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The Great GWF Secondary Stat Debate: Con Vs Dex
silknight
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 199
So, after having played BW 3 and BW 4 as a high level GWF. I'm stuck at looking at the GWF's stats. There is no question that people will put at least 1 point in STR every level, it then comes down to the secondary choice. Which have you all found more effective, Con or Dex. I tried a few respec tokens, and I found both to be nice. Con was definitely for a more defensive style of play. It boosted Health and Armor Penetration. Dex was nice for the Crit modifier, it also had a defensive modifier. Which will you choose.
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/sarcasm off
- Drizzt Do'Urden
― R.A. Salvatore
+1% Resistance Ignored (Base Offense)
+2% Hit Points (Survival)
+0.5% Damage Resistance (Defense)
Dexterity bonus per point over 10
+1% Critical Chance (Burst Offense)
+1% AoE Damage Resistance (Limited Defense)
+0.5% Deflection Chance (Defense)
I look at it this way.
+1% Resistance Ignored (Base Offense) vs. +1% Critical Chance (Burst Offense): I like the base offense better
+2% Hit Points (Survival) vs. +1% AoE Damage Resistance (Limited Defense): I like the survival better
+0.5% Damage Resistance (Defense) vs. +0.5% Deflection Chance (Defense): I prefer mitigation over avoidance
For me I like Con better because the nature of it is stuff that is there all the time and not an uncontrolled burst or situation dependent. The deflection is mathematically better against harder hits, but I would rather have a known amount of damage coming in than take spikes.
The Sentinel path benefits more from DEX, and I mentioned that here. Not that someone couldn't choose CON instead, but at least there is some reasoning behind it.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
No I am not sure on that. However what elspethtirelnw mentions is true, there is a lot more synergy in the Sentinel feats with Dex. But I prefer Con for different reasons. In my build I go with a 16, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10 stat array. So that is a differential of 4 points, if I go with 18 Con with my +2 to any stat then I am looking at a 6 point differential. So 12% more life, 6% more Resistance Ignored and 3% more Damage Resistance. If I flip that it is 6% more Critical Chance, 6% AoE Damage Resistance, and 3% Deflection. The Dex in this game will likely equal more overall mitigation, and the spike nature of it will not matter because this is not a trinity MMO where you have dedicated healers pre-casting heals on estimated incoming damage. Especially as the hits scale, and with all of the adds getting combat advantage, the Dex will be better. I just keep fighting an uphill battle and I am slowly sliding down.
The reason that I like Con, honestly is because I am one of those outside of the box kind of thinkers. I love being the devil's advocate. I love bringing points and counter points to the table. If a discussion is positive I will usually come in with some negativity, if a discussion is negative I will usually come in with a positive view. Not because I am overtly trying to be a contrarian, but because I believe that looking at something from all views and angles results in the most valuable conclusions.
So in an MMO I am "that guy" the one that is always trying to break the mechanics. The one that is always looking for a better way to do things than what the common knowledge is. Because of this I am determined to make a Human, Str / Con build work, just because all of the conventional wisdom says otherwise. So I am not really coming at this from a "this is for sure what is best" approach. I am going at it from a "this is what I am going to try" approach.
It will all work out in the end. Each stat has it's own ups and downs associated with it. Players simply need to determine which is more useful in their own build and beneficial to their personal style of play.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
For every stat of +Defense +Deflection +Regen, the more +HP you have, the more valuable each point of that +HP will be due to all the extra modifiers being applied.
I think in GW2 I heard about this term called EHP or effective health point that was determined by your other defensive stats, I don't know how the equation works but it's very "Effective" when determining your overall true HP score.
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
reasons should be easy to see but if not .example;;;;. you have 2 RL friend you will play with 90% of your gametime. One is a GF tank . the other is a DC healer. soo you will want to max out your dps output 100%. You will not need the survivals as much as you need straight dps.
I'm only looking at it from a Sentinel's perspective in this case, since there are so many more benefits associated directly with the stat. Even then, and I'm beating a dead horse here, they still need to fix threat generation associated with the build.
Regen, though, is an interesting point to bring into the conversation. A higher HP pool would certainly bring greater benefit out of that. It's something I have not personally messed with since I have heard lackluster results from other guild members. I do wonder if anyone has had success with that secondary stat or if it may become viable at some point. Something to keep an eye on.
I do agree with what you and Argantis are saying. CON will certainly result in a well balanced GWF.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
it looks to me like the base defense scales better (still on average).
i still don't see why is deflection considered the preferrable defensive stat.
armor penetration could be an interesting point but we just don't have any info on how it actually applies.
if it was a flat reduction (say, 5% armor pen vs 20% armor = 15% armor) then stacking more armor would be useless below the enemy armorpen and just scale normally above that level (meaning defense would look more appealing than deflect).
if it was a multiplier (say 50% armor pen vs 20% armor = 10% armor) then deflect would be better than defense when armor pen > deflect severity.
in the first case defense is worse under enemy armorpen value and preferrable above (but i doubt enemies have enough armorpen to completely nullify it), in the second defense is superior excluding really high values of armorpen.
of course, it might work entirely differently but this look like the 2 simpler scenarios. for all we know, enemies might not even have armor penetration. and it's all assuming deflect isn't affected by armorpenetration which we actually don't know.
This is straight from the beta 4 character sheet tool tips in game.
