As far as I could tell, my GWF was not getting any defensive benefit from CON apart from the HP %. My total DR was based off of combined AC and Defense. Hovering over the CON stat, the tooltip also did not list any information regarding DR.
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| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
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.
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.
This is bad theory for a few reasons. You are not at all factoring in proper damage scaling or the probability associated with deflect chance. Utility varies greatly depending on the severity of a hit and most monsters hit for considerably more than the numbers you listed. It would be no easy task to get a true average without the ability to parse through some combat logs of different builds at higher levels.
As above, I don't think CON adds to DR for GWF. Factoring that in, DEX also gets the benefit of AOE damage resist (which there is a lot of AOE at 50+ to contend with). At least in terms of Sentinel, I'm starting to see a widening gap between the utility of the two stats. In regards to tanking at higher levels, a Sentinel would likely have both high DR and Deflect.
Now for different builds, with a low deflect chance, that is a different story all together.
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I thought we already moved past this in the discussion.
No one addressed all of those points in the posts following, so I'd say my point is still valid in regards to the discussion. You are entitled to your opinion either way.
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leissesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
Well, I ignored the post with the maths because it were considering the GWF CON would give it DR so the maths were already flaw at that point.
And to the guy that said GWF would be more an avoidance tank you must know that GF gets Deflection from DEX and have talents to increase Deflection too.
The evasive "fighter" is the TR that has 2 ability that increase the Deflection (+0.5%/DEX and +1%/CAR) while GWF and GF only get the +0.5%/DEX like all classes.
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neverasherMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Well, I ignored the post with the maths because it were considering the GWF CON would give it DR so the maths were already flaw at that point.
And to the guy that said GWF would be more an avoidance tank you must know that GF gets Deflection from DEX and have talents to increase Deflection too.
The evasive "fighter" is the TR that has 2 ability that increase the Deflection (+0.5%/DEX and +1%/CAR) while GWF and GF only get the +0.5%/DEX like all classes.
because GWF can get deflection chance up above 50% with feats and passives, and they have a 50% deflection severity, TR only get 25% severity.
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silknightMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 199
edited April 2013
Whoa discussion blew up as I slept nice.
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leissesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
You are right neverasher. TR really don't have a good deflection chance and the 50% severity makes GWF one a lot better at deflection (unless it is the bigger the severity the bigger the damage, which probably isn't the case).
STR/CON GWF is the big, beefy brawler who gets in the enemies' face and stays there, screaming like a wild beast and hammering his foes into the ground. His great size and dense muscles allow him to shrug off staggering blows like they were nothing (hp/dmg res), and he can throw that weight behind each blow to plow through any defense (res ignore).\
(ex. Gimli, Guts, etc.)
STR/DEX GWF is the lithe, graceful dancer who strikes for the enemies' weak points. Through deft manipulation of his great weapon this fighter knows where to strike for greatest effect (crit) and where to place himself (AoE res) and his blade (deflect) to neutralize his opponent's counter attack.
(ex. Aragorn, etc.)
In-game terms:
Con Fighters will utilize marks and mitigation to enforce their presence on the battlefield. Powers like Daring Shout, Come and Get It, and Restoring Strike will keep enemies' attention on you, allowing your allies to engage without fear and quickly building Determination so you can frequently become Unstoppable.
Dex Fighters will utilize mobility and burst damage to eliminate enemies quickly and then get out of the line of fire. Powers like Punishing Charge, Flourish, and Not So Fast allow you to control your opponent's movement and get to wherever you need to be to inflict the most damage, then you can pop Unstoppable to get back out of harm's way and engage your next victim.
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silknightMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 199
edited April 2013
I kind of like the idea of Dex being the more Offensive style secondary stat. A few reasons this meshes well would be, as a damage dealer you're looking to be in the thick of things, therefore you'll be where the most players are and where AoE damage is coming down. If it helps you mitigate that then and increase your damage then it's perfect. Now consider Con being for the more Defensive style, more health, more defensive mitigation, and more armor penetration. Health and defense are great, now they just need to have armor penetration effect threat, maybe more raw damage done increases threat generated or some such, and we're set. Now the problem, if One becomes too good for mitigation and damage, then the other suffers. I won't claim I'm a min / max player, but I do generally gravitate towards the better stat choice, as I'm sure most people do. I just don't want one to be overpowered for both situations.
