...to me this really seems like a diversionary "OH NO don't look at the man behind the curtain" type shenanigan..
LOL
Don't worry my friend, they are going to nerf the high holy hamster out of the destroyer spec. No one is gonna save the GWF this time, no matter what anyone says. 99% of GWF play the exact same setup. It is considered "gospel correct" to repeat "GWF has only one viable spec" ad infinitum, and that falsehood is gonna get the spec trashed in legendary fashion.
Play a Sentinel, GWFs... try it. Go Iron Vanguard and see what happens. Double mark stuff, have feats for marks, have feats for debuffs, use tanky style aggro-getting stuff instead of trying to milk every last bit of personal DPS. Discover that you don't need the Destroyer capstone to generate massive amounts of Determination constantly... don't theorycraft it away, play it. You will see that there is another world to the GWF you have been missing.
But what am I saying? Of course you will try the Sentinel. Soon enough it will be the new hot spec that was always good before the gutwrenching devastating class-murdering nerf to the Destroyer. LOL Bite down on that stick this is gonna be a rough ride.
Yeah, that's false. You can search any class in the game followed by "soloing x dungeon" and a video will pop up. With skill and $$ all is possible lol.
GWF are easy and take no skill to play:
Most classes use at wills to buff their Encounters, the GWF does the opposite. You still need to time your rotations to maximize the buffs. This is obvious when you see 2 equally geared GWFs and one out DPS the other by a landslide.
GWF only have one viable class tree. Destroyer. You guys joke that we all have the same build, but that's literally our only choice. The other feats and paths are so obviously bad that to take Sentinel or Instigator you'd be gimping your build into the ground, and for what, to avoid a nerf? I've played a GWF since day 1 and have tried literally every possible build you can think of. I would love to be the unique stand out GWF running some sort of CC spamming off-tank but it's impossible. You can hit the DR cap with any path so why take Sentinel? Sentinel has all the defense feats in it including the cap stone that gives 40-80% DR while unstoppable, and yet no way to build Determination to get into Unstoppable? Anyway, GWF discussions should be left to the Class forum, but as a die hard GWF fan, the Class is seriously unbalanced in itself and the "one build" has been around since mod 4.
Keep in mind pve/PvP balance as well. Gwf is seriously bad in PvP in comparison to all other classes. Anything done to the Class pve wise would only hurt the gwf even further for PvP.
As for Life Steal:
The older version was fine. It became broken when players could hit for 100k damage and get 100% of that back as a heal. In theory it would have worked if everyone wasn't hitting so Damn hard. Now you just need 15% to see that it's overkill.
Competitive PvE:
They should add a Pit style solo dungeon. Where you challenge each floor and move on to the next. Each floor increasing in difficulty. Leaderboards would reflect who descended the furthest into the Pit. (Level + Time)
you pretty much summarize what everyone wants for gwf like i said it will be done then we will all be happy build or no build i enjoy playing the class for i like to stand up to a fight not run from it. skill or no skill , i learned how the mechanics work just like any other class each player learnt what works or not.
it would be pointless if it didn't scale up though. as it is a potion does nothing against overall hp and it's not like the newer dungeons don't hit that much harder. you still can be one shot.
yeah any class can probably find a representative person soloing a dungeon with a lot of money thrown at the toon.. but the gwf is the class that doesn't need that much thrown at it to be that effective in a dungeon. we (or at least I) am not talking about exceptions to the rule. but instead, of the norm. and yeah some things may seem like a cake walk if you have a bis toon.. and if you're in an elite guild it may seem like EVERYONE has a bis toon.. but they don't. it's still the minority. the majority is still trying to get by in a pug thru CN and failing badly. lol.
it seems to me like a group of people who run bis gwf are trying to make it look like it's not the gwf who is OP but instead something else they can point to and say nerf that not me...
lol. when really it's all about the gwf still not everyone else.
really I've ran without healers and with healers. we DO die without healers. we just choose to tough it out because the dungeons aren't fun. aren't that rewarding unless you get super lucky so it's better to get the buffs to clear it faster rather than without ever dying and at the end of the day it's still faster to revive someone than to run it without the buffs. I'd much much rather have a buffing dc than a healing dc most of the time. although I'd just as happily run it with a healer if that's who is available. I've only met a few dcs who actually prefer to heal. most prefer the buff build that I've known.
to me this really seems like a diversionary "OH NO don't look at the man behind the curtain" type shenanigan..
This isn't for everyone, just the few..
I'm a GWF and I get beat by SWs, CWs, HRs, GFs, and TRs occasionally. All of them roughly the same ilevel as me. I also have a DC that I regularly beat GWFs on. There's nothing OP about a GWF. All GWF encounter powers are HAMSTER except the 3 we use to buff our At Wills and IBS. Life Steal works better for us than some other classes because we attack very fast with our At Wills. We also don't do extreme damage right off the rip because we have to go in, use daring shout, hidden daggers, build stacks of destroyer, go unstoppable, build stacks of destroyers purpose.. It takes a few seconds. And in a dungeon with other high DPS classes, those few seconds can mean the mob is almost dead before we get going. What are you even basing this on? You have no idea what companions people are running or what rank bondings. If you see a 2500 il GWF beat you in DPS it might just be he took his rank 12 bondings off his main to get some salvage runs in. I run with the same bunch of people all the time and we all know what the other is using gear wise. It's pretty damn even and every run we are all tied up on the damage boards. The only time I pull ahead is when IBS connects with a timed CS from a GF. As of late though, other DPS classes are using that same trick. It's dead even. If our survivability bothers you I don't know what to tell you. 99% of our attacks are melee, should we not have armor? How many Archers in the history books or in lore have you seen wearing a full suit of armor? Ranged classes = light armor, Melee = heavy armor. Even with that, not every GWF can take a hit. I sacrificed DPS in order to build my survival up for soloing. I've done dungeon runs where the other GWF in the group is constantly on the ground. This is silly. Everyone I know, has a level 70 GWF alt because they thought the same way you do, and they've all stopped playing them because they hated the class. They were getting out dps'd, dying constantly, and were extremely bored overall with the lack of versatility in the class.
