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GF for beginners (Leveling up in PvE)
shadevp
Member Posts: 234 Arc User
I would greatly appreciate if some experienced players could help with the most efficient build for leveling up a GF.
Purely PvE to go though experience granting quests easier.
I've already acquired Mulhorand gear not to worry about changing the weapon set every 2 levels but at a loss about the choice of powers and fits.
Thank you in advance
Purely PvE to go though experience granting quests easier.
I've already acquired Mulhorand gear not to worry about changing the weapon set every 2 levels but at a loss about the choice of powers and fits.
Thank you in advance
Post edited by shadevp on
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http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?437341-Community-Class-Guides-Builds-and-Resources
http://mmominds.com/
I have already been there.
Just hoped for a quick response. Nothing too sophisticated. Just good advice how to rush through levels with lesser pain.
I personally thought over the following variant (for mostly solo dps):
Swordmaster
At-will: Cleave/WMS
Encounters: Lunging Strike/Griffon's Wrath/Flourish (and later Griffon's replaced by Bull Charge)
Passives: Shield Talent and Combat Superiority
Would be glad if you explain where I am awfully wrong
At-Wills: Cleave/TR (ToI for boss fights)
Encounters: Lunging Strike/Griffon's Wrath (EF for AoE)/FS and later Bull Charge
Passives: Combat Superiority and Trample
This variant will have worse 1-target damage but will be more tough and may produce good enough overall damage to squeeze through levels.
Would appreciate just the opinion of experienced players what variant is more efficient for getting to lvl 60.
I usually go for frontline surge, lunging and enforced threat, just because AoE is the best.
Also, this game doesn't really need "purely levelling builds": levelling is stupidly fast, and usually incredibly easy, so just build for endgame.
Thanks for the insight. I though it was smth like the GWF's IBS (hardest 1-target encounter).
Again thank you. Is the Enforced Threat damage good enough? Judging by its description I though it is used purely to build threat (and regain guard meter) what in case of solo leveling is not what we'd want/
The point is that i don't really need the endgame build (not right now at least);I want to rush to 60 in the quickest and least irritating manner. I just need my 2nd 60 character to get the Sigil for my 1st one (and I happen to have a 25lv GF with cheap Mulrorand set on it to do the job). I know that's embarrassing, but this is how it is
In both Paths - Swordmaster and Iron Vanguard - I'd avoid points in Ubiquitous Shield.
In your Iron Vanguard path I'd take 5 points out of Shield Defense (Protector tree) and rather put 5 points into Crushing Pin (Tactician tree). Also, if you have no interest in PVP you may get better value out of Wrathful Warrior than you do Reinforced Surge. Then slot 1 point in as many feats that give you temporary hitpoints as possible to maximise the boost in damage.
In terms of your powers, you only need 1 point in Combat Superiority for both paragons. If you are putting 5 points into the Tactical Superiority feat you already get permanent up time on combat advantage the minute you hit an opponent, so 1 in Combat Superiority is enough.
My personal preference is Iron Vanguard because it is the superior AOE path. Granted I am a T2 geared GF, but I cannot overlook the superior ability when dealing with mobs and throughout the game, from leveling to grinding, you will be dealing with mobs.
If I were to recommend (non-PVP)-
IV - http://nwcalc.com/gf?b=pa7:27bmww:20do74,1fi356i:1pu551:150000:150000&h=0&p=ivn
At-wills: Cleave + Threatening Rush (I feel this helps you move faster as well and can help ping-pong between mobs while still doing damage when Lunging Strike is on cooldown)
Encounters: Lunging Strike (should never leave your bar), Enforced Threat (AOE damage) + Frontline Surge. Swap Enforced Threat for Griffon's Wrath or Anvil of Doom when you have to deal with a single opponent.
Passives: Combat Superiority + Trample the Fallen
Dailies: Villain's Menace + Fighter's Recovery (Just in case you run into trouble health wise). Indomitable Strike in place of Fighter's if you are confident.
Swordmaster -
At-Wills: Cleave + Weapon Master's Strike
Encounters: Lunging Strike + Enforced Threat (Swapped for Griffon's or Anvil for single-target) + Flourish
Passives: Combat Superiority + Steel Defense (I feel Steel Blitz won't work efficiently with a Swordmaster GF because of your limited ability to hit multiple targets and Steel Grace looks like a PVP passive)
Dailies: Villain's Menace + Fighter's Recovery. Crescendo in place of Fighter's if you are confident.
A passive like Shield Talent is best in PVP. Likewise Guarded Assault. The Enhanced Mark passive is an utter waste while leveling and it doesn't even help much in a dungeon run.
