Anvil of Doom vs Into the Fray

apollid

Hi all!

My question is that which power gives me bigger damage - dps. Anvil of Doom, or Into the Fray ? Which is stronger FOR ME ?

I don't know if I get a damage bonus from Into the Fray or not, only my teammates.

Pls help.

lantern22

Anvil of Doom.

I always use ITF for group content (i.e. Dungeons and skirmishes as it buffs the DPS members), always. I always swap ITF out for Anvil of Doom when soloing cause it is our max DPS attack (especially when the mobs health is <40% or whatever the figure is).

Also to improve DPS, when on single target, I use Tide of Iron for the debuffs instead of cleave (which result in >>DPS). For our meagre DPS output the combination of marked target, health <40%, tide of iron and then Anvil of Doom is nice.

zman81420

For solo I run ITF, Lunging Strike and Enforced threat. DPS buff from ITF while having every target marked and spam Weapon Master Strike and finish with Crushing Surge makes my life easier. The Anvil is honestly just a finisher encounter that I usually only slot in PvP, which I love the ANVIL no question but you have to lower their health for the true potential effectiveness. I want a buff and debuff going to dwindle mobs down quickly with as much AoE as possible.

kemi1984

I will dare to disagree.

My standard solo setup was, LS,Anvil + ET. It gave a nice mix ox hard hitting single target, a low CD gap closer and a AOE mark, damage dealing encounter.

But than...I started to use ITF in place of the Anvil.

The thing is ITF has fairly short CD (can't recall but probably shorter than the Anvil itself) and it boosts your DPS like a beast!
I'm really happy with the results thus far. But to be sure I need to try ACT run in one of the solo dungeons in Sharandar.

I usually pull all mobs at once. Hit ITF, than all the AOE abilities I have slotted (mainly ET and VM daily). This will give me some good amount of AOE damage + all mobs are marked for few WMS hits.

I encourage you to try it out, you might be surprised how well it works.

whymushroom

I would say it depends. With uncapped DR, my ItF only is boosting cleave 70% on dummies. Anvil would only be better if it does more damage than two boosted encounters, two boosted at-wills and a boosted daily power. I don't know the exact number. Avil is fun, but I feel running ItF does more damage overall.

lantern22

kemi1984 said:

I will dare to disagree.

My standard solo setup was, LS,Anvil + ET. It gave a nice mix ox hard hitting single target, a low CD gap closer and a AOE mark, damage dealing encounter.

But than...I started to use ITF in place of the Anvil.

The thing is ITF has fairly short CD (can't recall but probably shorter than the Anvil itself) and it boosts your DPS like a beast!
I'm really happy with the results thus far. But to be sure I need to try ACT run in one of the solo dungeons in Sharandar.

I usually pull all mobs at once. Hit ITF, than all the AOE abilities I have slotted (mainly ET and VM daily). This will give me some good amount of AOE damage + all mobs are marked for few WMS hits.

I encourage you to try it out, you might be surprised how well it works.

Hmm I'm a Tactician, so I usually use Threatening Rush to mark multiple targets, but I'm going to give the ITF, ET combo a try tonight.

What about for single target loadout, still the same?

kemi1984

I rarely slot all single target encounters, well maybe for SH dragons or what have you.
If that's the case ITF is still there, I'm really amazed that after playing GF for so long I still find some new things - guess I need to experiment a bit more.

So the single target setup would be: LS,ITF and Anvil.

Oh and on the side note when we're on discovering old/new things.

Shield Warrior Wrath is just beasty! PVP folks probably know this for a long time, but give it a shot in PVE....again you might be surprised about the results

And a question for you @lantern22, how do you find Tact in tanking? I'm still stuck in Protector path, really happy about it if we're talking about tanking. Wonder if Tact will stay tanky and give a SOLID boost to already powerful mark/UTF combo for the party. Heard stories about tact feats not working and all.

lantern22

I tried the ITF / ET combo last night. Haven't really formed an opinion as I rarely run dailies anymore with my GF. To improve my DPS I swapped over to my CW toon and difference between the two makes the changes in GF feats seem insignificant. More sampling required.

