Gladiator is the heavy melee damage class: a two-handed weapon, area strikes, and a game plan built on staying inside the enemy's reach rather than trading at range. It is durable enough for off-tank duty in a pinch, which is how the pre-launch material framed it, but its job in a party is damage.
Field | Detail |
|---|---|
Role | Melee damage |
Weapon | Two-handed sword |
Signature mechanic | A rage-driven burst state and a charge stance |
Party fit | Front-line damage in five-player Expedition and ten-player Sanctuary content |
How It Plays
Gladiator leans on skill chains harder than most of the roster, and NCsoft has reworked its chain mechanic more than once. A passive line grants Frontal Damage Amplification as a base stat, which rewards positioning behind and through a target rather than orbiting it.
The class's burst window has been the focus of repeated tuning. A Fury Explosion rework landed in the April 2026 balance passes, the June 17, 2026 patch raised several strike multipliers, and the August 12, 2026 pass took its charge stance in the other direction: the stance lost its mana-cost reduction, the healing cut on its blade throw rose from 30 to 50 percent, the cancel point on two heavy strikes moved from the first hit to the second, one major strike's cooldown went from 30 to 45 seconds, and four core strikes gained 3 percent PvE damage.
Party Synergy
Gladiator sits with Templar, Chanter and Cleric on the side of the roster that kept team-wide synergy when the April 2026 passes stripped it from the four pure damage classes, which is unusual for a damage dealer and is worth knowing when a group is deciding who fills the flexible slot.
Shared Systems
Every class runs the same underlying loop: tab-targeting with active dodge and parry, skill chains that prompt a follow-up key, a Groggy stagger gauge on bosses, and Perfect Block or Perfect Dodge windows on a well-timed input. Loadouts hold twelve active skills, a set of Stigma slots and ten passives, allocated with Mastery Points and Stigma Shards.
Naming and Sourcing
Ability names on this page are translated from Korean patch notes for the Korean and Taiwanese live build. NCsoft has not published official English names for most individual skills, so treat any single ability name as provisional and any single number as a live-build snapshot.
Related Pages
Classes for the full roster and the balance history. Combat and Skill Chains for the shared input loop. Gear and Progression for equipment. Daeva System and Daevanion Board for talents. Stigma System for the enhanceable skill layer.