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[MOD 6 guide] Lazalia's High Crit build for PvE GWF Destroyer
lazaroth666
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,332 Arc User
Presentation
I've been playing this game for a long time, 1 year and 8 months. Almost in every game I've played I have always shared a guide about one or two classes. My favorite class in this game is the Great Weapon Fighter because is the class that I've always wanted to play: It's a very strong warrior, high damage, high critical chance, you really feel like if you are playing some kind of berserker warrior, you get hurt and you get stronger or the more you attack stronger you become, it's awesome.
The class
The Great Weapon Fighter is a class that depends a lot in his equipment and the correct distribution of the stats. You can choose among 3 different paths: Instigator (should be reworked sooner or later) Destroyer (Damage dealer) and Sentinel (Some kind of two-handed sword tank that doesn't really make sense in PvE or in proper words isn't optimal).
When you are playing a GWF, a very important thing is that you have to focus on your mechanics, you have to work a lot for your DPS. Our class features and paragon feats increase a lot our damage but we have to attack. We need: to be fast,to keep the pace of the whole party, to mantain our stacks/buffs as much as possible, to be ready for every fight (specially clearing trash) so if you are a lazy player you won't see good results with your character.
When you are playing a GWF, a very important thing is that you have to focus on your mechanics, you have to work a lot for your DPS. Our class features and paragon feats increase a lot our damage but we have to attack. We need: to be fast,to keep the pace of the whole party, to mantain our stacks/buffs as much as possible, to be ready for every fight (specially clearing trash) so if you are a lazy player you won't see good results with your character.
The High Crit build
Previous guides were based in a GWF focused on Power/STR which were very nice, every hit dealt much more damage but had lower critical chance, resulting in a screen full of "strong" yellow hits and sometimes you were able to see some orange hits (critical strikes). The build that I would like to share now is based in a very high critical % chance plus a very high critical severity. Due to the mod6 stats rework, Power and Crit have the same gain 1% for every 400 which makes crit much more desirable than power, therefore, having the highest amount of critical % will be our main goal. The start will be above 51% up to 95% critical chance (including self-buffs). The higher your critical %, crit severity becomes even better.
Race
The optimal choice is the Half-Orc= 2 STR / 2 DEX + 5% Critical Severity, it's perfect. Another good option: Human, less STR but 1% more chance crit (the extra defense is worthless). Metallic Dragonborn which allows you to choose +2 STR /+2 DEX plus a slight boost in Power/Crit.
Starting rolls
18 STR - 18 DEX - 12 CON, including racial +2 STR + 2DEX, then each 10 lvl we will add points to STR-DEX. Low CON means not a very high HP and Armor Penetration but this is not a problem since the new gear comes with a huge pool of HP and the ArPen can be stacked easily.
Paragon: What should I choose Swordmaster or Iron Vanguard?
Once you are level 30, you will have to choose your paragon path for the GWF. The paragons are Swordmaster or Iron Vanguard but which one is better?
Swordmaster is stronger in DPS than Iron Vanguard, thanks to the Weapon Master's Strike and Crescendo. This daily have higher base damage than Indomitable Strike. IV used to be good when we had frontline surge in our encounters tray but it got nerfed + the high CD made it a not very good one. Threatening Rush is a good At-Will, the Mark will grant you 20% more damage to you and 8% to your allies. Good for single target fights but not for clearing trash.
One thing to consider is that Weapon Master's Strike buff our at-wills for 30% damage including itself (after the first hit), when WMS is buffed deals the same damage than Wicked Strike so there's not really difference between these skills, the good part is if you use WMS to buff the other at-wills you will deal higher damage, buffing wicked strike for clearing or buffing Sure Strike for even higher single target damage. Either using Threatening Rush or Weapon Master's Strike in order to boost your At-Wills (20% and 30% respectively) works great but WMS is also an AoE attack + you can also apply mark with Daring Shout which is a very useful encounter, being IV means you are 30% below Swordmaster regarding to the damage of the At-Wills. It is correct that the mark also affects the damage done by every skill, not only at-wills, but these are the main source of our damage not the encounters nor the dailies, that's why I'm more focused in mentioning the effect on them.
