test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Forums > Home› Class Forums›
Why is power so important?(GWF)
thesaminator1
Member Posts: 36
OK I've seen almost every GWF build have power as the top stat to have. I personally don't understand this because power seems far inferior to almost every other stat; crit, armor pen, recovery. First off GWF gets plenty of power normally through their items and the steely defense(which is awesome) feat so stacking defense gives you power as well(and u get 18% more if ur human and have the armor specialization). Also going the destroyer route, I thought it would be much more beneficial to stack crit, for the bleed effect(and damage over all), and recovery, for the 25% converted to armor pen. I'm mainly going to be going pve but obviously pvp is somewhat important as well. I'm probably overlooking something but please let me know why I tend to see this.
Post edited by thesaminator1 on
0
Comments
Aim for around 3k power, then aim for ArP/crit or whatever your priority is.
Nearly all the recent discussion I've seen in these forums from the more active members have all been repeating how bad power is compared to armor pen/crit/recovery. It's just the fact no one is redoing any build guides because the people who already know, well they already know, and consider it a given, and it seems no one here is particularly motivated to do a new guide for newer players.
So once you hit these marks the last place to stack is power.. Which to be honest isn't that great but Doesn't have a soft cap
Example: If you have a GF with a Stalwart set, its power reaches 11-13k power w/ all 5 procs active, allowing one to definitely see/feel the difference over the normal lowered power score.
At the end of the day, the only way to know what works best for YOU is to test things on your own toon. What you chose as feats or have as stats directly effects your hit damage as much as what you wear for jewelry and enchants.
Power is important because that's where your damage comes from. Isn't that obvious enough?
All the other stats such as crit, arp, and recovery all have diminishing returns so there is no point in stacking past the soft cap.
What else are you going to gear for? Defense?
Actually indirectly 1500 Lifesteal for me is a much bigger DPS boost than 1500 Power.
Obviously if one reaches the softcap in all the other stats they want, to start looking at Power. But that's exactly the argument that Power is not important at all. Because it is the last stat you would focus on. Power has no diminishing return because its value is very minimal. To see noticeable difference, you need to look at Power per 1000 points. 2000 ArP is probably worth more than 10k Power in terms of dps increase.
What? Armor penetration is capped at 24%. It does not go into negatives. Even if you added 5000 armor penetration, 100 power would have more value.
Furthermore, the current top tier gears for GWF does not allow the class to stack lifesteal at an efficient rate. Because this means you would either be sacrificing enchantment slots or stats on items that would otherwise go to crit, armor pen, or recovery, which are all too valuable to the class.
I know. Because I've tried several gear combinations.
First of all Armor Penetration is not capped at 24%. You just don't need more than that in PvE because that's the highest DR any boss has. You can definitely go above that, and it is quite useful in PvP vs GWFs and GFs.
Second, where did I say add 5000 ArP? I specifically said once you reach the softcaps, you can focus on Power. And if it is between 5000 ArP or 100 Power, I will definitely take 5000 ArP lol, simply for PvP and since 100 Power will absolutely not make any difference whatsoever.
I am using full T2 set and have over 1500 Lifesteal, so yes it does allow room for it if you choose the right accessories and enchants, without really sacrificing much offensive stats. And since to me LifeSteal is a flat DPS gain, there is no loss at all. I still have 35% Crit, 24.2% ArP, 3k Recovery, and 1567 Lifesteal and that's all only using rank6 enchants. So apparently you haven't tried hard enough :P
I personally would love to see a screenshot of your armor if those are your stats... I'd be interested in seeing how exactly you got your stats there - including/not-including your Stone of Allure. If you'd rather, PM me and we can talk. But I would really like to see this gear set up.
If you need an account, click here to sign up.
Here you go...
Why would I sacrifice roughly 1k power and crit for 1k lifesteal? Unless you are tanking or playing mainly PvP, there's no reason to stack lifesteal. It's a moot point because when you are running epic dungeons with a competitive group, you shouldn't struggle staying alive. You're basically gimping yourself damage-wise.
And people wonder why they feel like they don't do damage.
