test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Forums > Home› Class Forums›
Why GWF are incredible and fun!
spacejew
Member Posts: 1,044 Bounty Hunter
EDIT: This build below is terribad for destoyer, as I discovered. Not bad for a Sentinel, but the new Destroyer one is on page 2.
The GWF is stupid painful to level from 1-16. It then gets a lot easier with a Cleric companion. Around level 30-35 you start wondering what you were complaining about. Then at level 50 you start thinking maybe the GWF is OP.
At level 50, running all the way up the destroyer tree with the cap stone and some Sentinel debuffs, I have no issues tanking in Dungeons. The 'tanking' GWF abilities are...amazing.
Currently, I'm running the following abilities:
Passives:
Destroyer
Weapon Master
At-Will:
Weapon Master Strike
Reaping Strike
Encounters:
Come and Get It
Daring Shout
Not So Fast *Or Roar, as has been pointed out and explained to me, would be a darn good alternative. Probably as your lead-off ability so you can regather them again with CaGI.
Dailies:
Slam
Crescendo
Now, these are tanking abilities right? Wrong.
It's a debuff DPS rotation that keeps the add's right where you want them. In the burn pile.
Throw out your Come and Get It in the middle of everything, pop your Not So Fast to keep them slow and manageable, then throw your Daring Shout. If you have Unstoppable up, pop it and throw out three to five weapon master strikes to get your stacks/armor debuff's rolling while Daring Shout is adding it's debuff to the mix, then switch to Weapon Master Strike/Reaping Strike and alternate those until Come and Get It is back up. Your Reaping Strike crits will be obscene. I had a 10k crit at level 48 or so, and regularly crit for 6.5k-7k at level 52. This is with all the debuffs/stacks going of course, but it's easy to keep those going until you have aggro. It should be obvious when to use slam, and when to use Crescendo.
On Not So Fast, here are my thoughts. NSF is a one shot fast 360 AoE. If you use it right after Come and Get It, you get a big buff to the flat damage and the crit damage it does and the slow keeps everything you pulled right next to you, which gives you time for unstoppable buffed WMS/RS combos to peel aggro. Daring Shout, when used right after Not So Fast, gives your WMS/RS combos added damage until you have aggro or until it wears off. So worst case you either get aggro, or do a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> ton of DPS. Win/Win, I say. Roar is nice, but it's lack of a slow is really a problem for me. If you need an interupt, I'd say slot roar. In most other situations the added initial burst damage, added AoE, ease of setup, and slow make Not So Fast edge roar out in non-interupt fights. (And to be honest, being unstoppable most of the time makes me disinclined to bother interrupting, and the resist from Daring Shout and Unstoppable is good enough to face tank in a lot of situations.)
This rotation regularly pulls boss aggro if I'm standing too close while doing my rotation. It might not get the tip-top on the DPS charts but you will probably be #2 in almost every catagory. If your team isn't quite up to snuff, you have a good chance to top every one of the charts including healing if you're using a Cleric henchman (which I hope you are.)
There. Myth busted.
(Of course, I haven't done level 60 content. This has worked up until level 52 IMMENSELY well and I really don't see that changing.)
Reaping Strike is possibly one of the best abilities in the GWF tree, and you get it right off the bat. There is nothing to not like about it besides the charge up, which actually works in your favor. It is a crit monster!. If you don't have Reaping Strike on your bar, I must question your sanity. Paired with Weapon Master Strike, that buffs your At-Will damage after your at-will damage is also buffed from your feats and paired with all those other armor debuffs you will be amazed. You must micromanage all your various stacks, both on yourself and on your opponents, to be at your top game. You also must have your Weapon Master Strike at least at two ranks, preferably three, so that it doesn't wear off in the time Reaping Strike takes to charge.
I concentrated on Power, Crit, and Recovery with ArP as a small 4th.
Just for reference, here is the forum topic I made when i first rolled a GWF. My mind has been completely changed by level 50.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?200721-Leveling-GWF-Is-Painful
The GWF is stupid painful to level from 1-16. It then gets a lot easier with a Cleric companion. Around level 30-35 you start wondering what you were complaining about. Then at level 50 you start thinking maybe the GWF is OP.
