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Module 4 group tactics - Roundtable
abaddon523
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I think it would be helpful if we could get a few people who specialize in each class to explain to people who do not play their class how the Module 4 changes will be impacting their role in dungeon runs. Please only weigh in if you have a preferred class and you have spent a good amount of time on the preview server testing out Module 4 changes.
I'll kick it off,
I play mainly as a CW and there are several things other classes should know about how CW's are changing in Module 4 if they want to continue to have efficient dungeon runs:
-Damage for CW's will be down around 50%. Some less, some more but that's ballpark.
-Singularity will be used a lot less as it can only gather 8 enemies instead of 15.
-Some spells, like Shard of the Endless Avalanche (aka "the meatball") have been nerfed so hard they will do less damage than at-will powers (Storm Pillar has higher tooltip damage than Shard). You'll only ever see Shard used by a CW when they want crowd control (now prones targets for 4 seconds). It is nearly useless for damage.
-There is now a very useful control tree (the Oppressor tree) based around freezing enemies. An Oppressor CW can freeze enemies, then when the freeze wears off those enemies can be stunned for 5 seconds. In addition, there is an announced re-work to a passive class feature that will extend control durations 75% (up from 15%). That will enable stuns of 8.75 seconds or more on every enemy in the AoE. CW's who choose the Control tree will be able to freeze and stun mobs for a long, long, long time while still doing decent damage.
-The Oppressor tree is mainly useful for a ~30-foot radius around the CW.
-An Oppressor CW should be used by a party the same way it currently uses a Devoted Cleric's Astral Shield. Where they are fighting should define the battlefield. Enemies should be drawn into the area of the Oppressor CW so they can be frozen/perma-stunned and rendered harmless while DPS classes maul the frozen/stunned enemies. A party that has a GF standing right next to an Oppressor CW drawing enemies in while both stand inside an Astral Shield will be exceedingly hard for a mob to kill.
-CW's will be much less useful on bosses. Our single-target dps was mediocre before but now it's just plain bad.
-Dungeons will take longer. In addition to no longer being able to nuke mobs in the blink of an eye, CW's are having some of their debuffing powers removed. That will hurt everyone's DPS.
-It hasn't gone on the preview server but the CW's Shield is being buffed to the high heavens. Don't be surprised if you see every CW with a purple bubble around them especially during boss fights and PvP. Seriously, at rank 3 it will give 50% damage reduction at all times and up to 80% if the CW hasn't taken damage for a while. This will be great for survival, but will cost CW's even more of their already reduced damage if it is used. A CW will absolutely be able to perform as a tank if needed.
-When looking to fill out a party for a dungeon run, you may want to specify whether you are looking for a damager or a controller. Your party tactics will have to be different depending on which you get.
-There will be a lot of useless CW's running around in Module 4. Currently, if you are forming a pug group and you pick up a 12k+ CW they're going to be useful. Even if they have a terrible build, are using the wrong spells, and don't know what they're doing they can still do the same (or more) damage as a other DPS classes that do know what they're doing just because of how OP the class is. That will not be the case going forward. You will see CW's at the bottom of the pain-giver chart. Part of it will be that they'll be blindsided by the changes and won't adapt quickly. Part of it will just be that a lack of skill that was covered up by the class will now be exposed.
So, let's get a few other classes to weigh in. What are the biggest Mod 4 takeaways for your class that others should know?
I'll kick it off,
I play mainly as a CW and there are several things other classes should know about how CW's are changing in Module 4 if they want to continue to have efficient dungeon runs:
-Damage for CW's will be down around 50%. Some less, some more but that's ballpark.
-Singularity will be used a lot less as it can only gather 8 enemies instead of 15.
-Some spells, like Shard of the Endless Avalanche (aka "the meatball") have been nerfed so hard they will do less damage than at-will powers (Storm Pillar has higher tooltip damage than Shard). You'll only ever see Shard used by a CW when they want crowd control (now prones targets for 4 seconds). It is nearly useless for damage.
-There is now a very useful control tree (the Oppressor tree) based around freezing enemies. An Oppressor CW can freeze enemies, then when the freeze wears off those enemies can be stunned for 5 seconds. In addition, there is an announced re-work to a passive class feature that will extend control durations 75% (up from 15%). That will enable stuns of 8.75 seconds or more on every enemy in the AoE. CW's who choose the Control tree will be able to freeze and stun mobs for a long, long, long time while still doing decent damage.
-The Oppressor tree is mainly useful for a ~30-foot radius around the CW.
-An Oppressor CW should be used by a party the same way it currently uses a Devoted Cleric's Astral Shield. Where they are fighting should define the battlefield. Enemies should be drawn into the area of the Oppressor CW so they can be frozen/perma-stunned and rendered harmless while DPS classes maul the frozen/stunned enemies. A party that has a GF standing right next to an Oppressor CW drawing enemies in while both stand inside an Astral Shield will be exceedingly hard for a mob to kill.
-CW's will be much less useful on bosses. Our single-target dps was mediocre before but now it's just plain bad.
-Dungeons will take longer. In addition to no longer being able to nuke mobs in the blink of an eye, CW's are having some of their debuffing powers removed. That will hurt everyone's DPS.
-It hasn't gone on the preview server but the CW's Shield is being buffed to the high heavens. Don't be surprised if you see every CW with a purple bubble around them especially during boss fights and PvP. Seriously, at rank 3 it will give 50% damage reduction at all times and up to 80% if the CW hasn't taken damage for a while. This will be great for survival, but will cost CW's even more of their already reduced damage if it is used. A CW will absolutely be able to perform as a tank if needed.
