I am sorry to tell you my friend, but we as CWs know better than that.
No I've been playing this game for a year now. The CWF "meta" your talking about did not exist back then.
This has been a chronic issue with GFs since I've been in the game ALL the way back to the 8k Gear score range and has not changed.
This is not some "new" thing. This has been going on long before there were GWF/CW teams and GWF was considered subpar.
You are simply wrong. I can empathize with your bad past experience there are not many GFs in the game much less GFs that play well. I think youa re suffering from poor memory because at 8KGS GFs are much more useful. One of the reasons they have fallen out of favor is that the 'blow everything up' approach becomes possible with gear bloat.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
You are simply wrong. I can empathize with your bad past experience there are not many GFs in the game much less GFs that play well. I think youa re suffering from poor memory because at 8KGS GFs are much more useful. One of the reasons they have fallen out of favor is that the 'blow everything up' approach becomes possible with gear bloat.
Sorry but no...
Even back in that gear score range I can remember being wrecked repeatedly by mass mobs in certain dungeons where you're getting spammed like that.
The real reason GFs are useful in the lower tier dungeons is because you don't have 15+ mobs thrown at you, you're generally facing about 6, every now and then you end up with 8, but then the big stuff comes in the later tiers, and you're seeing that go to a 15+ mobs being thrown at you.
That is consistently where they start to lose it. It has nothing to do with gear score, you just want to tell yourself that OR that I was just consistently running into bad GFs for about a year.
There's a reason I've been preaching increasing the agro control for GFs. I have done everything I can to make things work with GFs for a long time.
You're fine so long as its only a few mobs. But they are thrown at us in armies the higher you go. That's where the entire system breaks down. YOU NEED to have agro control in 15+ mob situations, you do not.
So I am glad the Devs are finally addressing this.
Lets go over this. You play a CW. I happen to have both a GWF and a GF and have covered end game content with both of them. Which is to say I have (pulls out calculator) infinity times the experience in the classses we are discussing. GWf has more damage. Gf has better control. Would I like more control? Sure. Although more damage would acheive the same ends. I can in fact control well more than 6 adds with a GF. And yes more than you can with a GWF. I can, playing my HR, steal aggro from GWFs against delves where the GF can still hold them. If you are saying that GWFs polay especially well with CWs then we are agreeing. Honestly I think that is a huge design flaw.
(1) NW dungeons easy. Super easy and casual.
(2) When dungeons are easy, you don't need the "holy trinity of RPG".
(3) Hence, players flock to class composition that finishes the game as quickly as possible.
Originally, I suspect Cryptic made the dungeons easy and casual so players can use any class combinations to run through its content. Unfortunately, the players, with this given chance, simply chose to make a team of the game's hardest hitting AoE dealers so they can breeze through the dungeon as fast as possible.
Try running dungeons with all those CWs and GWFs when it is designed like this:
Try running this without TRs
■ numerous trap zones, random trap location
■ traps deal huge damage based on percentage of your health pool -- 80% of your HP
■ traps deal additional serious debuff effects -- poison, bleeds, AoE gas.. etc etc
■ traps trigger mob ambush
Try running this without HRs
■ mob ambushes from ledges/balconies
■ ledge/balconies with long, winding access that leaves you wide open + has traps of its own
■ mobs shoot arrows deadly in damage + debuffs, bleeds, poison, etc etc..
■ mobs with resistance to magic damage, resistance to AoE CCs
Try running this without GFs
■ "mage-killer" mobs, magic damage resistance, immune to CCs
■ multiple mage-killers spawn from ambush from behind, scripted specifically to go after CW/DC
■ also scripted to respond excellently to taunts, less to damage received
Basically, any dungeon design that can't be just chugged onward with only damage + CCs
...dungeons are too easy, and too simply designed. Needs to be harder, more dangerous, something that punishes an ill-balanced party that just stacks melee damage and CCs, but rewards "rainbow" parties.
Unless this is achieved, every class that is not a CW or a GWF (plus the heal-slave DC), is simply unwanted, second class in PvE.
Stop making excuses. Be a man. If you know something to be broken, stop using it. Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Lets go over this. You play a CW. I can in fact control well more than 6 adds with a GF. And yes more than you can with a GWF. I can, playing my HR, steal aggro from GWFs against delves where the GF can still hold them.....
....If you are saying that GWFs play especially well with CWs then we are agreeing. Honestly I think that is a huge design flaw.
In a nutshell yes... we do agree on that CW/GWF... Design flaw... hardly.... Some classes will naturally work better with other classes that's the fact of the matter. These two work well togather.
But that was never my point. The point was the real reason all these other classes have so much trouble depending on you is that you can't hold agro in mass mob situations.
We all know that because... well.... at least those of us who were there to remember when people took GFs in party... know you can't do a thing in a 15+ mob situation because you can't maintain agro there. And we were getting stomped.
So started going alternate routes. You talk until you're blue in the face about Speed Running and try to blame it on that.
BUT... at the end of the day you're still not going to be able to hold agro from ANY of us once you start taking on more than 8 Mobs... and that's all there is in the upper teir dungeons.
If you COULD, you'd still be leading the pack. That's why you have nearly every other class in the game saying the same things about you.
Oh my dear fellow GF, i'm so sorry, that nobody told you, before you have chosen your class, that we GFs are so weak in every aspect of the game, that starting now a GF is a big mistake.
I only hang on him, because he is an oldie, but if i were you, i wouldn't spend AD or money on him now. I don't say, you should delete the char, but put it on sideline, until- hopefully- someday Cryptic fixes him, but if not you won't have headaches like many us old GFs, who spent many hours, Ad or even money on a totally broken char.
Just to tell you, now that i have an alt too, i always have an ironic laugh (i'm actually sad), when i see a youngster GF, who comes into the game with high hopes and finds out, that he isn't wanted in 80% of the dungeons. Everytime someone makes a mistake, people tend to blame the poor GF, right on.
