yes blackylake, i was jokin about the description of the golden dragon wrath
i think that debuff should apply only to GWF , similar to Student of the sword, so the description is kinda weak...
Daring shout stays 100% it has cooldown around 15 sec, but mark stays 20 sec ... indeed on trash mobs is silly to use daring shout.. IMO they should raise base damage and if this will make destroyer godlike in pve, they should decrease from damage boost from capstone...
and for tankines, they should give Daring shout on sentinel paragon , something similar as knight valor.
so i've done another epic LOL puggin from LFG , and got myself in a team of 4 : hr / dc/ sw/ cw
and at first boss i critted again around 230k with ibs, and after that my sure strike took from 230k until 360k crit... like i had the old deepgash. forgot to copy the log
I kinda would love to see GWF's AoE encounters reworked to actually contribute to the secondary tank / off-tank role. Now sentinels can somewhat do that if they stack a load of power for the Intimidate feat and abandon other stats. I think that's not what a tank should be doing.
For Sentinel GWF, I think Come and Get It and Daring Shout should deal some damage (even without the feat) and the Intimidation feat should improve Come and Get It, Daring Shout and Not So Fast damage/threat/reach further, plus reduce their cooldowns. Similar to how Destroyer's Relentless Battle Fury feat improves Roar, Takedown and Battle Fury. That would make it a perfect off-tank, capable to keep threat on adds and eventually get rid of them.
Next, Destroyer GWF. He's rather squishy, has to chase mobs going after support classes, ranged damage dealers / controllers, has to keep a billion of stacks (destroyer, weapon master, destroyer's purpose, mark, battle fury*) to actually deal some damage and contributes nothing but damage to the party. Not sure what should/could be done about that. Ranged damage dealers contribute much higher damage and most of them got party wide buffs/debuffs, whereas GWF pretty much only has self buffs except for mark. And he only has one encounter for marking, which deals 0 damage.
As for Instigator GWF... I've no idea what Instigator stands for as its 5 tier feat is horrible. I mean, the lower tier instigator feats kinda indicate that it should be aoe damage dealer but the tier 5 feat increasing damage by 12% that is disabled upon taking a hit? What the hell is this? Devs should make it clear what they want Instigator to be. Now it's completely uncertain and it's rather hard to give any ideas / quality feedback on that.
This game is free to play. And if PWE/Cryptic employees wanna buy their Coke and burgers you must spend your money in ZEN shop. But how to convince or force players to do so?
Release new and newer stuff in ZEN shop? More OP stuff? Yea, but many people are geared enough, so how to squeeze more money from them? Convince them to start a new class, Hunter Ranger or Scourge Warlock maybe. But how?
GWF was very VERY popular class in past and players spent a lot of money to gear this beast up. And geared players wont spend much money. So what about to "balance" this class? Players were already crying about OP GWF in PvP, so now is the time. Nerf there and there, call it balance and also dont forget to boost HR and SW.
First of all, after some time in this game i thought that PWE/Cryptic employees are just dumb workers without any passion for the game. I was wrong in one thing - they are NOT dumb. They are smart and know pretty perfectly what are they doing. Money must flow. Is your GWF weak or better say not comparable to other classes? Do you have top gear with +10´s or just +7´s and still weak or useless for the party? Well player, you can choose different class (HR, SW maybe or even old class CW) and start spending your money again. You can buy campaign unlocks, you can buy refine stuff, hell we even released artifact class gear for all those who want to spend their money (or must).
Call it just conspiracy theory or believe it, it is on you. Every game is released not for gamers fun but at first for any company profit. And if they cant convince you, they will force you in the end. And todays state of GWF class in this game is perfect example of how are they doing it
Think: Control Wizard
Realize: I´m wrong with my populist theory
I´m playing Destroyer GWF with very high GS in PvE and PvP. ATM we´re way behind CW/SW in PvE DPS and in PvP... come on... Glyphs, equipment first, skill last. I´m asking myslef: Do they play the game? Are there playtesters? ;-)
With the Bis-GWF you can play all PvE content. Easy. Movement and improved HP. Around 35k is working very well.
But imagine if you are a new player... low-gear GWF is ooooouch painful.
There are many metrics for a good player, looking at paingiver chart is but one of many facets in the brilliant diamond that a good player is. Apologies if I misread you but it almost seems like you made your character too offensively focused to make up for any perceived DPS lost in Module 4 that you are now having issues with surviability.