Swordmaster is stronger in DPS than Iron Vanguard, thanks to the Weapon Master's Strike and Crescendo. This daily have higher base damage than Indomitable Strike. IV used to be good when we had frontline surge in our encounters tray but it got nerfed + the high CD made it a not very good one. Threatening Rush is a good At-Will, the Mark will grant you 20% more damage to you and 8% to your allies. Good for single target fights but not for clearing trash.
One thing to consider is that Weapon Master's Strike buff our at-wills for 30% damage including itself (after the first hit), when WMS is buffed deals the same damage than Wicked Strike so there's not really difference between these skills, the good part is if you use WMS to buff the other at-wills you will deal higher damage, buffing wicked strike for clearing or buffing Sure Strike for even higher single target damage. Either using Threatening Rush or Weapon Master's Strike in order to boost your At-Wills (20% and 30% respectively) works great but WMS is also an AoE attack + you can also apply mark with Daring Shout which is a very useful encounter, being IV means you are 30% below Swordmaster regarding to the damage of the At-Wills. It is correct that the mark also affects the damage done by every skill, not only at-wills, but these are the main source of our damage not the encounters nor the dailies, that's why I'm more focused in mentioning the effect on them.
Powers
Powers: Click here and you will be forwarded to NWCalc.
Most of the powers had to be unlocked as requisite in order to advance to the next level. The Nwcalc doesn't allow me to add 4 points atm but you will absolutely want 4 ranks in the following powers:
Sure Strike
Weapon Master's Strike
Indomitable Battle Strenght
Daring Shout
Hidden Daggers
Restoring Strike.
Destroyer
Weapon Master
Crescendo
Spinning Strike
Avalanche ofSteel
For solo playing, single target dmg and running dungeons we are able to use almost always the same powers, it might be important according to the situation that you can switch Spinning Strike for Avalanche of Steel if the group requires more control. AoS used in the right time can be very useful. Daring Shout is great for building determination ASAP + extra damage resistance + apply mark to the enemies which will increase the overall damage of the group but you can also change to Restoring Strike if you feel squishy for extra healing or if you need more stamina for sprinting.
Sure Strike
Weapon Master's Strike
Indomitable Battle Strenght
Daring Shout
Hidden Daggers
Restoring Strike.
Destroyer
Weapon Master
Crescendo
Spinning Strike
Avalanche ofSteel
For solo playing, single target dmg and running dungeons we are able to use almost always the same powers, it might be important according to the situation that you can switch Spinning Strike for Avalanche of Steel if the group requires more control. AoS used in the right time can be very useful. Daring Shout is great for building determination ASAP + extra damage resistance + apply mark to the enemies which will increase the overall damage of the group but you can also change to Restoring Strike if you feel squishy for extra healing or if you need more stamina for sprinting.
Mechanics
One of the most important things that you have to master when you play with the GWF class: the mechanic, which I refer to the way how you play the character under specific situations. This class is not really easy to play in PvE, pushing 2 or 3 buttons won't make you Top DPS and whoever says the contrary means poor knowledge about the class or clearly bad performance.
- We have very slow At-will powers unless we are in Unstoppable, so we have to use most of our encounters/dailies when we don't have unstoppable ready yet and spam our At-wills as soon as the TAB button is available. Using Indomitable Battle Strike as finisher when there are only 1 or 2 seconds before it's over.
- Always keep an eye in the enemy with lower HP and aim your IBS to him. This encounter will help us to get tons of Action Points if you use it properly. The AP gauge should be always ready everytime you charge against a new pack of mobs.
- Use Weapon Master's Strike properly, it buffs a lot your Sure Strike. Do as follows: Considering that your TAB is ready, press it and inmediately press WMS once then follow up spamming Sure Strike.
- Restoring Strike, don't use it as soon as you can, learn the attacks of your enemies, sometimes we will get hit for a lot of damage and we need to recover our HP to full in less than a second. You receive the damage then strike back with Restoring Strike, full HP again. Remember you are useless as DPSer if you are dead.
- Hidden Daggers, this power buff our damage 40% for 8s, don't spam it. If you want to deal AoE dmg use WMS instead, cast it when the effect is about to end.
- Daring Shout is our opening encounter either for single target situations or surrounded by trash mobs. It will fill the unstoppable bar generously, grant us combat advantage and 20% more damage for us (8% for the team) thanks to the Mark effect. We can keep it easily 100% uptime so try to cast it every time you can.