As GF you will have to spend more on health potions, pots and this comes from gold or Ad too, so your economics will suffer too.
If you like him a lot, than go on and play him, but it will be very hard, especially mentally, when in one night, you get kicked out of most teams or dungeons.
Good luck!
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
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Its fairly foolish to judge an entire class based solely on how it played up to level 9. That is honestly not even enough time to judge much of anything. You dont even have your "Tab" power at that level.
If you think harder, it's not foolish at all. A character's performance at the very beginning, with the initial skills, gives a very good idea what you can expect or not to expect from that character in the future. Why? Because at the beginning you have the basic build only - the default one, not the one you would build in a later stage. So, if you can't survive a battle with the basic build, then there's no point in wasting time on that character. All the games I've played so far (some of them hosted by PWE) work in the same principle and NWO D&D is no exclusion of that rule.
The presence of the tab skill is not important at all.
GFs are so weak in every aspect of the game, that starting now a GF is a big mistake.
That may be so in the epic dungeons which I haven't entered yet. But so far what I saw from the GF only proves the most of the job is done and my character does what it is supposed to - to defend himself and the others.
Yesterday I was invited (for unknown reasons) in a party to do a dungeon and when we entered some of them immediately started calling me names for choosing the GF class. Naturally, I got mad and remained at the entrance and told them I would wait there, do nothing and see how fast they'll return to the entry point where I was. They got killed just before the final boss. The guys who invited me said nothing after that but the others said they needed me and if I were there they would make it to the last boss and I was like "YOU need ME? The "almighty" GWFs and CWs need ME, the pointless GF?" after that I laughed at them and left the party leaving them 1 person short. I don't mind helping people but I do mind inviting me in a party and then starting to insult me. In any case I can reach level 60 (currently mid 58) on my own. I can do that without some morons pretending to be NW D&D gods and then come back turn tail asking for help.
Like I said earlier in this topic - I wouldn't replace it for anything. I don't care how long I'll have to wait until people realize the GF is not as useless as they think if he was built the proper way - I'll never delete him.
Because they're stupid. May be I should make a video of why the GF isn't as useless as the most people think. Altough I already saw what I needed - the few sane people in this topic who don't mind having a GF in their parties.
Where's one, there's more. Where are a few, there are many more.
As GF you will have to spend more on health potions
Again - that may be so in the epic dungeons which I haven't entered yet. But outside - in the normal world - that's not true at all. I have a cleric companion to heal after the battle is over and while in battle I never use more than 2 potions. I'm talking about battles against 10-15 of those... sub-boss types whose hp bar is divinded into 3 sections. Against lesser mobs I don't have to use potions at all.
If you like him a lot, than go on and play him, but it will be very hard, especially mentally, when in one night, you get kicked out of most teams or dungeons.
Don't worry, I'm a resourceful guy, I'll find a way to do what needs to be done.
In a nutshell yes... we do agree on that CW/GWF... Design flaw... hardly.... Some classes will naturally work better with other classes that's the fact of the matter. These two work well togather.
But that was never my point. The point was the real reason all these other classes have so much trouble depending on you is that you can't hold agro in mass mob situations.
We all know that because... well.... at least those of us who were there to remember when people took GFs in party... know you can't do a thing in a 15+ mob situation because you can't maintain agro there. And we were getting stomped.
So started going alternate routes. You talk until you're blue in the face about Speed Running and try to blame it on that.
BUT... at the end of the day you're still not going to be able to hold agro from ANY of us once you start taking on more than 8 Mobs... and that's all there is in the upper teir dungeons.
If you COULD, you'd still be leading the pack. That's why you have nearly every other class in the game saying the same things about you.
DEVS..... PLEASE GIVE GF more AGRO control.
No. It's a design flaw when you make a game with 6 classes and a party composed of 2 classes is not only viable but the easiest way to tackle a dungeon. It points to poor game ballance. In something like huge capital letters. If you can remember when GWFs were nigh useless than you can remember tackling dungeons without them. And I gaurantee you that my GF can comtrol more than a GWF. It cannot control more than 2 GWFs and 3 CWs working on combination. But nothing can.
I can tell you right now having worked with both GFs and GWFs... the GFs whatever it is they do... throws them halfway across the room. The GWFs only dump them on their butts.
AND yes the GWF version hits up to 5 targets, I do not know what this power is, but they use it repeatedly in the dungeons I've been in.
The CWs Singularity... the GWFs prone them right out of the gate and don't throw them far enough to be a problem, unlike the GFs I've worked with. Then the Steal Time and Shards comes in. Then more prones, slows and stuns from the GWFs.
That's the tactic and how it actually works and why the Pair is such a good team.
I can tell you right now, having experienced this from the CW side... because it directly has affected me nearly every time in GF groups. The GFs CAN hold agro... but only on a few mobs. Once you start getting mass spammed by mobs they get overloaded and cannot handle it anymore.
THATS what really happens. I know you WANT to be good at agro control, and ARE good at agro control on a few mobs... BUT once you get spammed you CANT handle them all. And I end up getting whammied as a mage. You can't protect me, and never could.
That is why I have been pushing for the mass mob agro control for some time for GFs. YES YOU DO NEED THIS. YOU CANT DO IT I know so from having worked with so many of you, this is your shortcoming in Agro Control.
Actually, I have 9 characters at level 60, with EVERY class. I play endgame content with them all, and my GF can hold over a dozen mobs on him. Actually, it's the dps shortcomings of the mages/rangers that cause my GF to fall by not burning down a mob fast enough.
As has already been stated, if the GF in your party is running bull's charge, they're doing it wrong. BUT slotting counterproductive encounters is NOT just a GF thing... GWFs roar, CWs icy storm daily, CWs repel in tab... Its a persons', not the classes fault for slotting the wrong encounter/daily.
And if Agro control is what you're after, GWF is actually worse in this aspect. They have limited, situational ways to keep mobs' attention. The ONLY reason a GWF would get picked over a GF is because of aoe dps. Like I said, GWFs versus GFs come down to "you can hold this longer, I can kill it faster".
