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TRICKSHAW'S: How 2 PWN - GWF PvP Itemization "On The Cheap"
trickshaw
Member Posts: 497 Arc User
How 2 PWN
GWF PvP Itemization "On The Cheap"
By Trickshaw
GWF PvP Itemization "On The Cheap"
By Trickshaw
Disclaimer: If you're reading this, first thing you should do is check the date on which this thread was posted. Now look at today's date. Chances are, if there's a big chunk of time in-between the two dates, then this thread is outdated. I'm telling you this because I do not intend on "updating" this thread. It's intended solely for the time in which it was written. I don't want to hear, a year from now, from some random poster who was trollin' on Google, "This is horrible advice" because if I do... I will e-slap you into submission. I'm thug like that.
So, you're a solo player, right? A casual, right? You want to try out some T1/T2's but finding a group that won't point and laugh at you like a bad flash back from summer camp is nigh impossible, AMIRITE?!? So what oh WHAT is a GWF to do?
Answer: Reroll
Ok, well if that's not an option then all you're really left with is PvP. And who doesn't like PvP? Vegans that's who. But you're not a vegan are you? Hell no you're not. You're a lean, mean, raw meat eating elf pillaging machine of kobold killing terror. THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE!
So strap in and set your macros to, "PUT YOUR TEETH ON THE CURB!" because I'm about to tell you exactly how to be just that on a less than 100k AD budget.
Step 1: Know Your Stats
I'll make this real simple for you. PvP != PvE. I'm sure you've been around the forums and seen some players reporting ridiculous stats. Lemme guess, something like, "Yeah, I got 5k power, 2200 Armor Pen, 2k Recovery and 3k Crit." And you're all like "WHAT THE ****?!?" Yeah, ok, lemme explain how that's happening and after I explain how that's happening you'll be far less impressed.
1.) Buy a Cat and/or Ioun Stone.
2.) Spend about 1/4 a million AD or a goodly time of farming to gear your Cat/Stone out in Rank 7 Runestones and toss in a few epics of choice.
Done sir done. That's how. But guess what? Yeah, nice Cat. What's his name? Fluffy? Cute. So is Fluffy gonna save your *** when you queue for PvP? No? I didn't think so. Your *** is mine in about 5 minutes pal.
And that's exactly how you should feel when you see braggart posts like that. All that money won't buy you success in PvP. Wanna know why? Of course you do. Shut up Trick and just tell me already. Fine.
There are four offensive stats. Power, Recovery, Crit and Armor Pen. Now, in case you're new to the forums one of those 3 stats is nearly irrelevant for GWFs. That would be Power. Burn that into your conscious mind. Power = <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. Complete. <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
That's just for GWFs by the by. I don't wanna hear from some GF hailing Power as the next coming of Hayzeus. Power scales differently for each class. It just so happens it scales the worst for GWFs.
"Figures."
That's exactly what you just thought, AMIRITE?!?
Next on our list of "utterly useless" would be Recovery but, and you need to pay attention to this, -ONLY- for PvP. You will never, I repeat, N-E-V-E-R... get your Recovery high enough to make a measurable difference in PvP. PvE is a whole 'nother beast. In PvE, where boss encounters can measure up to 15 minutes, Recovery can make a helluva difference. However, in PvP, where you're either dead or your opponent is in a matter of seconds, Recovery is garbage. Waste of itemization. -IF- Recovery ever affects Punishing Charge cooldowns I -MIGHT- change my mind on this; Until then: Avoid.
So that leaves us with Crit and Armor Penetration.
Aaaaah! Soooo much better when things are simple, isn't it? So... now that we know what stats we need to focus on for PvP let's get into how best to get our selves ready to rip some CW's a new one.
Step 2: Get 100,000 AD
You can do this fairly easily if you leveled from 1-60 and kept up on your Leadership crafting, invoked and did your daily skirmishes/PvP matches. However, if you haven't, you can drop $10 and get yourself some Zen then sell it on the Zen Exchange. Look at it this way... you pay $15 a month on a sub for other MMOs, right? $10 is really nothing. Or, you can just play the AH.
No matter how you do it, it's really not THAT big of a deal. 100k is chump change and chances are you can probably do what I'm about to show you for even less if you haven't been throwing away your Enchants.
Step 3: Gear
HO YEAH! The good stuff. Relax. It's really not that big of a deal and chances are you're probably going to kick yourself for not realizing it earlier. And why would you? But more on that later. So, this is what you do. Go here then login. In case you were unaware this is Neverwinter's Gateway and, funnily enough, the single best way to browse the Auction House.
