I already wrote how the fusion of GF and GWF will cause a lot of problems and now one of this is happened: you nerfed again GF. Frontline surge worked well and ASI (don't say lies!) until "yesterday", but now that it is shared with GWF, now it isn't ASI anymore (oh, strange!!) because it cause an unbalancig problem with GWF, so it happened exactly what i was worried about**: to balance GWF you nerfed GF.
GF is the most broken bugged class, the class that the most need serious fixes and boosts, but you continue to hurt it with incomprehensible nerfs.
Module 2 literally will kill GF couse we give for gift our most characterstic power (ea. mark) to GWF gaining in exchange only HAMSTER!*
In module one it was nerfed and you destroy stalwart.
Between the two module, GF only had nerfs and bugs.
EDIT
I explain you how it works.
a: mmm no GF wil use that gwf skill couse it is a HAMSTER.
b: you are right we seriously failed with that sharing of p paths
a: don't worry i have an idea
b: really!?
a: let's nerf that GF skill so if it is like tha other HAMSTER maybe someone will choice it
b: great idea. i love you.
a: ah... That peolple wrote that GF block is bugged, dont block cc
b: i din't care at all
a: yes you are right, don't waste time fixing GF...
That's a sad truth! How often/long i mention the bugs of GF skills? Or other? And what is in the patchnotes? Changes for the new class! Man the class isn't 2 month old, but the GF bug exist for 3 month or more! And NO fix for these?! Second NO developer say that they carry(look into the mentioned bugs) about the posted bugs from other and me. Nowhere! It's like as some of us got ignored/spamfilter killed!
Please oh please give a buff to guarded assault as it is now it's apretty useless skill 3% is peanuts even for pulling affront while shielding 6%-10% would be. Godsend and then maybe more players would actually slot this I'm begging here
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tang56Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2013
I do wish the devs would stop nerfing GFs. I can't remember any buffs in any patchnotes I've read.
RIP Neverwinter 26/06/2014
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truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
I don't know why some people don't check what paragon path means. You get shown what powers you get with the choice you make. IBS and Takedown aren't paragon powers. But silly Q.Qing must be in place because brainless playermind?
I'm taking you for a no-brainer. really, you can't be that stupid.
I was comparing the skills that the GWF got in the new path versus the ones that went to the GFs and how useful they would be for the other class.
Let me explain it more clear to you: The choice of powers (that compose paragon paths) are questionable and I would expect that either Takedown or Indomitable Battle Strike should be the ones in the Swordmaster Paragon Path
Current patch notes : Frontline Surge no longer incorrectly generates extra Action Points if it hits multiple targets.
More nerf
im sorry to say that but it is not true that it was incorrect. It was as intendwd before Gwf gained the ability to use frontline. Front was correctly balanced for GF. Let's expect more and more of these terribly wrong and unjust nerfs, my friends. GWF is too strong? let's nerf GF. Rogue don't oneshot everyone in pvp? Let's nerf GF. In dungeons, rogue don't deal the double of the sum of damage of all other party members? Let's nerf GF. My doughter gotinfluence? Nerf GF.
Current patch notes : Frontline Surge no longer incorrectly generates extra Action Points if it hits multiple targets.
More nerf
im sorry to say that but it is not true that it was incorrect. It was as intendwd before Gwf gained the ability to use frontline. Front was correctly balanced for GF. Let's expect more and more of these terribly wrong and unjust nerfs, my friends. GWF is too strong? let's nerf GF. Rogue don't oneshot everyone in pvp? Let's nerf GF. In dungeons, rogue don't deal the double of the sum of damage of all other party members? Let's nerf GF. My doughter gotinfluence? Nerf GF.