I am still up in the air :P I probably will be until about the 24th on what path I will go. I might try a human build that is offensive but has some survival built into it.
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silknightMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 199
I am still up in the air :P I probably will be until about the 24th on what path I will go. I might try a human build that is offensive but has some survival built into it.
I really like the 3 extra feat points you get, allows the potential for some interesting combinations, ultimately I'm sure someone will crunch the numbers and come out with a "best" race class combo but for now I'll live with a human for my damage GWF.
I really like the 3 extra feat points you get, allows the potential for some interesting combinations, ultimately I'm sure someone will crunch the numbers and come out with a "best" race class combo but for now I'll live with a human for my damage GWF.
Yeah I actually have my build completely worked out. To be a main / off tank Defender focus and still have respectable damage. I will likely never surpass a trickster rogue in damage and the very best control wizards may very well out do me in damage as well. However I will be generating threat like crazy and should be able to really mark and control the adds quite a bit. Due to that the devoted cleric can focus their heals more on the guardian or me and not have to run around like a chicken so much. I also feel confident that I can main tank all but the hardest content, and even then I sure will give it a go. If you have not figured it out by now I am big on synergy in a class.
For the role I want to perform the racial break down is so close between Human, Halfling, and Half-Orc that I really dont care about not being totally maxed out. I went through all of my feat selections and every time one of my feats had a synergy with an ability or game stat I gave it one more rank. So based on my build it breaks down something like this.
STR: 5
AGL: 5
CON: 4
POW: 7
DEF: 4
DFL: 1
You can see where the Halfling would be better with the defensive side of my build and the Half-Orc would be better on the offensive side, but the Human strikes a nice balance of them both and I am OK with that. I will likely go with the 16, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10 stat array to start the game with. My Human +2 will go to Con to give me a 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10. I will then pump STR and DEX and end up with a S:22, D:22, C:16, I:12, W:12, C:12. Final build at level 60. +1 to all with campfires woo hoo!
One thing that really sucks, is with taking all of the passive abilities and working down to the load out I have 8 powers left and 3 points to max one "optional" one at the end. What sucks even worse is that I have to pick between: Avalanche of Steel, Wicked Strike, Weapon Master's Strike, Savage Advance, and Flourish. Right now I am going with Flourish so that I can load it up with Takedown, Restoring Strike, and Crescendo for a single target build to play with in PvP. I am having some serious reservations about having only Sure Strike and Reaping Strike for At-Will powers though so I may have to not have Flourish. Bleh. I will have to look at it and see if there is something else I can sacrifice along the way.
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neverasherMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
really going to try a high crit build since it seems to go on top of combat advantage and really increases the amount of damage you see. that plus the crit severity feat will help with damage some. i know on trickster rogue with all the crit severity feats the damage numbers you can get are ridiculous.(10k+dot with 10 stack duelist flurry, 50k shocking execution(when boss at low health).
really going to try a high crit build since it seems to go on top of combat advantage and really increases the amount of damage you see. that plus the crit severity feat will help with damage some. i know on trickster rogue with all the crit severity feats the damage numbers you can get are ridiculous.(10k+dot with 10 stack duelist flurry, 50k shocking execution(when boss at low health).
Very nice, I thought about going with an offensive build. I felt that Half-Orc and Str / Dex definitely made sense there but that there was some options with Wood Elf, and believe it or not Half Elf too. I felt that the charisma of the Half Elf along with the Instigator line and Wicked Strike could really be an off the beaten path, but interesting build. And yeah the 3 feats definitively can help offset the 2 ability points lost on the human but it does fall short. When you consider that 2 Dex will lost versus the Half-Orc that will be 2% critical and 1% deflect. Those three feats are not going to equal out to that. All offensive builds will max out that critical anyways. So those 2% are going to be in some fringe feat that is most likely going to be a utility or defensive feat. Then the human loses a bit more with the 3% defense versus the 5% critical damage. Though if you can afford to take the 20% defense to power feat, it may end up making the human a lot more resilient with some defense, but your still going to lose out in a pure damage race to a maxed out Half-Orc.
