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I thought the GWF was supposed to get Buffed?
zardoz007
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 2 Arc User
I thought the designers said they thought the GWF was too squishy and needed to be a bit tougher. In Beta weekend 4 I feel weaker than ever, Even more so In PVP. The new horrible skills system has stunted my choices.And now with less movement powers at my disposal I'm a Sitting duck in PVP I die even faster.
GWF is my favorite Class archtype but for now I will not play it.... This may even make me abandon the game if I can't be happy swinging a really Big sword.
Anyone else feel the same way about there fighters or is it just me?
GWF is my favorite Class archtype but for now I will not play it.... This may even make me abandon the game if I can't be happy swinging a really Big sword.
Anyone else feel the same way about there fighters or is it just me?
Post edited by zardoz007 on
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Where did they say that?
Maybe the devs accidently did a typo during programming and put a "-" in the line code for buffing instaed of a "+"... here's hopeing
I was under the impression, based on past interviews as well as the PC Gamer article, that GWF was meant to be a backup tank or dps depending on how players decided to gear/spec. I see that the potential is still there but can't fully understand the GWF specific changes that were applied to BW4.
It really does feel as if the class, in its present state in BW4, brings little benefit to a group when compared to the other classes. I wish I could begin to understand Cryptic's design philosophy here, but I simply can't. It would be nice to hear directly from a developer, regarding the reasons behind such changes and their true intent in regards to what role(s) they see the class fulfilling.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
If the GWF can't do basic AOE, then what's the point? It's really too bad.
Edit: Changed my higher level cleric companion for the wizard one (Wiz is rank 1...), questing right now in the bandit 20 zone and its harder, need to be more carefull and pay more attention to what i am doing but still its far from being unplayable solo.
Maybe the problem is about balance or usefulness in groups?
What I've noticed as far as squishness though is that having Punishing Charge now a level 45 power sucks. Our sprint works alright, but it's a terrible escape power so I am taking a LOT more hits than I was in prior betas.
If I was to make a wishlist of things I'd like changed it would be this:
1) You can determination through attacks even without having the final feat of the destroyer tree. This suddenly makes the GWF more useful in groups by increasing our damage and utility without forcing us into a tank/off-tank position.
2) Move Punishing Charge down to level 15 or 20, someplace where we can grab a useful positional and escape power that will serve us well through our entire careers, not just the final 15-levels.
3) Get rid of Reaping Strike, replace it with anything. Hell, make it an encounter power and increase the damage by a considerable amount - that might actually make it useful. Then either move Punishing Strikes back down to a starting ability or create a new attack, just make sure that it's not one that charges up. The move feels useless for solo-play and is too clunky for group play. I know that there are some folks out there that are getting good use out of it, but it's a boring move and boring moves should be thrown on the dung-heap of annoyances.
Do those three things and the GWF will be in a much stronger position, the first two will increase our survivability through a skill-based mechanic and it will give us the group buff we need to add some DPS outside of a boss. The last one is mostly just a personal preference of mine but really if I didn't have to use the points in that tier I'd not even pick it up. Otherwise I'd say our DPS is alright solo, it's just when we get into a group that we start losing it.
The part i liked was getting minion mobs to %50 ish with 1-2 at wills and charge reaping strike and swipe them away with brute force! that was the part i loved about it. Smashing the bits felt just ok. But right now even 2 strikes of my another at-will ability hits more than the 3rd charge of Reaping strike.
They are good to 30-35 then things felt very tough and I felt the pain of the nerfs this bw 4.
Extinction - GWF
In my runs, which were many, I ranked from first to third in damage, I also was one of the most durable. A guardian fighter and myself finished the Dire Forge end boss together, I am not sure if he was potting but I was potting and bringing my companion back up. Kinda sucks that they come up so low. For such an effort to bring someone up you would think they would at least have half life or something. Anyways, yeah threat is a big problem. IMO they REALLY need to put cleric heals to zero threat. Let them get threat with damage, all good clerics will do damage anyways. But all that heal hate just makes the cleric the OT in most circumstances.
