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Hello aspiring Gladiators! Lemme thank you in advance for adding tanks into the pool for shorter queues! If you’ve come here then you’re likely in need of advice for leveling your Gladiator. Thankfully this is, in fact, a Gladiator Leveling Guide! Read on!
This page is strictly for Gladiator – focusing more on GLD specific info like skills, traits, and playstyle notes. The GENERAL PROCESS that you should be following is outlined in our GENERAL LEVELING GUIDE: Which you should be using ALONGSIDE THIS GUIDE.
Leveling Methods, References and Reminders
In these boxes, I’ll put info that you’ll likely be referring to (or discovering) while leveling up your Gladiator.
Last but not least of these reminders, always logout at a sanctuary. It’s noted by the moon icon on the right side of your EXP bar. You gain rested EXP in these areas!
Gladiator Leveling – 01 to 30
If this is your first character:
MAIN SCENARIO QUEST IS YOUR FIRST PRIORITY.
L1 Skill Unlocked – Fast Blade: This is your basic attack, and eventually all of your combos start from the humble Fast Blade! “Spamming Fast Blade” is your only means of offense right now.
L1 Skill Unlocked – Fight or Flight: A generic DPS cooldown (physical damage only). Use as often as you can! Obviously, don’t pop it when majority of its duration will be wasted.
L4 Skill Unlocked – Savage Blade: This combos from Fast Blade – giving us a significant boost in kill speed. It also generates a large amount of enmity, which is notable for dungeons.
L5 GLD Class Quest – check in on your guildmaster in Ul’dah – Steps of Thal – Gladiators’ Guild. These spawn every 5 levels up until 50, and can give you notable rewards (besides, you NEED to do them to become a Paladin).
L6 Skill Unlocked – Flash: An AoE enmity generation skill. Keep in mind that this blinds all enemies it affects! Keep this blind in mind when you eventually speedrun dungeons, every little bit of mitigation helps in gigantic pulls.
L8 Role Action slot I unlocked – Rampart: is a generic damage reduction cooldown. While it’s decent in solo content, it shines in dungeons and, eventually, raids.
L10 Skill Unlocked – Riot Blade: This combos from Fast Blade. THIS IS STRONGER THAN SAVAGE BLADE! Keep this in mind! If you have enough aggro on a mob (or are soloing) – Go Fast Blade into Riot Blade. Every bit of value counts!
L10 GLD Class Quest – check in on your guildmaster in Ul’dah – Gladiators’ Guild.
L12 Role Action slot II unlocked – Low Blow: is amazing in low levels where you almost never pull more than 3 mobs. Stunning a mob in a pack of 2 is a 50% damage reduction! In a pack of 3 it’s 33%! Stunning one guy is 100%!
L15 GLD Class Quest unlocks Shield Lob: check in on your guildmaster in Ul’dah – Gladiators’ Guild.
Shield Lob is a generic ranged skill which gives bonus enmity.
L16 Role Actions Slot III Unlocked – Provoke: is a godlike tank role action, and one you should familiarize yourself with as early as now. It gives you top enmity on a target mob, but only by a single point. Always follow it up right after – the usual is Provoke into Shield Lob. While it’s crap for soloing, it’s a MUST HAVE in any other type of content.
L18 Skill Unlocked – Shield Bash: Ah, this skill is actually amazing in the lower levels. An on-demand stun is very powerful in dungeons. I used it as “pseudo mitigation” – stunning multiple mobs in a pack severely reduces your damage taken.
L20 Trait Unlocked – Enhanced Vitality
L20 Role Action Slot IV Unlocked – Convalescence: increases incoming heals. It’s obviously quite bad as we don’t really have access to healing skills right now (it does affect your healer Chocobo!).
L20 GLD Class Quest – check in on your guildmaster in Ul’dah – Steps of Thal – Gladiators’ Guild.
L24 Role Actions Slot V Unlocked – Anticipation: Increases parry rate. This is an amazing cooldown when facing 3 or more mobs.
L25 GLD Class Quest – check in on your guildmaster in Ul’dah – Gladiators’ Guild.
L26 Skill Unlocked – Rage of Halone: a combo finisher! Rage of Halone combos from Fast Blade > Savage Blade into Rage of Halone.
Once you hit level 30 FULL STOP! It’s time you evolve into a job class – in your case that’s Paladin (PLD)! The prerequisites to unlocking the quest are simply finishing ALL GLD class quests up to level 30.
L30 Class quest unlocks – Shield Swipe, and the prereq for Paladin:
Shield Swipe: is an “off-gcd” skill which does some DPS and pacifies. It triggers whenever you block. Use it whenever it procs!
Completing this quest marks your final class quest as Gladiator. You now have the right to become a Paladin!
How to become a Paladin?
The quest to become a Paladin is Paladin’s Pledge, found in Gladiators’ Guild. Completing this quest gives you Soul of the Paladin, and the skill Shield of Oath.
Soul of the Paladin is your job soul crystal. To become a Paladin you merely have to equip it (it’s on the lower right most equipment slot). Equipping the soul crystal is a tiny bit of a hassle since you have to rebind your skills, and reconfigure your equipment set. But it’s okay since you’ll likely never be a Gladiator again.
And with that YOU’RE DONE WITH LEVELING Gladiator! Congrats! Feel free to proceed to the Paladin Leveling Guide. Hopefully our Gladiator Leveling Guide helped you out. Never break the oath, friend.
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Do I have to keep on going through the main scenario as a gladiator or can I do it as a paladín now since I have the soul crystal ?
You can proceed with your MSQ as any class you wish :)
You’re aboslutely right – fixed!
It says for level 10 that you get Brutal Swing when that’s a Warrior skill only.
Thanks for the catch – it’s a typo from copy pasting the warrior format. FIXED!
@ADDMcGee
You do, though..
Excellent guide, short and sweet. (Issue: Says at the end that you need lvl 15 marauder for paladin instead of conjurer)