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truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
Feedback: Overall:What I'm thinking, however, in order to sate both GWF's and GF's who are unsatisfied with the current state of the Swordmaster Paragon Path is to just give a nice buff to the path itself, one that its been deserving for quite some time now. For instance, make it so that Steel Grace can provide the GWF/GF with 50% increased resistance to CC per rank above 1, 17% increase from the normal 33% it gives. Make it so that Flourish gets -1 to CD per rank above 1, and give the debuffs WMS deals to opponents the chance to stack up to 3. Because if we look at things the way it is right now, the Swordmaster Path has been quite underpowered even before this cross-pollination. If buffing just the GF's Swordmaster Path isn't possible, then buffing both GWFs and the GF's Swordmaster Paths would cause more players to at least be enticed to using this path much more than Iron Vanguard.
People have already mentioned basically everything that is lacking with this path. As someone who has both GWF and GF, until Swordmaster gets some sort of a buff, both of my characters are going Iron Vanguard.
Yes, this path doesn't seem interesting at all for pve oriented GFs and fusing two separate classes seems like a really bad idea, especially with already quite blurred boundaries on class functions in NW. I hope it wont make GFs unwanted as tanks since on the side of the damage they really don't shine.
Also wanted to add that tab is still useful and it's not entirely replaceable by threatening rush since it pulls mobs from a distance instead of rushing to them to mark them as it's the case with threatening. And this has its uses.
Feedback: General I did some testing today in the Trade of Blades between Conq Iron Vanguard and Conq Swordmaster and results confirmed the gut feeling that I had from trying out the new spec in the Dread Ring:
Rotations: Single target (dummy) Vanguard:
- Cleave (feated), Tide if Iron
- Lunging Strike, Frontline Surge, Knee Breaker
- Indomitable Strength
- Combat Superiority (feated), Trample of the Fallen (feated)
AoE (hordes of Zombies) Vanguard:
- Cleave (feated)
- Lunging Strike, Frontline Surge, Enforced Threat
- Fighter's Recovery
- Combat Superiority (feated), Trample of the Fallen (feated)
DPS: Single target Vanguard: 4,625 AoE Vanguard: 9,403
Single target Swordmaster: 3,784 AoE Swordmaster: 8,463
The difference in DPS for single targets is insane. I dug a bit deeper and first thing I noticed is that Crescendo can't beat Indomitable Strength. Aside from a slight damage advantage of Indomitable, it's possible because the Tide of Iron debuff (+20%) affects all powers, WMS does not. The trade-off between Steel Blitz and feated Trample also doesn't work for Swordmaster: Trample adds twice as much DPS. The damage of Tide of Iron and WMS is comparable, Frontline beats Flourish even in single target situations (which shouldn't be the case with a feated WMS, but the encounter debuff is currently bugged so I went Tactician with the remaining points).
But all of the above is insignificant, the vast majority of DPS difference comes from Cleave or more precisely the amount of swings you can make per second. Flourish, Crescendo and WMS are all very slow and block your premier source of DPS. In my testing Vanguard resulted in +34% Cleave swings and that's pretty much the whole story. Although Swordmaster can Cleave with ~150% compared to only ~140% for Vanguard, it can't overcome the huge drop in swings per second.
For AoE situations the gap gets closer, but Vanguard is still superior. The song remains the same: Effectiveness went down to 104% (Vanguard) vs. 122% (Swordmaster) for Cleave, but the amount of swinghits was 4.18 vs 2.77 (+50%!). On the field the Effectiveness for Cleave should raise, because of all the Zombies around me I could hardly benefit from feated Trample and not as much as possible from WMS, but once again Swordmaster is simply unable to overcome the huge decrease in swinghits per second from Cleave. Plus I'm pretty sure the difference in DPS would have been greater if I had been able to use Villain's Menace.
I admit that these are selective tests and questing and delving brings a lot more variety into play, but for a paragon path that's supposed to "add additional damage" I envision the Swordmaster only to be superior in very specific situations. So from a DPS standpoint, I don't think you can switch from the Iron Vanguard.
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tang56Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Feedback: General I did some testing today in the Trade of Blades between Conq Iron Vanguard and Conq Swordmaster and results confirmed the gut feeling that I had from trying out the new spec in the Dread Ring:
Single target Swordmaster: 3,784 AoE Swordmaster: 8,463
That's hilarious. The new paragon path is worse for but DPS scenarios? What's the **** point of it at all? Especially since people made it out to be a DPS path...
