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Great Weapon Fighter Viability | Tanking build
ltsmithneko
Member Posts: 1,578 Arc User
GWF Topic
(Not the finished look, but it gets the point across. )
Greetings from the GWF Community,
Few days ago @balanced#2849 and @mimicking#6533 were asked a question by some of the GWF Community members(GWF Discord): “Can Great Weapon Fighter get a Parrying ability?”
Few days ago @balanced#2849 and @mimicking#6533 were asked a question by some of the GWF Community members(GWF Discord): “Can Great Weapon Fighter get a Parrying ability?”
References
https://youtu.be/SelURFb0mOs
A few of the most experienced players of the class discussed in the GWF discord server how much more appealing it will be for a Great Weapon Fighter getting a Parrying At-will instead of Reaping Strike (An At-Will that GWF’s don’t really use), hopefully this thread would serve as a good explanation on how it can be implemented.
So first thing first I have to mention that this thread isn’t to buff or nerf, simply a power change to help start making other Paths/Paragons start to have a power of purpose, setting the seed for further development on the GWF, with some of our Ideas to do so.
The current Build that most End-game players and new players that most start to follow is Swordmaster Destroyer which is using the following set of powers and Feats shown in the pics bellow.
To make it clear the following powers shouldn’t be changed in any sort of way, to make other powers more appealing, the only change/fixes needs to be done to the other powers/paragons.
Class Feats: Destroyer/Wrathful Determination
Encounters: Hidden Daggers/Battle Fury/Indomitable Battle Strike
At-will: Sure Strike/Weapon Master Strike.
So the following list of Powers/Feats that are being asked to be changed/fixed to create additional builds for the class would be:
Needs Fixing:
1.Steel Blitz at Rank 4 - Every time you damage an enemy, you have a 25% chance to instantly strike again, dealing 75% of your weapon damage.
*The bug with this power is that it doesn’t follow the player critical chance (similar to Storm Spell) so it doesn’t deal critical damage, and the other bug is that Damage Bonus from Strength (ability class) , Demongorgon set 3/3 or Soul sight crystal artifact aren’t increasing the damage dealt by Steel Blitz.
2.Trample the Fallen at rank 4 - When a foe is affected by control powers, deal 5% more damage to it.
*The bug with this power is that it doesn’t seem to work against Bosses, while it’s true that Bosses are immune to Control, but there are other Powers with similar wording tooltips that when the Boss is affected by a Control power they work, so Trample the Fallen needs either to be fixed or changed to be workable so it can be used against Bosses, and serve some purpose in builds.
3. Threat Generation: The following Feats in Sentinel are supposed to increase Threat Generation: Intimidation - 500% and Sentinel’s Aegis 250% .
Needs to be changed
1. Reaping Strike, this power is completly useless, therefor replacing this power with a Parrying At-will is the most reasonable thing to do which would help Great Weapon Fighters to switch to a more tankier role as part of its “Class Roles” in the group, it makes sense for a Two Handed Fighter to use both of his hands on the Sword, and Blocking incoming damage by a %, a lesser version of the Guardian Fighter Block.
2. (Come and Get it at Rank 4 - Pull your enemies towards you in a massive area around you, then gain a flat damage buff to your next attack within 3 seconds.
*This power has been fixed in the Rocktober Bug fix thread, but it’s still a lackluster, as we belive that this power should be upgraded to a better version and work similar to Commanding Strike
3. (Daring Shout at Rank 4 - Release a mighty challenge that Marks nearby enemies for a short period, building your Determination for every target hit, and increasing your Damage resistance based on how powerful the targets are.
Marked foes have reduced Damage Resistance.
*Well from what we know is that Mark decreases target Damage resitance by 8% for our Allies. I do think that Daring Shout should be a power that is capable of buffing the team in some sort of way, of coarse not by a huge amount, like 10% more damage (we do not want this Power to be a better self buff than Battle Fury, since BF is a more personal focused buff) we want this power to be used as a Group Buff.
4. Wicked Strike - deal damage in a wide arc around you. The third hit deals additional damage. Affected targets deal slightly reduced damage for a brief period.
