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Look at the bright side GWFs...
trickshaw
Member Posts: 497 Arc User
There are only 3 possibilities from this point on.
1.) From my understanding GWF was pretty OP in beta and Cryptic lost it's mind and went at GWF with a chainsaw giving us what we see today SO... with that in mind... either this is the intended level of GWF play or it is not. If it IS.. that means every other class is about to get nerfed. Because there's no way in any sane person's mind that GWFs should be where they're at whilst everyone else is where they're at. So, since we're already used to this level of performance, we'll be ahead of the curve. = )
OR...
2.) This is not the intended performance level of the GWF, Cryptic over corrected and thus will bring us up to intended level meaning... we get buffed. For those of us making GWF work as is, when we do get buffed, we will be rocking the crazy train.
OR...
3.) They ignore everything and we all die to the internets.
2 out of 3 ain't bad in my book. =- ) Look at the bright side, Cryptic's MO is to almost entirely abandon development of whatever MMO they launch about a year after launch. Since we're the first ones to get nerfed hard core that means the likely hood of us getting over-buffed and left alone when Cryptic finds a new project to launch is pretty high. So, remember, things may suck now but odds are we could be so OP later on and left to our own devices in which case every other class will be licking our boots in short order.
Food for thought.
1.) From my understanding GWF was pretty OP in beta and Cryptic lost it's mind and went at GWF with a chainsaw giving us what we see today SO... with that in mind... either this is the intended level of GWF play or it is not. If it IS.. that means every other class is about to get nerfed. Because there's no way in any sane person's mind that GWFs should be where they're at whilst everyone else is where they're at. So, since we're already used to this level of performance, we'll be ahead of the curve. = )
OR...
2.) This is not the intended performance level of the GWF, Cryptic over corrected and thus will bring us up to intended level meaning... we get buffed. For those of us making GWF work as is, when we do get buffed, we will be rocking the crazy train.
OR...
3.) They ignore everything and we all die to the internets.
2 out of 3 ain't bad in my book. =- ) Look at the bright side, Cryptic's MO is to almost entirely abandon development of whatever MMO they launch about a year after launch. Since we're the first ones to get nerfed hard core that means the likely hood of us getting over-buffed and left alone when Cryptic finds a new project to launch is pretty high. So, remember, things may suck now but odds are we could be so OP later on and left to our own devices in which case every other class will be licking our boots in short order.
Food for thought.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by trickshaw on
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Comments
Or none of the above .
All bases covered but thanks for the input!
Yeaaaaah... wait till you hit the 60's bracket... you'll be lucky if you make it out of your spawn area if you're not in a pre-made sporting 2 clerics. You think TR's are bad? LULZ... wait till you see a proper Cleric duo.
Working on my second character which is a cleric, my encounters can crit for 2.8k at level 34. Main is a GWF. It really sucks, after leveling to 60, and then coming back and leveling the cleric, to see how much easier it is, the only time I have any kind of "trouble" is when I am fighting a boss mob in the solo instances, but I just need to drink a potion, the only time I need to drink a potion.
For PvE the main thing that gripes me is the "Lol I'm a CW knocking everything off cliffs" - This mechanic right there makes our class pretty unplayable, why would anyone want to bring a class that is great at blending groups of adds when you can just knock them off the cliff and instakill them? I'd love to complain about my classes ineffectiveness if I could actually get into parties that want me....
(Btw don't come back with the "Get a Guild" ect, it's the point that because of a mechanic our class is rendered obsolete to the general public)
Unless I'm the only one that sees this is going quite crazy. =D
Current strategy for gearing out my GWF is to finish leveling my cleric, get to t2's and run them with my friends, taking the pieces Avatar of War that I don't already have should they drop. Which I fully admit is a pretty sad state of affairs.
In my experience with MMOs, a similar thing happens with Devs and Underpowered Classes.
