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Lvl 46 Great Weapon fighter review
zingarbage
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I spent most of my time leveling, but got in a good amount of pvp as well. Let me discuss the abilities first.
At Will skills
Wicked Strike Basic aoe attack. I used this as my mouse 2 button. Good steady aoe damage
Reaping Strike Another aoe attack. It does great damage, but I liked the more consistent damage of wicked strike. There is a feat that increases its damage by 25% on a single target, but you need mobility and I don't believe it will out dps sure strike regardless.
Sure strike More of a single target attack though it can hit multiple targets. Very good damage.
Weapon masters strike You attack in an aoe and then a ghost of yourself appears behind the target and attacks in an aoe again. Damage is awful. Wicked strike is better. I'm not sure what the point of this skill is.
Class powers
Destroyer Basically you hit three targets and get a short buff to damage, stacks to 15% damage. This was my dungeon choice.
Weapon master Stacks 5 times and increases crit. This is either bugged or not showing on your character screen. So I have no way of telling how much it increased crit if at all.
Steel Blitz Gives you an extra hit. It seemed to be just the basic attack. If I had to guess how often, I'd say 5% of the time. That is simply a guess though, I didn't test it.
In order to cut out a lengthy post, I'm going to talk about skills I think are good or bad in the daily and encounter abilities.
Daily abilities
Well honestly, they were all basically good. I used avalanche of steel and savage advance. One thing about savage advance is it always seemed to knock them back regardless of range. Was a bit annoying in group fights knocking the mobs so far away.
Encounter abilities
Pushing charge This was my only staple ability. It gave me very high mobility in both pve and pvp. The damage wasn't spectacular, but between it and sprint, I was rarely caught in red areas.
Restoring strike I used this in pvp as burst. The heal is garbage.
Not so fast I used this often in both pve and pvp. In pvp I used it for the slow. In pve it was just good aoe, slightly better damage than the leap.
Come and get it Pulls in an aoe and gives a static damage increase. The range is fairly large but the pull isn't all that quick. The damage increase is significant from what I can tell. My basic sword attack does roughly 450 damage, this increases it to roughly 1250. This is supposedly static though, so roughly 800 damage. Not bad.
I didn't like either of the shouts, but whatever, not my playstyle.
PvP
This was limited to the 20-39 level range. I couldn't get a game to pop in the 40+ bracket.
With the high mobility, I found the class to be very good at 1v1 encounters. I easily killed wizards and clerics. Rogues were much closer, but the standard daze rogue wasn't too bad to beat. The only 1v1 I lost was too a rogue that was playing with some other strategy I hadn't seen before. He absolutely destroyed me. I think I got him to 70% health.
In group fights I had to run in and out quite a bit. I'd basically save up my cooldowns and charge someone lowish on health. It was easy enough getting in and out.
I usually ended up near the top on kills, usually always highest on assists. Rogues are clearly a better pvp damage class though. I'm guessing they get toned down a bit.
If you have any specific questions on matchups or anything regarding pvp, please ask.
PvE
I ran a decent amount of dungeons or I at least tried to run each of them once. I didn't finish all of them because the higher dungeons and pugging aren't always able to be finished.
On the ones I did complete, I was always the highest overall damage. Since most ran the intro dungeon, I'll use it as an example of damage output. I was usually in the 240-280k damage range. I have seen a GW get 300k while on my cleric, but in the runs with my GWF, I never got beaten.
In solo leveling, until you get your cleric pet, things kind of suck. It just isn't good at early levels. After that things pick up. I rarely used pots while solo until the level 40 range. Even then, the cleric usually kept me up. I did stack defense though. That was my primary stat from gear. Armor pen was next.
Captain Kayliss is a fight that most will use pots on. I think I used 7 pots, which is really good. The high mobility is the main key to reducing pot usage.
Anyway, that is all for now unless anyone has any specific questions.
At Will skills
Wicked Strike Basic aoe attack. I used this as my mouse 2 button. Good steady aoe damage
Reaping Strike Another aoe attack. It does great damage, but I liked the more consistent damage of wicked strike. There is a feat that increases its damage by 25% on a single target, but you need mobility and I don't believe it will out dps sure strike regardless.
Sure strike More of a single target attack though it can hit multiple targets. Very good damage.
