Thermal effect in the gain fiber is one of the main factors which restrict the power improvement of high power fiber amplifiers. Previous studies have shown that the temperature distribution is closely related to the doping concentration along the gain fiber. In order to reduce the maximum temperature of the gain fiber, we propose to use doping concentration varying along the gain fiber as a method to disperse the thermal effect of the fiber laser and improve the laser output power. Based on the rate equation model and thermal conduction model, the thermal distributions and output powers of several different gradient doping gain fibers are simulated in the cases where the output powers are approximately the same. Our study shows that compared with the conventional constant doping gain fiber, linear doping of the rare earth ion along the gain fiber can reduce the maximum temperature of the gain fiber as well as the temperature of the fusion point greatly, thus improving the stabilities of the fusion point and the fiber laser amplifier. In the case of cosinoidal doping, the gain fiber can not only reduce the temperature of the fusion point but also make the temperature have a periodic distribution along the gain fiber, which can suppress the stimulated Brillouin scattering effect effectively. The exponential doping of the gain fiber can also reduce the maximum temperature and the temperature of the fusion point, which is beneficial to the further scaling of the fiber laser output power. At the same time, it can make the gain of the signal light have a uniform distribution along the gain fiber, which suppresses the mode instability effect and improves the output beam quality of the fiber laser. These conclusions also hold true when the pump power changes. Therefore, the gradient doping of the gain fiber proposed in this paper can optimize the temperature distribution along the fiber and improve the stability of the fusion point. Besides, it can improve the beam quality of the output laser and suppress the nonlinear effect and mode instability effect. The results indicate that the gradient doping of the gain fiber is an effective and feasible way to improve the output power of fiber amplifier. Last but not the least, it is possible to produce the gradient doping gain fiber by the laser heated pedestal growth method and the direct nanoparticle deposition technique. The investigation can present a reference for designing the gain fiber in high-power fiber laser systems.