They see "We're under-powered. Please, I beg of you, I have children to feed. Think of my poor, starving children and please make me a better father to them. Please make me not suck." But the only parts that register are "Please make...them...suck" and immediately the devs start polishing the blood off the nerfbat. Cries to buff a class have a way of resulting in nerfs to the other classes instead. Maybe the devs just don't like being told what to do. Idk.
Supporting this, too, we have that Dev Interview/State of the Game update from a few days ago, where we were told GWF are exactly where they're supposed to be, as gauged by Potion Consumption and Time To Level.
Personally, I hope for a buff.
That's not really what he said. Well, it is, but he was stating a list and implied that obviously there were more things on that list than those things. The comment that the feel of the class wasn't coming across is a little vexing though.
The whole point isn't even if GWF are OP or UP. The point is that with the way the dungeons are designed, we're a complete non-starter. Our class role literally isn't needed. So judging what the 'feel' of the class would be in a situation that doesn't exist is sort of impossible. I know it works fine in a balanced 5-man, but we're talking about choosey pugs and optimal team composition versus what you can do.
In reply to the OP, that's basically exactly the conclusion I came to minus the third point. I have yet to play a Cryptic game where any semblance of balance is ever really attained. That doesn't mean they aren't necessarily fun, but balanced? I'm drawing a blank. I guess that might be your point though, huh? ^_^
Starting right from level 1 comparing per hit damage, the Trickster rogue does 22 damage. Where the GWF does 11 damage per hit. This just doesn't make sense in what world does a knife to more damage in one hit than a sword?
I understand the Trickster attacks faster and is using 2 weapons, that's where it gets it's dps in base attacks. The sword should be doing at least 1 1/2 times the damage per swing that the dagger does, I'd even say twice as much.
The TR would make this up by the fact that they attack at least twice as fast as the GWF does. As it stands now the GWF does half the damage per hit and attacks at half the speed. Making the TR 4 times as damaging against the same creatures as the GWF.
But I don't want the trickster nerfed. I'm a GWF and I simply want the per hit damage to reflect the fact I'm a 7 foot tall half-orc with 25+ strength swinging a 6 foot long sword. I can accept that the rogue is stabbing/slashing enemies 3 times in the time it takes me to swing my sword once. I can even accept the fact I attack slower. What I can't accept is that my sword is doing half the damage at the same time.
In the real world what does more damage being stabbed or slashed by a knife, or being slashed by a sword? Just bring the base damage up to where it should be for the GWF.
I get what you're saying, but if we used 'real world' scenarios to define damage correctly then a giant two-handed sword would instantly gib anyone at the other end and a knife would still kill you in one hit if it hit a major organ.
So it would be a one-hit-kill's dodge game since everyone is assumed to be a trained bad-***.
True but that's where the trickster rogue's encounters and dailies and critical attacks come into play. Those are the attacks to vital organs. But a dagger in the real world rarely hits vital organs unless you completely catch the target unaware.
They attempt to block it or move out of the way. you try to stab someone with a dagger, they bring up their arm to ward off the attack, and get stabbed in the arm. Sure it hurts and bleeds but there's no major damage that can't heal over time after basic first aid and a few stitches. But do the same thing with a sword someone swinging a sword down on an enemy that tries blocking it with his arm is going to cut the arm off and keep going right through their head or shoulder. I actually own what would be considered a greatsword, 4 foot long blade dual edged. And though I have never used it against a living creature I still know it would do nasty damage if I were to do so.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Well luckily that's not likely to happen. They could pretty much double our dps and we still wouldn't be OP.
I am not buying this one. No 60s yet but my GWF is 43 and that took him 1 day and 23 hours. My CW took 1 day and 7 hours to hit 43. That is 16 hours of difference. Sure my GWF was my first toon but I don't think there's 16 hours of overhead due to the "oh shiny"-effect. We're talking about an additional 50 % time spent.
