Howling Fang - Bestial Werewolf; review requested

legendarylycan

so, after many frustrating days of leveling my previous lightning wizard character (though i think i spent a good portion of those days dead, hence the frustration), i've decided to return to a build using constitution as a superstat and also making it relatively durable - mainly through the spec trees since the majority of powers are slashy, slicy, bleedy things

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Howling Fang

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: Feral
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Enduring
Level 12: Tireless
Level 15: Energetic
Level 18: Relentless
Level 21: Amazing Stamina

Powers:
Level 1: Bestial Fury
Level 1: Frenzy (Rank 2, Rank 3, Challenging Strikes)
Level 6: Supernatural Power
Level 8: Regeneration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Aspect of the Bestial (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Level 20: Massacre (Rank 2, Blood Mess)
Level 23: Howl (Rank 2, Rank 3, Make them Tremble)
Level 26: Masterful Dodge
Level 29: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Bite
Level 35: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Rebirth (Rank 2, Rank 3)

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics
Level 35: Superjump

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Physical Peak (2/3)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Strength: Overpower (2/3)
Warden: Slaughter (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Upper Hand (2/3)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Offensive Expertise (2/2)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (3/3)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)​​

morigosa

Well, let's see here...

Massacre: I'd suggest dropping this and using Shred (r2, penetrating strikes) instead. It's relatively similar on damage output, much easier to afford the energy cost, will actually benefit from Warden-spec's Slaughter, lets you use Warden Mastery instead of the relatively lackluster Strength Mastery, and will actually cause bleeds and stack enrage with Aspect of the Bestial. (Massacre as a main attack actually works better with Enrage instead of Aspect of the Bestial - but you've got regen, so you don't really need Enrage's special healing advantage.)

Strength Spec: Overpower may be better for leveling when you can't reliably get crit chance from gear. If you plan to keep playing the character at max level, though, I'd suggest swapping it out for Brutality; the increased crit damage works out to be much better than increased crit chance.
If you want to keep Massacre, then I'd advise dropping Swole to 2/3 and raising Physical Peak to 3/3; Massacre is expensive and every little bit helps.

Vindicator Spec: Personally, I'd go for more of the increased crit chance options over extra cooldown on active offenses.

Conviction: You've got regen already; even fully ranked, this won't do much for you. I'd suggest replacing it with a ranked block; that will be a much stronger boost to your survival. Ebon Void with Voracious Darkness is the mechanically strongest option, but any block will do; if you want to stay in-theme, Retaliation or Parry will be the way to go.

Howl: Ranking this up just lowers the cooldown; I wouldn't bother - you should be able to use it to permanently maintain enrage by max level anyway, thanks to cooldown reduction gear & enrage duration scaling with con. Use the points saved here to rank up at least one of your travel powers.

Frenzy: Is kinda lackluster; I don't have any specific recommendations for a replacement AoE, but (especially if you have the invisible weapons costume unlock) it may be worth looking at alternatives.

Rebirth: I wouldn't bother ranking this; its utility as a self-res doesn't change with rank, just the magnitude of the (very) temporary bonuses you get when you stand up again.

Bite: Guessing this is here just for theme? Might as well rank it if you're going to be using it, though.

Talents: It's generally better to use the less-focused talents when you can. For example, your selections offer plus 13/18/25/30 to con/end/str/rec. It's possible to take different talents (see link later for exactly which ones) and get something more like 28/21/28/23 - trading off 7 points of recovery (which you shouldn't need that much of if you drop massacre) for +3 str, +3 end, and +15 con. Con is important; it fuels Juggernaut.

And, last but not least, a link to one possible revised build based on the above thoughts.

flowcyto

Morigosa pretty much covered it all. If the build was to focus on Massacre, then I'd def switch the toggle to Enrage and change the build a bit accordingly.

I'd usually replace Conviction w/ DE in melee builds using Supernatural Power- as supplemental healing. Can still be nice to have as harder content will stress Regen a bit w/o extra support for it. For soloing, it shouldn't be needed in most places, though. I'd prob drop Bite for a block enhancer if I wanted more survival on top of that. Howl isn't a high priority either, though as an Enraged refresh it can be alright.

