Are you ready to dominate the Path of Exile (PoE) league as a Gladiator? Look no further! The Lacerate Gladiator build is a fantastic choice for players looking for a strong, reliable, and satisfying league starter. It offers excellent clear speed, survivability, and bossing capabilities, making it a well-rounded option for tackling all content in the game. This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know to get started, from skill tree progression and gem setups to gear recommendations and gameplay tips. Get ready to cleave your way through hordes of enemies and conquer the endgame with the Lacerate Gladiator!

Why Choose Lacerate Gladiator?

There are several compelling reasons to choose the Lacerate Gladiator as your league starter:

• Excellent Clear Speed: Lacerate's inherent mechanics, combined with Gladiator's powerful ascendancy nodes, allow for incredibly fast and efficient map clearing. The bleed explosions from Gladiator's Gratuitous Violence node chain react, obliterating entire packs of enemies with a single strike. This makes mapping a breeze and allows you to level up quickly.
• Solid Survivability: Gladiator offers exceptional defensive layers, including block chance, armour, and life regeneration. This makes the build incredibly tanky and forgiving, allowing you to survive even the most challenging encounters. The combination of block, bleed immunity, and reliable life sustain ensures that you can confidently tackle all content in the game.
• Great Bossing Potential: While not the absolute best bossing build, Lacerate Gladiator is more than capable of taking down endgame bosses. The bleed damage from Lacerate scales incredibly well with investment, allowing you to deal significant damage over time. The Gladiator's Challenger Charges also provide a substantial damage boost, making boss fights much faster and more manageable.
• Budget-Friendly: The Lacerate Gladiator is a very budget-friendly build, requiring minimal investment to get started. You can easily clear the entire campaign and early maps with cheap, readily available gear. As you progress, you can gradually upgrade your gear to further enhance your damage and survivability.
• Easy to Gear: The gear requirements for the Lacerate Gladiator are relatively flexible, allowing you to adapt to whatever you find or can afford. The build doesn't rely on any specific unique items, making it easy to gear up as you level.

Skill Tree and Ascendancy

The Gladiator ascendancy is the cornerstone of this build, providing crucial defensive and offensive benefits. Here's a recommended ascendancy progression:

1. Gratuitous Violence: This node is essential for clear speed, causing enemies you kill to explode, dealing physical damage and applying bleed to nearby enemies. This chain reaction obliterates entire packs of monsters, making mapping incredibly fast and efficient. It's the first ascendancy node you should take.
2. Blood in the Eyes: This node provides bleed immunity, which is crucial for survivability, as well as increased attack speed and accuracy rating. Bleed immunity is essential for tackling many endgame bosses and challenging encounters. The increased attack speed further enhances your clear speed and damage output.
3. Outmatch and Outlast: This node grants Challenger Charges on hit, which provide increased attack speed and movement speed. These charges stack up quickly, significantly boosting your damage and mobility. The movement speed is particularly helpful for navigating maps and dodging enemy attacks.
4. Versatile Combatant: This node grants additional block chance and spell block chance, further enhancing your survivability. It also provides a damage boost, making you more effective in both offense and defense. The increased block chance makes you incredibly tanky, allowing you to withstand even the most punishing attacks.

Passive Skill Tree

The passive skill tree focuses on maximizing life, physical damage, attack speed, and bleed damage. Here's a general outline of the passive tree progression:

• Early Game (Levels 1-40): Focus on taking life nodes and physical damage nodes near the Duelist and Marauder starting areas. Prioritize nodes that provide both life and damage, such as the Butchery and Bloodletting clusters. Grab the Resolute Technique keystone early on to ensure consistent hits.
• Mid Game (Levels 40-70): Expand your tree to include more life nodes, as well as nodes that provide attack speed and bleed damage. Consider taking the Crimson Dance keystone to allow your bleed to stack multiple times. Focus on completing the Gladiator wheel and picking up key jewel sockets.
• Late Game (Levels 70+): Optimize your tree by filling out any remaining life and damage nodes. Consider taking the Vaal Pact keystone for instant leech, which can significantly enhance your survivability. Look for jewel sockets with powerful modifiers to further boost your damage and defenses.