- If you are playing with a CW (who should be using Arcane Singularity often) prepare to use your Spinning Strike in the exact point where the mob are being gathered. It is better if you use it before they land because they will spread out after that.
- There are many more, remember just don't smash buttons, be smart and you will have success. One single encounter can make a difference for your group and you.
Stats points
- Our main stat will be critical Strike, you will fill every offensive slot with Azure Enchantment.
- Even though, more defense means more power/dmg in our build, if we add azure enchantments to every defensive slot, the extra amount of Power won't make a huge difference (9*700 (azure r12)= 6.300 which 20% is 1260 = 3.15% Damage Bonus) but adding Radiants (HP) is going to be much more important now because it grants us a bit more of survivability AND we will get a higher pool of Temp HP instead of using Power in offensive slots (using radiants in defensive slots gives us around 3 times more Temp HP than using the enchantment in an offensive slot.)
- Our CON is low (14) and we receive only 4% resistance ignored. We will need to get our Armor Penetration up to 5k-5.5k. Just aim for a max of 40% ArPen for clearing trash and up to 60% for fighting harder enemies like bosses.
- Health Points (HP) This will make your experience lvling from lv 60 to 70 a lot easier. Always go first for HP when you start getting items either from quests or drops from mobs, the higher your HP, easier you will find the content.
- Combat Advantage bonus up to 8% = 1000 Stat points (Should be 1 Mythic artifact + First Icewind Dale boon).
- Do not even think about Regen, it's useless for PvE. It's hard to get in the equipment and it doesn't have a good return anyway.
- AoE resist up to 8%: Elemental Fire Sword Knot artifact stat increase + Weathering the Storm (IWD first boon). Just like Combat Advantage up to 1000, depending of the artifact that you choose to play with.
- Power will help you to get more temp HP, it's very nice but don't focus your character in this stat.
- Recovery isn't really necessary. Daring Shout's CD is around 15s while the mark effect lasts for 20s and Hidden Daggers isn't affected by recharge speed (it's always 12s) You will get enough with the gear.
- Life steal between 8% and 10% is enough because we are continuously attacking and we can get our HP back to full only using our At-wills.
- At first look, the character might look squishy but thanks to the dmg bonuses + the HP pool, we can get between 70k and 150k in Temp HP every time we hit TAB.
Summary:
Offensive slots: Azure enchantment.
Defensive slots: Mainly radiants but azure and brutal are a goodoption.
Utility slots: Dragon's Hoard or Dark enchantments.
Note: While you are achieving your goal (reaching the maxed stats) you might need to switch some enchantments in order to get the other stats that you need, like more ArPen, meaning Darks instead of Azure in offensive. The most important offensive stat is ArPen, then go for crit.
Offensive slots: Azure enchantment.
Defensive slots: Mainly radiants but azure and brutal are a goodoption.
Utility slots: Dragon's Hoard or Dark enchantments.
Note: While you are achieving your goal (reaching the maxed stats) you might need to switch some enchantments in order to get the other stats that you need, like more ArPen, meaning Darks instead of Azure in offensive. The most important offensive stat is ArPen, then go for crit.
Gear
- The BIS set is Elemental Elven Ward (Lv. 137). It's going to take a while before you get this one so let's put some kind of progression among the gear that you can get: Once you are lv 61, you can equip your “Eternal” (Lv. 115) gear available in the Tyranny of Dragons store (Go to Well of Dragons and speak to the merchants or simply click in the banner in the top of your screen in order to access through the campaign window). It has very nice stats, specially the HP bonus. If you find a reward item or a dropped item with better stats don't be afraid of switching your gear, focus in the HP and you will be fine. Next, time to grind your Elemental Alliance Asault set (Lv. 132) which is focused in Critical and ArPen, the most important stats for you in this part of the game. You will receive Seals of Elements farming the 1600 i.lvl dungeons. With this currency you can purchase Lv. 130 gear in the Seven Suns market. There is no set bonus that matters now, just pick up your pieces as soon as possible. I strongly recommend to join a guild with good people who can help to run these dungeons. Most players in the LFG are always looking for people with high item lvl for fast runs, you might be either kicked or ignored if you ask them for help. Actually, this is like the most difficult part of the game, being a new lv 70 is hard but if you endure, you will find it easier once you start to increase your character's item lvl.