At level 50, running all the way up the destroyer tree with the cap stone and some Sentinel debuffs, I have no issues tanking in Dungeons. The 'tanking' GWF abilities are...amazing.
Currently, I'm running the following abilities:
Passives:
Destroyer
Weapon Master
At-Will:
Weapon Master Strike
Reaping Strike
Encounters:
Come and Get It
Daring Shout
Not So Fast *Or Roar, as has been pointed out and explained to me, would be a darn good alternative. Probably as your lead-off ability so you can regather them again with CaGI.
Dailies:
Slam
Crescendo
Now, these are tanking abilities right? Wrong.
It's a debuff DPS rotation that keeps the add's right where you want them. In the burn pile.
Throw out your Come and Get It in the middle of everything, pop your Not So Fast to keep them slow and manageable, then throw your Daring Shout. If you have Unstoppable up, pop it and throw out three to five weapon master strikes to get your stacks/armor debuff's rolling while Daring Shout is adding it's debuff to the mix, then switch to Weapon Master Strike/Reaping Strike and alternate those until Come and Get It is back up. Your Reaping Strike crits will be obscene. I had a 10k crit at level 48 or so, and regularly crit for 6.5k-7k at level 52. This is with all the debuffs/stacks going of course, but it's easy to keep those going until you have aggro. It should be obvious when to use slam, and when to use Crescendo.
On Not So Fast, here are my thoughts. NSF is a one shot fast 360 AoE. If you use it right after Come and Get It, you get a big buff to the flat damage and the crit damage it does and the slow keeps everything you pulled right next to you, which gives you time for unstoppable buffed WMS/RS combos to peel aggro. Daring Shout, when used right after Not So Fast, gives your WMS/RS combos added damage until you have aggro or until it wears off. So worst case you either get aggro, or do a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> ton of DPS. Win/Win, I say. Roar is nice, but it's lack of a slow is really a problem for me. If you need an interupt, I'd say slot roar. In most other situations the added initial burst damage, added AoE, ease of setup, and slow make Not So Fast edge roar out in non-interupt fights. (And to be honest, being unstoppable most of the time makes me disinclined to bother interrupting, and the resist from Daring Shout and Unstoppable is good enough to face tank in a lot of situations.)
This rotation regularly pulls boss aggro if I'm standing too close while doing my rotation. It might not get the tip-top on the DPS charts but you will probably be #2 in almost every catagory. If your team isn't quite up to snuff, you have a good chance to top every one of the charts including healing if you're using a Cleric henchman (which I hope you are.)
There. Myth busted.
(Of course, I haven't done level 60 content. This has worked up until level 52 IMMENSELY well and I really don't see that changing.)
Reaping Strike is possibly one of the best abilities in the GWF tree, and you get it right off the bat. There is nothing to not like about it besides the charge up, which actually works in your favor. It is a crit monster!. If you don't have Reaping Strike on your bar, I must question your sanity. Paired with Weapon Master Strike, that buffs your At-Will damage after your at-will damage is also buffed from your feats and paired with all those other armor debuffs you will be amazed. You must micromanage all your various stacks, both on yourself and on your opponents, to be at your top game. You also must have your Weapon Master Strike at least at two ranks, preferably three, so that it doesn't wear off in the time Reaping Strike takes to charge.
I concentrated on Power, Crit, and Recovery with ArP as a small 4th.
Just for reference, here is the forum topic I made when i first rolled a GWF. My mind has been completely changed by level 50.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?200721-Leveling-GWF-Is-Painful
MoF/Thaum CW SS/Thaum CW IV/Protector GF SW/Combat HR SM/Destroyer GWF WK/Executioner TR DO/Faithful DC
Post edited by spacejew on
0
Comments
The truth is you WONT do level 60 content because no one wants you over a Wizard or Rogue. Sure there are some GWF out there that have stable guilds that bring them to dungeons and if the have tons of good gear they could top the damage charts.
But the damage charts mean nothing to the GWF role in the group. The rogue is a boss killer the Wizard paralyzes adds and throws mobs into spike pits. All the GWF does is damage and they do not deal enough of it fast enough for players to want them in a group over other classes.