By the way, using CN as an example is the worst. GWF are dead instantly in the Orcus fight without a tank to hold aggro. It's probably the easiest fight of any boss fight in the game if you're ranged DPS. I've solo'd it on my DC after a team wiped at the halfway mark. The rest of the dungeon is cake, regardless what class you bring. Any time I have jumped into a PuG CN it's a team waiting at the Campfire to fight Orcus. A GWF showing up is the worst possible class choice to get them through it.
It's fun... Sure. You can't be killed by 90% of the HAMSTER in this game. However, You do 50-60% less DPS. The group will hate you because everything is taking forever to die which only exposes their own inability to take damage. You don't reliably hold aggro. Yes, you can fill your determination bar with Daring Shout and Roar to enter "get off me bro" mode. You can't double mark without giving up either Sure Strike or Wicked Strike so you are either in single target mode or trash mode. There's no feats in the Sentinel path that are debuffs, not sure where you get that from. Also the feats are counter productive with the active abilities you would want to run as a tank spec. The only useful feats in the entire sentinel path is probably the mark, countless scars, and the + 5 AC points for slotting Weapon Master.
If you already have a tank Wtf are you even doing? Me being immortal but doing 60% less damage isn't going to make you feel better about your class, trust me. If all you want is to see us at the bottom of paingiver boards then fine, we have been there before. Our DPS is the only utility we bring to the party. Without it, we are absolutely useless. There's already 2 tank classes in the game. Everything pretty much has the ability to grant CA to the group and 2 classes can mark targets. What other functions or utilities do you see in instigator or sentinel path that you would like me to use instead. I'm sitting on 15 respec tokens.. Let me know.
How I did Sent (not saying this is the best or anything, just what I did, which ended up being fun):
Threatening Rush to mobs-> Daring Shout (Double marked+ CA for whole team) -> HD -> IBS on killable for AP gain -> Wicked Strike until needing to refresh marks or grab new adds with TRush
During the above exchange, you will grab massive aggro with the right feats and sentinel capstone. Only a strong taunt from GF's ET or such will peel them off of you. You will be able to pop Unstoppable with ease, sometimes I just skip the IBS to do AoE on trash while hulked. Sents don't get a bonus to encounter powers while unstoppable like the destroyers do, so I tend to reserve at-wills for hulk mode. I almost always have Wicked Strike slotted, and TR never leaves my bar. That teleport/mark thingy is incredibly useful all the time. DS is used on cooldown as soon as it is ready... my character must seem like a lunatic screaming at everyone and swinging this giant sword around.
Remember that you are providing combat advantage + double mark as debuffs, yeah you aren't removing as much health from enemies as if you had built the SM Destroyer way with all buffs lined up and ready, but the upside is there is no ramping up period for procs. You are slamming into the mobs with marks immediately and ganking the hamster out of them while building determination from taking damage+DS and also AP. If you pull too much without unstoppable immediately ready, use Avalanche of Steel to save yourself and reduce CD's on your encounters. I sometimes run with Restoring Strike instead of IBS just for laughs. It hits like a mack truck. My other daily is Spinning Strike which i barely use. Avalanche is just funny... sometimes I'll just jump with it right into a pack of fresh mobs to pull because I'm an idiot.
I take 1 feat from Destroyer tree tier 1 for increased at will damage, and a few from Instigator for increased crit chance and damage from combat advantage (edit: Student of the Sword and Vicious Advantage). Obviously I have sent feats for marks, and the other commonsense stuff, especially anything that builds threat like Intimidation. The point IMO is not to be a full tank, but to take care of anything that gets thrown at you. With a gigantic sword.
Addendum: About the point that other classes can grant CA and Mark... yeah but why wait around for them to do it for you? Do it yourself for your own mobs, hell -- take theirs too... if you hit mobs with daring when you have 5/5 Intimidation feat you WILL pull everything off of somebody unless you just stand there afterwards. They would have to do 6X your damage to keep the top of the threat table. And don't forget that marks are taunts... little micro taunts, yes.. not like Enforced Threat from GF, but you get to spam your taunts and your marks can't get removed. 62% extra damage (32% double mark+ extra 2x15% from mark feat) + whatever CA + CA bonuses you get from gear/stats/comps stacked within 3 seconds from TRush -> Daring Shout combo (1 click and 1 tap) in an AoE is nothing to sneer at.
Of course there's competition in pve. Do you seriously think there isn't? Do we need 5 4ks killing cn in 8 minutes? No. But we play to make our toons better and better so the next time we won't lose. It has to be there. Or else everyone would sit at 2.8k and the company wouldn't make any money. Paingiver serves to motivate dps to better their toons. The competition is in every f2p, it has to be
Here is the deal with my GWF. If i can get enough buffs i provide protection in form of tanking because the enemies are dead. The best CC in this game right now is enough DPS.
If u dont believe me, u have some serious theory crafting to do.
Lord Killington, enough said.
