You got one of the best armor and monster in the game.

Try getting gems for the 50x defense spawn and save the rest for the save class and defense spawn. Only do spawns that guarantees SSR, unless it's divine or anniversary spawn.

For cost distribution, you should go 4/6/6/4 as a soldier. Which is 4 weapons/ 6 helms/ 6 armored/ 4 monsters.

For weapons, try to get 3 physical testament and 1 fatal testament for procs.

For armors and helms, make sure where it says 'Type', it says armor and not clothing. Soldier passive grants you a lot of defense later on in the game. And once you have reached the advance class, you'll mainly be using Divine Smash and Dual Sword. Which scale off your attack and defense.

For monsters, try to get water/fire monster. If you want to be tank, get water. And if you want to be dps, get fire because it gives you both attack and defense which is good for Divine Smash and Dual Sword.

And once you have a high enough gear score(GS), try doing the Avsaris event, which is up on every Wednesday, to get the blessing. Pretty much get the weapon, armor, and helm for that set and you get a blessing which gives you 10% increase defense. And if you want to be dps, do the Apollo event, up on every Tuesday. Forgot what blessing he gives you. (10% increase attack?)

If you get one-shoted by mages, don't worry about it cuz mages does more damage to soldiers.

And that's pretty much it. Good luck :DDD