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GWF pure PvE dps Iron Vangaurd - Destroyer Guide.
shadowbox
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Part 1: Feats.
So the Heroic feats we will be getting are going to be mostly dps oriented since we are a Destroyer, and the goal of any good Destroyer is to deal damage right? so i will go over each tier of feats and what our choices will be.
Tier 1: Our first pick is going to be Disciple of Strength, this doesn’t net a huge increase in damage but it’s a solid option and this build will be utilizing a high STR score (i explain why further down), you will also want to dump 4 (5 Human) Unstoppable Action.
Tier 2: The choice here should be fairly obvious, Endless Assault is a must, it nets us a flat 6% damage increase on our encounters which is fairly straight forward, now if you’re a Human you will also want to drop 1 point into Armor Specialization.
Tier 3: All 5 points for this tier will go into Steely Defense there is no choice here.
Tier 4: Now this really is the Tier where your options are literally non existent, you will drop 3 points into Devastating Critical and 2 (3 Human) into Weapon Master hands down there is no better setup in this Tier, even if you plan on tanking, the other feat is near useless.
This should be your final Heroic spread.
Now for our Paragon Feats, Well i said this is a Destroyer guide right? well let’s get right into the Destroyer tree and finally get a taste of the feats that make GWF one of the top dps classes in the game.
Tier 1 Destroyer: there is one feat in this tree which every Destroyer spec should have and it is Great Weapon Focus you can’t argue with a flat 10% damage bonus on your most common abilities, we will also be picking up Deep Gash it boosts our AoE damage and since Executioner’s Style doesn’t benefit us as much we will be dropping it in favor of better options.
Tier 2 Destroyer: You’re gonna be maxing Disciple of War no questions asked.
Tier 3 Destroyer: This tier gets ignored by this build.
Tier 4 Destroyer: Once again no choice here Focused Destroyer is simply amazing 15% damage with high uptime is just way to good not to take.
Tier 5 Destroyer: This is the reason you became a Destroyer, Destroyer's Purpose is quite possibly the most powerful feat in the entire game i shouldn’t have to explain this one too you friend.
Tier 1 Sentinel: Now you should have ten points remaining, we are gonna dip outside the Destroyer tree for these last points and pick up Scale Agility now 5% deflect doesn’t seem like the best choice when looking at Student of the Sword in the Instigator tree but the Tier 2 Sentinel feat is far better than any of the other options at hand.
Tier 2 Sentinel: Obviously we are gonna be grabbing Powerful Challenge this ability has great synergy with Threatening Rush, which allows us to mark targets anytime and get’s us that 15% boost on any of our abilities.
This should be your final Paragon spread.
Part 2: Attributes.
STR: I put my 2 points into this stat as a human because it gives 16.96% more damage for me (that factors in Disciple of Strength), no gear in the game can replace the STR stat, and here’s why, if you go CON you won’t need as much ArP which in turn means your Disciple of War will have a lower ArP to scale from, hard cap for 15 CON is 1850=462 bonus power while the cap for 19 is 1500=275 power, which already cuts the extra power you’d be able to get from going CON by almost 200, which leaves you with about 150 extra power you’d get from the CON which is about 1% damage, now that’s not even factoring in the fact that you now have 26 Strength which is 16.96% Damage, compared to 12.72%, now even if you like having extra Health you will only be getting about 8%.
CON: our next major score is left fairly low, reasoning is explained above.
DEX: should be the next highest score next to STR, it gives us some nice defensive utility while also allowing us to break crit cap (about 3500 Critical Strike rating).
Part 3: Races.
In this section we will look at races and see what our best choices are, Half-Orc is our strongest pick, it gives us 2 STR and 2 DEX, and 5% Crit severity, these bonuses cannot be beaten by any other race, but don’t worry there are many viable choices for race, don’t feel stuck with any one thing.
The next most viable race is Human, it grants +2 to any attribute (which will be STR), it provides 3 Heroic Feat points, which give you some wiggle room and allow you to optimize in a variety of ways.
My next pick would be Drow, probably best suited for HR or TR but they can work within the confines of a GWF +2 DEX is great for this build, and Darkfire works wonders if you are the only one in the group.
And finally Tiefling, they are usually better as tanks for GWF but they offer some decent bonuses, + 2 CON means they need less ArP, they also deal 5% more damage to targets below 50% health, and they can reduce enemy power by 5% not shabby.
