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Can A GWF Solo?
klixan
Member Posts: 447 Bounty Hunter
I've played every class now, except the GWF and I'm curious as to whether or not the GWF can solo the main quests.
I've been playing a Rogue lately and they are brilliant at solo play until about level 40, when the game seems to catch up to them and they really start to struggle.
I've been told the GWF is the opposite, they struggle at the beginning of the game, but later on they become powerhouses. Is this true? Has anybody ever leveled a GWF solo? Were you able to solo the bosses like Scalefather and the Rime Hound?
I've been playing a Rogue lately and they are brilliant at solo play until about level 40, when the game seems to catch up to them and they really start to struggle.
I've been told the GWF is the opposite, they struggle at the beginning of the game, but later on they become powerhouses. Is this true? Has anybody ever leveled a GWF solo? Were you able to solo the bosses like Scalefather and the Rime Hound?
Post edited by klixan on
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GWF is like the Magikarp of this game. You will suck from 1-59 but you evolve into a Gyarados once you hit 60.
Ive soloed every single quest during leveling, the only two bosses that gave me hard time were Rime Hound and Gomoth the Twisted(most people grp up for him). I think its worth to mention ive had some terrible specialization(destroyer with some ridiculous points allocation) and proper build would definitely make it much easier.
With sentinel spec and gear kept up to content it should be a breeze. oh yea ive used cleric companion all the time
A pure DPS spec GWF I've never tried leveling, and that's probably harder - more damage output, but less durability. But dropping the mobs faster should make up for it.
So yeah, the GWF is very soloable. It's just a total pariah in the end-game...
You guys do know you can have your companion at any level provided you have the Gold to buy one right? Hop on your alt, buy the Cleric companion, mail it to yourself, and pick it up on your new character when you're done with the tutorial. This makes leveling a GWF a breeze.
Back on topic, a GWF can easily solo all main story content. Scalefeather was a joke. Rime Hound was somewhat challenging. With around 100% uptime on Unstoppable, you can faceroll content.
Edit: I leveled as a Destroyer build, make sure to take Roar and you'll be fine.
Time played was 32 hours, but I did spend too much time doing the event two weeks ago.
yeah have 2 also..sent would definitely be the smoothest, but with destro and certain survival stats you can do it also.
Eventually i hit a ceiling and had to do some foundries to gain some levels to wear area appropriate gear. Using 10 power/feat points all at one time helped too. I had to do this at the pirates area and again just before the drow. Other than that, GWF is fun to level.
My only caution is the use of Slam. Of course, get Slam, but be warned that when you pop it, everything in a large area is going to jump all over you. You'll even pull from wizards and GFs. Your defense is relatively subpar and the only crowd control available is to kill them first before they get you. It really sucks that most if not all of your AOE attacks can't hit more than 5 baddies at a time. So take pots, because Slam is going to hurt.
From your posts, it looks like the Sentinel or Destroyer builds are the best for solo leveling. Sentinel is more of a defensive build and Destroyer is more of an offensive build, is this right?
After playing a Rogue, I've learned to love high damage (and I've gotten pretty good at dodging) so I'm leaning towards the Destroyer build.
I do have a question, what mechanic do GWF's use to defeat bosses? A Rogue uses Stealth, a Wizard uses Control and a Guardian Fighter uses Block? Do GWF's just rely on Sprint to get out of harms way?
Also any tips about what At-Wills and Encounter powers to use on bosses would be much appreciated.
Hi klixan! I play a GWF as well as a TR... surprise, surprise
First off, the playstyle is almost completely different between the two classes, so fair warning. Whereas we are trying to be stealthy and tactical as TRs, avoiding and dodging all over the place, it is not so much for the GWF who does not have a true dodge mechanic that evades getting hit. In fact, getting hit is one of the ways that GWF gains power through the determination bar, and when enough determination is gained, you can "hulk out" and turn into a raging death monster. LOL
It is much more fast-paced and bloody to play a GWF vs. a stealth TR -- you will be frequently surrounded and bashing away without any way to break free of aggro to catch your breath. Sprint is not so much of a defensive move as it is a tactical move... use it to escape CC from elites/bosses who throw down red circles, but at the same time you are using it to position yourself to stay on the offensive and keep wailing away.
