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A GWF's journey
briarra
Member Posts: 49
So, as I look over the forums, I see the most 'this class sucks' posts are directed at the GWF. I've seen good players of all the classes as I've played my GF, so I decided I'd give GWF a try and see what I think. I'm going to use this thread as a running diary of how I do, what choices I make, and now effective she turns out to be. I'll also talk about abilities and what I think about them for people who don't (and do!), play GWF.
I went with halfling, for two real reasons. One, I don't think many people would, and two, I like the idea of her swinging a sword as big as she is! So, for those reasons, Valora, halfling GWF, was born. She has 16/16/16 for Str/Con/Dex which I don't think is bad.
I have chosen to not look over ant GWF guides, so I very well may make mistakes as I go, but I want to see what I think rather then follow someone else. That's not saying Guides are bad, I read them often for my GF and guides on these forums are well written and useful.
I play on Mindflayer, so other players there can feel free to PM if they like the guide, or to offer advice.
Levels 1 to 5: The beach through Honor.
The first five levels, as we all know, are super fast and not hard. They are an effective, quick, tutorial on our basic abilities. Those abilities are:
At Will:
Sure Strike: This is the first basic attack, a few swings in an arc, then an overhand attack. It's not bad, it's not great. I like cleave more, but, for a basic attack, it's fine.
Reaping Strike: I don't get this at all. It's a power up attack, that takes away movement, in a game that prizes movement. It seems out of place to me. I've used it, to try and get a feel for it, but I don't like it at this point. Maybe other GWF can chime in and tell me if it's good, or am I right and it sucks.
Encounter:
Not So Fast: This is a 360 degree attack that does damage and applies a brief slow effect. Useful, and not a bad first encounter power.
Daily:
Spinning Strike: This is a whirlwind attack. You spin around, get a move speed buff, and lawn mower mobs down. It's fun! I put my first power point, at level 5, here, so it's at level 2.
Class feature:
Destroyer: It's a passive that gives a 2 percent stackable damage buff (it stacks 3 times), whenever you hit 3 or more mobs with an attack. Later points increase the bonus. While I don't think it's a PvP viable feature, it's definately good for PvE.
Thoughts so far: I think GF is more mobile at low level thus far, but GWF is not bad.
Next: Off to Blacklake.
I went with halfling, for two real reasons. One, I don't think many people would, and two, I like the idea of her swinging a sword as big as she is! So, for those reasons, Valora, halfling GWF, was born. She has 16/16/16 for Str/Con/Dex which I don't think is bad.
I have chosen to not look over ant GWF guides, so I very well may make mistakes as I go, but I want to see what I think rather then follow someone else. That's not saying Guides are bad, I read them often for my GF and guides on these forums are well written and useful.
I play on Mindflayer, so other players there can feel free to PM if they like the guide, or to offer advice.
Levels 1 to 5: The beach through Honor.
The first five levels, as we all know, are super fast and not hard. They are an effective, quick, tutorial on our basic abilities. Those abilities are:
At Will:
Sure Strike: This is the first basic attack, a few swings in an arc, then an overhand attack. It's not bad, it's not great. I like cleave more, but, for a basic attack, it's fine.
Reaping Strike: I don't get this at all. It's a power up attack, that takes away movement, in a game that prizes movement. It seems out of place to me. I've used it, to try and get a feel for it, but I don't like it at this point. Maybe other GWF can chime in and tell me if it's good, or am I right and it sucks.
Encounter:
Not So Fast: This is a 360 degree attack that does damage and applies a brief slow effect. Useful, and not a bad first encounter power.
Daily:
Spinning Strike: This is a whirlwind attack. You spin around, get a move speed buff, and lawn mower mobs down. It's fun! I put my first power point, at level 5, here, so it's at level 2.
Class feature:
Destroyer: It's a passive that gives a 2 percent stackable damage buff (it stacks 3 times), whenever you hit 3 or more mobs with an attack. Later points increase the bonus. While I don't think it's a PvP viable feature, it's definately good for PvE.
Thoughts so far: I think GF is more mobile at low level thus far, but GWF is not bad.
Next: Off to Blacklake.
Post edited by briarra on
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I hadn't thought about that, I might have to do it. I was pondering using the wizard at 16, since potions aren't that expensive, but mailing a pet is an interesting idea.
