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 <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load to, at least 4-5k of temp life.
Until you find out your Cleric goes boom the moment his Astral Shield goes down (and it will since its only got a 66% uptime with capped Recovery. A Sentinel specced GWF is going to be almost required on most fights now to main agro on all the adds.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Character is what a man is in the dark
Until you find out your Cleric goes boom the moment his Astral Shield goes down (and it will since its only got a 66% uptime with capped Recovery. A Sentinel specced GWF is going to be almost required on most fights now to main agro on all the adds.
What about mages that chain Singularity and are still able to do so after the class nerfs? Where does a Sentinel fit into that? Basically, Sentinel is there if your CW is bad. I do not believe that the class nerfs and GWF buff's will result in Sentinel being a 'required' spec, although it is vastly improved from it's 'useless' previous status. At least it's a contender now, but don't pretend that CW's don't exist.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
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dasherrazMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 2Arc User
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.
If you've parsed all these logs, maybe you could add some constructive criticism from empiricism? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is a snide sounding post you're proffering. I haven't seen many folks offering up viable builds besides Instigator builds, which -- though good at doing damage to large numbers of mobs -- have not (for me at least) been very useful at killing the larger elite types. And that is to say nothing of mobs flying around from various knockbacks.
We're early on in the theorycrafting of the game: people are figuring out what stats work for what class, the caps of those stats, feats and powers that are bugged and broken, &tc. I knew once I picked up these two-handed weapons, it was not going to be an easy road, and I appreciate the work people are doing to figure out game mechanics. Perhaps a build like this with a little bit of single target pop would have greater utility, as we always have Slam and WMS to take out pukes. I look forward to trying these different builds and think our little community is doing an bang-up job of trying to tease out the tricks of the GWF.
It's silly how much it costs to respec. Very discouraging aspect of the way they subsidize free to play, and I'm sure it's limiting a lot of our excellent GWF playerbase from trying out different builds. Also, no dual spec. I'm sure we'll be able to buy it for a nominal fee at some point!
And really, should we be surprised that spacejew hates the SS so much?
If anything this build has improved since the patch. These are the changes they have made that effect this build and they are all improvements.
Restoring Strike: The cooldown of this power has been decreased.
Sure Strike: The damage from this power has been increased.
Unstoppable: This power now grants temporary health based on how much Determination the player had when activating it.
Feat: Deep Gash: The damage from this feat is now considered a DoT.
If i'm going to remove powerful challenge, which feat is better to take?
Greatweapon focus?
Disciple of War?
or Battle awareness?
thank you
First of all, you should have great weapon focus already. It is mandatory, and there is no reason not to take it. So i will consider that you never asked that / or you made a mistake.
Now to the point, Disciple of the War will be your best choice if you dont have the armPen cap (2222), In order to get to all stat caps (2.2k Arm Pen, 3k recovery, 3k crit), you will need for sure ioun stone or cat as companion.
Now in order to get all these 3 caps with the companion ,you will either have to spend some million of AD. If you cant afford it, Disciple of War will make it a lot cheaper. Without it you will need for sure some rank 8 enchantments, and piercing berseker gear (Neck,rings,belt that has offensive slot each of them gives 244 armpen or close to that, keep in mind its rare (blue) not epic).
For me, with Disciple of War, 2 piercing berseker (ring neck) and rank 6 enchantment were enough. . To put it in numbers, if you have 3k recovery , it will give you 750 armpen.
Mizery, great job one the guide man. Do you mind showing a screenshot of your current stats and equips? Also maybe some advice on Companions, Enchantments/Runestones setup?
Ye I used this build after the balance patch, and im consistently 2nd most dmg dealt, and not often 3rd. I'm really close to TR's dmg,great build.
Thank you for this feedback - was thinking about this build but wasn't sure how it will play out after the patch. I'm still below level 50, so I've some time. But with the free respec token we got, I might already refocus on this build.
First of all, you should have great weapon focus already. It is mandatory, and there is no reason not to take it. So i will consider that you never asked that / or you made a mistake.
Now to the point, Disciple of the War will be your best choice if you dont have the armPen cap (2222), In order to get to all stat caps (2.2k Arm Pen, 3k recovery, 3k crit), you will need for sure ioun stone or cat as companion.
Now in order to get all these 3 caps with the companion ,you will either have to spend some million of AD. If you cant afford it, Disciple of War will make it a lot cheaper. Without it you will need for sure some rank 8 enchantments, and piercing berseker gear (Neck,rings,belt that has offensive slot each of them gives 244 armpen or close to that, keep in mind its rare (blue) not epic).