Regarding Tactician - I swapped from IV Conqueror to IV Tact at the same time as Mod 6 came out, so that might muddy the waters somewhat. I think Tact is better for tanking but DPS is horrible (so horrible I rolled a CW as a 2nd main and that is now my goto toon for Dailies etc. and I use that to fuel my GF with AD, enchants etc.), GF is still my favourite for Dungeons tho.

I chose that for the AP gain and also for the extra party buffs. I don't know if the feats work or not, I don't really look into the game that closely. I can say that there appeared to be a massive AP gain with it (although that could also have been the extra damage mobs did in Mod 6). In Mod 6 one dragon breath from eLOL or one O/H strike from a golem would almost completely fill my AP. Now not so much, but if I'm getting hit regularly and I'm blocking I can pretty much run VM or FR almost constantly (not always). I don't know whether other paths have the same AP generation.

Tanking at the moment is too easy, half the time I don't bother with my dailies or Arti.

If I start running ET more often and then don't need threatening rush, I might respec to swordmaster for steel defence - if you still generate AP whilst blocking hits when you are immune, that would be interesting - VM plus invulnerability . . . . .

I should pay more attention to the details

kemi1984

Thank you for your insight.

I can definitely confirm that I have tons of AP coming in even as a Protector. That's why I asked how it looks like as a Tact with its capstone. Anyway I do admit it's probably hard to judge by simply running around and playing. On the other hand it would be rather useless to make in depth analysis what's the difference in AP gain between both paths.

With the current state of the game, and moreover, state of the gear available - AP is really easy to build up.
I don't have any AP gain reinforcements on the armor, I do not own a the Snail, I do not have any AP gain boons and still I can spam dailies like there's no tomorrow...

Steel Defense gives you a huge comfort in somewhat harder fights. Last night being at Traven's is a great example. You just pop a daily, and it gives you these invaluable seconds to look around better, hit ET and ITF and tank on.

On the topic of DPS. I could be biased by, almost exclusively, playing my GF - but it's DPS is really not that bad. I do have a separate augment with full offensive stats + LOL set but latter is more for the stats it gives rather than the set bonus.

Thought about changing to Conq, but still I find being a DPS tank rather silly. I do have in mind that epic Demo is getting closer with each day, and tanking is still needed - hope it will stay that way.
Above is probably due to the fact that I do not like playing with a Bubble Pally, I find it really cheap and incredibly game breaking.
It's just a god mode switch that should never been implemented.

Cheers!

zman81420

kemi1984 said:

I rarely slot all single target encounters, well maybe for SH dragons or what have you.
If that's the case ITF is still there, I'm really amazed that after playing GF for so long I still find some new things - guess I need to experiment a bit more.

So the single target setup would be: LS,ITF and Anvil.

Oh and on the side note when we're on discovering old/new things.

Shield Warrior Wrath is just beasty! PVP folks probably know this for a long time, but give it a shot in PVE....again you might be surprised about the results

And a question for you @lantern22, how do you find Tact in tanking? I'm still stuck in Protector path, really happy about it if we're talking about tanking. Wonder if Tact will stay tanky and give a SOLID boost to already powerful mark/UTF combo for the party. Heard stories about tact feats not working and all.

Try tossing in ET over anvil and start encounter with ITF, ET, LS then spam WMS. Melts trash in solo play. Been very nice thus far for me. I am running with a Neveremember Guard companion, along with Double slotted Recovery waists x2 with R8 azures and R8 Silvery for Recovery and Defense and 3x Greater bonding rune stones for additional defense stacked and loving it. The companion gifts are giving huge boosts to my DR major buff to ITF when stacked 3x,4x,5x. I myself am completely stacked with R9 azure for defense every slot and R9 darks/silvery in offense.

I agree, its nice to see fresh perspectives from other Guardian Fighters and learn new tricks! I Honestly do not see a lot of us GF around on xbox. But the ones who do exist are well versed in their play styles.