GWF need to be buffed for group role, So I say focus more on there offtank status make it so they can take a group of adds and hold them with the survivability to stand there and dish out damage as they take the hits. The GWF does not have a dodge power Sprint is there to run adds down and pick them up so make them tough enough with enough threat to do that and then players will want them in a group.
Do that and you wont need to increase damage (Well they could use single target damage increase still, it is kinda sad to see a Control wizard out single target DPS a damage dealing class.)
If all that matters in end game content is instakilling mobs by your control class, and having your rogues face pound bosses, it's a design flaw in the dungeons not that class.
Also, your post lost all credibility when you claim the GWF can't tank add's. The fact of the matter is that if there are no add's due to them being insta-killed then what bonus would adding more tankability to the GWF add? It would, again, be a role that isn't needed. Considering that GF aren't being taken either unless they are uhh...doing a certain something...I think it's a design flaw in end game content. Not a flaw with any one class. Also, just because the community isn't aware that GWF is also a debuff class probably doesn't help us out any.
They designed fights where two classes just don't matter. At all. For anything.
That being said, the above works incredibly well in dungeons that aren't broken. You wanna complain about bad end game design? Go ahead. Don't blame it on the GWF, or the GF, blame it on crappy dungeon design.
I am a half-orc, but it should be pretty obvious where human feats would go should you go that route. I started with an 18 STR/16 CON/14 DEX as my primary stats. I've put every point into STR and CON, because I like HP, damage, and armor penetration best.
Base Feats:
Unstoppable Action: 5/5
Disciple of Strength: 3/3
Armor Specialization: 3/3
Steely Defense: 4/5
Devastating Critical: 3/3
Weapon Mastery: 2/3
Paragon Feats
Destroyer Feats:
Great Weapon Focus: 5/5
Staying Power: 5/5 (Strongly considering going for Disciple of War though, as I don't use many encounter damage dealers.)
Executioners Style: 5/5
Focused Destroyer: 5/5
Battle Awareness: 5/5
Destroyers Purpose: 1/1
Sentinel Feats:
Student of the Sword: 5/5
Why did I do what I did, you ask?
Well, for the general feats I took everything that would help my damage, and most of the things that help my defense. Specifically, Armor Specialization gives me 15% more defense, which is then converted into 16% more power. I'd love to be human for the 20% defense to power ratio increase, but hey I get 5% bonus crit as a half-orc. Oh well.
So now that defense boosts my damage, my crits hurt a lot more (95% crit damage as a half-orc with included feats) I also build AP a lot faster while in Unstoppable. This is important, considering that I spent most of my time in unstoppable because of my rotation. You will build absurd amounts of AP while being untouchable. This is a good thing, and actually means you need less recovery which allows you to put more power/crit/ArP on your actual gear. (Or not, if you prefer uber-fast AP generation. You might, that's good too.)
Now for the Destroyer tree the 10% bonus damage to your at-will abilities is key. It's just bar-none better than Deep Gash when looking at only those two abilities. It gets a bit more confusing at the second tier Destroyer abilities, because both of them are a little lack-luster. I choose the bonus to encounter damage, but in retrospect Deep Gash or Disciple of War is probably superior over time. I haven't tried them yet, but since my only damage dealing encounter is Not So Fast which does a relatively paltry amount of damage compared to, say, IBS it's something to consider.
I went with Executioners Style as my tier 3 Destroyer feat because Reaping Strike is already getting a 10% damage increase from Great Weapon Focus, so another 25% on top of that to a single target is gravy. That's a 35% damage increase on reaping strike versus one target right there in the tree. It does encounter ability damage with no cooldown beyond the charge time. Being hit while charging Reaping Strike front loads a ton of determination, and by itself will let you pop Unstoppable. When combined with Daring Shout, you will always be unstoppable. Always. And remember, you're building extra AP while unstoppable. If you're thinking 'but Reaping Strike is interuptable!' you're not wrong, it is. However, Unstoppable renders you immune to that effect. Additionally, you can fire two unstoppable Reaping Strikes back-to-back before your WMS debuffs drop off your target for some snap aggro/high burst damage.
