Gladiator

Weapon: greatsword. Role: melee DPS who can off-tank. The Gladiator swings a colossal blade that hits several enemies at once — per NC's official showcase, a frontline vanguard who tears through the battlefield like a raging storm, with high attack and high defense at the same time.

The playstyle is honest melee: buff up, close the gap, knock the target down, then cash in with your biggest hit. Community guides report the Gladiator holds enemy attention through raw damage rather than a dedicated taunt, and both build sites we cross-referenced rate its difficulty as easy. Pick it if you want a forgiving frontline class that levels safely and fills two group roles; skip it if you want positional requirements, stealth or ranged tools.

• High attack paired with high defense — unusual for a damage class, and the reason it can off-tank
• Wide AoE cleave built into the basic kit; dungeon trash and grinding packs go down fast
• Knockdown chains give it real control — community guides describe Mocking Blade into Overhead Slam as the signature punish
• Self-sustain: lifesteal and MP recovery woven through the reported rotation keep downtime low
• Beginner-friendly — two independent community build sites both call it one of the easiest classes to level

• No shield and no dedicated tank cooldown suite — survival is positioning, timed blocks and dodges
• The biggest hit is conditional: community guides report Overhead Slam normally wants a knocked-down target outside its burst window
• Weak at range, and — per community PvP guides — weak in large Abyss fights where ranged classes shape the field
• Only average sustained damage between burst windows for a melee class

Community guides converge on the same loop: buff, close, knock down, punish. Hold basic attack underneath everything, keep the cheap fillers running for MP, and save the conditional buttons for the moment they are built for.

1. Close the gap — Leaping Slam onto the target (Rush Strike is the reported alternate)
2. Pop your buffs: community guides open with Lunge Stance, then Zikel's Blessing for PvE
3. Lead with Ruinous Blow to open the damage window
4. Spam Rending Blow and Overhead Slam; weave Keen Strike when MP dips
5. Knock down with Mocking Blade, punish with Overhead Slam, extend with Aerial Snare
6. Hold Defiance for hard crowd control only

Against packs the job changes shape: gather the mobs on you, then spam the wide cleave line. Community leveling builds trade the boss stigmas for AoE ones — Wrath Wave and Blade Toss are the reported picks — and deliberately fight groups instead of single mobs, because the greatsword clips everything around you.

Primary melee damage with a genuine off-tank option. Community guides are blunt about how it tanks: no traditional taunt — the Gladiator holds attention through steady damage, and Focused Block plus a sturdy passive kit reportedly make it durable enough for many dungeons when no Templar shows up.

• Dungeon job: stay on the boss or the biggest pack; peel adds when the Templar is busy or absent
• Positioning: frontal when safe — community guides report the Experienced Counterstrike passive rewards frontal attacks and parries with a party-wide damage boost
• Synergy: that parry buff reportedly does not stack with the Templar's Fury buff — coordinate with your tank instead of double-dipping
• Abyss value: knockdown chains and Blade Toss's healing debuff give the group tools to lock down and drain a focus target

Multiple community guides call the Gladiator one of the safest classes to level: tanky, self-sustaining, and faster on packs than on single mobs. Keep the main story as your spine and pull groups as you go.

• Early points into Rending Blow, Leaping Slam and Overhead Slam; Crushing Wave is the reported pack-clearer
• Biggest reported spike: Overhead Slam's level 16 specialization removes its cooldown — community guides call it the single largest damage jump
• Stigma slots open at 22 / 27 / 32 / 37 — the community order is Focused Block, then Lunge Stance toward 20, then Rage Burst and Zikel's Blessing
• Around level 17, take your amulet then weapon to +10 — community guides report enhancement cannot fail up to +10
• Open elite mobs with Mocking Blade and punish the knockdown

Community tier and PvP guides describe the Gladiator as one of the strongest 1v1 and small-scale classes on the back of burst plus survivability — and one of the weaker picks in large Abyss melees, where ranged classes control the field. The honest caveat from those same guides: Global Season 1 is weeks old, everyone is still under-geared, and balance patches arrive often. There is no settled PvP meta yet.

• Reported Abyss stigma set: Lunge Stance, Armor of Balance, Tenaciousness, Blade Toss — named by both community sources we cross-referenced
• Blade Toss is the ranged answer: a reported 20m throw that cripples defense and cuts incoming healing
• Arena reportedly swaps Blade Toss for Focused Block to eat a burst combo
• Tenaciousness is the emergency invulnerability reset; Defiance stays reserved for hard crowd control
• All PvP specifics above are Unconfirmed — starting points, not facts