Once again, played t2 and beyond dungeons on ALL my classes, and people want speed over an actual challenge... And the CWs crowd control, plus the GWFs aoe dps(not to mention the CWs own dps) makes the dungeons easy.
P.S. When I play my CW, I slot multiple(at least 3) cc encounters. Bad tanks cause overruns, but even a decent GF keeps nearly everything off my back. And even a few mobs should not be a problem for a CW.
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
If you think harder, it's not foolish at all. A character's performance at the very beginning, with the initial skills, gives a very good idea what you can expect or not to expect from that character in the future. Why? Because at the beginning you have the basic build only - the default one, not the one you would build in a later stage. So, if you can't survive a battle with the basic build, then there's no point in wasting time on that character. All the games I've played so far (some of them hosted by PWE) work in the same principle and NWO D&D is no exclusion of that rule.
The presence of the tab skill is not important at all.
I don't know about these other games but what you say is absolutely not true about NW (there's no O in it by the way.) You've leveled up almost to 60 with the class that has what is commonly thought of as the weakest tab skill. You've no idea what the other classes are capable of doing. Look at the threads on the forum complaining about Stealth and Unstoppable, the tab skills of the TR and GWF. Those abilities are what define the respective classes. To say they are not important is absurd.
Beyond the extremely incorrect comment about Tab, at low levels the GWF doesn't have access to either of the two AOE at-wills that make up majority of their damage, instead having to rely on the sub-par Reaping Strike. Likewise, their encounter power choices aren't the best in the world. If you judge what the class can do when they don't have the abilities and skills they use at level 60 (which is what the majority of the game consists of) then you honestly have no way of knowing what the class is capable of.
If you enjoy playing the GF, go with it. I will say this though, find a good guild that lets you play what you like. The queue isn't going to find you good parties the vast majority of the time and it's almost always going to put you in as a replacement in a failed party that doesn't want you. If you look for a party in the LFG channel, you'll get to experience nothing but endlessly kiting mobs in Frozen Heart and Spellplague. I don't say this to insult the class but those are the realities in this game if you don't find a good group of people to run with.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
You still fail to understand what I meant and it was that if the character keeps dying at the beginning, he will continue to die till the maximum level thus forcing you to spend a truck load of gold on potions and none of the skills you unlock will matter. Because you may have the strongest skills out there but if it takes just a single strike from a low level boss to reduce the character's hp in half, then this class is nothing else but useless, especially when you have to face much stronger bosses than the one I mentioned.
You still fail to understand what I meant and it was that if the character keeps dying at the beginning, he will continue to die till the maximum level thus forcing you to spend a truck load of gold on potions and none of the skills you unlock will matter. Because you may have the strongest skills out there but if it takes just a single strike from a low level boss to reduce the character's hp in half, then this class is nothing else but useless, especially when you have to face much stronger bosses than the one I mentioned.
GF needs way more pots than GWF.
I think I can stand with my GWF much longer time in the deep red than with my GF.
The issue in T1 (MD) and T2's is not the boss. It's the adds that kill the GF. The boss can be ignored more or less. Being surrounded by 10 Ice golems (CC imunce, AoE attacks) I very much prefer to go unstoppable than raise my shield, 2 golems destroy it, I swallow 4-5 golem AoEs with my health, but then it ends. Someone pick me up?
Where the GWF still is unstoppable, takes little damage and goes back to full health within a secoonds due to his AoE attack with life steal.
If you're facetanking everything at level 9 with a GWF, and dying, that's not because the class sucks, it's because you're facetanking everything at level 9.
The GF can facetank stuff at level 9, because he has a shield. What he doesn't have is ANY ability to get out of the way of red stuff, which EVERY OTHER CLASS DOES. So you should use that if you have it.
When a GWF unlocks unstoppable, on the other hand, it suddenly has access to one of the most insanely overpowered class abilities in the game, and you'll find yourself actively standing in red just to be able to pop it more often.
As for aggro control in general, people need to get out of the mindset of having "one dude hoover everything onto them and then stand there getting hit while everyone else burns stuff down".
Even enforced threat, a GF's best AoE taunt, is target capped (and short range). It's unrealistic to expect a GF (or indeed, any class) to be able to grab that much aggro and hold it, and if the GF could, that GF would die pretty quickly, because while shield block is great against single gigantic red hits, it folds like tissue if you get spammed by masses of tiny hits. Fighter's recovery and regen can only hold out for so long.
What a GF can do is grab and hold maybe 5-8 guys (and keep them facing away from the team, so offering continuous combat advantage), and constantly distract the others by tab and threatening rush marking so they can never orchestrate any form of coordinated attack. Dude runs off to whale on a CW? Tab mark, dude gets confused, dude pauses mid run, maybe eventually decides to run back to the GF, maybe continue onto the CW...but either way, that's a 2 or 3 second window of indecision in which ...the dude probably gets killed anyway.
And honestly, if the CWs can't handle (or, hey: control) a small amount of aggro, then really....they deserve to take a dirtnap. CWs are hilariously effortlessly easy to play compared with GFs.
A good GF can be a benefit to a party, but a bad one is usually a detriment. Conversely, a good CW can be an enormous benefit to a party, but...so can a bad one, because it's really difficult to NOT destroy everything as a CW.
And honestly, if the CWs can't handle (or, hey: control) a small amount of aggro, then really....they deserve to take a dirtnap. CWs are hilariously effortlessly easy to play compared with GFs.
A good GF can be a benefit to a party, but a bad one is usually a detriment. Conversely, a good CW can be an enormous benefit to a party, but...so can a bad one, because it's really difficult to NOT destroy everything as a CW.
