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Iron Vanguard for PVE spec
burndownxmas
Member Posts: 84 Arc User
I hear a lot of people in game say to go sword master for pve and only touch iron vanguard for PvP, just wanna get some insight from some of our community members as why you wouldn't take IV for pve content.
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However, I believe that the reason why SM is considered the best for PvE it is because Weapon Master's Strike. WMS just destroys mobs and puts a useful debuff for your Atwills (and encounters if you have Staying Power).
You would get the best answer of IV in PvE from Lancer, who is a huge IV junkie.
1. I'm losing out a bit in DR from DS (but being DPS i'm not really supposed to be getting hit often anyway)
2. My overall set up for powers isn't as universal when it comes to at will attacks.
I half way want to post my build, because I think a lot of players are really missing out in how awesome IV can be.
So SVA or boss fights in general, IV is more superior, but SM helps clearing trash mobs or most instances a lot faster.
Author of GWF Speed Demon PvP Build (Mod 11) <- Click to reveal the Speedy Beast! >:)
So, the biggest difference due to IV GWF, i THINK, is that basically instead of a Weaponmaster you shall use a Trample of the fallen. When the enemy is affected by a controlled power... basically when an enemy is controlled, you deal about... 20% more damage to it. That amount is modified by a proper feat annnnnnd a proper Off-Hand artifact weapon Active increase. Is it
superiorgood alternative to SM build? And what about that control? Do you have to enable it yourself or is it up to every control? I'd like to have my question answered, umm... basically all my post discussed.TanksThanks in advance!It's very true we potentially lose to Swordmaster on AoE trash mobs, but we more than surpass them on bosses, especially in fbi and msva where the bosses are huge.
From what I've specced it does indeed revolve around using Trample of the Fallen for a consistent 20% Damage Buff, instead of Wrathful determination which is a fluctuating 12.5%, creating more consistency in our dps.
Couple that with a few other things and we're better singlet target than the Swordmasters.
I'm currently testing Indomitable strength (because it looks and feels AWESOME!) And trying to make it more viable as a constant daily.
I may well be posting a guide soon, but I'm only 3750 ilvl so we'll see how it performs on the next couple weeks and matches up to other bis people once I get bis again.
As a side note, I'm putting 400m up in FBIs against 4k+'s right now at 3750 so I'm pretty proud of the build!
~Riot Fairguard
Valendia Knights of the Peace Founder
Xbox One
I'm not going to deny that Swordmaster has better AoE damage capabilities, but I'm surprised I haven't tried this earlier.
The fast fluid IV style is a blast to play and is a breath of fresh air from the stagnant "PvE High Crit Swordmaster Destroyer" experience.
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> I tried IV Sentinel today, and even at 4.2k Item Level, there is not even a word for how horrible and useless it is now. I do not think IV Destroyer is very viable outside of boss fights, I have already used it. But, Trans. Lightning may give it enough AoE to not be too much of a carry. I will try it out this week as well.
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IV isn't only sentinel dude we spec destroyer like Swordmasters. The dps is there we just lose out to Swordmasters on trash mobs. I normally catch them back up and pass them on the bosses though, especially msva and fbi where they have massive health pools.
IV Destroyer defintely does not need to be carried rofl.
I'm unclear if Trample the Fallen is THE go to. Should I choose that, and does it proc off others' controlling powers, or do I need to control?
Now, as for the things IV has going for it specifically for bossfights.
Threatening Rush actually has two debuffs. One is the 8% mark that affects everyone. The second is a debuff unique to ThR that gives a further 12% debuff that only applies to yourself, and is specfically for your at-wills. So, for the most part ThR is just as good for you as Daring Shout. it isn't replacing Weapon Master Strike, though, because that has a 30% debuff. It's capped, so it won't matter in debuff capped parties, but for the situations where you use WMS you will rarely hit debuff cap anyway. Staying Power is the only uncapped debuff GWF has.
TtF works regardless of the control source, even if the target is control immune. This is true for all things in the game that are dependent on the target being controlled, including TR's Scoundrel feats.
Since you're probably never going to run IV while solo, you will virtually never have to use any controls yourself. Any normal party will have enough sources of control to keep TtF active, especially on boss fights. However, if you seriously want to, Slam is a good option with its own utility benefits, though you will probably take Relentless Battle Fury over Battle Awareness and not have access to the power buff. It's only a base item power buff though, so it's not all that important especially in a strong buffing party.
Indomtiable Strength has an easily cancellable animation that doesn't prevent both hits from going off, and it also debuff's the target's damage by a large amount. The daily does a lot of damage itself, and the practical DPS of it is much higher than Crescendo because its animations are much shorter and you don't have to really stop attacking for most of it.
Really, what I can say about IV compared to SM is that, IV has more powers you actually want to use. Weapon Master Strike is the only SM power that is good most of the time and practically the entire paragon is just that one at-will. All of SM's paragon class features are useless (Steel Resolve), nerfed into the ground (Steel Defense), or worse than non-paragon class features (Steel Blitz). The one other nice thing SM has is Flourish, which that lets you have a full bar of strong DPS encounters for boss fights, and this is only useful if you have another GWF or a GF that marks for you.
With IV you can use Indomitable Strength and not feel like your DPS is being gimped or you're locking yourself down for a long time where something could randomly kill you, and it also makes everyone safer by making the boss weaker. You practically always have 22% more damage with Trample the Fallen, and ThR is pretty useful for sticking on the boss. If you really feel like it, Ferocious Reaction is quite strong for what it does, though very rarely will you need it and the cooldown is pretty long.
It comes down to what you feel like doing. It's just that once you get to debuff cap, IV will eek out more damage because of TtF and Indomitable Strength. Debuff cap is being removed next mod anyway.