"Quote Originally Posted by todesfaelle View Post
Feedback: Overall: What I'm thinking, however, in order to sate both GWF's and GF's who are unsatisfied with the current state of the Swordmaster Paragon Path is to just give a nice buff to the path itself, one that its been deserving for quite some time now. For instance, make it so that Steel Grace can provide the GWF/GF with 50% increased resistance to CC per rank above 1, 17% increase from the normal 33% it gives. Make it so that Flourish gets -1 to CD per rank above 1, and give the debuffs WMS deals to opponents the chance to stack up to 3. Because if we look at things the way it is right now, the Swordmaster Path has been quite underpowered even before this cross-pollination. If buffing just the GF's Swordmaster Path isn't possible, then buffing both GWFs and the GF's Swordmaster Paths would cause more players to at least be enticed to using this path much more than Iron Vanguard."
Module 2 is definitely going to cause the GF to replace the GWF as the Ugly duckling of PVE. The biggest issue in my eyes is how inferior the GF's TAB ability is to all the others. My suggestion.......Remove Enforced Threat as an encounter ability and allow us to use it on TAB. Our TAB is a Mark/Threat generator as is Enforced threat. I think this would give us the boost we need to stay competitive. It would still be inferior to Unstoppable and Spell Mastery, but would be a step in the right direction. Especially now that some of or best class features have been shared with others, and one of our best encounters has been nerfed.
Yeah went and did some testing again with my GF and Swordmaster was a long way behind when both were spec'd Conqueror. I actually had to use pots in basic fights when using Swordmaster, which given I usually clear entire quest dungeons (like Gnarlroot etc) with 0 pots consumed is a terrible state of affairs.
Swordmaster just doesn't work for GF as presented, the class lacks the base damage and the replacement powers just do not give the battle control that the Iron Vanguard ones do, leaving you struggling against mobs where you either have your Guard up and are thus not using your main offensives or you have it down and are taking punishment.
Certainly for PvE I wouldn't touch Swordmaster.
PvP players will have to give their own feedback.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
swordmaster doesnt work you are right, and to balance this they nerfed frontline surge and i can easly expect they will nerf something else: if they ruin our native path, in fact, swordmaster could seems good to someone lol.
I agree that the TAB ability of the GF has to be boosted majorly. Can only speak for myself, but in endgame PVE content you simply don't use it besides pulling.
In both pvp and pve the main source of mark comes from enforced threat and threat rush, those mark multiple targets, the tab only marks 1 at a time and it take animation time to do. Maybe if it didnt, that would help.
Since GWFs mark source is threat rush, it marks multiple targets essentially doing the same thing in both pvp and pve.
Compare mark with ANY other tab ability, stealth, divinity, encounter mastery slot?! UNSTOPPABLE?!
Now pretend that a GF can "stealth" with an at will power now. Maybe its not as good as TR stealth because he can do it with tab, but stealth none the less...
You see how dumb that is? Also in order to get those class features you have to give up about 20% damage boost from the combat mastery feature.
Your also purely looking at this from a PVE lens and the ramification is also HUGE for PVP.
Now to mention GWFs can feat points to make them deal 15% more damage to marked targets making their mark ability that much more potent than it is for a GF.
Well said.
The crux of this patch is that GWF's get the best parts of a GF and the GF does not get the good parts of the GWF. The problem is that the GWF has class features that are simply better than the GF and the strength of the GF lies in its paragon path--specifically Conqueror.
To give the GF class ability to mark to the GWF on an at-will really shows that the Devs know the GF class ability is too weak. That's sad.
I PvP predominantly, and there is nothing to gain from the Swordmaster paragon in PvP. But, the OP GWF with regen and lifedriner will now get more controls and offense ... That will definitely lead to whines and nerfing for the GWF.
The GF needs his class tab ability to be something like:
1. temporary Armor Pen boost or
2. 15 seconds of Regeneration or
3. resistance to CC's (not TR-like immunity though).
Those types of things help in PvP as well as PvE..
