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Destroyer, Sentinel or Instigator
magillio
Member Posts: 35
Which out of the 3 is the best path to go down for PvE Dungeons?
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Instigator's vengeance - each time your ally gets hit you gain 10% more power stacks up to 5 times. That's 50% more power as long as your party members gets hit... you lose the buff if you get hit. Group assault and Vicious Advantage grants good damage boost too.
IMHO, the slam-spam is the second most viable build; but that is personal preference. As the bosses tend to send a fair number of adds, I also tend to use slam during boss fights over savage advance. I use savage advance to increase the encounter rotation; which in turn speeds up the AP generation cycle if used correctly. (more hits of a larger nature, etc. etc.)
I haven't tried sentinel yet because it is such a difficult system to use to build threat. You need to do damage to build threat, yet to correctly use the sentinel tree your only damage abilities will be slam,cresendo and your at-wills. The second problem with the sentinel tree is that it buffs power; which is not as useful as other buffs. The defense bonus essentially works out that your power bonus as a sentinel will only yield 0.9 more damage per 1000 power then somebody who isn't a sentinel. As you are also taking defense gear instead of power gear, you get this stupendous 432power bonus, which in turn raises your base damage by a staggering... negative few hundred on account that you are now 1600+ power lower then your counterparts of other trees, in addition to having half their crit value. Wet noodle indeed. Having our cresendo hit for less then our sweeping strike? Definitely worth calling us the paper-tank. (of course this is a view of the dps side of things. Essentially, the second version of sentinel means you never die, never take aggro while still somehow being able to beat the wolf den on epic.)
To elaborate:
Imposing Scrapper set - best for Sentinel build, focus on defense.
Titan set - best for Sentinel build, focus on defense.
Bladestorm set - best for destroyer/instigator, focus on recovery
Vigilant Warlord - best for destroyer/instigator, focus on recovery
Berserker set - best for destroyer/instigator, focus on crit.
Heroic duelist - Pvp set, all around goodness, focus on armor penetration.
Stat importance:
Armor Penetration or Recovery > Crit / Crit Dmg > Power > everything else
That's how some people do it, WMS then Wicked Strike. I prefer WMS and SS or just plain spam WMS.
Reaping Strike is just too boss with proper debuffs and group composition.
When/If you get to end-game loot, aim for 2/4 AOW 2/4 Vigilant. The static 450 crit and 450 recovery is far superior to the sub-par up time of the AoW set.
Next time I run CN I'll be sure to go back through the combat log for repeated 36k crits on Dracholich.
Hopefully a few buffs from PWE will actually make the Destroyer more of a Destroyer tree.
Been Runnings WMS/Wicked strike combo.
Left Click/Right Click combo w/o Unstoppable
Left Click/Right Click/Right Click w/Unstoppable
Agreed, GWF got nerfed pretty hard before beta launch - the destroyer tree in particular got neutered with a chainsaw.
Extinction - GWF
Glad to hear you're having success with reaping strike. If I were to play destroyer that is the at-will I'd be using as well!
Sure strike should be renamed to foam bat strike in my opinion lol.
Extinction - GWF
It makes no sense to just use WMS on adds as an instigator when you have group assault, one of the best damage buffs in any of the GWF trees. And sure strike as the other at-will, in my opinion in its current state is brutal - leave the single target work to the rogues they are way better at it.
Extinction - GWF
"Apparently" have not done the maths it ends up more dps Keeping up the WMS debuff rather than doing the last strike of Wicked Strike.
But it might be so minor that it ends up being much of a muchness
Group assualt? Sorry you've lost me, What exactly are you trying to say I should be using? :-)
Its a feat in the Instigator tree that buffs Wicked Strike damage when you hit multiple enemies with it.
I beat most CW and even some TR on dps.
If needed I switch to Restoring Strike, Flourish, IBS, SS, WMS on the boss.
Stats:
Str:26 (+16% dmg)
Weapon dmg: 769-941 (sharpened ice axe)
power: 3297 (+131.9 base weapon dmg)
Armor pen:1090 (10.5%) (not sure if dummies have armor, but posting this anyway just in case)
Feats:
Disciple of Strength 3/3 (Increases dmg bonus from strengh by 6%)
Great Weapon focus 5/5 (Increases at-will power dmg by 10%)
the rest of my ability scores, stats, and feats, have no bearing to the test peramiters
(i do have Student of the Sword 5/5 (crits reduce targets defence by 15% stacking up to 3 times) but i managed to get these #'s without that buff up, took a while, but i got it)
here is what i found:
My Rules:
3sec tests (WMS: 2 swings + 2 mirrors) (SS: all 4 swings) (Reaping Strike: 1 full charge--which is actually only 2.5 secs)
passives: nothing that affectes dmg (i used Steadfast Determination and Bravery)
no use of other powers or tab ability
no gear swaps
i compared the dmg of WMS to the dmg of SS.
the diference was in favor of SS by a total of an avg of 67 dmg. so yes pure single target with WMS buff up, SS is a dps inc. BUT, if there is even 1 additional mob in the area, WMS is more dps if u can hit both. they dont even have to be that close to each other. the swing for WMS is actually pretty wide. it doesnt go very far in front of u, but it does go farther out to the sides than in front.
