I like the (basically) unconditional damage of Deep Gash but I keep hearing that Powerful Challenge yields more dmg. I have a Destroyer (Human).
I would assume that PC is better in a group or if you decided to use IBS and Daring Shout for some off-tank action.
This is my feat setup currently. I have 5 more points to spend. I tend to PvE, DD and skirmish most frequently. Is PowerfulChallenge better than Deep Gash for DPS? I tend to use Roar, Restoring Strike and IBS for my encounters.
Deep gash every time. Marks are too unreliable and will often drop within a second of being cast.
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m1nuendMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
Do you enjoy playing the "marking game"? I have that marked feat and regret it. I'm doing a respec as soon as zen prices lowers. I regret it so much I'm almost buying zen before the price lowers.
I find daring shout a bit of a luxury encounter if your dungeoning moves along very easily. In more sweaty situations, I find I need to use more slots for stuns and the marking thing becomes useless.
The two that stands out to me is Battle Awareness (Destroyer tree) and Deep Gash. I don't know enough to say which gives you better damage, though... I guess it depends on your gear, ability scores and stuff as well. If you have like 1% crit chance, then Deep Gash doesn't serve a very good purpose.
To answer your question which is more useful between the two, Deep Gash as it's not as situational as Powerful Challenge.
However the correct answer is you get both and drop Disciple of War. Unless you're stacking a crazy amount of recovery, which is very unusual for a GWF, the gains you get from a percentage of your Recovery stat is pathetic for a 5 point investment.
Since judging from your post, it looks like you like to do PvE content, then even though Powerful Challenge is pretty situational, it's gonna be useful enough to put points as usually the Guardian Fighter will take care of marking targets, you just hit em. Doing a flat 15% bonus damage to marked targets is still gonna win out over armor penetration from 25% of your recovery stat.
The only situations Disciple of War will be better is 1) soloing which doesn't really matter at level 60 and 2) PvP but at that point you're probably not gonna use the spec your using as it's a more PvE build in general.
EDIT: P.S. what really helps Powerful Challenge seem more useful is to let the Guardian Fighter know at the beginning of the dungeon that you do extra damage to marked targets, so ask him nicely if he can mark as much as he can. Most are willing to do so.
EDIT2: Also believe it or not but Daring Shout is not a bad ability to carry with you, once you have 5 points in Powerful Challenge. If you Daring Shout and then Weapon Master's Strike, your Roar will do 25% more damage and by the end of it it'll net you a ton of Determination and Action Points. It might feel like a loss in damage by putting those abilities on your bar but you can go Unstoppable so often, you'll be making up the damage there, not to mention faster than normal AP gain from being Unstoppable so much. As for the 3rd ability, usually that's my flex ability. If I want just mass AOE, I put Not so Fast there, Takedown if stun, Restoring if self heal, or IBS if just pure damage.
The two that stands out to me is Battle Awareness (Destroyer tree) and Deep Gash. I don't know enough to say which gives you better damage, though... I guess it depends on your gear, ability scores and stuff as well. If you have like 1% crit chance, then Deep Gash doesn't serve a very good purpose.
I have 5 points left to spend aswell and I've been debating on between these two feats (Battle Awareness and Deep Gash) for a long time now. I still can't decide. Can anyone say if one is a must have over the other? I do spam slam a lot in PvE but I also have very high crit rate, pushing 50% with weapon master up.
I don't understand the people who are saying to drop Disciple of War and/or that Recovery is not worth it. That is just totally backwards to everything I've seen and read. I love having 3k+ Rec. and the Arm Pen I get from it is worth a huge chunk of AD in Dark Enchants that I can't afford atm. I guess if I get a ton of money some day I will probably respec and drop it...
I don't understand the people who are saying to drop Disciple of War and/or that Recovery is not worth it. That is just totally backwards to everything I've seen and read. I love having 3k+ Rec. and the Arm Pen I get from it is worth a huge chunk of AD in Dark Enchants that I can't afford atm.
I'm not arguing that 3k Recovery isn't great. But I'd argue that having 3k more Armor Pen/Crit/Power is greater. Even factoring in diminshing returns, you can always spread that 3k worth of stats around to lessen the effect.
Not saying it's not worth it to have any Recovery. Some is good. But my point is, not enough to make Disciple of War better than a 15% flat damage increase on marked targets. Keep in mind, the amount of power/crit/armor pen/recovery it would take to get a 15% increase in damage is huge.
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katbozejziemiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 856Arc User
edited July 2013
Powerful Challenge is only good if you're with a GF.
Deep Gash is terrible in general, as is every feat related to power.
I would drop Disciple of War and get both Deep Gash and Powerful Challenge. The marks do stay for a bit especially on targets that matter. If you mark an Elite and the TR is doing his job, you will have the full 8sec 15% damage buff on that target. Also consider CW's AS and Freeze time, Steel Time, Smoke bombs and any other AoE stuns/CC and these marks stay on. Biggest benefit of Daring Shout though is mitigation and a ton of Determination, not to mention that it procs pretty much everything.