I know this seems a bit off topic, but to me it relates because after continuing to work things out, especially without the mitigation from Con, I do also believe that the Dex is the best secondary stat for every GWF build, defensive or offensive. If they gave us that 0.5 damage resistance then I would flip a bit but from what I am seeing I cannot confirm that and it seems like it was a bad tool tip that someone used to put the info on curse gaming that I originally was going on.
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silknightMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 199
edited April 2013
I kind of wish there was a stat for attack speed. I would focus on that in a heart beat.
vagrantzeroMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
In BW4 CON did not yeild any DR for the GWF. I ONLY logged into BW4 to check that one thing. If you plan to tank seriously you will go STR/DEX. DEX is superior for both Threat (synergy with Sentinel only +Threat on Crit talents) and Mitigation (Deflection + AOE Resist) where the GWF is concerned.
CON only yields +Health (which is predominantly a PVP stat not a tanking one; you only ever need enough health to not get 1-shotted, and since we can scramble the hell out of those attacks even that is debatable) and +Armor Pen (a purely dps stat, and we aren't even sure if it's a good dps stat in comparison to Crit, we need parses).
I appreciate out of the box thinking, but in this case it's a bit cut and dry clear.
My own personal belief is that the Human will make the best Sentinel GWF. The +3 Defense coupled with 3 extra feat points is just too good to pass up.
In BW4 CON did not yeild any DR for the GWF. I ONLY logged into BW4 to check that one thing. If you plan to tank seriously you will go STR/DEX. DEX is superior for both Threat (synergy with Sentinel only +Threat on Crit talents) and Mitigation (Deflection + AOE Resist) where the GWF is concerned.
CON only yields +Health (which is predominantly a PVP stat not a tanking one; you only ever need enough health to not get 1-shotted, and since we can scramble the hell out of those attacks even that is debatable) and +Armor Pen (a purely dps stat, and we aren't even sure if it's a good dps stat in comparison to Crit, we need parses).
I appreciate out of the box thinking, but in this case it's a bit cut and dry clear.
My own personal belief is that the Human will make the best Sentinel GWF. The +3 Defense coupled with 3 extra feat points is just too good to pass up.
I can agree with that, sorry if I took a while to come around on the Con versus Dex debate. The 3 feats for me ended up being in the 3% total health on begin healed by a player power. The 3% defense IMO is important. Because Defense is indeed mitigation and I do find that superior to deflection. However the Halfling IMO is right there too. It is really a toss up in the two races for me on which is better as a Sentinel.
I also was very surprised at how important Power was to me, even as a Sentinel. So I also think that Half-Orc works for any style of GWF. But that is pretty normal for Half-Orc. Until Dragonborn come in they will be the king of any Str based class, or at least near the king even for niche builds.
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khanstruewrathMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited April 2013
str dex. hp will just have to come from raw mods on gear if this game has them, if not, will then ill be squishy, but ill crit like god on speed.
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neokhanswrathMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 8Arc User
Curse is now the partner of Cryptic with the "Official Neverwinter Wiki" and they do indeed still have the Con stat on GWF listing 0.5% DR per point of Con.
I still urge people to play close attention to this in character creation during live. I do not see any updates to this page yet so I think that Curse could very well be wrong here, but it is a very important consideration for those wishing to tank.
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leissesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Personally I think Curse is way off base here, and they just have not gotten slapped into line by Cryptic yet. If not then WIN! LoL sorry, just excited about the GWF in general and open beta coming soon.
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neverasherMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Curse is now the partner of Cryptic with the "Official Neverwinter Wiki" and they do indeed still have the Con stat on GWF listing 0.5% DR per point of Con.
I still urge people to play close attention to this in character creation during live. I do not see any updates to this page yet so I think that Curse could very well be wrong here, but it is a very important consideration for those wishing to tank.