I agree that the TAB ability of the GF has to be boosted majorly. Can only speak for myself, but in endgame PVE content you simply don't use it besides pulling.
The description says the target have lowered Damage Resistance, but I've noticed no real difference. If there's no reduced Damage Resistance, then probably it's not working as intended.
Leanan Sidhe(not "The Dresde Files" fairy!)- NW Legit Channel Moderator
1, Change the GF's TAB ability to be on par with other classes. Here are some ideas:
A. 10 seconds of Armor Pen boost, or
B. 5 seconds of CC immunity based off of Stamina/Constitution similar to the TR dodge but without damage immunity, or
C. Additional 20% Damage Resistance on a similar cool downas the GWF's Unstoppable, or
D. Ranged attack with Snare
2. Give the Mark feature to all Fighters because it has significant utility in PvE without being determinative in PvP.
3. Fix Griffin's Wrath to be the mele equivalent of Impact shot for stun duration and cast time. It is a ridiculously strong control+damage at RANGE for a TR, so the fighter mele equivalent should at least have the same amount of control, but the short stun and long animation cripples it for PvP.
4. Make Villain's Menace uninterruptible so that we don't constantly get stunned while trying to cast it in PvP because of its obvious and long cast time.
Any of these things would go a long way towards making the shared Paragons more balanced from a GF perspective.
Move the shield block to the tab slot and give us a shift dodge then i would be ok
Gang Busters PvP Guild Recruiting When Mod 6 goes live Pm Me for more Info If you have any Paladin question Message Me and i will get back to you ASAP
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The description says the target have lowered Damage Resistance, but I've noticed no real difference. If there's no reduced Damage Resistance, then probably it's not working as intended.
Would have been very surprised if that hadn't worked without anybody noticing. Just tested and gave me an ~8% damage increase.
I really like marking targets away from me to give my group the buff while I'm tanking somewhere else, but marking multiple targets takes too much time and with groups of mobs running around focusing single opponents can be tricky to annoying. More often than not you're going to focus the same target twice and such. Simply spoken: It's just not effective in PVE. 98% of my marks come from Threatening Rush and Enforced Threat so I have a TAB ability that's 2% useful.
As others suggested, I think TAB should be an AoE mark. Apply the usual 5-cap and give it the limited cylinder of Threatening Rush and we're good. That would make Threatening Rush the melee mark and TAB the ranged mark with Enforced Threat still being a standard encounter because of it's combination of taunt/mark and AoE damage.
Wow I'm seeing alot of GF's whine and complain about the GWF when you have no idea how much better we are compared to the GWF.
Right now we have all the damage potential of a GWF twice the threat and control powers a GWF could ever hope to use, with better AOE damage encounters and Dailies. GWF win in AoE at-wills.
And the Swordmaster class is giving the AoE at-will to the GF. Seems to have alot of promise. But a GF using swordmaster powers will do 40% base damage less than a GWF with the same power, as it should be a GWF would be nothing without this difference. This really shows how little damage the powers from swordmaster actually do.
GWF has always been the worst class in the game, GF are an underdog but when it comes down to it we can tank and hold threat. GWF can't. The problem with the Paragon path Swordmaster is that it is too weak. When you look at the paragon paths of all other classes they become very important to the classes play style in all moves. At-will,s encounters, passives and Dailies. All are important and most classes will use at least 4 Paragon path moves at all Times. a GWF uses only 2, Crescendo and and Weapon masters strike. Flourish is a terrible move and is trumped by GF powers like Bull Rush and Anvil of doom, and the passives dont help the GWF at all in PvE so they are never used. In fact they are still rarely used in PvP. as GWF really need Bravery for the deflection bonus and feated Weapon Master for move deflection.
Swordmaster needs to greatly buff Flourish and it's passives to be a useful paragon path. Flourish needs to be better than Bull rush for GF's to ever consider using it. GWF's use it because many of there encounters are terrible they have little other options.
As others suggested, I think TAB should be an AoE mark. Apply the usual 5-cap and give it the limited cylinder of Threatening Rush and we're good. That would make Threatening Rush the melee mark and TAB the ranged mark with Enforced Threat still being a standard encounter because of it's combination of taunt/mark and AoE damage.