- Necklace, Belt and Artifact: We will aim for the Lostmauth's artifact set bonus. Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace, Golden Belt of Puissance and Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting respectively. The set bonus “do an additional hit for Weapon Damage on a critical hit”, it's simply perfect for our GWF following this high crit build: +2 STR +2 DEX as stats just like our ability scores, additional hit on crits while we can achieve up to 95% crit and we have the highest weapon damage among the classes. Right now, the bonus is working better than it should, being fair I expect it to be nerfed a lot but even nerfed is going to be the best set for us so don't hesitate to get it (it might become cheaper in the AH once is nerfed, so it's up to you when you decide to get it.)
- Main hand: Elemental Fire Greataxe: boosts our main At-will Sure Strike and grant us extra crit stat. You will get it once you are done with the vigilance quests in Spinward Rise.
- Off-hand: Elemental Fire Sword Knot: Artifact class feature that upgrades our Weapon Master and artifact stat increasing our AoE Resist. You will get it as soon as you hit Lv. 70 from Sgt. Knox.
- Artifacts: After Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting, we still have 3 more artifacts. First, Sigil of the Devoted Cleric, our dailies can deal much more damage than any other artifact (Token of Chromatic Storm hits really hard and have a very nice debuff but the stats aren't great). Lantern of Revelation has very good stats: Critical/ArPen/CA dmg. Kessell's Spheres of Annihilation has similar stats: Power/ArPen/CA but remember that we will focus our character in Crit instead of Power, also lantern is cheaper. Sigil of the Controller (CW Artifact) is the only artifact which comes with Power and Critical so it's a very good choice. The last artifact will depend on your stats, you can go for more crit/arpen/hp/power in that order. In example, if you choose a kessell's spheres artifact, you can switch the Icewind Dale's first boon for AoE resistance while keeping 2 artifacts that will provide enough Combat Advantage.
- Accesories: BIS rings are: Personalized Adamant rings of Recovery with 394 Power / 394 Recovery plus 2 Slots (offensive and defensive). I recommend Major Stamina Regeneration Jewel for the accesories (belt, cloak, rings) except in our augment companion, only Regen jewels works on them in the case you want to use them but the effect will be barely noticeable.
- Necklace: Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace as mentioned before with the extra AP gain granted at Legendary lvl. 4% each 3s is amazing, it will become 50% of our total AP gain during a battle. It's a must to upgrade this artifact to max lvl asap. Cloaks with +8 AC are useless for DPS, it means 4% more damage resistance that won't make any difference.
- Weapon and Armor enchantments: It's a high crit build based in high crit severity so Vorpal is a must for this build. Perfect is more than enough, there's not really point upgrading your vorpal to Pure or Transcendent since the Crit Sev is going to be the same. If you are playing solo, Negation is a very good option but isn't really good for dungeons where Soulforged is much more important.
How important are our At-Wills?
There are many people complaining about how weak are the GWF At-Wills, I disagree. Sure Strike is the core of this build and a GWF played correctly can make a very good use of it, please, take a look to this picture. Using the right mechanic and keeping the buffs/debuffs properly, SS is going to bring higher DPS than other encounters even if they hit a lot harder. by the time when IBS has done a huge crit, SS has already done much more damage. That's why it is necessary to follow the mechanic as I explained, if you do it in the wrong order, you will lose DPS.
Note: I didn't use lostmauth's set bonus so I can keep the picture for longer time in the guide, the bonus set will be eventually nerfed.
Note: I didn't use lostmauth's set bonus so I can keep the picture for longer time in the guide, the bonus set will be eventually nerfed.
▄▀▄▀ Check out my blog for more information and cool videos: NWO-Battleground ▀▄▀▄
Proud founder of the 'Primacy' alliance
Post edited by lazaroth666 on
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VideoTutorial:
https://youtu.be/3ooUFrXzDEE
Companions
Feats/Boons
Flanking Maneuver's effect has a 15s CD, so it is not possible to perma stun lock your enemy. Also, don't even think about using Tier 3 sentinel feats for PvE, you will die before you can get enough stacks or some relevant amount of DR.
