Gladiators with shields - are they any good?

[Kreegan]

Hi people,

I decided to make an Exotics + Shield Theatrics in my second stable as opposed to my two dual-wielders and one two-hander. So far the other 3 guys are performing from well to very well but the shield gladiator doesn't seem to be doing much. The whole concept about the shields doesn't sound very convincing in the first place - you have to develop two weapon skills when other gladiators focus on only one and are free to upgrade their other abilities, the shield itself has almost exclusively defensive usage and helps the opponent outclass you when it comes to damage-dealing so you seem to rely mostly on strategies which tire the opponent rather than bleed him out (which I find boring among other things). I've also noticed that other shield gladiators are not performing very well against my offensive types (especially the two-hander). So - where is the mistake in this line of thoughts and is there are good way to develop a competitive shield gladiator?

[Prinny]

Defensive gladiators are harder to manage than offensive ones.
They need to parry hits, take hits, deal hits or make the other run outof endurance.

Keep in mind that you are using 2 weapons so try to adjust their fighting style to this aswell.
Shield is bash so I went with Shield + Mace on my glad Jinrou and focussed him on either wearing a gladiator out or scoring a KO on him rather than dealing a massive amount of damage.

Jinrou is a Spite now.
Skills I use for this build are Mace&Axes, Shields, Create Distance, Called shot, Resist Stun, Signature move (Jinrou's is Stun), Knockout, Show Off, Heavy Scarring (Not sure what it does) and Second Wind.
He's not at his full lvl with all of the skills yet so he currently also uses Strength Of The Crowd.

Ever since he became a Spite he's been performing better than he was before but still ofcourse loses alot of the fights he does because he's not tuned out perfectly and is up agaisnt top glads.

Anyway the best way to go with them is to think what you want him/her to do in a fight and design your built/startegy to do that desired effect.

[Dainoji]

Sword & Board glads are tough to run as they take a bit longer to get up to speed. Once however you have your shield skill up there (or Master of Arms) is when you'll start to see a big difference. All the extra defense lowers your opponents damage and chance to hit you and couple that with tank or a parry-X style and you'll see a lot of their attacks nullified. The bane of the defensive gladiator is the Two-Hander, they hit so hard and will eventually beat you down before you can wear them out, but this whole game is built around that concept a kind of soft rock-paper-scissors. It is rare you'll find a build that can kick everyone's ass all the time as is evident if you look at the win percentages of the top gladiators. most are around 50%-60% anything higher is fantastic!

I will say that defensive minded gladiators probably need a few more tools in their arsenal to be more competitive. I'm not sure if they are truly underpowered or managers simply aren't trying to run them at the higher levels and/or don't know how to run them properly but there aren't many in the upper brackets.

[Narol]

Indeed, I see only 2 skills that helps with defense (Create Distance and Battle Hardened) when you have 11 skills that boosts the offensive power or the damage effects !!!

Defensive gladiators need more love and cool skills for sure ! Maybe in Shadow & Myst school ?

It would be cool to have a dodge skill based on agility and intelligence !