For me, with Disciple of War, 2 piercing berseker (ring neck) and rank 6 enchantment were enough. . To put it in numbers, if you have 3k recovery , it will give you 750 armpen.
thank you for the feedback.
Now on feats, some dude mentioned that STEELY DEFENSE is a no-no. Is that true?
Is RS still essential after the patch? should i take EXECUTIONER's STYLE?
Is POWER still a crappy stat?
Thank you mizery187! I have been using this build for a few days now, before and after the patch. I almost gave up on my GWF before I tried this build out. Now I usually out DPS rogues and have a GREAT time playing. This build has made the GWF a very good party asset because of the massive AOE damage, and who doesn't love watching all those numbers pop up on the screen. THANK YOU!
PS- A gear guide would make this the ultimate GWF guide, hope to see this in the future.
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mizery187Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited June 2013
I'm glad to see everyone is having a positive result with the build setup. As for a gear guide, that is in the making and will be posted here in the next couple of days.
I'm glad to see everyone is having a positive result with the build setup. As for a gear guide, that is in the making and will be posted here in the next couple of days.
Mizery,
I was thinking of rolling another GWF. Would this build still be fie after the patch as I tend to level quickly? Also wouldn't Half-Orc be a more optimal choice than Human with the +5% crit severity and +2 DEX?
so for those us who are half-orc GWF's, where do you suggest we stick our heroic points? we dont get the extra points that the humans do lol
Well I am not the op, but I would recommend taking 2 points out of Weapon mastery (crit chance bonus) and 1 point of of Steely defense. As you are a Half orc you already have 2 extra dex giving you the 2% crit so you would still have same crit chance as a Human. Half Orc is actually a better choice than human as 5% crit severity is much better than 4% of your defense as power.
I think this build would be much stronger if you used Steel Blitz instead of destroyer and moved the 5 points in Destroyer to Battle Awareness. You seem to be trying to optimize your deep gash damage and that will give you 25% more power while Slamming which means 25% more bleed damage. Steel blitz is near as good as Destroyer is on a single target and better on multiple targets so this would make the build stronger IMO. You might also consider moving the 5 points in powerful challenge to Disciple of War as the GWF sets don't have Armor Pen on them and its very important to get to the Armor Pen Cap.
I actually really like this build and will be respecing to it (with my changes) myself. I don't think the AOE is going to be as good as instigator but you will be very close and your single target is far better. This seems like a very solid middle of the road build with decent to good AOE and Single Target damage with some added survival with armor spec.
I went Sentinel with the free respec and I am very in its lack of aggro control and the instigator play style seems like it would kill my hands lol.
thank you for the feedback.
Now on feats, some dude mentioned that STEELY DEFENSE is a no-no. Is that true?
Is RS still essential after the patch? should i take EXECUTIONER's STYLE?
Is POWER still a crappy stat?
thank you
I haven't try RS this patch. Don't think I need to do though, since sure strike and wicked strike are buffed, they seem better (without testing it). SS/WMS or WS/WMS are you only options i fear.
Power is a crappy stat indeed, but it will give you some dmg boost , so not useless. Your 1st priority should be the caps I mentioned above. 3k rec, 2,2k arm pem, 3k critical. Beyond these points they become less and less beneficial , so they would suck too.
About Steely defense, I am personally using it .~400 power is boost in dmg, so if you play mostly PvE, it will be the most beneficial for you in matters of dps. If you don't care about maximizing your dps potential, and want some survivability instead, other options can be viable too.
Edit
The matter about Steely Defense is that other options wont benefit your damage at all, If you care about PvP mostly, fast runner or toughness/armor specialization might be better. But for PvE and maximizing your dps potential ,the power it provides is the only option .
Maybe with 3 greater Tenebrous enchantments Toughness is viable for dps reasons though, but I guess difference with Steely defense will be minimal.
Edit 2.
If you are familiar with the WMS weaving trick, i can see Fast Runner of some use there, that is situational though (and havent test it)
Well I am not the op, but I would recommend taking 2 points out of Weapon mastery (crit chance bonus) and 1 point of of Steely defense. As you are a Half orc you already have 2 extra dex giving you the 2% crit so you would still have same crit chance as a Human. Half Orc is actually a better choice than human as 5% crit severity is much better than 4% of your defense as power.
