Really good information and advice!
Here is a link to my guide to using the MM numpad binds in gladiator matches. Users should keep in mind your advice when setting up the commands though (I haven't updated it since it was written).
-Sandolphan
"When heroes fail, the Angels will save you."
MASTERMIND NUMERIC KEYPAD PET CONTROLS
HAMIDON NUKE RAID GUIDE
Cool! I've been meaning to investigate these for a long, long time...
Edit: Forgot to add a category for Defense Debuffers. That can be pretty important, considering how lousy gladiator accuracy can be (probably slotting for knockback, the noobs)
List:
Shivan Destroyer
Swift Steel
Cobra
Mook Capo
Shivan Destroyer is far and away the best at this category though, with two AoE defense debuffs. Also, Fortunata have a "Mind Link" that improves accuracy, but they are only lieutenants, and pretty expensive to boot.
Awesome guide! /favorite
cant get Zeus anymore..they fixed that bug...sorry for the nitpicking
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
I'm a gladiator enthusiast. Scratch that, gladiator nut is more like it. And while gladiator fights have a small following, I've found that I usually have to provide a quick introduction prior to each match explaining how gladiators work. Hopefully this guide will answer most of the questions newcomers have about gladiators, as well as providing potential strategies and guidelines for team composition.
1. What the heck is a gladiator?
Gladiator battles are a type of Arena fight. Arena fights can be created or joined at Arena terminals. These terminals are at Galaxy, Talos, and Peregrine for heroes, or Port Oakes or St. Martial for Villains, and are found in the large arena dome or, for St. Martial, inside the Golden Giza. Arena terminals will soon be added to Pocket D as well.
An arena terminal will list all existing matches. You can also invite a person to join an arena match you created by typing /ai name; they don't even need to be in the arena to do this.
On the main Arena window at the bottom left is a button labelled "My Gladiators". Clicking on this will bring up another window that lets you manage your gladiator team. Each gladiator's name will have three toggles to the left of it and a point cost to the right of it. Each toggle that is filled will give you one more of that gladiator and costs the point value associated with the gladiator. Your team can't exceed 2000 points total. You need to manage your gladiators whenever you want to change your lineup and should do it at least once before you try entering a match. The match itself is like most other arena matches, except that the objective is to defeat all of your opponent(s)'s gladiators.
Players themselves are invincible and effectively observers. However, you can give your gladiators commands during the fight. You can drag the basic commands from the pet window (the window with all your gladiator's names) into your tray, or you can define your own custom macros (I'll go more into depth on macros later). Whether the match is set to timed or a last-man standing, the match will end when only one player has gladiators left; there is no respawning of pets.
2. All I see is "Wolf Spider Enforcer" on the Gladiator management screen! Where's Statesman listed??
The gladiators available to you are limited by the gladiator badges you have collected. There are various ways to attain them: most are linked to Exploration, Achievement, or Accomplishment badges, but others are unlocked just by killing specific foes, with no other badge associated. Badge Hunter has a list of all current gladiators.
3. Cool! They follow me around. But what else do they do?
Gladiators can take any command that a Mastermind can give to a pet: they are essentially MM pets. For those unfamiliar with Masterminds, here are some basics:
/petcom_all attack aggressive - - > Sends your squad to attack your current target. Useful for taking down a specific opponent.
/petcom_all follow passive OR /petcom_all follow defensive - - > Causes your squad to follow you without attacking. Useful if you want to get close before unleashing Area of Effect attacks. If a defensive pet is attacked, it will fight back, but passive pets will not fight back until you give an order.
/petcom_all goto - - > Brings up a targetting ring. When you select a spot on the ground, your team will move to that location.
The first two are essentially the "attack" and "heel" basic commands.
/petcom_all will send the command to your entire team. Just /petcom will only command the gladiator you have selected.
Some Fancier Stuff
I have found that /petcom_pow does NOT work on gladiator pets unlike real Mastermind pets. However, the /petcom_name command does work, so you can simulate /petcom_pow fairly easily due to the standard naming conventions of the gladiators. A single gladiator of one type will bear the exact name, and when you have more than one of a single type they will have numbers appended to their names, so three Name type gladiators would be called "Name 1", "Name 2", and "Name 3".
Careful! Some gladiators' names in the match are not exactly what is listed in "My Gladiators"! Examples are Crey Power Tank, whose match name is just Power Tank, and Hydra Protean, whose match name is just Protean.