I dont run anything but T2s on my CW and GWF. I often do tank on my GWF,, and still do top dps. In fact is it DPS that allows me to tank since it is the only way for a Destroyer to grab aggro. What competitive group you run with that feels your GWF is just a background dpser that hides behinds a GF or cant fundtion without Singularity spams? I build my characters to do well with good players as well as bad players. I often take new 60s into T2s. If your focus is to build a character that cant function without a tank and a healer, that's your prerogative.
Apparently you are not getting the point at all. 1000Power is exactly 40damage. 1000crit above the 2ks is rougly 2-3%. How much more dps can you do with 40damage and 2%crit?
10% Lifesteal is a MUCH bigger DPS boost. How many times do you need to repeat this to you, I just dont know. It allows to put yourself in situations to GET HIT, to stay in Red circles, to stand in front of an Elite's cleave, to stand outside of Astral Shield indefinitely. It is like having your OWN Astral Shield. All this translates into MUCH higher Determination/AP regen, which in turn is a dps boost.
I can tank any epic dungeons in the game, including CN, with the exception of spider, running Instigator. You are over-blowing the value of lifesteal out of proportion. Anything you said you can do with your glorified stacked lifesteal can be done without lifeteal. . As far as red circles and cleaves, I can withstand them just fine, unless of course, I get rubberbanded. And guess what, if you are rubberbanded by red circles, it doesn't matter what if you have 10000 lifesteal because you wont be able to attack since you will be either up in the air or at prone position before you can swing you sword. Some of the more potent red circles such as hands from Dracolich and AoE from Syndrith puts you into prone position, which again, you hinders you from attacking. If I'm put in this situation, why would I need lifesteal when I can't even utilize it? I can simply pop a potion. Obviously, everyone can afford those and I don't have to sacrifice statistical value for it.
Furthermore, you are talking as if determination is hard to come by. Even when my attacks do not generate determination as Instigator, Unstoppable is up for me almost every mob pull. All I have to do is stand in front of a cleave or a red circle and it restores more than half of my determination bar. In boss fights such as Dracolich and Syndrith, it's quite simple to clip some of the AoE spells just enough to restore your bar without dying.
With a vorpal enchantment, every percent in crit matters. There are GWFs out there running with greater/perfect vorpal with up to 4000 crit, and rightfully so.
And please, if you feel really strongly about it, and you top dps with THOSE kinds of stats as you claim to do, show us a screenshot of a CN or maybe Spider run with you tanking, and out-dpsing a competent TR. Otherwise, you are just blowing farts in the air.
You're hilarious. I am "over-blowing" the value of Lifesteal?! That's coming from someone saying I have 1000 more Power/Crit? How exactly are you doing what I described without heals? Surely Unstoppable does not top off 10-20k in hits. Sure Lifesteal doesn't help when I am prone, but how exactly is your extra 40damage and 2% crit helping you when prone? Unstoppable is great, but not good enough to keep you alive handling 10+ mobs without a healer. 10% heals on just one WMS on 5 targets is a 800-2000 Heal! That's almost 1k heal average on an At-Will which you can cancel its animation. Yea, I am totally exaggerating the value of Lifesteal. Neither Defense nor Defelect, not even stacking Regen would give you that kind of survivability.
I am talking to you with numbers, and you are just making claims like "I can do this and that", then you have the nerve to ask me for screenshots of what I am talking about. LOL How the hell do you take a screenshot showing that I top dps over a "competent" TR? Do I need him to like initial at the bottom that he is an uber TR? You're running CN and bragging about it in an Instigator build? Yea we all know how useful GWFs are on Draco :P At least go Destroyer so you can do better Single target damage.
You're using Vorpal on Draco? So who is debuffing him with plaguefire? Your TR? The bottom line is, you prefer an extra 40damage + 2% crit while I prefer 10% Life steal. You feel these extra offensive stats are making a huge contribution to your overall dps, and I am claiming that my setup does the same thing. But hey, if you are a super elite GWF that never dies and running with equally super uber players, then of course none of this matters.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Campaign: The Battle of Neverwinter - NWS-DOQXFA4ZD
Prologue: A not so simple plan - NW-DCJG75B9D
I find it easier to double tap a direction, mostly either left or right, right after the first swing of WMS. It needs a little practice because you can't hold down the mouse button, but rather constantly tapping. It definitely could lead to carpal tunnel syndrome lol
I used to double tap method for a long time. Then heard about this other method which I hear is more efficient.
