Well Darting Shout will give you more Determination/Action Points than Restoring Strike. Also as on a single target duty, you completly miss the 15% marked target buff ,as you cant IBS something (and be sure to get the final blow).
What I am trying to suggest is :
At single target a Darting Shout will give you , Action Points, Determination (you dont gain as much in single target as in AoE),15% damage buff, a small damage resistance debuff on target (extra dmg), some damage resistance buff on you
While Restroring Strike will only give you some dmg, the same Action Points, and some health back (1300 non crit?).
In AoE:
Even if you think you can get the IBS last hit for the mark , Darting Shout will help even more here. Mark all targets at start and get determination to enter Unstoppable asap, and then get that last hit with your IBS.
I agree that 12% dmg consistent , is better than 25% power , its just the amount of encounters you have you wont have other targets next to you using occasionaly WMS . But I can accept this.
Finally, there are some ppl suggesting using Reaping Strike (along with the 25% single target dmg buff feat), havent really give it a shot though, so I wont suggest it until I test it. I am currently running Instigator, and having a good time with it, so I think i will stick with it for some time. I am finally used to the Wicked Strike/WMS weaving, and it feels much stronger overall than my Destroyer spec.
Edit: Ofcourse, I am not trying to school you, or point you the right way, I only want to make a suggestion not just for you, but for anyone that might find it useful (and maybe wants to experiment with ).
Why would you want 25% more power if you are not stacking power in the first place? I'd take the 6% DPS increase on a single target boss over that HAMSTER anyway.
Its not granted that you will have these stacks on a single target. Its a 25% chance to get a proc, and if you have to move, you will loose them many times.Point is, our single target dmg is HAMSTER if not worse, 25% power is on a more AoE oriented way.You only trade this when hitting less that 3 targets, not at all times. But, the majority of the times you will be hitting more than 2 targets (in PvE always), so you just trade 25% power buff when on slam for nothing. I hope you get my point.
ive only played destroyer
should use WMS and Reaping, or if you are absolutely lazy, just use WMS,
SS is only better than WMS when there is only 1 target anywhere in your remote area, and only if you can get a full chain combo of SS, and the diff is marginal.
even when using WMS with only 2 targets, it still pulls ahead of SS by a fair amount
SS is a useless power for pve, except MAYBE for single target threat as a tank (which u shouldnt be tanking just a single target as a gwf due to the abundance of aoe)
and in pvp, SS just not optimal, SS used only when u want to get a quick single hit in, due to the low swing time of the 1st swing
I know Insigator is different lol. I just specced into it for 1week to try it out, but most of the time in general I played as Destroyer. While Instigator is miles ahead of Destroyer in AoE, I kinda start having the feel that proper WS/WMS weaving competes with Destroyer (with Sure Strike) even in single target , altough I haven't tried Reaping strike single target spec as I mentioned above. But Reaping Strike seems wrong to me, since you most likely sacrifice student of the sword, and single target Destroyer feat . No way to get/maintain these at full stacks with Reaping Strike.
why would you sacrifice SotS and not be able to get the feat for destroyer feature?
my paragon feats are:
destroyer:
greatweapon focus 5/5
staying power 5/5
disciple of war 5/5
executioner's style 5/5
focused destroyer 5/5
destroyer's purpose 1/1
sentenel:
student of the sword 5/5
i took disciple of war 5/5 for the free armor pen which allows me to get higher values of other stats
i took focused destroyer 5/5 for 2 reasons: 1- the total bonus at max stacks is actually +29.5% dmg not 12%, and 2-because im so tired of cw's making it their sole purpose to deny gwf's dmg by knocking back on cooldown, thus reducing the # of mobs that we can hit at a time (aka. it makes it easier to keep the stacks longer when cw refuses to acknowledge that you are in the group)
i opted out of relentless battle fury because its main purpose is for lesser cd on roar which is used for determination gain (the passive increase to determination gain while channeling reaping strike is enough to grant more determination over all vs. roar, if used right)
i opted out of battle awareness because i dont use savage advance and the power increase when slam is up doesnt make hardly any difference since i only get power when nothing else is availiable. (my priority is armor pen > crit/recovery > lifesteal) (imo lifesteal is prob the best defensive stat for my gwf build, as i alrdy dont take much dmg, and being able to heal at least 1/2 of the dmg i take in a dungeon, makes the dc's job alot easier, especially on bosses)
I know Insigator is different lol. I just specced into it for 1week to try it out, but most of the time in general I played as Destroyer. While Instigator is miles ahead of Destroyer in AoE, I kinda start having the feel that proper WS/WMS weaving competes with Destroyer (with Sure Strike) even in single target , altough I haven't tried Reaping strike single target spec as I mentioned above. But Reaping Strike seems wrong to me, since you most likely sacrifice student of the sword, and single target Destroyer feat . No way to get/maintain these at full stacks with Reaping Strike.
I think pretty much everything blows Sure Strike away in DPS. I have seen some Destroyers that made it work, but as I've said each and every one of them I saw making it work were using top-tier weapon enchants and each of them were using the Plaguefire enchant type. Don't know if that's related or not, but it should be noted that I have never once, ever, seen a GWF do well with Sure Strike that wasn't doing this.
If you view the GWF as a single-target debuff class to make the rogues job easier, than the team could just not bring you and do just as well. Especially if the rogue themselves have their own plaguefire. (Although I've heard tell that they stack, so maybe it is valid enough to do it after the point where there's no reason to run the content anymore since you have top-tier everything.)