Example:
petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror 2" follow passive
The command above would cause your two Sorcerors to follow you and not attack. However, there is a problem with this command. If one of your Sorcs should die, the remaining one will no longer have a number after its name, making this command useless!
This is easy to fix though, all you need to do is to add an identical command to "Sorceror". This will give you errors in your message screen no matter what but it will work correctly. The full macro entry would be this:
petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror 2" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror" follow passive
I would highly recommend creating custom macros or keybinds for your commands, though you can drag the basic commands from the pet window. Macros can be made with /macro name command, and go in your power tray. Keybinds are /bind key command and overwrite one of your keyboard keys.
Remember that you do not need / before the command in a macro string, and that you can combine commands with $$ between strings. The examples above are in correct macro format, so you could just type: /macro SorcsPassive petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive. . . et cetera to get a button in your tray labelled SorcsPassive that would perform this command when you use it. Macros seem to only appear in your "1" tray, but you can drag them to other trays.
If you don't give any commands, the default stance for your squad is aggressive, so they will still attack your opponents as soon as they get close enough.
4. My Wolf Spiders keep losing! Is the other guy cheating?
Realize that gladiators keep their rank type in gladiator matches. That means that gladiators that are Bosses will be vastly superior to Minion gladiators and much stronger than Lieutenant gladiators. Also, minions and lieutenants are often more expensive than the boss types. Until the point system gets an overhaul, there is no real incentive to use lieutenants or minions when you could use bosses. Therefore, most people assemble teams that are completely or nearly completely bosses. Sometimes though you can have "No Bosses" or "Minion only" matches when your opponents agree to them.
5. So what's the best gladiator?
There are two gladiators that are considered so effective that they are considered truly overpowered: Arch-Mage of Agony and Night Widows. Their "cheapness" stems from their durability, leading to one-sided fights, extremely drawn out fights, or even draws. For Arch Mages this is because of their high resistances and healing ability; for Night Widows it is their Smoke Grenades (and I believe their stealth defense bonus) that makes them nigh-unhittable. The general consensus on these gladiators are that they are "good but lame to use", so most people ask that they not be used at all in order to prevent draw situations or exceedingly long battles.
As for the other gladiators, most do not even come close to Mages or Widows but there are some extremely good and/or popular ones. The first is the Longbow Warden 2, which is basically an Empathy/Psychic defender. Even at 500 points they are exceedingly good because of their healing power combined with punishing psychic attacks that are not well resisted. Other popular gladiators include Calibans, which are powerful, durable melee combatants costing a mere 250 points, and Tank Smashers, which have Dull Pain and a small chance to come back to life with full health after being defeated. Honorable mention goes to the Longbow Warden 1, because though it is not often used (in my experience), they are a bit more powerful than Calibans, having Knockout Blow as one of their attacks, and they cost only 50 more points. Most of the bosses cost the same point value though, so they are all about even.
6. Any other hints for building a team?
The big clincher in most cases is numbers. Most gladiators don't have significant advantages over others of their same rank, so if you can simply field more gladiators then you've improved your odds of winning. This usually means finding strong, cheap bosses like Calibans. However there are some exceptions like Longbow Warden 2, where the higher cost is justified.
It also helps to have a theme for your team. For example, do you want gladiators with lots of single-target attacks so you can take out the problem targets quickly? Or do you want your gladiators to be able to hit multiple targets to in order to deal as much damage as possible?
Do you want melee fighters, ranged fighters, or a mix of both?
Does your team have synergy? For example, Tank Smashers use Grenades and Hand Clap, both of which cause a lot of knockback. While this can provide mitigation for your team by keeping foes off their feet, it can also cause scatter, making a gladiator with damaging area of effect attacks, like Mook Capos, less effective.
Lastly, use strategy. Unfortunately in most cases team composition > using strategy, but I still try and use specific tactics whenever I can as they make the match more interesting for me.