I'd prob just use Vicious Cyclone w/ Vortex as the AoE. The dps will be low, but the AoE knock-to aspect and large radius are nice. That or just have fun w/ Epidemic- even if neither stack AotB.

legendarylycan

here's the revised build; i picked a few talents that were more thematically appropriate for the character concept i have in mind - this guy's barely intelligent enough to understand spoken language let alone follow someone's orders, therefore no military would ever take him and thus paramilitary training wouldn't make any sense

and tying to that, he only uses the weapons nature gave him - namely his claws and fangs, so both vicious cyclone and epidemic are out; i might consider devour essence (i assume that's what DE stands for), but first i'm going to level with what i have and see how it performs before i go changing around powers

as for warden mastery vs. strength mastery, 10% more of what is most likely base damage and 9% extra damage resist doesn't seem very impressive, but then again, neither does 20 strength and 30 offense even if the latter does tie into the wardicator loop

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Howling Fang

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Savage
Level 6: Enduring
Level 9: Physical Conditioning
Level 12: Boundless Reserves
Level 15: Quick Recovery
Level 18: Amazing Stamina
Level 21: Relentless

Powers:
Level 1: Bestial Fury
Level 1: Shred (Rank 2, Penetrating Strikes)
Level 6: Supernatural Power
Level 8: Regeneration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Aspect of the Bestial (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Frenzy (Rank 2, Rank 3, Challenging Strikes)
Level 17: Retaliation (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Howl (Make them Tremble)
Level 26: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Level 29: Masterful Dodge
Level 32: Bite (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Rebirth

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics (Rank 2, Rank 3, Versatility)
Level 35: Superjump

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Physical Peak (2/3)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Warden: Slaughter (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Upper Hand (2/3)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (2/3)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)​​

flowcyto

Warden Mastery can be quite good since its dmg boost fully multiplicative, but only if ur main attack is a combo (Shred). Massacre w/ Enrage and Str Mastery and 5x bleed rolling is still going to net more sustained dps than Shred spam w/ 5x bleed and Warden Mastery, but they're both strong options regardless.

morigosa

Ah, okay; I would never have considered trying to keep talents in-theme, because they've got no visual effect and nobody else can see what you took. As for "no military would ever accept him" - maybe no properly organized military, but I'd imagine some group of, say, african freedom fighters would be happy to take whatever they could get... For that matter, just being a registered hero working with PRIMUS or UNTIL could be seen as "paramilitary"; the actual definition of the term is fairly loose.

For the rest, see Flowcyto's commentary above; warden mastery is one of the strongest mastery options out there... if (and only if) you're using combo attacks as a primary damage source.

holloweaver

I see you chose CS but not CC? So I've tried to build a tank version of your Howling Fang, with CC.

PowerHouse   (Link to this build)

Name:

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Recovery (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Savage
Level 6: Physical Conditioning
Level 9: Relentless
Level 12: Quick Recovery
Level 15: Paramilitary Training
Level 18: Martial Focus
Level 21: Acrobat

Powers:
Level 1: Bestial Fury (Rip and Tear)
Level 1: Frenzy (Rank 2, Rank 3, Challenging Strikes)
Level 6: Supernatural Power
Level 8: Regeneration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Aspect of the Bestial (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Pounce (Furious Rush, Crippling Challenge)
Level 17: Bite (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Level 23: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 26: Howl (Make them Tremble)
Level 29: Unbreakable (Rank 2)
Level 32: Retaliation
Level 35: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Rebirth (Rank 2)

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics (Rank 2)
Level 35: Superjump

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (2/3)
Strength: Physical Peak (3/3)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Warden: Fortified Gear (1/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Elusive (2/2)
Warden: Upper Hand (2/3)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (2/3)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (3/3)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)

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You certainly want to stay in melee range so I added a lunge.
CC is on Pounce (not many other options for your build) so I took Furious Rush to give it a better base damage but you can switch to something else (NttG could be good since you have no ranged attack).
Between Rege and Resurgence, your healing rate is good however your damage mitigation is rather low. Unbreakable will do better than MD R1.
You have enough tools (Frenzy, Bite, Howl) to ramp up your Enrage safely and fast.
I didn't ranked Retaliation because blocking reduces the effectiveness of Rege so you don't really want to depend on your block. But you can switch points from Unbreakable R2 to Retaliation R2 if you want.