EDIT2: Also believe it or not but Daring Shout is not a bad ability to carry with you, once you have 5 points in Powerful Challenge. If you Daring Shout and then Weapon Master's Strike, your Roar will do 25% more damage and by the end of it it'll net you a ton of Determination and Action Points. It might feel like a loss in damage by putting those abilities on your bar but you can go Unstoppable so often, you'll be making up the damage there, not to mention faster than normal AP gain from being Unstoppable so much. As for the 3rd ability, usually that's my flex ability. If I want just mass AOE, I put Not so Fast there, Takedown if stun, Restoring if self heal, or IBS if just pure damage.
That's pretty much what I do, I can attest to the synergy there. After I land the roar on multiple targets, then my AoE DPS and survivability are fantastic-the mitigation from the shout and Unstoppable seem to be enough to let me stay in the middle of trouble swinging away, without having to dodge trash redzones. My HP drops slowly enough that I can get out if I need to, to seek out an Astral Shield, pop a potion etc. and the constant AP gain means I can employ Slam quite frequently, to help maintain order.
The net effect is a bit.. well, it's AoE DPS tanking, really. A little silly, but it works, it gathers and occupies a lot of mobs, and the damage numbers are more than respectable for my unremarkable gear.
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m1nuendMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I have 5 points left to spend aswell and I've been debating on between these two feats (Battle Awareness and Deep Gash) for a long time now. I still can't decide. Can anyone say if one is a must have over the other? I do spam slam a lot in PvE but I also have very high crit rate, pushing 50% with weapon master up.
I've been looking more into it, and I take back my mention of Battle Awareness. There are better feats to use it on, whereas Deep Gash is one of them. I found that with me, BA would only give like 16 additional damage during slam.
Disciple of War seems to be bugged or rather the formula for calculating the bonus Armor Penetration just isn't worth the 5 feat points. It will not stack with Onslaught bonus from a 4 piece Avatar of War and augmented recovery stat from an Ioun Stone.
Deep Gash is terrible in general, as is every feat related to power.
I agree feats related to power often are not the best ones. But in this case, you are swiping a lot of mobs often. And if you have like a 30% crit chance, I'd think it would amount to something.
I have a crit chance of roughly 30%
Power roughly 3000
With 15% that means 450 damage over 5 seconds. (It says "power as damage", so I assume that's what is meant)
One swipe of WMS has a min of 487 damage.
I'm still learning about the game mechanics, so I might be wrong on something here.
That's pretty much what I do, I can attest to the synergy there.
Yeah I mean I can understand why people might not believe it until they try it. When you first get Daring Shout, the tool tip seems very underwhelming and if you put one point into it and don't have Powerful Challenge, it seems really bad and most GWF table it after that and never return to it. It was only when experimenting builds I tried Powerful Challenge because I really didn't have anywhere else to put it. After putting at least 3 points into it, took Daring Shout, combined it with Roar and was shocked just how good it works together. You gain Determination sooo fast, if there's 3+ enemies, it takes like 2 seconds to go from empty to being able to pop Unstoppable.
Oh and just a minor correction to my earlier rotation (I'm sure you already know this), but I meant to say: Weapon Master's Strike > Daring Shout > Roar. Reason being that Daring Shout's mark drops off when enemies hit you, so especially when playing solo, you want to hit them with Weapon Master's Strike first to apply it's debuff first in advance, then do Daring Shout and intermediately Roar as fast as possible, hoping to hit them with the 25% bonus damage before they hit you. Usually if there's 3 enemies, I can go Unstoppable already. Daring Shout's mark is usually gone by then but Unstoppable gives you the 10% bonus damage, I find the weakest enemy and hit them with IBS which will mark the enemies around him again giving me 15% bonus damage and usually I Weapon Master Strike spam for AOE at this point.
Such a fun playstyle, really feels like you're some whirling dervish of aoe damage.
Comments
Maybe I should elaborate.
http://nwcalc.com/gwf?b=cn4:2hwcg:5m9s,1x0lu1i:60000:b5u51:b0000&h=1
This is my feat setup currently. I have 5 more points to spend. I tend to PvE, DD and skirmish most frequently. Is PowerfulChallenge better than Deep Gash for DPS? I tend to use Roar, Restoring Strike and IBS for my encounters.
I find daring shout a bit of a luxury encounter if your dungeoning moves along very easily. In more sweaty situations, I find I need to use more slots for stuns and the marking thing becomes useless.
The two that stands out to me is Battle Awareness (Destroyer tree) and Deep Gash. I don't know enough to say which gives you better damage, though... I guess it depends on your gear, ability scores and stuff as well. If you have like 1% crit chance, then Deep Gash doesn't serve a very good purpose.
However the correct answer is you get both and drop Disciple of War. Unless you're stacking a crazy amount of recovery, which is very unusual for a GWF, the gains you get from a percentage of your Recovery stat is pathetic for a 5 point investment.
Since judging from your post, it looks like you like to do PvE content, then even though Powerful Challenge is pretty situational, it's gonna be useful enough to put points as usually the Guardian Fighter will take care of marking targets, you just hit em. Doing a flat 15% bonus damage to marked targets is still gonna win out over armor penetration from 25% of your recovery stat.