As to the stacks and their relation to RS you are 100% wrong. Reaping Strike isn't a spam attack, it's a finisher attack, so you will have stacks galore from spamming WMS. There is no situation where you would want to throw 3 Reaping Strikes in a row, even if you're unstoppable it's a bad idea. (Unless that last RS will kill a boss, that might be worth it if you're the only one left alive...)
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
why would you sacrifice SotS and not be able to get the feat for destroyer feature?
my paragon feats are:
destroyer:
greatweapon focus 5/5
staying power 5/5
disciple of war 5/5
executioner's style 5/5
focused destroyer 5/5
destroyer's purpose 1/1
sentenel:
student of the sword 5/5
i took disciple of war 5/5 for the free armor pen which allows me to get higher values of other stats
i took focused destroyer 5/5 for 2 reasons: 1- the total bonus at max stacks is actually +29.5% dmg not 12%, and 2-because im so tired of cw's making it their sole purpose to deny gwf's dmg by knocking back on cooldown, thus reducing the # of mobs that we can hit at a time (aka. it makes it easier to keep the stacks longer when cw refuses to acknowledge that you are in the group)
i opted out of relentless battle fury because its main purpose is for lesser cd on roar which is used for determination gain (the passive increase to determination gain while channeling reaping strike is enough to grant more determination over all vs. roar, if used right)
i opted out of battle awareness because i dont use savage advance and the power increase when slam is up doesnt make hardly any difference since i only get power when nothing else is availiable. (my priority is armor pen > crit/recovery > lifesteal) (imo lifesteal is prob the best defensive stat for my gwf build, as i alrdy dont take much dmg, and being able to heal at least 1/2 of the dmg i take in a dungeon, makes the dc's job alot easier, especially on bosses)
I don't mean not picking the feats. I mean that since Destroyer feat has 25% chance to proc, and SotS procs out of your criticals, and they have 3 to5 sec duration, it will be impossible to maintain them with a reaping strike (2sec cast?) and WMS, or at least will loose some uptime at best.
EDIT:
I will soon try Destroyer spec again, but i think i will simply use wicked strike/WMS instead of Sure Strike or Reaping Strike. Dunno if I am just biased cause of Instigator, but as i told above, it feels stronger even in 1 target while SS/Reaping feels weak/wrong. It will loose its power in AoE, but still I guess I will try the Destroyer feat(mainly using Weapon Master/Steel blitz), and along with the 10% at-will dmg feat it might be good.
Wicked Strike/WMS weaving is kinda a pain in the *** to sync, but while in Unstoppable it is a BEAST, and since Destroyer spec is giving you that (hence i might even try using both Roar+Darting Shout for maximum uptime), it might turn to be a viable option. I just have to test it I guess.
Anyway, I think I owe an apologize to the OP for spamming his thread with that kind of things, he made a nice guide overall (i still disagree with Restoring Strike :P ), keep up the good work and sorry for the spam on your thread.
I don't mean not picking the feats. I mean that since Destroyer feat has 25% chance to proc, and SotS procs out of your criticals, and they have 3 to5 sec duration, it will be impossible to maintain them with a reaping strike (2sec cast?) and WMS, or at least will loose some uptime at best.
You use Reaping Strike to take advantage of the SotS stacks, not to create them. They might drop off, but it transforms your single-target RS critical into truly devastating criticals. Who cares about up-time on a debuff if you aren't taking advantage of it with high damage attacks? (And if RS does crit than it maintains the debuff.) I know this for a fact because it's what I use in dungeons. You can see as much using it on training dummies too.
EDIT:
I will soon try Destroyer spec again, but i think i will simply use wicked strike/WMS instead of Sure Strike or Reaping Strike. Dunno if I am just biased cause of Instigator, but as i told above, it feels stronger even in 1 target while SS/Reaping feels weak/wrong. It will loose its power in AoE, but still I guess I will try the Destroyer feat(mainly using Weapon Master/Steel blitz), and along with the 10% at-will dmg feat it might be good.
Wicked Strike/WMS weaving is kinda a pain in the *** to sync, but while in Unstoppable it is a BEAST, and since Destroyer spec is giving you that (hence i might even try using both Roar+Darting Shout for maximum uptime), it might turn to be a viable option. I just have to test it I guess.
Anyway, I think I owe an apologize to the OP for spamming his thread with that kind of things, he made a nice guide overall (i still disagree with Restoring Strike :P ), keep up the good work and sorry for the spam on your thread.
If you want to use Wicked Strikes, for the love of god do not roll a Destroyer. You get a 25% increased damage to Wicked Strike as an Instigator, and a Destroyer is wasting the potential of their tree in using WS and wasting the potential of WS itself at the same time. It's double fail to do that.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
You use Reaping Strike to take advantage of the SotS stacks, not to create them. They might drop off, but it transforms your single-target RS critical into truly devastating criticals. Who cares about up-time on a debuff if you aren't taking advantage of it with high damage attacks? (And if RS does crit than it maintains the debuff.) I know this for a fact because it's what I use in dungeons. You can see as much using it on training dummies too.
If you want to use Wicked Strikes, for the love of god do not roll a Destroyer. You get a 25% increased damage to Wicked Strike as an Instigator, and a Destroyer is wasting the potential of their tree in using WS and wasting the potential of WS itself at the same time. It's double fail to do that.
1st.
Still WMS will be slow stacking Destroyer and SotS ,but i guess Flourish can help here, so i do see a point. Still it is not only Destroyer and SotS, you also have PlagueFire (unless you go for Vorpal), Tenebrous enchantment (if any), Deep Gash that if added together can be a considered sum. But still I havent tested Reaping Strike spec, so I cant commend for it, thats just my thoughts.