Weapon masters strike You attack in an aoe and then a ghost of yourself appears behind the target and attacks in an aoe again. Damage is awful. Wicked strike is better. I'm not sure what the point of this skill is.
Class powers
Destroyer Basically you hit three targets and get a short buff to damage, stacks to 15% damage. This was my dungeon choice.
Weapon master Stacks 5 times and increases crit. This is either bugged or not showing on your character screen. So I have no way of telling how much it increased crit if at all.
Steel Blitz Gives you an extra hit. It seemed to be just the basic attack. If I had to guess how often, I'd say 5% of the time. That is simply a guess though, I didn't test it.
In order to cut out a lengthy post, I'm going to talk about skills I think are good or bad in the daily and encounter abilities.
Daily abilities
Well honestly, they were all basically good. I used avalanche of steel and savage advance. One thing about savage advance is it always seemed to knock them back regardless of range. Was a bit annoying in group fights knocking the mobs so far away.
Encounter abilities
Pushing charge This was my only staple ability. It gave me very high mobility in both pve and pvp. The damage wasn't spectacular, but between it and sprint, I was rarely caught in red areas.
Restoring strike I used this in pvp as burst. The heal is garbage.
Not so fast I used this often in both pve and pvp. In pvp I used it for the slow. In pve it was just good aoe, slightly better damage than the leap.
Come and get it Pulls in an aoe and gives a static damage increase. The range is fairly large but the pull isn't all that quick. The damage increase is significant from what I can tell. My basic sword attack does roughly 450 damage, this increases it to roughly 1250. This is supposedly static though, so roughly 800 damage. Not bad.
I didn't like either of the shouts, but whatever, not my playstyle.
PvP
This was limited to the 20-39 level range. I couldn't get a game to pop in the 40+ bracket.
With the high mobility, I found the class to be very good at 1v1 encounters. I easily killed wizards and clerics. Rogues were much closer, but the standard daze rogue wasn't too bad to beat. The only 1v1 I lost was too a rogue that was playing with some other strategy I hadn't seen before. He absolutely destroyed me. I think I got him to 70% health.
In group fights I had to run in and out quite a bit. I'd basically save up my cooldowns and charge someone lowish on health. It was easy enough getting in and out.
I usually ended up near the top on kills, usually always highest on assists. Rogues are clearly a better pvp damage class though. I'm guessing they get toned down a bit.
If you have any specific questions on matchups or anything regarding pvp, please ask.
PvE
I ran a decent amount of dungeons or I at least tried to run each of them once. I didn't finish all of them because the higher dungeons and pugging aren't always able to be finished.
On the ones I did complete, I was always the highest overall damage. Since most ran the intro dungeon, I'll use it as an example of damage output. I was usually in the 240-280k damage range. I have seen a GW get 300k while on my cleric, but in the runs with my GWF, I never got beaten.
In solo leveling, until you get your cleric pet, things kind of suck. It just isn't good at early levels. After that things pick up. I rarely used pots while solo until the level 40 range. Even then, the cleric usually kept me up. I did stack defense though. That was my primary stat from gear. Armor pen was next.
Captain Kayliss is a fight that most will use pots on. I think I used 7 pots, which is really good. The high mobility is the main key to reducing pot usage.
Anyway, that is all for now unless anyone has any specific questions.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by zingarbage on
0
Comments
Also, can you talk a bit more about your playstyle?
I'm looking at Str/dex or even dex/con, but still not sure on a crit based build. Crit seemed to be scarce on items compared to the other stats.
If you read the tooltip of the skill, it increases the damage of your at-wills (encounters as well, if you spec it) temporarily after hitting with the 2nd strike. The initial damage is bad, but it gives your other at-will a significant damage boost, somewhere around an extra hit and a half's worth on sure strike, for example. The bonus damage given from weapon master's strike shows up as an additional tick next to the other, so its hard to notice when you have numbers flying everywhere, but say each hit of sure strike did 400 dmg, and with the debuff from weapon master's strike on the mobs, you're dealing an additional 75-125 damage on the side.
I read the debuff, but still thought it was lacking. I didn't do a lot of testing with it though. It seemed the debuff didn't last very long. So if I did alternate with sure strike, it didn't effect the entire chain of sure strike. Since the third hit was the most important, it simply took time away from getting the third hit and was less dps.
I'll revisit it though next time the game is available.
