test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Forums > Home› Class Forums›
Tony's GF Notebook
cilginordek
Member Posts: 459 Arc User
I moved this to http://mmominds.com/2018/04/04/tonys-gf-notebook/
It's been updated and expanded, I'll continue updating it there as it wouldn't fit into forum posts anymore.
(Last updated 1st January 2017)
(While its PvP focused, it's possible to tank all PvE bosses with this build. You will need Frostborn gear for Sva, however.)
Hello this is Tony Chianti@cilginordek. I’ve exclusively played Guardian Fighter ever since the game was first released. I quit for a while around the time warlocks were released and now I’m back. When I came back I couldn’t find any up to date builds so I used my own. Now with Mod 10s release, I decided I might as well share it with you people.
Dragonborn: 3% Crit rate and you can choose to add +2 to Strength and Dexterity
Half Orc: +2 Dexterity by default and optional +2 Strength, also 5% extra Crit severity
Halfling: +2 Dexterity and optional +2 Constitution, as well as 3% deflect and 10% CC resist.
Human: You can choose to add +2 to Strength, also you get 3 extra feat points and +3% defense
Dwarf: Optional +2 Strength as well as +2 Constitution, also DoT and Knockback Resistance.
Other races don’t really have things that benefit our Guardian Fighter much.
Attributes:
As you well know, Main attributes for GF is Strength, Constitution and Dexterity.
Strength: Give Damage Bonus, DoT resist and increases guard regen. Since we are focusing on a PvP build, damage is king, so get as much of this as you can!
Constitution: Increases Action Point gain and Maximum hit points. HP bonus from this does not affect HP you get from equipment, so not good, but since it’s the primary attribute, game will always roll it highest.
Dexterity: Gives Resistance Ignored, Deflection Chance and AoE resist. Resistance Ignored means more damage, so this is good too, extra deflection doesn’t hurt either.
Intelligence: Gives recharge speed
Wisdom: Gives Control Bonus and Control Resist
Charisma: Companion Stat Bonus and Combat Advantage Damage
Give all your points to strength and dexterity. Constitution isn’t nearly as useful.
Powers:
I will color code them based on my opinion of them. Gold means good, silver means meh and bronze means bad.
At-Wills:
Weapon Masters Strike: Since Mod10, this has become a lot better because animation ends faster now. In PvP, I use it once to put debuff on the enemy then stab from behind my shield or with another At-Will. In PvE, you can out-dps every other class if there are enough mobs around to slash.
Crushing Surge: Very hard hitting single target skill, hurts decently if you can land a few hits after you debuff with WMS. Healing is a bonus although not much in PvP
Cleave: Not as good AoE dps as WMS, not as good single target dps as Crushing Surge, so its really not that attractive at all. Your only AoE option if youre Iron Vanguard, however.
Tide of Iron: Slow and not so damaging, puts a damage reduction debuff on enemyfor everyone. Can be useful on PvE bosses.
Encounters:
Lunging Strike: It used to have good damage, they nerfed it. It used to have fast cooldown, they nerfed it. Now it’s only good for solo questing.
Enforced Threat:: AoE damage and a taunt, must have for PvE.
Griffon's Wrath: Stun is probably the worst CC in PvP, however, it gives enough time to land 3 hits in a row if you have enough control strenght, when boosted with the feat it deals nice damage. I'm currently using this in PvP.
Knee Breaker: As opposed to Lunging Strike, this ability kept getting buffs. Now with Mod10 You can only activate it with a target and it does a little base damage too. It is the highest damaging skill we have and applies a slow too which allows you to land your At-Wills more easily. Can come in handy in PvP and really good for single target PvE dps.
Knights Challenge: Fun Encounter, however, it got nerfed with Mod10. If you are taking this, putting just 1 point on it should be enough for use in PvP. For PvE, if you want to single target dps, it really helps.
Anvil of Doom: Was also very fun and source of much qq. Now it is nerfed and does less burst damage. Knee Breaker has better DoT and Flourish has better spike but it can still be useful albeit very situational.
Flourish: Does good damage, stun is negligible as it makes little difference. Also gets you stuck during the animation which may be the death of you if you are fighting few people at once. Still, only burst encounter we have left now. Can be boosted with Feat too, if you plan on using it.
Into the Fray: Also got nerfed, but still is bread and butter of GF, must have for PvE, good to have for PvP too.
Iron Warrior: Good if you absolutely have to go all in tank in PvE, although loses its necessarity as you get better gear. Also, casting time is way too long to be comfortable.
Knights Valor: Must have for any PvE GF, I’ve also seen some premades make decent use of it, but irrelevant for PvP for the most part.