Hold down A and D. This will lock you in place.
Press Weapon Master Strike.
Wait a half second for the sword animation swing to connect.
Tap Shift (your camera will zoom out quick like you're sprinting but you'll stay in place)
Press Weapon Master Strike.
Wait a half second.... (repeat)
It might seem a bit complicated at first with the timing, but all you really have to worry about is the Shift key timing. You'll probably try to press it too soon in the beginning. You need to wait a little over a half second after pressing WMS. However once you hit Shift to cancel, there's no set timing for the WMS after it so you can press Shift and WMS immediately after one another so it just eventually becomes:
Hold A&D~WMS ...... Shift~WMS ...... Shift~WMS...... Shift~WMS..... etc
Once you get timing down, it's less button presses than the double tap method and comes out more consistently.
While on the topic, did Sure Strike find a place in the rotation at all after it was buffed? The guides aren't very updated, but what are the go to at-wills for each spec?
Life Steal is a defensive stat. Gives you back health per % damage. Now you could argue that the longer you stay alive the more dps you do but that is a different debate.
Now that that is out of the way -
Power is an awesome stat once you hit the sweet spot for ARP/CRIT/RECOVERY.
Power is more useful for those that pick up the bleed. I.E. Instigator. 15% of your power is a bleed over the next 5 seconds.
Let us say 5k base power. That is 750 extra damage on a crit.
Now let us factor in the capstone. 50% more power.
That puts us to 7.5k power. 1125 damage on crit.
Now then...what if a GF pops his skills or uses set bonuses that pushes your power even further? Like 16k power?
That is 2.4k extra damage on a crit.
Do not skimp on power.
Personally, I went full Con/Dex for PVP purposes BUT I like the mix for PVE as well... 14-15% equiv of arp? thats a TON of ARP you dont have to stack now AND 9-10% more crit? Again thats really nice...
The way I see it. The ONLY stat that doesnt have dim returns in Power. You can stack that STAT as high as you want to, Crit/ARP have Dim returns around 1500 so if you REALLY wanted to max your points. You could get ARP/Crit to 1500 and stack power after that... With Con/Dex you get a bigger equiv of points.
So you say it isn't a DPS increase... and then 2 seconds later reiterate the exact reasoning why people have been saying it's a DPS increase....
If you're trying to bring up the point it is technically a defensive stat by literal definition, then yes, you can win that arbitrary semantic argument.
The point isn't to sacrifice other offensive stats for life steal. It's to put life steal enchantments in defensive slots because it's the best defensive enchantment slot item that will contribute to your offense. What else you gonna put in there? Defense? Deflection? Those will not contribute offensively as much as Life Steal will.
To anyone still not sure about this, if you played Diablo 3, just think about Whirlwind Barbarians. The whole reason they work, and can do so much DPS is because you coupled Life Steal/Life on Hit so that you can sustain constantly attacking. I have Life Steal, I stand in mob of 15 enemies and just wail away on them = me doing DPS. Other GWF who has to run away and kite and pop potion = 0 DPS. Hence, DPS increase.
Yes, so it's the 4th best offensive stat, which is exactly what we've been saying in the thread. BTW that also technically makes it the worst offensive stat. Technically.
I don't stack it higher for the simple fact that it only gives you health off the base damage. Meaning if you crit Cresendo for 25k you don't get 2.5k returned. Based on 10% for example.
GWF needs a higher base stamina regeneration rate, it takes way too long after you stop sprinting for the regen to kick in.
Ioun Stone of Allure. That gives you 2 offensive and 1 defensive enchant slots. You also get 3 gear slots which can enchant. So you can pick and choose gear pieces for their stats and type of slots, which gives you a total of 6 enchant slots to mix and match on your stats. PVE only.
Tell me how much damage you do with 3k recovery, 3k armor pen, 3k crit, and 1k power.
Power needs to be maintained at a decent level to make use of all the other stats. Who cares if you have 50% crit if you hit for 2k on crits and 500 non crit?