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GWF Threat Issues: Sentinel Paragon Feats
elspethtirelnw
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 200 Bounty Hunter
I've mentioned this in some other threads, but it amazes me that there is no discussion about how broken the current situation with GWF threat generation is. The following Sentinel feats seem to have virtually no benefit at this time. This almost feels as if it is a bug as opposed to a simple balancing issue.
Grudge Style (5 points invested)
Sure Strike has an extra 5% crit chance and generates 25% additional threat on crits.
- This sounds great but either too little threat is generated or it is not working. I've had no noticable success peeling single targets off of players in dungeons at lvl 60, even with a stream of successive critical hits. Please increase the threat generated by this feat or Sure Strike, so that it is useful.
Intimidation (5 points invested)
Daring Shout and Come and Get It generate 25% additional threat and now do 5% of your Power as damage.
- Daring Shout and Come and Get it are not known for generating significant threat on their own. It seems that the 25% increase of threat is also negligible in this case. Pulling targets in with Come and Get It and following with Daring Shout does not seem to do any good. Even if the GWF is the first one into a fight, this combo will not hold threat as soon as another party member uses an ability. The damage of this feat is not as important although the associated threat benefit seems to be ineffective.
On that note, using Come and Get It and then Daring Shout, while following up with a bunch of crits from Sure Strike, is still not enough to peel a single target during a fight. Something is just not working as intended here or Sentinels were never meant to pull threat, but the tooltips would indicate otherwise.
I hope that the developers are aware of this issue and working to properly balance the threat generation of the GWF's Sentinel feats and abilities. The lack of developer feedback concerning GWF issues in general is a bit concerning. The current situation with Sentinel threat, however, is a serious design flaw that needs to be addressed or the path will be virtually worthless in lvl 60 dungeons.
Grudge Style (5 points invested)
Sure Strike has an extra 5% crit chance and generates 25% additional threat on crits.
- This sounds great but either too little threat is generated or it is not working. I've had no noticable success peeling single targets off of players in dungeons at lvl 60, even with a stream of successive critical hits. Please increase the threat generated by this feat or Sure Strike, so that it is useful.
Intimidation (5 points invested)
Daring Shout and Come and Get It generate 25% additional threat and now do 5% of your Power as damage.
- Daring Shout and Come and Get it are not known for generating significant threat on their own. It seems that the 25% increase of threat is also negligible in this case. Pulling targets in with Come and Get It and following with Daring Shout does not seem to do any good. Even if the GWF is the first one into a fight, this combo will not hold threat as soon as another party member uses an ability. The damage of this feat is not as important although the associated threat benefit seems to be ineffective.
On that note, using Come and Get It and then Daring Shout, while following up with a bunch of crits from Sure Strike, is still not enough to peel a single target during a fight. Something is just not working as intended here or Sentinels were never meant to pull threat, but the tooltips would indicate otherwise.
I hope that the developers are aware of this issue and working to properly balance the threat generation of the GWF's Sentinel feats and abilities. The lack of developer feedback concerning GWF issues in general is a bit concerning. The current situation with Sentinel threat, however, is a serious design flaw that needs to be addressed or the path will be virtually worthless in lvl 60 dungeons.
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| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
Post edited by elspethtirelnw on
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Comments
GWF's can't have extra threat built in because they need to be able to DPS without pulling agro, but you can't stack defensive stats without reducing your DPS and thus your threat.
If the class is to be a serious tank it needs a feat or optional passive that increases threat based on your defensive stats so that stacking increasingly defensive gear improves your threat at least as much as if you'd stacked DPS gear.
The Guardian Fighter will have the same issue eventually (as do most tank classes in MMO's I've played). As tanks gear up they will get tougher but fall further and further behind in damage and their percentage threat boosts don't keep up. The developers then go and increase the % threat boosts but that just delays the problem at the end game and makes low level tanking too easy.
Basing threat on the defensive stats of tank gear is the obvious solution.
Or just maybe, I spent a good deal of time testing the utility of the GWF's threat mechanics... I have a feeling that very few people bothered with that. The severity of the issue is debatable but it is a serious one. Making assumptions about how someone else played a class is a terrible way to approach balancing.
Did you have great success generating threat with the Sentinel build on your Great Weapon Fighter? I have a sneaking suspicion that your comment isn't based on experience. If it is, please do share in detail.
I'm simply trying to bring to light what I feel is a serious problem that will have a negative impact on one of the GWF's paragon feat paths. I don't expect to have equal threat generation to a GF, but enough to properly make use of one the GWF's possible roles as a backup tank. I think that's at least reasonable.
If I'm entirely incorrect in my assertion, I'd be happy to hear it from a developer so that I can focus on a DPS build instead. Until then, I will do my best to provide feedback based on my own experiences.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
I'd tend to agree with elspethtirelnw, the threat did seem broken. I played with my friend a sentinel briefly in a group dungeon, and even he thought it was wonky. I'm hoping they get it fixed before open beta. I would like to see GWF be able to play Defender or Striker, even if I prefer the Striker dps role.
GWF need a clickable AOE taunt. They have the defensive skills and passive threat skills ( that appear to not work)....but that is not enough.... they NEED a clickable AOE taunt.