Bull Charge: This is love. Only Encounter from the glory days of GF that they didn’t nerf. Prone is one of the best CCs, it does good damage too, and is a gap closer. Would you want a coffee along that too?
Commander's Strike:Good for zergs like Tiamat or Stronghold DragonsCan be a good damage source for defensive oriented builds and speeds up killing single target bosses by buffing your party. Too situational for PvP.
Line Breaker Assault: Long cooldown and the damage isn’t anything to write home about either. Effective usage is too situational so I don’t bother with it at all.
Dailies:
Villain's Menace: Combine with WMS in a sea of mobs to top dps charts. Good to have for PvE. Can be used in PvP in some situations too.
Fighters Recovery: Comes in handy when solo questing or tanking bosses without a healer, in PvP healing depression limits its usefulness but it has still saved my life many times. Especially handy when fighting warlocks.
Terrifying Impact: Slow to activate, okay damage. I don't use it in PvP while it is too easy to dodge.
Supremacy of Steel: Combine with Knights Valor to ensure agro and decent damage. Not much useful for PvP, however.
Crescendo: Prone, decent gap closer and high damage, it is the go-to daily for PvP. Have it slotted at all times.
Features:
Shield Talent: Good for going full turtle. I use it against Orcus. In PvP we care more about damage though.
Enchanted Mark: Helps if you can’t hold the agro, however, the aggro gain from it is not too significant, you will have enough damage to not worry about this most of the time.
Guarded Assault: Good for dealing damage while going full turtle, but usually not worth ti compared to other good features.
Combat Superiority: It got "fixed". At rank 4 with the feat to support it, it gives you1318% extra damage practically all the time and decreases the damage you take.
It's been updated and expanded, I'll continue updating it there as it wouldn't fit into forum posts anymore.
(Last updated 1st January 2017)
(While its PvP focused, it's possible to tank all PvE bosses with this build. You will need Frostborn gear for Sva, however.)
Hello this is Tony Chianti@cilginordek. I’ve exclusively played Guardian Fighter ever since the game was first released. I quit for a while around the time warlocks were released and now I’m back. When I came back I couldn’t find any up to date builds so I used my own. Now with Mod 10s release, I decided I might as well share it with you people.
Races:
In my opinion people should play whatever race they feel like playing. However, some beneficial races are from better to worse:Dragonborn: 3% Crit rate and you can choose to add +2 to Strength and Dexterity
Half Orc: +2 Dexterity by default and optional +2 Strength, also 5% extra Crit severity
Halfling: +2 Dexterity and optional +2 Constitution, as well as 3% deflect and 10% CC resist.
Human: You can choose to add +2 to Strength, also you get 3 extra feat points and +3% defense
Dwarf: Optional +2 Strength as well as +2 Constitution, also DoT and Knockback Resistance.
Other races don’t really have things that benefit our Guardian Fighter much.
Attributes:
As you well know, Main attributes for GF is Strength, Constitution and Dexterity.
Strength: Give Damage Bonus, DoT resist and increases guard regen. Since we are focusing on a PvP build, damage is king, so get as much of this as you can!
Constitution: Increases Action Point gain and Maximum hit points. HP bonus from this does not affect HP you get from equipment, so not good, but since it’s the primary attribute, game will always roll it highest.
Dexterity: Gives Resistance Ignored, Deflection Chance and AoE resist. Resistance Ignored means more damage, so this is good too, extra deflection doesn’t hurt either.
Intelligence: Gives recharge speed
Wisdom: Gives Control Bonus and Control Resist
Charisma: Companion Stat Bonus and Combat Advantage Damage
Give all your points to strength and dexterity. Constitution isn’t nearly as useful.
Powers:
I will color code them based on my opinion of them. Gold means good, silver means meh and bronze means bad.
At-Wills:
Weapon Masters Strike: Since Mod10, this has become a lot better because animation ends faster now. In PvP, I use it once to put debuff on the enemy then stab from behind my shield or with another At-Will. In PvE, you can out-dps every other class if there are enough mobs around to slash.
Crushing Surge: Very hard hitting single target skill, hurts decently if you can land a few hits after you debuff with WMS. Healing is a bonus although not much in PvP
Cleave: Not as good AoE dps as WMS, not as good single target dps as Crushing Surge, so its really not that attractive at all. Your only AoE option if youre Iron Vanguard, however.
Tide of Iron: Slow and not so damaging, puts a damage reduction debuff on enemy
Encounters:
Lunging Strike: It used to have good damage, they nerfed it. It used to have fast cooldown, they nerfed it. Now it’s only good for solo questing.
