"Raise your hand to the roaring crowd and pledge your allegiance to glory"

The Gladiator takes the hybrid nature of the Duelist a step further, with a combination of speed, power, and protection.

This build very cheap and easy to gear out and can tanky with various forms of mitigation on top of a decently big life pool. If you follow the guide it should be smooth sailing well into yellow maps.

 

Quick Jump

• Pros & Cons
• Skill Tree 
• Gems Setup
• Gear Setup
• Leveling
• Expectations & POB

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

• + Glad ascendancy saves you from exploding delve monsters
• + Cheap and easy to gear out
• + Tanky with various forms of mitigation on top of a decently big life pool
• + Fun to play
• + Almost a pseudo ranged skill
• + If you follow the guide it should be smooth sailing well into yellow maps.

Cons

• - This probably won't break into the millions in terms of DPS.

 

Skill Tree 

Ascendancy

Blood in the Eyes > Gratuitous Violence > Painforged > Versatile Combatant

Bandits

This quest is given to you by Eramir in the Forest Encampment after you complete Through Sacred Ground or talk with any of the bandit leaders. There are three different bandit leaders. You can either side with one of them (and kill the other two) to get the respective reward or you can kill all of them to get the reward from Erami - from Gamepedia

Kill all

If you really want Res you can just pick up nodes like Diamond Skin, Cloth and Chain and Sentinel.

Pantheons

The Pantheon List

• Major Gods - Lunaris for mapping and Solaris for bosses but I can never bring myself to switch back and forth between the two.
• Minor Gods - Shakari is pretty good with all the Chaos damage that's going on this League.

Passive Tree

This is just about what your tree should look like at 80: Tree at 80

From here you are free to choose depending on what you feel your build is lacking. Your tree at 95 could look something like this: Tree at 95

Nodes to consider are: Devotion, Bloodless, Berserking, Duality, Splitting Strikes, Ambidexterity, Quickstep and a couple of minor life nodes as well as Frenzy Charges.

 

Gems Setup

Even with Kaom's Roots stealing a 4-link you can still fit all your gems pretty comfortably.

6-Link: Sunder - Multistrike - Chance to Bleed - Melee Phys - Maim - Damage on Full Life

- No more Conc Effect; Chance to Bleed is easier to make fit and it syngerizes with the Gladiator Ascendancy, Maim and Vaal Double Strike and Vaal Ancestral Warchief with Bloodlust. If you want a faster Sunder use Faster Attacks instead of Damage on Full Life.

Movement: Leap Slam / Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Blood Magic

- This can be socketed into a pair of Insanity crafted gloves for even faster movement. If you're using Soul Taker you won't need Blood Magic

Single Target: Vaal Double Strike - Vaal Ancestral Warchief - Increased Duration - Bloodlust

- Pop this on bosses and tough rares. You can use Elder boots with Inc Duration instead of Kaom's Roots and drop the Inc Duration gem for Melee Phys or Damage on Full Life if you want.

CWDT: Cast when Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Herald of Ash

- Keep CWDT and IC at level 1.

Prismatic Eclipse: Hatred - Bloodrage - Portal

- Portal can be replaced with Arctic Armour when using Soul Taker, it can otherwise replace Herald of Ash if you prefer it that way.

 

Gear Setup

Sunder has been relevant for the longest time now because it can safely be taken to 100 with very little investment and is powerful from the second you equip it.
Make sure you have decent Life rolls on all your rares and that your Resistances are capped and you'll be fine.

• Your main-hand weapon should be a high pDPS rare axe or Soul Taker.
• Your off-hand is Prismatic Eclipse. It helps make Multistrike and Leap Slam / Whirling Blades feel less clunky. Everything else just feels awfully slow in comparison.
• For boots you'll want Kaom's Roots. You can also use Elder boots for with Inc Duration on them for your single target Vaal Skills. Doing this will also open up an extra 4-link for you to work with. For starters a rare pair of boots with decent life and resistances will work just fine.
• Belly of the Beast, Loreweave or a nice rare Chest with Life and Res is what you want for your Body Armour.
• Belt of the Deceiver for the Intimidate effect a Stygian Vise or a nice Elder belt.
• For gloves a rare pair with good life and resistances is good enough until you can get Insanity crafted gloves for your movement skill. You can also use Tombfist, get Intimidate that way and then use a better belt than the Deceiver.
• On your normal flasks you will need bleed, curse and until you have Kaom's Roots also freeze immunity. you should have an instant Life Flask and a Basalt Flask. For unique Flasks I recommend Atziri's Promise, Lion's Roar / Rumi's Concoction and if you can afford it a Taste of Hate
• On Jewels you will want %-Life, Attack Speed and Damage. On Abyss Jewels you ideally want flat Life, flat Phys, Attack Speed and Onslaught or Unholy Might but any DPS increase is nice on top of a T1 Life roll.