Now, click on Equipment, then Advanced Search and set your search parameters to the following:
Level Range: 60 to 60
Quality: Rare
Enchantment Type: Offensive
Class: GWF (slap yourself)
Stats: Crit and Armor Penetration
Quality: Rare
Enchantment Type: Offensive
Class: GWF (slap yourself)
Stats: Crit and Armor Penetration
Now, what you're looking for are the following pieces:
Head: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Helm (
Chest: +5 Lethal/Piercing Berserker Scale Armor
Arms: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Bracers
Legs: +5 Lethal/Piercing Berserker Greaves
Neck: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Amulet
Rings: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Ring
Shirt/Pants: Elegant Scale
Waist: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Belt
Knot: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Knot
Chest: +5 Lethal/Piercing Berserker Scale Armor
Arms: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Bracers
Legs: +5 Lethal/Piercing Berserker Greaves
Neck: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Amulet
Rings: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Ring
Shirt/Pants: Elegant Scale
Waist: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Belt
Knot: Lethal/Piercing Berserker Knot
Now, all of those items, with the exception of the waist piece, are dirt cheap. The waist is currently the holy grail of blue items that can be found at pretty expensive prices. The reason being... all epic waist pieces suck a fat donkey ****. People were bound to get smart. The question is, how fast can you get to the AH and get your "ROCK AND ROLL" PvP blue set before prices go up? I dunno.
But you can go for any "Berserker Belt of the...." to fill your waist slot so long as it has Crit/ArP and is an Offensive Slot.
Each piece that I've listed has exactly 2 stats (minus the 4 armor that also have Defense) and can you guess what those two stats are? Thaaaaaaat's riiiiiiight. = ) If it's "Lethal" then it will have a higher Crit rating. If it's Piercing then the inverse will be the case. You can E-A-S-I-L-Y get BOTH your Crit and Armor Penetration up to 2500 just by balancing how many Lethal to Piercing Pieces.
Now I personally like going for an even spread. But you may want to focus crit over Armor Pen and easily get a 3k to 2k ratio.
Now, bear in mind you still have 6 offensive slots (that's right, s-i-x) 1 defensive and 3 utility to fill. It's up to you what you want to do here. If you want to keep going on the cheap you can just throw in a boat load of Azure to get that crit rating up even more.
If you're reading this and you have more AD to spend, go for broke and throw in 6 tenebrous because gods know you have more than enough Crit and Armor Penetration going on. = ) Incidentally this is what I do and I wreck face.
For weaponry, the cheapest choice is either Reaper or Ice Axe. Both are dirt cheap and are only marginally lesser than a Heroic Berserker and an Ancient Castle is just WAAAAAY to expensive to go for at the moment and is honestly not THAT far above what a Reaper or Ice Axe brings to the table.
Weaponry Enchant is best to go with Plague Fire. It's relatively cheap (dependent on the day) and is by far the best offensive Enchant at the moment because of the Defensive debuff. Unless of course you want to run a Vorpal, which is fine just be aware that Vorpals don't work with Tenebrous slotted. It's a bug, On their to-do list from my understanding.
In Closing
So, yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Pretty simple, eh? Have fun being on an even competitive field with all those epic'd out players knowing you're face planting them only in blues. Well... minus your weapon of course. As you PvP more and more you can save up some Glory and buy yourself a "PvP set" if you want but to be perfectly honest... it sucks. Point for point, what I just showed you, will out parse anyone wearing our PvP set. So only go for it if you're married to the idea of their 4 piece bonus.
The funniest part is, if you manage to one day get into a T2 group, throw on this set just for lulz. Watch your damage. Tell me that doesn't make you cry? And you guys wonder why I hate Cryptic for their itemization of GWF gear. If we had PROPER itemization, both for Tank GWFs and DPS GWFs we would be rockin' like a hurricane.
Now, the only downside to this "setup" is the fact that you have laughable Defense but, again, in PvP Defense is nigh useless. Plaguefire is so predominant that having low defense means absolute jack ****. The only way you're going to be "tanky" in PvP is if you go all out and get yourself a 4/4 Titans and deck out your jewelry with Regen/Deflect items. There's no dabbling when it comes to GWFs being "tanks" in PvP.
You either go all out or you go home.
Incidentally, in my "tank" PvP gear I'm nigh unkillable unless I get FF'd by the opposition and I have no Determination AND have no Stamina. Otherwise you're not getting me. But that's another story for another thread.
What your stats look like barebone:
Any questions?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by trickshaw on
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Comments
OK post some video and let see if tht realy works. I saw a lot of GWF went to Armor pen and they sacrifice power but they still sucks i can take them down realy fast by my Avatar set and Ancient set with high power and crit and i only have 500 armor pen. A lot of streamer GWF aslo and not using Armor pen but they still good so let see some video and lets talk
Where I differ is that I peg Recovery a little bit higher as well as power by one or two shades. Recovery is a bit higher because of our difference in feat preferences and encounter rotations, which nets me some extra ArP over your setup. (assuming you don't respec all the time just to pvp.) The second reason I have Recovery is so that my feats are up when I need them sooner. Unfortunately, you don't get much returns pre-1200 recovery. With enough recovery and the right timing of war/takedown, you really can 2vs1 people if you don't mind dieing with one at 10% health and the other at full health. (normally.) At least for me, Recovery is good for the increase in AP it provides. Unlike some other classes that use it to oneshot, you can instead use a daily sooner in lieu of an enounter that let's you continue fighting. I even take slam off the rotation. Sometimes I'll toss it off the ability list when I'm in pvp. No cleric = low yield slam, and rogues are normally good enough in stealth to not be close to you.