Well the wiki certainly isn't what the stat says in the tooltip ingame, unless they are reflecting an update to the stat for a future update.
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leissesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
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.
I did the exact same thing. I played a Human GWF focused on STR and CON during the four beta weekends and got up to level 38. I thought that he played really well and I was very happy with it. I am running him almost exclusively in a duo with a friend of mine and that is kind of making me re-think it to make sure CON is what I want over DEX. If I was soloing full time I think I would absolutely go with CON because I think there's no question that the survival is better there. The fact that I'm going to be running in duo with someone playing a CW is making me think that maybe the extra HP's and defensive boosts would not be as handy as having the extra burst damage from crit and the extra deflection. Any thoughts on that reasoning? Seems to make sense to me...
I did the exact same thing. I played a Human GWF focused on STR and CON during the four beta weekends and got up to level 38. I thought that he played really well and I was very happy with it. I am running him almost exclusively in a duo with a friend of mine and that is kind of making me re-think it to make sure CON is what I want over DEX. If I was soloing full time I think I would absolutely go with CON because I think there's no question that the survival is better there. The fact that I'm going to be running in duo with someone playing a CW is making me think that maybe the extra HP's and defensive boosts would not be as handy as having the extra burst damage from crit and the extra deflection. Any thoughts on that reasoning? Seems to make sense to me...
After a lot of thought an analysis, it really comes down to this for me. On an offensive build I do think that the Dex easily wins out. On defensive builds I also think that the threat mechanics for us really suck. And the only thing e really have to generate threat is the Sentinel feat that adds up to 5% Critical and 25% Threat on critical hits. Initially the threat and damage added to Come and Get it and Daring Shout seemed really nice to me, but the damage is pathetic. @ level 50 it would be about 128 damage on those with 5% of Power, even with 25% more threat on them Not so Fast, Roar, and Mighty Leap are going to do far more damage and as a result, threat. These are the Tier 3 Feats I am referring to.
Grudge Style
Sure Strike now has an extra 1/2/3/4/5% chance to Crit and generates an additional 5/10/15/20/25% Threat on a Crit.
Intimidation
Daring Shout and Come and Get it generate 5/10/15/20/25% additional threat and now do 1/2/3/4/5% of your Power as damage.
Right now Intimidation needs to generate something along the lines of 50% more threat and do 25% more damage as power before I would bother with it. Honestly it should be more than that even. Those are just the minimum numbers I would take before even considering using that feat.
There is only one additional threat feat in tier 4, and the other power next to it is much stronger as well.
Master at Arms
Furthering your ability to use your weapon defensively, each stack of Weapon Master now also grants 1/1.5/2/2.5/3% Deflect Chance, and having Weapon Master slotted increases your AC by 1/2/3/4/5.
Defiance
Slam and Spinning Strike generate 5/10/15/20/25% additional threat and your Defense is increased by 5/10/15/20/25% while they are active.
Master at Arms is just so much more important for damage mitigation and avoidance that you simply never would take the threat feat. So all that leaves is is raw damage and Grudge Style. Furthermore since we do not (at least until i see it proven otherwise in game) get DR from Con, it forces us to stack Dex as our only damage reduction Ability score, well the only one that is there 24 / 7. There are others that effect one type of damage or another.
So when I look at it, unless they do give us 0.5% DR for every point of Con beyond the first 10, Con just don't hold up. For us the major way to get damage mitigation is with Defense and Feats. We can get some on AC if we slot Weapon Master with the Master at Arms Feat, which I certainly will. As much as I want Con to be a secondary stat, the way that Cryptic has it implemented, with a lack of actual threat mechanics and a lack of (depending on DR in Con) enough value in Con, it falls to a third stat for us. At least IMO. As much as I try, no matter what, I cannot find any build or any value in Con higher than Dex. There just is not enough value or synergy in it with feats, powers, etc. I am even thinking of putting Dex as my primary ability score and something has gone very wrong when Cryptic makes that thought even enter my mind.