I was very durable as I said. I had a LOT less grief in doing the end Bosses in Pirate Skyhold. Only one death between both of them. I think I only had maybe 5 deaths total and I am pretty sure all but that one from me being stupid and running into a trap while kiting the boss away so I could res my cleric, all the others were boss wipes. Did the dragon without too much trouble, but our cleric was pro, heck the whole group was pro. GF tanked the dragon, I ran around on adds almost exclusively, a TR sometimes helped me with adds, another TR was on the boss, and the cleric ran around and healed like mad, we did have to bring him up twice though. So we didn't have a CW in there and had two rogues. I did a couple of fail runs on the wolf den boss. A TR and myself almost had her but yeah, sometimes you get overwhelmed with adds, the last add group took me out then him.
I also did a LOT of damage with my build. I am super happy with the class and know exactly how I am going to go in live. All I can say is Str, Con and Power > Deflect > Defense really served me well. On my weapon I only paid attention to base damage. I also took Armor Pen > Critical Rating on some gear, sometimes you don't always find what you want while leveling. I took mostly defensive feats in the heroic tier, some offense but not much, then in the paragon I went all offense.
I felt like I was on par with a control wizard for single target damage, I definitely crushed it with AoE damage, and only guardians were more durable. I tanked the Crag errr whatever Crypts, the one with Kallos Tam and Travan. Went super smooth, but the group let me get in first and get a swing or two on stuff. Other than the heal hate issues with adds going right to the cleric, our beloved aggro magnet, it mostly seemed like my aggro issues were due to bad group play more than anything. People rushing in and zergfesting everything. I always smile when they die.
Oh I should add. On that dragon fight, the green dragon, I stayed near the cleric. When he got aggro he would push back AoE heal then chain them. By the time the chains wore off I had threat off him. So even with the clerics, it might just be that we have to develop a synergy with them to make things work.
All in all though I am super happy with how things worked out. The learning curve in this game for me was like get to level 12 to have a clue, get to level 20 to get a real feel for the class. Level to 47 in beta weekend three to learn how to do everything wrong, trying to make him a striker rather than emphasize the defender and controller aspects to the class. Then level to 50 and have the light bulb go off and go ahhhhhh NOW I UNDERSTAND! Now on release I feel confident that I probably will not need that respec token any time soon.
I will do a review / write up sometime soon if I can, but I have to do a bunch of home renovations over the next couple of weeks, so I might not be on the forums as much as I would like.
Good write-up, i like that you have given exemples of your experience in grouping since i focused more on solo foundry quests. I really like the class, i didnt like the abilities we got at the start but mostly got those i wanted at 20. I played all STR and DEX with mostly DPS feats but still had no problems, i think i ended up with two stacks of 70+ potions and rarely used them (mostly on those foundry quests that send waves of hard mobs with casters).
Encounters i used was knock down, restoring strike and Roar. with knockdown for interupt and Roar for CC/Interupt and restoring strike for damage/healing.
Thanks,
I changed my build a bit as I leveled. I wanted to test stuff out. I will start working on a guide to how I played. Who knows, maybe I will actually get it out before Open Beta.
On the note of this, I find the change funny as hell! The first passive you get, and what the class is all about, is AOE, and killing many little minions. Yet your first ability, your first at-will power, actually punishes you for attacking more than one enemy! it targets 1 enemy per hit, and for every other enemy you hit other than the first guy, it will do less and less damage. Funny!
Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
I also focused on STR->CON as we must remember that Str does not only offer bonus damage, nor does Con only give you extra HP:
Armour penetration is also quite important I found and I grabbed it wherever I could as well as Crit, Defense and Deflection. The feat Ubiquitous Shield sure felt like it did a world of difference as well when being surrounded. We must all try to remember that we are not Rogues and focus quite a bit on Defense in order to survive. While the GWF panes out at higher levels and become very deadly at max level it feels as if Powers are tad sluggish at lower levels. But I promise that once one hits the level cap it's a world of difference.
