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If you could remake the GWF what would you do?
heliosesperada
Member Posts: 7 Arc User
If you could re-work all the skills and feats in the GWF what would you change? The forums are full of 'buff the gwf' threads but no one really says what they'd want buffed. Just "fix it!" like that's constructive enough for the devs to work with. You can't expect things to get fixed if you can't properly convey what's wrong. Having played many, many beta mmo's I've seen it happen all too often that the player base demands something then they get it and it doesn't fix the problem.
So, to start us off here's what I'd change:(Anything I don't mention I wouldn't change)
At wills:
Sure Strike: Add a 5% bonus to crit and crit severity when you have combat advantage.
Wicked Strike:5% damage increase. Slightly faster swing, reduce the damage penalty for hitting multiple targets.
Encounters:
Mighty Leap: I'd leave this alone more or less but add that if you land very close to the target it is knocked down or at least stunned.
Daring Shout: Reduce incoming damage by 5% per target hit increasing to 7 and 9% at higher ranks. Change the mark to giving combat advantage against affected enemies.
Come and Get it: Lasts for 3 attacks instead of one increase duration of buff to 6 seconds.
Battle Fury:Increase duration by 2 seconds per rank. As a self buff skill it really needs to last longer.
Class Features:
Destroyer: 30% chance to increase damage when hitting a target increasing when multiple targets are hit. Increases damage by 4% per stack. Max of 3 stacks.
Steadfast Determination: Reduce rate at which determination depletes while unstoppable by 10/20/30%.
Steel Blitz: base chance to activate would also increase with ranks by 2% per rank.
Dailys:
Spinning strike: Improve the damage scaling on this ability. It's too weak for a skill that prevents you from doing anything else while doing it. Making slam universally better rather than an alternative option.
Savage Advance: Tweaked so that the advance is the first part of the skill not the second. smashing the target would at the same time push away everyone around it isolating your victim.
Feats:
Unstoppable Action: Reduced to 3 ranks instead of 5 scaling at 6/12/16%.
Disciple of Strength increased to 5 ranks: 2/4/6/8/10% increase.
Toughness: Max ranks increased to 5 scaling at 3/6/9/12/15% of max HP.
Fast runner reduced to 3 ranks: 6/12/18%
Endless Assault increased to 5 ranks: 2/4/6/8/10%
Grit: Increase to 1.5/3/4.5% of max hp as temporary hit points.
Critical Focus:2/4/6% crit chance <-GWF's have a few important feats that require crits so they need this bonus to crit chance.
Devastating critical: 6/12/18% crit severity increase.
Ubiquitous shield reduced to 3 ranks: 5/10/15%
Fleet Footed now only 3 ranks: 4/8/12%
Stunning Flourish Replaced with "Stunning Brutality": Encounter powers have 2/4/6/8/10% chance to stun targets for .5 seconds on hit.
Instigators Vengance: Change the stack gain condition to Gain stacks when you are affected by CC. No longer lose stacks for being hit.
Deep Gash: Allow for a second stack of bleeding to be applied. Change the scaling to 4/8/12/16/20% of power.
Disciple of war: Grants 1.5/3/4.5/6/7.5% armor penetration
Executioner Style: Increase the damage of your attacks when hitting a single target instead of only affecting reaping strike.
Focused Destroyer: Grants an additonal .25/.5/.75/1/1.25% damage per stack of destroyer.
Destroyers Purpose: Remove the damage penalty to at-will's while unstoppable in addition to generating determination with damage.
Sentinels Aegis: Replace the bonus to restoring strike with with Gain 2% regeneration while Unstoppable. Also generate extra threat while Unstoppable.
Basically I'd cut down on the 'skill specific' feats that are killing a lot of build potential, and make the feats more generalized while improving their raw damage capability by improving their self buffs rather than just beefing up the base damage of skills.
So, to start us off here's what I'd change:(Anything I don't mention I wouldn't change)
At wills:
Sure Strike: Add a 5% bonus to crit and crit severity when you have combat advantage.
Wicked Strike:5% damage increase. Slightly faster swing, reduce the damage penalty for hitting multiple targets.
Encounters:
Mighty Leap: I'd leave this alone more or less but add that if you land very close to the target it is knocked down or at least stunned.
Daring Shout: Reduce incoming damage by 5% per target hit increasing to 7 and 9% at higher ranks. Change the mark to giving combat advantage against affected enemies.
Come and Get it: Lasts for 3 attacks instead of one increase duration of buff to 6 seconds.
Battle Fury:Increase duration by 2 seconds per rank. As a self buff skill it really needs to last longer.
Class Features:
Destroyer: 30% chance to increase damage when hitting a target increasing when multiple targets are hit. Increases damage by 4% per stack. Max of 3 stacks.
