Gloaming Strike: Weak?

bruddajokka

Now I honestly didn't mess with that much but I was testing out Gloaming Strike, and I couldn't help but feel like it was pretty weak. Which is a bit annoying since it's utility is unquestionable in a stealth build. But if it's not doing the damage needed to kill things it's useless.

tormsy85

Wait, so you want something that could be used as a regular damage dealer AND restore your stealth bar? I'd never use another at will skill if that was the case.

bruddajokka

I'd like to be able to use it properly as a finisher. Which seems to be what it's supposed to be. But it's not getting the job done.

verik43

I was really underwhelmed when I was able to pick up my Paragon class as well. Gloaming strike seems weak like you say, it's only saving grace is the stealth recharge, for that I did use it some, but the at will ability you get at 32 truly seems bad(forgot the name), the finisher does decent damage, but the 2 attacks you have to do to build it up are weak and you lose mobility, it pretty much locks you into place until you are done with all of the attacks. That being said I wasn't overly impressed with the Rogue, it was fun until 30 but after that I lost interest pretty fast, I had intended to get to 40 by the end of the beta weekend but I ended up only hitting 36 before I decided to log off and go play some Mechwarrior. I'm hoping they get in some other Paragons pretty soon, I didn't like the master infiltrator. I would love to see a more range oriented Rogue Paragon, not an archer, just more abilities like cloud of steel and impact shot.

kottatko

Well the main problem of that skill was its extremly long animation, that made it completly useless as finisher. It would be better to make the animation significantly faster and add some cooldown (like 3-5s) so it would not be spammable. The dmg was ok.

plaxy100

Glooming strike/cut is a practice in use, if you ramp up your CA damage, and proper use of say Path of the blades before stealthing, its actually quite deadly it strike for a little more than 3 times the damage of each hit of Flourish strike just hits at about 1/4 the speed meening it has about 75/-80% of the DPS of flourish about 60-70% of Flurry.

But keep in mind unlike flurry/Flourish this ability Lunges you at the target from at least 15 ft away I have experianced giving huge range in attack. at level 31 was insta killing imps with it 2/hitting most minion mobs with it at worst. Soldiers faired a bit better but having Path of blades up often soften them up just enough that by the time it was over and I had killed off the all the One/2 hit mobs I was easily able to dispatch them before Glooming cut wore off. So Week it is definantly not... Hell if it did even the same DPS level as the 2 other at wills it would be completely OP and not worth choosing anything else as I see it is quite balanced. Not much use it has against Bosses other than Pealing off and killing a minion to recharge stealth then go back after the boss.

Although later some Feat points can make even non kill hits recharge the stealth meter partially making it trully spam tastic. I had found the 50% increase in duration from max ranks in that feat 10% refill each strike just long enough that I could use Shadow strike again before wearing off..... so even with that strattegy you have a slightly reduced DPS option with huge survivablity benifit

securus

My favorite part of gloaming strike was that if your aimed it right at certain terrain or objects you could launch yourself an insane distance. It was definatly my favorite bug I found. I spend over an hour finding places I could use the skill to launch myself and seeing how far I could get, you had to line it up perfectly and only in a few spots would it work, but when it worked you could almost fly.

bruddajokka

I think part of my issue is that I'm trading Flourish, or Flurry for it. So it should be doing comparable damage in my mind.

securus

Not really, you are mostly trading your ranged for it usually, you should be keeping your main damage attack as left click. Gloaming strike is meant to be a utility at-will not a primary attack. The main thing most people are losing is the ranged ability to gain more stealth which is a completely acceptable tradeoff for being able to near permastealth.

bruddajokka

I stopped using ranged abilities when I got Duelists Flurry. My main abilities where
Flourish/Flurry
Lashing/Bait, and Switch/Deft Strike
Whirlwind of Steel/Lurker assault

I'd use Deft Strike to start off combat to go into stealth, kill the minions with flourish, use Bait, and switch to refill my stealth bar. Then lashing to finish off the bigger mob. If it was something with more then two elites, and my daily was up I'd do pretty much the same but use Whirlwind right after I teleported in then go into Stealth.