Like Argantis, I also plan on writing a guide on the Great Weapon Fighter. Hopefully it will be different so we get to see the different ways you can go. I have plans on going heavy into Sentinel to build a very capable and durable tank. See you all come Open Beta!
Boy was I in for a disappointment.
Until I got my Cleric at 16 I felt squishy...like REALLY squishy compared to even a rogue while getting the more defense feat and it synergy of attack power from defense.Also took up a sellsword to see If I could keep up in the bandit area when my cleric was training.It was back to chug-a-lung land drinking pots faster than I could pick them up lucky I had a good store up of them while I was waltzing the cleric around.
As for the abilities I got to use.
Your first ability you get is an aoe that cripples.This puzzled me to no end.WHY? why do I need an aoe that is really weak and cripples,things don't run from you in pve and by the time you get to the pvp queue you could easily pick it up if you wanted it from your second row of skills,not like it made a world of a difference in pvp anyway as people would just run from you and if you didn't have a gap closer at the ready you couldn't stay connected anyway.
Reaping strike while I loved it at higher lvls after I got the mace from cloak tower as I would kill weaker pack of mobs in 2 swings it's pointless for instances even if your able to move around.They need to either make you move around a little bit faster or make the charge up faster.Getting determination while being hit wasn't that amazing of a deal even while soloing.I'd much rather have it give a damage resistance while keeping it charged this way it could be used at least for tanking or in pvp for a 'i'm a turtle now' kind of move to make you hold out a bit while your cleric get you up.
Sure strike was not great either,compared to a rogues slight flourish it was pathetic...pathetic to say the least.I really hope this get replaced by something at higher lvls.
Reaping strike I used a lot it was the only thing that was hitting for a decent amount for a long time,think it could use a more reasonable decreased cooldown.The health you got back was mostly lack luster.
Takedown was the other ecounter I kept for the damage potential and knocking down those nasty individuals who though they could get a drink while fighting me or wanted to start reading right in front of me.
Used Roar as my last.The leap was nice but mobility was not a big issue for me unless doing instances and even then I would still pick roar up cause determination was hard to get when nothing is beating on you and the damage is a lot better as the cone is alot bigger than the circle leap had.
As for dailies let me say that nothing and I mean NOTHING made me feel more powerful than having to do an Avalanche of steel...I love it to death I felt like a freaking meteor sent by the gods,even dailies from other classes couldn't give me such a feeling of excitement as poping this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> daily.I wish that you could however click the daily again to make you come down faster as in pve standing this much in the air could mean that someone else would kill them adds before you got down,maybe remove the stun component while doing that.The spin attack was really weak at the start but gets a lot better along the road,also another choice that made me scratch my head as the first daily you get,it doesn't give you the feeling of power you get from dailies of other classes at the beginning of the game from engaging your daily.Didn't get to try out slam as it sounded more like some pvp daily.
As for passives most of them have their uses I kept with the crit buff and either damage stacks one for deflect/run speed one depending on what I was doing.
As for the class mechanic I felt this was only useful when soloing apart from that I never really felt like I had a mechanic besides sprint for instances/skirmishes,not having it also build up from doing damage unless your at the end of your destroyer tree makes no sense.The only time I got to use it a plenty was while doing storming the keep scenario I think it was called where our GF dced and I had to take up the taking mantle on and I used it quite a lot.It feels more like a taking mechanic than anything else,sure you get a damage buff also but not even half close as I found the damage resistance was in usefulness.Made a world of difference when I tried to solo the daughter of lolth in those crypts dungeon for lvl 26 since the tank wanted to rush while it was my first time and wanted to explore it all.