The thread could probably have stopped there. A dead GWF suffers a noticeable reduction in DPS. Even in previous mods, I always balanced my GWF for a shade more survivability than others, and often found myself near the top of paingiver, but not always in first place- though this was, admittedly, prior to mod 4 CW insanity.
However, I often found myself one of the last players standing, if something went wrong, and frequently was the one rezzing/landing the killing blow/going down in a useless and gratuitous show of bravado. That, I believe, is also the point.
I have to say, I more or less agree with the OP on this one, GWF in this mod really is kind of redundant in a group anymore.
SW, CW, SW, CW throw in one GF.. good to go.
This reasoning is a little suspect. You can leave any one class out and still steamroll all the PvE content in the game- yes, even the mighty CW. People still value a melee character which if played intelligently can take a lickin' and keep on tickin', and can gather mobs into a nice tight pile while doing decent AoE and single target DPS. The GWF isn't the FOTM any more, but it's far from useless.
There is balancing to do- CWs are broken, Storm Spell procs and the like are off the hook right now. The Warlock's Tyrannical Threat is just eschaton in a can, too- nowhere near what the tooltip claims. However, those are really the problem, rather than an inherent defect with the current GWF, I suspect.
As I explained multiple times those huge hits only appear on Solo or Boss Creatures and they get debuffed by the whole party!
Bosses are not a problem for the GWF, apart from the lack of aggro control (still after "Mark" should work properly now)
no, when I say solo, is my own mechanics, any creature.
about 160k damage (non critical) this was the beginning of the dungeon (tos). gf, dc only. I built my stack and got this damage. My first reaction was to think "like people complaining about this damage?"
moments later the two sw joined the group and I saw this phenomenon: my damage dropped to half of what I can solo, and the enemy began to die very quickly in the hand of sw. my impression is that my damage was being absorbed ... I read something about a bug in the sw damage, and not surprise me that the problem was even more serious.
well, I'm a little frustrated with the game currently. but the test is valid. Find a gf / dc friends and try a dungeon alone. see if there is a difference in the pattern of damage.
Though the new content is hard for gwf, it is hard for everyone. those dastardly things hit everyone hard. But GWFs are still one of the most welcome additions to a party (dps wise), ofcourse CW is on the top spot because stuns are even more important now, but atleast gwfs is somewhat most self sufficient than the other classes who rely on others to be able to function. Damage isn't everything, HRs do alot of damage but are seen as less desirable because of their reliance on others and Anti-CC nature.
I'm enjoying the new content, it's challenging, but having said this I'm at 21.5k GS. I am still very squishy in ELOL, anyone with 16-18k is going to suffer.
I do well in PvP with a team that can support me and keep me up, however with KV+SOS and a DC on the opposing team I'm lacking in Burst damage, this coming from a purely DPS specced GWF who hit's between 200k-300K+ IBS's on end game bosses.
In summary Destroyer needs a large boost in Survivability or a Big boost in base line burst damage which will bring it in line in PvE with SW, and help make the class more viable in PvP, or a combination of both in smaller amounts.
It seems GWF's don't QQ as much as everyone else so we got the bigger end of the NERF BAT.
everybody just qqs more about gwf's than other classes :P
imho new content, though its easy, does some things right - large hits, less mobs, its just a bit harder for gwf since we are melee and dont have dodge so we should be able to take the hits instead of relying on soulforged, we need some other anti 1hit mechanic and the new unstoppable doesnt provide it
Though the new content is hard for gwf, it is hard for everyone. those dastardly things hit everyone hard. But GWFs are still one of the most welcome additions to a party (dps wise), ofcourse CW is on the top spot because stuns are even more important now, but atleast gwfs is somewhat most self sufficient than the other classes who rely on others to be able to function. Damage isn't everything, HRs do alot of damage but are seen as less desirable because of their reliance on others and Anti-CC nature.