0
Options
lerapiso818Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 92Arc User
How I did Sent (not saying this is the best or anything, just what I did, which ended up being fun):
Threatening Rush to mobs-> Daring Shout (Double marked+ CA for whole team) -> HD -> IBS on killable for AP gain -> Wicked Strike until needing to refresh marks or grab new adds with TRush
During the above exchange, you will grab massive aggro with the right feats and sentinel capstone. Only a strong taunt from GF's ET or such will peel them off of you. You will be able to pop Unstoppable with ease, sometimes I just skip the IBS to do AoE on trash while hulked. Sents don't get a bonus to encounter powers while unstoppable like the destroyers do, so I tend to reserve at-wills for hulk mode. I almost always have Wicked Strike slotted, and TR never leaves my bar. That teleport/mark thingy is incredibly useful all the time. DS is used on cooldown as soon as it is ready... my character must seem like a lunatic screaming at everyone and swinging this giant sword around.
Remember that you are providing combat advantage + double mark as debuffs, yeah you aren't removing as much health from enemies as if you had built the SM Destroyer way with all buffs lined up and ready, but the upside is there is no ramping up period for procs. You are slamming into the mobs with marks immediately and ganking the hamster out of them while building determination from taking damage+DS and also AP. If you pull too much without unstoppable immediately ready, use Avalanche of Steel to save yourself and reduce CD's on your encounters. I sometimes run with Restoring Strike instead of IBS just for laughs. It hits like a mack truck. My other daily is Spinning Strike which i barely use. Avalanche is just funny... sometimes I'll just jump with it right into a pack of fresh mobs to pull because I'm an idiot.
I take 1 feat from Destroyer tree tier 1 for increased at will damage, and a few from Instigator for increased crit chance and damage from combat advantage (edit: Student of the Sword and Vicious Advantage). Obviously I have sent feats for marks, and the other commonsense stuff, especially anything that builds threat like Intimidation. The point IMO is not to be a full tank, but to take care of anything that gets thrown at you. With a gigantic sword.
Addendum: About the point that other classes can grant CA and Mark... yeah but why wait around for them to do it for you? Do it yourself for your own mobs, hell -- take theirs too... if you hit mobs with daring when you have 5/5 Intimidation feat you WILL pull everything off of somebody unless you just stand there afterwards. They would have to do 6X your damage to keep the top of the threat table. And don't forget that marks are taunts... little micro taunts, yes.. not like Enforced Threat from GF, but you get to spam your taunts and your marks can't get removed. 62% extra damage (32% double mark+ extra 2x15% from mark feat) + whatever CA + CA bonuses you get from gear/stats/comps stacked within 3 seconds from TRush -> Daring Shout combo (1 click and 1 tap) in an AoE is nothing to sneer at.
Are you sure you got 2 times the 15% feat dmg buff when you double marks ?
Are you sure you got 2 times the 15% feat dmg buff when you double marks ?
Tested on training dummy -- can't claim 100000% surety but pretty darn sure yes. But maybe I can re-emphasize that the way I played sent wasn't focused entirely on DPS maximizing -- so if I'm wrong then who cares anyway. Paingiver was never cared about in the slightest. I wanted to do enough damage... not necessarily the most. If that makes any sense.
The mark feat does not stack. Daring shout and Threatening Rush stack but it's only 8% more damage not the 15% from the Sentinel feat. I was a PvP GWF for roughly 5 mods. Iron Vanguard is my paragon of choice. Double Mark is great for single target over the SM path but that's splitting hairs. I also don't think it counts as a secondary buff for the party, it's just a self buff.
Combat Advantage is granted by standing behind your target or having a companion do it. (Orcus fight for example) Tank gets threat, everyone else sprints behind the targets. Also just about every class has the ability to create CA for the group. My point is that CA is easily obtained by any class. It does not require a GWF to use Daring Shout. That's the joke. Our biggest contribution is granting CA to the party which they could get very easily without us.
My point is that nothing you can get from the Sentinel or Instigator path will provide any party utility. So why nerf yourself into the ground? Like the other guy said, damage is the only utility we offer and we are great at it. If you take that away or roll into the other 2 paths we aren't doing anything to help the party. They need a rework.
...There's nothing OP about a GWF. All GWF encounter powers are HAMSTER except the 3 we use to buff our At Wills and IBS. Life Steal works better for us than some other classes because we attack very fast with our At Wills. We also don't do extreme damage right off the rip because we have to go in, use daring shout, hidden daggers, build stacks of destroyer, go unstoppable, build stacks of destroyers purpose.. It takes a few seconds. And in a dungeon with other high DPS classes, those few seconds can mean the mob is almost dead before we get going. [SNIP] ...Even with that, not every GWF can take a hit. I sacrificed DPS in order to build my survival up for soloing. I've done dungeon runs where the other GWF in the group is constantly on the ground. This is silly. Everyone I know, has a level 70 GWF alt because they thought the same way you do, and they've all stopped playing them because they hated the class. They were getting out dps'd, dying constantly, and were extremely bored overall with the lack of versatility in the class.
Remember this you posted from earlier? Now re-read my last post to you wherein I described the sent path as the answer to your complaints above. You keep saying that sent path is a 50% nerf, and maybe you've played a sentinel in PVP, and maybe you didn't take the intimidation feat to see how intensely potent sents are at getting aggro in PVE... I don't know. You DO know how tough sents are, which would solve your issues with GWF destroyers playing the cookie cutter build being glass cannons and spending a great deal of time being superheroes at dying.