If I had one tip for someone who has played the game before but hasn't done GWF yet it would be this: use your other char to buy a cleric companion and mail it to your GWF alt so that you can start the game out at level 4 with it. They only cost 2 GP at the companion store, and will make the early leveling process of the GWF much more painless and much less tedious.
Remember that starting levelling the Cleric companion earlier will also mean that it is higher level, and so more survivable, until it hits cap of 15 ranks.
I personally like the playstyle of my GWF better than my TR. It's a lot faster and more helpful to my teammates. The tricks you learned as a TR will probably apply to your GWF too; not standing in red, dodge/sprint away from their attack and towards their flank to get combat advantage.
Soloing was quite painful in the beginning and I tried to keep my level at least equal or one above the quest through pvp or foundries. Not-so-Fast and Restoring Strike will help out a lot. If you manage to get decent regeneration and defense gear, the cleric companion becomes optional.
I'm specced Destroyer and really enjoy the reduced cooldown on Takedown, Roar and Battlefury, at least one of those is always on my bar. And I found the best synergy with the CW, either Roar the loose mobs into the area of the Singularity, or pull them back with Come and Get it for some more AoE goodness.
But I did need a lot of time to get used to getting hit, as a TR it's only natural to want to avoid basically everything, a GWF needs to learn which punches to take and when to run away like a little girl.
Encounters depend on boss mechanics, and there are a lot of possibilities. We have four single-target encounters, from weak to strong: Restoring Strike, Takedown, Flourish and Indommitable Battle Something (forgot it's proper name).
As Takedown is already on my bar, I usually pick Restoring Strike for solo, IBS for groups, Flourish or IBS for pvp. With a lot of caster(mobs) though, Flourish is better as it interrupts, same as Roar and Takedown.
So regen, defense, same level as the quest and take a couple of hits.... you should be fine
Investing some AD in rare weapon helps when i was ard level 38.
THIS
Such good advice, klixan. Listen to this guy.
Your health is going to yo-yo up and down so much more as a GWF... especially compared to a TR who is really good at not getting hit at all, considering stealth, dodge, etc., all of these things a GWF does not have, and in fact would hinder them if they did. Don't be suicidal, but also don't try to avoid everything, either. Go ahead and soak a good bit of damage in your fights, and as soon as you have enough determination, go ahead and hulk out. You get a huge boost in damage resistance and the temporary HP acts like a shield as well. After I pop unstoppable, I fear nothing and stand in most red circles like they aren't even there. At that point, it's just pure savage offense.
When solo'ing trash use your AOE abilities as much as you can. Passives stick with Bravery & Weapon Master. Some may claim the others are more useful for this or that but unless you are in a team totally focused on aoe dps then they will serve you better as soon as you can get them. I used mighty leap, not so fast and restoring strike most of the entire game since not so fast will do good enough damage to kill most of the weaker mobs when coupled with 1 wicked strike or weapon masters strike. If I know I am going against a single target that is more difficult then I'll slot takedown, restoring strike and Flourish.
A word of advice, especially at lower levels do not discount the benefits of roar even with only one point in it as it will, when aimed/timed right get your action points up so fast you can practically keep slam going non stop. I always topped the charts of dps in dungens, skirmishes, etc and as far as pvp goes came out the top of almost every round with most kills and fewest deaths. It's true that the class really begins to shine at 35+ but you asked about solo questing.. not pvp so there really shouldn't be any issues.
Just don't use a cleric unless you like rezzing the **** thing non stop.. it will always get agg and die faster than you can kill in most cases.. the tank is better.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Campaign: The Battle of Neverwinter - NWS-DOQXFA4ZD
Prologue: A not so simple plan - NW-DCJG75B9D
I haven't quite got the hang of it yet (I keep trying to double tap to dodge LOL). But I'm getting there
1) The 1st rule of GWF is that you should always activate your Unstoppable buff ASAP when soloing. Often you will have just enough Determination built up to activate the buff by the end of a soloing encounter. Immediately activate Unstoppable. Even though it will wear off in the few seconds that you're waiting for your encounter powers to get off of cool downs, Unstoppable with leave you with a nice amount of temporary health points to help soak up the damage in the next encounter. Using your temporary health points seems to be a key for this class.