Talents :
Considering your specs, I chose to max your STR and CON then I added some DEX to have a better base crit chance.

Specs :
I chose to max Physical Peak over Swole because cheaper melee attacks is better (more attacks).
For Warden, I chose a very different more tanky option (Elusive + FG).
For Vindicator, I tried to get back on your original concept (Frenzy as your main attack) therefore I maxed Mass Destruction over Focused Strikes.

With this build you don't loose that much of dps while you have a better survivability and movement (Pounce).

holloweaver

N.B. : While Frenzy is tagged as Combo in its description, it is not. Warden Mastery doesn't proc with Frenzy.
Combo attacks are just good utility powers to ramp up a form but they don't deal enough damages so if you want to go Shred spamming, follow Flowcyto suggestion and take Warden Mastery. At high level, +10% damage and +9% resistance will do better than +30 Offense (converted in +1% bonus damage).

REC is probably better than END. You can start full energy and spam Frenzy straight away. You'll also get a better energy return from Sup Power and worry less to get low on energy.
+DEX from Martial Focus and Acrobat is not going to turn you into a crit beast but it gives room to pick Elusive and Fortified Gear.

legendarylycan

unless i missed something, nailed to the ground is useless in PvE because there are no dangerous enemies that use flight powers, and since i never have any intention of PvPing, that advantage on ANY power is pretty much dead weight and a waste of points​​

holloweaver

Some mobs can fly : VIPER Air Cavalry, Spectres, and Gadroon Observers,... But yep, it's very situational. Up to you

flowcyto

Pounce's special adv I don't think is working as it states. Imo its not really worth it cause even if the adv does work out to be better than a normal rank, ur lunge will still have poor overall dps.

I would agree to putting CripC on something here- pref either Massacre or Shred (w/e is the focus here- I guess its gonna be Shred). Not sure I agree w/ Unbreakable over MD; I'd prob take MD since it can cover larger hits better than Unbreakable and doesn't warrant ranking up, but both are good ADs for the build.

Rec vs. End- its imo more for Defile or Massacre spam since those are the expensive charged powers in SN trees. If using either heavily, I'd prioritize End over Rec. If using neither heavily, then either Rec or End is fine for Supernatural Power. Shred itself is pretty cheap regardless, and unlike the charged moves, has more granularity to proc SP at a higher threshold and more often (same w/ Frenzy, and any maintain).

morigosa

Oh. Right. Pounce. Yeah, you'll want a lunge; I forgot that. I might skip Crippling Challenge on it - PvE that's really only important against Baron Cimetiere - but I would put Nailed to the Ground. You won't encounter flying enemies all the time, but you will encounter some and they'll be incredibly frustrating if you have neither flight nor a way to bring them down.

Revised version of your most recent posted build with bite swapped out for pounce.

holloweaver said:

I didn't ranked Retaliation because blocking reduces the effectiveness of Rege so you don't really want to depend on your block.

Strongly disagree with this; while the power does claim that it'll heal for less when blocking, in actual practice, that's either not true or (more likely) just doesn't matter. Consider: a ranked block reduces incoming damage to almost 1/5 of what it would otherwise be. Even if it also cut your regen rate in half (and it doesn't), that's still an enormous net gain to survival, allowing you to block, let your health go back up, and then resume combat.

holloweaver said:

REC is probably better than END. You can start full energy and spam Frenzy straight away. You'll also get a better energy return from Sup Power and worry less to get low on energy.

This is bad advice - Supernatural Power heavily favors Endurance over Recovery. Yes, the amount of energy you get when it procs scales better with Recovery - but unless you've put nothing into Recovery at all, that's not going to be the important number. The important number, instead, is what energy level will trigger a proc - and that scales much more with Endurance, since it's 15% of your max energy. Ideally you want that 15% mark to be around 2x the cost of whatever power you most commonly use, as there's sometimes a bit of a delay in when you get the energy back.

(Aside 1: Shred's cheap; you actually don't need more End/Rec for it than you can get from talents. Frenzy is a bit more expensive, though, which is why I haven't advised dropping End for some other super stat.)