*In rocktober this at will recived a significant buff to the Main hand artifact power: Wicked strike Equip: Each swing of Wicked strike increases your damage done by 3%. Stacks up to 3 times.
This power should be changed into a group buff, therefor increasing our viability in the group, not by much thou.
5. Sentinel’s Aegis - Increases the effectiveness of your Defense stat by 20% and causes restoring strike to Heal an additional 50% over 3 seconds. Unstoppable now grants 40-80% Damage resistance When activated.
*Indeed Damage resistance is a impressive buff, but it’s not enough to Block incoming damage hits from lvl 73 mobs or higher. It would be nice alongside that damage resistance it would give more Temp HP, to either reach 100% of max HP or 150% to max HP.
6. Freocious reaction or Enduring Warrior, should be one of the class feats that needs to be changed so that GWF can support their party group. Like a 10% dmg increase would be good enough.
7. Battle Trample: When Trample the Fallen would cause you to deal more damage, you also gain 25% of your weapon damage in threat and deal 25% of your weapon damage as Physical Damage.
* This feat needs to be upgraded, as it doesn’t benefit over multipliers, other classes have similar feats and they were upgraded to scale with power.
Ideal Builds
These is what it can be from the following builds.
1. Swordmaster Destroyer
It would be exactly as the current one, while switching to Steel Blitz when facing multiple mobs, they will excell in AoE DPS(As it should, since SM is a heavy AoE focused build).
2. Iron Vanguard Destroyer
It would be a really good Single Target DPS.
3. Swordmaster Sentinel
Their main role will be TANK with mediocre DPS to keep AGGRO.With the primary abilities which will help them to tank would be: Parrying at will , Temp HP and High Defense/Deflect builds.
Class features: Weapon Master/Steel Blitz
Encounter: Come and Get it/Daring Shout/Battle Fury
At-Wills: Weapon Master Strike/Parrying(PH)
Post edited by ltsmithneko on
4
Comments
Class Features: Weapon Master/(Enduring Warrior/Ferocious reaction(15% more damage))
Encounter: Come and Get it/Daring Shout(10% more damage)/Mighty Leap (With 3 feats picked in instigator: Warrior’s rush will decreased CD by 25%)
At-Wills: Parrying(PH)/Wicked Strike(Using the main hand artifact, it will increase allies damage by 9%)
Keep in mind GWF can still offer Mark and Combat Advantage to the group, sure it cannot compete with Paladins or Clerics, but is a lesser version of a tank or a support, neither one of these classes for example can have a high dps build. So i belive it’s fair to not ask to much.
If the above suggested things are going to be implemented, this would increase the choices in builds from 1 main go to build to 4. And it is well thought to not make the current build stronger. (SM Destroyer) It’s in an alright place.
Please let us know what you think! Is this a viable solution? Is it too limiting? Should there be more or less changes? Should Great weapon fighter have only one Viable build and only fulfill the role of a DPS? Any input or support is greatly appreciated, and hopefully we can find a way to improve the Great Weapon Fighter!
@percemer (boop)
@rgutscheradev @mimicking#6533 @noworries#8859 @asterdahl @nitocris83 @sgrantdev#8718 @balanced#2849 @ctatumdev#6113 @ncoreadev#4548 @rlesterdev#1958 @uimaven
I really like Reaping Strike!
Sure I always did read & heard how bad it is, but I had quite some success with it while lvling my GWF, both in PvE and PvP.
It is good "Hit & Run" tool for the GWF:
doing mini-sprints between to force the enemy to move too, while you can use the time they need to react to charge your RS, but works only if you have the agro.