Steadfast Determination: Reduce rate at which determination depletes while unstoppable by 10/20/30%.
Steel Blitz: base chance to activate would also increase with ranks by 2% per rank.
Dailys:
Spinning strike: Improve the damage scaling on this ability. It's too weak for a skill that prevents you from doing anything else while doing it. Making slam universally better rather than an alternative option.
Savage Advance: Tweaked so that the advance is the first part of the skill not the second. smashing the target would at the same time push away everyone around it isolating your victim.
Feats:
Unstoppable Action: Reduced to 3 ranks instead of 5 scaling at 6/12/16%.
Disciple of Strength increased to 5 ranks: 2/4/6/8/10% increase.
Toughness: Max ranks increased to 5 scaling at 3/6/9/12/15% of max HP.
Fast runner reduced to 3 ranks: 6/12/18%
Endless Assault increased to 5 ranks: 2/4/6/8/10%
Grit: Increase to 1.5/3/4.5% of max hp as temporary hit points.
Critical Focus:2/4/6% crit chance <-GWF's have a few important feats that require crits so they need this bonus to crit chance.
Devastating critical: 6/12/18% crit severity increase.
Ubiquitous shield reduced to 3 ranks: 5/10/15%
Fleet Footed now only 3 ranks: 4/8/12%
Stunning Flourish Replaced with "Stunning Brutality": Encounter powers have 2/4/6/8/10% chance to stun targets for .5 seconds on hit.
Instigators Vengance: Change the stack gain condition to Gain stacks when you are affected by CC. No longer lose stacks for being hit.
Deep Gash: Allow for a second stack of bleeding to be applied. Change the scaling to 4/8/12/16/20% of power.
Disciple of war: Grants 1.5/3/4.5/6/7.5% armor penetration
Executioner Style: Increase the damage of your attacks when hitting a single target instead of only affecting reaping strike.
Focused Destroyer: Grants an additonal .25/.5/.75/1/1.25% damage per stack of destroyer.
Destroyers Purpose: Remove the damage penalty to at-will's while unstoppable in addition to generating determination with damage.
Sentinels Aegis: Replace the bonus to restoring strike with with Gain 2% regeneration while Unstoppable. Also generate extra threat while Unstoppable.
Basically I'd cut down on the 'skill specific' feats that are killing a lot of build potential, and make the feats more generalized while improving their raw damage capability by improving their self buffs rather than just beefing up the base damage of skills.
Post edited by heliosesperada on
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1) strong at-wills.... GWFs at-wills hit like wet noodles.
2) Better power conversion on encounters; We wield giant 2h-weapons... our single target encounters SHOULD HIT HARD.
3) change our shift ability to something like the charge encounter, to better simulate a proper dodge mechanic... sprinting is friggen useless.
+1 GWF shift ability is to bad
It also requires you to start running immediately as the attack happens. If you wait more than 1 second you will get hit, even if you're in the middle of sprinting. As a dodge class you can dodge at the last moment and take no damage. Sprinting has its advantages, and is practically essential to GWF to be able to keep up with adds in a boss fight, but it's pretty lame to have 0 iframes. If not iframes, then at least a 0.5 sec CC immunity would be helpful. Can't tell you how many times I've sprinted 15 feet away from that TR's Dazing Strike and he still hits me with it.
2. make sprint less expensive and/or A; dodge inc. damage (like dodge or all ather tabs/classes avoid damage) B; do damage when you hit mobs.
Those 2 points would make the GWF a bit better when you solo or help to take down elites/bosses. (agree: its like hitting with wet noodles now and its a shame with such a big weapon).
2.) Replace Sure Strike with Wicked Strike, and increase the damage of Wicked Strike by 25%. It is utterly daft that the guardian gets an AOE at will at level 1, and a better one at that. GWF should start the game with his basic AOE at will, and it should be competitive.
3.) Give Reaping Strike a chance to interrupt, knock back, or knock prone if fully charged before use. Random selection which will happen; swiss army two-hander of awesome. This justifies the mobility cost, and the fact that it can be interrupted before deployment.
3.) Cause Restoring Strike to build Determination as well as restore health. The health effect alone isn't worth the bother.
4.) As your level 20 at-will, you get Crippling Strike. When spammed, it behaves like Sure Strike does, except with higher single-target damage. It can be charged up to inflict bleeding damage and, on a crit, to knock the target prone (straight down, momentary) and apply a Stun effect.
5.) The class feature that builds determination while in combat should instead give determination for every hit and a greater amount for every kill. These should be relatively small amounts optimized so that the GWF should typically have enough determination to go Unstoppable after clearing the trash of a group as they then turn to engage the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> of the group.