Curiously the last iteration of the PnP fighter for 4E had an zone mark centered on them. Making tab into a zone that you can turn on and off would be great!
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
1, Change the GF's TAB ability to be on par with other classes. Here are some ideas:
A. 10 seconds of Armor Pen boost, or
B. 5 seconds of CC immunity based off of Stamina/Constitution similar to the TR dodge but without damage immunity, or
C. Additional 20% Damage Resistance on a similar cool downas the GWF's Unstoppable, or
D. Ranged attack with Snare I disagree, often the single mark is very usefull.
2. Give the Mark feature to all Fighters because it has significant utility in PvE without being determinative in PvP. GWF is aoe dps, why it should have our single mark?
3. Fix Griffin's Wrath to be the mele equivalent of Impact shot for stun duration and cast time. It is a ridiculously strong control+damage at RANGE for a TR, so the fighter mele equivalent should at least have the same amount of control, but the short stun and long animation cripples it for PvP. short stun and long animation, yes. Also it's bugged in pvp couse CW teleport, TR shift and GWF sprint works even if i hit them with griffon W. In the past i posted this bug many times, but because they didn't fix it i stopped to use GW in pvp so i didn't verify if it is still bugged or they fixed it, but i don't remeber any patch note about a fix of... mmm anything
4. Make Villain's Menace uninterruptible so that we don't constantly get stunned while trying to cast it in PvP because of its obvious and long cast time. Umh... maybe it is a good solution but only if it will be uninterruptible only by others, couse often i need to interrupt it to raise up shield avoid to die (in pve) just because of the long animations while mobs continue to attack me.
Any of these things would go a long way towards making the shared Paragons more balanced from a GF perspective. They nerfed frontline surge because of gwf: why do you think they want to do balanced thing?
Thanks for considering our situation.
You are wrong. There are months that they consider GF only to nerf it or add new bugs.
Move the shield block to the tab slot and give us a shift dodge then i would be ok
I often comment negatively GF situation and devps choices, but to be honest i like GF kind of powers, except some of them objectively useless, but i don't feel we need a shift, we should be ok if they remove all the unjust nerfs they did and if they fix bugs.
I really like marking targets away from me to give my group the buff while I'm tanking somewhere else, but marking multiple targets takes too much time and with groups of mobs running around focusing single opponents can be tricky to annoying. More often than not you're going to focus the same target twice and such. Simply spoken: It's just not effective in PVE. 98% of my marks come from Threatening Rush and Enforced Threat so I have a TAB ability that's 2% useful.
As others suggested, I think TAB should be an AoE mark. Apply the usual 5-cap and give it the limited cylinder of Threatening Rush and we're good. That would make Threatening Rush the melee mark and TAB the ranged mark with Enforced Threat still being a standard encounter because of it's combination of taunt/mark and AoE damage.
As I said before, there are lot's of situations in which a single mark is usefull. I want instead remember that often even if we mark ONE mobs, many of them run behind him and it is like we already had a semi-aoe ranged mark (in this case undesired).
Wow I'm seeing alot of GF's whine and complain about the GWF when you have no idea how much better we are compared to the GWF.
Right now we have all the damage potential of a GWF twice the threat and control powers a GWF could ever hope to use, with better AOE damage encounters and Dailies. GWF win in AoE at-wills.
And the Swordmaster class is giving the AoE at-will to the GF. Seems to have alot of promise. But a GF using swordmaster powers will do 40% base damage less than a GWF with the same power, as it should be a GWF would be nothing without this difference. This really shows how little damage the powers from swordmaster actually do.
GWF has always been the worst class in the game, GF are an underdog but when it comes down to it we can tank and hold threat. GWF can't. The problem with the Paragon path Swordmaster is that it is too weak. When you look at the paragon paths of all other classes they become very important to the classes play style in all moves. At-will,s encounters, passives and Dailies. All are important and most classes will use at least 4 Paragon path moves at all Times. a GWF uses only 2, Crescendo and and Weapon masters strike. Flourish is a terrible move and is trumped by GF powers like Bull Rush and Anvil of doom, and the passives dont help the GWF at all in PvE so they are never used. In fact they are still rarely used in PvP. as GWF really need Bravery for the deflection bonus and feated Weapon Master for move deflection.