Enforced Threat:: AoE damage and a taunt, must have for PvE.
Griffon's Wrath: Stun is probably the worst CC in PvP, however, it gives enough time to land 3 hits in a row if you have enough control strenght, when boosted with the feat it deals nice damage. I'm currently using this in PvP.
Knee Breaker: As opposed to Lunging Strike, this ability kept getting buffs. Now with Mod10 You can only activate it with a target and it does a little base damage too. It is the highest damaging skill we have and applies a slow too which allows you to land your At-Wills more easily. Can come in handy in PvP and really good for single target PvE dps.
Knights Challenge: Fun Encounter, however, it got nerfed with Mod10. If you are taking this, putting just 1 point on it should be enough for use in PvP. For PvE, if you want to single target dps, it really helps.
Anvil of Doom: Was also very fun and source of much qq. Now it is nerfed and does less burst damage. Knee Breaker has better DoT and Flourish has better spike but it can still be useful albeit very situational.
Flourish: Does good damage, stun is negligible as it makes little difference. Also gets you stuck during the animation which may be the death of you if you are fighting few people at once. Still, only burst encounter we have left now. Can be boosted with Feat too, if you plan on using it.
Into the Fray: Also got nerfed, but still is bread and butter of GF, must have for PvE, good to have for PvP too.
Iron Warrior: Good if you absolutely have to go all in tank in PvE, although loses its necessarity as you get better gear. Also, casting time is way too long to be comfortable.
Knights Valor: Must have for any PvE GF, I’ve also seen some premades make decent use of it, but irrelevant for PvP for the most part.
Bull Charge: This is love. Only Encounter from the glory days of GF that they didn’t nerf. Prone is one of the best CCs, it does good damage too, and is a gap closer. Would you want a coffee along that too?
Commander's Strike:
Line Breaker Assault: Long cooldown and the damage isn’t anything to write home about either. Effective usage is too situational so I don’t bother with it at all.
Dailies:
Villain's Menace: Combine with WMS in a sea of mobs to top dps charts. Good to have for PvE. Can be used in PvP in some situations too.
Fighters Recovery: Comes in handy when solo questing or tanking bosses without a healer, in PvP healing depression limits its usefulness but it has still saved my life many times. Especially handy when fighting warlocks.
Terrifying Impact: Slow to activate, okay damage. I don't use it in PvP while it is too easy to dodge.
Supremacy of Steel: Combine with Knights Valor to ensure agro and decent damage. Not much useful for PvP, however.
Crescendo: Prone, decent gap closer and high damage, it is the go-to daily for PvP. Have it slotted at all times.
Features:
Shield Talent: Good for going full turtle. I use it against Orcus. In PvP we care more about damage though.
Enchanted Mark: Helps if you can’t hold the agro, however, the aggro gain from it is not too significant, you will have enough damage to not worry about this most of the time.
Guarded Assault: Good for dealing damage while going full turtle, but usually not worth ti compared to other good features.
Combat Superiority: It got "fixed". At rank 4 with the feat to support it, it gives you
Post edited by cilginordek on
0
Comments
Feats:
Strength Focus 3/3Toughness 3/3
Armor Specialization 3/3
Shielded Resurgence 3/3
Powerful Attack 5/5
Weapon Mastery 3/3
(For Humans) Pin Down 3/3
Conqueror Path
Take Measure 5/5
Wrathful Warrior 5/5
Jagged Blades 5/5
*Improved Vigor 5/5
Tactical Superiority 5/5
Reckless Attacker 1/1
*(Cruel Cut Style if youre going IV or Stunning Flourish/Staggering Challenge if you use Flourish/Griffons Wrath in PvP)
Protector Path
Plate Agility 5/5
Tactician Path
Fight On 5/5
Crushing Pin 5/5
Boons:
Sharandar
Dark Fey Hunter (400 Power)
Fey Precision (400 Crit)
Elven Haste (3% AP Gain)
Elven Tranquility (Chance to heal 20k HP)
Fey Thistle (Chance to deal 3k damage upon deflection)
Dread Ring
Reliquary Keeper's Strength (250 Power and Movement)
Evoker's Thirst (400 Life Steal)
Forbidden Piercing (3% Resistance Ignored)
Enrage Regrowth (Chance to heal 20k HP)
Augmented Thayan Bastion (Chance to reflect 10k damage to a foe)
Icewind Dale
Encroaching Tactics (400 Combat Advantage)
*Refreshing Chill (400 Stamina Gain)
Rapid Thaw (400 Recovery)
Cool Resolve (Increase Power based on lacking Stam)