Battle awareness should be pretty obvious, a 25% increase of your power while using Slam is great since you're using Slam almost non-stop. Especially since you're unstoppable most of the time, this helps reduce the damage negatives you're taking for hitting multiple targets while unstoppable. (Can't forget that Unstoppable debuffs your damage while speeding attack rate, so anything you can add to that is good.)
Now, for the Student of the Sword debuff you could go either way. Personally, I like it just because it's an added debuff on top of Daring Shout. With the unstoppable attack speed buff and Weapon Master stacks running full force you will be critting a ton which means you should have all three SotS stacks running very easily. This converts into a damage storm once you have everything up and running.
Downsides:
I will be the first to say that this build doesn't do well with spread out enemies. Your team can absolutely render you useless if you have a CW that enjoys a heavy knockback rotation. That being said, if you ask nicely sometimes they'll stop. Sometimes if you run far enough ahead of them they'll see you in action and realize that you're melting face, and will stop on their own. Not everyone is an idiot, of course, and knockback always has it's time and place.
The other downside is that you will 100% need to get used to the idea of dropping dangerously low on health. Potions are an absolute must, as is a cleric companion. Without those, you will die. Probably a lot. Once you learn to recognize the optimal timing of your abilities, you shouldn't be dropping below half health very often.
Lastly, this doesn't start dishing out truly insane damage until you've been in the fight for a few seconds. It starts slow, and builds to a crescendo of damage the longer the fight lasts. Until then, it does average damage. Also, it should be fairly obvious that the more targets you have in range the better everything gets. Don't be scared to charge into more enemies than you think you can handle. Daring Shout scales per enemy hit, so if there are a ton of add's you get a ton of added resistance. The only question is if you can burn fast enough to outlast them, which if your team is decent shouldn't be a problem.
Strengths:
Long fights, bar none. It takes a little while to build up to your crescendo of damage but once you get there Reaping Strike crits will absolutely astonish you. The highest crit I've seen so far on my Reaping Strike is 12k on a boss and I'm level 55 with mostly greens and one or two blues. I can only imagine how huge those crits will be once I'm level 60 in purple gear.
Best Advice:
Don't be scared. Go in first, every time. Let the GF grab what he needs to, everything else is yours. This build requires a very aggressive player, not the type of person that's going to be comfortable waiting for someone else to charge in. Know that you have a massive heal every 12 seconds sitting in your belt. The more bad guys around you, the more powerful you become.
If you want an 'at a glance' indicator of when you want to switch to using alternating WMS/RS then watch for when WMS crits a few times. This is usually a good bet that you're ready to smash them with RS.
Guild Leader of MOPP4
MOPP 4′s community was created to cater to those who have served or currently serve in the armed forces around the world as well as friends, family & supporters of the armed forces. We also now proudly support the Wounded Warrior Project. For more details please go here.
I whole-heartedly agree that Reaping Strike should do a weak attack on a tap. The damage is fine enough, but the timing of the added attacks feels silly with a period of time where RS does no damage.
I should also perhaps mention that it's easy to dash cancel reaping strike. If you're about to get a circle dropped on you while charging, you can just let go of the mouse button and slam shift and you're gone.
I think Reaping Strike gets a bad rap because people start with it early, and early on it's pretty lack-luster. It only starts to come into it's own as an amazing ability later on with the stacking buffs/debuffs you get access to. By the time it's good, people have had it off their bar for a long, long time.
The only reason I stuck with it is because I played a Berserker in Tera, and I could tell the dev's looked at that when they designed the GWF. It's not a complete meld, it's a lot more like the 2-Handed Barbarian from Age of Conan in practice. The charge-swing mechanic caught my eye though, especially when I saw a 10% and 25% damage gain in the Destroyer tree against single targets.
If the ignorant, immature player base realizes how great GWF's really are when driven correctly, we won't be so rare and special! I prefer them all thinking the panty-waste TR's and CW's are the best...
We need to do the right thing here and continue to claim "wow! that TR or CW is awesome.. they is OP yo! l33t!" or some other kid's, idiot, garbage talk...
I'd really hate to see the GWF as the new FOTM... 8(
Seriously, the GWF with a pro driver behind the keyboard is just crazy good..
I can summarize your wall of text. GWF are okay because I have fun playing it, there for it's fine as a whole. You sir are entitled to your opinion.
