Equipment Set-Up for Aion Gladiator PvP

The Gladiator is popular class for Aion gamers who like playing offensively without having to sacrifice defense. In PvP, Gladiators are found on the front-lines causing havoc amongst enemy troops. To be successful in Gladiator PvP you need to make sure you have the correct setup in terms of equipment, as the majority of the Gladiator's effectiveness is defendant on their equipment.

Equip Plate
Melee classes by definition, perform combat up close and personal, which means that Gladiators will be taking alot of damage. Although Gladiators can wear any armour, you should always wear plate. Plate has the most defense, even though the other types have better magic resists or evasion. This is because in the Abyss, where the majority of Aion pvp occurs, it is often aerial based. Aerial based combat has a defense penalty of 40% reduction of your physical defense. So you will need to offset this penalty with high defense based armour.

Equip Polearms
While greatswords and dual wielding swords is fine for pve, they are not as good for pvp compared to polearms. Polearms have higher crit rate and do more damage, but are slower. PvP is all about burst damage, and not sustained damage. Since you will be doing most of you damage from skills, the white damage plays a smaller factor. So increasing your white damage by equipping higher attack speed weapons will not benefit you much in a quick intense battle.

Equip a Bow
Bows may not seem useful for a close-combat class, but with the amount of crowd control spells going on in pvp, having a ranged attack available is useful. Especially against players trying to run away from you. Hot-key the weapon switching button, so that you can quickly switch to the bow.

Maximise you Critical Chance
As already mentioned, polearms have the highest critical hit chance of the Gladiator weapons. You should maximize your crit stat as much as possible. This has two major advantages in pvp. First, your burst damage is increased. Second, critical hits have the chance to knockback your opponent. Knockbacks, effectively temporarily disables your opponent, giving you a few free attacks before they recover.

So look for armour and weapons that have Physical Crit bonuses, and enhance them with manastones that add Physical Crit. You can also get necklaces and other jewelery with crit bonuses, so augment your armour bonuses with those.

Secondary Stat is Stamina
After crit, your next major stat is going to be stamina. With high stamina, you will survive longer, out-last a dps onslaught from an Assassin, and have enough hit points to catch-up with ranged classes. With high stamina you will be also be less dependant on a healer in your group, which is useful because they are typically targeted first in most pvp encounters.

The Gladiator cannot depend on skills and stigmas solely to be successful in PvP. Without the correct equipment and stat bonuses, your Gladiators effectiveness in battle will be very weak. So invest the time and effort gathering the required equipment, as it will benefit you in the end-game.

Aion Gladiator Guide
Strategies and tactics for th Aion Gladiator.