So we have
Half-Orc: Highly Recommended.
Human: Recommended.
Drow: Solid Pick.
Teifling: Decent Pick.
Now if you wish to venture away from these 4 choices when picking race remember it will not be optimal, though Haflings and Dwarfs are also fairly solid races just not great for this build.
Part 4: Optimization.
Now that we have a race and our feats laid out, let’s look at stat optimization and what we can do to improve, now the first major factor when looking at my stats, is that my Recovery seems low, but with this build you should always be running Avatar of War, as it will let us treat our effective stats as if we had the 4 piece, which adds 1350 recovery and power.
Now you may be wondering, where do i stop with stats? well that is a good question and varies by build, for this build we will want around 3500 crit which will put us over 45% fully buffed, 24% ArP (which CON is factored into) and 1150-1650 recovery, after that the only important stat is power, but worry about it last as it is the weakest stat until the others are capped.
Also don’t forget to get an Augment Pet, here are the stats i’m getting from my stone alone just to show why augment pets are so important, the only limitation of them is stats will NOT be modified by feats like Steely Defense or Disciple of War.
Health: 300
Power: 1203
Critical: 520
Armor Pen: 649
Recovery: 366
Power: 1203
Critical: 520
Armor Pen: 649
Recovery: 366
Part 5: Abilities/Features.
Features: We will always have Weapon Master and Destroyer slotted as our features, the only exception to this is if you are kiting adds, which should be left to our more tanky brethren if given the choice, but if you are the only one available to do such a task you will need to slot Bravery.
Dailies: These choices are pretty straight forward Indomitable Strength is our best single target daily, and Spinning Strike turns you into a moving meat grinder, Avalanche of Steel is also a solid option but is much more situational as you can’t cast spells while you are channeling it.
Encounters: Punishing Charge is pretty much gonna be your best ability for keeping Avatar stacks up and is great as a pseudo dodge, Battle Fury is good on a few fights and Come and Get It can be useful if you have 0-1 CW in your party, other than that stick with PG.
Next we have Frontline Surge a fantastic AoE ability that let’s us control the battlefield, just be careful you don’t knock targets away from your teammates AoE abilities.
Finally Indomitable Battlestrike, a fantastic ability that works great in conjunction with Singularity from our CW brothers.
At-Wills: Wicked Strike is a very good AoE, it has a fast animation chains together very well and is very versatile, just be careful as it can cause some rubberbanding if you need to move during the animation.
Threatening Rush is our bread and butter ability, it has great damage can be animation canceled to speed it up and marks targets which interacts with Powerful Challenge wonderfully, you should always mark before using your Encounters it will substantially increase your damage, especially if you get good at abusing Combat Advantage with the mark.
Part 6: Boons.
Sharandar: Other than Dark Fey Hunter, Elven Ferocity, and Elven Resolve you are free to pick whatever you like, none of the other choices will matter much and are mostly preference.
Dread Ring: This tree is much more specific and you will want to follow it exactly, get Reliquary Keeper’s Strength, Evoker’s Thirst, Forbidden Piercing, Shadow Touch, and Endless Consumption which is incredibly powerful with decent LS, if your LS is very low Rampaging Madness is also good, but you will need to respec into Endless Consumption at some point if you take that route.
Icewind Dale: This tree is pretty much entirely preference, however like Sharandar there are a few that stand out from the rest Rapid Thaw is a great choice as it will scale with Disciple of War, Cool Resolve is the other choice that is going to be the better choice, other than that have fun.
Part 7: Pets (Optional).
Beyond just having an augment pet there are many pets with active bonuses that are very useful, this will be a short list of some of the better pets for a dps GWF.
-Dancing Blade: This pet give 3%/5% crit severity, it can be purchased from the AD trader and costs 750k AD.
-Fire Archon: This pet give 5% extra damage on targets below 30%, it can be gotten either through the Auction House or by trading in Tarmalune Trade Bars at the trader in Neverwinter for 1000 bars.
-Galeb Durr: Gives you 1% extra damage for every 10% of life you are missing, is gotten on the Auction House or from the Zen Market.
Post edited by shadowbox on
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Comments
I stopped using my points at lvl 39 (im 42) because i was afraid of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up my Paragon feats.