6.) Ditch one of the other pointless class features in favor of one that gives the player radically increased Deflection against a target they pick by hitting it with a single-target ability. Only one target at a time can be picked in this fashion, and the effect is cleared if you use any AOE attacks.
7.) Dailies;
* Slam is too good. This should be a single damage event which knocks enemies prone with PBAOE.
* Spinning Strike should increase defense while it's active.
* Rework Avalanche of Steel into: 30 foot range. You lunge at a target. All enemies within 10 feet of the initial target take damage, are knocked prone for 3 seconds, and have no defense.
* Rework Savage Advance into: All enemies except your chosen target are pushed back. For 5/7/9 seconds, against your selected target you do 50% more damage per hit and they take half the damage of any hits they land on you.
In general, I've aimed to increase the GWF's single target potential. He already has no issue at all with clearing trash, but then neither does any other class. Where GWF bogs down is fighting badasses and bosses, against which he takes significant damage because he just can't kill them very fast. The emphasis moves into big hits and charged attacks, requiring good timing and tactical positioning to deploy your strikes. In other words, much more like a swordsman than a thug with an iron bar.
3. Fyi, Restoring Strike also restores stamina. The heal is not very noticeable by itself, but when supplemented with talents... Grit for instance can give you 3% Temp HP when you heal yourself. Stacking Life Steal and critting with Restoring Strike can also heal a nice chunk of your HP. Then you have the capstone talent for Sentinel which makes RS heal for 50% more. If you build around RS, then it can be quite effective. It also hits pretty **** hard regardless of the heal, harder than Takedown and only slightly less than Flourish. I think RS is fine tbh. It looks like garbage at lower levels, because it is, but I'm 40 and haven't taken it off my bar yet.
6. This talent already exists. It's called Master at Arms, and is a Tier 4 Sentinel feat. Gives you 3% deflect per stack of Weapon Master, and an extra 5 AC when you slot WM. Pair this with Bravery, and you have 30% Deflect just from talents. Crazy.
7. Avalanche of Steel rework sounds like a ridiculous iWin button. 50% damage increase and 50% damage reflect? PvP would turn into - Activate SA. Use stunlock combo. Win. Also watch as Rogues nearly kill themselves attacking you.
The problem here is that you're giving me specific end-game builds to do specific things. The GWF has builds that work. What they need is more "baseline" performance, before all the hardcore min-maxing. Which is what I envisioned.
As far as PVP, I don't play it and I think it's silly. So we'll have to negotiate on how to make things useful for PVE without being crazy for PVP. My position is that the GWF needs a strong single-target daily power that can make meaningful dents in tough enemies, bearing in mind that the developers are the ones who set the bar for "tough enemies" at things that can hit for 10K damage and have millions of hitpoints. So what do you propose instead?
It feels like there's a niche for us as it stands, just not one that will ever come into play right now because add control is primarily done by healers and their literally uncontrollable aggro and wizards with their unstoppable hard CC.
1. Sure Strike needs either a damage buff or a secondary effect. I didn't mean to discount your idea of a Deflect buff stacking, as I love that idea. I just didn't want to mix specialized benefits of Paragon paths with general defensive improvements. We also already have tons of stacking buffs (that don't last long enough to begin with) with WM, Destroyer and Master at Arms.
2. I would love to have a "Counter" type move, where you take a defensive position for a few seconds, then become immune to the next melee attack done on you and retaliate in an AoE. Would mesh well with C&GI for adds, and would help throw a stick in the wheels of Rogues in PvP if you're skilled enough to pull it off. This fits in well thematically with the Swordmaster path as well.
3. Determination - if either Steadfast Determination or the Destroyer capstone were made passive, this would help greatly with Determination management. We can even lower the amount granted when mobs are killed to compensate. If I had to choose, I'd go with the Destroyer "build determination on attack" as a passive, to reward skillful play as opposed to just being in combat. Determination is very lop-sided currently. If you're mowing guys down or taking tons of damage, it's up almost all the time. When you're not though, you never get to use it. I think this change would help with that.
4. Which leads me to my next problem. Many of our Class Features are awesome, but I'll never use them because Bravery is amazing for mobility and extra defense, and Weapon Master helps all around when you spec for Critical Severity, Student of the Sword and Deep Gash(lol). I'm not sure how effective a crit build is, but I intend to find out once I hit 60. And that means I'll be using those two Features almost exclusively.
5. Deep Gash is useless. Regardless of your critical severity, the Bleed does 15% of your Power over 5 seconds and does not stack. This is even crappier as we learned today thanks to Trickshaw that Power is almost completely useless.
