Gladiator tweaks

hello everyone I'm starting this discussion because i want to see gladiator go further beyond what he is currently (see what i did there). i love gladiators design and his damage is good IMO however there are a few things that i do wish that would make him more solid for gladiator to be our summoners choice champion he should have a little more flare.

gladiator being a cosmic champion should come with some immunities poison being one of them in the comics his powers allow him to withstand high temperature ( incinerate, nova flame, clodsnap) he doesnt need all of these however he should have at least 1 or 2 of those

I also came across something that MSD pointed out that his stun immunity from opponents stun effects and this is only while gladiator is unstoppable and while it is paused this ability with how specific it has to be lined up does not really work in most cases. perfect example of this is that nodes dont effect this so encroaching stun would still effect gladiator if the unstoppable was active and paused. As pointed out by MSD on his livestream i think he makes a good point that while this unstoppable is active and paused gladiator should be immune to all stun effects.

another issue is the intimidate debuff i know the debuff is supposed to increase the chance to block however i feel the one gladiator has is not as strong or effect as hulklings i have played alot of gladiator within the past 2 days and have noticed his intimidate wont really do that when the opponent has a special attack alot of times they will throw it as soon as they get the debuff on them perhaps the potency can be increased on the debuff or maybe the debuff has some bugs we arent aware of but i feel it needs to be called out on

Final Thoughts: i think gladiator is a great addition to the game but some quality of life changes he needs so to sum it up,
Immunities: poison ,coldsnap, novaflame, immune to all stun effects while his unstoppable is active and paused, and looking into making his intimidate debuff more potent.

thank you kabam for hearing me out and please i would like all of us to give some ideas on how to improve gladiator for he is our summoners choice lets make him the best he can be!!

Comments

Darkness275

So, I made a similar thread: Here and stand by everything I said in there. I also shared my sentiments on MSD's stream.

I don't want him to have any additional full immunities. Resistances though, yes. They should scale with his confidence. He becomes more resistant at full confidence and as his confidence falls, so does his resistance. My recommendations for resistances were: Poison, Cowardice, Weakness. Potentially also Coldsnap and Rupture. I've seen a lot of people suggest Incinerate, which makes sense so maybe replace Rupture from my list with that - I didn't want to suggest too massive of a list though which is why I didn't include it, I opted for Rupture instead to emphasize his increased physical durability.

MSD's thought about him being fully stun immune while at max confidence. I considered it but didn't include it when I made my original post because I was hesitant about trying to suggest too much. Hearing MSD make the suggestion though - I'll address. I think this would make him a great defender and it would also be more encouraging for us in learning how to get the most out of his "special punishing" mechanic. I think it should come with a drawback though, like if he's intercepted in this mode it should actually lock him out of gaining confidence for a little bit. Big risk for the big reward. Edit to add: Before people refute the need for this - his fight against Cannonball is exactly why I add this... he was effectively at max confidence and got shook. It took him a bit to recover.

I'd like to see him vulnerable to magic in some way. I know not a lot might jump at this because it's also making him weaker... so I'm not ONLY suggesting buffing Gladiator, but he's pretty much a perfect counter-class to mystics as is, especially if at max confidence. However, Gladiator is vulnerable to magic, so if the mystic class can shake his confidence faster (make them fall off at an increased rate) or maybe he takes damage from magical energy attacks (similar to CMM) I feel like it would introduce counter-play.

I think the above tweaks to his kit would make him a very well rounded champion and pretty much perfect.

I really hope Kabam takes these into consideration.

ESF

Hi, folks! Hope all is well!

I am resurrecting this thread because I wanted to do a too-long post about Gladiator, but I also believe that generating a new thread isn’t fair to what people have already done — I do go back and Search and read other people’s comments, because other people really do make great points about this game and kits. I am not always right — I just have opinions and I don’t need to have my own threads all the time.

I just didn’t have the kit at a high enough rarity to actually form an opinion about it, because I couldn’t tell how the mechanics possibly scaled with Rank/Rarity.

So, here we are: Gladiator. Pulled him yesterday out of the 6-star Featured, which I actually had hoped to do — seriously. Yes, I am totally serious, even though I do know that this kit has some detractors.

