Does determination gain get better?

cesmode8

Hi,
I running a lvl 16 alt GWF. It seems theres only two ways to gain determination right now: Take damage and the passive slow gain during combat. This is lame. Im supposed to soak damage to gain the class mechanic so I can dish out heavy dmg? WoW did this early on with warrior and rage and it ultimately failed because warriors had a lot of avoidance and didnt take dmg.

Whats the deal? Am I doing something wrong? I cant gain enough determination for this to be useful for me.

theliethesame

Passive sucks. Only other way is the last feat on Destroyer feat were you also build it while dealing damage.This wont be that great on single target either, but it is ok.

cesmode8

Seems like such a ****ty design.
Hey heres your class mechanic. Now you must take a beating before you can use it...and dont tank, OK?
Also, you have a sprint button to avoid damage so use it whenever possible.

??
Sprint contradicts taking damage for the class ability.

tursio

Daring Shout and Roar (two of our Encounter powers, which you'll get later) also generate Determination per target hit.

If you successfully hit a crowd with both of them, you should be able to go from 0% determination to a total of around 50%, which is enough to pop Unstoppable for partial benefits (including the crowd control immunity) if you need it at that moment.

Of the two, Roar is generally considered more useful overall, particularly in DPS builds, as it hits surprisingly hard for being little more than a miniature fus ro dah! Its modest pushback component also has some applications in pushing something off a ledge when it's already nearly off, or in punting a few enemies off of your cleric or control wizard before you sprint forward to hack into them.

Daring Shout does however provide a (potentially) strong buff to your damage resistance. Its cooldown is somewhat long however.

For reference, Daring Shout's AoE is a circle around you, while Roar's is a cone in front of you.

mutantdemocracy

Roar is an AOE push that quickly builds Determination, deals decent damage, and is an important interrupt in PVE. This is further increased with the last feat in the Destroyer tree. With the Destroyer feat, I can easily build half a bar from one Roar on 5 mobs.

The other half can be generated with the use of Daring Shout. It's an AOE mark around you that normally deals no damage, but can proc weapon enhancements and Steel Blitz. It also builds a decent amount of damage reduction, depending on how many targets you hit. What's really nice about this ability, though, is that it can build both decent Determination AND huge action points from every cast. A lot of people will tell you this ability is bad, but I have great results with around 3000 Recovery.

Combining these two abilities with Destroyer Class and Indomitable Battle Strike encounter, you can consistently keep Unstoppable and Slam up in PVE. This is to the point where you are quite the off-tank, able to survive longer than all but the tankiest Guardian Fighter, as well as use Unstoppable to ignore CC while you revive downed teammates.

cesmode8

I'll try these guys out. Thanks. From a GWF **** prespective, this looks like horrible design to have a class mechanic designed around soaking damage when we should be dodging instead. But if there are enough abilities to gain determination later on, I'll continue playing the GWF.

And it has gotten 100x easier since I got my cleric companion. I haven't had to use one HP potion.

tursio

Cleric Companion is pretty much the best companion in the game until you get your Ioun Stone of Allure (or a Cat if you prefer that, but Ioun Stone seems to be mathematically stronger at the moment).

bayne3

I think it works great. I'm always getting beat on and pretty much have my unstoppable up all the time. But in a PvE setting, Daring shout and roar should be your good friends.

implin

PvP wise unstoppable is one of the most OP things in the game right now at level 60. Pve wise you have to go down destroyer if you actually want it to work unless you are expecting to get enough aggro to gain unstoppable.