That is true if determination is based on amount of damage taken with some formula per level (X damage on level 30, and Y damage on level 60 both equal to Z determination). If determination is, instead, based on the damage taken as a % of total hp, then increasing your hp pool will lower your determination gain per point of damage, thus making it a moot point
Lets use a simple math model for the theory craft. 100 hits @ 1,000 damage for each hit. Then 100 hits @ 2,000 damage for each hit.
I will also use the 4 point differentiation in points between Con and Dex because it is probably a pretty common middle ground differential that will be in many builds. So 2% Damage Resistance versus 2% deflection @ 50% severity. Note that this is only looking at the mitigation versus avoidance and nothing regarding the other aspects of the comparison.
2% Damage Resistance: 100 hits @ 980 damage (2% = -20 damage per hit) = 98,000 damage taken. 100 hits @ 1,960 damage (2% = -40 damage per hit) = 196,000 damage taken. Basically you mitigate 2,000 damage per 100,000 taken no matter what.
2% Damage Avoidance @ 50% Severity: 98 hits @ 1000 damage = 98,000 damage taken + 2 hits @ 500 damage = 99,000 damage taken. 98 hits @ 2000 damage = 196,000 damage taken + 2 hits @ 1000 damage = 198,000 damage taken. Basically you avoid 1,000 damage per 100,000 damage potentially taken.
The 50% Severity is the key. If you can increase the Deflection Severity to 100% they will be equal. One will just be mitigation and the other avoidance. To actually make deflection superior in taking less damage it must surpass 100% severity, which it never will. At the best it can be equal, not better.
The advantage to taking Dex has more to do with threat and damage done rather than damage taken. However the build of Sentinel that I will play in live will not feature Sure Strike for threat off of critical hits. Furthermore I do not have the Heroic Feat points to put into Critical Chance or Severity.
I actually will switch over to Weapon Master's Strike as my primary attack at some point so I do not have the synergy in my build with dex, threat, or Sure Strike. For me Con is far more beneficial, but for other builds the Dex will make more sense.
With mitigation you take the damage, but it is reduced based on your Damage resistance. Some of this is from con, some from defense stat, and some from armor class, but it all gets pooled into "reduced damage taken" from all sources. So the real question to me is, if you have 30% damage reduction and you take 100 damage, do you actually take the 100 damage, gain the determination, and then have the mitigation factor in the reduction to 70 damage or do you take 100 damage, mitigate it to 70 and then take the determination gain.
Here is the tool tip for Determination from CB4
From reading this my initial thinking may have been in error. It very well may be that the more damage taken from deflection will actually = more determination. The critical hits will certainly = more determination from kills.
So now I am thinking that the trade off is less damage taken versus more determination. Con = less damage taken, Dex = more determination. That leads me to believe that if you want to try and main tank with a GWF that Con is better, but if you are looking to be more of an add tank and do more AoE damage that Dex is better. Here I go down that hill again, sliding down the slippery slope of trying to find value in my Human over a Half-Orc....
It is looking like I am going to have to focus everything I have on being a main tank and sacrifice damage done to find my niche as a Human GWF. This works well with my build choice so it looks like a win for me in the end. At least on the theory craft from a closed beta that is likely to change drastically in open beta. :P
Edit: This also implies that Human and Dwarf will be a better main tank type of GWF and Half-Orc will be the racial max choice for both damage and the flex tank or add tank role. Halflings and Half Elves also could perform a "balanced" build type of role and an Elf could do all right with a more damage focused build but sacrifice a small amount of defense in the process. All in all the Racial choices seem to mean less once you get past Human, Dwarf, and Half-Orc. While the other races do lose some of the min / max potential, I do not feel like it really is enough to ultimately matter.
The wiki definitely is outdated. It has not been updated since closed beta 3. Cryptic is going to make a mint off of all the errors people make. There were some pretty significant nerfs on the damage end of some feats. Determination went from 20/40% damage resistance to 25/50%. The feat that gives bonus AP during Unstoppable went from 50% gain to 25%. The Str bonus from damage feat went from 15% to 6%. There is one more I am forgetting as well.
Edit: Oh the healing feat went from once every 20 seconds to once every 40 seconds. There is a lot of adjustments being made on the fly and none of them are being reported or documented to the public. Since it was closed beta that is not a big deal. But in open beta they need to be more forthcoming with change logs and patch notes for every single change.
Edit 2: I found the reddit where Cryptic talked about the armor pen added to con.
They make no mention of Con = DR so that is something that we are going to have to be very careful with in open beta. It should be pretty obvious in character creation what is what. I will go back through my video capture of the tool tips to see if I can find anything. Yeah no luck. Brain HAMSTER on the ability scores. I looked at my array and the overall point system as you level, but did not actually hover over the abilities.
My plan is probably very different from what you're going at, I figured to start out with 18 STR / 12 CON / 18 DEX (half orc) and then build up STR / CON while leveling, which should leave my CON and DEX somewhat balanced by max level. I should be able to keep a steady 20%+ crit chance with just DEX, 2/3 crit chance feat (3/3 into severity) and weapon master slotted. Then going all the way into sentinel with Student of the Sword for stacking defense debuffing and Grudge Style for extra crit and threat from Sure Strike. I like somewhat balanced builds, maxing out only defense, or only offense for that matter, is not my thing. Reality will verify my plan and in the end I expect to respec at least two times before I settle on a build that suits me.
Thanks for checking. Guess we will know soon enough anyway
That was my impression too.
Not knowing this for sure is going to annoy me :P But it would make sense that the Guardian is a mitigation tank and the Great Weapon Fighter is an avoidance tank. It would further help to balance them if the GWF has less damage taken based on the severity because they do a lot more damage.