6. Power is useless in general, largely because it gives the least benefit for a slow-swinging Greatsword compared to all other weapon types. If we adjust Power values for the GWF, maybe we can see some decent increase in killing power without having to completely rework the class.
I may have had some other ideas, but I'm burnt out for now.
- Drizzt Do'Urden
― R.A. Salvatore
It's already primarily labeled a striker.
Improve Sprint Duration and Recharge Rate a bit to reflect the lack of an Iframe.
AOE Tweak: I feel there should be two types of AOE targetting: Capped and Uncapped. A capped skill would be one that hits up to 5 targets, but there is none of this "Damage lost per target beyond the first". An Uncapped skill would have no limit on the number of targets it can hit, but damage is reduced for every target beyond the first.
GWFs need more party synergy. As they need to contribute to the party on par with the other classes in areas besides just damage. The need control powers and self healing powers on Par with the GF. Let the GF be better in damage mitigation and protective party buffs, while the GWF is better at damage. But for threat, healing and control the classes need to be about equal.
That includes a knock power on the GWF on Par with Bull Charge. This one GF move does more damage and has more CC than any one of the GWF encounters
My experience is somewhat different... My crit chance at level 54 is over 33%, and it's been crawling upward steadily. Plus 7.5% from weapon master, plus 5% if I'm flanking. I decided to prioritize Crit on all my gear because critting improves your damage by far more than Power or Strength will, and for GWF it also directly feeds into other things e.g. getting at least 3 crits per 5 seconds will keep your enemy's defenses reduced by 45%, and keep them taking 15% of your Power in DPS as bleed damage.
Now, he *is* kind of fragile, but watching trash mobs just explode in a shower of numbers is kind of amusing.
swap the aoe at-will to be the first one you get, the single target ones later.
add a feat that improves the effectiveness of life steal for aoe attacks (say 10% per point spent, 5 points). Aoe class designed to make 20+ mobs mad... they all hit you twice... this is rough at higher levels, and good life steal off aoe solves the issue.
Dps tweak, generally increased but carefully balanced.
add at least one useful ranged attack.
Also, most of the gear you find during leveling is pretty bad. Hardly any Recovery item (and it's very important for the class).
- Titania Silverblade, the Iron Rose of Myth Drannor (Lvl 60 GWF, Destroyer)
- Gwyneth, the Cowardly Cat Burglar Drowling (Lvl 60 TR, Saboteur)
- Lady Rowanne Firehair, Heartwarder of Sune (Lvl 33 DC)
- Satella, Sensate (LvL 44 CW, Renegade, Non-Active)
Check Steppenkat's Foundry Quest Reviews!
Instead of increasing the effectiveness of lifesteal, I'd much rather see something like a movement->lifesteal feat similar to how Steely Defense works, except probably a better ratio. Since we have to actually move to evade attacks it'd be nice to have some incentive to stack movement.
The problem with this is, if you slot all the single-target attacks, then you sacrifice vast swathes of your AOE potential which is where the GWF is actually strong. I don't see it as reasonable to have to slot and chain encounter powers to make up for a lack of basic raw DPS, when other classes do basic DPS just fine. Heck, I'm using Indomitable Weapon Strike, which seems to be the GWF's strongest single target encounter power, and it still barely makes a dent in the badasses I'm fighting like fire spikers or fire disciples. Not even on a crit: I hit a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> for 8K, and it basically means nothing since they seem to have at least ten times that in hitpoints. To kill a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> with IWS, I have to wait until their health bar more or less disappears, otherwise it's wasted. Its primary function is to feed my dailies with the bodies of the trash, and then use the brokenly super-overpowered Slam when I get a few badasses or a boss.
The I see a Rogue run through and kill everything in sight within 5 seconds without even seeming to try, and I question why GWF even exists. I would have given the character up a long time ago if not for playing with a friend.
I don't think it's too much to ask that Sure Strike, or some other reworked single-target at will ability, actually do some significant damage with this four feet of cutting edge we've got.
As it is at the moment even if the GWF comes to close Melee fight, either the cleric/rogue/GF/mage will win hands down. The GWF should be given at least enough damage to defeat a bot from another class.
That can be done by
- Giving the GWF a natural ability to get rid of CCs/ranged attacks as soon as he runs away too far to be able to hit with his own 2H sword. This way, either he can be CC-ed but if the CC fails the the GWF can hit, or he escapes the CC but is too far away to hit.
- Increasing the AT-will damage by 300%. That is, stop making the 2h-sword the weakest weapon of the game. Increase the single-target At-wills by 300% and the AOE AT-wills by 100%.
- The range of the AOE can also be improved, so that a GWF standing at the beacon of a PvP domination arena would hit anything entering the circle.