This setup just allowed for very high DPS potential when paired with Sure Strike. The high critical and damage potential also stacked very well with Restoring Strike, which on a critical hit even provided a respectable heal (but still low, all things considered - around 1500+). The downside to the setup was clearly the lower HP value along with poor mitigation, since the higher base AC just doesn't make up for the lack of stacked defense when focusing on power, critical, and armor penetration.
The one area in which I felt we were a bit lackluster was AOE. The risk of being rooted in place and having a longer animation play out for attacks often made Sure Strike the better choice in my opinion. The cast/root time of some of our other abilities, such as the shouts you mentioned, also did not win me over.
I really enjoyed using Pushing Charge, since it was great in just about any situation. The damage was not high, but it could be used to quickly dodge attacks or close the gap in an instant. I do feel that the range of the charge could have been slightly reduced however, and that there was a slight delay after each use but it was manageable.
I simply went this route since I wanted to level the class very quickly with the time I had. Although, I intend to focus on the more defensive role that the class is also intended to fill. I'm wondering how you felt about our off-tanking potential later in the game. It seems that we have a few great skills that allow us to dodge and avoid damage. We also have a way of keeping mobs off of other players for a while. I'm just wondering how we stack up defensively otherwise.
I noticed that our bottom paragon feat tree had some great augments, although the final feat didn't exactly stack up as well as the one in the Destroyer path.
It seems that our determination mechanic lent itself better to AOE or straight DPS in the Destroyer paragon feats, but I don't think I noticed a way of making it useful in a defensive capacity. I could have just overlooked it, since my time was limited and I didn't take the opportunity to think too deeply on the matter.
I'd like to know your thoughts (or anyone's), as I intend to play this class in a hybrid dps and off-tank role when the game launches. I feel there will be enough DPS to go around, so this may be the area where the class can truly shine.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
If you stack def/power and are able to build determination through attacks and being hit, you will have very high uptime on unstoppable. This will give you plenty of defense. Your aggro holding tool will be damage, though I think you can pick up some of the aggro stuff after you max out destroyer as well. With your aoe pull, not so fast, and unstoppable, instant aggro shouldn't be a problem. Neither should damage taken.
Then again, this might have drastically changed if I purely focused on Defense as a secondary stat while giving priority to CON as my primary. It would have been great see more items with both high defense and power for the class, instead of a mix of power/crit/armor pen.
Thanks for your input, it has given me a bit to think about. I still feel that the Destroyer paragon path should not be the ideal choice for tanking in any situation, since it lends itself more towards straight DPS.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
It just seems that you could have a really high uptime on unstoppable by going destroyer. Combine the 40% bonus from that with the 30-40 you can get from gear and I think it will work well in an off tank role. It is easy enough to avoid spike hits on downtime or use the shout to fill that gap.
I wish I remember what those first two feat boxes in the defense tree were. I swear you got some aggro builder in those.
It simply puts the viability of the other trees into question. Although you are right, the bottom tree did enhance threat generation as well as critical chance (if I recall correctly). There was a great feat for Sure Strike in that path later on, but the final feat left something to be desired. I can't recall the top tree all that well from memory sadly. I should have taken screenshots of all the feat and ability tooltips from beta.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
I think there was a 5% total life heal on activating unstoppable in the first box of the top tree.
Regardless, I think as a full blown tank you might should go the bottom line. It had some very solid defense talents. Off tanking though should work very well as destroyer.
Thanks again for the great feedback.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
As for the companion while I know that the Cleric is really a popular go-to pet I think I had best results using my dog. Also considered dropping a dime for the GWF companion. The dog provided a nice bit of control with a take-down attack and added a lot to my single target damage, shoring up an area where I was weak. Pretty much as long as I had access to my charge and Not So Fast small groups of foes weren't much of a problem, with a few exceptions such as the Wights but really the game difficulty around 25 takes a substantial jump.
Anyhow, I'm going to encourage folks to go pro-cyclical. Grab your DPS companions over healer ones, though yes I really looking forward to an Angel after 50-days of play. While the addition of a healer does make life easier the availability and cheapness of healing potions doesn't add a lot to their favor.
Also since you get a free cleric companion for finishing up the Neverdeath Graveyard (OMG! Spoilerz!) I think it's best to instead grab something that won't be handed off to you. :-)