Update 05/17/2015 Note: Using this build, once you have achieved every possible BIS item, you will be above 100% Crit chance. In my case, I don't longer need the extra 5% granted by Vicious Advantage so I had to choose a couple of feats in the Sentinel Tree: Scale Agility (5% Deflection) and Powerful Challenge (15% more damage to marked enemies) but keeping Student of the Sword. This means a total of 20% damage instead of 10% damage. Going for Vicious Advantage and removing 5% crit chance (azures in offensive slots) won't give me the same benefit. Remember, this is only after you have reached 100% crit chance, otherwise if you go for these feats skipping vicious advantage and losing 5% crit chance you will be doing less DPS overall.
New feature: Foundry guide!
Title: Guide Lazalia's High Crit Build.
Code: NW-DGVASX7Z4
The quest will start in Tower District (Sorry, I'm a Half-Orc lol) please don't forget to rate 5 stars and tip 500, I need the AD.
If you want to see the build in action, I kindly ask you to visit my Youtube Channel where I have a playlist with several videos, please suscribe and share!
A few videos:
Valindra's Tower
Neverwinter Module 6 - Traven Blackdagger - Epic Cragmire Crypts
Neverwinter - Module 6 Syndrith, High Priestess of Lolth
Neverwinter - Module 6 Syndrith, High Priestess of Lolth II
Neverwinter Online Lazalia soloing Battle of Mistral Point
20.250 power = 51% bonus dmg.
59.3% ArPen (60%+ with the campfire buff)
100% constant critical chance (Weapon Mastery + Offhand + Vicious Advantage+Superior Elixir of Accuracy + Squash Soup.)
175% Critical Severity.
8.3% life steal.
It is not a very cheap build and this can take long time to accomplish but I really love the results, the GWF is in a good place. Remember one more thing, instead of complaining about everything think that you have to work with what you have and try to get the best possible result. Test everything by yourself and don't forget that this is only a guide, a few steps that will help you to develop your character. Once you gather enough knowledge, you will be able to create a style that will fit better the way you play.
If you find any mistake, please feel free to send me a message, english isn't my main language and there must be some sentences poorly redacted, your help will be greatly appreciated.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Well HP isn't really a problem, restoring strike can heal us a lot with a single strike or thanks to the high amount of crits we gain a lot of HP with life steal + endless consumption. The good thing about Vicious Advantage is that the bonus is almost always working while for the Powerful Challenge you will need marked enemies, if I don't have a GF in the group I would have to switch to Daring Shout in order to activate it, otherwise these are wasted points.
End stats are probably quite similar though although I probably stack a bit more defensive stats.. Not a lot just a little.. Have a GS of 21.7k atm which will bump over the 22k mark soon
This isn't a build that 95% of the population can afford though which kinda sucks..
The dps is very good in both aoe and single target but let's face it now there are still better options out there
A top cw.. Above average sw will still burn though aoe phases better.. And lately I have come across a couple of power stacking HRs with pretty epic dps too... While GWF of this build is still very good... It had fallen down the pecking order abit since mod 4..
The WMS and WS stacking is good but I find with high GS parties the adds are dead bettor stacking debuffs feels worth it.. So I tend to not play rhea anymore... Also I like the marking of TR and especially for boss fights, I find I always do a lot more single target dps than any class maybe because of this.. Also TR is great for positioning if used correctly.. I also find trample the fallen to be better than steel blitz. I find SM lacks that one other aoe as well.. Fls can be that aoe..
Also I find IV to be better pvp spec
So it seems that our stats are similar but play style quite different
I used to be IV but finally after tons of tests I felt much more comfortable playing SM for PvE, specially for single target DPS and the actual end-game is more about that than clearing tons of trash (which is really good). Marking is good, it give us 20% dmg and 8% to the party but being SM I can buff my At-Wills for 20% with WMS and let a GF give me that extra 8% dmg for the group and me, if there's no GF then I would use Daring Shout and it would represent 20%+20%, sacrificing a bit of personal DPS in order to boost the overall group damage which in the end is much more important.
Positioning is just a matter of style, I really love to use sprint for that, i.e tanking the last boss in Tuern with no GF and dead DC means you have to move a lot around him or get one hit killed.