With enough lifesteal my CW can facetank things that my GF can't... i've been doing dailies with both in Icewind Pass, and 3 yetis would rip my shield apart in seconds and play pinball with me, while my CW doesn't even need to move most of the time... that makes me sad
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Actually, I have 9 characters at level 60, with EVERY class. I play endgame content with them all, and my GF can hold over a dozen mobs on him. Actually, it's the dps shortcomings of the mages/rangers that cause my GF to fall by not burning down a mob fast enough.
Not from my view,
We've run CN with mages gathering up and dumping mobs on the GF with Singularity, and that lasts about as log as it takes for the mages to start nuking again. And then the agro control evaporates and pretty soon its back to just 3 mages nuking again.
I've run MC doing the same things with just the normal mobs getting there I still end up with mobs all over me and only about 6-8 left on the GF. This doesn't even take into account VT where its much worse.
Conversely I've run Spider Queen with two GWFs gathering up mobs and dumping them on them while they manage to keep the entire group there, and pummel the spider queen into nothing with two mages nuking the hell out of them on top of it and never drew any agro on us. Made the thing pretty easy.
The Bull Rush thing is only when I've attempted the same tactics with GFs that I saw the GWFs running and specifically asked the GFs to try knockdowns and stuns to see how it would work. While its possible he was doing it wrong. It STILL didn't achieve the same effect.
Its like watching a bunch of people that keep saying I can do it!! And they keep trying over and over and failing, but then tell themselves they're doing great anyway. While I admit, its a great attitude.... its still not working.
We've run CN with mages gathering up and dumping mobs on the GF with Singularity, and that lasts about as log as it takes for the mages to start nuking again. And then the agro control evaporates and pretty soon its back to just 3 mages nuking again.
I've run MC doing the same things with just the normal mobs getting there I still end up with mobs all over me and only about 6-8 left on the GF. This doesn't even take into account VT where its much worse.
Conversely I've run Spider Queen with two GWFs gathering up mobs and dumping them on them while they manage to keep the entire group there, and pummel the spider queen into nothing with two mages nuking the hell out of them on top of it and never drew any agro on us. Made the thing pretty easy.
The Bull Rush thing is only when I've attempted the same tactics with GFs that I saw the GWFs running and specifically asked the GFs to try knockdowns and stuns to see how it would work. While its possible he was doing it wrong. It STILL didn't achieve the same effect.
Its like watching a bunch of people that keep saying I can do it!! And they keep trying over and over and failing, but then tell themselves they're doing great anyway. While I admit, its a great attitude.... its still not working.
And other people WILL tell you different. The point of agro control is keeping the mobs on YOU. The GWF CAN NOT do that nearly as well as a GF can. What youre neglecting to mention is that the CW(s) using sing and other cc abilities is what keeps the mobs in line. Its the combo of aoe dps'ers that is keep them in line. Like has been said multiple times now, killing the enemies fast is considered a more viable tactic than keeping them in place longer.
If youre bringing up AGRO CONTROL, its GFs that are the best classes for just this. Youre mixing up agro control with crowd control. The ONLY reason those mobs aren't killing you is because theyre being burned fast with aoe dps. Now, try doing the same tactic WITHOUT running singularity, shard, steal time, icy terrain, etc. Those GWFs WILL NOT keep the mobs from picking you apart the second you put damage on them.
The thing is, they ARE doing their job. Its not a GFs fault that CWs and GWFs are picked due to their simplistic and easy design for easy moding any and all dungeons. You take away a CWs cc, and GWFs aoe dps, theyre nothing. Watch how hard even a t1 can be when the CW cant control anything, and the GWF lacks aoe dps.
And just because you have run into incidents of bad GFs, DOES NOT mean that everyone has. I can say I have run into some of the worst CWs in the game, and other people could too. CWs STILL pop up here and there who don't realize how useless running icy storm daily for his teammates.
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
If youre bringing up AGRO CONTROL, its GFs that are the best classes for just this. Youre mixing up agro control with crowd control. The ONLY reason those mobs aren't killing you is because theyre being burned fast with aoe dps. Now, try doing the same tactic WITHOUT running singularity, shard, steal time, icy terrain, etc. Those GWFs WILL NOT keep the mobs from picking you apart the second you put damage on them.
The thing is, they ARE doing their job. Its not a GFs fault that CWs and GWFs are picked due to their simplistic and easy design for easy moding any and all dungeons. You take away a CWs cc, and GWFs aoe dps, theyre nothing. Watch how hard even a t1 can be when the CW cant control anything, and the GWF lacks aoe dps.
what do you mean? are you talking about how the person im addressing is constantly mixing up the two?
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
I’ve been playing a pure tank GF since Beta and Neverwinter has not been kind to my class. Despite this I’ve left many a good impression, playing big brother to the other party members, and compliments to my timing or awareness after a dungeon are a frequent occurrence. And who else can say they beat the Malabog castle dragon in single combat? Obviously I haven’t met a GF in a dungeon environment (people barely want one, let alone two!) but I have heard awful tales. Morsitans is right. In fact I’d go further and say if you get a bad GF then you’re effectively down a party member.
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I’ve been playing a pure tank GF since Beta and Neverwinter has not been kind to my class. Despite this I’ve left many a good impression, playing big brother to the other party members, and compliments to my timing and awareness after a dungeon are a frequent occurrence. Who else can say they beat the Malabog castle dragon in single combat? Obviously I haven’t met a GF in a dungeon environment (people barely want one, let alone two!) but I have heard awful tales. Morsitans is right. In fact I’d go further and say if you get a bad GF then you’re effectively down a party member.
True. Im not saying that a bad GF doesn't ruin the dungeon experience. HOWEVER that's also true for the other classes as well. But played well, the GF is a boon to the party. Keeping mobs off peoples' back is their forte, and CWs only do it better through their crowd control and aoe dps. But that in and of itself is CROWD CONTROL, not AGRO CONTROL.
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
Aye, but he seems to be saying a bad GF is much more of a detriment to the party than a bad wizard or rogue, and I tend to agree. You can work around the latter to some degree.