IMHO it would be sad to see if Reaping Strike would get replaced. It would be a better solution to "fix/buff" it into a state, where it can compete with other builds. This should be handled by talents to encourage different builds than the actual ones. Each tree should have its own RS talent for different playstyles.
a few quick thoughts/ideas that I have atm. :
a) Instigator Tier 5 talent
After hitting an enemy with RS, gain a 4/8/12/16/20% movementspeedbuff for 2 seconds. Reduce the chargeuptime of your next RS by 0.1/ 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 / 0.5 seconds for 10 seconds.
b) Destroyer Tier 5 talent
While unstoppable, RS has an additional 0.1/ 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 / 0.5 seconds faster chargeuptime and marks all enemies hit.
c) Sentinel Tier 5 talent
While charging RS you get a mini-unstoppable-buff: (CC immunity and 10% / 20% / 30% / 40% / 50% of resistances, not the temporary HP!).
Imho the talents would give each talent tree his own RS playstyle. Especially the sentinel would proffit from this. Cause as of now it is sad that the so called tank tree Sentinel has more problems with CC than the Destroyer tree you can always easy fill determination to spam unstoppable. This would maybe even open main tank options for GWF. While it might look to good, you have to keep in mind that you shoudn't be able to spam it as it won't produce enough dmg/agro over time as your other abilities. Maybe even give the Sentinel talent a penality for using RS (like a 50% slow for 2sec) to prevent to much abuse (in PVP maybe).
I'm genuinely interested in how you can hit and run with a 2 sec charging attack
it seems you lack knowledge as your first sentence shows you haven't reached max level yet, which represents 95% of the content, therefore you may know only the basics of the class (and even so I have my doubts on this one)
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I agree with OP, reworking/fixing said powers/feats would be a great start to finally put a s to the word build. Like the ideas too.
In most cases the trashmobs should be agroing/targeting you as GWF. Most of the time, you'll try to face all your enemies and avoid any enemies in your back.
Now just take a quick shift step backward and immediately start to charge RS. Most enemies have a longer reaction time and slower movementspeed than you with sprint, which will earn you some "free time" to charge RS until they follow up. (works even in PvP against melee, since you know when you take the step and in which direction, while your enemy player needs to react to you and look where you are going).
You can even trade more time into longer sprints for more time bonus to the fully charge up RS = you trade DPS uptime for lesser/no dmg you take yourself. A really really handy tool in the hands of an offtank hybrid. A tool to trade DPS into defense. Imho it is a very cool tactical concept for an offtank!
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option B:
Use one of the dozen AoE knockback/knockdown attacks of the GWF to combo with RS.
E.g. Roar > RS
There are enough encounters to work with RS. Easy to execute and no sprinting downtime like in option A.
(while this ain't really a Hit 'n Run tactic, it follows still the same concept of trading dmg for space to get lesser hit yourself).
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btw, I did played my GWF to 60 at the time when it was the max lvl. I just didn't do much endgame content as said. only a few 60 dungeons/scenarios. Just to clear that up.
Further, I am not saying that it is reliable at endgame, but it should be imho. I had a lot of fun with RS (and a friend of mine shares this opinion about RS who also leveled his GWF this way) while lvling. You barely need health potions (while lvling even with crappy newbie gear), cause you can always trade some DPS uptime into lesser dmg taken.
Imho this tactical concept is so cool that it should deserve a place in endgame contend builds.
Once in a GWF-guide I did read: "The GWF is not an BERSERKER!", which imho translates into, that he is an agile 2h weapon fighter.
And the playstyle of RS is the best part of the GWF that represents this imho.
edit:
almost forgot another important aspect of RS in Neverwinter.
Neverwinter is for me the game with the most enemy AoE effects that forces you to move out of them. While all other playstyles have a DPS loss in this time, RS can make use of the time the enemies need to follow up for charging up. Imho this is a hidden bonus no one actually talks about.
Let me ask you now after I described of how one could make use of RS:
Wouldn't it be cool to have reliable engame builds for RS?
Nobody plays this power besides beginners because it's the second at-will introduced (and instantly abandonned once you reach WMS). No damage, too much restriction, clunky animation and so on. This power is extremely bad. Instead of thinking on how to make relevant something that has very high chances to never be (and proven), better replace it with something else (and in that case parrying fits better).
^-^ They need Powers that actually support them as I have meantioned.
And while we are at parry: what kind of parry (mechanics) are we talking about?