Blacklake and the kobold sewer after it, got me from 5 to 10. One death, coming out of the wererat sewer and into a Nasher pat, but, that was funny more than anything. Overall, GWF is going smoothly. It feels a little slower on the kills than a GF, but nothing super slow.
At 6 and 7, I upgraded Sure Strike and Not So Fast to Rank 2.
At 8, I picked up Restoring Strike. It's a single target attack, but it hits much harder than other GFF attacks, and it heals and restores Stamina based on damage done. The heal looks to be about 20 percent of the damage you do. Not amazing healing, at this level, but it's free, and the attack itself crushes single mobs. I also ran the skirmish. GF, DC, 2 TRs and me. I came in 3rd in damage (11, 405), about 2k behind 1 TR and way behind the other. I was second in kills at 42, with the higher TR at 45, so, overall, I don't think I did poorly. TRs have much higher damage output, after all, and I was competetive.
At 9, I kicked destroyer up to rank 2, I like it as a passive, and it should be up a lot against the big orc packs in Tower District.
At 10, I picked up Unstobbable, the GFW Tab ability. GWF build up Determination which powers Unstoppble. When active, we're immune to CC, gain Damage Resistance based on how much Determination we had, and our at wills hit faster, but for less damage. I'm curious to see how it plays. I added 1 each to Str and Con, picked up a new Daily, Slam, which is an AoE with a slow so I can test it (though Spinning is really fun), and put the feat point into Disciple of Strength for the damage boost it gives.
I also picked up the level 10 blues you can buy for silver. I think that'll give me a performance boost.
I'm finding GWF to be decent at this point. I'm not seeing the terrible, but maybe it's still coming.
Next up - orcs and Tower District.
Begin with I hold down that left click button and never let go. I am level 60
Now now, be nice. After all it's not so bad, he's only died once so far...before level 10.
The only real downsides are the very slow movement and Unstoppable doesn't allow it to charge faster.
On the other hand, our equipment is dirt cheap and in low demand (I was able to equip it in full set of T1 Epics for less than 100K AD) because when Cryptic looks at all the statical numbers barely anyone is playing GWF while everyone is playing TR, CW. This is how broken class balance is in this game.
Against GFs he hits for 50 and gets hit for 1000
Against rogues he's watching a jolly jumper hopping around him removing HP by the ton while he is permanently dazed
Against mages it's just amazing how many ways they have to kill him and that it's not just about control. There is range too, and devastating power.
Against priests he hies from exhaustion, hitting with what has the skin of a 2H sword but is actually a wet towel, while the priest yawns, and catst a healing spell on himself once in a while.
He's a she
Just get equipment that has power and you're pretty much set.
I do understand the intent with Reaping Strike, and it worked well against the Hexer's in Blacklake. My concern is the lack of mobility, given the very mobile nature of the game. Still, I'll keep playing around with it, since it'll be a while until I get a new at will.
I do have a question about Slam. The tooltip seems to say it's one attack, but in play, it seems to have a series of pulses, making it multi attacks. Does it make more than one attack, or was I seeing things?
Unstoppable makes Reaping Strike charge easily twice, if not 3x as fast.
What this guy said.
Don't pay attention to the animation. Watch the charge bar. You'll get a full bar before the animation hits the 2nd "charging" flash.
In dungeons I am usually in first to third place damage depending on if people are rushing forward just to tag mobs. I have even been the "tank" in a few runs.
In pvp I have had no problems soloing most rogues/cws. Tanks can beat us if they are smart about blocking and healers can be a pain if they are good. Learn when to use stuns/knock back dont just spam encounters.
Learn to sprint away from rogues cc and they become a joke to kill (they jump into the air you sprint away). People expect the GWF to be a dps machine but you need to play it like an attrition class. Juke other players encounters, move around, dont just stand toe to toe, make them work for their hits. We have the best mobility of any class in game (IMO) make 3 or 4 people chase you and let your team back cap. If you can not win the 1v1 your locked in sprint away grab a pot and come back between determination buff (unable to be cc'ed) and sprint none except another GWf can catch you.
So far I am hard pressed to see what all the complaining is about (up to 42). This could all change at 60 so I am not claiming anything end game just giving my view as to this level. I ramble a little more about pvp cause lets be honest pve in this game is a joke like most others it is not hard.