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vagrantzeroMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
As much as I try, no matter what, I cannot find any build or any value in Con higher than Dex. There just is not enough value or synergy in it with feats, powers, etc. I am even thinking of putting Dex as my primary ability score and something has gone very wrong when Cryptic make that an attractive option.
I'm in the same boat as you. The more I theorycraft the more it becomes obvious to me that Dex is overshadowing Str for a Sentinel build. And that's just ****ed up. I don't much care for being a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> about this as I generally refrain from ever posting on MMO forums as I find them cesspits, but someone at Cryptic really needs to get their collective **** together and figure out if they want the GWF to be a legitimate tank. As it stands right now the Sentinel GWF is just all over the place.
Someone at Cryptic needs to just come out and frankly answer the following questions:
Can the Sentinel GWF be used as a main tank in end-game dungeons, or will a group still require a GF to clear progression content?
If the GWF is intended to be an alternative to the tanking GF, is it oversight or intention that has Sent GWFs stacking Dex as a primary?
Comments
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
This is bad theory for a few reasons. You are not at all factoring in proper damage scaling or the probability associated with deflect chance. Utility varies greatly depending on the severity of a hit and most monsters hit for considerably more than the numbers you listed. It would be no easy task to get a true average without the ability to parse through some combat logs of different builds at higher levels.
As above, I don't think CON adds to DR for GWF. Factoring that in, DEX also gets the benefit of AOE damage resist (which there is a lot of AOE at 50+ to contend with). At least in terms of Sentinel, I'm starting to see a widening gap between the utility of the two stats. In regards to tanking at higher levels, a Sentinel would likely have both high DR and Deflect.
Now for different builds, with a low deflect chance, that is a different story all together.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
I thought we already moved past this in the discussion.
No one addressed all of those points in the posts following, so I'd say my point is still valid in regards to the discussion.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
And to the guy that said GWF would be more an avoidance tank you must know that GF gets Deflection from DEX and have talents to increase Deflection too.
The evasive "fighter" is the TR that has 2 ability that increase the Deflection (+0.5%/DEX and +1%/CAR) while GWF and GF only get the +0.5%/DEX like all classes.
because GWF can get deflection chance up above 50% with feats and passives, and they have a 50% deflection severity, TR only get 25% severity.
STR/CON GWF is the big, beefy brawler who gets in the enemies' face and stays there, screaming like a wild beast and hammering his foes into the ground. His great size and dense muscles allow him to shrug off staggering blows like they were nothing (hp/dmg res), and he can throw that weight behind each blow to plow through any defense (res ignore).\
(ex. Gimli, Guts, etc.)
STR/DEX GWF is the lithe, graceful dancer who strikes for the enemies' weak points. Through deft manipulation of his great weapon this fighter knows where to strike for greatest effect (crit) and where to place himself (AoE res) and his blade (deflect) to neutralize his opponent's counter attack.
(ex. Aragorn, etc.)
In-game terms:
Con Fighters will utilize marks and mitigation to enforce their presence on the battlefield. Powers like Daring Shout, Come and Get It, and Restoring Strike will keep enemies' attention on you, allowing your allies to engage without fear and quickly building Determination so you can frequently become Unstoppable.
Dex Fighters will utilize mobility and burst damage to eliminate enemies quickly and then get out of the line of fire. Powers like Punishing Charge, Flourish, and Not So Fast allow you to control your opponent's movement and get to wherever you need to be to inflict the most damage, then you can pop Unstoppable to get back out of harm's way and engage your next victim.
I really like the 3 extra feat points you get, allows the potential for some interesting combinations, ultimately I'm sure someone will crunch the numbers and come out with a "best" race class combo but for now I'll live with a human for my damage GWF.
Yeah I actually have my build completely worked out. To be a main / off tank Defender focus and still have respectable damage. I will likely never surpass a trickster rogue in damage and the very best control wizards may very well out do me in damage as well. However I will be generating threat like crazy and should be able to really mark and control the adds quite a bit. Due to that the devoted cleric can focus their heals more on the guardian or me and not have to run around like a chicken so much. I also feel confident that I can main tank all but the hardest content, and even then I sure will give it a go. If you have not figured it out by now I am big on synergy in a class.