2nd.
Instigator tree gives to Wicked Strike 5% dmg for every adittional target. So technically for Wicked Strike in single target situation, Instigator's has 5% extra dmg(Group Assault), while destroyer's has 10% (Great Weapon Focus) +12% from Destroyer feat!
Dont know where you get that 25% dmg from Instigator that you are talking about
Very basic "I want to roll a gwf" question: Do the benefits of the 3% defense increase and the 3 extra feat points outweigh the 5% crit damage bonus that half-orcs have?
If you look at the GWF it seems like they are weighing 5% crit damage as 1 feat point, but that sort of is irrelevant since you are maxed at 3 points for 15%. The racial would push you to 20%. 3% bonus to 2000 defense is 60 extra defense. 20% of that 60 defense is a bonus of 12 power. Wouldn't 2 extra dex and 5% crit bonus outweigh the 3% defense bonus and the 3 feat points? You could lose one point in Unstoppable Action, one in Steely Defense, and one in Weapon Mastry.
Isn't 5% crit damage plus the crit you get from the extra 2 dex better than the 1% crit, the ap gain, and the power gain from versatile defense and the one point in steely defense (60 and 80 power at 2000 defense) or would the power scale better with gear?
1st.
Still WMS will be slow stacking Destroyer and SotS ,but i guess Flourish can help here, so i do see a point. Still it is not only Destroyer and SotS, you also have PlagueFire (unless you go for Vorpal), Tenebrous enchantment (if any), Deep Gash that if added together can be a considered sum. But still I havent tested Reaping Strike spec, so I cant commend for it, thats just my thoughts.
Slower than what? WMS applies SotS on each of it's attacks, so it stacks X2 each time you use it if it crits on the first attack. Oddly, it only proc's one Destroyer stack but seems to be able to proc two SotS stacks. I have extensively tested Reaping Strike. RS has higher damage, which is why I use it to take advantage of SotS. The higher the base damage of the attack, the more bang you get out of SotS. I think of SotS as a consumable stack, and I use Reaping Strike to consume it with a chance to keep all the stacks if RS crits.
2nd.
Instigator tree gives to Wicked Strike 5% dmg for every adittional target. So technically for Wicked Strike in single target situation, Instigator's has 5% extra dmg(Group Assault), while destroyer's has 10% (Great Weapon Focus) +12% from Destroyer feat!
Dont know where you get that 25% dmg from Instigator that you are talking about
25% damage buff to WS if it hits it's five targets. 5% per target hit, five targets max, 25% damage. Otherwise it suffers the same split damage every other AoE at-will suffers. The Instigator tree helps to mitigate the splitting damage, which is why it's superior for a WS build considering you're obviously already aiming for AoE damage by using WS in the first place.
If you're Destroyer you get 10% from WMS debuff, 10% from At-Will buff, 12% from Destroyer, and 25% to a single-target from Executioners Style. So for a single-target it becomes a 57% damage increase for Reaping Strike alone. Numerically it's superior, the complaints stem from the difficulty of finding a lone target to hit with it and people don't like waiting for a big number.
I'm done though, I feel like I'm derailing the OP's discussion with talk of alternate builds. In that vein I have the following to say:
This build relies on several things that are unreliable. Namely increased damage from marks, a bleed, and not having full Unstoppable Action feat. I would rather have 5/5 in Unstoppable Action than the increase in AC from Armor Specialization since Unstoppable Action is more DPS oriented and it's a relatively small increase in power stacking Armor Spec and Steely Defense together. I think it's valid enough to try doing it this way, but with marks going away when you're hit and the massive amounts of AoE you encounter in the end-game it just falls short. You will hardly ever get any bang for your buck out of a mark, it's good for one or perhaps two hits and then there goes your five point feat investment into better marks. Perhaps if you play with a tank that is just absolutely fantastic it becomes a contender, but in random pug play I just wouldn't trust it.
The OP says it's to taste, so I give him a pass. I don't know who he's playing with, and if this works for him and his team then great. It's not to my taste because of a few details, but that's my play style not his. Personally, I think he's limiting himself by a ton using Sure Strike at all but that's because I don't think it's wise to use a single-target attack on an AoE monster. Especially a single-target attack that does subpar damage even by GWF standards. Obviously, if you have end-game enchants it could change the state of things a bit but with a 1% fuse rate perhaps Sure Strike is an attack that ultimately you need to pay real money to use well.
@OP: Bonus to encounter damage from Staying Power is 10% off WMS, not 15% as stated in your OP.
Sure Strike might not be the best option in mob clearing (being why I have built around WMS) but when you are put on boss duty what are you going to use?
If your group is putting you on boss duty at all they are seriously not utilizing you.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
I am in current transition to this build (gear was for the Thorin build) and have noticed alot of improvement! the determination gets up faster and my daily also gets up alot faster!
like i said i am in transition to this build as gear needs changing.
I just wanted to toss my experience into the wrap for what I've used sure strike for. I'm sure you've all played with CW, and I've actually had been in situation, especially during boss fights where the party wants me no where near the adds. They want the CW or CW x2 to handle the adds, because in most higher tier dungeons the adds spawn infinitely.
So if they are trying to manage adds on one side, and have the boss on the other, WMS in some cases will hit both the boss and the adds; which is very bad (causes some CW to loose control). I also found it very hard to dodge some of the higher tier boss moves solely using WMS. I normally use 1-2 WMS as an opener to debuff, then I use Sure strike simply because I can maneuver better with it.
The roles I've been seem to be put into in the higher tier dungeons is either boss duty, or pulling. WMS imo is horribly slow if you are trying to gain the attention of mobs, and trying to kite them around or towards the group.