Hahahaha I love it when you evade 90% of their skills they then give them 2 hard hits, they will surrender and run away as fast they can to the next heal potions. Also when you use your sprint to be always on their back, they can't stand a chance since even their at-willst miss xD. Most fun after this happens is when you ask them in Zone chat if rogue is OP...
If this is true then PWE/Criptic needs to adjust our mitigation. To be honest I think that would fix a lot of the problems with the GWF since we do not have a true dodge we need some kind of boost to our survivability.
(not directed at the quoted person above just added thoughts)
As a GWF unless you get out of the boss/mob aoe/players attack you eat it. Please don't give me the extra deflect chance while sprinting argument as you still eat the damage just at a reduced rate.
You know what hits faster then that... Roar. It is a faster activation.
Even if they do hit you run around till it wares off. Their ranged skill will not kill you (unless almost dead) and it builds determination very very fast.
I would like to see a lvl 60 dumbass running pvp setup with roar.
Seze - Rogue - Necropolis -
Their silence is so easy to evade to be honest, their stealth attack just jump around with some sprint (activate it always for a second) so often they will come out of stealth to hit you with their knife throws.
EVEN your sprint is on cooldown and you cant evade, press your knockdown, IT HITS EVEN they silenced you, after they stood up the silenced is gone and they have 10 seconds cooldown on that...
No need to be a ****** bag and start calling names. See you don't like it either.
He asked for a way to avoid it since he can not seem to sprint out of the way. It works.
I've done through the Nasher sewer in Tower District, and I'm up to level 13.
At 11, I went to 2/3 in Disciple of Strength, and I picked up Rank 1 in Avalanche of Steel, or I call it, Super Jump! For those who don't play GWF, Avalanche of Steel is a Daily. We leap into the air, and land for massive damage and a knockdown. It's pretty amazing. It's consistently taken down whole at level, undamaged mob groups, with major damage to the tougher ones, like Beastmasters or Taskmasters.
At 12, I finished Disciple of Strength, and got Slam to Rank 2. I also did the Orc Assault skirmish. Besides me, we had another GWF, a CW, a DC, and a GF. We were all 12 or 13, except the GF who was 19. I came in second for kills at 44, the other GWF had 49. I came in 3rd for damage at 36k. The GF had 45k, and the CW destroyed us all at 51k. I think if I'd been 19 I might have come in second. The CW player was very good, perfectly timing AoEs to just wreck groups. I had a bad play moment, too, as the DC went down against the bosses adds. All the DPS gor tunnel vision. We got our cleric back up, but, still, bad play. Have to kill adds first.
At 13, I brought Avalanche to Rank 2, and went 1/5 in Unstoppable Action. It ramps up AP recovery during Unstopable.
I am very much enjoying that all the Daily's for GWF are incredible. I'm not using whirlwind at the moment, but it's great. I use Slam in groups, as it has a huge AoE radius and is good at pulling pats when soloing. For solo, I use Avalanche, because, well, it kills groups dead in one attack.
Firstly, you're thinking of Reaping Strike wrong. It doesn't reduce mobility, it gives you mobility. You'll notice that every other 'at will' attack locks you into an animation so that you can't move *at all*. Sure, you don't move fast with Reaping Strikes but if you circle around an enemy at your snails crawl you can still avoid cones while laying down the hurt with Reaping Strikes.
You can let go of your button and hit sprint at the same time, and Reaping Strike will still do it's damage while canceling the animation. I don't recommend doing this purely for the animation cancel, but it's nice that you can still get that big hit in while running for your life.
Secondly, the person telling you that Reaping Strikes doesn't charge faster from Unstoppable is flat out lying. Unstoppable lets you throw three Reaping Strikes back-to-back for ridiculous burst damage, especially if you're a destroyer and especially against a single target as a destroyer. Just saying. (Reaping Strikes is probably 'best' with a Destroyer build, as Sentinel and Instigator have their own at will buff's in their trees.)
That being said, Unstoppable and Reaping Strikes are buggy when used together on the first swing. I should make a forum post on that very topic, actually. Good luck!
I enjoy reading this, keep up the good work.
@omghealme: Thank you! I plan on it. It's fun, and I'm getting good insights from other GWF players along the way.
That wasn't very nice. I was only trying to help.
I would like to thank fordraine and trickshaw for the info. I was basing it off the animation instead of the charge bar.
True, my bad. Perhaps you were not being malicious. Everyone gets wrong info, especially on mostly new games. I'm sure I spread all kinds of lies ^_-