Being able to draw fire and take a hit are very important team utilities. Dead heroes don't do anything to help anybody, and sents excel at being alive and keeping others alive and unmolested so they can tee off without needing to constantly dodge or kite. They also hit very hard very fast and can provide a great deal of DPS as well as they can offtank adds and trash mobs. Speaking of, sorry I wasn't more clear to everybody about the marks being for the GWF only as far as damage increasers. The CA debuff is for the whole team, which you pointed out can be provided by other means. Still doesn't change the fact that GWFs do it faster/easier/longer than anyone else with TRush/Daring. There are a lot of feats in this game across many classes that can interact with combat advantage in some way.
I think the primary problem with folks trying to be gloryhounds in team content and playing builds that are minmaxed destroyers lies in the fact that they underestimate just how important stats/gear are. They read about doing insane damage from the internet and think they won't need to invest an enormous amount of time and money into their GWF to reach that same place themselves. So when they hit that brick wall as you've personally seen, they give up on the class or say it isn't as strong as its billed on gamer forums. Make no mistake: the GWF glass cannon is ridiculous at BiS. It just is. The sheer amount of high buffs available from the very high base weapon damage, feats, capstone, and encounters push pretty far past the edge of "way way higher than other classes". Maybe this is a good thing, considering the newer content. But I wouldn't trust the devs to not grab that nerfbat if I was you. I would advise anyone in the GWF class to get ready to be an offtank again instead of Primary DPS Demigods.
...There's nothing OP about a GWF. All GWF encounter powers are HAMSTER except the 3 we use to buff our At Wills and IBS. Life Steal works better for us than some other classes because we attack very fast with our At Wills. We also don't do extreme damage right off the rip because we have to go in, use daring shout, hidden daggers, build stacks of destroyer, go unstoppable, build stacks of destroyers purpose.. It takes a few seconds. And in a dungeon with other high DPS classes, those few seconds can mean the mob is almost dead before we get going. [SNIP] ...Even with that, not every GWF can take a hit. I sacrificed DPS in order to build my survival up for soloing. I've done dungeon runs where the other GWF in the group is constantly on the ground. This is silly. Everyone I know, has a level 70 GWF alt because they thought the same way you do, and they've all stopped playing them because they hated the class. They were getting out dps'd, dying constantly, and were extremely bored overall with the lack of versatility in the class.
Remember this you posted from earlier? Now re-read my last post to you wherein I described the sent path as the answer to your complaints above. You keep saying that sent path is a 50% nerf, and maybe you've played a sentinel in PVP, and maybe you didn't take the intimidation feat to see how intensely potent sents are at getting aggro in PVE... I don't know. You DO know how tough sents are, which would solve your issues with GWF destroyers playing the cookie cutter build being glass cannons and spending a great deal of time being superheroes at dying.
Being able to draw fire and take a hit are very important team utilities. Dead heroes don't do anything to help anybody, and sents excel at being alive and keeping others alive and unmolested so they can tee off without needing to constantly dodge or kite. They also hit very hard very fast and can provide a great deal of DPS as well as they can offtank adds and trash mobs. Speaking of, sorry I wasn't more clear to everybody about the marks being for the GWF only as far as damage increasers. The CA debuff is for the whole team, which you pointed out can be provided by other means. Still doesn't change the fact that GWFs do it faster/easier/longer than anyone else with TRush/Daring. There are a lot of feats in this game across many classes that can interact with combat advantage in some way.
I think the primary problem with folks trying to be gloryhounds in team content and playing builds that are minmaxed destroyers lies in the fact that they underestimate just how important stats/gear are. They read about doing insane damage from the internet and think they won't need to invest an enormous amount of time and money into their GWF to reach that same place themselves. So when they hit that brick wall as you've personally seen, they give up on the class or say it isn't as strong as its billed on gamer forums. Make no mistake: the GWF glass cannon is ridiculous at BiS. It just is. The sheer amount of high buffs available from the very high base weapon damage, feats, capstone, and encounters push pretty far past the edge of "way way higher than other classes". Maybe this is a good thing, considering the newer content. But I wouldn't trust the devs to not grab that nerfbat if I was you. I would advise anyone in the GWF class to get ready to be an offtank again instead of Primary DPS Demigods.
I dont know what type of glass cannon you are talking about. With my stacks up i tank orcus just fine. And regarding the off-tanking i HAMSTER out so much DPS that im stealing aggro without being a useless sentinel or instigator. So you're point is invalid here.
I dont know what type of glass cannon you are talking about. With my stacks up i tank orcus just fine. And regarding the off-tanking i HAMSTER out so much DPS that im stealing aggro without being a useless sentinel or instigator. So you're point is invalid here.
See? Here is someone who obviously knows the importance of gear/bonding runes/etc. Have you been playing GWF for a long time? Have a nice and high ilvl? I have to assume you aren't a fresh 70.
I dont know what type of glass cannon you are talking about. With my stacks up i tank orcus just fine. And regarding the off-tanking i HAMSTER out so much DPS that im stealing aggro without being a useless sentinel or instigator. So you're point is invalid here.
See? Here is someone who obviously knows the importance of gear/bonding runes/etc. Have you been playing GWF for a long time? Have a nice and high ilvl? I have to assume you aren't a fresh 70.
Hi, im Lord Killington, 4319. I've solo'd every dungeon pre mod10, and all except CN/FBI in mod 10.5. Solo'd ECC again yesterday evening, and the day before that.
Hi, im Lord Killington, 4319. I've solo'd every dungeon pre mod10, and all except CN/FBI in mod 10.5. Solo'd ECC again yesterday evening, and the day before that.
Nice to meet you, Lord Killington.
A shining example of why I fear for the destroyer spec. It's nothing personal, Lord Killington, but please be aware that every time you run up and one-shot Tiamat the developers notice. It's not your fault or anything, you have no doubt earned your bad-hamstered-ness and deserve to be awesome. It's just that I don't trust the devs to let you continue to be THAT awesome.