I'm always checking the total damage and I find that Steel Blitz represents a good portion of the AoE dmg, specially good for CN i.e, it's affected by debuffs, crits and flanking so there are good numbers there. FLS got nerfed, the damage is so low now that you can do the same work with another encounter with a better bonus and faster CD, it used to be great for burst damage now since it can be replaced, it does not longer make a huge difference between IV and SM, in my opinion, of course.
IV is clearly better than SM for PvP but that's another topic.
Thanks again for your comments Paul, these are always greatly appreciated.
Sure? You aim for 51% crits while hitting targets, but what is your percentage of this time where you're hitting something?
Just in the very common situation of completing the dailies, my gwf during fights is 50% of the time taking damage while unable to deliver any damage itself. That is, being outranged, thrown back, frozen, prone, slowed, stunned, rooted, sent flying in the air and so on. Here your LifeSteal won't help much.
Plus, the mod4 gwf is a runner away. And while running out like the coward which the devs want him to be, he may or may not be taking damage from dots and ranged attacks but he will certainly not be damaging anything. And here again, Regen might come in handy.
Yes, sure. You are mentioning all these CC effects like if we are stunned for 10 seconds or something like that, when is max like 1 sec. If you deal enough damage you only need a couple of At-wills to get a lot of HP back thanks to life steal, you will lose better stats trying to get Regen to a good lvl. Let's say you are missing 10k HP and you have 10% regen (1.4k which is a lot and consider the items that you need to get that) You will regen 1k per tick (each 3 seconds) when you can easily regain more HP doing a single attack like Restoring Strike. If we get hit, thrown back, etc that's good means that our unstoppable bar will be ready for use, spam your AoE at-will and watch your HP back to full in less than a couple of seconds.
Avalanche of Steel is a very good skill, useful for very specific circumstances but I prefer the Spinning Strike because the damage is higher, you can cancel the attack and save some AP if you use sprint during the animation, if have some of your unstoppable bar ready for use you will get stacks very fast if you press TAB and then the daily. Avalanche must be used in the beginning of the fight otherwise your stacks might fall quickly and you will also lose DPS, it's a very slow attack.
You mean this P2W build is superior only to a F2P-built gwf ?
In PK dungeon (a favourite of gwfs') you very routinely find yourself chain-thrown in the air by the 10 or more foes surrounding you and taking turns to make you fly, and as far as I remember Unstoppable cannot be activated while you are flying, it requires you to be on the ground. And your flying gwf dies with his unstoppable bar full.
Even in mod4 dailies when you meet a rainbow group of foes, one freezes you, one roots you, the damage taken is enough to kill you bit by bit but not enough to ever fill your Unstoppable bar.
But then ok, once at 22k gs it may be a viable build after all.
And from what I have experienced over the last 2 months there seems to be an extreme gap now between what I would call the " tier 1" gwfs (which I think there is maybe 5) and the next tier of gwfs in the 17-19k gs bracket... I tend to pug a lot because I feel like it adds to my experience.. And more of a challenge.. But I find most 17-19k gs gwfs will only do 30-50% of my current dps.. I honestly think the GWF has to have bis gear now to compete with the other classes..
But us gwfs gotta stick together.. It's a dying breed recently
This sums up my thinking about the actual situation of the GWF... This game is about love and effort, people doesn't understand that they just won't achieve everything in a couple of days, we have been playing for like 1 year already and we have been through good and bad times, gathering experience for every module and the new players have to do this too, learn as much as possible and try to keep alive the breed as you mentioned. I will keep playing the GWF, even if it's nerfed again and again, it's the class that I love to play and I have a lot of fun playing it, I'm sure we will be rewarded sooner or later.
The HP is constant .
What is not constant is the power and the crit rate +the pets.
So the oroginal LAZ is full graded and deal supreme dps.
(A.clone)The bit lower graded LAZ is working hard mybe too hard to do the same job done .(17-20k GS)
(B.clone)Much lower graded LAZ is lazy but have not lost the path and still can fill the role of DPS.(15-16k GS)
(C.clone)Too much undergraded LAZ have huge failure on her job he is not good in anything.(11-13k GS)
Stat rolls :
Primary :16 STR (+2orc)
Secondary: 12 Con
Secondary II: 16 Dex (+2orc)
ABC: 10/10/10 Int Wis Char
The idea behind a build like this is that you are almost always moving. A little bit with sprint to the side is enough to get out of the way of an cone attack when you are attacking the source of the cone. With the best change to GWF ever in my opinion Sprint now gives us damage resistance and immunity to CC, this is something we can leverage with a high STR roll as we get stamina regen with more STR.