The only situations Disciple of War will be better is 1) soloing which doesn't really matter at level 60 and 2) PvP but at that point you're probably not gonna use the spec your using as it's a more PvE build in general.
EDIT: P.S. what really helps Powerful Challenge seem more useful is to let the Guardian Fighter know at the beginning of the dungeon that you do extra damage to marked targets, so ask him nicely if he can mark as much as he can. Most are willing to do so.
EDIT2: Also believe it or not but Daring Shout is not a bad ability to carry with you, once you have 5 points in Powerful Challenge. If you Daring Shout and then Weapon Master's Strike, your Roar will do 25% more damage and by the end of it it'll net you a ton of Determination and Action Points. It might feel like a loss in damage by putting those abilities on your bar but you can go Unstoppable so often, you'll be making up the damage there, not to mention faster than normal AP gain from being Unstoppable so much. As for the 3rd ability, usually that's my flex ability. If I want just mass AOE, I put Not so Fast there, Takedown if stun, Restoring if self heal, or IBS if just pure damage.
I have 5 points left to spend aswell and I've been debating on between these two feats (Battle Awareness and Deep Gash) for a long time now. I still can't decide. Can anyone say if one is a must have over the other? I do spam slam a lot in PvE but I also have very high crit rate, pushing 50% with weapon master up.
I don't understand the people who are saying to drop Disciple of War and/or that Recovery is not worth it. That is just totally backwards to everything I've seen and read. I love having 3k+ Rec. and the Arm Pen I get from it is worth a huge chunk of AD in Dark Enchants that I can't afford atm. I guess if I get a ton of money some day I will probably respec and drop it...
I'm not arguing that 3k Recovery isn't great. But I'd argue that having 3k more Armor Pen/Crit/Power is greater. Even factoring in diminshing returns, you can always spread that 3k worth of stats around to lessen the effect.
Not saying it's not worth it to have any Recovery. Some is good. But my point is, not enough to make Disciple of War better than a 15% flat damage increase on marked targets. Keep in mind, the amount of power/crit/armor pen/recovery it would take to get a 15% increase in damage is huge.
Deep Gash is terrible in general, as is every feat related to power.
Gash is a great skill made better with the following;
Power- Quick mention, power increases with party buffs and self buffs. I can easily get over 10k with the GF buffing my power.
Amount of targets - The more targets, the more bleeds.
That is the quick and dirty. You do the math.
That's pretty much what I do, I can attest to the synergy there. After I land the roar on multiple targets, then my AoE DPS and survivability are fantastic-the mitigation from the shout and Unstoppable seem to be enough to let me stay in the middle of trouble swinging away, without having to dodge trash redzones. My HP drops slowly enough that I can get out if I need to, to seek out an Astral Shield, pop a potion etc. and the constant AP gain means I can employ Slam quite frequently, to help maintain order.
The net effect is a bit.. well, it's AoE DPS tanking, really. A little silly, but it works, it gathers and occupies a lot of mobs, and the damage numbers are more than respectable for my unremarkable gear.
I've been looking more into it, and I take back my mention of Battle Awareness. There are better feats to use it on, whereas Deep Gash is one of them. I found that with me, BA would only give like 16 additional damage during slam.
That would suck if it's true.
I agree feats related to power often are not the best ones. But in this case, you are swiping a lot of mobs often. And if you have like a 30% crit chance, I'd think it would amount to something.
I have a crit chance of roughly 30%
Power roughly 3000
With 15% that means 450 damage over 5 seconds. (It says "power as damage", so I assume that's what is meant)
One swipe of WMS has a min of 487 damage.
I'm still learning about the game mechanics, so I might be wrong on something here.
Yeah I mean I can understand why people might not believe it until they try it. When you first get Daring Shout, the tool tip seems very underwhelming and if you put one point into it and don't have Powerful Challenge, it seems really bad and most GWF table it after that and never return to it. It was only when experimenting builds I tried Powerful Challenge because I really didn't have anywhere else to put it. After putting at least 3 points into it, took Daring Shout, combined it with Roar and was shocked just how good it works together. You gain Determination sooo fast, if there's 3+ enemies, it takes like 2 seconds to go from empty to being able to pop Unstoppable.
Oh and just a minor correction to my earlier rotation (I'm sure you already know this), but I meant to say: Weapon Master's Strike > Daring Shout > Roar. Reason being that Daring Shout's mark drops off when enemies hit you, so especially when playing solo, you want to hit them with Weapon Master's Strike first to apply it's debuff first in advance, then do Daring Shout and intermediately Roar as fast as possible, hoping to hit them with the 25% bonus damage before they hit you. Usually if there's 3 enemies, I can go Unstoppable already. Daring Shout's mark is usually gone by then but Unstoppable gives you the 10% bonus damage, I find the weakest enemy and hit them with IBS which will mark the enemies around him again giving me 15% bonus damage and usually I Weapon Master Strike spam for AOE at this point.
Such a fun playstyle, really feels like you're some whirling dervish of aoe damage.