When that nerf comes, hopefully it won't be super-terrible, but if it is... don't lose hope, guys. Sentinel is fun, too. Just in a different way.
Hi, im Lord Killington, 4319. I've solo'd every dungeon pre mod10, and all except CN/FBI in mod 10.5. Solo'd ECC again yesterday evening, and the day before that.
Nice to meet you, Lord Killington.
A shining example of why I fear for the destroyer spec. It's nothing personal, Lord Killington, but please be aware that every time you run up and one-shot Tiamat the developers notice. It's not your fault or anything, you have no doubt earned your bad-hamstered-ness and deserve to be awesome. It's just that I don't trust the devs to let you continue to be THAT awesome.
When that nerf comes, hopefully it won't be super-terrible, but if it is... don't lose hope, guys. Sentinel is fun, too. Just in a different way.
Yes ofc i hear ya. But they cannot nerf the very top of the GWFs just because we pull out heavy DPS while the average GWF cant do jack sh1et.
Its not like im several hundred million ahead of everyone else in FBI/MSVA. Its usually pretty close in DPS. I've been beaten by CW/HR/TR many times in MSVA. So the reason why it seems like GWFs have huge amounts of DPS is 1: no dots, just heavy burst damage, 2: we can run ahead all the time. But in reality our DPS matches a CW/HR/TR if specced correctly.
So if they do some sort of nerf to the GWFs damage they are just ruining the class.
Hi, im Lord Killington, 4319. I've solo'd every dungeon pre mod10, and all except CN/FBI in mod 10.5. Solo'd ECC again yesterday evening, and the day before that.
If you can solo kill Tardli, then I would be impressed
But they cannot nerf the very top of the GWFs just because we pull out heavy DPS while the average GWF cant do jack sh1et.
Yes they can. They have never really been fair or mostly reasonable about the review/nerf cycle. It's always "err on the side of overnerf" with these guys. According to how they do it, the GWF is prime and ready for the nerfbat. Too many players playing the class... too many players running the exact same spec. THE EXACT SAME SPEC. Then they see guys BiS running rampant soloing everything that "should not" be soloed. And it's their own fault for the amount of power creep in this game. Rather than fix the power creep, or tackling tough math problems like those presented by lifesteal/control bonus being OP/useless and reconfiguring mobs' settings on content and rebalancing damage out/control resist, they will nerf us. Nerf the CRRRAAAAP out of us.
But it's nobody here to blame. We are just playing the game they gave us, and we cannot really do anything but comment about it.
Loth is right, that is how they do it as they kinda explained how they approach it with the recent HR class balance notes.
The point of talking about Lifesteal was to discuss ways of forcing groups to play as groups and so avoid the inevitable nerfing of DPS output. If anyone has any better ideas I'd certainly be interested.
To my mind, reducing survivability to force DPS to rely more heavily on the healing and damage reduction capabilities of support classes would do this but would also provide the opportunity for the devs to remove the current 1-shot abilities of T2 npc's (which they won't do at the moment as they are the only things that kill players).
A combination of reduced self-healing and reduced npc damage could put us in that 'sweet spot' of making support desirable and effective.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I personally would like to see bonding stones work in reverse.. i.e. Give companion X amount of the players stats. I would gladly give up the hundreds of millions of Damage to have a companion that could stand by my side as my equal. Would be nice to have the Neverwinter Archer send out a Volley of Arrows for some legitimate AoE damage while I run single target. Or my Wizard companion lay down some CC on mobs that actually worked. The Companion are so far behind level 70 content that they have become just glorified augment companions. This would be great for even BiS players. Instead of 5x 4K players steam rolling through a CN it would feel like a super diverse 10 man 3k party. Some people could run healer companions, some strikers, some leaders for extra buffs. All companions would become useful... Finally.
Loth is right, that is how they do it as they kinda explained how they approach it with the recent HR class balance notes.
The point of talking about Lifesteal was to discuss ways of forcing groups to play as groups and so avoid the inevitable nerfing of DPS output. If anyone has any better ideas I'd certainly be interested.
To my mind, reducing survivability to force DPS to rely more heavily on the healing and damage reduction capabilities of support classes would do this but would also provide the opportunity for the devs to remove the current 1-shot abilities of T2 npc's (which they won't do at the moment as they are the only things that kill players).
A combination of reduced self-healing and reduced npc damage could put us in that 'sweet spot' of making support desirable and effective.
how about address the problems. oh removing lifesteal willl work for as long as it take for the build makers to find a balance with the other souces of self healing. so a month maybe two if you count the time it takes for it to spead to the masses . and then the whole thing will be made pointless when the release the next mod, if not that then the one after it. which will add something alot like it, cause thats how cryptic does things.
if you want to enforce something you do it, not ban something else. and if nerfing dps is what is needed they need to grow a spine and do it. playing around does nothing but waste time, goodwill, and money.
I'm not just being mean for the fun of it I have an answer. wounding damage, have a bit of the damage done be done as a max hp reduction healable only by time at a campfire, heal speced support classes, and a little bit from injury kits in case there is no healer. the pros of this are it actually focuses on the problem, it something they can adjusted, and has little chance of breaking things they didn't mean to break. cons, time, no really it take them a while to figure out probably twice as long as it should but that is all. add some defence, and maybe some healing to npc so fight take longer then three seconds giving time for the wounds to pile up and you got your fix.
oh and one shots are bad period, the do nothing but kill a player adds no challenge, add nothing for support roles to do. killing the players just to kill them is rather petty and unprofessional.
oh and one shots are bad period, the do nothing but kill a player adds no challenge, add nothing for support roles to do. killing the players just to kill them is rather petty and unprofessional.