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@lazaroth666, I like your guide quite a bit
Small note - At the end of your Stat Points section you say you could slot an extra azure for more lifesteal, this should be changed to a Dark enchantment for lifesteal.
A question though, why is Sure Strike your main at-will? I admit to liking it myself and use that + WMS in dungeons more often than not, but that is because i am still getting used to the weird rubber banding issues surrounding wicked strike. You did mention that using WMS to buff wicked strike for clearing was good, but you didn't take Golden Dragon's Wrath which buffs wicked. Is that Just because you felt the stats were more important than the buff?
Also, do your CWs that you play with still use Arcane Singularity a lot? i find that since they nerfed the target cap on it here in mod 4 it doesn't get a lot of use because it is very slow. As a GWF i like when it does get used, but when i play my CW i understand that it simply isn't as effective as it once was.
Thanks again for writing this guide. It is really helpful to the community to have resources like this
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
Exactly, most GWFs dislike the sprint but I find it very useful because we have to be always moving, trying to get a better position which can be for combat advantage or dodge attacks and CC which would reduce our DPS, that's why we also have to time our TAB as much as possible, not just spam it when it's available, while other players are under CC effects, we are still doing damage.
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@scathias, thank you for your kind comments and the small note.
I really like to keep SS+WMS because it's a very good combo for every dungeon, sometimes we find tons of adds and there are also some elite mob that we should kill as soon as possible, when we are in Unstoppable Sure Strike is so powerful in the following sequence: Full stacked + TAB (increased attacking speed) + WMS (30% bonus for SS) + over 51% crit which means that most of our fast hits should be critical strikes + very high crit severity + Ferocity bonus = The elite mob will melt in a couple of seconds and any boss, in this way we can have a very, very high single target DPS which IV won't allow us to get, if we use Daring Shout that's an extra 20% more damage and we won't lose DPS since we are not longer using an offensive encounter, it's even higher but of course depends of the party setup and other variables, sometimes is better to keep restoring strike for more survivability instead of more damage i.e.
I mentioned the wms+ws as a possibility, depends on the group level, in high-end groups usually you kill everything so fast that there are only like 1 or 2 mobs left (usually elite) and using either wms or ws would represent a loss in DPS if we compare it with Sure Strike but in groups where the players spend a lot of time clearing trash, wms+ws will give an advantage, that's 30% more AoE damage, it's very noticeable considering that the overall DPS isn't so high. Actually, I'm not a fan of this combo, doesn't fit my playstyle but it has worked well for some players.
Regarding to the swords, the SS bonus is always on and it has critical which is a must for this build, Wrath is a very good option for IV GWFs or SM who want to try the wms+ws combo but it would be only useful clearing trash and that's not really a problem now, if we try to get advantage of the wrath sword's bonus against a boss or elite we would have lower DPS because we have to build stacks that doesn't last long enough and it's such a slow attack. Single target DPS is one of our best feature and Ferocity is one of our best assets for that.
Yes, there are some who still use Arcane Singularity for some control and that's how it should be, now most CWs are excited with their DPS that they forgot their role in the group, using OF continuously that I find very annoying but it's not their fault, if that's how the devs want them to be, so be it. For our luck, Arcane Singularity is not really necessary in the actual end-game (Tuern/LoL). I included the short note about the Spinning Strike + Arcane Singularity too trying to show that we can get advantage of the party members in order to deal more DPS, just spamming attacks will never be optimal.
I actually chose to use Rage... I opened 2 boxes.. 1 rage and. 1 ferocity.. But I still decided to use rage and here's why....