So to me there's plenty of situations in which I've had to use sure strike, not to mention pvp. I realize that its "use" isn't the problem, is simply its dmg.
Another question I have for you guys is have you parsed sure strike vs wms or sure strike vs reaping or sure strike vs wicked strike on a single target? Reason I ask this is simply because unless you are in unstoppable the amount of frames each takes to go off makes a huge difference (unless you are using the frame cancel, which I don't consider a legit way of testing.....such as wms > ws..which i feel someday will get nerfed).
Sorry but SS is way better single target then WS or much easier and more DPS over time then RS. WMS takes care of all your AOE needs and SS is only for bosses. I don't do any parses but when my eyes see that SS hits for more then WS in a smaller aniamtion issue that is all the proof I need.
Ohh and Edit: I ran a Spider last week with my Guild Leader on his GWF and me on mine and even though my GS is about 200 points higher then his, I beat him by more then 3 million total damage and he was the "glorious instigator spec" Personally I found that spec horrible and because of the over reliance on "silly" tricks like WMS/WS rotations it is harder to play and much more cumbersome in a T2 when you need to be mobile at ALL TIMES. In other words you can't use that trick on more then 40% of the content out there. In the mean time my mobile triple encounter single target (same 3 encounters as the OP uses) will do way more damage on hard mobs and my group role is more refined because I can actually get and keep agro on single target hard targets.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Character is what a man is in the dark
@zylaxx - Yeah I completely agree with you. Also correct me if I'm wrong but can't each of the 4 sure strike hits crit each? So that would be crit x4?
I also used instigator before I respected into this build. I found it was great vs multiple enemies (which in most of end game content was trash), but it was horrible against single targets. I also found the wms > ws rotation would be interrupted alot due to situations such as bosses using an aoe move.
Some one earlier above mentioned that sure strike is HAMSTER unless you use plague fire. I personally use plague fire, though the OP uses lightening (which I really want to try out).
In terms of what zylaxx is saying about holding agro is completely true, because outside of unstoppable sure strike does faster dmg (like dot) to hold the enemies attention.
@zylaxx - Yeah I completely agree with you. Also correct me if I'm wrong but can't each of the 4 sure strike hits crit each? So that would be crit x4?
I also used instigator before I respected into this build. I found it was great vs multiple enemies (which in most of end game content was trash), but it was horrible against single targets. I also found the wms > ws rotation would be interrupted alot due to situations such as bosses using an aoe move.
Some one earlier above mentioned that sure strike is HAMSTER unless you use plague fire. I personally use plague fire, though the OP uses lightening (which I really want to try out).
In terms of what zylaxx is saying about holding agro is completely true, because outside of unstoppable sure strike does faster dmg (like dot) to hold the enemies attention.
Nope they will all crit if only the first in the chain crits.
Also it should be noted I do use a greater Plaguefire so that might be why my SS sems to hit super hard. Also tanking adds is much easier with about 80% uptime on unstoppable and my 1400 Lifesteal and Restoring Strikewhile in unstoppable allows me to recover most of my health lost when out of it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Character is what a man is in the dark
Nope they will all crit if only the first in the chain crits.
Also it should be noted I do use a greater Plaguefire so that might be why my SS sems to hit super hard. Also tanking adds is much easier with about 80% uptime on unstoppable and my 1400 Lifesteal and Restoring Strikewhile in unstoppable allows me to recover most of my health lost when out of it.
That's about what I figured, basically you're stacking several ArP abilities on a single-target as quickly as possible. I'd be very interested if someone tried Sure Strike/Reaping Strike with Executioners Style for single-target damage with Plaguefire as their enchant type.
Stack debuffs with SS, then whammy them with a RS. With Plaguefire outperforming the measely 10% debuff from WMS, this should result in some stupid high crits. But, then again, getting the boss alone to hit them with a single-target RS is the whole reason people use SS in the first place despite it's overall terribad damage.
Basically, the balance patch needs to happen yesterday and even then end-game enchants are so incredibly powerful that it's quite likely that build viability matters far less than what enchantments you're using.
This dovetails into a P2Win argument, but it's really more of a 'you must have end game enchants for some builds/loadouts to be viable.'
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
What the hell I see a load of talk about single target damage and must enlighten you that if you are looking at being a single target damage dealer your am idiot. No seriously you picked the entirely worst class for single targets, aaa dps cleric could prob out damage a gwf vs single targets.
GWF lvl 60.
Completed all content waiting for more.
And class balances.... trololollol.
0
mizery187Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 19Arc User
mizery187Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited June 2013
As for the discussion above about the Instigator spec; I personally came from that build and after creating this I have seen nothing but improvements in my damage, and my run completions (as well as my guild member's who have taken this build into consideration). I appreciate all of the feedback though.
I'm curious if you're playing with CW that do a lot of knockback? Honestly curious. If you're leaving all the add's to the CW that might explain your increase in DPS. (Or if they were doing it anyway before you switched.)
