Gladiator in PvE, what to level and in what order

The rule

Every time I get a skill point, it goes to the highest skill on the list that can take another level. There are two limits: points, and character level, because a skill can only go up one level for every three levels you gain after learning it.

What each skill level costs

Skill level	Points	What it unlocks
2 to 4	1 per level	Nothing, it just hits harder
5 to 7	2 per level	Nothing, it just hits harder
8	4	First specialization slot, pick one of three
9 and 10	4 per level	The cap you can reach with points

Taking a skill to 8 costs 13 points; to 10, 21. Leveling to 45 earns you 203, enough for about nine skills at 10. The rest of the points come from Wisdom Stones: the Monolith, sealed dungeons and shops.

Skill points, in order

Order	Skill	Type	Target	Running total
1	Overhead Slam	Active	10	21
2	Rending Blow (right click)	Active	10	42
3	Ruinous Blow	Active	10	63
4	Crushing Wave	Active	10	84
5	Experienced Counterstrike	Passive	10	105
5	Attack Preparation	Passive	10	126
5	Murderous Burst	Passive	10	147
6	Identify Weakness	Passive	10	168
7	Keen Strike (left click)	Active	10	189
8	The remaining actives	Actives	8, as points come in

At first the points go to Rending Blow and Keen Strike, because they’re the only skills you have.
The step 5 passives get leveled as soon as you learn them (levels 13, 21 and 25).
The chase actives only matter in PvP.
By level 45 there’s no such thing as a “minor” skill. Among the top Gladiators metabot tracks, almost all also run Impact Hit (13.3 on average), Blood Absorption (12.8), Survival Stance (12.5), Survival Willpower (10.1), Destructive Impulse (9.8) and Protection Armor (7.9), counting what Daevanion and gear add. Among the actives, Leaping Slam (12.3), Rush Strike (11.5), Sword Aura Rampage (11) and Ankle Slice (10.3). Once you hit 45, any leftover points go into these.
The game lets you save three skill setups. I’ve seen it on my screen; I still have to test what each one saves.

Specializations

Each active has five. You get one with the skill between level 8 and 11, two from 12 and three from 16: the game itself marks the third slot with a 16. You have to equip them by hand after leveling the skill; otherwise the slot stays empty and does nothing. On some skills, the level 12 or level 16 one is fixed; on others, the second slot lets you choose between several (on Crushing Wave, for example, between the three level 8 ones and the level 12 one).

Above 10 you no longer level skills with points, but with Daevanion, Arcana cards and gear. On global, skills and stigmas cap at 20.

Skill	At level 8, one of these	At level 12	At level 16
Rending Blow	−20% mana · +200 block on use · usable while moving	Up to +12% damage with fewer targets	+50 mana per crit
Keen Strike	+20% mana recovered · steals 1% HP · +50% multi-hit	Each hit takes 1 s off Ruinous Blow’s cooldown	Adds the Reckless Strike chain
Overhead Slam	Steals 0.7% HP · becomes AoE · adds the Upward Strike chain	Every hit is a crit	Removes the cooldown
Ruinous Blow	+20% speed · +12.5 m range · +30% crit	Extra damage on hit	Ignores block and evasion
Crushing Wave	Steals 2% HP · 50 mana per crit · up to +20% with more targets	Resets on every crit	50% chance to pull
Leaping Slam	Prepare for Battle 3 s · 50% chance to cast Ankle Slice · resets on kill	+20% PvE Damage Tolerance for 3 s	Becomes AoE and pulls
Rush Strike	300 Stamina on hit · +10 m range · charge with AoE damage	−10 s cooldown	+25% knockdown
Mocking Blade	Steals 4% HP and 15% of the target’s (the end is cut off) · becomes AoE on a knocked-down target · adds 2 hits	+1 s knockdown	Ignores block and evasion (cut off)
Sword Aura Rampage	Steals 5% HP · recovers 120 mana · usable while moving	Multi-hit on hit	−1 s to the cooldown of every skill on hit
Ankle Slice	30% chance to knock down for 3 s · adds the Ankle Smash chain · +16 m range	Ignores block and evasion	25% chance to reset its cooldown
Aerial Snare	Multi-hit on hit · +25% chance to launch into the air · +100% damage to incapacitated targets	Adds the Forced Fall chain	−50% cooldown
Defiance	Adds the Wrath Burst chain · recovers 1,000 Stamina on use · recovers 20% HP on use	+2 s of Tenacity	+50% PvE Damage Tolerance and something else (cut off)