Firstly GWF needs to get that extra bit of armor pen from somewhere .. Whether it's on gear.. Enchants or artefacts.. Rage has stats of power/armorpen/crit... The only weapon for GWF that has 3 offensive stats.. When I did the math I worked out by using this weapon I was about to swap my rings around and some other pieces and managed to stack around an extra 180 power without losing any stats in other places. So the other weapons had a choice of small dps buff to sure strike or small buff to wicked strike. I chose to use the are because to me this extra offensive stat was actually a small buff to every to station I use in any dungeon.. In clearing a add heavy dungeon I slot TR and WS... For boss fights and more single target dungeons I use TR and SS.. So it felt like the at wil buffs on the other weapons was not something I could take full advantage of. So that's the main reason I chose rage.. Also I feel if any GWF at will will get changes and buffs it will be reaping strike.. Given no one used it.. So maybe the bonus might get more handy in the near future
Edit: Some of the advice here is really priceless. You won't find it in any other guides..
LOL, that was funny
I agree with laz about sure strike over wicked strike, especially as a swordmaster. If you want nothing but chase DPS then yes wicked strike can give slightly higher numbers in an add heavy dungeon, but laz's playstyle really showcases the GWF's strength and playstyle- that is, to facetank the annoying, hard hitting, red placing brutes and keeping the red off the rest of the party. The GWF will grab the aggro and fight toe to toe with the most annoying mobs and minions. Trash will get cleaned up with your encounters and by the rest of the party fast enough that you don't need to slot WS for it. WMS also benefits from its own self buff. Buffed WMS is almost on par with WS's DPS and is slighter faster too.
Really good GWFs I've played with including Valiant and Laz do 2 things really well. Firstly they are always very conscious of what they aggro and where they stand relative to the party to control where red circles will be. Watching their footwork is quite a spectacle. Secondly they know the timing, order and targets for each ability. Like Laz says, you last hit IBS on a weak mob to gain AP but also put a debuff on nearby targets and use mighty leap for mobility. "Just spamming buttons will never be optimal"
As for singularity (and the superior Furious Immolation), it loses a lot of effectiveness from both target limit reduction and as a result of many control immune mobs especially in T4 content. A lot of the dragonfangs are control immune once they start their casting animation (also seen in Karrundax). My advice is if you do want a sing in that situation let the CW cast sing first from distance before you pull those encounters. Once sing is in progress you can then run in and pull aggro and mobs will stay controlled and clustered. If you run in, aggro, and they all start casting, trying to sing at that point is basically a waste of a daily and hence CWs will use oppressive instead to daze and get some damage in.
Guild and guide info
Module 4 Comprehensive DC guide |Module 4 MoF CW Handbook |New! Scourge Warlock Guide| NW Numbers and Mechanics guide |Crit, Power and DPS guide | Dungeon Delving guide and more
It feels very good when someone is able to notice even the smallest detail, thanks for this, for some people our playstyle might look like we are just facetanking and that's 95% of the job done but we really need to know our character's capacity and every one of our enemies (specially those that can CC us) it's very important to know when to resist an incoming attack or when to dodge, if you resist means you can keep your DPS but if you dodge you are losing some, sometimes you can evade a CC if you sprint in the right moment which will allow you keep your DPS, while being CCed you can even lose some stacks, so many decisions that will affect your overall perfomance. In summary, the core of the GWF player is in the mechanic, the way you play your character and the small decisions.
1 Question.
Why didn't you go for the 15% powerful challenge feat in Senti?
Yep unfortunately this is a must for Crit based extremely High DPS GWF's in mod4. It recovered maybe a third of the damage I lost in this mod compared to mod2/3
Thank you!
Well, considering that we are trying to achieve the max amount of critical % possible for this build, we need to add some points in Vicious Advantage for extra 5% critical chance and 5% more damage, we can have combat advantage almost always on during a run.
Furthermore, you can maximize single target DPS if you go with powerful challenge or you can do more AoE damage if you choose Instigator tree instead, why? Powerful challenge will give us 5% more damage but only to marked mobs, how many can we mark? At least 5 with Daring Shout or a few more with IBS (as finisher and they have to be very close to each other) but in the point where we have already marked this mobs with that final attack most of them will be already close to dead so we are actually doing 15% more when they have already received a lot of damage but if we use the instigator tree feats we are doing 10% (5%+5%) since the beginning of the fight and there's no cap, you will have this bonus applied to every target that you hit, i.e if you use mighty leap against 10 adds you are going to deal 10% damage to all of them while if you choose the powerful challenge feat and you use Daring Shout, it's only 15% to only 5 adds, more damage against 5 target but less damage overall.