Why leave your shield at home!?

[AlphaDragoon]

^
This dual weild is such an overused concept and just dull and boring to me at this point. A trait/ability that allows Gladiators to take one handed swords into 2 hands would be a good way to split gladiator into two different entities. Tank and dd not to mention the possibilities of having 2 handed only weapons like greatswords etc.

I agree. I've wanted this ever since they said Gladiators could choose to forgo shields. Unfortunately that doesn't seems to be happening for a long time if ever, now that Yoshida's team has decided Gladiator = tank and nothing else. It seriously drove me to level Pugilist because as much as I love sword wielding characters I wanted to be able to deal damage, not only sit there and get hit.

[Big-Beach]

I like the dual wield idea, but...

...I think triple wield is even better! Imagine, a sword in both hands and one in your mouth! Or one tethered to your knee so you can execute a knee-knife, or a kick-knife, or a knee-kick with knife! Or let us hold three swords with one hand and go berserk like a wolverine on steroids!

Awesome!

[Wooba]

Bladed Lantern Shield. Problem solved. Not a tanking shield, it is a DD shield! Enjoy your tasty +7 Att. Rid yourself of those clumsy tanking shields and pick up a Bladed Lantern! Don't want to carry a lousy shield at all? Surprise! It is a Shield with a Sword on it! Make all your dreams come true with Bladed Lantern!Visit your local Marketward for pricing

Caution: Bladed lantern Shield is not a toy. Do not swing at Conjurers. Do not thrust at Thaumaturges. Do not throw the Bladed Lantern Shield. Do not point the Blade directly at your eyes. Side effects may include dismemberment. Your local crafter is not responsible for personal injury you may receive while using the Bladed Lantern Shield.

[ThugHunter]

Bladed Lantern Shield. Problem solved. Not a tanking shield, it is a DD shield! Enjoy your tasty +7 Att. Rid yourself of those clumsy tanking shields and pick up a Bladed Lantern! Don't want to carry a lousy shield at all? Surprise! It is a Shield with a Sword on it! Make all your dreams come true with Bladed Lantern!Visit your local Marketward for pricing

Caution: Bladed lantern Shield is not a toy. Do not swing at Conjurers. Do not thrust at Thaumaturges. Do not throw the Bladed Lantern Shield. Do not point the Blade directly at your eyes. Side effects may include dismemberment. Your local crafter is not responsible for personal injury you may receive while using the Bladed Lantern Shield.

haha i lol'd

Its a shame the bladed lantern doesn't come with its own attack, or get a damage bonus with Shield Bash.

I've got a tank build on my GLA atm, but we're getting a few more high GLA's in our linkshell now, so I might experiment with a DD build eventually.

Presumably if your no longer tanking, you can switch your plate armour out for something that favours ATT/STR instead of HP/VIT?

[Wooba]

I've been messing with a DD Build for a bit now since our Linkshell is pretty much set on tanks. You pretty much want anything that will boost your STR or overall Attack power, like the Bladed Lantern Shield does. The Vintage Haub is the best DD GLA gear you can get currently for body, with Cavalry Haub being second. I use Iron Gauntlets, since no hand parts give you a STR boost, and I use Iron Sabatons because more HP is better than +1 STR.

If you have good Dex, or generally hit enough, you would likely want to get 4 Sunstone Rings, or 3 Garnet. I use Sunstone because I use 2 of them and then 2 Silver Rings for more Acc. The Helm is really your preference. If you want more Dex, go for a Coif, or a Celata for STR and HP. I personally use the Visored Barbut for the look.

[Wooba]

If they designed GLA with the idea that it would only be capable of being a Tank, then they shouldn't let you customize your GLA with skills outside of the GLA tree. What possible benefit could a GLA get from any skills outside of the GLA and MRD tree? ARC is pointless, LNC is pointless, PGL is pointless save 1 ability. So why not just lock all our skills to set specific standards? Why even let us customize if the point is "This is your Role, and if you try to do anything else you can't."

Sounds more to me like SE needs to make customization of classes more worthwhile. A GLA should be able to DD, and if they can't, it is because of flaws with the battle system and customization system. GLA isn't even the best Tank. So what is the purpose of a GLA if they're not even good for Tanking?