Can i recommend you to ScreenShot your "powers" page so people can compare.
But here are some recommendations.
Might Leap <Useful for getting to some places
Takedown <Good pvp skill
Bravery <Good for kiting
Restoring Strike <Used for solo content
I also learned ill have to kite those annoying adds, it may feel boring because i wont be doing much dmg, but its a reason to take a GWF on Dungeon runs.
Daria - Dwarf Sentinel GWF (mistaken for Halfling a lot)
Karia (aka "The Pug") - Human Combat HR
Kayd - Human Conqueror GF - Retired
You are correct, i will add that to my guide.
As far as powers: I loved mighty leap, especially in pvp, until punishing charge became available, and front line surge. People might not like PC, but as a encounter it is a great gap closer, an immediate animation, and you get so many charges that it is essentially an at-will. An aoe, gap closing at will that puts you in a short sprint regardless of your stamina. Not sure if it is a bug but this will also fairly reliably break many forms of cc. In boss fights, PC makes it not only really easy to kite the boss and ads but also functions as a dodge ability that is a lot more reliable and quicker than mighty leap. For some reason aoe seems to draw aggro like nothing else. So a front line surge followed by a punishing charge will almost always get the adds to stick to you like glue which only triggers a bunch of things including unstoppable, making your attackers easy prey for wicked/sure strike.
The only problem is fitting that in with frontline surge, take down and restoring strike. For now, for me, restoring strike loses out. That second cc (takedown) on top of pc is just too much to resist. In pve, knocking down prone a bunch of weak adds with a strong in the middle (who also gets knocked down), basting through them with pc and tapping takedown on the strong often wipes out a nice concentration of adds including the strong.
So with GWF Iron Vanguard Destroyer you have a really really sweet banquet of encounter powers to choose from, and I try to keep 1 mobility power (like pc or mighty leap), 1 aoe damage power (not so fast at lower levels and then frontline surge asap) and one heavy single target burst power (like knockdown or restoring strike).
Oh well, the two cents of a nub with a similar build. :P
Jugger Conq GF
....
I wonder if our talks recently may have anything to do with this!
Good job btw.. Quite close to my build.. Except a few small differences... And I'm working on some minor tweaks ATM too
As a feedback to improve this: Rec seems a bit too high(i would stop at 1150), def also seems a bit to high (would stop at 2k), HP way to low (you can get 1 shoted by alot of things at 20k hp) i dont like any gwf below 28k hp no matter the dmg, dead gwf does 0 dmg.
Also regarding races for example: dwarf racial traits are rly rly strong... reason why it isnt the first pick is cause they are not working atm, but you cant change the race so ...
Yeah i think you and Osiris ended up making me switch probably, i took ideas from all of our builds and threw them together and this is were i ended up.
You are right on a few points here and wrong in other areas, for starters i have had no survivability problems with this build yet, and my defense may seem high but it is a side effect of using Smiting Valiant gear, which is the highest power gear in the game for me, if i get a little extra defense from it then so be it, as it coverts to power anyway so it's far from a bad thing.
People can use less recovery if they like, personally i like having a good bit of it but that's more of a personal preference, in my opinion you need it fairly high because while stoppable is active the extra recovery will just stack with my feats, i can get a daily up in about 45 seconds or so in optimal conditions which is very good.
Last dwarf is a great race for GWF, but not for this build as they have no extra dps from racials, all of the races i list gain some kind of dps boost, as this build is for maximum damage, nothing less will do.
But like you said this build is not for everyone, it is fairly high skill cap and may be to squishy for GWF who aren't experienced, but if you are properly optimized and you know what attacks you can take and what you need to dodge you will be fine, and if not theres always soulforged to back you up
Honestly once you are capped on most stats i think Fallen Dragon is really good, just make sure you don't go under 3k crit if you are switching, Vicious Advantage is good if you run with CWs using steal time often and you can position yourself properly to gain the bonus, if not i could see Battle Awareness being a good option as well.
yeah... still i;m amazed that you are not dieing every fight
As more feedback:
Dex is providing 1.5-1.6 % dmg increase per point (with perfect vorpal) while str is giving you 1% and gives deflect 0.5% .
CON is providing ar pen as 1% dmg increase per point plus extra hp. CON also enables you to free enchants slots and add power instead of ar pen so while 1 point in str= 250 power (aprox) 1 point 1 CON= 300 power plus extra hp.