Swordmaster needs to greatly buff Flourish and it's passives to be a useful paragon path. Flourish needs to be better than Bull rush for GF's to ever consider using it. GWF's use it because many of there encounters are terrible they have little other options.
The problem are:
1) impossible to balance both class at the same since we share the same powes (very bad choice from devps)
2) If they buff swormaster, gwf will be too strong. So they are nerfing GF native paragon path to the same low level of swordmaster and GF like me who aren't planning to change path have to suffer all these mistakes.
Comments
That's a sad truth! How often/long i mention the bugs of GF skills? Or other? And what is in the patchnotes? Changes for the new class! Man the class isn't 2 month old, but the GF bug exist for 3 month or more! And NO fix for these?! Second NO developer say that they carry(look into the mentioned bugs) about the posted bugs from other and me. Nowhere! It's like as some of us got ignored/spamfilter killed!
I'm taking you for a no-brainer. really, you can't be that stupid.
I was comparing the skills that the GWF got in the new path versus the ones that went to the GFs and how useful they would be for the other class.
Let me explain it more clear to you: The choice of powers (that compose paragon paths) are questionable and I would expect that either Takedown or Indomitable Battle Strike should be the ones in the Swordmaster Paragon Path
im sorry to say that but it is not true that it was incorrect. It was as intendwd before Gwf gained the ability to use frontline. Front was correctly balanced for GF. Let's expect more and more of these terribly wrong and unjust nerfs, my friends. GWF is too strong? let's nerf GF. Rogue don't oneshot everyone in pvp? Let's nerf GF. In dungeons, rogue don't deal the double of the sum of damage of all other party members? Let's nerf GF. My doughter gotinfluence? Nerf GF.
im sorry to say that but it is not true that it was incorrect. It was as intendwd before Gwf gained the ability to use frontline. Front was correctly balanced for GF. Let's expect more and more of these terribly wrong and unjust nerfs, my friends. GWF is too strong? let's nerf GF. Rogue don't oneshot everyone in pvp? Let's nerf GF. In dungeons, rogue don't deal the double of the sum of damage of all other party members? Let's nerf GF. My doughter gotinfluence? Nerf GF.
Amen to that!
Also wanted to add that tab is still useful and it's not entirely replaceable by threatening rush since it pulls mobs from a distance instead of rushing to them to mark them as it's the case with threatening. And this has its uses.
Yeah, buff my GF's attack speed by 150% or weapon damage by 30% and I'll re-evaluate this new path.
While I honestly dont want to push the patch back, something should really be done about the swordmaster path to make it viable for GF.
Yet instead, they are nerfying the Iron Vanguard since GWF are getting crazy damage outputs with Frontiline Surge.
Also, can someone tell me why they are giving shield related powers to GWFs? The animations are ridiculous.
I did some testing today in the Trade of Blades between Conq Iron Vanguard and Conq Swordmaster and results confirmed the gut feeling that I had from trying out the new spec in the Dread Ring:
Rotations:
Single target (dummy) Vanguard:
- Cleave (feated), Tide if Iron
- Lunging Strike, Frontline Surge, Knee Breaker
- Indomitable Strength
- Combat Superiority (feated), Trample of the Fallen (feated)
AoE (hordes of Zombies) Vanguard:
- Cleave (feated)
- Lunging Strike, Frontline Surge, Enforced Threat
- Fighter's Recovery
- Combat Superiority (feated), Trample of the Fallen (feated)
Single target Swordmaster:
- Cleave (feated), WMS
- Lunging Strike, Flourish, Knee Breaker
- Crescendo
- Combat Superiority (feated), Steel Blitz
AoE Swordmaster:
- Cleave (feated), WMS
- Lunging Strike, Knee Breaker, Enforced Threat
- Fighter's Recovery
- Combat Superiority (feated), Steel Blitz
DPS:
Single target Vanguard: 4,625
AoE Vanguard: 9,403
Single target Swordmaster: 3,784
AoE Swordmaster: 8,463
The difference in DPS for single targets is insane. I dug a bit deeper and first thing I noticed is that Crescendo can't beat Indomitable Strength. Aside from a slight damage advantage of Indomitable, it's possible because the Tide of Iron debuff (+20%) affects all powers, WMS does not. The trade-off between Steel Blitz and feated Trample also doesn't work for Swordmaster: Trample adds twice as much DPS. The damage of Tide of Iron and WMS is comparable, Frontline beats Flourish even in single target situations (which shouldn't be the case with a feated WMS, but the encounter debuff is currently bugged so I went Tactician with the remaining points).