I agree with the new content hitting stupidly hard which also gives some very good utility to HR, everyone loves fox cunning in those XD
But i quite didnt get ur anti-cc nature coment about HR, yeah it doesnt bring any cc into the table just dps (and pretty much higher than a gwf as its in line with cw and sw) but it doesnt screw it over either... if u mean bad play. there is alot of that inall classes.
everybody just qqs more about gwf's than other classes :P
imho new content, though its easy, does some things right - large hits, less mobs, its just a bit harder for gwf since we are melee and dont have dodge so we should be able to take the hits instead of relying on soulforged, we need some other anti 1hit mechanic and the new unstoppable doesnt provide it
well in fact GWF does have another dmg reduction mechanic and is called Reaping Strike, new artifact weapon would make the skill even stronger if it would work... Anyway it is there! Also we have Daring Shout :P
I read the OP's post and I would like to throw my own in here. I have played a GWF for a LONG time (since OB) and quit my GWf with this recent module. I am just frankly sick of the direction they went and time after time again posted feedback but now we are where we are.
I have a BIG list of changes in an "ideal" world but think I have arrived at the simplest solutions that would balance GWFs across the board (for the most part).
First I will list what I dislike about the class: 1) Sprint - this is now a cheese mechanic where GWFs sprint to avoid CC, to beef up DR. It is not used as a gap closer as much. This is something I dislike about the class personally
2) At Will damage - I have always found it RIDICULOUS that my GWF with R10s hits for 600 with sure strike while my GF hits for 1600+ with Crushing surge. My GWFs weapon damage is almost DOUBLE, so why does it deal half the damage?
3) Control - GWFs MUST rely on control because they are a melee class that needs control to dish damage. Without control they are kited forever and cant even land any attacks.
4) Control (again) - Because of #3 its created an "unfair" situation where GWFs have similar "control" ability to the control class (CW). I dislike that GWFs have control like this for PVP purposes. They have turned MORE into a controller with decent burst damage rather than a DPS machine!
5) Mark - With the recent patch, mark (threat rush) now composes a LARGE majority of GWFs damage. Mark adds 20% damage, plus combat advantage which is around a base 8% (I think) PLUS most GWFs run Powerful Challenge which is another 15%. Why does on at will debuff that lasts 20 seconds give the GWF over 40% damage? Thats better than the Destroyer Capstone!
Here is what I propose to fix each and every one of the above. These changes would invigorate me to resurrect my GWF to want to play him again.
1) Sprint - Remove DR boost on Sprint, Put Unstoppable DR BACK to 25-50%, remove the CC immunity on Sprint. This ability should be focused on gap closing or escape, not a form of "DR" or "immunity". The Destroyer Capstone, now has a feature that DECREASES Unstoppable's effectiveness based on the number of stacks.
So if a Destroyer has 13 stacks of the capstone on him, he has a 26% damage boost (13 * 2% each) however Unstoppable is now 26% LESS effective (so 25-50% * .74 = 18.5- 37%. What this MEANS is at MAX Destroyer stacks (20) a GWF has a 40% damage boost, but Unstoppable is 40% less effective (15-30%). Back to today's values of Unstoppable.
What this fixes, however, is GWFs that have no stacks that are controlled to death because of lack of DR who havnt had a chance to build stacks for damage yet.
2) At Will damage - DOUBLE all at will damage. Open each of the tool tip formulas and DOUBLE them. There is no reason a GWF shouldnt hit massively hard with at wills. The only unaffected one should be Threatening Rush - this can stay the same.
3) Control - Takedown - put this back as a PRONE, it doesnt have to be a long prone, I saw a DEV post saying the minimum prone is about .7 seconds because of animation. Thats fine. Takedown should be a 1 second prone. however, REMOVE the fact that if it misses it gets a 3 sec CD AND remove the ability to use it whenever (it should need a target in range to use).
Also, Remove the STUN on front line surge in favor for a 1 second DAZE effect.
4) Control (again) -Remove Student of the Sword. In its place, insert an ability:
"Student of the Sword" - Your critical strikes lower your opponents RUN SPEED 2/4/6/8/10%. Stacks 3 times. What this will do is allow GWFs to slot less "control" because their crits will grant them a run speed advantage. Coupled with Sprint, this will allow GWFs to have a fair chance at fighting their targets face to face.
5) Mark - This will take a little detail.
- REMOVE mark from Threat Rush, and ADD it to Punishing Charge but REMOVE the stacks of punishing Charge (its a 1 time use for a single mark). Now Threat Rush can be given BACK its unlimited charges as its merely used as a gap closer that almost isnt even needed anymore because of sprint+runspeed. It no longer adds the damage boost so it can be brought back up a little. This could be used in tandem with the run speed "SotS" now for decent effectiveness.