For the role I want to perform the racial break down is so close between Human, Halfling, and Half-Orc that I really dont care about not being totally maxed out. I went through all of my feat selections and every time one of my feats had a synergy with an ability or game stat I gave it one more rank. So based on my build it breaks down something like this.
STR: 5
AGL: 5
CON: 4
POW: 7
DEF: 4
DFL: 1
You can see where the Halfling would be better with the defensive side of my build and the Half-Orc would be better on the offensive side, but the Human strikes a nice balance of them both and I am OK with that. I will likely go with the 16, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10 stat array to start the game with. My Human +2 will go to Con to give me a 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10. I will then pump STR and DEX and end up with a S:22, D:22, C:16, I:12, W:12, C:12. Final build at level 60. +1 to all with campfires woo hoo!
One thing that really sucks, is with taking all of the passive abilities and working down to the load out I have 8 powers left and 3 points to max one "optional" one at the end. What sucks even worse is that I have to pick between: Avalanche of Steel, Wicked Strike, Weapon Master's Strike, Savage Advance, and Flourish. Right now I am going with Flourish so that I can load it up with Takedown, Restoring Strike, and Crescendo for a single target build to play with in PvP. I am having some serious reservations about having only Sure Strike and Reaping Strike for At-Will powers though so I may have to not have Flourish. Bleh. I will have to look at it and see if there is something else I can sacrifice along the way.
Very nice, I thought about going with an offensive build. I felt that Half-Orc and Str / Dex definitely made sense there but that there was some options with Wood Elf, and believe it or not Half Elf too. I felt that the charisma of the Half Elf along with the Instigator line and Wicked Strike could really be an off the beaten path, but interesting build. And yeah the 3 feats definitively can help offset the 2 ability points lost on the human but it does fall short. When you consider that 2 Dex will lost versus the Half-Orc that will be 2% critical and 1% deflect. Those three feats are not going to equal out to that. All offensive builds will max out that critical anyways. So those 2% are going to be in some fringe feat that is most likely going to be a utility or defensive feat. Then the human loses a bit more with the 3% defense versus the 5% critical damage. Though if you can afford to take the 20% defense to power feat, it may end up making the human a lot more resilient with some defense, but your still going to lose out in a pure damage race to a maxed out Half-Orc.
I know this seems a bit off topic, but to me it relates because after continuing to work things out, especially without the mitigation from Con, I do also believe that the Dex is the best secondary stat for every GWF build, defensive or offensive. If they gave us that 0.5 damage resistance then I would flip a bit but from what I am seeing I cannot confirm that and it seems like it was a bad tool tip that someone used to put the info on curse gaming that I originally was going on.
/thread
CON only yields +Health (which is predominantly a PVP stat not a tanking one; you only ever need enough health to not get 1-shotted, and since we can scramble the hell out of those attacks even that is debatable) and +Armor Pen (a purely dps stat, and we aren't even sure if it's a good dps stat in comparison to Crit, we need parses).
I appreciate out of the box thinking, but in this case it's a bit cut and dry clear.
My own personal belief is that the Human will make the best Sentinel GWF. The +3 Defense coupled with 3 extra feat points is just too good to pass up.
LoL I have never seen this expression before. Excuse me for being not up on pop culture or netspeak, but what does this mean?
I can agree with that, sorry if I took a while to come around on the Con versus Dex debate. The 3 feats for me ended up being in the 3% total health on begin healed by a player power. The 3% defense IMO is important. Because Defense is indeed mitigation and I do find that superior to deflection. However the Halfling IMO is right there too. It is really a toss up in the two races for me on which is better as a Sentinel.
I also was very surprised at how important Power was to me, even as a Sentinel. So I also think that Half-Orc works for any style of GWF. But that is pretty normal for Half-Orc. Until Dragonborn come in they will be the king of any Str based class, or at least near the king even for niche builds.
It's the Tal'shiars doing, Sela lied.
Vengeance is born, with eternal scorn.
