Gladiator End Game Builds

[Botosai]

whew....after reading every post (and learning a ton) i finally get to ask my question, since it wasn't asked already. (hope i didn't miss it, that would suck).

This is going to seem odd to a lot of people, so bare with me...Are their any reasons to train your stats for a lesser tank, and more damage based? i.e., less sta, more str. maybe? I sort of like the idea of a gladiator that isn't a tank, and again i realize that some of you are probably like...wtf? that's stupid...Just looking for some feedback, maybe someone has done it and is happy with their build. Thanks!

[wind]

A few reasons that would justify building more around STR(although stats kinda blow atm) would be you are low on numbers and you yourself need to do more dmg then just being a meat shield or You have more then 1 tank.

Honestly, the current NM's you don't need near cap stamina. This will probably change with battle revamping but currently you can tank all the mobs by rotating Aegis > Sentinel(shield up ofc) > Deflection and fill in the small windows where you don't have anything up with Feather Foot or Foresight. Continuously rotating that while still voking/taunting/raging/accomplice(etc.) + other situational abilities (ie Tempered Will /Rampart etc.) You can mitigate the majority of the damage incoming and if you know what you're tanking you can have sentinel being used when there is a WS coming.

So having cap'd stamina isn't entirely needed with our current 'end-game' fights. Just note with a smaller HP pool you have a smaller room for error. If you aren't confident you 'can' mitigate by keeping up the tools us glads have I wouldn't recommend lessening your HP pool

[Draven]

I'm going to be remaking my OP from near scratch soon since a lot of my ideas have changed about this kind of build.


EDIT: Mostly done. I'll come back to it again soon. Let me know if anything needs fixing.

[GreyJorildyn]

I'm not really clear on why you think rotations hurt more than help. There are absolutely those skills that you will use in a rotation and little variation would be required due to general efficiency.

Perhaps where the discrepency is is in the meaning. Typically (where dps'ing is considered), a rotation would be the order of execution of a set of skills which a player cycles through throughout the course of battle. In tanking, a rotation, at least how I define it, is the order of preference for skill use within a given theme or set of skills. Such themes for Gladiator tanking would include enmity building, damage mitigating, and support skill sets.

Naturally the advanced player would be required to make more educated choices for skill selection, however an order of preference still exists. For example, in two identical situations, if you had the choice to use deflection or aegis boon, you would always choose deflection. Taking it further: If in one of those scenarios you had low HP, you might choose AB for its healing component but lowering damage significantly with deflection still might be a safer bet. In a situation where a mob did high damage, you might go with Deflection. If you had tier III heals you would almost always go with Deflection. What I am trying to convey here is that a true order of preference ("rotation") is correct in almost all situations just the same and therefore will not ever "hurt you more than they will help you".

[Draven]

What I'm meaning to say is I think it's hurtful to tell a Gladiator how to do things like rotations rather than they learn the skills and how/when to use them. The more you spoon feed a player, the more you spoil them and they stop teaching themselves.

[GreyJorildyn]

Rotations do teach something. They describe the most efficient way to utilize skills of the same category in order of their descending utility. There is nothing wrong with telling someone that "If you have to choose between skill X and Y, X is better and Y is the best backup". There is absolutely a reason why that is the case, and those are teachable moments. A player can explain that quite simply. Rotations are far more than just a "spoon-feeding" situation unless you are only telling a player what skills to use and not why.

I stand behind my point that they do not harm more than they help.

[Draven]

unless you are only telling a player what skills to use and not why.

Or unless they just read the rotation order but not the explanation which I'm sure many do.

Agree to disagree I guess. If people want to learn rotations they'll either read up about it, which is fine, or discover it for themselves. I think the latter is better.

[Archadius]

Just a few things to note from reading the OP:

- Swordmanship trait is useless to a GLA, it only increases affinity for use of GLA skills on other classes. GLA affinity on GLA is already 100 and you cannot get 110
- Emulate is also good to have, for NMs and everything else, really (at least until they rape it into the ground in the next patch)
- STR is almost equally as important as your VIT as it not only increases your damage, but REDUCES the damage you take while blocking with a shield (which should be 100% of the time if you're a tank)
- MND is also very important as it not only feeds your MP pool, but increases M DEF.

As a tank build example, here's my stats:

STR: 100
VIT: 128
DEX: 100
MND: 85
INT: 18 (default)
PIE: 15 (default +2 so I can use the +5 and +10 stat converters)

I'm sorry if anyone already mentioned these points. I just didn't really want to read from pg1 all the way lol

[Theonate]

Perhaps where the discrepency is is in the meaning. Typically (where dps'ing is considered), a rotation would be the order of execution of a set of skills which a player cycles through throughout the course of battle. In tanking, a rotation, at least how I define it, is the order of preference for skill use within a given theme or set of skills. Such themes for Gladiator tanking would include enmity building, damage mitigating, and support skill sets.

Generally speaking, what you are calling a tank rotation is referred to as a priority system. From a theory crafting stand point rotation implies a rigidness, such as "only use these abilities, in this order, and if you flub it pick it back up asap." Where as a "priority" system implies you know when and why to use your abilities in order to maximize your role and adapt to situations.

Having played and theory crafted a ton for various mmo's, experience has taught me most people will see "use rotation" skip to where the rotation is listed and then use it without ever concerning themselves with the why. Hence the spoon feeding.

Honestly at this stage FFXIV's combat isn't complicated enough to really even warrant worrying about something like rotations vs priority systems.

[Kotee]

Don't forget if your STR is too low, you will get a lot of "Block Failed". I keep my STR attribute at 50-80 and it's plenty to negate this variable.