There are one-shots in the game because Cryptic is too lazy to actually balance the game (buffs, powers etc) so they code an arbitrarily high number as a catch-all.
Yep but as I said, currently they are the only things that kill players with over 15% Lifesteal because if you can get back to 100% health every 1 - 5 seconds without external healing, the smaller attacks become meaningless.
@nightken wounding damage is an interesting concept but I'd see it as a similar logic as the everfrost damage which was partly introduced to bypass what I'm sure Cryptic see as 'annoyingly high Damage Reduction and Debuffing'. It could possibly be worked into something usable but if it appeared in open world solo content I'm sure most players would object to being forced to sit at the campfire every 10 minutes.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I'm cruising right along with my lifesteal-less CW. Got rid of all LS at lev 40-ish last week when we started talking about it and I got curious to see how necessary it really is. Currently halfway through Elemental Evil, lev 66, and no deaths aside from a couple of missteps dealing with crabs at Drowned Shore and a couple of crucially bad timed lag spikes which cant really be blamed on anything.
More importantly, the game is still fun and playable... not really any harder or easier at all. Which maybe could change later on in other campaigns. We'll see.
0
Options
instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
I'm cruising right along with my lifesteal-less CW. Got rid of all LS at lev 40-ish last week when we started talking about it and I got curious to see how necessary it really is. Currently halfway through Elemental Evil, lev 66, and no deaths aside from a couple of missteps dealing with crabs at Drowned Shore and a couple of crucially bad timed lag spikes which cant really be blamed on anything.
More importantly, the game is still fun and playable... not really any harder or easier at all. Which maybe could change later on in other campaigns. We'll see.
It won't be an issue (campaign wise) until you reach Icewind Dale where the NPC's hit a lot harder. I started running my CW through there at about 2.4k and the giants were able to smack me for 30% of my HP. Of course my Defence stat was really low (about 3k) but these days if I switched to all Defence instead of Lifesteal I'd be sitting at around 15k with a total DR of around 40%
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Yep but as I said, currently they are the only things that kill players with over 15% Lifesteal because if you can get back to 100% health every 1 - 5 seconds without external healing, the smaller attacks become meaningless.
@nightken wounding damage is an interesting concept but I'd see it as a similar logic as the everfrost damage which was partly introduced to bypass what I'm sure Cryptic see as 'annoyingly high Damage Reduction and Debuffing'. It could possibly be worked into something usable but if it appeared in open world solo content I'm sure most players would object to being forced to sit at the campfire every 10 minutes.
alot of players object to pointlessly removing lifesteal and people don't seem to think that'll stop cryptic.
and you can get around the open world part by making it a stat and only giving it to mobs in group only content. pros of this method control both of what has it and how much anything does. cons, they have to show a little foresight and maybe pay attention to what their doing.
It won't be an issue (campaign wise) until you reach Icewind Dale where the NPC's hit a lot harder. I started running my CW through there at about 2.4k and the giants were able to smack me for 30% of my HP. Of course my Defence stat was really low (about 3k) but these days if I switched to all Defence instead of Lifesteal I'd be sitting at around 15k with a total DR of around 40%
Oh I am definitely building this one for durability more than damage, which sounds counterintuitive as a DPS class but makes sense for soloing. I am getting weird, trying new methods instead of "obviously must-have" stuff. For example, I am not getting the Spell Twisting feat. Running Oppressor even, almost a PVP build -- but worse! LOL It seems insane but I am using Entangling Force on tab. It's working really really well. This one plays almost exactly like a short-midranged GWF instead of a CW. I set up stuff with encounters and then burn them down with at-wills. It turns out that a fully charged Storm Pillar hits as hard as a half strength Disintegrate (not counting the DoT that ticks afterwards), and when you have 6 stacks of chill/freeze on the bad guys and they're all clumped up really tight from a tabbed EF they explode into little pieces really fast if you have Chilling Presence slotted.
Comments
Don't worry my friend, they are going to nerf the high holy hamster out of the destroyer spec. No one is gonna save the GWF this time, no matter what anyone says. 99% of GWF play the exact same setup. It is considered "gospel correct" to repeat "GWF has only one viable spec" ad infinitum, and that falsehood is gonna get the spec trashed in legendary fashion.
Play a Sentinel, GWFs... try it. Go Iron Vanguard and see what happens. Double mark stuff, have feats for marks, have feats for debuffs, use tanky style aggro-getting stuff instead of trying to milk every last bit of personal DPS. Discover that you don't need the Destroyer capstone to generate massive amounts of Determination constantly... don't theorycraft it away, play it. You will see that there is another world to the GWF you have been missing.
But what am I saying? Of course you will try the Sentinel. Soon enough it will be the new hot spec that was always good before the gutwrenching devastating class-murdering nerf to the Destroyer. LOL Bite down on that stick this is gonna be a rough ride.
This isn't for everyone, just the few..