Another thing I've noticed is that when my GWF runs with a cleric I spam aoe to keep mobs off my cleric companion, obviously that doesn't work and she dies. With my CW the normal mobs die too fast to actually harm her and the bigger ones are CC'd or they are actually hitting me since I out aggro the companion.
Somethings rotten.
Odds are if we do get buffed they're going to do it by moving power around or changing how some things work to make it more intuitive rather than MOAR POWAH TO EVERYTHING! Which means there's a good chance that re-organization could break what little we have going for us now and give nothing significant in return. If you look at the skill tree and feat tree it's clear that they had no real direction in mind for this class. Marks that vanish when you take a hit? On a melee aoe class that's meant to be in the middle of everything? Really? Isn't that the Rogue's kind of thing? What's more hilarious is that they designed a entire feat tree aimed at buffing up at wills damage then made the final perk of that tree a buff to encounter damage while unstoppable and somehow all they could think of for the sentinel tree was more healing from restoration strike? The design is just laughable.
The only thing carrying GWF's at the moment is the damage scaling on reaping strike, and wicked strike's ability to get bonus damage per target with the appropriate feat. thus canceling out it's dmg penalty for AoE'ing....yet it's deep in one spec's tree rather than easily accessable to all specs....when wicked strike is supposed to be one of their main attack skills (remember that preview trailer of the class showing how it was SUPPOSED to be?)
Then throw in that the GWF's stronger than normal deflection stat is rendered almost moot by the simple fact deflection scales horrendously.
The only upside is that eventually they're going to HAVE to redo feats when other 'paths' come out. Why? Because there will have to be new feats or reworked old feats to work with the new skills. They kinda backed themselves into a corner with the paragon paths by directly linking feats to certain skills particularly the ones in the swordsman path instead of generalized buffs and this will have to be done for every class whenever they add extra path choices. Though I doubt we'll see more paths anytime soon. Or they may take the low road and just up the level cap and put the next paths at 61 with another tier of feats to obtain. Which would actually only make the existing problem even worse.
If we're lucky they'll redo the paragon system to simply allow more freedom of choice in feat picks and probably expand the tree. But the most likely is that when other paths come out (and I'm expecting 2 more for each class) they'll tweak the paragon tree's the be linked to your path choice pigeon holing you into a predetermined set of feats.
They could give us a buff that they think is adequate but doesn't really change anything, and call it a day.
"We found that Great Weapon Fighters were lacking in raw damage, so we increased all their damage across the board, and compensated by making all their attacks slower."
Huzzah.
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Actually, both are located deep into their respective tree's because both are designed as a primary damage dealing ability depending on which tree you follow. Reaping Strike for Destroyers, and Wicked Strikes for Initiator. I'm not sure that's what you meant or not, but I guess whatever video you're referring to was just a video of an Initiator.
Kind of like how Sure Strike gets a buff further on down the Sentinel tree, which is probably one of the worst ones. Oooh, five percent extra crit and a low amount of extra threat. Yeah, that makes it useful. Not.
Personally I think the feat that buffs Reaping Strike is utter trash at the moment as well, as to be blunt GWF single target is trash anyway, which is the only time it helps the GWF. Which by comparison, hitting for an additional 25% on a what...maybe 2k strike (non crit) with a nearly 3 second charge time? So, an additional 500 damage every 3 seconds, not really helping much when any class can destroy that without even trying, 2.5k damage in 3 seconds with at-wills I mean. And if your doing your job you will be striking at least 3 enemies making the skill do...well, nothing.
I've seen Reaping Strike crit for 13k against a single target, so I 100% disagree with you. It's an encounter strike when paired with WMS as your alternating ability. So an encounter every five seconds or so? Sounds good to me.
I do agree the single target damage does not compare to a TR, but you don't lose out on any AoE damage by getting the 25% increase to Reaping Strike. Battle Awareness add's 25% power while slam is active, Unstoppable speeds casting, Weapon Master Strike debuff's the target adding another 10% to at-will and encounter damage, you get another 10% to at-will damage, and Student of the Sword add's a 45% armor debuff to the target.