- Remove the damage bonus to "powerful challenge" This ability now instead increases THREAT by 15% to marked targets. (Punishing Charge, Daring Shout and IBS still all mark + 20% dmg + CA btw).
- STRENGTH now provides 2% damage (up from 1%). This will create alot more GWFs stacking STR over Con/Dex. This will give all GWFs about a 10-15% damage boost, to replace Mark damage loss.
The damage gain from at wills (doubled) combined with the damage gained from STR should make up alot of the damage loss from losing mark + powerful challenge. If GWFs now want to slot Punishing Charge, they can mark or Daring shout they can mark, however it reduces their control ability for more damage.
5) Mark - With the recent patch, mark (threat rush) now composes a LARGE majority of GWFs damage. Mark adds 20% damage, plus combat advantage which is around a base 8% (I think) PLUS most GWFs run Powerful Challenge which is another 15%.
Couldn't find anything in recent patch notes about marks granting combat advantage. Where is this sourced from?
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
But i quite didnt get ur anti-cc nature coment about HR, yeah it doesnt bring any cc into the table just dps (and pretty much higher than a gwf as its in line with cw and sw) but it doesnt screw it over either... if u mean bad play. there is alot of that inall classes.
Anti-cc as in, when a HR (and SW) attack things, the mobs move around alot as they chase them around. Rather than having a GWF the mobs will generally stay stationary or clustered when they fight, or are predictable. Hence why those classes are more reliant on CW and/or GF to do anything effectively.
Mod 4 GF changes that also affected GWF mechanics.
GF mark changes don't mention anything about granting Combat Advantage that I can see:
Mark: Mark will now taunt foes briefly as well as place the player at the top of the threat list.
Mark: Now causes you to deal 200% (up from 100%) additional threat on Marked targets and now reduces damage resistance by 20% for the Guardian Fighter and 8% damage resistance for allies.
On a related note, if you've stacked 24% AP from gear, the reduced damage from mark (or any other source for that matter) would do nothing, correct?
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Still don't see it, the second post has a slightly different wording for what's in the official patch notes:
Mark: Marked targets now grant combat advantage to the Guardian's Allies.
It seems to me like it's a 20% DR debuff for mark owner (GF/GWF), and 8% ("combat advantage") for all other allies.
Debuffs may be calculated after ArP, but my understanding is you can't go below 0% damage resist to gain extra damage bonus. Therefore, in PvE if you max ArP from stats (e.g. mobs have 0 DR after ArP is applied), the debuff should do nothing. Right? Wrong?
5) Mark - This will take a little detail.
- REMOVE mark from Threat Rush, and ADD it to Punishing Charge but REMOVE the stacks of punishing Charge (its a 1 time use for a single mark). Now Threat Rush can be given BACK its unlimited charges as its merely used as a gap closer that almost isnt even needed anymore because of sprint+runspeed. It no longer adds the damage boost so it can be brought back up a little. This could be used in tandem with the run speed "SotS" now for decent effectiveness.
TR should stay as is cause else u can stick to ppl like glue with it
I read the OP's post and I would like to throw my own in here. I have played a GWF for a LONG time (since OB) and quit my GWf with this recent module. I am just frankly sick of the direction they went and time after time again posted feedback but now we are where we are.
I have a BIG list of changes in an "ideal" world but think I have arrived at the simplest solutions that would balance GWFs across the board (for the most part).
First I will list what I dislike about the class: 1) Sprint - this is now a cheese mechanic where GWFs sprint to avoid CC, to beef up DR. It is not used as a gap closer as much. This is something I dislike about the class personally
2) At Will damage - I have always found it RIDICULOUS that my GWF with R10s hits for 600 with sure strike while my GF hits for 1600+ with Crushing surge. My GWFs weapon damage is almost DOUBLE, so why does it deal half the damage?
3) Control - GWFs MUST rely on control because they are a melee class that needs control to dish damage. Without control they are kited forever and cant even land any attacks.
4) Control (again) - Because of #3 its created an "unfair" situation where GWFs have similar "control" ability to the control class (CW). I dislike that GWFs have control like this for PVP purposes. They have turned MORE into a controller with decent burst damage rather than a DPS machine!
5) Mark - With the recent patch, mark (threat rush) now composes a LARGE majority of GWFs damage. Mark adds 20% damage, plus combat advantage which is around a base 8% (I think) PLUS most GWFs run Powerful Challenge which is another 15%. Why does on at will debuff that lasts 20 seconds give the GWF over 40% damage? Thats better than the Destroyer Capstone!