 

Leveling

Tree Progression

• Tree 1 - After Art of the Gladiator > Resolute Technique.
• Tree 2 - Slaughter > Golem's Blood > Mana Leech
• Tree 3 - Thick Skin > Herbalism > Weapon Artistry > Aspect of the Panther
• Tree 4 - Constitution > Vitality Void > Heart of Oak

From here on out pick up all the nodes until your tree looks like the level 80 variant further up in the 'Tree' section of this guide. You can obviously adjust it to your personal preference if you like.

Leveling Gear / Gear Progression

Gearing this character is as easy as it gets. Don't shy away from using a couple Alts and Alchs to make some leveling gear, look at it as an investment.

- For the main-hand weapon (sunder only swings with the main-hand hence only that weapon matters for damage numbers) you can use the Rustic Sash recipe (sell 1 magic / rare Rustic Sash + 1 Blacksmith's Whetstone + the weapon base) to upgrade your weapon that way, also pick up rare axes that drop while leveling for potential upgrades. once you reach maps you should have an eye out for rare axes with decent DPS on poe.trade.

- Your off-hand can be The Princess if you have access to it. You could also use Aurumvorax for an easier time covering your resistances.

- Use a 4-Link, get to the Blood Aqueduct in Act 9 and farm Humility cards for a Tabula Rasa

- All you are looking for on your boots is movement speed, upgrade accordingly. If you happen to come across a pair of Wanderlust you can use those for a bit.

- Get the Quicksilver Flasks from the Tidal Island Quest; try to have bleed removal before Belly of the Beast(the zone) in Act 4; both Granite and Stibnite Flasks really help in Act 5 and onward; if you wanna click chests also get freeze removal; keep your Life Flasks up to date

While leveling try to cover your stat requirements as best as you can with the rest of your gear. I like to be as close to Res cap as possible at all times. Don't shy away from using a couple Alts and Alchs to make some leveling gear, see it as an investment.

Leveling Gems

- you get Cleave and Chance to Bleed from killing Hillock and Onslaught from Mercy Mission on Tidal Island (Act 1)

Cleave - Onslaught - Chance to Bleed

- swap Cleave for Sunder after entering the Cavern of Wrath (Act 1)

Sunder - Onslaught - Chance to Bleed

- swap Chance to Bleed for Melee Phys after killing The Weaver (Act 2)

Sunder - Onslaught - Melee Phys

- put Chance to Bleed back in after acquiring a 4-Link (Act 3)

Sunder - Onslaught - Melee Phys - Chance to Bleed

- you can swap Onslaught for Faster Attacks after having picked up the Slaughter node on the tree or whenever you feel like it.

Sunder - Faster Attacks - Melee Phys - Chance to Bleed

Level the other gems for the 6-Link in free sockets / the secondary weapon slots until you get your Tabula Rasa (Act 9).

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- pick up Leap Slam after killing Brutus (Act 1)

Leap Slam

- add Faster Attacks after killing The Weaver (Act 2)

Leap Slam - Faster Attacks

- add Fortify after returning the 4 Golden Pages to Siosa if you have a 3-Link

Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify

- add Blood Magic when you can spare the 4-Link for it

Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Blood Magic

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- Buy Immortal Call after the mission Breaking the Seal (Act 4) and Cast when Damage Taken during the Eternal Nightmare (Act 4)

Cast when Damage Taken - Immortal Call

- Keep these at level 1 for more frequent procs

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- Pick up Ancestral Protector for single target after entering the Submerged Passage (Act 1) and replace it with Ancestral Warchief after completing Sever the Right Hand (Act 3).

- Replace Ancestral Warchief with Vaal Double Strike once you got it and use that for single target instead or use both if you have the sockets to spare

- Link them with Support Gems if you can.

- Pick up Herald of Ash and Blood Rage after Intruders in Black (Act 2).

- Activate Herald of Ash and also try getting into the habit of using Blood Rage if you're not used to it.

 

Expectations & POB

POB link

• Budget at level 80: https://pastebin.com/vGxWkWeV
• 95 with some investment: https://pastebin.com/8dG0CU3g

(If you do not know how to use it, see the instructions below, otherwise please ignore)

• Download Path of Building (link: https://github.com/Openarl/PathOfBuilding)
• Copy pastebin URL.
• Launch path of building.
• Click on Import/Export.
• Click Import from Pastebin
• Paste the URL copied in step 2.
• Done!