Gladiator build, messed up?

[serani]

Ok so I finally got my gladiator from silver into gold last night, and i started to notice somewhere around Silvercreek that the goblins have become rather punishing for my gladiator.

Skills -
Weapon Lore - 90'ish
Concentration - 40 ish
Constitution - 85 or thereabout

I then rounded the character out with Long Handled Weapons, Agility, Armor, and Trading. I didn't go with sword or axe lore a decision I think i'm going to regret at some point.

I've also pumped more points into Strength and physical regen than anything else, and he's sitting now with about 12,500hp.

With this kind of build did I seriously mess it up, or should I just head to the desert or the ice elves and just grind out a ton of levels?

-Serani

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Overall the only possible mistake I see are long-handled weapons... they tend to be slower and can do less damage that other weapons.

Other than that though it seems to me to be a pretty good build depending on what combat arts you use...

[serani]

The choice for long handled weapons was all about the Sirithcam's set of armor (and I got that unique spear, which had a pretty nice boost to finding special). My choice for combat arts has been focused around zerg mobs as well as dragon and boss encounters:

Heroic Courage, Dagger Stare, Multi Hit and Awe I think is the 4th. It's fairly effective in places like the goblin lawn or around the ice elves (my bitter nemesis, I plan to just sit there and wipe them from that spot, just for spite). I've really been using that as a mainstay, and at level 77 in gold I've got a SB rating of 91. That's just because the first fight in the arena at level 1 is like impossible for me after that fight is over, afterwards i do fairly well.

While I have noticed that they are slower and do a bit less damage, i've been experimenting using my Lorgar's 2 hander to take out a dragon to 25% or so and then switching to see if the bonus on the spear will up my chances at better drops in the end. In case anyone was wondering...it's still a woefully painful drop rate.

My test last night was with Illith'Bah in the end of act 4. Out of probably 20 kills, I saw one set peice drop......Jacquire's helm. Of which I think i have seen drop more often than any other peice, second only to his axe. I have yet to see anything spectacular happen with a SB of 91% and a find special weapons bonus of something like +30. Now that I'm in gold and have a new enlightened iron, it's most like +65.

I only went, slightly long winded.

-Serani

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Well your combat art choices sound good so if you are having a hard time than I think it must be the weapons...