Not saying your build is bad, just trying to understand your results.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
@ spacejew
generally the only cw's that you can count on to NOT use knockbacks on cooldown, are friends and some guildies.
most cw's choose to do more dmg overall by denying other's dmg in general, instead of being a team player.
if you cant rely on the cw(s) in your group to work with you, then dont even try to dps in an area that allows mobs to be knocked off cliffs. its not worth the headache of running back and forth and getting maybe a couple of swings to connect. at most, just go after the archers and other ranged stragglers
i do not condone this type of thinking, but there isn't any hope of convincing even 1% of the cw's to play to the group's strenghts instead of thier own
@ spacejew
generally the only cw's that you can count on to NOT use knockbacks on cooldown, are friends and some guildies.
most cw's choose to do more dmg overall by denying other's dmg in general, instead of being a team player.
if you cant rely on the cw(s) in your group to work with you, then dont even try to dps in an area that allows mobs to be knocked off cliffs. its not worth the headache of running back and forth and getting maybe a couple of swings to connect. at most, just go after the archers and other ranged stragglers
i do not condone this type of thinking, but there isn't any hope of convincing even 1% of the cw's to play to the group's strenghts instead of thier own
Well the problem with dungeons is its much easier to knock mobs off then risk dying though being overwhelmed. Most boss encounters are much easier with a CW knocking stuff off with you picking up stragglers. It is a game flaw I do not like because of the ease with knocking stuff comes at the detriment of the GWF. Both CW and GWF pretty much handle the same role.....add control, 1 through CC effects, 1 through old fashioned killing and for the most part its way easier taking the easier way out hence the issue with GWF's getting invited to groups.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Character is what a man is in the dark
0
lowsiderMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Very basic "I want to roll a gwf" question: Do the benefits of the 3% defense increase and the 3 extra feat points outweigh the 5% crit damage bonus that half-orcs have?
If you look at the GWF it seems like they are weighing 5% crit damage as 1 feat point, but that sort of is irrelevant since you are maxed at 3 points for 15%. The racial would push you to 20%. 3% bonus to 2000 defense is 60 extra defense. 20% of that 60 defense is a bonus of 12 power. Wouldn't 2 extra dex and 5% crit bonus outweigh the 3% defense bonus and the 3 feat points? You could lose one point in Unstoppable Action, one in Steely Defense, and one in Weapon Mastry.
Isn't 5% crit damage plus the crit you get from the extra 2 dex better than the 1% crit, the ap gain, and the power gain from versatile defense and the one point in steely defense (60 and 80 power at 2000 defense) or would the power scale better with gear?
I have exactly this same question, do any of you have any input?
Lowsider, "I don't crash often but when I do, it's a lowside."
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wrastorMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
So much misinformation here, its hurting my brains :X
Then again, I've parsed over hundreds of logs to know what is good or bad. Carry on, discussion.
So much misinformation here, its hurting my brains :X
Then again, I've parsed over hundreds of logs to know what is good or bad. Carry on, discussion.
Parses mean squat versus actual user feedback and testing. As I've said in my setup I do way more damage with SS then I ever did with an Instigator spec using WS or using the lolrific RS. With Slam up 80% of the time and WMS my AOE is more then sufficient to kill, control or keep agro on, any trash mobs but when I am routinely kicking Boss *** while you're stuck to hitting like a wet noodle single target. AOE means HAMSTER when WMS and Slam is all you need. WS is overkill!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Character is what a man is in the dark
0
destroxoxoMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Should of stopped reading at Sure Strike (The worst At-will in history)
Your stat priorities are literally backwards by the way:
Arp(2200)>Recovery(3500)>Crit(3500)>Power
Power is near on useless, you gain MUCH more from maxing your ARP and Recovery for the decreased cooldowns/increased action point gain (25% on both) and then the 22% DR reduction from the ARP mean you're negating the mobs defence.
At the current stage we cannot compete at all on a Single target scale, Sure-Strike is terrible.
At-Wills should either be WMS/WS or WMS/RS depending on your playstyle/the current releasing RS at 2 charges because it registers as if it's at 3.
Maxing your AOE damage should be your priority since that's the only thing we are remotely good at in the current stage of the game.
0
mizery187Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited June 2013
Thanks all for the opinions, as I posted in my build setup this was just something I came up with after noticing my Instigator build wasn't meeting the standards I wanted with my damage. (So note that this is not a cookie-cutter top of the line build, just a hotfix) I will have to try out WS > SS since a lot of you are suggesting it, but as for RS > SS I think I will continue to pass. The charge time irritates me, and as far as I can notice the damage is less than what SS gives me.
I just tested this build on the mimic test server, and all I can say is WOW. Everyone is claiming that you need to go sentinel spec, or instigator; I completely disagree. This update makes this build even more viable than it already was before. Now alot of the encounters listed, have even shorter cooldowns, allowing for even more dmg. Crescendo is very impressive in the damage buff, kinda shocked me. I honestly see no reason for changing anything once this goes into play.
Thanks to the new way unstoppable works, surviving a pack of mobs (since there's no stacking astral shields), its a heck of a lot easier with the temp hp gain. Its a HAMSTER load to, at least 4-5k of temp life.
Comments
What I am trying to suggest is :
At single target a Darting Shout will give you , Action Points, Determination (you dont gain as much in single target as in AoE),15% damage buff, a small damage resistance debuff on target (extra dmg), some damage resistance buff on you
While Restroring Strike will only give you some dmg, the same Action Points, and some health back (1300 non crit?).
In AoE:
Even if you think you can get the IBS last hit for the mark , Darting Shout will help even more here. Mark all targets at start and get determination to enter Unstoppable asap, and then get that last hit with your IBS.
I agree that 12% dmg consistent , is better than 25% power , its just the amount of encounters you have you wont have other targets next to you using occasionaly WMS . But I can accept this.
Finally, there are some ppl suggesting using Reaping Strike (along with the 25% single target dmg buff feat), havent really give it a shot though, so I wont suggest it until I test it. I am currently running Instigator, and having a good time with it, so I think i will stick with it for some time. I am finally used to the Wicked Strike/WMS weaving, and it feels much stronger overall than my Destroyer spec.