I think this build would be much stronger if you used Steel Blitz instead of destroyer and moved the 5 points in Destroyer to Battle Awareness. You seem to be trying to optimize your deep gash damage and that will give you 25% more power while Slamming which means 25% more bleed damage. Steel blitz is near as good as Destroyer is on a single target and better on multiple targets so this would make the build stronger IMO. You might also consider moving the 5 points in powerful challenge to Disciple of War as the GWF sets don't have Armor Pen on them and its very important to get to the Armor Pen Cap.
I actually really like this build and will be respecing to it (with my changes) myself. I don't think the AOE is going to be as good as instigator but you will be very close and your single target is far better. This seems like a very solid middle of the road build with decent to good AOE and Single Target damage with some added survival with armor spec.
I went Sentinel with the free respec and I am very in its lack of aggro control and the instigator play style seems like it would kill my hands lol.
First of all, he uses Destroyer / Steel Blitz in his guide. And those are the most beneficial in end game .Weapon Master is when you lack critical ,but when you are at 3k crit it becomes almost useless. Unless you mean any other defensive passive (and I hope not Steadfast Determination).
I personally play with Disciple of War as I mentioned above, because I cant afford bis belt and rank 8 enchantments. And i do recommend it. Also you should use destroyer along with Focused Destroyer feat, and if you want to spec into Battle Awareness I would recommend you to take the points from Staying Power instead, (but it wont be better overall).
Unlike TR, Deep Gash dot won't be your main source of damage. Also, your thinking about Battle Awareness has a flaw. Deep Gash is 15% of your power. Battle Awareness won't give you 25% more damage , but only 15% of the 25% of your power. Cba to do the math atm, it is late here ,but I guess it would be a 8% (?) dmg more on Deep Gash when slam is up. Destroyer gives you 12% dmg with 100% uptime on all sources of dmg, the 25% extra power when slam is up (25% uptime in a rough guess), is a much less boost, not only for Deep Gash, but for your At-will and encounter too.
Well I am not the op, but I would recommend taking 2 points out of Weapon mastery (crit chance bonus) and 1 point of of Steely defence. As you are a Half-Orc you already have 2 extra dex giving you the 2% crit so you would still have same crit chance as a Human. Half Orc is actually a better choice than human as 5% crit severity is much better than 4% of your defense as power.
I am pretty sure that Half-Orc is a better pure DPS choice than human but not sure it is better overall.
The reason is that it really comes down to +1% crit chance (+2% from +2 DEX, minus one as you only get 2/3 in the additional crit feat), +5% crit severity and defence bonuses from +2 DEX against the extra 3% defence boost and 2 feats. Remember that +5% crit severity actually translates to about 1.25% extra damage (since crit severity is already around 200% and the maximum effective crit rate is around 50%).
Now let's assume that the defensive bonuses cancel as they seem pretty close (although the Human's might be very slightly better as it adds to Power). So we have 2 feats versus 1% extra crit chance and 5% extra crit severity, or around 2.25% extra damage.
I can't find any heroic feats that would add this much extra damage but just taking 2/3 in Toughness (and there may be better choices) would make the Human far superior defensively. So, for pure DPS while I am pretty sure Half-Orc is better, it is likely that Human could be better overall, especially in PvP. If I have missed something or made an error please let me know
TLFR: As everyone probably intuitively guessed Half-Orc is RAWR DPS and human is better balanced.
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vaelusMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 12Arc User
First of all, he uses Destroyer / Steel Blitz in his guide. And those are the most beneficial in end game .Weapon Master is when you lack critical ,but when you are at 3k crit it becomes almost useless. Unless you mean any other defensive passive (and I hope not Steadfast Determination).
I personally play with Disciple of War as I mentioned above, because I cant afford bis belt and rank 8 enchantments. And i do recommend it. Also you should use destroyer along with Focused Destroyer feat, and if you want to spec into Battle Awareness I would recommend you to take the points from Staying Power instead, (but it wont be better overall).
Unlike TR, Deep Gash dot won't be your main source of damage. Also, your thinking about Battle Awareness has a flaw. Deep Gash is 15% of your power. Battle Awareness won't give you 25% more damage , but only 15% of the 25% of your power. Cba to do the math atm, it is late here ,but I guess it would be a 8% (?) dmg more on Deep Gash when slam is up. Destroyer gives you 12% dmg with 100% uptime on all sources of dmg, the 25% extra power when slam is up (25% uptime in a rough guess), is a much less boost, not only for Deep Gash, but for your At-will and encounter too.