So, the TL:DR Summary:

1. There’s a ton of stuff here that is actually Lore Accurate, which I think is great
2. The problem with the kit is the DPS at heightened levels of confidence isn’t enough
3. I truly think this kit will qualify for a Rebalance, and the hope would be that it’s not a mild one
4. What I would do in a Rebalance, and why: Indefinite Medium-potency Fury buff at 16 Confidence, Indefinite Low-Potency Armor Break at 18 Confidence, Indefinite Medium-potency Precision passive at 20 Confidence, Stacking Second Indefinite Low-Potency Armor Break at 22 Confidence, Second Stacking Medium-potency Fury Buff at 24 Confidence, Mild Intensify buff at 28 Confidence. Why: The combination of those extra mechanics would allow for the type of potentially (catastrophic) damage Gladiator should have BUT only if you can keep the combo, which is exactly how the Confidence mechanic should work

End TL:DR

So. Gladiator. This kit is actually pretty interesting and sneakily lore accurate, which is why I am writing about it. I actually love when Kabam releases kits that are like this.

Hear me out — for real.

Gladiator is a Superman analogue. Everyone knows that.

What Marvel didn’t want to do back in the day is give the character a crippling vulnerability to a rock, like Kryptonite. They didn’t want to do that, even though there have been sporadic mentions of a radiation wavelength that weakens the character. But that really has never been what they wanted the character’s weakness to be.

It was always this funky, shifting parameter of…Confidence.

See, Marvel wanted the Imperial Guard to be truly formidable, but they were never going to have their own ongoing series. So the characters have to be, absolutely HAVE TO BE, consistent in what readers expect every time they see them every year or two, but not be so powerful in their consistency that they constantly beat “the good guys.”

So how do you do that with “Superman”?

You make it so he can absolutely go to work against anyone or anything…but also lose to anyone or anything, not based on a rock or rare mineral, but by making him a big old bully who can absolutely fold when the going gets tough.

It’s actually the inverse of Superman. Right?

Superman finds a way. He overcomes things. Superman build to big moments…and then does some Class 100 Level insanity and ends the drama.

Gladiator can build to big moments too…but then if he “loses confidence” (or, in-game by losing the Confidence combo or possibly being Nullified, etc.), he can can absolutely lose to anyone.

The design of the kit is actually lore accurate. It’s actually pretty cool — they just took the Star-Lord/Aegon mechanic which has been around basically forever and named it Confidence and it serves the same purpose.

But.

We all know what the “but” is here.

We all understand it: Behind closed doors, Kabam is probably still super-pissed that they let Hercules get out the door. And I get it. We all do. Hercules casts a shadow on everything this game releases.

We can’t talk about this game without acknowledging that if Kabam isn’t going to be allowed to adjust/nerf Hercules, they’re gonna super-cautious about every single kit’s DPS/utility ceiling. And sometimes, it’s gonna hurt kits that should be in a class above the average kit.

We gotta be honest about that. Kabam hasn’t nerfed Hercules, and they shouldn’t.

But at the same time, they’re NEVER gonna let another kit like that get out the door. NEVER.

So, to me, my opinion, that’s the challenge of Gladiator right now.

Much of Gladiator’s kit and mechanics are lore accurate — I especially love the Vigilance on the SP2 that allows him to not Miss, which is a great simulation of his vision powers. The Unstoppable on SP1 is also awesome, because you can absolutely play him like an Invulnerable Bully and punish people in corners and on rushdowns.

But.

The kit’s DPS ceiling is penalized too much at the high end. It really is.

I put the kit through a ton of testing, and the DPS at the high end just can’t get there for what the lore indicates people would expect, even if you don’t want to make it catastrophic. The DPS at the high end just doesn’t “feel right.”

There’s no outright Fury mechanic for an immediate boost, no Armor Break (True Damage is certainly nice and appreciated but it’s not the same and it doesn’t last long enough), no Precision for more access to Big Yellow Numbers…I think, tbh, all of those are needed in a rebalancing.

There’s no Regeneration, no real Immunities…I think that the kit should probably qualify for a moderate-level rebalancing.

I honestly do believe that the reason the kit was released as-is…man. The shadow of Hercules looms large over high-end/powerful characters in this game, folks.

We just have to acknowledge that and hope the data Kabam uses shows that Gladiator does, indeed, qualify for a rebalancing.