I copied the last five rows from my screen on 8 October 2026; for those I haven’t found what other players pick. In bold, what creators and Korean forums pick for leveling. At endgame the top players swap several: on Rending Blow they run moving, block and mana per crit; on Overhead Slam, the chain and both the level 12 and level 16 ones.

The “+X% chance” to apply a status ones are worthless in PvE, because against a monster the status always lands.

Stigmas

They unlock at level 22 and use fragments, not skill points. On the global client there are 13 per class and four slots, which open at levels 22, 27, 32 and 37.

What the 151 top Gladiators metabot tracks are running (13 October): Lunge Stance 91%, Zikel’s Blessing 91%, Rage Burst 73% and Focused Block 62%. Behind them, Lifestealing Blade (42%), Wrath Wave (27%) and Tenaciousness (17%). On average they have them at 5-8.

Each stigma turns on a fixed specialty at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20; you don’t choose it. What the first two tiers give:

Stigma	What it does	At level 5	At level 10
Zikel’s Blessing	+20% attack and +100 accuracy for 10 s (2 min)	+50% damage to the stun bar	+10% PvE damage (+5% PvP)
Lunge Stance	+20% combat speed for 10 s (1 min)	+5% double hit chance	+20% movement speed
Rage Burst	Heavy hit and Wounded: −10% attack on the enemy (45 s)	−15 s cooldown	A further −10% attack on the enemy
Focused Block	+100% reduction when blocking and guaranteed block (20 s)	Two uses in a row	Usable while moving
Lifestealing Blade	AoE on 4 enemies and steals HP (90 s)	Up to +20% damage the more it hits	Life steal for the group for 20 s
Wrath Wave	AoE on 4 enemies with knockdown (1 min)	Up to +20% damage the more it hits	−20% attack on the enemy for 5 s

If only one can go to 10, make it Zikel’s Blessing: its level 10 tier is the only one that adds pure damage. The rest, to 5: Lunge Stance and Rage Burst always, and the fourth depending on the content. Focused Block for bosses; Lifestealing Blade if you farm packs of mobs or play solo.

Cost per level: 1 fragment up to 5, 2 up to 10, 4 up to 15 and 8 up to 20. A stigma at level 20 is 75 fragments.

Daevanion

Crystals are spent on nodes, and each node has to touch one you already have. The cost depends on the color:

Color	What it is	Crystals
Grey	A stat	1
Green	+1 to a passive	2
Blue	+1 to an active	3
Orange (the four corners)	Special node	4

Leveling to 45 earns you 136 crystals, 4 per level from 12. Filling all five boards costs 802, and Nezekan, Zikel and Vaizel share the same pool: order matters.

Nezekan

Unlocks at level 12. The board is an 11 by 11 grid; I give each node by column (from the left) and row (from the top). The center is square 6, 6. The order is aion2-meta’s for the global board.

#	Column, row	What it gives	Crystals
1	6, 5	Attack +3	1
2	6, 7	Defense +30	1
3	5, 7	Critical Hit +5	1
4	4, 7	Identify Weakness +1	2
5	5, 8	Attack +3	1
6	3, 7	HP +100	1
7	3, 8	Defense +30	1
8	3, 9	Rush Strike +1	3
9	3, 10	Critical Hit +5	1
10	4, 10	Attack +3	1
11	3, 11	Blood Absorption +1	2
12	5, 10	HP +100	1
13	5, 11	Ruinous Blow +1	3
14	6, 11	Critical Hit +5	1
15	7, 11	Survival Stance +1	2
16	7, 10	Attack +3	1
17	8, 10	HP +100	1
18	9, 10	Ankle Slice +1	3
19	9, 11	Critical Hit +5	1
20	10, 11	Defense +30	1
21	11, 11	Combat Speed +1.5%	4
22	7, 7	HP +100	1
23	7, 8	Critical Hit +5	1
24	5, 5	MP +50	1
25	4, 5	HP +100	1
26	3, 5	Rending Blow +1	3

Up to number 26 it’s 40 crystals. Further out are Overhead Slam +1 (3, 2), Attack Preparation +1 (8, 5) and the other three corners: Combat Speed +1.5% (1, 1) and Cooldown Reduction +1.5% (11, 1 and 1, 11).