For example, if your Smasher Elites are being stubborn by staying at range and shooting crossbows instead of pummeling foes with their Maces, use a "goto passive" command on all of them. Once they are standing next to a target, command them to attack that target and they should all pull out their maces and start whacking away. You will probably have to experiment to find what tactics work best for you and your team.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as trying to use too much strategy. Sometimes a gladiator will be just as effective bashing away and doesn't need micro-management. One of the worst things you can do is to keep your team in passive mode while you try and get into the perfect position; your pets aren't fighting while you are shuffling them around, and they are likely to be knocked out of position by the opposition anyway. As a general rule, use passive mode only when you need to. It may help to mix high-maintenance gladiators, like AoE attackers or scatter-prone fighters, that require lots of management with those that require less management like durable melee fighters (the ones without Hand Clap). While your mindless bashers engage the foe, you can move your more intricate gladiators to the right position without trouble. Example: Mook Capos and Cobras. Send the Cobras to engage first, then when you opposition clusters around them, unleash the Mook's Full Auto fire into the middle of the crowd to hit the maximum number of targets.
7. Quick Categories
In case you want to build a team around a particular theme, like Range or Area of Effect attacks, I've made some categories for gladiators. I will only be listing bosses as minion- and lieutenant-only battles are rarer.
In general, I consider a gladiator a "melee" or "ranged" attacker if they have an assortment of attacks at that range and/or attempt to stay at that range. Many fit into multiple categories, even Ranged and Melee at the same time when they have a mix of melee and ranged attacks.
Zeus Titan isn't really a gladiator you can choose; you need two Hercules Titans to combine and form a Zeus. These are listed in no particular order.
A. Melee Attackers
Caliban
Longbow Warden 1
Smasher Elite
Swift Steel
Cobra
Tank Smasher
5th Column Krieger
Red Hand
Shivan Destroyer
Crey Power Tank
B. Ranged Attackers
Mook Capo
Longbow Warden 2
Warhulk
Mu Guardian
Crey Power Tank
Shivan Destroyer
Zeus Titan (combine two Hercules Titans)
C. Good Area of Effect Attackers
Mook Capo
Shivan Destroyer
Mu Guardian
Warhulk
Longbow Warden 2
5th Column Krieger
Hellfrost
Zeus Titan
Caliban (Footstomp only, melee AoE)
Longbow Warden 1 (Footstomp only, melee AoE)
D. Team Damage Boosters
Mook Capo
Swift Steel
E. Team Healers
Longbow Warden 2
Mu Guardian
F. Self Healers
Tank Smasher
Cobra
G. Control Powers
Hellfrost
Pariah Anchorite
Elite Smasher (single target stun only)
Tank Smasher (Hand Clap only)
Longbow Warden 1 (Hand Clap, Knockout Blow)
Zeus Titan
H. Mass Knockback/Knockdown
Tank Smasher
Longbow Warden 1
Longbow Warden 2
Caliban
Warhulk
5th Column Krieger
Crey Power Tank
Shivan Destroyer
Zeus Titan
I. Scatter Culprits
Tank Smasher
Hellfrost
Longbow Warden 1
Potentially the rest of the Knockback category gladiators, except Longbow Warden 2
J. Durable
Tank Smasher
Crey Power Tank
Caliban
Longbow Warden 1
K. Slows Foes
Hellfrost
Swift Steel
Longbow Warden 2 (attack speed only, not movement speed)
L. Quickly Acquired (Exploration/History badges)
Longbow Warden 1
Cobra
Pariah Anchorite
M. Acquired Through Mission Badges
Mook Capo
Warhulk
N. Difficult to Acquire
Longbow Warden 2 (if attained in a non-bugged fashion)
Arch-Mage of Agony
Caliban (for Villains)
O. Hero-only Gladiators
Warhulk
5th Column Krieger
Pariah Anchorite
Arch-Mage of Agony
P. Villain-only Gladiators
Mook Capo
Cobra
Hellfrost (if you missed Valentine's Day event on your Hero)
Night Widow
Red Hand
And finally, Category Z: Overpowered
Arch-Mage of Agony
Night Widow
8. Have Fun
Last but not least, play gladiator for the fun of it. I think of gladiator matches as playing a PvP Mastermind with more interesting henchmen. Maximizing fun also means helping your opposition enjoy the match as well. Don't use your best gladiators over and over again against players that have a limited selection and then gloat when their weaker team loses; switch to your weaker gladiators instead so the next match will be more even. Few enough people even try gladiator matches, we don't need to be chasing them away with juvenile behavior. And finally, don't use Arch-Mages or Night Widows, they either make the match one sided or a drawn-out boring draw. If your opponent uses them ask politely that he/she refrain in the future so that the matches will be more interesting.
Good luck, and thanks for all the fish.