Let the keyboard lickers continue to believe that GWF's are bad!!
seriously though.. Good write up Space..
and um ...
GWF's suck!! don't play them they are weak and other stuff!!!
what ever you do, don't roll one up!
If so, I'm pretty sure that most of the squishiness and damage complaints come from epic dungeons where the adds do significantly more damage and come with significantly more health and resistance.
GWF sucks. periond. most likely never to get fixed since cryptic dont balance things in game. the only thing they do is fix glitches/bugs/exploits. but thats about it
Yeah, it does remind me a lot of a Willpower brute to be honest...Fire/Willpower Brute FTW?
Ok, so after a bit of testing in T1 dungeons I've noticed a few things. Namely, that I was wasting my potential by using the tanking abilities. With marks falling off a target when you're hit, combined with add's that throw primarily cones, it doesn't work as well as I thought it would. In dungeons with mainly single-target add's you might be able to dodge enough to make it come out on top, but the effort required would probably be too high and the output too low to bother with.
Daring Shout is a great ability, and used on a Sentinel build I feel it would be quite powerful, but without more defense and deflect to back it up it falls a little short and doesn't add as much as I feel it would need to be competitive as a damage resistance ability on a DPS build. Unstoppable by itself is good enough in most cases, and while Daring Shout does get unstoppable up immediately I've found that there are other options that are more DPS oriented to use for this.
Namely, Come and Get It combined with a follow-up IBS gives a significant amount of Determination with the Destroyer cap stone. It also gives a significant amount of AP, which as a DPS-centric character is key.
I'm torn between several other abilities to complement this rotation. The 'cookie cutter' option of Flourish isn't a bad way to go, when considering it purely as an interrupt on larger add's (Falls short as a boss interupt, but makes up for it with high single-target DPS when used correctly). If you're patient enough, Flourish really becomes a contender when paired with the debuff at-will rotation I discussed in my OP. With the buff's to Encounter damage you get through the Destroyer tree and your base feats combined with the debuff options you've taken, it can add up to big damage.
Now, I would be the first one to point out that Roar is probably a better option for most situations. It's AoE, builds determination, interrupts groups, and does non-diminishing AoE damage. Using Roar directly off Come and Get It might be worthwhile, but I think I get better bang for my buck by using the damage buff on IBS instead in most situations. The downside on Roar that makes it unattractive to me is that the cone is super narrow, and you will often times not hit most of the add's with it which means you could have unloaded a Flourish for comparable damage, even though it's single target. So really it's just a matter of what you feel comfortable with between Roar and Flourish.
You could even make a case for Not So Fast since it has an easier AoE to use, has similar damage output, and add's a slow. So I guess it just matters what's a comfortable choice for you, but I think those three abilities are probably the front runners for Encounters.
I take it as a given that you're running Come and Get It, mainly because it's a great utility knife for lots of situations. It buff's your damage on your next strike by a pretty huge amount, gathers enemies up to use your damage buff on, and has a fairly low cool-down. If it interrupted mobs as well, it would be a best-in-every-situation pick.
That being said, I had to change my feats around a little to better reflect the new synergy:
Base Feats:
Unstoppable Action: 5/5
Disciple of Strength: 3/3
Endless Assault: 3/3
Steely Defense: 5/5
Devastating Critical: 3/3
Weapon Mastery: 1/3
Paragon Feats:
Destroyer Feats:
Great Weapon Focus: 5/5
Staying Power: 5/5
Executioners Style: 5/5
Focused Destroyer: 5/5
Battle Awareness: 5/5
Destroyers Purpose: 1/1
Sentinel Feats:
Student of the Sword: 5/5
(Maybe replace with Deep Gash, see below.)
Passives:
Destroyer
Weapon Master
At-Will:
Weapon Master Strike
Reaping Strike
Encounters:
Come and Get It
Indomitable Battle Strike
Roar (Or Flourish)
Dailies:
Slam
Crescendo
Rotation Thoughts:
You will start every encounter by hitting them with a single WMS, then a follow-up CaGI immediately afterwards. This applies most of your debuff's, and applies a large damage boost from CaGI. Follow up with your IBS. Now, if you kill a weak target and get your Mark from IBS I'd throw out a Reaping Strike to take advantage of their now deeply debuffed state. If you have Flourish, you can unload it on a tougher target for pretty big numbers if you crit. If you have Roar, same deal in an AoE.