New Romulus rises.
agreed!!!!!!!
http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=869911
Curse is now the partner of Cryptic with the "Official Neverwinter Wiki" and they do indeed still have the Con stat on GWF listing 0.5% DR per point of Con.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Great_Weapon_Fighter
I still urge people to play close attention to this in character creation during live. I do not see any updates to this page yet so I think that Curse could very well be wrong here, but it is a very important consideration for those wishing to tank.
Personally I think Curse is way off base here, and they just have not gotten slapped into line by Cryptic yet. If not then WIN! LoL sorry, just excited about the GWF in general and open beta coming soon.
That's better. It would be lame to have your primary ability worse than the same ability as secondary to another class.
After a lot of thought an analysis, it really comes down to this for me. On an offensive build I do think that the Dex easily wins out. On defensive builds I also think that the threat mechanics for us really suck. And the only thing e really have to generate threat is the Sentinel feat that adds up to 5% Critical and 25% Threat on critical hits. Initially the threat and damage added to Come and Get it and Daring Shout seemed really nice to me, but the damage is pathetic. @ level 50 it would be about 128 damage on those with 5% of Power, even with 25% more threat on them Not so Fast, Roar, and Mighty Leap are going to do far more damage and as a result, threat. These are the Tier 3 Feats I am referring to.
Grudge Style
Sure Strike now has an extra 1/2/3/4/5% chance to Crit and generates an additional 5/10/15/20/25% Threat on a Crit.
Intimidation
Daring Shout and Come and Get it generate 5/10/15/20/25% additional threat and now do 1/2/3/4/5% of your Power as damage.
Right now Intimidation needs to generate something along the lines of 50% more threat and do 25% more damage as power before I would bother with it. Honestly it should be more than that even. Those are just the minimum numbers I would take before even considering using that feat.
There is only one additional threat feat in tier 4, and the other power next to it is much stronger as well.
Master at Arms
Furthering your ability to use your weapon defensively, each stack of Weapon Master now also grants 1/1.5/2/2.5/3% Deflect Chance, and having Weapon Master slotted increases your AC by 1/2/3/4/5.
Defiance
Slam and Spinning Strike generate 5/10/15/20/25% additional threat and your Defense is increased by 5/10/15/20/25% while they are active.
Master at Arms is just so much more important for damage mitigation and avoidance that you simply never would take the threat feat. So all that leaves is is raw damage and Grudge Style. Furthermore since we do not (at least until i see it proven otherwise in game) get DR from Con, it forces us to stack Dex as our only damage reduction Ability score, well the only one that is there 24 / 7. There are others that effect one type of damage or another.
So when I look at it, unless they do give us 0.5% DR for every point of Con beyond the first 10, Con just don't hold up. For us the major way to get damage mitigation is with Defense and Feats. We can get some on AC if we slot Weapon Master with the Master at Arms Feat, which I certainly will. As much as I want Con to be a secondary stat, the way that Cryptic has it implemented, with a lack of actual threat mechanics and a lack of (depending on DR in Con) enough value in Con, it falls to a third stat for us. At least IMO. As much as I try, no matter what, I cannot find any build or any value in Con higher than Dex. There just is not enough value or synergy in it with feats, powers, etc. I am even thinking of putting Dex as my primary ability score and something has gone very wrong when Cryptic makes that thought even enter my mind.
What are these defensive boosts you speak of? CON has/had absolutetly zero defensive value in BW1-4.
I'm in the same boat as you. The more I theorycraft the more it becomes obvious to me that Dex is overshadowing Str for a Sentinel build. And that's just ****ed up. I don't much care for being a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> about this as I generally refrain from ever posting on MMO forums as I find them cesspits, but someone at Cryptic really needs to get their collective **** together and figure out if they want the GWF to be a legitimate tank. As it stands right now the Sentinel GWF is just all over the place.
Someone at Cryptic needs to just come out and frankly answer the following questions:
Can the Sentinel GWF be used as a main tank in end-game dungeons, or will a group still require a GF to clear progression content?
If the GWF is intended to be an alternative to the tanking GF, is it oversight or intention that has Sent GWFs stacking Dex as a primary?