I'm a GWF and I get beat by SWs, CWs, HRs, GFs, and TRs occasionally. All of them roughly the same ilevel as me. I also have a DC that I regularly beat GWFs on. There's nothing OP about a GWF. All GWF encounter powers are HAMSTER except the 3 we use to buff our At Wills and IBS. Life Steal works better for us than some other classes because we attack very fast with our At Wills. We also don't do extreme damage right off the rip because we have to go in, use daring shout, hidden daggers, build stacks of destroyer, go unstoppable, build stacks of destroyers purpose.. It takes a few seconds. And in a dungeon with other high DPS classes, those few seconds can mean the mob is almost dead before we get going. What are you even basing this on? You have no idea what companions people are running or what rank bondings. If you see a 2500 il GWF beat you in DPS it might just be he took his rank 12 bondings off his main to get some salvage runs in. I run with the same bunch of people all the time and we all know what the other is using gear wise. It's pretty damn even and every run we are all tied up on the damage boards. The only time I pull ahead is when IBS connects with a timed CS from a GF. As of late though, other DPS classes are using that same trick. It's dead even. If our survivability bothers you I don't know what to tell you. 99% of our attacks are melee, should we not have armor? How many Archers in the history books or in lore have you seen wearing a full suit of armor? Ranged classes = light armor, Melee = heavy armor. Even with that, not every GWF can take a hit. I sacrificed DPS in order to build my survival up for soloing. I've done dungeon runs where the other GWF in the group is constantly on the ground. This is silly. Everyone I know, has a level 70 GWF alt because they thought the same way you do, and they've all stopped playing them because they hated the class. They were getting out dps'd, dying constantly, and were extremely bored overall with the lack of versatility in the class.
By the way, using CN as an example is the worst. GWF are dead instantly in the Orcus fight without a tank to hold aggro. It's probably the easiest fight of any boss fight in the game if you're ranged DPS. I've solo'd it on my DC after a team wiped at the halfway mark. The rest of the dungeon is cake, regardless what class you bring. Any time I have jumped into a PuG CN it's a team waiting at the Campfire to fight Orcus. A GWF showing up is the worst possible class choice to get them through it.
It's fun... Sure. You can't be killed by 90% of the HAMSTER in this game. However, You do 50-60% less DPS. The group will hate you because everything is taking forever to die which only exposes their own inability to take damage. You don't reliably hold aggro. Yes, you can fill your determination bar with Daring Shout and Roar to enter "get off me bro" mode. You can't double mark without giving up either Sure Strike or Wicked Strike so you are either in single target mode or trash mode. There's no feats in the Sentinel path that are debuffs, not sure where you get that from. Also the feats are counter productive with the active abilities you would want to run as a tank spec. The only useful feats in the entire sentinel path is probably the mark, countless scars, and the + 5 AC points for slotting Weapon Master.
If you already have a tank Wtf are you even doing? Me being immortal but doing 60% less damage isn't going to make you feel better about your class, trust me. If all you want is to see us at the bottom of paingiver boards then fine, we have been there before. Our DPS is the only utility we bring to the party. Without it, we are absolutely useless. There's already 2 tank classes in the game. Everything pretty much has the ability to grant CA to the group and 2 classes can mark targets. What other functions or utilities do you see in instigator or sentinel path that you would like me to use instead. I'm sitting on 15 respec tokens.. Let me know.
Threatening Rush to mobs-> Daring Shout (Double marked+ CA for whole team) -> HD -> IBS on killable for AP gain -> Wicked Strike until needing to refresh marks or grab new adds with TRush
During the above exchange, you will grab massive aggro with the right feats and sentinel capstone. Only a strong taunt from GF's ET or such will peel them off of you. You will be able to pop Unstoppable with ease, sometimes I just skip the IBS to do AoE on trash while hulked. Sents don't get a bonus to encounter powers while unstoppable like the destroyers do, so I tend to reserve at-wills for hulk mode. I almost always have Wicked Strike slotted, and TR never leaves my bar. That teleport/mark thingy is incredibly useful all the time. DS is used on cooldown as soon as it is ready... my character must seem like a lunatic screaming at everyone and swinging this giant sword around.
Remember that you are providing combat advantage + double mark as debuffs, yeah you aren't removing as much health from enemies as if you had built the SM Destroyer way with all buffs lined up and ready, but the upside is there is no ramping up period for procs. You are slamming into the mobs with marks immediately and ganking the hamster out of them while building determination from taking damage+DS and also AP. If you pull too much without unstoppable immediately ready, use Avalanche of Steel to save yourself and reduce CD's on your encounters. I sometimes run with Restoring Strike instead of IBS just for laughs. It hits like a mack truck. My other daily is Spinning Strike which i barely use. Avalanche is just funny... sometimes I'll just jump with it right into a pack of fresh mobs to pull because I'm an idiot.
I take 1 feat from Destroyer tree tier 1 for increased at will damage, and a few from Instigator for increased crit chance and damage from combat advantage (edit: Student of the Sword and Vicious Advantage). Obviously I have sent feats for marks, and the other commonsense stuff, especially anything that builds threat like Intimidation. The point IMO is not to be a full tank, but to take care of anything that gets thrown at you. With a gigantic sword.
Addendum: About the point that other classes can grant CA and Mark... yeah but why wait around for them to do it for you? Do it yourself for your own mobs, hell -- take theirs too... if you hit mobs with daring when you have 5/5 Intimidation feat you WILL pull everything off of somebody unless you just stand there afterwards. They would have to do 6X your damage to keep the top of the threat table. And don't forget that marks are taunts... little micro taunts, yes.. not like Enforced Threat from GF, but you get to spam your taunts and your marks can't get removed. 62% extra damage (32% double mark+ extra 2x15% from mark feat) + whatever CA + CA bonuses you get from gear/stats/comps stacked within 3 seconds from TRush -> Daring Shout combo (1 click and 1 tap) in an AoE is nothing to sneer at.
If i can get enough buffs i provide protection in form of tanking because the enemies are dead.
The best CC in this game right now is enough DPS.
If u dont believe me, u have some serious theory crafting to do.
