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Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Printable Version

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Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-18-2010

I posted this on FFXIV Builds and just thought I'd share it over here too, if people haven't been checking that site out.

This is the first time I’ve written such a guide, so in addition to any tips you have relating to the subject matter, I’d appreciate any advice you have on the guide itself.

The inspiration behind this build comes primarily from two sources. The first is,

“I like swords.”

They really are my favorite weapons, and like many others I hope for two handed and dual wielding versions. For now, we have our one trusty blade. Gladiator tanks are pretty common, but I've been coming up short in my searches for a DD build.

Second, I enjoy role playing as well as hunting things down and stabbing them to little pieces. With my character in mind, it becomes a tool to help me focus on what’s important, and hell, not like I can’t swap things out later, gotta that love flexibility.

Point Allotment In order of importance:

Strength
Dexterity
Vitality
Mind
Intelligence
Piety

Elemental Stats:

Fire/Lightning

Below I separate the cross class skills used into two stages thus far. Stage One includes skills from ranks 1-10 of classes. Stage Two will include skills from ranks 12-26

Primarily, the purpose of this build is to deal damage in a few different ways. Mostly in melee, but with some potential to use distance magic attacks. The build should also be good for solo play, with some abilities serving as backup in party play.

Gladiator: Ranks 1-16

Due to it being the primary class, I wouldn’t worry too much about the ranks and skills. Tailor to taste, though I recommend:

Lv2 - Red Lotus
Invoke the power of flame and strike, dealing fire damage.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Mp cost 10
Tp cost 1000

I plan to pump my fire element stat so this skill will see greater and greater damage in time along with the increases in strength. I always find it helpful to have an elemental based attack up my sleeve just incase.

Lv4 - Rampart
Fight to protect yourself, increasing defense and magical defense.
Cast time 0
Recast time 300

Boost defense and magic defense, why yes, I will have some.

Lv6 - Circle slash
Spin your weapon fiercely, dealing damage to nearby enemies.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

If you have to deal with multiple targets, but remember you aren’t the tank, and if this isn’t a concern, I’d leave it out.

Lv12 - Spinstroke
Feint and then strike, dealing slashing damage to the target. Increases attack power when the target is not engaging you.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

Good damage, if you aren’t tanking, even better damage.

Lv16 - Howling Vortex
Sound a haunting howl with your weapon, dealing slashing damage and temporarily lengthening the target's cast times.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

Not as much for damage, as it is to increase cast times. Keeping enemy specials locked down as much as possible.


Cross Classes and Skills Stage One

Archer

Lv4 - Raging strike

Strengthen your grip, increasing the attack power of your next attack.
Cast time 0
Recast time 30

Personally I think this is better than the lancer’s Ferocity, as it has a shorter cool down time, and doesn’t cost HP to use. Admittedly the HP loss is a miniscule 22hp, but really, I want to keep all the HP I have, I’m just miserly like that. (The important thing here is really the shorter CD)

Marauder

Lv6 - Bloodbath

Revel in the blood of an enemy, converting a percentage of the damage dealt by your next successful attack into HP.
Cast time 0
Recast time 60

A good way to heal without using MP if you have the setup time. Best when used with Lancer’s Ferocity (rank 4) or Archer’s Raging Strike (rank 4) the boost to damage will be a boost to hp.


Lv8 - Skull Sunder
Strike an enemy in the head, dealing slashing damage and additional damage over time. Attacks enemies in a cone before you while under the effect of steadfast.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 500

The AoE effect won’t help you if used as a cross class skill, as only the Marauder has the steadfast ability. What we’ll be using it for is for its low TP usage and DoT effect.

Lancer

Lv8 - Moonrise

Frustrate an enemy's tactics, dealing slashing damage and reducing the target's Tp generation.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

Should combo well with Howling Vortex.

Conjurer

Lv4 - Cure

Restores Hp of allies within area of effect.
Cast time 2
Recast time 5
Mp cost 12

Quick healing for you and your friends, costs MP, but most of our attacks won’t cost any. More reliable than Bloodbath, but if I have the setup time, I’ll be using Bloodbath first to conserve my MP for other things.

Lv8 - Shock spikes
Armors party members within area of effect with spikes of lightning, granting the ability to stun and deal lightning damage to attacking enemies.
Cast time 3
Recast time 10
Mp cost 8

I love this skill. Enemy attacks, they get damaged and stunned, what’s not to like? Well first if you are in a party with a tank and a main Conjurer, but for solo play I highly recommend this. I plan on increasing my lightning element stat to better use this skill.

Lv10 - Radiance
Sear an enemy with brilliance, dealing astral damage. grants the caster MP in proportion to the damage dealt.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

An attack that is good for keeping other MP using abilities up and running. Thaumaturge has the umbral damage equivalent. My thinking in using this over Damnation (Thaum rank 10) is based on using the banish ability (Thaum rank 1) to lower a targets resistance to astral damage. Eventually when we learn Luminous Spire (Glad rank 24) we can use banish as a prep for that skill.

If it turns out that Banish/Scourge are useless or just taking up space on our action bar, then this could be kept or replaced with Damnation.

I want to mention that certain spells; Fire and Thunder may have some use if you’ve been pumping up your elemental stats, I haven’t tested it extensively myself, and fear that without putting a lot of points into INT and using a magic weapon, the spells aren’t worth it. Same goes for the rank 12 skills Burn and Shock. If Banish is useless, and these spells are wastes of MP, then I wouldn’t level Conjurer past 8.


