Fighter Dreadnought after Mod 19

zimxero

Assessment of Dreadnought after Mod 19


There are 2 changes that I'd consider a priority for Dreadnought:

1) Reaving - Increase magnitude from 45 to 55.
The Reave skill activates at .50 seconds, not .40 as stated. If I exclusively use Reaving at-will, I am unable to make it constitute 10% of damage. Heavy Slash always hits over 10% of damage every ACT test. In order to make the Heavier Slash and Riccochet Feats worth doing... it would certainly help. This change would help all builds, but would increase overall damage by about 1%.

2) Shield Throw - suggest increasing magnitude from 350 to 380.
Using the new Riccochet feat instead of Prepared Slam feat results in about a 2% overall DPS loss. Increasing the magnitude of Shield Throw will help out Riccochet users and tanks. At 380, the skill is not overpowered. A similar skill is Shadowknife Impact Shot, which has about an 8 second recharge and deals 450 magnitude.

Here are some other suggestions to consider, but I don't consider them vital to class balance:

Anvil of Doom - Increase magnitude of the basic skill from 680 to 720. The skill is pathetic now without Anvil of Doom feat.

Griffin's Wrath - Added effect: On critical hit, reduces other encounter cooldowns by 1 second. This gives the class a little bit of variety and action. It also justifies the overly-long animation of the skill.

Crushing Blows - Increase the magnitude from 150 to 200 and change the chance of activation from a Penetration/Power ratio to CombatAdvantage/Power ratio. This will increase proc rate from 9% to 14% for top end characters. The increased proc is needed for this skill to be a viable alternative to Roiling Hatred. When using Crushing Blows, a character spends 5% of their time generating Seethe points, which means a 5% loss in damage. Right now the feat is only generating about that much extra damage. It's almost a wash.

Landwaster - Loss of all vengeance points is a real killer and this skill needs more to make that worth it. I recommend having the skill double at-will damage during the 5 seconds. Players could use the skill just for that guaranteed effect.. or choose to hit their Daily again if they want within the 5 seconds.

Bloody Reprise - Lack of visual feedback makes this feat really hard to use. A player either needs a visual queue for the 2 second window or it should be increase to 3 seconds. I found it extremely hard to hit even while focusing on it exclusively with no battle going on.

rjc9000

The DPS output of the class is decent enough. Maybe it's not as strong as skill capped Arbiter, but not in the joke realm of Whisperknife/Archer Hunter/or Thaumaturge.

Any changes should make playing more interesting or change how we use powers/feats/passives, not just "raise base damage/lower cooldowns" to deal more damage by raw numbers.

zimxero#8085 said:

1) Reaving - Increase magnitude from 45 to 55.
The Reave skill activates at .50 seconds, not .40 as stated. If I exclusively use Reaving at-will, I am unable to make it constitute 10% of damage. Heavy Slash always hits over 10% of damage every ACT test. In order to make the Heavier Slash and Riccochet Feats worth doing... it would certainly help. This change would help all builds, but would increase overall damage by about 1%.

How would an increase to Reave's base damage make Ricochet or Heavier Slash more effective?

If you're holding down Reave to proc Heavier Slash/Ricochet, what does base damage have to do with Heavier Slash?
You still hold down the Reave button and still have to pray that you get procs, the only difference is that your Reave hits slightly harder.

zimxero#8085 said:

2) Shield Throw - suggest increasing magnitude from 350 to 380.
Using the new Riccochet feat instead of Prepared Slam feat results in about a 2% overall DPS loss. Increasing the magnitude of Shield Throw will help out Riccochet users and tanks. At 380, the skill is not overpowered. A similar skill is Shadowknife Impact Shot, which has about an 8 second recharge and deals 450 magnitude.

Shield Throw is already must have in PvP for its quick cast, stun, and ranged ability.
Shield Throw with the Shield Thrower feat is already a great aggro builder for the tank side.

This power does not need any buffs.

zimxero#8085 said:

Anvil of Doom - Increase magnitude of the basic skill from 680 to 720. The skill is pathetic now without Anvil of Doom feat.

What would +40 mag really change?

You aren't challenged to play better, or save powers, or do anything different with Anvil.
You just deal slightly more damage every 17 or 13 (if you have Weight) seconds.

zimxero#8085 said:

Crushing Blows - Increase the magnitude from 150 to 200 and change the chance of activation from a Penetration/Power ratio to CombatAdvantage/Power ratio. This will increase proc rate from 9% to 14% for top end characters. The increased proc is needed for this skill to be a viable alternative to Roiling Hatred. When using Crushing Blows, a character spends 5% of their time generating Seethe points, which means a 5% loss in damage. Right now the feat is only generating about that much extra damage. It's almost a wash.

Increasing the proc rate is great, but increasing base damage would mean that the player deals good damage because they have a lot of numbers to throw at enemies, not because the player has to work for damage.

Also, you don't need Rolling Hatred if you can cancel Heavy Slash. Just use the cancel to occasionally refill meter and let forced damage/toilet squat during "run away to not die" mechanics refill the rest.

zimxero#8085 said:

Landwaster - Loss of all vengeance points is a real killer and this skill needs more to make that worth it. I recommend having the skill double at-will damage during the 5 seconds. Players could use the skill just for that guaranteed effect.. or choose to hit their Daily again if they want within the 5 seconds.

This one would be the most interesting change if the feat had its usual effect, in addition to "deal double At-will damage for 5 seconds after casting a daily attack".

I could see a rotation where you throw out Earthshaker, attack with your At-wills for 3-4 seconds, then throw out Shockwave, then use your At-wills for 3-4 seconds, then your meter is completely drained, then you would quickly need to use an encounter (Griffon's Wrath?) to proc Bloody Reprise for the meter refill.

It's not amazing, but it would give an interesting reason to not fire off encounter powers as fast as possible.

exgardian

I like the Crushing Blow ideas.

Or make Crushing blows works like Barbarian's Overpenetration feat, but instead increasing % damage, add magnitude to all powers

abdalonangel

I still think the great change need to be in GW. I stopped to use it, to use CS instead. The last hit really annoying me.