Combat Advantage is granted by standing behind your target or having a companion do it. (Orcus fight for example) Tank gets threat, everyone else sprints behind the targets. Also just about every class has the ability to create CA for the group. My point is that CA is easily obtained by any class. It does not require a GWF to use Daring Shout. That's the joke. Our biggest contribution is granting CA to the party which they could get very easily without us.
My point is that nothing you can get from the Sentinel or Instigator path will provide any party utility. So why nerf yourself into the ground? Like the other guy said, damage is the only utility we offer and we are great at it. If you take that away or roll into the other 2 paths we aren't doing anything to help the party. They need a rework.
Being able to draw fire and take a hit are very important team utilities. Dead heroes don't do anything to help anybody, and sents excel at being alive and keeping others alive and unmolested so they can tee off without needing to constantly dodge or kite. They also hit very hard very fast and can provide a great deal of DPS as well as they can offtank adds and trash mobs. Speaking of, sorry I wasn't more clear to everybody about the marks being for the GWF only as far as damage increasers. The CA debuff is for the whole team, which you pointed out can be provided by other means. Still doesn't change the fact that GWFs do it faster/easier/longer than anyone else with TRush/Daring. There are a lot of feats in this game across many classes that can interact with combat advantage in some way.
I think the primary problem with folks trying to be gloryhounds in team content and playing builds that are minmaxed destroyers lies in the fact that they underestimate just how important stats/gear are. They read about doing insane damage from the internet and think they won't need to invest an enormous amount of time and money into their GWF to reach that same place themselves. So when they hit that brick wall as you've personally seen, they give up on the class or say it isn't as strong as its billed on gamer forums. Make no mistake: the GWF glass cannon is ridiculous at BiS. It just is. The sheer amount of high buffs available from the very high base weapon damage, feats, capstone, and encounters push pretty far past the edge of "way way higher than other classes". Maybe this is a good thing, considering the newer content. But I wouldn't trust the devs to not grab that nerfbat if I was you. I would advise anyone in the GWF class to get ready to be an offtank again instead of Primary DPS Demigods.
I've solo'd every dungeon pre mod10, and all except CN/FBI in mod 10.5.
Solo'd ECC again yesterday evening, and the day before that.
A shining example of why I fear for the destroyer spec. It's nothing personal, Lord Killington, but please be aware that every time you run up and one-shot Tiamat the developers notice. It's not your fault or anything, you have no doubt earned your bad-hamstered-ness and deserve to be awesome. It's just that I don't trust the devs to let you continue to be THAT awesome.
When that nerf comes, hopefully it won't be super-terrible, but if it is... don't lose hope, guys. Sentinel is fun, too. Just in a different way.
But they cannot nerf the very top of the GWFs just because we pull out heavy DPS while the average GWF cant do jack sh1et.
Its not like im several hundred million ahead of everyone else in FBI/MSVA. Its usually pretty close in DPS. I've been beaten by CW/HR/TR many times in MSVA.
So the reason why it seems like GWFs have huge amounts of DPS is 1: no dots, just heavy burst damage, 2: we can run ahead all the time.
But in reality our DPS matches a CW/HR/TR if specced correctly.
So if they do some sort of nerf to the GWFs damage they are just ruining the class.
But it's nobody here to blame. We are just playing the game they gave us, and we cannot really do anything but comment about it.
The point of talking about Lifesteal was to discuss ways of forcing groups to play as groups and so avoid the inevitable nerfing of DPS output. If anyone has any better ideas I'd certainly be interested.
To my mind, reducing survivability to force DPS to rely more heavily on the healing and damage reduction capabilities of support classes would do this but would also provide the opportunity for the devs to remove the current 1-shot abilities of T2 npc's (which they won't do at the moment as they are the only things that kill players).
A combination of reduced self-healing and reduced npc damage could put us in that 'sweet spot' of making support desirable and effective.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
if you want to enforce something you do it, not ban something else. and if nerfing dps is what is needed they need to grow a spine and do it. playing around does nothing but waste time, goodwill, and money.
I'm not just being mean for the fun of it I have an answer. wounding damage, have a bit of the damage done be done as a max hp reduction healable only by time at a campfire, heal speced support classes, and a little bit from injury kits in case there is no healer. the pros of this are it actually focuses on the problem, it something they can adjusted, and has little chance of breaking things they didn't mean to break. cons, time, no really it take them a while to figure out probably twice as long as it should but that is all. add some defence, and maybe some healing to npc so fight take longer then three seconds giving time for the wounds to pile up and you got your fix.
oh and one shots are bad period, the do nothing but kill a player adds no challenge, add nothing for support roles to do. killing the players just to kill them is rather petty and unprofessional.
Damn good post, Nick.
@nightken wounding damage is an interesting concept but I'd see it as a similar logic as the everfrost damage which was partly introduced to bypass what I'm sure Cryptic see as 'annoyingly high Damage Reduction and Debuffing'. It could possibly be worked into something usable but if it appeared in open world solo content I'm sure most players would object to being forced to sit at the campfire every 10 minutes.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
I'm cruising right along with my lifesteal-less CW. Got rid of all LS at lev 40-ish last week when we started talking about it and I got curious to see how necessary it really is. Currently halfway through Elemental Evil, lev 66, and no deaths aside from a couple of missteps dealing with crabs at Drowned Shore and a couple of crucially bad timed lag spikes which cant really be blamed on anything.
More importantly, the game is still fun and playable... not really any harder or easier at all. Which maybe could change later on in other campaigns. We'll see.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
and you can get around the open world part by making it a stat and only giving it to mobs in group only content. pros of this method control both of what has it and how much anything does. cons, they have to show a little foresight and maybe pay attention to what their doing.