Here is what I propose to fix each and every one of the above. These changes would invigorate me to resurrect my GWF to want to play him again.
1) Sprint - Remove DR boost on Sprint, Put Unstoppable DR BACK to 25-50%, remove the CC immunity on Sprint. This ability should be focused on gap closing or escape, not a form of "DR" or "immunity". The Destroyer Capstone, now has a feature that DECREASES Unstoppable's effectiveness based on the number of stacks.
So if a Destroyer has 13 stacks of the capstone on him, he has a 26% damage boost (13 * 2% each) however Unstoppable is now 26% LESS effective (so 25-50% * .74 = 18.5- 37%. What this MEANS is at MAX Destroyer stacks (20) a GWF has a 40% damage boost, but Unstoppable is 40% less effective (15-30%). Back to today's values of Unstoppable.
What this fixes, however, is GWFs that have no stacks that are controlled to death because of lack of DR who havnt had a chance to build stacks for damage yet.
2) At Will damage - DOUBLE all at will damage. Open each of the tool tip formulas and DOUBLE them. There is no reason a GWF shouldnt hit massively hard with at wills. The only unaffected one should be Threatening Rush - this can stay the same.
3) Control - Takedown - put this back as a PRONE, it doesnt have to be a long prone, I saw a DEV post saying the minimum prone is about .7 seconds because of animation. Thats fine. Takedown should be a 1 second prone. however, REMOVE the fact that if it misses it gets a 3 sec CD AND remove the ability to use it whenever (it should need a target in range to use).
Also, Remove the STUN on front line surge in favor for a 1 second DAZE effect.
4) Control (again) -Remove Student of the Sword. In its place, insert an ability:
"Student of the Sword" - Your critical strikes lower your opponents RUN SPEED 2/4/6/8/10%. Stacks 3 times. What this will do is allow GWFs to slot less "control" because their crits will grant them a run speed advantage. Coupled with Sprint, this will allow GWFs to have a fair chance at fighting their targets face to face.
5) Mark - This will take a little detail.
- REMOVE mark from Threat Rush, and ADD it to Punishing Charge but REMOVE the stacks of punishing Charge (its a 1 time use for a single mark). Now Threat Rush can be given BACK its unlimited charges as its merely used as a gap closer that almost isnt even needed anymore because of sprint+runspeed. It no longer adds the damage boost so it can be brought back up a little. This could be used in tandem with the run speed "SotS" now for decent effectiveness.
- Remove the damage bonus to "powerful challenge" This ability now instead increases THREAT by 15% to marked targets. (Punishing Charge, Daring Shout and IBS still all mark + 20% dmg + CA btw).
- STRENGTH now provides 2% damage (up from 1%). This will create alot more GWFs stacking STR over Con/Dex. This will give all GWFs about a 10-15% damage boost, to replace Mark damage loss.
The damage gain from at wills (doubled) combined with the damage gained from STR should make up alot of the damage loss from losing mark + powerful challenge. If GWFs now want to slot Punishing Charge, they can mark or Daring shout they can mark, however it reduces their control ability for more damage.
These are great Ideas, I'd like to go back to battle awareness for the power boost from slam in pve as I had to drop it for powerful challenge to recoup lost DPS. A buff to B/A for PvP would be awesome.
TR should stay as is cause else u can stick to ppl like glue with it
Not true, Threat Rush has very limited range, over half the time you use it you rubber band back in place, when using it, you can be controlled and it deals very little damage.
Removing mark, removes a large reason why it was so strong (and also the advantage IV has over SM).
Is it a gap closer? Yes. BUT! With increased duration of sprint, and bringing Unstoppable BACK to proper DR levels, I think youll find the GWF much more "balanced" and not relying on TR so much.
I also think that with "SOTS - slow stacking" GWFs will be deciding to not use TR in favor of an at will that can deal damage AND de buff targets like Wicked Strike. This also makes Weapon Master Strike much more appealing as well.
I disagree with mark suggestions. Don't forget that GWF is also a tank and not just dps class. As it is, mark not only increases damage but threat generation too. Without it sentinel GWFs would have no way to keep threat.
I'd rather the powerful challenge (+15% damage to marked targets) sentinel feat was moved to tier 3 so that destroyers wouldn't have access to it, and there were more ways to put mark on than just daring shout (and its pathetic 20 feet range) and TR.
