Gladiator Changes (hopefully for the better)

MRD looks shit now :) was in a party with a friend last night after the patch, admittedly neither of us had statted our characters yet, but i held the hate no problem, since they have basically lost their AOE ability, its hard for a MRD to pull hate of a good tank, he was provokeing and flashing the mobs and they didn't turn.

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Originally Posted by ThugHunter

MRD looks shit now :) was in a party with a friend last night after the patch, admittedly neither of us had statted our characters yet, but i held the hate no problem, since they have basically lost their AOE ability, its hard for a MRD to pull hate of a good tank, he was provokeing and flashing the mobs and they didn't turn.

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nice. since the tank is doing an awesome job, thats when DD should go buck wild and unleash fury onto the enemy

Hi All,

I can confirm Gladiator still can't Parry with Shield equipped. :(

I can't believe they added new GLA equipment with +Parry. So sad.

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Originally Posted by Kiara

Hi All,

I can confirm Gladiator still can't Parry with Shield equipped. :(

I can't believe they added new GLA equipment with +Parry. So sad.

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yeah... it's depressing.... but still Gla did get some pretty good improvements... I'm happy thats for sure!

I kinda want to do some parsing to see how much block is kicking in. It's really hard to view it in my log even with a bunch of filters on. It would be nice if Phalanx/War Drum lit up only after a block...

I'm not sure if Phalanx is anymore useful than before. I tend to work more towards keeping enough TP to do the Fast Blade>Flat Blade combo that I don't think much about using it.

I am pleased with the changes overall though. Flash is pretty awesome for group tanking and War Drum helps further solidify threat. The big MP boost allows me to use Cure more often if I need a self heal and Bloodbath/Second Wind are on cooldown. Sucks to hear about Parry not working though. I guess I should find something to replace the MRD ability with.

Yeah, Phalanx doesn't even have the enmity bonus associated with it anymore. War Drum is also really weak in terms of damage.

Shield Bash is amazing though. Basically a free stun every 30 sec for no cost.

Also, I find it tough make use of GLA's combos. Both Riot Blade and Goring Blade require us to be behind the mob to take advantage of it. It's possible to start a combo, then Shield Bash and reposition to finish it. However, this doesn't always work.

Since I usually have to tank or solo, the best combo is usually just Fast Blade > Flat Blade. Kind of disappointing...

Doing the solo company leves (Halatali if you're from Uldah) is a good place to test out battle-related things since you can easily control the level of the mob. After trying to clear each of them with various classes at R50, I can safely say that GLA's damage output is practically nonexistant relative to every other class as expected.

If ur playing solo, just run Through the enemy, and use the WS quickly, and u'll land the attack from behind just fine.
I've been doing it before with blindside, and now with side/back attack requirements.

My real question is, is MRD main tanking still reasonable?
Because I really enjoyed it before, and now it looks boring. (If even possible)

MRD can definitely hold hate on single targets still. Damage is quite a bit better than GLA. The thing is that MRD's survivability is now significantly lower.

The attack debuff on Provoke isn't very noticeable, the increase in recast timers for Foresight and Featherfoot hurts, and the lower WS spike damage leaves you with a weaker Bloodbath. Sentinel is also 20% weaker on MRD than it was before and they also have about 700 less MP than a GLA. Rampage makes it so that they can only receive benefits when they straight-tank. Kiting is out of the question.

I think MRD is much better suited as an offtank now. It's great for picking off moogles and tanking them for the DDs to burn down.

Meanwhile, GLA has Aegis Boon on a 45 sec timer. This is an amazing ability. Against Ifrit for example, it can nullify the damage from a swipe and heal you for 700 dmg. That's more than Second Wind. Aegis can also block weapon skills.

Goring Blade and Riot Blade both do decent spike damage so GLA actually gets just as much use out of Bloodbath as MRD.

Only a GLA's flash can blind the enemy. Works much like FFXI's flash but is AoE and costs 0 mp - making it essential for kiting moogles.