Optionally, a second technique that works well but requires more set-up is to spam WMS 5 or so times to build up Destroyer and Weapon Master stacks, then waiting until you get a few consecutive crits for Student of the Sword, and then CaGI, IBS, Roar/Flourish. While it takes a bit longer to setup, and the damage is end-loaded on the rotation, it pumps out serious hurt. The trick is knowing which way to go with a given add pull. If there are lots of stronger add's take the slow road but if they're just minions with one or two stronger add's just go the quick route.
Now, Slam is of course central to the build. (As it is with every GWF build.) This means I should probably talk about it briefly. With this build, you're getting a 25% increase to your power while using Slam. So how do you maximize that? Well, what I do is I wait until I get a few consecutive crits off WMS before popping unstoppable and slam together. Why? Because I'm getting more damage from both Unstoppable and Slam to my encounters. Optimally, you should have Unstoppable, Slam, and your debuff/buff stacks at maximum before unloading your Encounter abilities. Alternatively, if they're debuffed already from WMS, pop Unstoppable with Slam then throw out two or three Reaping Strikes for some pretty big back-to-back strikes. This should be pretty obvious, but I figure I would mention it just in case.
Now, to the issue of Deep Gash. I changed my spec between Deep Gash and Student of the Sword, and I feel like SotS is overall the better choice as an armor debuff makes all the Encounters do quite a bit more damage, whereas the bleed really just add's a bit of damage. Now, it is true that Battle Awareness add's 25% power while Slam is active, and that does up the bleed damage, but even then I'm not convinced. Battle Awareness is still good even without the bleed, but I don't think the bleed is as good without Battle Awareness. On top of that, SotS is a debuff your whole team can take advantage of. I admit you don't necessarily need to choose between them, you can get both, but the feats I outline above are all pretty core and there isn't anything that I feel can be easily switched out to gain what appears to be a rough 8% damage increase. (At least according to some forum number crunchers.)
If you feel like running a parse to compare the two with the feats I listed, you're more than welcome to do so, but I feel like the added damage from the SotS debuff is far more than the added damage from the bleed. This is especially true of short fights. The added team utility isn't measurable for the most part, but the debuff is VERY noticeable whereas the bleed is not.
The very last thing I should mention is that I prefer Crescendo over Savage Advance, even with Battle Awareness adding a bonus cooldown to Encounters. The reason is because Savage Advance does terrible damage in almost every situation, knocks the target around, and knocks everything else around. Not to mention that Slam is a better option even in single-target fights than Savage Advance. Crescendo isn't something I use often, but when I use it I want the up-front single-target damage and the knockdown for an interupt. Basically Savage Advance is a crappy version of Crescendo. The extra cool down on encounters would be nice, but frankly after using it a bit it's almost unnoticeable. You should have enough Recovery by T2 that you don't need SA for anything.
I understand that basically this very build has been posted before. I haven't seen a step-by-step rationale for why people pick what they pick, so I figured I would update this with my experiences in the hope that others will find it useful.
If everyone played closed beta, maybe. Since they didn't, and since I still see people using Sure Strike as a DPS GWF, I can only conclude that not 'everyone' already knows this stuff.
With your rationale, everyone was born already knowing the optimal rotation in Neverwinter as a Destroyer spec.
I'm currently using a little different Destroyerspec than you, but I'm not sure if the feat Disciple of War (i use) is better than Battle Awareness. did you test disciple too?
My biggest regret in rolling GWF is not going Str/Dex as my primary stats for the extra crit rate.
I suggest reading this if you're interested in how useful Disciple of War is:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?295121-MUST-READ-Trickshaw-s-Testing-Why-Con-is-useless-amp-the-hidden-DPS-blastcap
People are saying that ArP is better to stack than power, but I still think it's a bit early to say for sure. As a snap judgement, I'd say it depends on your build and what you're stacking gear-wise. If you're going for ArP and Recovery Disciple of War is probably good; if you're going for Power and Crit, or some other combination, it probably is not. That being said, Disciple of War is probably at it's best in end-game dungeons where gear has a lot more Recovery on it. As a 'leveling' feat it's absolutely worthless in my book.