A skill gives %parry stat for x seconds? Sounds like deflect
An active parry skill to parry the next attack(s) for x seconds or as long as pressed? sounds like "block"mechanic.
Is there any kind of unique implementation for parry possible that isn't just a ripoff of something else?
It would be far better to turn RS into a good tanking tool.
And as last note: Most people tend to see/play GWF as pure dps hero, but that is the wrong image. Sure you can go full dps, but that doesn't mean that all non-max-optimized-dmg skills become useless and needs replacement.
If the tank capability of the GWF would be overall better, maybe people wouldn't be so harsh with RS (and some other skills). In the meanwhile the skill already has tank comforting buffs (take lesser dmg, gain more determination), but hey we loose dmg and therefore it's bad and needs replaced and not just buffed into a better tanking state? Sry, for the lil sarcasm
edit:
btw, I do not claim that my mentioned idea/buffs will work out, they are just ideas who would need testing.
e.g. If you really think that parry/block (whatsoever^^) will solve the issue, why not give RS a "X second parry/buff" that scales with the enemies (e.g like Daring Shout scales).
RS brings a unique playstyle, while parry is mostly the same as block. It's just that the majority of the players don't want to adapt to a "clumsy feeling" skill that need foresight and preparation to make full use. Maybe it's weak stat-wise atm, but that is no reason to replace it.
Further in times of internet guides where 95% of the community just stick to the common guides, you can't expect many people to experiment enough to get used to something. Especially if you consider the reskill costs for Skills & Talents in Neverwinter.
While I really like the payment-system of Neverwinter, I always felt the high cost for reskilling limited build diversity to much, since noone wants to end up with a build which he needs to reroll and invest money/resources/much playtime into it. And not everybody has the money (or enough time to farm the resources) to expend his wealth in testing builds. This results that possible builds never show up. Either because its suboptimal, to hard to execute or the synergy between talents and skills is not easy to see and no one will bother trying it.
I ask you just of curiosity, when was the last time you tried to make RS reliable endgame build (or anyone else)? Did anyone even bothered with it the past years?
I have searched many times for RS guides the past years, but I couldn't even find any attempts of people who even tried to make it use.
You just read "It's clumsy" and that's all what any guide will tell you = they didn't experiment much imho.
It's not the first melee warrior skill with a casting time I have seen. If I remember well, WoW vanilla warriors had an attack with casting/charging time too. So it's not that it's an uncommon concept for melee fighters to stand and charge up for more SMASH^^. And compared to the wow-warrior, the GWF doesn't need to charge it up in melee range. He step aside (from melee enemies), start to charge up and say, "Hey come and GET IT!".
And yeah, as said, this works even in pvp against other melees. Just sprint out of range and start charging RS. The enemy either will retreat or will GET IT
PS: I hope I don't feel like a nuisance, but as said, I really like RS and it's what defines GWF for me the most. I really enjoyed this kind of playstyle. So pls bear with me^^
PPS: just another thought, maybe giving one talent the option to reduce/get rid of the movement penalty of charging RS, or enabling the use of sprint while charging up, could be another option to make it more handy.
PPPS: another interaction option would be to allow the use of "Come and get it" when charging up RS.
As I said earlier, roleplay has it limits, there is an extent in which how a power is designed and how it fits into the rest of the class. This power simply cannot work because it doesn't synergizes with anything.
You roleplay people just play by what looks cool and not what's good (that's ashaming to bring that up on a balance thread). A fresh lvl 60 who did a couple of dungeons cannot know the class at all.
We have dozen and dozen of millions of AD and played hundred or even thousands of hours to know more than enough what's good and what's bad on the GWF, to know all possible builds by either spending it to try out the only things that could have potential (and findings bugs that make them impossible) or just simply theorycrafting because if you had the knowledge, you don't have to test it. If you see only one build out in the GWF websites there is only one reason : everything else is bad and requires tuning in order to be relevant. You can try anything else, it's very far from being that role it should be used for and not on par with the same roles filled by other classes. If you still bother using these subpar builds that just means you cannot post on this thread because its aim is the balance and to make it relevant, not to have some kind of coolness or play by RP.
