Fighters (and possibly other DPS classes) need to be fixed

ethanidas

There was a big change recently, in which fighters were supposed to be given the option to be dps or tanks. Yet other classes still, even after the recent combat advantage and critical strike change, out pace Fighters. I am not a big tester, so i can only go off my own experience. But even with end game gears, bis gear, 2 rings of extra melee damage, enduring boots, and other pieces and abilities that increase my damage i am still easily outpaced by rogues, cws and rangers. many times either with lesser gear. No one wants dps fighters for TOMM for this reason, as it was said to me "cws easily outdamage even the best fighters" I dont consider myself the best fighter, but I do heavy damage, as I am usually at least on the top damage lists for trials.

I dont have the answers but something isnt balanced here. I hardly see people play dps fighters. Not to mention we have 3 defensive companion equip slots, and only 1 offense slot. Which means, even tho devs are saying yes, you can be dps, its not really looking like thats true.

I dont want CWs to be nerfed, or rangers, or Rogues or anyone. But instead, something needs to be done to allow fighters to actually be considered as High dps. If the same is happening to clerics, or any other class that is supposed to be able to be made as dps, then the same should be done for them as well.

Maybe its easy, maybe it isnt, but im sure bigger brains can come up with an answer. Might be as simple as reducing cooldowns for encounters for fighters, (thats just an idea, only based off my own notion of why would my physical sword swings take so long to recharge? commanders strike? anvil of doom? feels like swinging my sword, even if not at-wills should be faster) or might be more complicated than that. But Just wanted to put my two cents in cus i just dont feel like curently, fighters can actually compete with other classes as dps.

rjc9000

ethanidas#6763 said:

I am not a big tester, so i can only go off my own experience. But even with end game gears, bis gear, 2 rings of extra melee damage, enduring boots, and other pieces and abilities that increase my damage i am still easily outpaced by rogues, cws and rangers. many times either with lesser gear. No one wants dps fighters for TOMM for this reason, as it was said to me "cws easily outdamage even the best fighters" I dont consider myself the best fighter, but I do heavy damage, as I am usually at least on the top damage lists for trials.

Welcome to non Tower of the Mad Mage content, in which Paingiver slots are determined by whoever can run to the mobs the fastest and burst them down.

Or, for non Tower bosses: whoever presses Soul Sight and mashes their encounters/rotation out as fast as you can and score top Paingiver because you deny other players a chance to deal damage.

ethanidas#6763 said:

I dont have the answers but something isnt balanced here. I hardly see people play dps fighters. Not to mention we have 3 defensive companion equip slots, and only 1 offense slot. Which means, even tho devs are saying yes, you can be dps, its not really looking like thats true.
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GF base damage isn't actually that bad, comparative to the rest of the cast. Main problem I see with the class is that the Vengeance mechanic is over-estimated. The class has good base damage ... and that's it really. The limited buffs don't really add up to enough damage to make up for the slow cooldowns.

(Except in PvP, apparently. From what limited rumors I hear about that game mode, the class is strong because of CCs and/or because the tank potty squat that allows you to never die.)

ethanidas#6763 said:

Maybe its easy, maybe it isnt, but im sure bigger brains can come up with an answer. Might be as simple as reducing cooldowns for encounters for fighters, (thats just an idea, only based off my own notion of why would my physical sword swings take so long to recharge? commanders strike? anvil of doom? feels like swinging my sword, even if not at-wills should be faster).

I don't see a flat cooldown reduction happening without strings attached. Given that the devs have their vaunted "magnitude per second" calculations or whatever, if you plan to reduce cooldowns, I'd bet whatever inflated PC AD I have left that they would also reduce encounter base damage to match the lowered cooldowns.

As for what I'd do, I'd want the class to just play differently after getting the DPS path.

From 0-80 and beyond, you unload your encounters on enemies, then hold down At-wills until your encounters come back.

When you get the DPS path, you occasionally break up the "hold down At-wills until you get encounters back" with procs of Heavy Slash and taking dumps on the toilet for Vengeance, but aside from that, not many of the DPS path feats or passive really impact your regular moment to moment gameplay.

wyattk44

Wow this is crazy huh? Remember when they tore this game apart so that every class was balanced? And now it’s tr and cw being specifically asked for in chat for endgame content. It all worked out as planned lol

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sh00termcl0vin

What puzzles me is the companion augment slots. This is a way they easily could have allowed Dreadnoughts to keep pace with other DPS classes by giving them the same amount of offense and defense slots when speced as this paragon. Instead your stuck with only one offensive slot, ONE! I mean this really blows my mind because you are already behind the power curve due to all your high damage powers being on long cooldowns, the inability to gain automatic combat advantage without wonky positioning, the fact that you are always worried about using your tab power to maintain your vengeance gauge (which can fall off if your not babysitting the HAMSTER out of it) and having your damage drop off which can cut into your rotations if you need to top off, and the unnecessary ridiculously long animations for certain encounter powers which can't be cancelled that make them borderline useless (ex-griffons wrath I'm looking at you). This coupled with the fact that your stuck being 30-40k power behind the pure DPS classes seriously hurts your damage output and makes it so that no one wants a DPS fighter in any meaningful content (like Tower of Mad Mage).

Barbarians have similar issues with 3 defensive 1 offensive, but deal more damage due to higher base crit severity (which is even more with the recent changes). Fighter just get a measly 10% combat advantage bonus ( basically 10k combat advantage points) which is quite easy to obtain via companion gear for the rest of the playerbase. Dreadnought needs a serious look because as it stands right now, other than doing mindless low level questing and dailies, it's not worthwhile at all.