Yes, an Instigator build will do more AoE damage. If that's what you're looking for, you should again not be a Destroyer spec. Destroyer focuses on killing several stronger add's at the same time while flat-out killing the minions in seconds. It's burst damage, not sustained like an Instigator.
Maybe I just misread you though, maybe what you're really saying is the Destroyer tree isn't viable. It worked fine in T1, anyway. Tough to test it in T2 when GWF isn't particularly wanted in PUG's.
EDIT:
[15:36] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Reaping Strike deals 3167 (1943) Physical to Target Dummy.
[15:36] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Reaping Strike deals 4304 (2640) Physical to Target Dummy.
[15:36] [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Reaping Strike deals 5002 (3069) Physical to Target Dummy.
This was obviously on a Target Dummy with SotS stacks, Destroyer Stacks, and Weapon Master stacks. There were two other people beating on them, so I have no idea if they were debuffed on top of what I was hitting them for.
12473 damage on a crit seems decent to me from an At-Will. Not TS quality of course, but doable.
Weapon:
Brutal Club of Ogre Kind
7382 GS
3717 Power
1400 Crit
666 ArP
1242 Recovery
1511 Defense (20% to power)
This is just from me fooling around for two seconds with dummies. I didn't even need to stretch to get these numbers. Also, even when hitting all three dummies it still crit for 8k.
So how much does your Wicked Strikes on a Destroyer hit for again? Numbers? Stats?
I was solely referring to the talent that adds 25% damage to Reaping Strike when you hit one target. Executioner's Style.
See 12k is not bad, but still, that skill only added 3k or so, and only to single target, which is personally something I don't ever want to be doing as a GWF, single target. In the end it is that which makes me hate the feat, you have to only hit one enemy and by design GWFs will do a ton more damage when fighting multiple enemies.
Also while I can't quote numbers at the moment to show the difference, a lot of people forget about things like Steel Blitz, which will activate less when using a Reaping Strike spam for even single target, as you attack less, meaning less chance for Steel Blitz to activate. I can't say for sure what the difference amounts too, but with the way it works now I can easily assume it adds more damage to a WMS-Wicked rotation then a WMS-Reaping rotation, be it single target or AoE. (I only mean you get more Steel Blitz damage, not overall, as I can't say I have tested Reaping vs Wicked for overall AoE).
The Attack speed thing even applies to Destroyer for single target, as if you use it for single target obviously your counting on the feat that gives it a chance to build up on non multi-hits to get stacks which would be easier with attacks hitting nearly 3 times as fast. Actually I would imagine maintaining the buff with a WMS-Reaping spam would be rather hard on a single target, with only a 25% chance per hit and its considerably short duration.
Also as my current GWF is not 60 yet, keyword current, its not my first (betas), any numbers I gave would be useless at the moment as they would not be good for gauging anything vs your damage.
(I personally ended up leveling a DC and a TR before I decided to replay a GWF after playing one through the betas).
reaping strike adds 1 extra hit per charge, and will hit 3 times fully charged. it also scales very well with armor debuffs(with my own debuffs on a dummy I've had it hit over 18k on a single target).
No, that is a strike against one target with the 25% added feat. The strike versus 3 targets was 8k each so 24k in one hit. Presuming they all crit, of course.
If you want to go wicked strikes, go Instigator. Just do it. Destroyer will under perform if you're trying to go that way, and there is literally no way around it. As a Destroyer, you want Executioner just because when the 25% bonus is available, it's a huge difference.
Yea you guys caught me in the middle of testing that skill and editing to update the testing, I really never looked at reaping in the damage log to notice it split the damage, and had just went to test that.
But in the end I digress, I just don't feel that feat is worth the points, and I still feel the tree works perfectly fine without them and find the 5 points to be better placed somewhere else.