Flurry was saved for the bigger mobs once I'd cleared out the trash.

hopeless2

It is VERY useful. I can clean a lot of mobs by staying in stealth by using Gloaming Strike. It usually 1 shots the 'normal' mobs (and it doesn't you can hit them 1-2 times then hit them).

bruddajokka

I'll screw around with it. Wasn't aware that they can't attack me in stealth so I can afford to use it to pick things with it one at a time with it.

shytbyrd

I was enjoying almost permastealth while soloing much to my healer companions chagrin, but I found that gloaming was way too slow of an attack to use on it's own, in dungeon groups. Most mobs are dead by the time I hit them with one gloaming, I had to switch between flourish and if there was time, use gloaming for the kill shot to refresh stealth. But most dungeon group battles are over so quickly that I may only get one stealth in for each group of mobs. So it may not even be worth using in dungeons. Everyone is in such a hurry in dungeons these days, you can't even disarm traps.

jendryn

shytbyrd wrote: »

Most mobs are dead by the time I hit them with one gloaming, I had to switch between flourish and if there was time, use gloaming for the kill shot to refresh stealth.

The point of Gloaming Strike is its ability to refresh the stealth meter, not its damage. When used properly, it's an amazing skill, as long as there are little adds to last hit with it. For DPS, use either Sly Flourish or Duelist's Flurry.

shytbyrd

jendryn wrote: »

The point of Gloaming Strike is its ability to refresh the stealth meter, not its damage.

Sorry, my point was more about the speed and less about the damage. It's too slow to be used effectively in a group dungeon environment. You may only get one or two Gloaming hits in per trash mob and a few on the bigger trash mobs and you most likely will not kill them with it to gain the benefit of refilling your stealth meter. By the time you hit stealth the second time, due to the Gloaming killshot, the whole mob group is dead. I don't want to say trying to stay perma stealthed is a waste of time, but in a dungeon group it is a tough thing to do. It's great soloing though.

sneakycheeses

I didn't even bother trying it. The damage looked to weak for me.

vangiang24

Gloaming Strike is utterly useless. The only way I can find it useful is fighing against trash mobs, but then I can just 2 shots them with Sly Flourish. Why would I bother to use this slow motion skill? It only slows down time killing stuffs.
In group dungeons? Nah, trash mobs die too fast before this slow motion skill comes out.
In PVP? Beyond useless.
Gloaming Strike seriously needs a buff or a totally rework. It's so <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> for a Paragon skill.

wylie01

When I used it is sometimes filled my Stealth when I was in stealth and sometimes not. Was really weird and frustrating to use. I wish they would add the ability to turn off stealth once activated to save some stealth time if its not needed.

themangroth

it would be nice if it added like 5-10% to your stealth bar every time it hit, smilar to how tide of iron/sheld bash does for a guardian fighter and their block meter.

The slow animation time is rough though.

I played around with using it combined with flourish, but I had a hard time giving up flurry for it. The only time it really shined was when chain pulling packs of trash mobs.

The issue is less that it's useless, but more like it's way to slow to compete with flourish, and doesn't do enough damage to compete with flurry

shytbyrd

themangroth wrote: »

it would be nice if it added like 5-10% to your stealth bar every time it hit, smilar to how tide of iron/sheld bash does for a guardian fighter and their block meter.

Under Saboteur, there is a feat called Sneaky Stabber which grants Gloaming Cut 2/4/6/8/10% of your stealth meter.

themangroth

shytbyrd wrote: »

Under Saboteur, there is a feat called Sneaky Stabber which grants Gloaming Cut 2/4/6/8/10% of your stealth meter.

Yeah, I didn't notice that till afterwards

But still, 5 precious feat points to make that attack competitive with just plain sly flourish or deulist's flurry?

I was planning on taking 5/5 cunning stalker for 20% more action points generated while stealthed, and 5/5 underhanded tactics for 20% combat advantage effectiveness, and skipping all the 2nd tier abilities.

Compared to adding .5 of a second (.6 if specced for longer stealth) to stealth. It's very classic D&D, you can take a weak thing and make it decent if you throw all kinds of feats at it.