-When looking to fill out a party for a dungeon run, you may want to specify whether you are looking for a damager or a controller. Your party tactics will have to be different depending on which you get.
-There will be a lot of useless CW's running around in Module 4. Currently, if you are forming a pug group and you pick up a 12k+ CW they're going to be useful. Even if they have a terrible build, are using the wrong spells, and don't know what they're doing they can still do the same (or more) damage as a other DPS classes that do know what they're doing just because of how OP the class is. That will not be the case going forward. You will see CW's at the bottom of the pain-giver chart. Part of it will be that they'll be blindsided by the changes and won't adapt quickly. Part of it will just be that a lack of skill that was covered up by the class will now be exposed.
So, let's get a few other classes to weigh in. What are the biggest Mod 4 takeaways for your class that others should know?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by abaddon523 on
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edit spelling.
I think higher GS parties will prefer damage wizard with GF, less control. As I mentioned above, there is big risk/reward with the mobs being able to attack with all the reflect/blocking synergies. Like in Everquest, when you would chose not to slow the mobs to let the damage shield/riposte do more damage. For harder content/lower GS parties, controller type wizard + DC/SW + GF will make things go very smoothly.
It really seems the 50% damage loss that wizzies see is partly due to the ITF buffs. As it is now, ITF buff could not happen, as it would boost the wizards damage way too high. Now, it should stay about the same... at least on "paper".
I know you will math it out and show it is less, but there are other buffs in there too (combat advantage, more uptime on your abilities from not having to dodge as much, etc), so I am talking "close enough" at the moment.
Will 4 CW + DC groups (or slight variations of) still work? Sounds like it. But the traditional tank+healer+dps route is viable as well now.
Not trying to make it into a CW/GF discussion, just pointing it out as there is a big interaction and big change in the current interaction.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?709821-List-of-GF-Changes
My "main" character, is GF though I play with 3 others too, its just my current team setup guides me to play GF 80% of the time.
-Timer on block can be one of the best and one of the worst ideas, we cant say atm. For me, it will make things a lot essayer in dungeons. It also forces us to still avoid what we can, and block for a purpose. Be it to keep the mobs on the designated spot, or prevent most of the dmg that our bad positioning got us in. We should not be able to sit in every red circle, take every huge hit and be unresponsive simply cuzz we are a "tank" class.
On the other hand, we should not be in a position that after every taunt party needs to babysit us. Ok I`ve got the threat ...hmmm mob is looking at me funny, what now .....RUN!!! So as I said, main this is hiting the numbers right.
Also more threat, dmg and utility U can never go wrong with that. We should not be able to compete for the 1`st spot in dmg, but being able to help out the party with enough dmg apropriate to what we bring to the party as a tank.
Knight`s valor change seems quite interesting, hopefuly not too weak and not too strong for us to be in the lazy mode, bringing us all the adds while we dont lift a finger.
As I said in the start my opinion is ideas are good, but implementation and numbers ... we will see.
Cudos going out from a fellow wizard for one of...if not the best...forum topics to date!
MY GWf is probably my least played toon but Mod4 might change that. Honestly leveling the GWF was a lot of fun. You felt more like a fencer because you weren't invulnerable yet so you had to dabce in and out of combat. It was exciting and challenging. Once you hit 60 and build AOW it became pretty dull so I think agile destros will be good DPS still in Mod4. The fact that my second favorite toon is my GF who can't stand in red all day makes me fairly certain I will be able to dance with my GWF given the lower DR of unstoppable.
GF seems... solid. I don't like the new guard mechanic's recovery but I can deal with it. Playing conq I don't have a guard meter anyway, It's a power meter and only gets used for unavoidable CCs. Tacticians can get away with the same because their capstone means that they can use menace to attack and recovery to defend by attacking again. Doubling the aggro mechanic should make control pretty easy. Making mark a party-wide debuff is long overdue given the low weapon damage on the GF. I can't say for protectors, the new aggro mechanic means that they should be able to hold aggro better with their low damage but the 80% block and slower recovery might make them actually squishier so dealing with all that aggro might cause issues.
The basic idea is to get full Ancient Roots in Trapper and then go for either Unflinching Aim or Piercing Blade (leaving you one point to place where you want). I'll probably try the Archery + Trapper version.
DPS will probably be lower than a full Archer, but Roots will provide extra control to the party.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
GWFs will still be OP and they lived happily ever after.
This pretty much sums up.
Group was: Cleric, Wizard, Warlock, Ranger, Guardian (me)
We one shotted everything. First boss died in 20 seconds, second in 30, and final boss took 2 minutes to kill (but that's because he flies off for 1 minute like Fulminorax/Karrundax).
Any DPS concern is completely unfounded.
"Your Guarded Assault hits Iron Golem for 117341". Don't believe it? Go see on PTS yourself...
As for my power setup: I was running Into the Fray, Enforced Threat and Knight's Valor. But I pretty much never used enforced threat as everything was dropping before they could even move. Also with Knight's Valor it's pretty much a "block or die".
This is a valid concern, I think their biggest problem is how little utility they provide to the rest of the group. At this rate it's not even a problem of raw dps by itself, because there are so many "force multipliers" in the game, that they outshine whatever single target raw dps a class could ever bring.
Apart from Critical Teamwork I don't see anything else that may make me seek actively for a TR in my groups, I mean, sure, if one wants to join I turn down no one.