Zikel

Unlocks at level 20. The valuable nodes are far from the center:

Node	Column, row
Damage Boost +1.5%	11, 1 and 1, 11
Damage Tolerance +1.5%	1, 1 and 11, 11
Rending Blow +1	11, 5
Overhead Slam +1	3, 11
Ruinous Blow +1	9, 1
Experienced Counterstrike +1	5, 4 and 9, 10
Murderous Burst +1	3, 2 and 7, 8

Next to the center: Attack +3 to the right (7, 6) and Defense +30 to the left (5, 6).

What I’ve seen on my screen around the center, hovering the mouse:

Column, row	What it gives	Crystals
5, 5	Critical Hit +5	1
5, 4	Experienced Counterstrike +1	2
7, 5	MP +50	1
8, 5	Destructive Impulse +1	2
7, 7	Critical Hit Resist +5	1
7, 8	Murderous Burst +1	2
5, 7	HP +100	1

Destructive Impulse and Impact Hit are two different passives; both have a node on this board. aion2-meta’s order for the first Zikel nodes is Attack, Defense, Critical Hit, Experienced Counterstrike +1, Attack, HP, Sword Aura Rampage +1, Defense, Impact Hit +1, Attack, Ruinous Blow +1 and Defense.

Among 150 top Gladiators measured by metabot, the skill nodes almost everyone takes are Overhead Slam +1 and Rending Blow +1 on Nezekan (98% and 97%), and Rending Blow, Overhead Slam and Ruinous Blow on Zikel (96%, 95% and 93%).

Rotation

What Grobs (the most-watched PvE guide), Sen and three Koreans with a damage meter do:

The game’s own macro. In Settings → Keys → General there is a “Skill Macro” key. The macro is one line of skills by priority; you hold that key together with left click (Keen Strike), and the game chains and cancels the animations by itself. When the cancel lands, a black shadow appears. Sen puts it on right click.
The line, top to bottom: Rage Burst → Overhead Slam → Rending Blow.
Opener: Lunge Stance and Zikel’s Blessing, jump to the boss, Ruinous Blow (20 seconds of +20% PvE damage) and into the macro.
Take the boss’s first hit with Focused Block. If you block it, Experienced Counterstrike raises the whole party’s damage for 20 seconds.
Always in front of the boss: Experienced Counterstrike gives more frontal damage. Turning on the boss orientation indicator helps (Settings → Info display → Combat).

Mana. Keen Strike, with “+20% MP restored” and “+50% multi-hit”, is what refills while Rending Blow spends. On Rending Blow, Grobs takes “mobile skill” first, because without it the class feels clunky, and then the +12% damage.

At level 16 everything changes: Overhead Slam loses its cooldown and Rending Blow restores 50 MP per crit. From then on you stop using Keen Strike and only hold the macro key.

In order of priority: Overhead Slam and Rending Blow to 16. For stigmas, Rage Burst to 5 (cooldown from 45 to 30 seconds), Focused Block to 5 (two charges) and Lunge Stance to 20: on a crit, 50% chance to take 1 second off every cooldown, so nearly everything is always up. Passives: Experienced Counterstrike, Attack Preparation, Impact Hit (for the double damage chance) and Murderous Burst.

Where the damage comes from. On a level 50 Korean’s meter (one minute on a dummy), more than half the damage is Overhead Slam with its Upward Strike chain; Rending Blow about 10%; Ruinous Blow about 6%. Another Korean measured 20 times that alternating Overhead Slam with Rending Blow does slightly more than pressing Overhead Slam alone. Korea is ahead in levels and skills: the percentages may differ on global.

⛔ Some Koreans use external mouse macros to press faster. NCSOFT has advised against them: only the in-game macro is used here.