Well, those are my opinions. Hope they help.
Is Enforced Threat good? Yes. It deals AOE damage. Frontline + Enforced Threat = a bunch of people getting hit at once. Barring they are close together.
Well that changes it all. Hah, and I tried to provide as much insight as possible.
Fast leveling? Iron Vanguard + AOE's beats Swordmaster hands down.
TY, I buy it
Thanks a lot! Sorry if you feel you lost your efforts on [strike]a lame aim like this[/strike] in vain. But it's not so as other people will no doubt benefit from your advice. If it's OK I have a couple of ?? to you regarding your upper post:
Why though? The point was to reduce the incoming damage from multiple mobs when surrounded (what is going to happen almost all the time with a melee class).
Yes, I agree that from the point of damage the Crushing Pin looks better (for IV as it has a number of controlling skills). Thank you for mentioning this.
But does Wrathful Warrior work really well? I mean if I solo where do I get temporary HP (Take Measure is only once per 50 secs and Grit... does it work with a companion healing you?). When investing in Reinforced Surge I thought about longer period of actual controlling and consequently more benefit from Trample (it's the same 15% but solidly guaranteed through control instead of luck procs of temporary HP)...
That is perfectly true. Again thank you for pointing this out. (not that there's a lack of powers but at the mid-stage it's useful to spare 2 points
Thanks a lot for your advice and response. Glad that smb finally had a pity on my fruitless attempts and that I haven't yet specked the spare points
This is what Ive been doing for solo PVE - swap GW for KC and Flourish for FLS ( in PVE its better to hit more with 1 attack plus its a prone). Passives can remain but solo I use Trample + CS. Tide of Iron for me is better than WMS as it both refills Guard and greatly debuffs the target's damage mitigation ( yes I know WMS can aoe buff both at-wills and encounters ) Dont go crazy for defence, grab ArmPen. With that setup Sharandar and DR campaigns are a breeze. Also Fight On! GFs dont have reliable crits so Encounter and Daily spam is the way to go imo. So in short - an IV Conq.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Emm... If you are commenting on the SM variant (judging by your words about WMS) then how does Trample gets in here? And what is FLS (if it's Frontline Surge then it's IV as well)? Anyway, as I see it (thanks to TheStaggy), IV will fit my demand better that SM after all.
For me the most common set up is:
At-will - <your choice>, Threatening Rush
Threatening Rush is the only thing that keeps me off Swordmaster. To me TR is the point of Iron Vanguard. TR just has the most utility out of every at-will. I believe threatening Rush also applies daunting challenge from the Tactician splash. The <your choice> is because I rotate between other things. I am not convinced of Cleave's dominance. The shift+left click stab at-will does AE too, it is just smaller. Most solo encounters you can manipulate everything into shift+left click AE at-will, and when push Protector you pick up +15% bonus damage to that attack. For groups I am not sure I care about Cleave. In groups I usually would rather just debuff resistance with Tide of Iron and suck up the smaller AE of shift +left click. The result is I swap that second at-will a lot depending on my mood or perception.
Daily -- Villian's Menace, Fighter's Recovery.
These two give you a particularly dynamic combo for PvE, and that is why you see the pair often repeated on the forums. I put FR on mouse wheel down, and that only happened with IWD. I learned to be slightly better than I was before in IWD. Soloing heroics in IWD made me appreciate the value of a twitchy FR. If you learn to combo your encounters with FR you can fill your entire HP bar. On the flip side, Villian's Menance immunity to CC and all around awesomeness makes it a very nice daily when you don't need to FR, and we don't have many dominating choices for PvE (no singularities sorry).
Encounters -- <your choice>, Enforced Threat, Lunging Strike.
Of the two I have spelled out for you: Enforced Threat is best in slot for encounters... period. End of note. Lunging Strike is pretty much second runner up, since they made it splash damage and agro in a cone. After that for the 3rd encounter it becomes less clear, and more situational. I rotate that 3rd a lot. I would say the big 3 that make it to that 3rd slot for me are:
Into the Fray, Iron Warrior, and Frontline surge. Those 3 all can be very strong, and pretty much better than alternatives depending on the scenario. I do think Anvil of Doom and Knight's Challenge are interesting, but in scenarios where I am thinking about them I like Frontline Surge, but they are not bad. I think anvil and KC are good if you are willing to toss off something else to keep Frontline Surge , but not as a 3rd choice with Enforced threat and Lunging Strike, and I am not willing to do that.
Passive -- There are about 5 that make sense to pair up in groups of 2 depending on the scenario, but I use Enhanced Mark more often than not when grouped (another interacting with Threatening Rush). For soloing, stacking Combat Superiority and Trample the Fallen makes a lot of sense.
