you complete Gold difficulty (and it will have probably a regeneration time of 4-5 seconds at the end of Gold if you do). Hard Hit takes about 1.4 seconds to execute at the default attack speed of 140, and about 0.9 seconds at the maximum attack speed of 220.
What is the point of doing twice as much damage with each Hard Hit if you have to wait twice as long for it to regenerate? Because it does more than twice as much damage, owing to resistances only being subtracted once, and because at least some of the regeneration time can be used to run to the next monster.
Why switch from Attack? Because from Attack's 8 hits are subtracted 8 lots of monster resistance (see 3.2 above), and as the monsters get stronger it takes longer and longer to kill them with this CA. For that reason it is much more effective to deal one big hit at long intervals than lots of little hits at short intervals.
Why not Fist Of the Gods? It does twice as much damage as Hard Hit and can hit more than one target. But it takes 33% longer than Hard Hit to regenerate, plus 3 seconds (because it doesn't start regenerating until after the 3 second wind-up time). It would be a viable alternative to Hard Hit if you could get hold of large numbers of FOTG runes.
Why not Multi-hit? Multi-hit can hit each monster several times and potentially does more damage than any other CA. Both its radius and damage grow with level, which if monsters were uniformly distributed would make damage dealt proportional to the cube of CA level (the damage of all other Gladiator CAs is linearly proportional to level). In reality they're not evenly distributed of course; most of them are clustered around you trying to kill you. At high levels you should start hitting ranged attackers and at higher levels still everything on your screen, and beyond. But Multi-hit's range is capped and its radius at level 255 is no different from its radius at level 20. Also, Multi-hit suffers from the same drawback as Attack - monster resistance is subtracted from damage many times. An additional drawbacks that to use it effectively at low to medium levels you need to be surrounded, which is OK in a 1 player game when 1 or 2 Multi-hits is enough to kill everything, but rather less attractive in a MP game when the mob has time to do you serious damage even if Heroic Courage doesn't run out. Another is that it doesn't hit every target, meaning you have to pair it with another skill to be sure of taking out stragglers. A Multi-hit gladiator is good for single player games but just doesn't do enough damage in multiplayer.
Finally, keep Heroic Courage at as high a level as you can. I would suggest it should be at a minimum of half you character level after Bronze difficulty, and and ideally the same as character level. Your Heroic Courage regeneration time will be a fraction of its duration with this build, which allows you to cast it on party members as well as yourself.
(4.2) Finding CA runes
CA runes come from three sources - monster drops, fixed quest rewards, and random quest rewards. There is one additional source worth a mention - a grave half way between Silver Creek and Porto Vallum whose occupant always drops a Stoneskin rune. Why Battlemages should get this special treatment I have no idea; if anyone finds the grave that always drops a Heroic Courage rune please let me know.
The game tries to balance the number of CA runes you can use. The higher the level you are and the fewer CA runes you have and have clicked the more you will get from monster drops and random quest rewards. If you follow this guide and click on a lot of Hard Hit runes, all sources except fixed quest rewards will dry up completely until you are at quite a high level.
To keep the number of runes in your inventory down, and therefore the number you find up, exchange them for Heroic Courage at the Combo master every time you have four. Runes you have clicked count twice as much as runes in your stash, so it is a good idea not to use your Heroic Courage runes until Silver difficulty, when you will need the extra defence.
The two quests you should complete most often are Wolf Eyes (Belleveue), because it is quick and gives you a class-specific rune (two if you have a small number of runes), and The Books Of Wisdom (Silver Creek), because it alway gives you a Hard Hit rune. You are going to complete that second quest many times. These are quite popular quests and you may have difficulty finding games in which they have not been done. Do check the Player Killer games if that is the case, because they're often empty above Bronze difficulty.
There are other quests that always give a Gladiator rune as reward, but they take longer to complete.
(4.3) Combos
Make a combo of 4 * Hard Hit to kill dragons and giant spiders. Keep any equipment you find with + to Hard Hit, and wear it every time you create or update the combo. The combo is supposed to execute at the level it was created, not at your current CA level, and ignore any + to Hard Hit gear you are wearing when you use it.
(5) Attributes
You get an Attribute point at each level. Put them all into Physical Regeneration. The main reason is to reduce your CA regeneration time (see 3.3 above for the formula), but Physical Regeneration also increases hit points and the speed at which your life regenerates. Don't rely on life regeneration to keep you alive, by the way; it will regenerate at least 70 points a second when you're level 100, and while that sounds a lot it takes more than 4 minutes to refill your life bulb.
(6) Skills
Max the Weapon Lore, Concentration, and Constitution skills. Weapon Lore because it increases damage; Concentration because it reduces CA regeneration time (see 3.3), and Constitution because it increases life (and life regeneration).
Put one new skill point into Dual Wielding when it becomes available at level 3, and put enough points into either Axe Lore or Sword Lore (or, if you want to be different, Long-handled Weapons) to bring your weapon speed up to the maximum (220). Note that the effects of Dual Wielding and Axe/Sword Lore on weapon speed are cumulative, so your dual-wielded weapons will be faster than your 2-handed ones.
You won't be able to do all this at low levels, because you start with only 2 skill points per level. Keep Weapon Lore and Concentration maxed and start on sword/axe lore only once Constitution is also maxed - staying alive is more important than a fast Attack.
If you have been counting, you will realise that you still have three new skill points to use and enough other skill points (because you get 4 per level-up from level 30) to take one other skill to within about 50 points of its maximum. What you do with these is up to you. You could put points in Trading, or Armour, or invest in whichever of axe and sword lore you don't already have to double the number of weapons you could use.
Do not put points in Riding. Horse hit points don't scale with difficulty, so they die too easily after Bronze. That is a pity because Hard Hit and Heroic Courage are two of the few Gladiator skills that work on horseback.