[Solipse]

If they designed GLA with the idea that it would only be capable of being a Tank, then they shouldn't let you customize your GLA with skills outside of the GLA tree. What possible benefit could a GLA get from any skills outside of the GLA and MRD tree? ARC is pointless, LNC is pointless, PGL is pointless save 1 ability. So why not just lock all our skills to set specific standards? Why even let us customize if the point is "This is your Role, and if you try to do anything else you can't."

Sounds more to me like SE needs to make customization of classes more worthwhile. A GLA should be able to DD, and if they can't, it is because of flaws with the battle system and customization system. GLA isn't even the best Tank. So what is the purpose of a GLA if they're not even good for Tanking?

It's not an idea - that's the way it works _right now_.

You can add (lessened) support for other things from outside your current tree for the most part. You can be a Melee DD gladiator if you want by adding lancer and pugilist abilities, but in general, you're going to be less effective than you would be if you were a lancer or a pugilist. You have to play the class that does the job you want to primarily do to be effective.

I mean, just look at the damage difference in the weapons.

Aeolian Scimitar +3 : ~165 damage.
Champion's Lance +3 : ~203 damage.

That tells you right there that anything you do as a gladiator is going to be 80% of the effectiveness damage wise as doing that same thing as a lancer. To reiterate, this is how the game works -right now-

If you can forgo a shield as a gladiator to use a two handed weapon or two one handed weapon, what would be the point of playing a lancer? Classes are already so ridiculously customizable, even asking for that is quibbling over a triviality.

You already have the option of playing a gladiator using a 2h weapon... play a lancer with gladiator abilities. The only difference is that you visually use a spear instead of visually using a sword. Sure, you have less defense, too, but if you are wanting to play a warrior using a 2h weapon and no shield, then you're already wanting to play a class that does more damage for lower defense. If you're wanting to play a warrior using a 2h weapon, does damage as well as a lancer, has super high defense AND super high hp, then I think you're probably asking for something that's a little unfair.

That kind of wow-flation never ends. In two months you'll have lancers who are able to wield a two handed spear in each hand so that they do more damage than the two handed weapon warriors, then you'll have the warriors arguing that they should be able to use two two handed swords at the same time, then the lancers will be arguing that they should be to quadruple wield spears or something else silly. Unlike wow, you can play any class without rerolling or loosing your work in your character - if you want to play melee dps, switch to lancer.

[Wooba]

No one said they wanted GLA to be Archer OP. We just don't want to be shoveled into a mold. You can't call it customization if every GLA is going to be the same type of character. As is GLA is the worst class in the game. Everything we can do, another class does better. Most all classes get better Damage, MRD gets more HP, and MRD is the goto Tank for most NM parties. GLA are only useful for Single Mob tanking. A MRD is better because a MRD can hit all the targets with their AOE, and their high HP keeps them alive longer than most GLA. If this is the case, why bother with a GLA Tank? We are ineffective in all our roles.

I've invested time into my GLA, and your solution is "Rank another job." That is weak. All other classes get to customize their class using any abilities from any class they want. GLA are limited to tanking abilities only because it was the mold they were shafted with, while MRD gets the freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

[wind]

MRD don't have sentinel, aegis II, deflection, block, and you're saying they live longer? Even if one leveled up glad for sentinel and relied purely on parries to negate dmg they still wouldn't beat us when it comes to dmg mitigation. Having 100% dmg nullified with aegis II alone makes us better, thats 15secs(depending on shield) every minute.

Now I guess you could try to have the argument since MRD can hit more then 1 they are better aoe tankers but even then. Its not difficult to rotate taunt/voke + wardrum and warmonger. This is just to dispute that our 'role' as tank is inefficient and weaker then MRD, which it is strongly not.

As for dmg ya we got shafted. But it 'could' change if we're allowed to branch off into warrior or thief if the ideas of some are correct with SE's changes to classes.

[Wooba]

Keep in mind that MRD also has a large HP pool, and is capable of wearing the same tanking gear we can, minus the shield. They get more DPS, and can easily hold hate just as well. They also receive full benefit from Defender II and have great Emnity generation.

Sure, Deflection and Aegis Boon II are good skills, but with a 60 second cooldown and 15 second activation time you can't say Aegis Boon II alone makes GLA better tanks. You would need to use the 3 skills you mentioned all at once to have a chance of completely negating all damage you receive from an NM. And you can only do it once every 60 seconds for 15 seconds. Sure it is nice, but that doesn't mean MRD Tanks die without these skills. They have a lot more HP than GLAs do with Capped Vit. I think that more than makes up for 15 second damage negation.