this is the diagram for how i start to position myself to hit farther apart mobs:
M----X----M (M=mob--X=me)
now when there take a step backwards so that the "line" passes in front of u. thats it. visually, if u were to zoom out to the maximum default value and take a swing with WMS, the actual effect area is about 1/2- 3/4 of an inch beyond the swing. also something to note, what ever u hit with the WMS swing will take the dmg from the mirror even if it isnt caught by the mirror's swing animation. anything that enters the area between your swing animation and the mirrors, will get hit by the mirror about 50% of the time.
with that being said, now we move on to reaping strike.
with WMS buff up, reaping at rank 2, was at around a 3-5% increase in dmg vs. my WMS tests from above. thats just single target, no crit, only buff being from WMS. when i increased the # of targets, the gap increased for every additional target.
after this i did some math. i took the tooltip for Reaping Strike and added another 10% for the 3rd rank (which is lowballing the actual result because by adding the point it adds 10% to the tool tip but since the tool tip doesnt show decimals, they get increased and added back in "behind the scenes"). then i added the dmg for WMS buff (which i got the % by comparing the avg dmg of other powers with and with out WMS buff). then i compared my #'s. my calc's showed reaping strike clearly ahead of WMS and SS in single target and WMS in AoE. then when u add in the destroyer feat Executioner's Style, which increases the dmg of Reaping Strike when hitting only 1 target by 25%, it pulls even farther ahead in single target. but the tricky thing with using both WMS and Reaping Strike is the WMS buff gets applied on the initial swing (only applies on mirror swing if mob only got hit by mirror swing), and with the buff lasting 3 secs and Reaping Strike taking 2.5 to charge fully, it becomes really close to hitting with out buff. the earliest Reaping Strike can start charging after the initial swing from WMS is almost right at the 0.5 sec mark, then a full charge takes 2.5 secs which brings it to 3 secs. if no lag, the Reaping Strike dmg will hit right b4 buff falls off. which means if you have lag issues or lower relfexes, it will be borderline imposible for you to get a fully charged Reaping Strike to hit with the WMS buff up without popping Unstoppable (tab ability).
also considering it is very, very rare that the 1st at-will used after popping Unstoppable will be affected by the attack speed increase, then it would be better to use WMS 1st so it "eats" up that gap with lower amount of downtime. should do this even if u have just put up the debuff. if you are using WMS and SS, then the 1st at-will after popping tab should be 1 swing of SS. if u click once then click and hold, the 1st swing wont have speed increase but rest will. if you are fast enough with the clicks, you can actually continue the SS chain without repeating that 1st swing.
will respec to test the #'s for 3/3 Reaping Strike on AoE and with single target with 5/5 Executioner's Style as soon as i have enough AD. being a gwf i havent gotten into many groups (even some guildies wont take me, but those guildies are hyper elitists that wont take any class that doesnt have 11k + GS and are skilled, so im not really worrying about going with them). also out of all of the Epic T2's i have done since getting the GS, ive only won 2-3 pieces, none of them upgrades and none of them worth more than 50k in AH on mindflayer. with the avg ad-->zen exchange being around 350 right now, i still need about 10k AD to get the respec token from zen store.
*****sorry about not many exact #'s on this post, the stats section was taken from ingame right before servers went down for the patch about 45 mins ago. i had everything written down, but when i came downstairs today i saw that 1 or both of the cats had been playing with it and shredded it all up. i posted what i could salvage and remember for sure. will retest for exacts as soon as i respec*****
edit:
about Wiked Strike: as i am confrotable with destroyer right now, and due to my current AD problems, i am not gonna test Instigator tree yet. thats something ill do in future (unless someone else is already testing or has already tested it and wants to post their findings
WMS is just amazing dmg if you get the hang of canceling the animation, and it feels so rewarding because it's not super easy to do consistently, and also keeps the combat even more immersive rather than standing in one spot just holding down your left mouse button.
It might be slightly exploitative but since our at wills are pretty **** weak overall I feel it's justified, and we have a specific class mechanic (sprint) to do it with. You can also cancel with encounters and basically "weave", it reminds me a lot of the mechanical tricks in Aion and I think it actually brings more to the gameplay.
Even with that though, I wouldn't say it's by far the best At Will. Reaping can be canceled, and sure strike can be canceled for a double 4th hit. (Again these make the at wills actually decent). And if you don't have any stamina or you screw up too much you'll end up losing DPS.
Wicked strike is certainly fun with unstoppable up, I just wish it didn't lose so much dmg in aoe, the whole purpose of it is to aoe, so why should it lose so much dmg on multiple targets? Lol? You have to get that stupid dmg feat just to make it normal, very weird design.
Does it add damage? Sure. The rest of the stuff in the Destroyer line seems better.
Sprint cancelling WMS into reaping makes it super easy to keep WMS debuff + hit with reaping. If done properly reaping will charge as the clone hits giving you ample time to charge + swing into another sprint cancel to quickly WMS again. Works in unstoppable as well to get the most out of your unstoppable.
Proper use of sprint cancelling is extremely important in dealing damage and as far as I'm concerned it's a class mechanic that people need to use in order to play GWF properly. Sprint cancelling is also a reason why I run battle fury for utility, I can go full wms/reaping spam mode and have battle fury up if I need to do more damage/run away from something.
If you're a destroyer/reaping strike build sprint cancelling is even more important since destroyer has a pretty short duration so you need to sprint cancel to maximize uptime on that as well, not to mention student of the sword.
Yep, as soon as I discovered canceling on my reaping strike getting to lvl 30 suddenly went from frustrating to easy mode.
Almost seems like it's completely intended (other than dailies being exploited by it lol).
I kind of wish the other classes had this same feeling of fluidity.