A good GF works really well with a CW. Groups would rather just take the second CW though. Bleh.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
If youre bringing up AGRO CONTROL, its GFs that are the best classes for just this. Youre mixing up agro control with crowd control. The ONLY reason those mobs aren't killing you is because theyre being burned fast with aoe dps. Now, try doing the same tactic WITHOUT running singularity, shard, steal time, icy terrain, etc. Those GWFs WILL NOT keep the mobs from picking you apart the second you put damage on them.
My friend, that's like saying... Hey if you took away every other classes abilities and only left mine.... I'd BE GREAT and have agro control...
But it doesn't work that way and that's what I've been trying to tell you... there IS NO AGRO control past 8 mobs. So it become CC instead which is more effective.
Why... because you don't have enough AGRO control. If you did we wouldn't be in these shoes right now.
Aye, but he seems to be saying a bad GF is much more of a detriment to the party than a bad wizard or rogue, and I tend to agree. You can work around the latter to some degree.
A good GF works really well with a CW. Groups would rather just take the second CW though. Bleh.
In the end, a bad player that wont listen screws over the whole party too. I remember having problems with cloak tower and crag crypts in the past due to horrible players of ALL classes. Especially the CWs running "anti-cc"(icy storm daily, repel in tab, shield bursting).
And actually, due to dungeon design being made for aoe dps and crowd control, often times even GWFs and HRs are dumped for slotting more CWs. Watch the zone chat for guilds running 5 of 5 CW parties through endgame dungeons. Its made simple through their abilities.
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
My friend, that's like saying... Hey if you took away every other classes abilities and only left mine.... I'd BE GREAT and have agro control...
But it doesn't work that way and that's what I've been trying to tell you... there IS NO AGRO control past 8 mobs. So it become CC instead which is more effective.
Why... because you don't have enough AGRO control. If you did we wouldn't be in these shoes right now.
And more than 1 GF has already stated that they can hold and keep more mobs than youre saying... by almost twice as much, in fact.
But I know dungeons run more than this. ESPECIALLY in t2 dungeons... But that's a problem with dungeon design, not class design. Somebody already posted possible dungeon designs with keeping it fair for every class. Also, have you tried Frozen Heart? I dare a couple CWs try cc'ing the ice golem adds in those boss fights.
What it comes down to in this game, is that people prefer the fast chessy ways over the skillful or challenging ones. Why work hard when you can take the shortcut?
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
I know! people are already throwing fits because iron vanguard gwfs gives the gwf the best collection of prones and tankiness with top of the line aoe dps.
I hear "learn to play" all the time, but it seems to me that it should be defined as "my class is balanced, except when others beat it, then THAT class is OP"...
Aggro control beyond 8 monsters is clearly possible, if not laughably easy, in the right circumstances. The size of the mob train you can acquire in frozen heart, for instance...is substantially greater than "8". Tab tab tab, run in circles, profit.
But that's because nobody else on the team is actively smashing those monsters.
The problems arise when damage and taunts are competing for aggro: GFs simply can't hard taunt as many monsters in one single shot as a CW can annoy. Nor can they add enough damage to their taunts to hold the aggro for long (admittedly, they don't usually need to).
This means that doing it well (which is possible) is generally considerably harder than "enforced threat, shield up, go make a cup of tea", you have to constantly flit around tabbing outliers (that are hugely out of ET range but hugely within "all CW AoEs, ever" range), and remarking everything because marks vanish as soon as something hits you. Usually I end up with a loose ball of angry dudes with me threatening rushing around the middle maintaining marks and holding aggro. God knows how I'd do it as a swordmaster.
And this works (and don't forget, marks lower enemy defenses, and properly feated, lower monster damage to the rest of the party, too). It's just that it's almost always quicker and easier to either keep everything controlled via stuns/freezes/prones, or to just murder everything outright.
GFing is pretty unrewarding, overall. About the only people who compliment good tanks are people who've got tanks of their own, because they know how **** hard it is.
Aggro control beyond 8 monsters ...is substantially greater than "8". Tab tab tab, run in circles, profit.
Which is for many "tanking".
This is the terrible way of self humilitation a GF can to onto himself, or has to do to be accepted into a FH run.
It shows how "much" thought has gone into this dungeon (and most other dungeons after Idris, epics even more so).
Tanking != running around in circles, havig to be afraid that a single Ice Golem burst that hits you is certain death due to chain prones that follows.
No, this is just humiliation. Hi GFs! Hope you enjoy your stay!
You can tank in a tanky sense in ToS, and in Karru (if you really want to, I guess), and I rarely bother kiting in SP because it's more fun to run around bull charging gnothics into lava (one of the few good uses of bull charge).
But yeah, FH doesn't need to be kited, it simply is easy to kite and much much easier to finish if someone does. Which is, yes, a tad depressing.
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
But I know dungeons run more than this. ESPECIALLY in t2 dungeons... But that's a problem with dungeon design, not class design. Somebody already posted possible dungeon designs with keeping it fair for every class. Also, have you tried Frozen Heart? I dare a couple CWs try cc'ing the ice golem adds in those boss fights.
Well actually we do as CWs, we burn them all down.
Usually I run FH with a couple other mages and sometimes rangers... and if we can find a GWF we'll grab one, but generally do it without any melee at all. We were doing that back when I was still a 12k-13k gear score. Yes we can survive as mages without agro control, we've had to learn how to do it the entire game because you couldn't hold it once they started spamming us with mobs.
So we had to learn to survive without you.
I will agree with you on Dungeon Design. I have joined you on many occassions saying dungeon design was a major culprit to all this. Its all mass mobs the higher you go thrown at you in groups of 15+. Those only cater to certain classes. And being you cannot hold agro for longer than than a few second on anything past 8 mobs.
But the Devs are not changing this formula anytime soon. I just got spammed with 15+ mobs in Motherload just yesterday.
Ergo... the reason I'm pushing for more Agro control for GFs.