I do know Recovery is awesome, and getting 20% of your Recovery back as ArP is probably decent. So really the obvious answer is go with whichever one that works with your particular stat priority choices. I know that I prefer Power > Crit > Recovery > ArP, but that's just my preference. It's not backed up my any in-depth math crunching, but rather Dungeon experience that says that doing things this way is competitive enough when running content with one of each class.
Honestly, I feel like Student of the Sword is good enough on it's own for all my ArP needs. It's a huge debuff all by itself, and it takes advantage of my already higher power and crit values.
Varies by play style, but ultimately in most groups you're probably right. However, in this case said group would likely just not take you at all as a GWF. GWF does offer great AoE damage, the problem is that CW seem to offer comparable AoE damage while having superior control options. Sure they're squishy, but it's a high-performance high-reward class. GWF is a mid-performance high-effort class, which is obviously something only a minority of people will put up with before rerolling a TR.
The other problem is that the CW's high-damage rotation precludes a GWF from doing AoE damage. Since plenty of CW seem willing to roll along as a damage dealer, that means their rotation to do damage is knocking things everywhere. Without a decent gather ability of our own as a GWF, you are up the creek with no paddle when the class you're supposed to synergize with gets more bang for their buck making sure you are unable to fulfill your class role. If anything, the CW damage rotation needs to focus on gathering enemies for the GWF not the other way around.
After fooling around with a few other powers and revisiting previous idea's I have indeed confirmed that Not So Fast works as a very nice replacement for Flourish or Roar. It's less damage than either Roar or Flourish which does make it somewhat unattractive, but the benefits outnumber the downsides. It works best if you truly know and love Reaping Strike, but if you are a follower of this thread you'll know I'm one of the few proponents of this under rated damage monster.
Just to make sure I'm being clear, this is a set-up for add clearing. Up against bosses with few add's (I.E. very few of them) I would suggest switching out for Roar or Flourish.
Downsides
A) Less Base Damage than Roar
C) Slow is one of the least desirable and hardest to measure crowd controls
Up Sides
A) Large AoE
C) Stacks with or extends other slows you already use
D) Gives you more up-time for follow up attacks
E) Potentially larger damage than Roar or Flourish given the size and type of the AoE combined with CaGI.
It's effectiveness gets better if you use it directly off a Come and Get It, and ensures you kill at least one add with a follow up IBS to get your marks. Marks are of questionable use, but if the add's aren't on you a follow-up Reaping Strike is tremendous if it crits and is a great snap aggro ability. Since they're slowed, this gives you a slightly better window for your Reaping Strike. It's totally doable even against add's that aren't on you to toss out an Unstoppable Reaping Strike twice on marked, WMS debuffed add's. Against one target, this is a devastating critical of epic proportions. I'm talking 13k or more if all your debuff's are going. Remember this is an at-will we're talking about. Every 4 seconds if you crit.
To the nature of slows, I say it's the least desirable but that's considering things like daze, stun, holds, knockbacks, knockdowns, pulls, or hard/soft controls that make the target unable to attack or knock them out of attack range. Slow allows them to attack, so it's the least desirable type in most cases. Obviously, since slam is our primary AoE monster we already have one big slow. Two is really just gravy. I need to do more testing to confirm that the slows stack, but either way it's more up-time on your slow. Just from random dungeon's it appears that they stack, but I get aggro so fast it's tough to tell. Either way, if the person they're chasing is kiting it certainly helps.
This is yet another reason I prefer Reaping Strike over any other At-Will in the Great Weapon Fighter's Destroyer arsenal. Although obviously I'm building my load out to support that premise, it continues to be a tremendously successful build in T1. I'm actually ready for T2 now, but the queue pug scene is what it is.
You should stream or make a youtube video to show people your meters at the end of a T2 run
I can conclude that it is viable but extremely clunky.
However, the main thing that I noticed is that RS cannot hit past a certain number of mobs. It appears to have a max number of targets of around 5 (need to test this further). In which case making this build even less desirable, though viable.
rs can only hit five? i completely disagree.