(Aside 2: Massacre and Defile are expensive enough to require some attention paid to recovery as well as endurance - especially Massacre, since Enrage has a limit on how fast it can stack and thus won't give you energy on every hit. But endurance is still the more important attribute to super stat.)

holloweaver

flowcyto said:

Pounce's special adv I don't think is working as it states. Imo its not really worth it cause even if the adv does work out to be better than a normal rank, ur lunge will still have poor overall dps.

Hence I said these 2 points can be switched somewhere else.

flowcyto said:

I would agree to putting CripC on something here- pref either Massacre or Shred (w/e is the focus here- I guess its gonna be Shred). Not sure I agree w/ Unbreakable over MD; I'd prob take MD since it can cover larger hits better than Unbreakable and doesn't warrant ranking up, but both are good ADs for the build.

It's going to depend on his gameplay. If he likes to jump in the middle of henchmen and to howl them, Unbreakable will do better than MD. If he wants to focus on tanking Cosmic, MD is better but he'll have to note that the avoidance bonus from MD is really bad (+2.8% avoidance).

flowcyto said:

Rec vs. End- its imo more for Defile or Massacre spam since those are the expensive charged powers in SN trees. If using either heavily, I'd prioritize End over Rec. If using neither heavily, then either Rec or End is fine for Supernatural Power. Shred itself is pretty cheap regardless, and unlike the charged moves, has more granularity to proc SP at a higher threshold and more often (same w/ Frenzy, and any maintain).

Here again, it depends on his gameplay. If he feels confident enough in his build and switch Unbreakable for MD then he may also switch Rebirth for Massacre and switch END

morigosa said:

This is bad advice - Supernatural Power heavily favors Endurance over Recovery. Yes, the amount of energy you get when it procs scales better with Recovery - but unless you've put nothing into Recovery at all, that's not going to be the important number. The important number, instead, is what energy level will trigger a proc - and that scales much more with Endurance, since it's 15% of your max energy. Ideally you want that 15% mark to be around 2x the cost of whatever power you most commonly use, as there's sometimes a bit of a delay in when you get the energy back.

(Aside 1: Shred's cheap; you actually don't need more End/Rec for it than you can get from talents. Frenzy is a bit more expensive, though, which is why I haven't advised dropping End for some other super stat.)

(Aside 2: Massacre and Defile are expensive enough to require some attention paid to recovery as well as endurance - especially Massacre, since Enrage has a limit on how fast it can stack and thus won't give you energy on every hit. But endurance is still the more important attribute to super stat.)

Question? I know it's going to sound odd but what about +max energy from gears and REC?

morigosa

holloweaver said:

It's going to depend on his gameplay. If he likes to jump in the middle of henchmen and to howl them, Unbreakable will do better than MD. If he wants to focus on tanking Cosmic, MD is better but he'll have to note that the avoidance bonus from MD is really bad (+2.8% avoidance).

The amount of avoidance you get from MD varies based on how much avoidance you already have; it sounds like you were testing it on a character that already had a large amount of avoidance. For a character with no avoidance already, MD will cut incoming damage about in half.

Unbreakable is a perfectly viable choice, too. The only thing I don't like about it is that it ramps down as you attack - which makes the effective duration rather unpredictable. On the other hand, it actually blocks damage outright, which gives it one extra utility: you know how sometimes in missions you come across a door (or whatever) that you have to interact with, but the interact bar breaks on damage and you can't open it until some random piddly damage-over-time effect falls off? Unbreakable prevents that damage from interrupting you.

holloweaver said:

Question? I know it's going to sound odd but what about +max energy from gears and REC?

Doesn't - in my experience - give enough max energy to make a difference. And +energy on gear is competing with cost reduction and cooldown reduction and loses to either.

flowcyto

Yeah MD is quite weaker, ironically, for LR dodge tanks that already have high dodge% and avoidance w/o MD. It can still be good for guaranteeing mitigation through a bad spike for those builds that aren't at 100% dodge w/o it (like an LR build that gets imprisoned by Frosticus), but MD has more of an effect overall if ur base dodge/avoid is low.

legendarylycan

Bestial Framework
Shredded
- Shred Hits 1 and 2 changed to a 30 degree cone. Hit 3 is now a 240 degree cone.
- Damage reduced on hits 2 and 3.
- Cost for hits 2 and 3 increased.
- Penetrating Strikes advantage no longer has a 50% chance to apply Shredded. Penetrating Strikes now applies Shredded when you finish the power combo.