Edit: Ofcourse, I am not trying to school you, or point you the right way, I only want to make a suggestion not just for you, but for anyone that might find it useful (and maybe wants to experiment with ).
Its not granted that you will have these stacks on a single target. Its a 25% chance to get a proc, and if you have to move, you will loose them many times.Point is, our single target dmg is HAMSTER if not worse, 25% power is on a more AoE oriented way.You only trade this when hitting less that 3 targets, not at all times. But, the majority of the times you will be hitting more than 2 targets (in PvE always), so you just trade 25% power buff when on slam for nothing. I hope you get my point.
ive only played destroyer
should use WMS and Reaping, or if you are absolutely lazy, just use WMS,
SS is only better than WMS when there is only 1 target anywhere in your remote area, and only if you can get a full chain combo of SS, and the diff is marginal.
even when using WMS with only 2 targets, it still pulls ahead of SS by a fair amount
SS is a useless power for pve, except MAYBE for single target threat as a tank (which u shouldnt be tanking just a single target as a gwf due to the abundance of aoe)
and in pvp, SS just not optimal, SS used only when u want to get a quick single hit in, due to the low swing time of the 1st swing
I know Insigator is different lol. I just specced into it for 1week to try it out, but most of the time in general I played as Destroyer. While Instigator is miles ahead of Destroyer in AoE, I kinda start having the feel that proper WS/WMS weaving competes with Destroyer (with Sure Strike) even in single target , altough I haven't tried Reaping strike single target spec as I mentioned above. But Reaping Strike seems wrong to me, since you most likely sacrifice student of the sword, and single target Destroyer feat . No way to get/maintain these at full stacks with Reaping Strike.
my paragon feats are:
destroyer:
greatweapon focus 5/5
staying power 5/5
disciple of war 5/5
executioner's style 5/5
focused destroyer 5/5
destroyer's purpose 1/1
sentenel:
student of the sword 5/5
i took disciple of war 5/5 for the free armor pen which allows me to get higher values of other stats
i took focused destroyer 5/5 for 2 reasons: 1- the total bonus at max stacks is actually +29.5% dmg not 12%, and 2-because im so tired of cw's making it their sole purpose to deny gwf's dmg by knocking back on cooldown, thus reducing the # of mobs that we can hit at a time (aka. it makes it easier to keep the stacks longer when cw refuses to acknowledge that you are in the group)
i opted out of relentless battle fury because its main purpose is for lesser cd on roar which is used for determination gain (the passive increase to determination gain while channeling reaping strike is enough to grant more determination over all vs. roar, if used right)
i opted out of battle awareness because i dont use savage advance and the power increase when slam is up doesnt make hardly any difference since i only get power when nothing else is availiable. (my priority is armor pen > crit/recovery > lifesteal) (imo lifesteal is prob the best defensive stat for my gwf build, as i alrdy dont take much dmg, and being able to heal at least 1/2 of the dmg i take in a dungeon, makes the dc's job alot easier, especially on bosses)
I think pretty much everything blows Sure Strike away in DPS. I have seen some Destroyers that made it work, but as I've said each and every one of them I saw making it work were using top-tier weapon enchants and each of them were using the Plaguefire enchant type. Don't know if that's related or not, but it should be noted that I have never once, ever, seen a GWF do well with Sure Strike that wasn't doing this.
If you view the GWF as a single-target debuff class to make the rogues job easier, than the team could just not bring you and do just as well. Especially if the rogue themselves have their own plaguefire. (Although I've heard tell that they stack, so maybe it is valid enough to do it after the point where there's no reason to run the content anymore since you have top-tier everything.)
As to the stacks and their relation to RS you are 100% wrong. Reaping Strike isn't a spam attack, it's a finisher attack, so you will have stacks galore from spamming WMS. There is no situation where you would want to throw 3 Reaping Strikes in a row, even if you're unstoppable it's a bad idea. (Unless that last RS will kill a boss, that might be worth it if you're the only one left alive...)
I don't mean not picking the feats. I mean that since Destroyer feat has 25% chance to proc, and SotS procs out of your criticals, and they have 3 to5 sec duration, it will be impossible to maintain them with a reaping strike (2sec cast?) and WMS, or at least will loose some uptime at best.
EDIT:
I will soon try Destroyer spec again, but i think i will simply use wicked strike/WMS instead of Sure Strike or Reaping Strike. Dunno if I am just biased cause of Instigator, but as i told above, it feels stronger even in 1 target while SS/Reaping feels weak/wrong. It will loose its power in AoE, but still I guess I will try the Destroyer feat(mainly using Weapon Master/Steel blitz), and along with the 10% at-will dmg feat it might be good.
Wicked Strike/WMS weaving is kinda a pain in the *** to sync, but while in Unstoppable it is a BEAST, and since Destroyer spec is giving you that (hence i might even try using both Roar+Darting Shout for maximum uptime), it might turn to be a viable option. I just have to test it I guess.
Anyway, I think I owe an apologize to the OP for spamming his thread with that kind of things, he made a nice guide overall (i still disagree with Restoring Strike :P ), keep up the good work and sorry for the spam on your thread.
You use Reaping Strike to take advantage of the SotS stacks, not to create them. They might drop off, but it transforms your single-target RS critical into truly devastating criticals. Who cares about up-time on a debuff if you aren't taking advantage of it with high damage attacks? (And if RS does crit than it maintains the debuff.) I know this for a fact because it's what I use in dungeons. You can see as much using it on training dummies too.
If you want to use Wicked Strikes, for the love of god do not roll a Destroyer. You get a 25% increased damage to Wicked Strike as an Instigator, and a Destroyer is wasting the potential of their tree in using WS and wasting the potential of WS itself at the same time. It's double fail to do that.