I like the way the game is built, with the limited amount of clickables, and we have to choose what to level up and use as our skill set..... the fact that the GWF would have to drop a DPS or a Utility skill to add a taunt should be balancing enough. But they need to be able to CHOOSE when they produce aggro.
Holding aggro on anything with a decent amount of HP can often be an issue, but peeling a target is very much an uphill battle. I've had much more failure than success in that regard. Peeling a target off of a rogue seemed more manageable if I recall correctly, but it was a serious issue with CWs and DCs. I'll also mention that I never fought the GF for threat, it was always to pick up adds that went for the other three classes. There may be other issues causing aggro to reset as well, although that's something I can't confirm without further testing.
This is likely an issue that can be resolved with some tweaking.
I'll also add that I had a GF at 35, which I only grouped as, during BW2. I didn't experience the slightest issue in managing threat or peeling single targets at the time. I don't feel that GWF needs a clickable AOE taunt like the GF, that would be just too easy. I think Cryptic had the right idea with the threat based Sentinel feats, but fell just a bit short of their goal.
If they did ever give us a taunt (as dshearn described), I would prefer a single target one with a high cooldown. This would allow the GF to keep doing his job without interference and give the GWF a chance to peel adds from soft targets. However, this isn't really what I want. It's up to the developers to decide, if they even see this as an issue.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. I look forward to seeing more.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
I don't think the GF is in any fear of loosing the Boss tank role because of the shield.
An off tank that cant save the cleric/mage/ranger (whatever) from getting swarmed by a gaggle of adds cant do his job.
a good dps class that functions as an off tank with get out of hell taunt would be a good team mate
What you say is true, although I doubt they'll go as far as giving us a new ability at this point. I'd rather address the current abilities as tweaking them is more reasonable in the short term. I'd just be happy with improved threat from the feats, so that the described abilities can get the job done more reliably.
The current abilities, in theory, could still allow the GWF to sweep up packs of adds with ease. Come and Get It when followed by Daring Shout should be a great combo if the threat generation is tuned properly. I think that DPS should still be accountable for their actions, but this should work if they are not aggressively engaging the pack. I hope that Cryptic can still find a decent balance in how threat is managed.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
Besides - that still would not resolve the threat issues associated with the feats.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
The abilities that were designed, or rather put in place, to function as tanking abilities are not generating the threat needed to fulfill the role. I'm sure that your build is viable for aoe dps, although the threat may only be a temporary side effect. Again, I'm concerned directly with the feats and the Sentinel paragon path.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
It's fantastic when you get some dps that have figured out the main thing of the game (kill adds as priority) but the vast majority of the time I am stuck with 4+ adds on me.
Another issue is I feel both GF and GWF seem so squishy with a few mobs on them and a boss, so in boss encounters when a huge amount of elites spawn, the tank can pick it up but the clerics cannot heal them up and when you do start to heal them up you pull a huge amount of threat onto yourself and get killed. *brain hurts*
I hope they soon sort out agro they seam to have been struggling with it since Beta weekend 3, and cannot get it right across the level ranges, for all our sakes!
Edit:
Also as a cleric I am running with 40% reduced threat, it hardly makes a difference when your pulling the same healing as players damage, while doing your own damage... I was doing 2.3mil healing and 900k damage by the end of a dungeon and the vast majority of the time I am running around in circles with mobs trying to skin my bottom!
Also can we get some links for the Sentinel spec and what rotation you guys are using etc... If we don't want a bunch of worthless GWF at endgame it is prudent to share best practices and work together as a community :-)
The best option right now is to dive into packs ASAP and spam WMS, which is rather reliable at grabbing initial threat for a short duration of time. It's still far from ideal in any situation where you need to peel mobs from a softer target. The threat based feats themselves still need to be looked at, as well as GWF threat generation in regards to Sentinel builds. It's playable and a good GWF can still be a semi-useful off-tank, but threat can still be a mess for the class.
I may post a build at a later date, although I'm more concerned with the threat based feats and how effective they are at this time.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
It's a shame really, because we would make great off tanks if the path could simply generate threat as the tree would lead one to believe. I only hope the devs understand that this is the primary issue with the path and that it will eventually be fixed. It would be nice to have some official word on this, although I fully understand that there are more serious issues to resolve at this very moment.
I simply hope that us Sentinels, the few of GWFs, are not forgotten.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|
PS:I'm tested in lvl60 epic dungeon.
The main issue I think is that our at-will are a bit behind, if you get initial agro, take damage and pop unstoppable, then the attack speed buff will help you hold that threat and things are fine. If you find yourself with no determination stacked and adds are chasing the cleric - GL.
If a mob run and try to catch a cleric (and here's the real problem) off tanks should be able to run and catch. So maybe a skill that let GWF charge and taunt for some seconds, or that let him charghe and build fast threat in few seconds to continue having mob attention. Or some sort of CC to let the cleric go away.
I'll also add that it feels like Sure Strike was toned down just a bit too much. It seems like it could be of better use to a Sentinel if it hit a bit harder. However, it's near impossible to tell with the current threat situation.
| Lust | Level 60 Guardian Fighter 15.8k GS|