I do not believe you have it, and you won't convince me, I've seen the failures over and over again and done everything I can to aleviate them. And its not just one or two bad GFs..... either GFs all completely suck, or there's a serious shortcoming in the class and grabbing and holding agro larger than 8+ crowds.
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You are simply wrong. I can empathize with your bad past experience there are not many GFs in the game much less GFs that play well. I think youa re suffering from poor memory because at 8KGS GFs are much more useful. One of the reasons they have fallen out of favor is that the 'blow everything up' approach becomes possible with gear bloat.
Sorry but no...
Even back in that gear score range I can remember being wrecked repeatedly by mass mobs in certain dungeons where you're getting spammed like that.
The real reason GFs are useful in the lower tier dungeons is because you don't have 15+ mobs thrown at you, you're generally facing about 6, every now and then you end up with 8, but then the big stuff comes in the later tiers, and you're seeing that go to a 15+ mobs being thrown at you.
That is consistently where they start to lose it. It has nothing to do with gear score, you just want to tell yourself that OR that I was just consistently running into bad GFs for about a year.
There's a reason I've been preaching increasing the agro control for GFs. I have done everything I can to make things work with GFs for a long time.
You're fine so long as its only a few mobs. But they are thrown at us in armies the higher you go. That's where the entire system breaks down. YOU NEED to have agro control in 15+ mob situations, you do not.
So I am glad the Devs are finally addressing this.
Originally, I suspect Cryptic made the dungeons easy and casual so players can use any class combinations to run through its content. Unfortunately, the players, with this given chance, simply chose to make a team of the game's hardest hitting AoE dealers so they can breeze through the dungeon as fast as possible.
Efficiency will kill variety, always -- unless variety itself becomes efficiency.
Try running dungeons with all those CWs and GWFs when it is designed like this:
...dungeons are too easy, and too simply designed. Needs to be harder, more dangerous, something that punishes an ill-balanced party that just stacks melee damage and CCs, but rewards "rainbow" parties.
Unless this is achieved, every class that is not a CW or a GWF (plus the heal-slave DC), is simply unwanted, second class in PvE.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
In a nutshell yes... we do agree on that CW/GWF... Design flaw... hardly.... Some classes will naturally work better with other classes that's the fact of the matter. These two work well togather.
But that was never my point. The point was the real reason all these other classes have so much trouble depending on you is that you can't hold agro in mass mob situations.
We all know that because... well.... at least those of us who were there to remember when people took GFs in party... know you can't do a thing in a 15+ mob situation because you can't maintain agro there. And we were getting stomped.
So started going alternate routes. You talk until you're blue in the face about Speed Running and try to blame it on that.
BUT... at the end of the day you're still not going to be able to hold agro from ANY of us once you start taking on more than 8 Mobs... and that's all there is in the upper teir dungeons.
If you COULD, you'd still be leading the pack. That's why you have nearly every other class in the game saying the same things about you.
DEVS..... PLEASE GIVE GF more AGRO control.
Oh my dear fellow GF, i'm so sorry, that nobody told you, before you have chosen your class, that we GFs are so weak in every aspect of the game, that starting now a GF is a big mistake.
I only hang on him, because he is an oldie, but if i were you, i wouldn't spend AD or money on him now. I don't say, you should delete the char, but put it on sideline, until- hopefully- someday Cryptic fixes him, but if not you won't have headaches like many us old GFs, who spent many hours, Ad or even money on a totally broken char.
Just to tell you, now that i have an alt too, i always have an ironic laugh (i'm actually sad), when i see a youngster GF, who comes into the game with high hopes and finds out, that he isn't wanted in 80% of the dungeons. Everytime someone makes a mistake, people tend to blame the poor GF, right on.
As GF you will have to spend more on health potions, pots and this comes from gold or Ad too, so your economics will suffer too.
If you like him a lot, than go on and play him, but it will be very hard, especially mentally, when in one night, you get kicked out of most teams or dungeons.
Good luck!
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
The presence of the tab skill is not important at all.
That may be so in the epic dungeons which I haven't entered yet. But so far what I saw from the GF only proves the most of the job is done and my character does what it is supposed to - to defend himself and the others.
Yesterday I was invited (for unknown reasons) in a party to do a dungeon and when we entered some of them immediately started calling me names for choosing the GF class. Naturally, I got mad and remained at the entrance and told them I would wait there, do nothing and see how fast they'll return to the entry point where I was. They got killed just before the final boss. The guys who invited me said nothing after that but the others said they needed me and if I were there they would make it to the last boss and I was like "YOU need ME? The "almighty" GWFs and CWs need ME, the pointless GF?" after that I laughed at them and left the party leaving them 1 person short. I don't mind helping people but I do mind inviting me in a party and then starting to insult me. In any case I can reach level 60 (currently mid 58) on my own. I can do that without some morons pretending to be NW D&D gods and then come back turn tail asking for help.
Like I said earlier in this topic - I wouldn't replace it for anything. I don't care how long I'll have to wait until people realize the GF is not as useless as they think if he was built the proper way - I'll never delete him.
Because they're stupid. May be I should make a video of why the GF isn't as useless as the most people think. Altough I already saw what I needed - the few sane people in this topic who don't mind having a GF in their parties.
Where's one, there's more. Where are a few, there are many more.
Again - that may be so in the epic dungeons which I haven't entered yet. But outside - in the normal world - that's not true at all. I have a cleric companion to heal after the battle is over and while in battle I never use more than 2 potions. I'm talking about battles against 10-15 of those... sub-boss types whose hp bar is divinded into 3 sections. Against lesser mobs I don't have to use potions at all.
Don't worry, I'm a resourceful guy, I'll find a way to do what needs to be done.
No. It's a design flaw when you make a game with 6 classes and a party composed of 2 classes is not only viable but the easiest way to tackle a dungeon. It points to poor game ballance. In something like huge capital letters. If you can remember when GWFs were nigh useless than you can remember tackling dungeons without them. And I gaurantee you that my GF can comtrol more than a GWF. It cannot control more than 2 GWFs and 3 CWs working on combination. But nothing can.