1st.
Still WMS will be slow stacking Destroyer and SotS ,but i guess Flourish can help here, so i do see a point. Still it is not only Destroyer and SotS, you also have PlagueFire (unless you go for Vorpal), Tenebrous enchantment (if any), Deep Gash that if added together can be a considered sum. But still I havent tested Reaping Strike spec, so I cant commend for it, thats just my thoughts.
2nd.
Instigator tree gives to Wicked Strike 5% dmg for every adittional target. So technically for Wicked Strike in single target situation, Instigator's has 5% extra dmg(Group Assault), while destroyer's has 10% (Great Weapon Focus) +12% from Destroyer feat!
Dont know where you get that 25% dmg from Instigator that you are talking about
If you look at the GWF it seems like they are weighing 5% crit damage as 1 feat point, but that sort of is irrelevant since you are maxed at 3 points for 15%. The racial would push you to 20%. 3% bonus to 2000 defense is 60 extra defense. 20% of that 60 defense is a bonus of 12 power. Wouldn't 2 extra dex and 5% crit bonus outweigh the 3% defense bonus and the 3 feat points? You could lose one point in Unstoppable Action, one in Steely Defense, and one in Weapon Mastry.
Isn't 5% crit damage plus the crit you get from the extra 2 dex better than the 1% crit, the ap gain, and the power gain from versatile defense and the one point in steely defense (60 and 80 power at 2000 defense) or would the power scale better with gear?
Slower than what? WMS applies SotS on each of it's attacks, so it stacks X2 each time you use it if it crits on the first attack. Oddly, it only proc's one Destroyer stack but seems to be able to proc two SotS stacks. I have extensively tested Reaping Strike. RS has higher damage, which is why I use it to take advantage of SotS. The higher the base damage of the attack, the more bang you get out of SotS. I think of SotS as a consumable stack, and I use Reaping Strike to consume it with a chance to keep all the stacks if RS crits.
25% damage buff to WS if it hits it's five targets. 5% per target hit, five targets max, 25% damage. Otherwise it suffers the same split damage every other AoE at-will suffers. The Instigator tree helps to mitigate the splitting damage, which is why it's superior for a WS build considering you're obviously already aiming for AoE damage by using WS in the first place.
If you're Destroyer you get 10% from WMS debuff, 10% from At-Will buff, 12% from Destroyer, and 25% to a single-target from Executioners Style. So for a single-target it becomes a 57% damage increase for Reaping Strike alone. Numerically it's superior, the complaints stem from the difficulty of finding a lone target to hit with it and people don't like waiting for a big number.
I'm done though, I feel like I'm derailing the OP's discussion with talk of alternate builds. In that vein I have the following to say:
This build relies on several things that are unreliable. Namely increased damage from marks, a bleed, and not having full Unstoppable Action feat. I would rather have 5/5 in Unstoppable Action than the increase in AC from Armor Specialization since Unstoppable Action is more DPS oriented and it's a relatively small increase in power stacking Armor Spec and Steely Defense together. I think it's valid enough to try doing it this way, but with marks going away when you're hit and the massive amounts of AoE you encounter in the end-game it just falls short. You will hardly ever get any bang for your buck out of a mark, it's good for one or perhaps two hits and then there goes your five point feat investment into better marks. Perhaps if you play with a tank that is just absolutely fantastic it becomes a contender, but in random pug play I just wouldn't trust it.
The OP says it's to taste, so I give him a pass. I don't know who he's playing with, and if this works for him and his team then great. It's not to my taste because of a few details, but that's my play style not his. Personally, I think he's limiting himself by a ton using Sure Strike at all but that's because I don't think it's wise to use a single-target attack on an AoE monster. Especially a single-target attack that does subpar damage even by GWF standards. Obviously, if you have end-game enchants it could change the state of things a bit but with a 1% fuse rate perhaps Sure Strike is an attack that ultimately you need to pay real money to use well.
@OP: Bonus to encounter damage from Staying Power is 10% off WMS, not 15% as stated in your OP.
If your group is putting you on boss duty at all they are seriously not utilizing you.
http://nwcalc.com/#/ is a much better build site IMO.
Character is what a man is in the dark
I just wanted to toss my experience into the wrap for what I've used sure strike for. I'm sure you've all played with CW, and I've actually had been in situation, especially during boss fights where the party wants me no where near the adds. They want the CW or CW x2 to handle the adds, because in most higher tier dungeons the adds spawn infinitely.
So if they are trying to manage adds on one side, and have the boss on the other, WMS in some cases will hit both the boss and the adds; which is very bad (causes some CW to loose control). I also found it very hard to dodge some of the higher tier boss moves solely using WMS. I normally use 1-2 WMS as an opener to debuff, then I use Sure strike simply because I can maneuver better with it.
The roles I've been seem to be put into in the higher tier dungeons is either boss duty, or pulling. WMS imo is horribly slow if you are trying to gain the attention of mobs, and trying to kite them around or towards the group.
So to me there's plenty of situations in which I've had to use sure strike, not to mention pvp. I realize that its "use" isn't the problem, is simply its dmg.
Another question I have for you guys is have you parsed sure strike vs wms or sure strike vs reaping or sure strike vs wicked strike on a single target? Reason I ask this is simply because unless you are in unstoppable the amount of frames each takes to go off makes a huge difference (unless you are using the frame cancel, which I don't consider a legit way of testing.....such as wms > ws..which i feel someday will get nerfed).