Thaumaturgy

Lv10 - Damnation

Haunt an enemy with visions of the hells, dealing umbral damage. grants the caster MP in proportion to the damage dealt.
Cast time 0
Recast time 10
Tp cost 1000

The umbral damage equivalent of Radiance.

Lv10 - Punishing barbs
Channel your pain to an enemy, redirecting a portion of damage dealt to you back to its source.
Cast time 0
Recast time 180

Much like Shock Spikes, in that we use this to make whatever is hitting us regret it got out of bed that morning.

Pugilist

Lv6 - Second Wind

The thrill of battle exhilarates you, restoring HP.
Cast time 0
Recast time 60
Tp cost 250

Might be shocked to see this down here rather than the first skill in the list. Reasoning for that is I’m not entirely sold on this skill just yet. It is valuable as a cheap and instant heal, but as a cross class skill it has a long cool down and just doesn’t heal us much. Gladiator HP is not skimpy, and if you’ve been putting points into VIT then you may not even notice the hp healed during a fight. Conversely it may get a boost in the future (I read that its bugged in open beta) and if nothing else, could act as a damage buffer or a desperation move, up to you if it’s worth the space it’ll take up.

Stage Two is under construction, as I haven’t been able to reach the needed ranks in those classes, nor have I examined everything yet. But some of the skills I’ve been considering are:

Marauder: Foresight (12), Fracture (14), Murderous Intent (26)
Lancer: Invigorate (14), Leg Sweep(16) possible replacement for circle slash. Feint(20)
Thaumaturgy: Stygian Spikes (16)

Stage Three... might just be figuring out a cool name for the 'class' Tongue


Re: Sword and Spell, DD Glads - Asyria - 09-18-2010

What's DD for?
Also, there's some interesting ideas in the following thread but most are not quite as elaborated. ^^
http://www.ffxiv-roleplayers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1488


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-18-2010

Yep, I've read and posted in that thread, its part of my inspiration behind writing this, as it was one of my early reads when looking for Gladiator build ideas, I checked it often and sometimes still do when I'm not posting to it. Smile

DD stands for Damage Dealer, not necessarily DPS though, thats more of a specified type of damage dealer. I'll change the title of the thread to make that more clear. :mrgreen:


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Chveya - 09-18-2010

>_> I always thought it meant Direct Damage.

Guess that's what I get for being too stubborn to ask, and just guessing.


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Siben - 09-18-2010

i've always read it as "Damage Dealer". Used to see it a lot on this ol' L2 server in the context of: DEDDDLFG
which as we all know stands for "Dark Elf Dagger Damage Dealer Looking for Group" Tongue

Fun times. This build sounds like it should be quite interesting, I hope it works out well.


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Trizzip - 09-18-2010

Looks like a cool guide. I commend you for dedicating your time to sharing the knowledge you have gained. :approve:


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Dralid - 09-18-2010

Interesting work! Thumbs up!

But did you have the opportunity of giving the build a field test?


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-18-2010

Not as much as I'd would like. Some of this is based on homework and talking/reading what other DoW players had to say about certain skills and as cross class skills, mostly the higher ranked skills. I leveled a lot moving horizontally so I would better have an idea of how the different classes worked and how some skills I loved as that class, changed to something kinda meh in a cross class. in a couple of cases, I tried certain skills out on alts, such as Raging Strike (originally I was using Ferocity on my main) and Shock Spikes.

This is why I had to put in that note about the elemental spells (Fire/Lightning in my case) and why I'm not sure if they'll be worth it. Though with a damaging spell, you can help mitigate some of the spells lack of power from little INT with a high Elemental score.


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Asyria - 09-18-2010

I can tell Red Lotus seems to deal more damage when I put pts in Fire element when I tried Glad.


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-18-2010

Yep Smile Anytime something uses an element, if you allot more points into it, you'll get a stronger effect, whether it be damage or defense. So pugalists would want to put more points into Earth and Marauders into Wind if they wanted to use the class skills that use them


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Kejira - 09-19-2010

Xzenivar Wrote:Yep Smile Anytime something uses an element, if you allot more points into it, you'll get a stronger effect, whether it be damage or defense. So pugalists would want to put more points into Earth and Marauders into Wind if they wanted to use the class skills that use them

Ohh nice to know, never thought about that some of the other classes beside conjurer used the elements more than just defense, thanks allot for the information ^-^


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-19-2010

Happy to help Smile


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Vareal - 09-19-2010

Me likey! A+++++ for you good ser! I was looking for something like this seeing as I'm not a fan of shields... I'm really not which is why I'm just hoping that they'll include dual wielding somewhere along down the line.


Re: Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads - Xzenivar - 09-19-2010

vareal Wrote:Me likey! A+++++ for you good ser! I was looking for something like this seeing as I'm not a fan of shields... I'm really not which is why I'm just hoping that they'll include dual wielding somewhere along down the line.

Thanks alot Big Grin I'm in the same boat as you, as I don't like shields, nor do I like how hard it is to get one when you're just starting out. Dual wielding swords is also one of my favorite combat modes, and I'm not sure if I hope it becomes apart of Gladiator or has its own class entirely Smile

If you decide to try out the build, feel free to post your thoughts about it here ^_^ maybe I should name it properly after all.