2) The encounter power called Restoring Strike is your source of healing on this class. Even if you know that a fully charged Reaping Strike is enough to let your Not So Fast finish the job of killing things, make sure to hit your Restoring Strike before that 2nd AoE. It's vital to get that bit of free healing in.
3) It's been life altering to get a piece or two of Youthful gear for the +Regeneration stat. My own GWF normally uses an Ioun Stone and not a Cleric, so in-combat and out-of-combat healing can be an issue. Running around x2 Youthful pieces has made life so much easier. While it was originally designed for out-of-combat healing, it has proven itself to be surprisingly useful for endurance fights where you're dealing with multiple encounters that are chained together as incoming waves of mobs.
4) Before I got into the rhythm of having my health spike up and down on a GWF, I was guzzling down healing potions on a regular basis. But once I figured out how things worked together, it's always rare and notable when I have to use a potion in a fight. For your average soloing encounter, you'll run in with some temporary health points. By the end of the encounter, you'll have healed from Restoring Strike and killing things by the time that your temporary health points have been used up. Activate Unstoppable again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. In many of the AoE encounters, your health pool can actually end up higher than it was at the start of the fight. It's an odd feeling.
5) I agree on the Passive buff choices of Weapon Master and Bravery. For a while, I was using a 2nd dps increasing passive instead of Bravery. However once I understood how to manage my health pool, I tried out Bravery again and it made a world of difference at Rank 3. If you're already running a relatively high Dexterity build for crits, you should have around a 20% Deflection rate (or more) with only using your ability score and passive buff.
6) For my Daily powers, I've been really satisfied with Avalanche of Steel and Slam. All things considered, Slam will end up being your bread and butter choice. It creates an AoE damage circle around you and helps to AoE things down while still giving you full control over your character for the duration. This allows you to continue using your own dps moves while also letting your Daily dps for you. The double dipping is extremely attractive. However the Avalanche of Steel shouldn't be instantly dismissed either. This power makes you jump straight up in an anime styled leap and you will be immune to damage until you land back down after a few seconds. I've used this skill to buy me some time when I'm desperate to get my Encounter powers off of cool downs since they continue to refresh while you're mid air. Also it helps to break up the rhythm of enemy mobs when you're getting caught in an overlapping wave of control effects. (When I get high enough, I do plan on picking up Crescendo as my 3rd option. For dungeons, this power will likely replace my Avalanche of Steel choice.)
7) Having a knock down power really helps. Takedown has really made things flow so much better.
8) Having said all of this, just keep an open mind. When I was leveling, I was so sure that I would end up as a Destroyer. Yet after enough gameplay, I've come to realize that the Sentinel tree is exactly when I was looking for. I value the MMO role of a debuffing dps character that is capable of Off Tanking. Between the Sentinel tree and dipping into Destroyer for x10 points, I can build a durable dps character that is still relatively dps focused and still able to OT trash mobs (or possibly even tank a boss mob for a bit). To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting Sentinel to grab my attention this much since I always pictured it as the devoted tanking tree. Yet after closer examination, it's a lot more interesting than I gave it credit for.
1. Avalanche has no target cap. You can kill 50 things at once with it, and somebody in a different thread has picture evidence of doing exactly this.
2. While airborne during the avalanche, you are immune to damage and whatnot, so you just gave yourself an extra couple of seconds for your encounter CDs to tick down closer to zero.
3. It has an enormous area of effect... huge. Plus, decent damage and all-important KD on everything that is not immune to CC like bosses, etc. Assuming that anything survived to begin with. Very good at filling up determination when you destroy a dozen mobs at once, so you get full instant Unstoppable power to wipe out the remaining elites/bosses while they are picking themselves up from the ground.
In the long run, Slam does more damage, but why wait for the long run? Just kill everything at once.
EDIT: oops, the post above this one pretty much said all of this already. sorry LOL