But all of the above is insignificant, the vast majority of DPS difference comes from Cleave or more precisely the amount of swings you can make per second. Flourish, Crescendo and WMS are all very slow and block your premier source of DPS. In my testing Vanguard resulted in +34% Cleave swings and that's pretty much the whole story. Although Swordmaster can Cleave with ~150% compared to only ~140% for Vanguard, it can't overcome the huge drop in swings per second.
For AoE situations the gap gets closer, but Vanguard is still superior. The song remains the same: Effectiveness went down to 104% (Vanguard) vs. 122% (Swordmaster) for Cleave, but the amount of swinghits was 4.18 vs 2.77 (+50%!). On the field the Effectiveness for Cleave should raise, because of all the Zombies around me I could hardly benefit from feated Trample and not as much as possible from WMS, but once again Swordmaster is simply unable to overcome the huge decrease in swinghits per second from Cleave. Plus I'm pretty sure the difference in DPS would have been greater if I had been able to use Villain's Menace.
I admit that these are selective tests and questing and delving brings a lot more variety into play, but for a paragon path that's supposed to "add additional damage" I envision the Swordmaster only to be superior in very specific situations. So from a DPS standpoint, I don't think you can switch from the Iron Vanguard.
Feedback: Overall: What I'm thinking, however, in order to sate both GWF's and GF's who are unsatisfied with the current state of the Swordmaster Paragon Path is to just give a nice buff to the path itself, one that its been deserving for quite some time now. For instance, make it so that Steel Grace can provide the GWF/GF with 50% increased resistance to CC per rank above 1, 17% increase from the normal 33% it gives. Make it so that Flourish gets -1 to CD per rank above 1, and give the debuffs WMS deals to opponents the chance to stack up to 3. Because if we look at things the way it is right now, the Swordmaster Path has been quite underpowered even before this cross-pollination. If buffing just the GF's Swordmaster Path isn't possible, then buffing both GWFs and the GF's Swordmaster Paths would cause more players to at least be enticed to using this path much more than Iron Vanguard."
Amen to that!
Swordmaster just doesn't work for GF as presented, the class lacks the base damage and the replacement powers just do not give the battle control that the Iron Vanguard ones do, leaving you struggling against mobs where you either have your Guard up and are thus not using your main offensives or you have it down and are taking punishment.
Certainly for PvE I wouldn't touch Swordmaster.
PvP players will have to give their own feedback.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
we GF are ruined.
Well said.
The crux of this patch is that GWF's get the best parts of a GF and the GF does not get the good parts of the GWF. The problem is that the GWF has class features that are simply better than the GF and the strength of the GF lies in its paragon path--specifically Conqueror.
To give the GF class ability to mark to the GWF on an at-will really shows that the Devs know the GF class ability is too weak. That's sad.
I PvP predominantly, and there is nothing to gain from the Swordmaster paragon in PvP. But, the OP GWF with regen and lifedriner will now get more controls and offense ... That will definitely lead to whines and nerfing for the GWF.
The GF needs his class tab ability to be something like:
1. temporary Armor Pen boost or
2. 15 seconds of Regeneration or
3. resistance to CC's (not TR-like immunity though).
Those types of things help in PvP as well as PvE..