Frenzy
- Frenzy now has a chance to apply bleed. This chance increases if you are enraged.
- Hit 1 changed to a 280 degree cone. Hit 2 changed to a 240 degree cone.
- Fixed a bug where the power wasn't considered a combo.
- Cost for hits 2 and 3 increased.
- No longer applies or refreshes enrage.
- The Fear Sense advantage has been changed to apply the Furious buff if you finish the power combo.

same deal as sideswipe - what, if any changes do i need to make once all this goes live?

considering i use both shredded AND frenzy, and both are getting increased energy costs, i'm thinking at the very least i'll need to squeeze in a little more recovery and/or endurance because supernatural power doesn't seem to give me much energy when it procs...and IF it procs - i've noticed that sometimes it doesn't; dunno if that means it has an internal CD or it's just wonky

current build:

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name: Howling Fang

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Strength (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Endurance (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Savage
Level 6: Enduring
Level 9: Physical Conditioning
Level 12: Boundless Reserves
Level 15: Quick Recovery
Level 18: Amazing Stamina
Level 21: Relentless

Powers:
Level 1: Bestial Fury
Level 1: Shred (Rank 2, Penetrating Strikes)
Level 6: Supernatural Power
Level 8: Regeneration (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Aspect of the Bestial (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Frenzy (Rank 2, Rank 3, Challenging Strikes)
Level 17: Retaliation (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 20: Resurgence (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23: Howl (Make them Tremble)
Level 26: Ego Surge (Nimble Mind)
Level 29: Masterful Dodge
Level 32: Pounce (Crippling Challenge, Nailed to the Ground)
Level 35: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 38: Rebirth

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Athletics (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Superjump (Rank 2)

Specializations:
Strength: Swole (3/3)
Strength: Physical Peak (2/3)
Strength: Brutality (2/2)
Strength: Juggernaut (3/3)
Warden: Slaughter (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Upper Hand (2/3)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Mass Destruction (2/3)
Mastery: Strength Mastery (1/1)​​

flowcyto

Main thing those changes mean for ur build is that ur single-target dps w/ Shred will go down, but ur ability to AoE close-range will go up. So its win-lose. Frenzy will also be a bit better as an AoE now. Ya may need a bit more Rec or End, but not really too much more I'd imagine. Get enough that ya can spam either power w/o energy stuttering delaying things.

morigosa

shadowfang240 said:

considering i use both shredded AND frenzy, and both are getting increased energy costs, i'm thinking at the very least i'll need to squeeze in a little more recovery and/or endurance because supernatural power doesn't seem to give me much energy when it procs...and IF it procs - i've noticed that sometimes it doesn't; dunno if that means it has an internal CD or it's just wonky​​

You should be able to see (from the "show detailed information" on the powers listing in-game) exactly how much energy Supernatural Power will give you when it procs; as long as that's greater than the cost of your most expensive power, you won't need more Recovery.

And there's no cooldown on Supernatural Power. There are, however, three factors that do make it a bit wonky:

1: It only triggers if your attack puts you below 15% of max energy. Which can create a dead zone - say you've got 100 max energy, and are using an attack that costs 20. If you currently have 38 energy, and attack, that puts you down to 18... and Supernatural Power doesn't proc, but you also can't attack again. This is part of why Endurance is the energy stat of choice for Supernatural Power; the higher your max energy, the more reliably you'll get energy back.

2: There's a slight delay between activating an attack and getting energy back (especially for ranged powers with a travel time, but even melee powers have a small delay). So if you've got, say, 100 max energy, and are using an attack that costs 15. In theory, this would run forever; in practice, you'll get occasional delays where you're trying to attack but don't have the energy refunded yet.
The way around this is to add more endurance; if you had 200 max energy, supernatural power would trigger at <30 energy, and even if the proc is delayed, you'd still have another 15 energy to keep attacking.

3: If you attack, and the attack doesn't hit anything (due to the target having died or moved out of range), supernatural power will not refund any energy. There's not much to be done about this one, besides knowing it can happen; it's most problematic with Epidemic, which you're not using, but can happen with any power if things go just wrong.