Avalanche (Reflect 15k damage to a foe at 20 stacks)
Underdark
Primordial Might (400 Power, 1600 HP)
Primordial Focus (400 Crit, 1600 HP
Drow Ambush Tactics (+10% Combat Advantage Bonus)
Dwarven Footing (+5% Shorter Control)
Abyssal Tenacity / Abyssal Strikes (Doesn’t matter in PvP)
Tyranny of Dragons
Dragon's Claws (400 Power)
Dragon's Gaze (400 Crit)
Draconic Armorbreaker (400 Arpen)
Dragon's Greed (400 Life Steal)
Dragon's Grip (Control Strength)
Maze Engine
Abyssal Siphoning (+5% Life Steal Severity)
Demonic Resilince (+5% Shorter Control)
Demonic Swiftness (+3% AP Regen)
Baleful Clutch (+10% Control Strength)
Elemental Evil
Wave of Force (300 Power, 2k HP)
Heart of Stone (4% Life Steal Severity and 2k HP)
Searing Aggression (400 Crit, 2k HP)
Gale of Retribution (Heal 24k HP and get 1k Crit)
Storm Kings Thunder
Frosty Demeanor (2% Control Resist, 1k HP)
*Hardy Constitution (400 Stamina Gain and 2% Frost Resist)
Icy Wrath (Chance to deal 2k extra damage)
Glacial Strength (3200 HP, 2% Frost Resist)
Frozen Reflection (Chance to do damage when you deflect)
PvP
Legions Valor (250 Power, 250 Crit)
Vanguard's Resolve (400 Crit when hit)
Versatile Warrior (400 Power and Recovery)
*(You may have to switch these if you already have 1200 stamina gain.)
Itemization:
Head: Prestige Executioner Helm / Warborn Executioner Helm
Armor: Prestige Executioner Breastplate
Arms: Warborn Executioner Gauntlets
Feet: Warborn Executioner Sabatons
Weapon Set: Shieldbearer Set
Neck: Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace
Rings: Rosegold Duelist
Waist: Golden Belt of Puissance
Shirt: Warrior's Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Chainmail
Trousers: Warrior's Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Chausses
Artifacts: Wheel of Elements, Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting, Lantern of Revelation, Oghma's Token of Free Movement, Eye of the Giant and many others are possible.
Utility Slots: Dark
Offensive Slots: Radiant/Draconic
Defense Slots: Silvery/Gigantic/Azure
Armor Enchantment: Negation
Weapon Enchantment: Terror / Dread / Vorpal / Feytouched
Stack Power on companions, mounts, armor kits, etc. if you can’t, then stack Arpen. Artifact Powers should be WMS and Steel Grace. Stat Increase can be anything but Regen.
Example Setups:
PvP: Combat Superiority, Shield Warriors Wrath, Griffons Wrath, Bull Charge, Into the Fray, Crescendo, Fighter’s Recovery, Crushing Surge, WMS. Start off with your shield to avoid your foes CCs, Use ITF in between them, then when you get the chance send them prone with Bull Charge, then apply Griffons Wrath. You can also start with Griffons Wrath if catch them unprepared. Both of these skills trigger crushing pin so you can use them in any order you want. After that, you should be able to attack them with your At-Wills or wait for your cooldowns to come back up to finish them off. You can insert Crescendo anywhere in this combo.
AoE PvE: Combat Superiority, Steel Grace, Knights Valor, Enforced Threat, ITF, Villain’s Menace, Fighter’s Recovery, Crushing Surge, WMS. Get agro with Enforced Threat, then when all the mobs are around you, slash them with WMS over and over again. Villain’s Menace also boosts that damage quite a lot and increases survivability. If you’re having issues surviving, hide behind your shield and use the stab. Don’t forget to keep KV and ITF up to help your party.
Turtle PvE: Shield Talent, Combat Superiority, Commanders Strike, Enforced Threat, ITF, Supremacy of Steel, Fighter’s Recovery, Crushing Surge, WMS. Use ITF and Commanders Strike whenever you get a chance, then go back behind your shield. Depending on how often you get a chance, you can also use Enforced Threat if you need your stamina recovered.
Additional Notes:
Good Mount Insignia Bonuses: Survivor's Blessing, Oppressors Reprieve, Combatant's Maneuver, Victim's Preservation, Berserker's Rage, Assassin's Covenant, Gladiator's Guile.
You got some minor mistakes in few powers:
Indomitable Strentgh is pretty much equal with Crescendo so those are interchangeable. Cleave becomes more valuable when you dont have WMS so you should put feat points into the Feat that boosts its damage instead of Improved Vigor. You also lose a valuable passive in Steel Grace. You can run Shield Warriors Wrath as wabber mentioned to compensate for that. So a PvP setup would look like this: Combat Superiority, Shield Warriors Wrath, Knee Breaker, Bull Charge, Into the Fray, Indomitable Strength, Fighter’s Recovery, Cleave, Threatening Rush.