Gem Setups

Here are the recommended gem setups for the Lacerate Gladiator build:

• Lacerate (6-Link): Lacerate - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Impale - Close Combat - Fortify. This is your primary damage skill. Brutality provides a significant damage boost by disabling elemental damage. Melee Physical Damage further enhances your physical damage. Impale applies impale stacks to enemies, dealing additional physical damage over time. Close Combat provides a more damage multiplier when close to enemies. Fortify grants a defensive buff that reduces damage taken.
• Leap Slam (4-Link): Leap Slam - Fortify - Faster Attacks - Blood Rage. Leap Slam is your primary movement skill. Fortify provides a defensive buff. Faster Attacks increases the speed of Leap Slam, making it more efficient. Blood Rage grants attack speed and life leech, but it also causes you to take physical damage over time. Be mindful of the degen, especially on bosses.
• Ancestral Protector (4-Link): Ancestral Protector - Maim - Multiple Totems - Culling Strike. Ancestral Protector summons a totem that grants increased attack speed. Maim applies a debuff to enemies that reduces their movement speed. Multiple Totems allows you to summon two totems at once. Culling Strike kills enemies below 10% health, ensuring that you finish them off quickly.
• Vulnerability (4-Link): Vulnerability - Enhance - Increased Area of Effect - Cast when Damage Taken. Vulnerability is a curse that increases the physical damage taken by enemies. Enhance increases the effect of Vulnerability. Increased Area of Effect increases the area of effect of Vulnerability. Cast when Damage Taken automatically casts Vulnerability when you take damage.
• Pride (Aura): Pride is an aura that increases the physical damage of you and your allies. It's a crucial damage buff for the build.
• Dread Banner (Aura): Dread Banner is an aura that reduces the accuracy of nearby enemies and grants you increased physical damage. It's a great defensive and offensive aura for the build.

Gear Recommendations

Here's a breakdown of the recommended gear for the Lacerate Gladiator build:

• Weapon: A high physical damage two-handed sword is ideal. Look for a sword with high base physical damage, increased physical damage, attack speed, and critical strike chance. The Disfavour axe is a great endgame option, but any decent rare two-handed sword will work well for the early game.
• Armour: A six-linked body armour is essential for maximizing your Lacerate damage. Look for a body armour with high life, resistances, and armour. A rare body armour with these stats is perfectly fine.
• Helmet: A helmet with high life, resistances, and armour is ideal. Look for a helmet with an enchantment that benefits Lacerate, such as increased Lacerate damage or increased Lacerate area of effect.
• Gloves: Gloves with high life, resistances, and attack speed are ideal. Look for gloves with an enchantment that provides additional physical damage.
• Boots: Boots with high life, resistances, and movement speed are essential. Look for boots with an enchantment that provides additional movement speed or life regeneration.
• Belt: A belt with high life, resistances, and physical damage is ideal. A Stygian Vise belt is a great option, as it allows you to slot a powerful abyss jewel.
• Amulet: An amulet with high life, resistances, and physical damage is ideal. Look for an amulet with an anointment that benefits the build, such as Bloodletting or Fangs of the Viper.
• Rings: Rings with high life, resistances, and physical damage are ideal. Look for rings with the "curse enemies with Vulnerability on hit" modifier, which eliminates the need to manually cast Vulnerability.

Leveling Guide

Here's a step-by-step leveling guide for the Lacerate Gladiator build:

1. Levels 1-12: Start with Ground Slam and Cleave. These skills are readily available and effective for clearing early content. Focus on acquiring basic leveling gear with life and physical damage.
2. Levels 12-28: Transition to Lacerate once you acquire it. Link it with support gems such as Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks. Continue to upgrade your gear with life and physical damage.
3. Levels 28-40: Focus on completing the first few acts and acquiring key passive skill points. Prioritize life nodes and physical damage nodes on the skill tree. Grab the Resolute Technique keystone to ensure consistent hits.
4. Levels 40-70: Continue to level up and progress through the campaign. Focus on completing the Labyrinth and acquiring your ascendancy points. Upgrade your gear with better life, resistances, and physical damage.
5. Levels 70+: Start mapping and farming for currency to upgrade your gear. Focus on acquiring a six-linked body armour and a high physical damage two-handed sword. Optimize your passive skill tree and gem setups.

Gameplay Tips

Here are some gameplay tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of the Lacerate Gladiator build:

• Positioning: Proper positioning is crucial for maximizing Lacerate's damage. Try to position yourself so that you hit as many enemies as possible with each swing. Use Leap Slam to reposition yourself quickly and efficiently.
• Bleed Management: Keep track of your bleed stacks on enemies. If you're using the Crimson Dance keystone, ensure that you're consistently applying bleed to maximize your damage output.
• Aura Management: Keep your auras active at all times. Pride and Dread Banner provide significant damage and defensive buffs.
• Totem Placement: Place your Ancestral Protector totems strategically to maximize their effectiveness. Place them near enemies to provide a consistent attack speed buff.
• Flask Management: Use your flasks strategically to maintain your survivability. A life flask with bleed removal is essential for dealing with bleed damage.

Conclusion

The Lacerate Gladiator is a fantastic league starter build that offers excellent clear speed, survivability, and bossing capabilities. It's a budget-friendly and easy-to-gear build that can tackle all content in the game. With this comprehensive guide, you'll be well-equipped to dominate the Path of Exile league as a Lacerate Gladiator! Now go forth and conquer, Exile!