As your build goes Steely Defense provides around 4% dmg increase for 5 points, but at 22 CON- Constitution Focus provides you with and extra 2% dmg increase, something you may want to check.
Edit: forgot that deep gash is criting 100% (think is a bug) so crit % applies only to the rest of your dmg, for me being 70% so 1.05% extra per dex point, but i guess that depends on your logs and how much deep gash is % of your total dmg.
Well another reason for me going STR that may not apply to some people is stamina regen, i use a lot of stam just to reposition and for animation cancel, so the extra regen is keeping me moving, but for some people it may be better to go CON/DEX, maybe i will write a section for that at some point.
The other reason i like STR is because CON can cap, but STR can't, if i'm already ignoring 24% damage resistance then STR is offering 16% over that, while if i go con then i just have to pump power more, and % damage>Power imo since % is exponential, meaning the more my base damage is the more a % value will do for me.
For example let's say i have 22 CON i still need 1200 ArP to cap right?, so that's about 550 stats i can put in power, which is about 22 damage, would you rather have 22 damage or % damage? now obviously you are still getting HP but for straight damage i still think STR wins except against maybe DEX, but that's more of a flavor choice as you will lose % stamina regen which would suck.
ithat will go instead of student of the sword..
Except Student of the Sword offers bonus damage for your entire party, and you also lose Vicious Advantage which is what will put you over 50% crit, but if you wanna do that more power to ya.
wouldnt trample the fallen do more dmg on trash than weapon master, running with cw trash is ccd 95% of the time ?
about dailies - avalanche is situational but ffn great when chained to singularity, especially in VT (the place where a bunch of those black dog things attack, room of illusions, you can get almost every one, just after 1st boss)
also a personal preference of mine is using come and get it instead of frontline, but im using sure instead of TR, so having to move after FR or your dear CW knock mobs away is more annoying)
Trample the Fallen could maybe be a choice if you aren't running vorpal, and only for clearing trash, as most bosses cannot be controlled, also if you are running vorpal Weapon Master blows it out of the water, also Avalanche of Steel is a no go for me, it is one of the lowest dps dailies we have.
Come and Get it would actually replace Not so Fast if it stacked AoW but as of now it offers no stacks and so you will be losing dps from AoW falling all the time, otherwise it's a good ability just not for this build.
Likely, this build is generally fairly demanding on the personal skill side, i suggest going Sentinel hybrid dps as a first build, it is good for learning the ins and outs of the class.
avalanche is utility not dps, the long jump doesnt matter if u initiate with it, and cw are much happier since nobody is trying to jump out of singularity and bite their face off, our dailies do such a bad dmg that sacrificing it for more utility isnt that bad
and come and get it DOES proc AoW + Deep Gash
Firstly Come and Get it ONLY procs AoW if you have the feat to make it do damage, secondly Avalanche disables DPS for the entire duration, it's not just losing dps on the daily, it's losing several encounters and at-will uses, maybe for a more tanky spec those abilities are useful but are completely useless in mine.
and avalanche only as initiation, before combat starts, during combat ofc its a major dps loss unless you pull too much and save some lives/prevent wipe/resurrect somebody with it
Okay theres some weird buggy <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> going on with Come and Get it, i'm testing now.
Alright so i was testing on dummies, it seems Come and Get it can "crit" even without Intimidation and cause bleeds, those bleeds can then stack Madness and other on hit effects, gonna test more to see WTH is going on.
After more testing it seems Come and Get it CAN activate onslaught, but it doesn't always trigger, sometimes it just does nothing, other times it will cause bleeding, and sometimes it will stack onslaught, very strange stuff gonna mess around with it more cause this doesn't seem intended.
Full eldritch. Smiting Valiant ring/neck, and Icon of the Prophet Champion, though i may end up going for the Icon of the Fallen Dragon.
i think this is how game works, channeling part of Steal Time also procs all kinds of stuff, if u have some non-vorpal enchant that deals % of weapon dmg on hit u can test if it procs the damage
and in description it says "your encounter powers grant onslaught" not "dealing damage with encounter powers..."
and about procing deep gash - IBS mark part also can do it
Yeah that's interesting, never knew that any ability could "crit" on it's effects like that.