AoE - group benefit build advice

meter68

Heya all,

looking for a good build for AoE dps that would would also be good for grouping. any advice on spending points and abilities to use would be awesome.

thanks in advance!

desjardinii

You didnt say, but I am assuming you are a GWF? Cant help you with build advice, but if you can teach your control wizards to not throw the mobs to the wind, but instead use steal time to allow you to mow them down, it will help out your DPS a ton.

meter68

yup GWF! my bad for not mentioning that!

piku247

for aoe dps this build should be fine, i have similar with cosmetic changes and it works great. Well chosen skills for pvp and u can make decent damage in domination.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?316031-Akfortyseven-PvE-Build

ioannides5

er, don't use flourish in pve.. it's bad. Just bad. Switch it out for roar; roar will increase your damage done by like 5x.

omghealme

People always blame the CW about scattering mobs, but in all honesty its tanking issue. Shields gotta pop for all those singularities groups scream for. So tanks need to tank near walls so that we don't scatter when building AP. Just sayin'.

desjardinii

omghealme wrote: »

People always blame the CW about scattering mobs, but in all honesty its tanking issue. Shields gotta pop for all those singularities groups scream for. So tanks need to tank near walls so that we don't scatter when building AP. Just sayin'.

Shield pop while singularity is bringing in the mobs = they end up in one nice pile when it spits them out...
Shield pop after singularity spits them out = mobs scattered all over.

Thats what I am referring to. From what my CW's say, it is no different in AP generation. There is a time to toss them anda time not to, its being able to know when that makes the difference.

omghealme

desjardinii wrote: »

Shield pop while singularity is bringing in the mobs = they end up in one nice pile when it spits them out...
Shield pop after singularity spits them out = mobs scattered all over.

Thats what I am referring to. From what my CW's say, it is no different in AP generation. There is a time to toss them anda time not to, its being able to know when that makes the difference.

I agree to a point.

CN runs with two CW's. Timing is not always there. If you want them bundled up for sure, tank near a wall instead of in the center of rooms. Also if you pop in the middle of a sing you are getting beat on. I'm the first one to tell another CW they are messing with the melee. Sing, and then steal time as they land and blast the mobs against a wall, and tab entangle to put them in a nice little bundle and wait for stuff to scatter apart or health to start dropping and then do the cycle all over again. Near A wall I don't have to get beat on, which is important 'cause you know.. that cloth armor thing I have going on. Also the wall method always leaves the mobs in front of the cleavers unlike your buddies way of doing it which has a few seconds for mobs to get pulled back into place.

As to your point, a bad CW can wreck havok on a GWF performance. A good one makes them godly.

baconknightryder

The build piku247 linked is a pretty good cookie cutter build. I'd make some minor changes to the Heroic Feats (the first box before you branch out). Personally I like maxing out my Unstoppable Action because I'm Unstoppable so often and I love building up that Action Points ASAP to pop my dailys. But for the most part, that's a good build, you can customize it to your liking.

The Sentinel feats give you group utility you might be looking for. Student of the Sword applies a defensive debuff to your targets that your group will benefit from. Powerful Challenge doesn't really add any extra benefit to the group, but what it does do is make slotting Daring Shout into your powers a worthwhile option (without the bonus damage, it wouldn't be worth sacrificing a slot for it). Now that you have it, you add that group utility with the damage mitigation and resistance debuff. What's really cool about a GWF with Daring Shout is that between the Guardian Fighter and you, you should be able to have marks up on enemies nearly all the time. When it comes to bosses, if your GF tank is good and marking often, there should be a mark on the boss at all times which basically gives you a flat 15% bonus damage boost which is huge.

The Destroyer tree feats are pretty much all strictly damage boosters but that's fine, a GWF's job is to deal damage so dealing it well is adding to the group utility. The good thing about the Destroyer tree as opposed to the Instigator tree is that it works well for both AOE and single target situations, so whether there's giant packs or just a single boss, you're never useless.

My biggest problem with Instigator tree is that on paper while it actually is supposed to be the "DPS utility" tree that it seems like you're interested in, it's wayyyy too situational to be useful all around. To benefit the group, you're forced to take Mighty Leap and Not so Fast as 2 of your 3 powers. Those are pretty underwhelming powers to have. Also while it's AOE dps is pretty good, it's single target DPS is atrocious. Since Instigator gives damage bonus to Wicked Strike, that means you won't be slotting Sure Strike (since you'll want Weapon Master Strike for it's at-will debuff) so you have no good single target spamable ability. Also no Focused Destroyer feat (probably the best feat in the Destroyer tree) means really poor damage whenever there is less than 3 enemies that you can hit at once. Since Destroyer stacks 3 times and maxing it to level 3 makes each stack a 4% damage boost, a Destroyer GWF will nearly always have all stacks up, doing 12% more damage.