Scuba Guides source note. This lesson is based on the older Scuba Guides and the supplied source archive. It is an independent community clarity rewrite, not an official GunZ publication; mechanics are not verified for the current Steam/remaster client.
Lesson content
The history of gladiator is largely undocumented. So take this timeline with a grain of salt. It’s an interesting read on how it evolved, but my (Scuba’s) Memory is about as good as a goldfish with ADHD. But here’s a rough run down, as well as some notable names in the community throughout the time.
Notable Names
Cerb3rus (Zach) - Basically the godfather of modern Gladiator. He taught most of the top tier players from international and ijji, and either found or advanced many of the glitches in gladiator such as Phase, Angle, Triangle, and Juggle.
Hymnosi - Though never in the gladiator scene, responsible for finding Instant Fall, and helping create core tenants of the gladiator basics, such as triangle.
Mymomiscool (Dylan) - #1 Gladiator for a time during Ijji and Aeria. Responsible for Elbowing, and perfecting most of the core Air Patterns.
Deviok - Responsible for refining many kodachi movements to be usable at high level plays, as well as ground work in general and perfecting the Triangle Theory.
DolphinRider (Josh) - #1 Gladiator for a time during Ijji.
Lede (Colin) - Currently the #1 Gladiator as of 2020.
Monk - Found and spread TBF, and created the cult of “Mstyle”, widely looked down on by most gladiators during the time of ijji for setting the community back by a couple years skill wise. Currently Runs M20 Gunz.
The History of Gladiator
International Gunz Era
During International Gunz (Also known as Open Beta), many glitches were slowly unearthed. At the start, we just ran around spamming ground slash. We then found out we could cancel the slash animation by blocking while still getting a slash. Then we found out we could do Bfly (Which was thought by most to be a hack), then Double Butterfly was found, and so on. Eventually, Cerb and Hymn found out how to abuse flips. This resulted in much of the gameplay regressing to nothing but turtling and massiving, waiting for the chance to 100-0 someone with a Juggle. The community then banned flips as they took the fun out of fights. Around this time, Phase slash was found, and shortly after Angle slash was found. We also began finding out how to dodge massives with the Mirror rule, and soon after how to Ghost Evade thanks to D-Stylers such as FatherPrim and Cysote. Cerb3rus ran supreme during the international days, as he was pretty much always on the front lines of cheesing gladiator with relatively unknown glitches. Around this time he began training the next wave of gladiators and spreading the knowledge.
Ijji GunZ Era
Really the Golden age of gladiators, though not skillswise. Skills and tricks were constantly being developed, and many people took an interest in playing gladiator. Massives were deciphered further, as Patterns and Combos began taking the stage, slowly developing into’ ‘Stalker Style’. Patterns were further refined within the year, and generally it was a fun time. After about a year of Ijji’s launch, Monk found TBFLY, and unleashed the cult known as M-Style, quickly taking up a large presence in the community with most people spamming TBF in most gladiator games. This resulted in most of the gladiators scorning M-Style, as we saw it as fairly low skill and relatively easy to abuse (Along with just being cheesy renames of moves that had already been around for years, minus TBFLY.). Around the same time, players like mymomiscool began gaining recognition as being the best, and gladiator slowly moved from ground and air combos to mostly air combo focused. It remained this way until Aeria games came about. Around the end of ijji began my further thoughts on Counter Style and how it could be used, as well as the idea of breaking down moves to core components to exploit weaknesses.
Aeria GunZ Era
This marked the findings of quite a few improvements to gladiator, as well as a slight return to ground combat. Dash evade was found around this time, as well as the summit of Patterns. M-Style was mostly non-existent by this time, with only a few core members including Monk standing firm. Gladiators began leaving Aeria for Private Servers around this time, such as Daemons Ring, Dark Gunz, and a few other now defunct servers.
Private Server Era
This is the current Era, where only a couple Region Locked gunz clients are still running, Such as K-Gunz. Skill Wise, it’s now at the peak. A Common gladiator would most likely trash the best gladiators of the Ijji Era, and go toe to toe with the Best from the Aeria ara. The gladiator community mostly settled in one server or another, migrating as each server was taken down. Currently the two main gladiator servers are M20 and Freestyle gunz. During this time, Various moves were broken via the source code, cementing moves such as Dash Evade, Slash Evade, and Jump evade into the current skill base. The community dwindled, though still remains relatively healthy for the small community (Possibly about 50 or so gladiators remain).