I disagree with mark suggestions. Don't forget that GWF is also a tank and not just dps class. As it is, mark not only increases damage but threat generation too. Without it sentinel GWFs would have no way to keep threat.
I'd rather the powerful challenge (+15% damage to marked targets) sentinel feat was moved to tier 3 so that destroyers wouldn't have access to it, and there were more ways to put mark on than just daring shout (and its pathetic 20 feet range) and TR.
You can also mark with IBS.
On a related note, has the mark drop on damage taken been removed from all GWF marking skills? The descriptions don't seem to have been updated.
Comments
i think that debuff should apply only to GWF , similar to Student of the sword, so the description is kinda weak...
Daring shout stays 100% it has cooldown around 15 sec, but mark stays 20 sec ... indeed on trash mobs is silly to use daring shout.. IMO they should raise base damage and if this will make destroyer godlike in pve, they should decrease from damage boost from capstone...
and for tankines, they should give Daring shout on sentinel paragon , something similar as knight valor.
i might have ****ed up but
125-(125*0.8) = 25
where 125k is damage, 80% resistance takes 125*0.8 = 100k dmg leaving 25k to hitpoints
60-(60*0.6) = 24
where 60k is damage, 60% resistance takes 60*0.6 = 36k dmg leaving 24k to hitpoints
and at first boss i critted again around 230k with ibs, and after that my sure strike took from 230k until 360k crit... like i had the old deepgash. forgot to copy the log
For Sentinel GWF, I think Come and Get It and Daring Shout should deal some damage (even without the feat) and the Intimidation feat should improve Come and Get It, Daring Shout and Not So Fast damage/threat/reach further, plus reduce their cooldowns. Similar to how Destroyer's Relentless Battle Fury feat improves Roar, Takedown and Battle Fury. That would make it a perfect off-tank, capable to keep threat on adds and eventually get rid of them.
Next, Destroyer GWF. He's rather squishy, has to chase mobs going after support classes, ranged damage dealers / controllers, has to keep a billion of stacks (destroyer, weapon master, destroyer's purpose, mark, battle fury*) to actually deal some damage and contributes nothing but damage to the party. Not sure what should/could be done about that. Ranged damage dealers contribute much higher damage and most of them got party wide buffs/debuffs, whereas GWF pretty much only has self buffs except for mark. And he only has one encounter for marking, which deals 0 damage.
As for Instigator GWF... I've no idea what Instigator stands for as its 5 tier feat is horrible. I mean, the lower tier instigator feats kinda indicate that it should be aoe damage dealer but the tier 5 feat increasing damage by 12% that is disabled upon taking a hit? What the hell is this? Devs should make it clear what they want Instigator to be. Now it's completely uncertain and it's rather hard to give any ideas / quality feedback on that.
Think: Control Wizard
Realize: I´m wrong with my populist theory
I´m playing Destroyer GWF with very high GS in PvE and PvP. ATM we´re way behind CW/SW in PvE DPS and in PvP... come on... Glyphs, equipment first, skill last. I´m asking myslef: Do they play the game? Are there playtesters? ;-)
With the Bis-GWF you can play all PvE content. Easy. Movement and improved HP. Around 35k is working very well.
But imagine if you are a new player... low-gear GWF is ooooouch painful.
//Bellistor
The thread could probably have stopped there. A dead GWF suffers a noticeable reduction in DPS. Even in previous mods, I always balanced my GWF for a shade more survivability than others, and often found myself near the top of paingiver, but not always in first place- though this was, admittedly, prior to mod 4 CW insanity.
However, I often found myself one of the last players standing, if something went wrong, and frequently was the one rezzing/landing the killing blow/going down in a useless and gratuitous show of bravado. That, I believe, is also the point.
This reasoning is a little suspect. You can leave any one class out and still steamroll all the PvE content in the game- yes, even the mighty CW. People still value a melee character which if played intelligently can take a lickin' and keep on tickin', and can gather mobs into a nice tight pile while doing decent AoE and single target DPS. The GWF isn't the FOTM any more, but it's far from useless.
