Sword and Spell, Damage Dealer Glads

[Xzenivar]

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 Iâve written such a guide, so in addition to any tips you have relating to the subject matter, Iâd appreciate any advice you have on the guide itself.

 

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

 

âI like swords.â

 

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 whatâs important, and hell, not like I canât 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 wouldnât 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 arenât the tank, and if this isnât a concern, Iâd 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 arenât 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 lancerâs Ferocity, as it has a shorter cool down time, and doesnât cost HP to use. Admittedly the HP loss is a miniscule 22hp, but really, I want to keep all the HP I have, Iâm 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 Lancerâs Ferocity (rank 4) or Archerâs 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 wonât help you if used as a cross class skill, as only the Marauder has the steadfast ability. What weâll 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 wonât cost any. More reliable than Bloodbath, but if I have the setup time, Iâll 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, whatâs 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 youâve been pumping up your elemental stats, I havenât tested it extensively myself, and fear that without putting a lot of points into INT and using a magic weapon, the spells arenât 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 wouldnât 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 Iâm 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 doesnât heal us much. Gladiator HP is not skimpy, and if youâve 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 itâs worth the space itâll take up.

Stage Two is under construction, as I havenât been able to reach the needed ranks in those classes, nor have I examined everything yet. But some of the skills Iâve 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'

[Asyria]

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

[Xzenivar]

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.

 

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:

[Chveya]

>_> I always thought it meant Direct Damage.

 

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

[Siben]

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"

 

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

[Trizzip]

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

[Dralid]

Interesting work! Thumbs up!

 

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

[Xzenivar]

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.

[Asyria]

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

[Xzenivar]

Yep 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

[Kejira]

Yep Anytime something uses an element' date=' 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[/quote']

 

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 ^-^

[Xzenivar]

Happy to help

[Vareal]

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.

[Xzenivar]

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 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

 

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.