I increase Power slightly since I neither have Plaguefire or Vorpal shards yet. This provides me with enough oomph to stun-dps most people down.
I wouldn't recommend the 4.4% blooddrinker one that gives your lifesteal. It's a reasonable boost for our at-wills, but falls far short of keeping us healthy due to the slower swing speed of our weapons.
As a side note, most GWF's I go against loose simply because they don't take the defensive slots. Without that ArP, most times, our encounter rotations will give the the tank GWF the last big hit. (Usually 15% health, if done right.)
PPS: PVP is perfect for buying PVE pots. Basically it works out that 15 glory = 2 silver if you buy the pvp pots and sell them to the vendor as trash.
Kudos and good job
I respec'd Con to test out the viability of Tenebrous in conjunction with high Con and no offensive stats. I.E. my tanking set. Works so so. Would probably be better with ArP but, like I said in the OP, sacrificing survival stats for offensive stats just makes you mediocre all around.
Tenebrous seems to be a nice compromise so you don't hit like a wet noodle.
Despite popular belief, I do not get paid by players to satisfy their whims. Ask nicely and you may receive. Act tough and you can go blow.
I post what I post to *help* people. I do not post for e-fame. I do not stream because, quite frankly, I'm an adult with a life and responsibilities. Not someone living the pipe dream that they can be the next DeFranco.
Finally, if you're riding the crazy train and still swear by power then: A.) You can't do math and B.) L-M-A-O. But by all means, if you happen to be on Beholder, let's trade info and see what we can do. You bring your Epics and I'll bring my Fraps with YouTube.
Just don't rage quit like a p***y when it get's posted.
yah yah yah you have life and busy calculating with this nonsense. Just post pvp video with tht items or stat u have. Pvp video which is not edited or no cut. Screenshot with 16k damge or higher than tht like our gwf can do with high crit and power.Btw not the daily skill..
Just sayin'.
The problem is using that set would contradict just about everything he has been trying to get across. Berserker is POWER and crit with minor bonus stats. With about a 1k armor pen increase, I noticed a 2-3K crit increase with IBS.
The 4 piece is alright but any 4 piece that relies on the use of dailies is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in my book. Has too much spread too far. Rec + Deflect in marginal amounts is kinda meh IMO. Don't get me wrong, it's alright for PvE but PvP... this set stays in my bank.
Normally I would agree with you, but having the option to stun someone for 10 sec while dealing damage is just too good to pass by, especially disabling & killing clerics. And thanks to the 2 set +400 crit you can focus all your gems on Armor pen while still having ~35% crit. But I guess everyone chooses what works best for them.
Any chance of a PvE one (unless it already exists)? I'm not too fancy on the PvP aspect and would love to read a similar guide for PvE! Thanks!
My only problem with it is the fact that in 8 hours the price on the rings skyrocketed through the roof
He also didn't note that stun, like through Flourish and some later feat points, for example, breaks the AOE of ANY attack.
Bleed IS A NEED. I boosted HP early on, and a little D, focusing on damage feats, and NOT using any for powers that are generally pointless.
Enchants went mostly with silvery enchants for recovery in the offense slots. Azure for defense slots. I want to do dark enchant (for utility for the movement stat) but the price has been so ridiculous lately.
I debated ice axe, but Ancient is the way to go. All you need to do is be patient in the AH or find a good trade. I traded some Zen items for it (which I earned for free, by the way). Going to shift my focus to a little more crit and pen, but if you want crit, you NEED the Ancient Castle set, can't beat that +450 to crit.
Yeah have to go Destroyer for pure PvP, no question. I work both Instigator and Destroyer so I can utilize the class in both PvE and PvP.
I agree it's the best item for GWF right now but definitely NOT the best bang for your buck (well this thread is after all about cost savings). The whole set (knot + sword) will set you back around 2M+ AD.
Destroyer here... yeah i mostly pvp.... but i so hate using reaping strike.. wish the devs would change the mechanic of the skill a little and lose the cripple effect.
I am also an adult with a life which is why I really appreciate these write ups. Thanks for the info!
Sorry, yeah, you're right there, in most cases. Ancient Castle is not a cheap set, but if you wait, like I did, you can get a good deal on it. RS, man, yeah, if they at least reduce that charge by half I might try it some more, the time spent doing that wastes precious moments. I can think of a few times, once in Spellplague epic, where if I was charging that **** instead of dealing out wide sweeps with WS, the party would have been done.
Hahahaha, 10/10 guide just from that lol. Now I have to actually read the rest of the guide =P
Edit: Ok I read it all and by far the most fun read of any guide lol. The only negative thing I have to say is with 27k HP and 1.2k defense you're gonna die REALLY fast
You are 100% right about power being <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> also, my buddy tested damage with 1.6k power and 4k power and the difference was 100-200 dmg depending on the encounter used. So 2.4k power = 100-200 damage increase on encounters, even less on at wills...
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.