There is balancing to do- CWs are broken, Storm Spell procs and the like are off the hook right now. The Warlock's Tyrannical Threat is just eschaton in a can, too- nowhere near what the tooltip claims. However, those are really the problem, rather than an inherent defect with the current GWF, I suspect.
no, when I say solo, is my own mechanics, any creature.
about 160k damage (non critical) this was the beginning of the dungeon (tos). gf, dc only. I built my stack and got this damage. My first reaction was to think "like people complaining about this damage?"
moments later the two sw joined the group and I saw this phenomenon: my damage dropped to half of what I can solo, and the enemy began to die very quickly in the hand of sw. my impression is that my damage was being absorbed ... I read something about a bug in the sw damage, and not surprise me that the problem was even more serious.
well, I'm a little frustrated with the game currently. but the test is valid. Find a gf / dc friends and try a dungeon alone. see if there is a difference in the pattern of damage.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
I do well in PvP with a team that can support me and keep me up, however with KV+SOS and a DC on the opposing team I'm lacking in Burst damage, this coming from a purely DPS specced GWF who hit's between 200k-300K+ IBS's on end game bosses.
In summary Destroyer needs a large boost in Survivability or a Big boost in base line burst damage which will bring it in line in PvE with SW, and help make the class more viable in PvP, or a combination of both in smaller amounts.
It seems GWF's don't QQ as much as everyone else so we got the bigger end of the NERF BAT.
imho new content, though its easy, does some things right - large hits, less mobs, its just a bit harder for gwf since we are melee and dont have dodge so we should be able to take the hits instead of relying on soulforged, we need some other anti 1hit mechanic and the new unstoppable doesnt provide it
I agree with the new content hitting stupidly hard which also gives some very good utility to HR, everyone loves fox cunning in those XD
But i quite didnt get ur anti-cc nature coment about HR, yeah it doesnt bring any cc into the table just dps (and pretty much higher than a gwf as its in line with cw and sw) but it doesnt screw it over either... if u mean bad play. there is alot of that inall classes.
well in fact GWF does have another dmg reduction mechanic and is called Reaping Strike, new artifact weapon would make the skill even stronger if it would work... Anyway it is there! Also we have Daring Shout :P
I have a BIG list of changes in an "ideal" world but think I have arrived at the simplest solutions that would balance GWFs across the board (for the most part).
First I will list what I dislike about the class:
1) Sprint - this is now a cheese mechanic where GWFs sprint to avoid CC, to beef up DR. It is not used as a gap closer as much. This is something I dislike about the class personally
2) At Will damage - I have always found it RIDICULOUS that my GWF with R10s hits for 600 with sure strike while my GF hits for 1600+ with Crushing surge. My GWFs weapon damage is almost DOUBLE, so why does it deal half the damage?
3) Control - GWFs MUST rely on control because they are a melee class that needs control to dish damage. Without control they are kited forever and cant even land any attacks.
4) Control (again) - Because of #3 its created an "unfair" situation where GWFs have similar "control" ability to the control class (CW). I dislike that GWFs have control like this for PVP purposes. They have turned MORE into a controller with decent burst damage rather than a DPS machine!
5) Mark - With the recent patch, mark (threat rush) now composes a LARGE majority of GWFs damage. Mark adds 20% damage, plus combat advantage which is around a base 8% (I think) PLUS most GWFs run Powerful Challenge which is another 15%. Why does on at will debuff that lasts 20 seconds give the GWF over 40% damage? Thats better than the Destroyer Capstone!
Here is what I propose to fix each and every one of the above. These changes would invigorate me to resurrect my GWF to want to play him again.
1) Sprint - Remove DR boost on Sprint, Put Unstoppable DR BACK to 25-50%, remove the CC immunity on Sprint. This ability should be focused on gap closing or escape, not a form of "DR" or "immunity". The Destroyer Capstone, now has a feature that DECREASES Unstoppable's effectiveness based on the number of stacks.
So if a Destroyer has 13 stacks of the capstone on him, he has a 26% damage boost (13 * 2% each) however Unstoppable is now 26% LESS effective (so 25-50% * .74 = 18.5- 37%. What this MEANS is at MAX Destroyer stacks (20) a GWF has a 40% damage boost, but Unstoppable is 40% less effective (15-30%). Back to today's values of Unstoppable.
What this fixes, however, is GWFs that have no stacks that are controlled to death because of lack of DR who havnt had a chance to build stacks for damage yet.
2) At Will damage - DOUBLE all at will damage. Open each of the tool tip formulas and DOUBLE them. There is no reason a GWF shouldnt hit massively hard with at wills. The only unaffected one should be Threatening Rush - this can stay the same.