That is how I roll. Bounce around with Lunging Strike and Threatening Rush. Spamming Enforced threat when it is on cool down. As for leveling, a lot of these come early in the tree, so that is nice. Your two most important dailies and two of your most important encounters come right away.
I feel the spare points are better spent in increasing AP gain and/or maximising feats that proc Wrathful Warrior. Also, you should be able to keep most of the fight in front of you. When I play my GF I am constantly repositioning myself to maximise my damage. With that in mind I prefer more AP and more damage output over slightly less incoming damage. The faster things die the less health you lose.
I advised that while still under the impression that you were looking for a long-term build, but you are correct, for your needs Reinforced Surge + Crushing Pin + Trample the Fallen would be a better option.
My advise is to pick a theme and stick with the theme, and by doing so maybe all the little things add up.
I will tell you that my experience with most non-named encounters is that the every X second skills do more than they first appear because its the first few seconds that are the hard part of any big pull. After everyone fires off AEs and stuff starts dieing it gets easier, and then it doesn't really matter what you got going for defense.
My GF started his climbing to 60 and, hopefully, it won't take too long and be too painful.
Im fairly certain a rotation of LS, KC and FLS will be much faster in killing solo PvE along with Cleave/Tide of iron + CombatSup/Trample. The speed I plough thru Sharandar/DR and even ICD with can be compared to my GWF who is much stronger than my GF.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
KC? Knight's Captain? Interesting in terms of clearing trash when grinding.
I can one-shot a mob of Powries with Enforced Threat, and if I do not I then just ping them with Threatening Rush and they'll be dead. I'll just about kill a trio of Servitors with it as well. I've also had it crit hit multiple targets in the region of 6k.
I'm also having a hard time seeing Tide of Iron speeding you up when compared to TR. One bonus with TR is that when Lunging is on cooldown I can quite easily disengage and get to a Powrie/Witherer before it saps me/heals the Troll/Cyclops.
KC might have value in IWD and I will actually try that, but currently I slot Anvil over Enforced Threat when in IWD.
KC as in Knight's Challenge, I've become quite fond of it as I love 1-2 shotting Cyclops or even Fomorian Warriors
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
That was stupid of me. I meant Knight's Challenge. Sorry.
I'll give that one a shot then on the bigger ones. Do you use KC against the Bears and Yetis in IWD? They are a lot tougher than anything Sharandar offers.
I haven't run Tide of Iron for months now, so I doubt I could adjust to the lack of mobility.
I do go to IWD with the same setup ( except I may swap Trample the Fallen for Shield Talent ). This works great for most of the mobs but the big CC immune bears can take me to half HP if im not careful while KC is in effect. My main problem in IWD as a GF is the zerg. Most evident in the Totem heroics. A certain critter there does this crazy red aoe that destroys my guard and if FLS is on cooldown I gotta run or die. This shows the biggest gap between my GWF and my GF - how each performs while surrounded by alot of enemies. While the GWF thrives in that situation the GF starts to crack ( keep in mind this is an offensive GF not a full on tank )
I have to add that my playstyle as a GF is truly reckless ( ~9000K power, ~2500 crit, ~2000 ArmP/Rec, 4000 Defence, ~1700 Deflect and around 8% regen). Also I should mention I run with a full Profound Conq set all the time, if I was to use Timeless in PVE I think Id perform much better. I have massive single target burst, I can go as far as to say its more reliable single target burst than my GWF but I feel the weakness in the aoe department (in IWD ).
PS: In PVP I regard the GF as a sniper, he takes careful aim, he marks and he shoots. If I dont get interrupted by another player while doing this my target gets wrecked
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
My stats are pretty much in line with yours, except that I am even softer. ~9k power, 1600 crit, ~2200 Arpen/Rec, 3500 defence, 1600 deflec. I can smash through Dread Ring and Sharandar like nobody's business, but come IWD, I will die if I play the same way.
I avoid the Totem's like the plague if I am by myself. Even the mini Bear Tribe encounter can hurt me and I have to pop Fighter's Recovery to stay alive. And I hear you with regards to AOE damage wrecking us. When I am on my GWF I actively look for the most red as that gets the best out of the GWF. It means Unstoppable and reaping the rewards of 10% Life Steal while hitting multiple targets hard and fast. On the other hand, the minute my GF is surrounded by 3 or more of the Barbarians in an HE I am in trouble and have to break off.
I feel much better in PVP mind you. I pug a lot and even when saddled with horrible players I still manage to maintain decent kill-death ratios. and often times I'll be the only one with a positive ratio. This all while spending most of the fight at mid.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.