SOLO threatening rush combat superiority.( tactician)
Some food for thought:
Armor enchant:
Personally i wouldnt leave the house without an elvenbattle enchant anymore, especially with the current rise of the HR, and i havent seen top PVP GFs with negation in quite some time. Sure its nice to be able to take some more damage, but if you are permastunned, you (quite literally) wont get far.
Weapon enchant:
The feytouched deserves a mention here. Increasing your damage while decreasing your opponents is nice and since a GFs critrate will never reach the level of other classes, as none of its attributes support it, you wont get as much bang for your buck from a vorpal, for example.
Artifacts:
GWF class artifact, Kessels Sphere of annihilation, Thayan book of the dead are all very good choices, as they all have very usefull stats, especially arpen.
Also there is a case to be made for using Oghmas token of free movement as primary artifact, which i have been using in pvp for a long time. While its stats are fully defensive, it has saved my butt on many many occasions, since on myth, it can make you cc immune for 6 secs every 60 secs, even when already controlled (save when you are prone). It allows you to break out of that pesky smokebomb/shocking execution combo, for example. If you are fast enough, you can even negate a crescendo, while it is already running to block that last strike that prones you. Also HRs dont like it, if you use it to close the distance, as they then cant slow you down. As a bonus, its the only way i have found to negate a TRs courage breaker (though only if you use it after you got hit by the courage breaker and only during that 6 secs runtime). I call it my "get out of jail card". Even in pve it has its use.
Equip:
The possibility of going full Prestige armor is also worth looking at. You are losing around 300p of tenecity i think (due to losing the warborn set bonus), but you have a net gain of stats, since the itl of the Prestige Armor is quite a bit higher than the Warborn one. Also the 10% additional DR when under a cc effect are nice.
Offensive/Defensive slots:
For the offensive slots, vicious enchants are a good choice too, as they increase power and arpen. I have also seen GFs using draconic enchants.
For defense slots, brutal enchants are nice to, for additional HP and def.
Thats all i have got right now, time to respec my GF ^^
I intentionally left artifacts at 3 instead of adding a 4th one. There are many of them that give the right stats. Ill see if I can get my hands on an Oghma too. You also lose some crit as well as tenacity see: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1220823/gf-prestige-and-warborn-armor-combinations Im not much into stacking arpen as offensive stats. Defense on the defensive slots may be worth considering if youre not using negation though. Thank you very much insight from experienced players is always appreciated.
Guardian Fighter
TLO
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1221446/the-future-of-the-gf/p1 Existing Problems Still In The Guardian Fighter
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/comment/12984912m
Feat Changes I'd like to see in The Guardian Fighter
When the GWF hits for 919797 (159,6% eff) my GF with comanderstrike hits for 1859480 (147,1%eff)
Commander strike deals the double damage of the encounter that is dealt by your teammates, that´s a lot !
So allways group up with a GWF because you can get the double he get´s with his IBS , lol
I don't use Steel Grace yet obviously. I'm using Combat Superiority and Steel Blitz for soloing but put in Guarded Assault and/or Shield Talent and Enhanced Mark if I end up tanking.
Thanks and please keep the feedback flowing!
Edit: Is it more usefull to increase arp, crit or power? I have got now around 20k power, 6k crit and 8k arp (around 90% res ignored)
Trying to decide what mount bonus to chose. Right now i use the 4k def from the emp beetle
Thinking of making a dragonborn GF and this guide was very helpful looking for something more pvp oriented that could still tank bosses. Can you explain the benefits of swordmaster vs iron vanguard for GF pvp/pve and why you went this route? Also, last question I promise, what would be the optimal ability score roll since con isn't that important?
As for score rolls, optimal would be the maximum amount of strength you can get, since its a secondary attribute you can roll max 16 according to gamepedia.
I have a question, what about if I don't go DEX all the way but use 3-4 points at CON?
I am playing a pure turtle GF and I want to roll another one to test the damage output + tanking.
I am not much on pvp so I want to try SM for damage but with a higher HP pool and defence for tanking the epic dungeons and big HEs without trouble as you cannot have always your favourite DC along who knows exactly how to keep you alive.
Any suggestions would be more than welcome but take note that there aren't any artifacts yet to support the build (like Wheel for example) and IL stashed for this purpose is around 2.2k atm.
I am a dwarf lover so I won't be in par with other races favouring higher DEX but I think I'll achieve what I want.