Actually, I have 9 characters at level 60, with EVERY class. I play endgame content with them all, and my GF can hold over a dozen mobs on him. Actually, it's the dps shortcomings of the mages/rangers that cause my GF to fall by not burning down a mob fast enough.
As has already been stated, if the GF in your party is running bull's charge, they're doing it wrong. BUT slotting counterproductive encounters is NOT just a GF thing... GWFs roar, CWs icy storm daily, CWs repel in tab... Its a persons', not the classes fault for slotting the wrong encounter/daily.
And if Agro control is what you're after, GWF is actually worse in this aspect. They have limited, situational ways to keep mobs' attention. The ONLY reason a GWF would get picked over a GF is because of aoe dps. Like I said, GWFs versus GFs come down to "you can hold this longer, I can kill it faster".
Once again, played t2 and beyond dungeons on ALL my classes, and people want speed over an actual challenge... And the CWs crowd control, plus the GWFs aoe dps(not to mention the CWs own dps) makes the dungeons easy.
P.S. When I play my CW, I slot multiple(at least 3) cc encounters. Bad tanks cause overruns, but even a decent GF keeps nearly everything off my back. And even a few mobs should not be a problem for a CW.
Beyond the extremely incorrect comment about Tab, at low levels the GWF doesn't have access to either of the two AOE at-wills that make up majority of their damage, instead having to rely on the sub-par Reaping Strike. Likewise, their encounter power choices aren't the best in the world. If you judge what the class can do when they don't have the abilities and skills they use at level 60 (which is what the majority of the game consists of) then you honestly have no way of knowing what the class is capable of.
If you enjoy playing the GF, go with it. I will say this though, find a good guild that lets you play what you like. The queue isn't going to find you good parties the vast majority of the time and it's almost always going to put you in as a replacement in a failed party that doesn't want you. If you look for a party in the LFG channel, you'll get to experience nothing but endlessly kiting mobs in Frozen Heart and Spellplague. I don't say this to insult the class but those are the realities in this game if you don't find a good group of people to run with.
I think I can stand with my GWF much longer time in the deep red than with my GF.
The issue in T1 (MD) and T2's is not the boss. It's the adds that kill the GF. The boss can be ignored more or less. Being surrounded by 10 Ice golems (CC imunce, AoE attacks) I very much prefer to go unstoppable than raise my shield, 2 golems destroy it, I swallow 4-5 golem AoEs with my health, but then it ends. Someone pick me up?
Where the GWF still is unstoppable, takes little damage and goes back to full health within a secoonds due to his AoE attack with life steal.
The GF can facetank stuff at level 9, because he has a shield. What he doesn't have is ANY ability to get out of the way of red stuff, which EVERY OTHER CLASS DOES. So you should use that if you have it.
When a GWF unlocks unstoppable, on the other hand, it suddenly has access to one of the most insanely overpowered class abilities in the game, and you'll find yourself actively standing in red just to be able to pop it more often.
As for aggro control in general, people need to get out of the mindset of having "one dude hoover everything onto them and then stand there getting hit while everyone else burns stuff down".
Even enforced threat, a GF's best AoE taunt, is target capped (and short range). It's unrealistic to expect a GF (or indeed, any class) to be able to grab that much aggro and hold it, and if the GF could, that GF would die pretty quickly, because while shield block is great against single gigantic red hits, it folds like tissue if you get spammed by masses of tiny hits. Fighter's recovery and regen can only hold out for so long.
What a GF can do is grab and hold maybe 5-8 guys (and keep them facing away from the team, so offering continuous combat advantage), and constantly distract the others by tab and threatening rush marking so they can never orchestrate any form of coordinated attack. Dude runs off to whale on a CW? Tab mark, dude gets confused, dude pauses mid run, maybe eventually decides to run back to the GF, maybe continue onto the CW...but either way, that's a 2 or 3 second window of indecision in which ...the dude probably gets killed anyway.
And honestly, if the CWs can't handle (or, hey: control) a small amount of aggro, then really....they deserve to take a dirtnap. CWs are hilariously effortlessly easy to play compared with GFs.
A good GF can be a benefit to a party, but a bad one is usually a detriment. Conversely, a good CW can be an enormous benefit to a party, but...so can a bad one, because it's really difficult to NOT destroy everything as a CW.
With enough lifesteal my CW can facetank things that my GF can't... i've been doing dailies with both in Icewind Pass, and 3 yetis would rip my shield apart in seconds and play pinball with me, while my CW doesn't even need to move most of the time... that makes me sad
Not from my view,
We've run CN with mages gathering up and dumping mobs on the GF with Singularity, and that lasts about as log as it takes for the mages to start nuking again. And then the agro control evaporates and pretty soon its back to just 3 mages nuking again.
I've run MC doing the same things with just the normal mobs getting there I still end up with mobs all over me and only about 6-8 left on the GF. This doesn't even take into account VT where its much worse.
Conversely I've run Spider Queen with two GWFs gathering up mobs and dumping them on them while they manage to keep the entire group there, and pummel the spider queen into nothing with two mages nuking the hell out of them on top of it and never drew any agro on us. Made the thing pretty easy.
The Bull Rush thing is only when I've attempted the same tactics with GFs that I saw the GWFs running and specifically asked the GFs to try knockdowns and stuns to see how it would work. While its possible he was doing it wrong. It STILL didn't achieve the same effect.
Its like watching a bunch of people that keep saying I can do it!! And they keep trying over and over and failing, but then tell themselves they're doing great anyway. While I admit, its a great attitude.... its still not working.
And other people WILL tell you different. The point of agro control is keeping the mobs on YOU. The GWF CAN NOT do that nearly as well as a GF can. What youre neglecting to mention is that the CW(s) using sing and other cc abilities is what keeps the mobs in line. Its the combo of aoe dps'ers that is keep them in line. Like has been said multiple times now, killing the enemies fast is considered a more viable tactic than keeping them in place longer.
