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.
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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.
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Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
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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.
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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.
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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.
the only reason any of this is an issue is because we are allowed to buff up our toons to ridiculous proportions. I'm pretty sure everyone posting here is WELL over 3300k il. the simple and elegant solution if it really bothers you is to play on a lower il alt. lol. the majority of players are lower il. if they reduce it for the high hitters they're hurting the majority for the benefit of the higher. I personally don't want them to mess with any important stats unless they're willing to go back and make all the dead end flowcharts of all the classes valid again. right now most classes have one valid path. that's it. the other paths have been violated. there is a basic unwillingness to make things worthwhile once they're made useless. if they kill lifesteal then you've got all these useless lifesteal paths. do you REALLLLLY think.. for a second even..... that if they get rid of or nerf lifesteal that they're going to make it right beyond giving people a trade in maybe for enchants (if we're super lucky)
as it is the nerf of the gwf is going to happen. it's happened to everyone else. let it happen. lol. it's all part of their balancing plan. nerf em all. once we've all been nerfed to the ground at least it's all equal footing.
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.
the only reason any of this is an issue is because we are allowed to buff up our toons to ridiculous proportions. I'm pretty sure everyone posting here is WELL over 3300k il. the simple and elegant solution if it really bothers you is to play on a lower il alt. lol. the majority of players are lower il. if they reduce it for the high hitters they're hurting the majority for the benefit of the higher. I personally don't want them to mess with any important stats unless they're willing to go back and make all the dead end flowcharts of all the classes valid again. right now most classes have one valid path. that's it. the other paths have been violated. there is a basic unwillingness to make things worthwhile once they're made useless. if they kill lifesteal then you've got all these useless lifesteal paths. do you REALLLLLY think.. for a second even..... that if they get rid of or nerf lifesteal that they're going to make it right beyond giving people a trade in maybe for enchants (if we're super lucky)
as it is the nerf of the gwf is going to happen. it's happened to everyone else. let it happen. lol. it's all part of their balancing plan. nerf em all. once we've all been nerfed to the ground at least it's all equal footing.
there are way too many between 3.3k and 4k who don't do the dmg they should simply because they don't follow a good build or the rotations that come with it. also getting rid of life steal is not an option, i would suggest tweaking the powers for the class which life steal makes it possible to solo dungeons although that may defeat the purpose in a way because so many are hungry to be top dps that they forget they're actually a support class )
the only reason any of this is an issue is because we are allowed to buff up our toons to ridiculous proportions. I'm pretty sure everyone posting here is WELL over 3300k il. the simple and elegant solution if it really bothers you is to play on a lower il alt. lol. the majority of players are lower il. if they reduce it for the high hitters they're hurting the majority for the benefit of the higher. I personally don't want them to mess with any important stats unless they're willing to go back and make all the dead end flowcharts of all the classes valid again. right now most classes have one valid path. that's it. the other paths have been violated. there is a basic unwillingness to make things worthwhile once they're made useless. if they kill lifesteal then you've got all these useless lifesteal paths. do you REALLLLLY think.. for a second even..... that if they get rid of or nerf lifesteal that they're going to make it right beyond giving people a trade in maybe for enchants (if we're super lucky)
as it is the nerf of the gwf is going to happen. it's happened to everyone else. let it happen. lol. it's all part of their balancing plan. nerf em all. once we've all been nerfed to the ground at least it's all equal footing.
there are way too many between 3.3k and 4k who don't do the dmg they should simply because they don't follow a good build or the rotations that come with it. also getting rid of life steal is not an option, i would suggest tweaking the powers for the class which life steal makes it possible to solo dungeons although that may defeat the purpose in a way because so many are hungry to be top dps that they forget they're actually a support class )
I actively run 7 characters with my main being a 3.6k prot Pally and my lowest is a 2.5k GWF. I did a pug CN last night and as usual I loaded as a replacement into a group and there were 3 DPS (2xHR & 1 GWF) and a GF (3.1k) loaded in just after me.
The two HR's were 4k and 3k and the GWF was 3.3k. They were very badly built and it took twice as long as usual to finish, I came 2nd on paingiver just behind the 4k HR. This was despite them getting up to 20k power from me plus ITF from the GF.
I normally do about 30-40% of the dps of a 3.2-4k GWF which is absolutely needed if I am to maintain threat. Pallys have a x5 threat multiplier so need to do at least 20% of the damage of the highest DPS in the group - and as HP is generated by our damage output, the more damage we do equates to more temp health and better survivability.
Cat, you're right, they won't remove lifesteal (though they may change it again). They are slowly digging themselves into a hole by introducing all new stat sources and reducing the damage mechanics of classes in an attempt at rebalancing. The problem for them is all of the changes they make (boosts & nerfs) move them into a position where it warps everything in the long run,then they try something drastic like introducing everfrost damage.
I strongly suspect they actually have no idea how to achieve a properly balanced game but I do think they won't get there without a radical redrawing of all class mechanics.
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
Comments
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.
I personally don't want them to mess with any important stats unless they're willing to go back and make all the dead end flowcharts of all the classes valid again. right now most classes have one valid path. that's it. the other paths have been violated. there is a basic unwillingness to make things worthwhile once they're made useless. if they kill lifesteal then you've got all these useless lifesteal paths. do you REALLLLLY think.. for a second even..... that if they get rid of or nerf lifesteal that they're going to make it right beyond giving people a trade in maybe for enchants (if we're super lucky)
as it is the nerf of the gwf is going to happen. it's happened to everyone else. let it happen. lol. it's all part of their balancing plan. nerf em all. once we've all been nerfed to the ground at least it's all equal footing.
if so why would you argue to get rid of it still?
The two HR's were 4k and 3k and the GWF was 3.3k. They were very badly built and it took twice as long as usual to finish, I came 2nd on paingiver just behind the 4k HR. This was despite them getting up to 20k power from me plus ITF from the GF.
I normally do about 30-40% of the dps of a 3.2-4k GWF which is absolutely needed if I am to maintain threat. Pallys have a x5 threat multiplier so need to do at least 20% of the damage of the highest DPS in the group - and as HP is generated by our damage output, the more damage we do equates to more temp health and better survivability.
Cat, you're right, they won't remove lifesteal (though they may change it again). They are slowly digging themselves into a hole by introducing all new stat sources and reducing the damage mechanics of classes in an attempt at rebalancing. The problem for them is all of the changes they make (boosts & nerfs) move them into a position where it warps everything in the long run,then they try something drastic like introducing everfrost damage.
I strongly suspect they actually have no idea how to achieve a properly balanced game but I do think they won't get there without a radical redrawing of all class mechanics.
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