Sorry but SS is way better single target then WS or much easier and more DPS over time then RS. WMS takes care of all your AOE needs and SS is only for bosses. I don't do any parses but when my eyes see that SS hits for more then WS in a smaller aniamtion issue that is all the proof I need.
Ohh and Edit: I ran a Spider last week with my Guild Leader on his GWF and me on mine and even though my GS is about 200 points higher then his, I beat him by more then 3 million total damage and he was the "glorious instigator spec" Personally I found that spec horrible and because of the over reliance on "silly" tricks like WMS/WS rotations it is harder to play and much more cumbersome in a T2 when you need to be mobile at ALL TIMES. In other words you can't use that trick on more then 40% of the content out there. In the mean time my mobile triple encounter single target (same 3 encounters as the OP uses) will do way more damage on hard mobs and my group role is more refined because I can actually get and keep agro on single target hard targets.
Character is what a man is in the dark
I also used instigator before I respected into this build. I found it was great vs multiple enemies (which in most of end game content was trash), but it was horrible against single targets. I also found the wms > ws rotation would be interrupted alot due to situations such as bosses using an aoe move.
Some one earlier above mentioned that sure strike is HAMSTER unless you use plague fire. I personally use plague fire, though the OP uses lightening (which I really want to try out).
In terms of what zylaxx is saying about holding agro is completely true, because outside of unstoppable sure strike does faster dmg (like dot) to hold the enemies attention.
Nope they will all crit if only the first in the chain crits.
Also it should be noted I do use a greater Plaguefire so that might be why my SS sems to hit super hard. Also tanking adds is much easier with about 80% uptime on unstoppable and my 1400 Lifesteal and Restoring Strikewhile in unstoppable allows me to recover most of my health lost when out of it.
Character is what a man is in the dark
That's about what I figured, basically you're stacking several ArP abilities on a single-target as quickly as possible. I'd be very interested if someone tried Sure Strike/Reaping Strike with Executioners Style for single-target damage with Plaguefire as their enchant type.
Stack debuffs with SS, then whammy them with a RS. With Plaguefire outperforming the measely 10% debuff from WMS, this should result in some stupid high crits. But, then again, getting the boss alone to hit them with a single-target RS is the whole reason people use SS in the first place despite it's overall terribad damage.
Basically, the balance patch needs to happen yesterday and even then end-game enchants are so incredibly powerful that it's quite likely that build viability matters far less than what enchantments you're using.
This dovetails into a P2Win argument, but it's really more of a 'you must have end game enchants for some builds/loadouts to be viable.'
Completed all content waiting for more.
And class balances.... trololollol.
Where in my build setup do I mention you have to have end game enchantments to make it viable?
Not saying your build is bad, just trying to understand your results.
aye, it looks it too. only put that cos that was the only one i found, but now i'll be using that link
generally the only cw's that you can count on to NOT use knockbacks on cooldown, are friends and some guildies.
most cw's choose to do more dmg overall by denying other's dmg in general, instead of being a team player.
if you cant rely on the cw(s) in your group to work with you, then dont even try to dps in an area that allows mobs to be knocked off cliffs. its not worth the headache of running back and forth and getting maybe a couple of swings to connect. at most, just go after the archers and other ranged stragglers
i do not condone this type of thinking, but there isn't any hope of convincing even 1% of the cw's to play to the group's strenghts instead of thier own
Well the problem with dungeons is its much easier to knock mobs off then risk dying though being overwhelmed. Most boss encounters are much easier with a CW knocking stuff off with you picking up stragglers. It is a game flaw I do not like because of the ease with knocking stuff comes at the detriment of the GWF. Both CW and GWF pretty much handle the same role.....add control, 1 through CC effects, 1 through old fashioned killing and for the most part its way easier taking the easier way out hence the issue with GWF's getting invited to groups.
Character is what a man is in the dark
I have exactly this same question, do any of you have any input?
Then again, I've parsed over hundreds of logs to know what is good or bad. Carry on, discussion.
Parses mean squat versus actual user feedback and testing. As I've said in my setup I do way more damage with SS then I ever did with an Instigator spec using WS or using the lolrific RS. With Slam up 80% of the time and WMS my AOE is more then sufficient to kill, control or keep agro on, any trash mobs but when I am routinely kicking Boss *** while you're stuck to hitting like a wet noodle single target. AOE means HAMSTER when WMS and Slam is all you need. WS is overkill!
Character is what a man is in the dark
Your stat priorities are literally backwards by the way:
Arp(2200)>Recovery(3500)>Crit(3500)>Power
Power is near on useless, you gain MUCH more from maxing your ARP and Recovery for the decreased cooldowns/increased action point gain (25% on both) and then the 22% DR reduction from the ARP mean you're negating the mobs defence.
At the current stage we cannot compete at all on a Single target scale, Sure-Strike is terrible.
At-Wills should either be WMS/WS or WMS/RS depending on your playstyle/the current releasing RS at 2 charges because it registers as if it's at 3.
Maxing your AOE damage should be your priority since that's the only thing we are remotely good at in the current stage of the game.
I just tested this build on the mimic test server, and all I can say is WOW. Everyone is claiming that you need to go sentinel spec, or instigator; I completely disagree. This update makes this build even more viable than it already was before. Now alot of the encounters listed, have even shorter cooldowns, allowing for even more dmg. Crescendo is very impressive in the damage buff, kinda shocked me. I honestly see no reason for changing anything once this goes into play.
Thanks to the new way unstoppable works, surviving a pack of mobs (since there's no stacking astral shields), its a heck of a lot easier with the temp hp gain. Its a HAMSTER load to, at least 4-5k of temp life.