The sprint didn't feel that awesome either,compared to other classes that get a dodge while doing theirs the gwf gets shafted hard.Sure you get more control over it but I had a hard time getting out of some red zones,even for the heavier hit it took me a while to figure out that it's better to just side step instead of trying to sprint backwards (like I got used to doing as I played all other classes before I got to my future favorite) saving you stamina and actually avoiding the hit.
All in all I got smashed in damage by about any other class in groups(never once got first place and I did quite a few instance since I'm a raiding pve addict) and lvling felt slow compared to the others.You could not stand a change against a rogue unless by some miracle all bosses would split into 3 for the whole fight and you could keep 2 of those on you do generate the necessary determination to even stand a chance while doing your aoe.From reading the forum I understand the GWF is supposed to be some aoe god but I don't want to be some trash cleaner while a GF can do a similar job or even better at damage and eating damage.
Most of the time I felt like a midget around giants...well at least it was fun if you didn't look at the meter at the end.
That is to say that Dex is tied directly to deflection, which can be further stacked with the Bravery class feature. Running this with the Weapon Master class feature, which can be stacked with another Sentinel feat that increases deflect and base AC even higher when it is slotted, allows us to take direct hits from just about anything without flinching. The extra crit also goes a decent ways in allowing us to keep our DPS comparable to an average CW in a dungeon run while we are in a tanking role. To top it off, when it is fixed or "if" I should say, we have a threat generating feat associated directly with crits from Sure Strike. So despite what Argantis said, it seems that Sure Strike was intended to be our primary single target threat generator for Sentinel and should be very viable in the end game (just not so much in BW4).
The problem, as I mentioned before, is that we can not peel targets off of squishy party members all that well due to the current threat mechanic (as of BW4) which poses some questions about viability in level 60 dungeons. Unlike the GF we don't have a proper taunt (and I don't feel that we need one), so we could really stand to have a more reliable way of managing threat generation as the game moves forward. Hopefully, this will be addressed shortly after open beta.
Are we still useful as Sentinel? yes - although questionably so in the current state. If the threat mechanic is tweaked a bit, we'll be, dare I say, amazing. "Come and Get it" when followed by "Daring Shout" is a very effective combo in dungeons, although the threat generation even with the associated feat seems non-existent. I'm sure that this will be fixed at some point.
Can we do damage? yes - but only because our overall numbers jump quickly when clearing larger packs of dungeon "trash" mobs. It would be nice to see a slight increase in our single target damage, nothing big but a little more would be helpful. I think that just giving Sure Strike a slight boost would be enough.
Looking over our Tier 1 and 2 level 60 dungeon gear on the seals vendor this past beta weekend makes it obvious that we likely don't have the full picture of the situation yet. Although, other classes do have comparable gear so I doubt the scaling will return in our favor in some way. I still feel that we were toned down just a bit too much as a class with the BW4 build. I do, however, think that with some minor tweaks we will be a valuable asset to any dungeon group in the future. We just won't be the class that everyone thought we were in BW3, and I'm a bit glad actually.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
1) Leveling a GWF in open/release is going to be a lot more painful.
2) Sure Strike does hit multiple mobs, it's just the cone is tighter than I think it used to be. If you can line up a stack you'll scythe through them.
3) Swordmaster's Strike is amazing for mowing down rank upon rank of foes while soloing. Maybe it's just that I went with a build that had a high crit-rating, but I have a feeling that your doppleganger that attacks from behind gains combat advantage.
4) They really need to fix the dungeon cues, at least for everything after the cloak tower. I know this isn't GWF related but it seems like every time I'd try and run a dungeon I'd either get one that had been completed or one where it was a last boss fail and the prior group all bailed except for one person and it would just fill based on that.
5) In effective groups gaining determination is problematic. The last talent of the destroyer tree should just be automatic - gain determination through damage. This would fix the majority of our DPS issues, especially those we have in groups.