Now i'm really considering if you're trolling, or just a simple casual lacking knowledge (and if so, don't feel offended but devs may actually read, and we don't like wrong ideas being read for the sake of a proper balance)
Have you tried it? If so I guess you didn't bother to post your results, like everybody else didn't post their results who tried it in the past years I guess.. ?
Again, I'm not trolling. I just lack to see any evidence about the claim that it has been tested.
Further, the reliability of a skill is mostly determined by numbers (damage dealt/prevented/healed...) and utility and only to the lesser part by its (3D) animation or casttime (and casttime is just another value).
The only problem that I see is, people who don't like the mechanism of RS and would like to have something else that fits their view of a GWF.
Instead we could just tweak the number & utility part of RS to have a really different playstyle to the ones we had so far.
I'm just asking for diversity between classes ( = no pseudo block named as parry) and to keep the base concept of RS playstyle and make it wroth in endgame content somehow. It's nothing impossible. Just some number tweaks and some utility here and there.
And btw, from the balance workload it is easier to tweak a class skill than to replace it by something else. A replaced skill could always cause unwanted synergies and thus unexpected imbalance. It needs far more time to test skill replacements to make sure everything is fine. And I doubt the new skill won't get any talents. So in the end, refining RS and adding/changing talents for it is imho the lesser work.
And last, while I do play pnp roleplay games, on PC games I tend to spend more time theory-crafting. Just because you assumed I was a sole roleplayer who goes only for looks. No I tried to make the best out of RS while lvling and had quite some success running mostly dungeons & skirmishes with some lil pvp in between.
It's sad when a build works all the way to max lvl and than becomes "garbage" just because the numbers don't keep up due to lack of enough synergy or the lack of specific build boosting items. And it makes me even more sad, when I consider that the "standard build" atm is actually a lot easier to play than a RS build (as mentioned needs some foresight & planing).
edit: Google results for: GWF "Reaping Strike" in the past year..
I put some numbers there down, this is just for thinking, they maybe overpowered, especially in PvP.
Also parrying should not be an attack but maybe influence the next attacks and actions. It could read like it:
Parrying the next coming attack, the GWF holds out is sword to deflect incoming attacks. The parrying will end, if the GWF starts another attack. Basic rank 5sec up and 5% deflect - each rank improves uptime 1sec and deflect 5%. encounter cooldown 16 sec.
Instigator talent - while studying your opponent in parry - you see their weaknesses. The next attack will cause them to bleed for 20/40/60/80/100% of your max power.
Swordmaster talent parry: Concentrating on your next attacks, your next 1-5 attacks hit for an additional 5/10/15/20/25% crit severity / or more damage
Sentinel talent parry: While in parry stance your deflect severity is increased by 5/10/15/20/25% and the cooldown is reduced by 1/2/3/4/5 seconds.
Especially the sential parry should be tanking. Maybe the sentinal path also includes a talent to increase HP via constitution and the capstone should make daring shout a hard aggro like enforced threat or binding oath.
The sentinal capstone should also provide at temp HP while unstoppable. Normally the beating taken during parrying should fill the determination bar and when you stop parry, you have temp HP available. That of course must be tested with determination gain, plus must be less temp HP for PvP otherwise it becomes unbalanced.
Another thought, maybe this is an IV encounter only, replacing "Not so fast" from the SM paragon.
Have fun discussing it.
What I'd like to see is shifting Battle Awareness to Sentinel, slightly buffing it and making it give power to allies in Slam's effective area. Or something like that.
Give sentinel a feat (or smth) that swaps who gets what - party gets 26% and you get the lessened effect for instance.
There's plenty of HAMSTER to change - for instance, GWF doesn't have a single class feat that gives something to the party. It generally has like 3 of them that are decent and the rest are trash. I mean, control resist? Really?
In this case it would be a matter of number tweak (global threat increase I guess), what needs to be done is drastic changes to hit Preview and make our own tests
/dev/nullDead🔪/dev/nullDead🔪