Leave Disarming alone too. Disarmed monsters never drop good weapons, and if you're 1-hit killing disarming them is a bit pointless.
Agility and Parrying tempt many people, but compared to Heroic Courage they don't give enough defence to be worthwhile. Level 200 Agility, which I doubt anyone has ever reached, gives +350% defence. Level 255 Heroic Courage, which is achievable, gives +5150% defence. The one thing Agility and Parrying do have going for them is that they still work when Heroic Courage expires in a tight spot. They are also worth one of your new skill points if you have equipment with, say, +20 Agility that you wouldn't otherwise benefit from. If you are going to go the Agility/Parrying route, spread your points evenly amongst them because both have diminishing returns at higher levels.
If you want to get as close as possible to maxing a fourth skill you can dispense with sword/axe lore. You don't need their attack rating, since Hard Hit and Heroic Courage both give you vast amounts, and if your Hard Hit regeneration time is greater than its execution time you don't really need the attack speed increase. The advantages of maxed attack speed are that your attack is less likely to be interrupted by certain monster spells - for example, you have more chance of hitting a group of Mummies before they start playing blow football with you as the ball - and that some time in Niobium difficulty you will finally get the regeration time of your level 255 Hard Hit down to less than 1.4 seconds, at which point it is attack speed that limits how quickly you can hit things.
(7) Equipment
The first question is, what weapon type? There is not a lot to choose between axes and swords and Sod's Law naturally ensures that if you choose one the godly rare weapon you find will be the other. Go with the one you like the look of best. For some reason long-handled weapons don't seem as powerful so are not recommended here - they may have other advantages but if so I don't know what they are.
When upgrading weapons, remember that the attributes of equipped weapons affect all weapons. So check that your new sword still does more damage than the old one after you equipped it as well as before, because the displayed damage might have included bonuses from the weapon you just removed.
Next, armour. There is only one criterion here - regeneration time. This is reduced by items with + to Regenerate Special Move, Concentration, and Physical Regeneration. If what you find has more of it than what you're wearing already, use it. If you can't tell whether a belt with Regenerate Special Move will reduce your regeneration time by more than one with Physical Regeneration, try them both on and see. Don't be seduced by resistances (you don't need them; you have enormous defence), + to other skills or attributes (all but worthless when your skills are at high levels), or minor enhancements to damage. About the only other modifier that is tempting is + Speed, since it is a pain travelling everywhere at a snail's pace, and you might want to make sure you have some.
Sockets: put Regenerate Special Move items in them. Rings with +20 to this are fairly easily found and Lorgar's Amulet gives between +40 and +60 depending on its level. If you follow this guide you will need no life leech. If you are a power leveller you might want to socket + exp jewellery or runes.
Shields: you can't use them with 2-handed weapons.
Lastly, look out for and keep + speed weapons in one equipment slot and + Heroic Courage in another. Also look out for + speed and + Heroic Courage jewellery to socket in them. It is quite easy to boost your speed by 60-70 with weapons or shields which makes travelling long distances less of a chore.
(
Slots
If you haven't already done so, you should consider changing "combine_slots = 0" to "combine_slots = 1" in settings.cfg. This allows you to change both weapon and CA with one keystroke - so pressing 2 activates weapon slot 2 and CA slot 7 for example.
All the other character character classes complain that there are too many weapon slots and not enough CA slots. You however can use all your weapon slots and don't need all the CA slots. A sample configuration might be:
Code:
Weapon slot CA slot
----------- -------
1: 2 axes 6: Attack
2: 2-handed axe 7: Hard Hit
3: 2nd best 2-handed axe 8: 4 * Hard Hit combo
4: 2 +speed weapons 9: empty
5: + Heroic Courage weapon 0: Heroic Courage
(9) Dying, survival bonus, and experience
You are likely to die sometimes in Bronze difficulty. Don't worry about it, unless you play hardcore. It is quite possible to get through Bronze without dying by playing cautiously, but it takes twice as long. Wait until you start Silver before you play less recklessly and start accumulating a survival bonus. This should also be when you pay attention to getting an adequate level of Heroic Courage; the monsters hit noticeably harder in Silver.
Don't be in a hurry to leave Bronze. You can start Silver at level 20 but there's no need to if the experience and rune drops are still good in Bronze. You don't even have to kill things to level up in Bronze as the experience reward from quests compares well with the experience from monsters. Move to Silver when the experience becomes better there. You will probably want to start the higher difficulties as soon as you are able to, on the other hand, because the drops are noticeably better.
There is no one best place in Ancaria to get experience. The best spot at any particular time will be where you can kill monsters at or above your own level most quickly. Monster experience (and difficulty) increases with number of players up to 6 players, after which it is constant. So games of 6 or more players give the most experience provided you can kill quickly in them.
Finally, you get more experience playing in a team than you do on your own. You may think you don't because the amounts of experience you see are smaller than when soloing, but you get experience for every kill anyone within range (i.e. with a green name) makes. The experience of each kill before it is shared out multiplies as follows:
Code:
Team size % experience
--------- ----------------
1 100
2 132
3 177
4 236
5 235
6 234
7 238
8 232
where "team size" means the number of teammates within range. So the ideal team size to play in is 4 people.
The amount of this experience you get is determined by your level, according to the formula:
Code:
(total experience) * (your level + 9)^2
Your experience = ---------------------------------------
sum of all ((team member level + 9)^2)
where, again, only team members within range count. The implication of this one is that higher levels get more experience, but not much more. Disparities between your level and others in your team don't make much difference to the amount of experience you receive. The one thing that might make a difference is if one team member is of much higher level than the others. It is his level that determines the level of monsters spawned by the team, and if he is the only one that can kill them there won't be much experience to go around.