Thanks for reading!

ItsClobberinTime

His damage is not good, you mentioned some of his issues yes but he needs more damage too.

Fit_Fun9329

He’s hitting like a wet noodle unfortunately

BigPoppaCBONE

Something simple to add would be if his heavy always knocked the opponent to the wall and his Intimidate started paused. That would hopefully eliminate some of the jank with the Intimidate not working as expected.
Losing power instead of health when attacking into opponent's specials at Ultra Confidence (still 24+ buffs but with a new unawakened cap at 30 Confidence buffs) gives you some space to actually use his unique feature across more opponent specials.

AVENGERSXWARS

Hey guys!!! thanks for commenting on my post i hope that kabam can view what everyone has said for gladiator and hopefully takes it into account if anyone has anything they would like to add feel free to

TripleB

He doesn't need many changes to make him great. Just enough to make him viable for more fights, which means being able to ramp up in more fights.
-Add a root debuff along with his intimidate, this way opponents don't dash back when you dash in, and don't throw specials
-If unstoppable, he can't lose confidence buffs
-Confidence buff potency increased from 3%-5%
-Against techs that are immune to coldsnap or incinerate, inflict degen
-Allow him to START the fight with confidence buffs equal to how many persistent charges he has, and raise the cap by that many

EdisonLaw

Another issue I'm having is that Gladiator loses those confidence when he gets struck, while Herc doesn't lose his feats

Buttehrs

Another issue I'm having is that Gladiator loses those confidence when he gets struck, while Herc doesn't lose his feats

If you got smacked in the face repeatedly you'd lose confidence too.

EdisonLaw

@Buttehrs Lol yes but at least make them persistent charges

Shadowstrike

Looks like we'll have to wait at least six to eight weeks for the rebalance report next month

altavista

My main issue, is how underwhelming the Persistent Charge is for Gladiator.

Other champions get persistently new abilities each fight they win (like Morningstar or Corvus), so that 'Starting Champion' is meaningfully different from 'Champion after 3 matches'.
Other champions get a certain 'combo' level ability to skip ramping up within a fight (Aegon, G2099, Stryfe), so that you don't have to repeat what you've already done.

Gladiator's Persistent charge is merely an increase to his Maximum. He still has to ramp up each fight.

Imagine if Stryfe had a maximum of 25 Telepathic charges each fight. Each fight he uses an SP3 in, increases the limit for the next fight by 25, to the maximum of 100. But, he still starts each fight at 0. So you have to win 3 fights with Stryfe at his baseline, just to be able to achieve play baseline Stryfe's who can now achieve his maximum for every subsequent fight.

So not only do you have to ramp up within the match, you also have to ramp him up across several matches since he can't reach his maximum potential in one match. It seems like the worst of both worlds, since Gladiator has to waste time on two fights to unlock his potential, but then still has to repeat the same steps within a match.

SecondSkriller

Hi, folks! Hope all is well!

I am resurrecting this thread because I wanted to do a too-long post about Gladiator, but I also believe that generating a new thread isn’t fair to what people have already done — I do go back and Search and read other people’s comments, because other people really do make great points about this game and kits. I am not always right — I just have opinions and I don’t need to have my own threads all the time.

I just didn’t have the kit at a high enough rarity to actually form an opinion about it, because I couldn’t tell how the mechanics possibly scaled with Rank/Rarity.

So, here we are: Gladiator. Pulled him yesterday out of the 6-star Featured, which I actually had hoped to do — seriously. Yes, I am totally serious, even though I do know that this kit has some detractors.

So, the TL:DR Summary:

1. There’s a ton of stuff here that is actually Lore Accurate, which I think is great
2. The problem with the kit is the DPS at heightened levels of confidence isn’t enough
3. I truly think this kit will qualify for a Rebalance, and the hope would be that it’s not a mild one
4. What I would do in a Rebalance, and why: Indefinite Medium-potency Fury buff at 16 Confidence, Indefinite Low-Potency Armor Break at 18 Confidence, Indefinite Medium-potency Precision passive at 20 Confidence, Stacking Second Indefinite Low-Potency Armor Break at 22 Confidence, Second Stacking Medium-potency Fury Buff at 24 Confidence, Mild Intensify buff at 28 Confidence. Why: The combination of those extra mechanics would allow for the type of potentially (catastrophic) damage Gladiator should have BUT only if you can keep the combo, which is exactly how the Confidence mechanic should work

End TL:DR

So. Gladiator. This kit is actually pretty interesting and sneakily lore accurate, which is why I am writing about it. I actually love when Kabam releases kits that are like this.

