How I'm going to make my first Gladiator

[MaTianLong]

Hi, I'd like some helps on my 1st gladiator:

Kallistrate is a Theatric, I've choosed Exotic Weapons and now I'm using 2 Exotic sword-type weapons.

1) due to a not very high presence ( 70 ) what skills I should go?

2) I'm attracted by Tridents, but I don't think a sword-type weapon and a trident could work, so for now I'm using 2 sword-type , but I'd like to go with 2 Tridents on a gladiator.

3) I'd like full theatric

my strategy would be using speed and using Signature Moves and Bleeding

as for skills I've thought to:

Feint, Gratuitous Violence,Armour movement, Harmstring, Knockout,Bloody spectacle

[Alba Kebab]

1) 70 starting presence is fine for any of the presence based theatric skills. You will have the chance to add to it with gear/training/achievements later on.
2) trident + sword can work, it's up to you, 2 tridents are not possible because tridents are main-hand only.(it's too unwieldy to be an offhand weapon, you can think about using 2 tridents in a fight, it would be too cumbersome and not very realistic)

[MaTianLong]

Now Kallistrate is arrived at Elite but....

IT'S A DISASTER!!!!

She's starting to loose every fight ...I don't know why.. I don't know if I put wrong lvls of Activity-Blood Lust or because my skills are at low lvl...

I'm using a Trident-Sword(Exotic) blue weapons..

Pls.. someone help me.....

P.S. ...

I don't know why but my 2nd gladiator (Eurybia) is also in Elite but she's doing much better even if she's new compared to the 1st..Eurybia also uses trident-sword(exotic)
also I think in stats is worst than the 1st... just.. I really won't like to sell her and all that expensive equips to buy another one ...

[Dainoji]

Expect your gladiators to start losing more often now. The lower brackets are full of inactive glads and newbies. Starting around Elite and more so Juggernaught you'll hit "The Wall". The Wall is where there are a lot of skilled players and gladiators building up. Train your weapon skill up to 10, you stopped at 8 and now you are going to be fighting more and more glads with a 10.

[MaTianLong]

Expect your gladiators to start losing more often now. The lower brackets are full of inactive glads and newbies. Starting around Elite and more so Juggernaught you'll hit "The Wall". The Wall is where there are a lot of skilled players and gladiators building up. Train your weapon skill up to 10, you stopped at 8 and now you are going to be fighting more and more glads with a 10.
I thought 8 was a good point to stop to raise some skills

[Kreegan]

In the mid-high brackets you face not only better players but also bad players who have very experienced gladiators and good gear but can't progress or progress slowly due to inadequate strategies or simply bad stats. Still, if you face a level 40 fighter and you're gladiator is, say, level 25, you'll probably have issues defeating him/her except when he/she's very incompetent or has very bad luck. That's nothing unusual though. If your gladiator performs well when fully trained, then you're doing the things right.

The weapon skill should be trained to 10 as soon as possible but this doesn't mean that you have to neglect everything else until you have it 10/10. At 8 you can put some points on another skill and then proceed to 9, then 10. There isn't really a "best" approach because many things depend on luck with the RNG rolls but it's not a must to get to 10/10 weapon skill before going for something else.