Against groups, Crushing Wave: it resets on every crit.

Knocking bosses down (Stagger)

Some bosses, like Bakarma in Draupnir or Berk in Krao Cave, bring up a Stagger bar. If the group doesn’t fill it in time, everyone dies. What fills the bar, according to metabot’s skill pages for the global client:

Skill	Fills	What it is
Lifestealing Blade	20	Stigma, AoE, steals HP
Forced Restraint	20	Single target, seals
Mocking Blade	15	Single target, knocks down for 3 s
Leaping Slam	10	Leap from 20 m
Crushing Wave	5	AoE
Blade Toss	5	Ranged, lowers defense
Rending Blow	2	Right click

Lifestealing Blade is the fifth stigma, and with four slots it doesn’t usually fit. Sword Aura Rampage and the passive Destructive Impulse don’t fill the bar: they hit the boss harder once it’s down. The practical move is to save Mocking Blade, Leaping Slam and Forced Restraint, if you run it, for when the bar shows up.

1v1 Arena

Arena of Solitude, according to metabot and game8; I have not checked it myself. 1 versus 1, 10 minutes, 3 lives with a 5-second respawn, in Fire Temple Arena or Impetusium Arena. Always open, from level 45. Rank is per class, from Iron to Challenger 1 (1,800 points), and gives a PvP bonus that does not stack with the Abyss one: the highest applies. Each match gives Abyss Points: 300 for playing (10 a week) and 500 for winning (30 a week). Leaving counts as a loss.

Whether gear is equalized, sources disagree: game8 says no and metabot says yes. In a Taiwanese video, a Gladiator at 2,487 item level says his opponent beats him on gear.

Settings. A Korean Gladiator with 1,000 PvP kills turns off auto-targeting on skill use in the combat options: the Gladiator closes in with charges, and aiming by hand misses less. Sen keeps one skill preset for PvE, one for PvP and one for Battlefield, and also swaps wings and title when switching to PvP.

Stigmas. Tenaciousness is always in: 3 seconds of no damage taken. Alongside it, Lunge Stance, Zikel’s Blessing and one of these two: Blade Toss (−30% defense and −70% healing received for 10 seconds; at level 10 it also slows) or Forced Restraint (seals for 5 seconds: the opponent cannot use skills).

Opener, the Korean one: Blade Toss → Leaping Slam to get in → Mocking Blade, the only guaranteed knockdown → Forced Restraint → Ruinous Blow to finish, the hardest hit. If the trade goes wrong, Zikel’s Blessing or Tenaciousness and hold on. Inven’s control chain: Mocking Blade → Overhead Slam → Aerial Snare → Forced Fall, 4 to 5 seconds in which the opponent does nothing.

Defiance removes stun, knockdown, airborne, grab, freeze and fear, and grants immunity; it takes 60 seconds to come back. Make the opponent burn theirs on a weak control before using the good one. It does not remove seal.

Against each class, according to the Korean guides:

Cleric: no damage over time, because their heals and potions cleanse it. Knockdowns, Forced Restraint to seal their heals, and Blade Toss to cut 70% of their healing.
Assassin: if they ambush you, Tenaciousness right away, not Defiance.
Templar and Chanter: Ankle Slice, with its knockdown.

There is no Stagger bar in the Arena, so Sword Aura Rampage does nothing. What helps PvP most: PvP Damage Boost and PvP Damage Tolerance on the Azphel board, the Tread on White Wings title (kill 300 players), Abyss Power Shards and the amulet.

Gear

On the weapon: combat speed, then damage boost and accuracy.
While leveling, weapon to +5 and stop there.
On gear you’re going to replace, a single Manastone engraving: it raises item level. Re-engraving and Soul Binding only on what you’ll keep for a while.

Where the class stands

Based on about 300,000 Korean combat logs: right at the top in the arena and for leveling and farming; one tier lower in dungeons, where it’s valued as a main or off-tank. Global is one patch behind.

What I’m not sure about

Whether resetting Daevanion costs Kina. Resetting actives and passives is free.
Whether changing specializations costs anything.
What each of the three skill setups saves.
The Korean board has a different layout: the Nezekan order is matched by node type, not square by square.