Hear me out — for real.

Gladiator is a Superman analogue. Everyone knows that.

What Marvel didn’t want to do back in the day is give the character a crippling vulnerability to a rock, like Kryptonite. They didn’t want to do that, even though there have been sporadic mentions of a radiation wavelength that weakens the character. But that really has never been what they wanted the character’s weakness to be.

It was always this funky, shifting parameter of…Confidence.

See, Marvel wanted the Imperial Guard to be truly formidable, but they were never going to have their own ongoing series. So the characters have to be, absolutely HAVE TO BE, consistent in what readers expect every time they see them every year or two, but not be so powerful in their consistency that they constantly beat “the good guys.”

So how do you do that with “Superman”?

You make it so he can absolutely go to work against anyone or anything…but also lose to anyone or anything, not based on a rock or rare mineral, but by making him a big old bully who can absolutely fold when the going gets tough.

It’s actually the inverse of Superman. Right?

Superman finds a way. He overcomes things. Superman build to big moments…and then does some Class 100 Level insanity and ends the drama.

Gladiator can build to big moments too…but then if he “loses confidence” (or, in-game by losing the Confidence combo or possibly being Nullified, etc.), he can can absolutely lose to anyone.

The design of the kit is actually lore accurate. It’s actually pretty cool — they just took the Star-Lord/Aegon mechanic which has been around basically forever and named it Confidence and it serves the same purpose.

But.

We all know what the “but” is here.

We all understand it: Behind closed doors, Kabam is probably still super-pissed that they let Hercules get out the door. And I get it. We all do. Hercules casts a shadow on everything this game releases.

We can’t talk about this game without acknowledging that if Kabam isn’t going to be allowed to adjust/nerf Hercules, they’re gonna super-cautious about every single kit’s DPS/utility ceiling. And sometimes, it’s gonna hurt kits that should be in a class above the average kit.

We gotta be honest about that. Kabam hasn’t nerfed Hercules, and they shouldn’t.

But at the same time, they’re NEVER gonna let another kit like that get out the door. NEVER.

So, to me, my opinion, that’s the challenge of Gladiator right now.

Much of Gladiator’s kit and mechanics are lore accurate — I especially love the Vigilance on the SP2 that allows him to not Miss, which is a great simulation of his vision powers. The Unstoppable on SP1 is also awesome, because you can absolutely play him like an Invulnerable Bully and punish people in corners and on rushdowns.

But.

The kit’s DPS ceiling is penalized too much at the high end. It really is.

I put the kit through a ton of testing, and the DPS at the high end just can’t get there for what the lore indicates people would expect, even if you don’t want to make it catastrophic. The DPS at the high end just doesn’t “feel right.”

There’s no outright Fury mechanic for an immediate boost, no Armor Break (True Damage is certainly nice and appreciated but it’s not the same and it doesn’t last long enough), no Precision for more access to Big Yellow Numbers…I think, tbh, all of those are needed in a rebalancing.

There’s no Regeneration, no real Immunities…I think that the kit should probably qualify for a moderate-level rebalancing.

I honestly do believe that the reason the kit was released as-is…man. The shadow of Hercules looms large over high-end/powerful characters in this game, folks.

We just have to acknowledge that and hope the data Kabam uses shows that Gladiator does, indeed, qualify for a rebalancing.

Thanks for reading!

You speak about the shadow of Hercules, but Kabam released Galan and Hulkling after said Hercules that are both way better than Gladiator in unique ways but also don’t get penalized like he is. Your comments are great regarding his rebalance, he needs more immunities and a higher ceiling. Currently he’s fine, but doesn’t have any claim over the other cosmics out there. And the damage he deals to the opponent during their specials, which is difficult to execute, is as much as Kate’s constant risk free damage from 2 coldsnaps… he’s been done dirty in the damage department and if that’s fixed the lack of immunities won’t upset people too much…