The description says the target have lowered Damage Resistance, but I've noticed no real difference. If there's no reduced Damage Resistance, then probably it's not working as intended.
1, Change the GF's TAB ability to be on par with other classes. Here are some ideas:
A. 10 seconds of Armor Pen boost, or
B. 5 seconds of CC immunity based off of Stamina/Constitution similar to the TR dodge but without damage immunity, or
C. Additional 20% Damage Resistance on a similar cool downas the GWF's Unstoppable, or
D. Ranged attack with Snare
2. Give the Mark feature to all Fighters because it has significant utility in PvE without being determinative in PvP.
3. Fix Griffin's Wrath to be the mele equivalent of Impact shot for stun duration and cast time. It is a ridiculously strong control+damage at RANGE for a TR, so the fighter mele equivalent should at least have the same amount of control, but the short stun and long animation cripples it for PvP.
4. Make Villain's Menace uninterruptible so that we don't constantly get stunned while trying to cast it in PvP because of its obvious and long cast time.
Any of these things would go a long way towards making the shared Paragons more balanced from a GF perspective.
Thanks for considering our situation.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Would have been very surprised if that hadn't worked without anybody noticing. Just tested and gave me an ~8% damage increase.
I really like marking targets away from me to give my group the buff while I'm tanking somewhere else, but marking multiple targets takes too much time and with groups of mobs running around focusing single opponents can be tricky to annoying. More often than not you're going to focus the same target twice and such. Simply spoken: It's just not effective in PVE. 98% of my marks come from Threatening Rush and Enforced Threat so I have a TAB ability that's 2% useful.
As others suggested, I think TAB should be an AoE mark. Apply the usual 5-cap and give it the limited cylinder of Threatening Rush and we're good. That would make Threatening Rush the melee mark and TAB the ranged mark with Enforced Threat still being a standard encounter because of it's combination of taunt/mark and AoE damage.
Right now we have all the damage potential of a GWF twice the threat and control powers a GWF could ever hope to use, with better AOE damage encounters and Dailies. GWF win in AoE at-wills.
And the Swordmaster class is giving the AoE at-will to the GF. Seems to have alot of promise. But a GF using swordmaster powers will do 40% base damage less than a GWF with the same power, as it should be a GWF would be nothing without this difference. This really shows how little damage the powers from swordmaster actually do.
GWF has always been the worst class in the game, GF are an underdog but when it comes down to it we can tank and hold threat. GWF can't. The problem with the Paragon path Swordmaster is that it is too weak. When you look at the paragon paths of all other classes they become very important to the classes play style in all moves. At-will,s encounters, passives and Dailies. All are important and most classes will use at least 4 Paragon path moves at all Times. a GWF uses only 2, Crescendo and and Weapon masters strike. Flourish is a terrible move and is trumped by GF powers like Bull Rush and Anvil of doom, and the passives dont help the GWF at all in PvE so they are never used. In fact they are still rarely used in PvP. as GWF really need Bravery for the deflection bonus and feated Weapon Master for move deflection.
Swordmaster needs to greatly buff Flourish and it's passives to be a useful paragon path. Flourish needs to be better than Bull rush for GF's to ever consider using it. GWF's use it because many of there encounters are terrible they have little other options.
Curiously the last iteration of the PnP fighter for 4E had an zone mark centered on them. Making tab into a zone that you can turn on and off would be great!
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I often comment negatively GF situation and devps choices, but to be honest i like GF kind of powers, except some of them objectively useless, but i don't feel we need a shift, we should be ok if they remove all the unjust nerfs they did and if they fix bugs.
As I said before, there are lot's of situations in which a single mark is usefull. I want instead remember that often even if we mark ONE mobs, many of them run behind him and it is like we already had a semi-aoe ranged mark (in this case undesired).
The problem are:
1) impossible to balance both class at the same since we share the same powes (very bad choice from devps)
2) If they buff swormaster, gwf will be too strong. So they are nerfing GF native paragon path to the same low level of swordmaster and GF like me who aren't planning to change path have to suffer all these mistakes.