If youre bringing up AGRO CONTROL, its GFs that are the best classes for just this. Youre mixing up agro control with crowd control. The ONLY reason those mobs aren't killing you is because theyre being burned fast with aoe dps. Now, try doing the same tactic WITHOUT running singularity, shard, steal time, icy terrain, etc. Those GWFs WILL NOT keep the mobs from picking you apart the second you put damage on them.
The thing is, they ARE doing their job. Its not a GFs fault that CWs and GWFs are picked due to their simplistic and easy design for easy moding any and all dungeons. You take away a CWs cc, and GWFs aoe dps, theyre nothing. Watch how hard even a t1 can be when the CW cant control anything, and the GWF lacks aoe dps.
And just because you have run into incidents of bad GFs, DOES NOT mean that everyone has. I can say I have run into some of the worst CWs in the game, and other people could too. CWs STILL pop up here and there who don't realize how useless running icy storm daily for his teammates.
Wow, which game are you talking about, precisely?
what do you mean? are you talking about how the person im addressing is constantly mixing up the two?
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
True. Im not saying that a bad GF doesn't ruin the dungeon experience. HOWEVER that's also true for the other classes as well. But played well, the GF is a boon to the party. Keeping mobs off peoples' back is their forte, and CWs only do it better through their crowd control and aoe dps. But that in and of itself is CROWD CONTROL, not AGRO CONTROL.
A good GF works really well with a CW. Groups would rather just take the second CW though. Bleh.
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
My friend, that's like saying... Hey if you took away every other classes abilities and only left mine.... I'd BE GREAT and have agro control...
But it doesn't work that way and that's what I've been trying to tell you... there IS NO AGRO control past 8 mobs. So it become CC instead which is more effective.
Why... because you don't have enough AGRO control. If you did we wouldn't be in these shoes right now.
In the end, a bad player that wont listen screws over the whole party too. I remember having problems with cloak tower and crag crypts in the past due to horrible players of ALL classes. Especially the CWs running "anti-cc"(icy storm daily, repel in tab, shield bursting).
And actually, due to dungeon design being made for aoe dps and crowd control, often times even GWFs and HRs are dumped for slotting more CWs. Watch the zone chat for guilds running 5 of 5 CW parties through endgame dungeons. Its made simple through their abilities.
And more than 1 GF has already stated that they can hold and keep more mobs than youre saying... by almost twice as much, in fact.
But I know dungeons run more than this. ESPECIALLY in t2 dungeons... But that's a problem with dungeon design, not class design. Somebody already posted possible dungeon designs with keeping it fair for every class. Also, have you tried Frozen Heart? I dare a couple CWs try cc'ing the ice golem adds in those boss fights.
What it comes down to in this game, is that people prefer the fast chessy ways over the skillful or challenging ones. Why work hard when you can take the shortcut?
Overpowered 60 CW ~ Thaumaturge 14.5k
==========================================
~ GF Buffs were great we are much better, please fix the bugs now... Thank you!
I know! people are already throwing fits because iron vanguard gwfs gives the gwf the best collection of prones and tankiness with top of the line aoe dps.
But that's because nobody else on the team is actively smashing those monsters.
The problems arise when damage and taunts are competing for aggro: GFs simply can't hard taunt as many monsters in one single shot as a CW can annoy. Nor can they add enough damage to their taunts to hold the aggro for long (admittedly, they don't usually need to).
This means that doing it well (which is possible) is generally considerably harder than "enforced threat, shield up, go make a cup of tea", you have to constantly flit around tabbing outliers (that are hugely out of ET range but hugely within "all CW AoEs, ever" range), and remarking everything because marks vanish as soon as something hits you. Usually I end up with a loose ball of angry dudes with me threatening rushing around the middle maintaining marks and holding aggro. God knows how I'd do it as a swordmaster.
And this works (and don't forget, marks lower enemy defenses, and properly feated, lower monster damage to the rest of the party, too). It's just that it's almost always quicker and easier to either keep everything controlled via stuns/freezes/prones, or to just murder everything outright.
GFing is pretty unrewarding, overall. About the only people who compliment good tanks are people who've got tanks of their own, because they know how **** hard it is.
This is the terrible way of self humilitation a GF can to onto himself, or has to do to be accepted into a FH run.
It shows how "much" thought has gone into this dungeon (and most other dungeons after Idris, epics even more so).
Tanking != running around in circles, havig to be afraid that a single Ice Golem burst that hits you is certain death due to chain prones that follows.
No, this is just humiliation. Hi GFs! Hope you enjoy your stay!
But yeah, FH doesn't need to be kited, it simply is easy to kite and much much easier to finish if someone does. Which is, yes, a tad depressing.
Well actually we do as CWs, we burn them all down.
Usually I run FH with a couple other mages and sometimes rangers... and if we can find a GWF we'll grab one, but generally do it without any melee at all. We were doing that back when I was still a 12k-13k gear score. Yes we can survive as mages without agro control, we've had to learn how to do it the entire game because you couldn't hold it once they started spamming us with mobs.
So we had to learn to survive without you.
I will agree with you on Dungeon Design. I have joined you on many occassions saying dungeon design was a major culprit to all this. Its all mass mobs the higher you go thrown at you in groups of 15+. Those only cater to certain classes. And being you cannot hold agro for longer than than a few second on anything past 8 mobs.
But the Devs are not changing this formula anytime soon. I just got spammed with 15+ mobs in Motherload just yesterday.
Ergo... the reason I'm pushing for more Agro control for GFs.
I do not believe you have it, and you won't convince me, I've seen the failures over and over again and done everything I can to aleviate them. And its not just one or two bad GFs..... either GFs all completely suck, or there's a serious shortcoming in the class and grabbing and holding agro larger than 8+ crowds.