3) Control - Takedown - put this back as a PRONE, it doesnt have to be a long prone, I saw a DEV post saying the minimum prone is about .7 seconds because of animation. Thats fine. Takedown should be a 1 second prone. however, REMOVE the fact that if it misses it gets a 3 sec CD AND remove the ability to use it whenever (it should need a target in range to use).
Also, Remove the STUN on front line surge in favor for a 1 second DAZE effect.
4) Control (again) - Remove Student of the Sword. In its place, insert an ability:
"Student of the Sword" - Your critical strikes lower your opponents RUN SPEED 2/4/6/8/10%. Stacks 3 times. What this will do is allow GWFs to slot less "control" because their crits will grant them a run speed advantage. Coupled with Sprint, this will allow GWFs to have a fair chance at fighting their targets face to face.
5) Mark - This will take a little detail.
- REMOVE mark from Threat Rush, and ADD it to Punishing Charge but REMOVE the stacks of punishing Charge (its a 1 time use for a single mark). Now Threat Rush can be given BACK its unlimited charges as its merely used as a gap closer that almost isnt even needed anymore because of sprint+runspeed. It no longer adds the damage boost so it can be brought back up a little. This could be used in tandem with the run speed "SotS" now for decent effectiveness.
- Remove the damage bonus to "powerful challenge" This ability now instead increases THREAT by 15% to marked targets. (Punishing Charge, Daring Shout and IBS still all mark + 20% dmg + CA btw).
- STRENGTH now provides 2% damage (up from 1%). This will create alot more GWFs stacking STR over Con/Dex. This will give all GWFs about a 10-15% damage boost, to replace Mark damage loss.
The damage gain from at wills (doubled) combined with the damage gained from STR should make up alot of the damage loss from losing mark + powerful challenge. If GWFs now want to slot Punishing Charge, they can mark or Daring shout they can mark, however it reduces their control ability for more damage.
Mod 4 GF changes that also affected GWF mechanics.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Anti-cc as in, when a HR (and SW) attack things, the mobs move around alot as they chase them around. Rather than having a GWF the mobs will generally stay stationary or clustered when they fight, or are predictable. Hence why those classes are more reliant on CW and/or GF to do anything effectively.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
GF mark changes don't mention anything about granting Combat Advantage that I can see:
On a related note, if you've stacked 24% AP from gear, the reduced damage from mark (or any other source for that matter) would do nothing, correct?
Debuffs are calculated after armor penetration.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
It seems to me like it's a 20% DR debuff for mark owner (GF/GWF), and 8% ("combat advantage") for all other allies.
Debuffs may be calculated after ArP, but my understanding is you can't go below 0% damage resist to gain extra damage bonus. Therefore, in PvE if you max ArP from stats (e.g. mobs have 0 DR after ArP is applied), the debuff should do nothing. Right? Wrong?
TR should stay as is cause else u can stick to ppl like glue with it
These are great Ideas, I'd like to go back to battle awareness for the power boost from slam in pve as I had to drop it for powerful challenge to recoup lost DPS. A buff to B/A for PvP would be awesome.
Not true, Threat Rush has very limited range, over half the time you use it you rubber band back in place, when using it, you can be controlled and it deals very little damage.
Removing mark, removes a large reason why it was so strong (and also the advantage IV has over SM).
Is it a gap closer? Yes. BUT! With increased duration of sprint, and bringing Unstoppable BACK to proper DR levels, I think youll find the GWF much more "balanced" and not relying on TR so much.
I also think that with "SOTS - slow stacking" GWFs will be deciding to not use TR in favor of an at will that can deal damage AND de buff targets like Wicked Strike. This also makes Weapon Master Strike much more appealing as well.
I'd rather the powerful challenge (+15% damage to marked targets) sentinel feat was moved to tier 3 so that destroyers wouldn't have access to it, and there were more ways to put mark on than just daring shout (and its pathetic 20 feet range) and TR.
note: wish SM had mark with Weapon Master Strike.
You can also mark with IBS.
On a related note, has the mark drop on damage taken been removed from all GWF marking skills? The descriptions don't seem to have been updated.
Wouldn't call IBS a reliable encounter for marking. Also, mark for GWF has a timer now. It lasts ~20 seconds and doesn't drop when taking damage.
All At Will powers doubled in damage, and Strength gives 2% damage boost up from 1%, and removing mark from threat Rush means youll deal 0 damage?