I see that I had his passives wrong now, thought he was using weapon master/destroyer. My suggestion should have been to swap destroyer for Weapon Master and make said changes. Been reading too many builds lately lol. For me I almost always prefer more crit chance, as I like to ensure that Student of Sword stays up all the time. The flat crit buffs like from weapon master and dex don't seem to suffer from diminishing returns the way crit rating does and thus stack quite nicely with it, though perhaps going over 50% crit or so would be excessive.
I also did not care for the Focused Destroyer talent when I tried it, I had difficultly keeping up the stacks on a single target, due to having to run out of red and the 25% proc rate, granted this was a while ago and it could have been bugged or something.
If Deep Gash works the way it should work then increasing your power by 25% would increase the bleed damage by 25%. My assumption is that when you crit Deep gash applies a bleed that is equal to 15% of your current power. So if you power is 25% higher when you crit, the bleed will be 25% larger. For example lets say you have 2000 base power, when you Slam with Battle Awareness you will go up to 2500 power. Normally when you crit with the 2000 power you would get a bleed doing 300 damage, but if you crit with slam up you would get a bleed doing 375 damage, an increase of 25%. Its entirely possible that it doesn't work this way but that seems to be the intent.
You are correct in that it isn't a whole lot of damage or even the main part, but giving that he lists power as his most sought after stat, I would try to make it as valuable as possible. Its definitely much stronger for the instigators because of their capstone. For me I would take 7.5% extra crit and 25% extra power during slam over a not entirely reliable extra 12% damage on Single targets as this build seems to be trying to find a happy medium between AOE and Single target specialty. Destroyer could be superior in AOE situation though, but you do not need Focused Destroyer for those situations and can easily change out features before going into combat if needed.
As for racial choices, IMO there is nothing that the 3 extra points from Humans can get me that is more valuable than 5% crit severity as it is a very difficult stat to increase and the class encourages you to stack large amounts of crit already even as a Sentinel. This being said if you are looking for a slightly more defensive GWF the Human is a better choice, as you can take some of the defensive feats like toughness without having to give up the important offensive ones. There is very little difference between the two over all and I would just pick whichever one you like better.
For Deep Gash:
Your Deep Gash deals damage according to 15% of your Power .So when you gain 25% extra power, it will only take benefit from the 15% of that power. I don't think 25% extra overall dmg is the truth. The problem is, this build will suffer too the less targets you hit, so it will suffer in single target too.
Yeah, destroyer passive is the to go for AoE situations, and while you might loose stacks single target due to avoiding boss mechanics, the same can be told for Weapon Mastery. In my understanding though ,getting a few hits with more %dmg ,will benefit more that a few with a bit more %crit, especially granted you are at ~34% crit chance already, you can still get enough crits without Weapon Mastery (at least I never have that problem).
I think the catch here is the difference between 12% sustained OVERALL DMG buff, and 25% POWER buff. While Deep Gash should be affected too by Destroyer (will have to test later to be sure), Power will benefit you less than bold dmg increase.
So to put it simple, 12% overall dmg increase > the %of dmg 25%power will give you.
I might be wrong ,but I was using what you say some time ago, and over the course of time Weapon Master seemed a waste of passive. While Focused Destroyer might be proved not the best option for single target ,Destroyer passive seems to be the end game option in my opinion, especially by the time we have such a bad benefit from power. To be honest, if I were you ,I would consider swapping Steel Blitz for it ,if Weapon Mastery seems so important.
Edit:
I will disagree with you that these 3 have a little difference .In my opinion Destroyer passive pulls ahead the more gear you have, and I have seen a considerable difference in my damage by the time I tried it along with Focused Destroyer (as I told you I was using 25% power and Weapon Mastery in the past). I don't have parses to prove my points only thing I can base my words, is the difference I saw in overall dmg during runs, it could only work for me and my playstyle ,but personally I see a difference
I haven't try RS this patch. Don't think I need to do though, since sure strike and wicked strike are buffed, they seem better (without testing it). SS/WMS or WS/WMS are you only options i fear.
Power is a crappy stat indeed, but it will give you some dmg boost , so not useless. Your 1st priority should be the caps I mentioned above. 3k rec, 2,2k arm pem, 3k critical. Beyond these points they become less and less beneficial , so they would suck too.
About Steely defense, I am personally using it .~400 power is boost in dmg, so if you play mostly PvE, it will be the most beneficial for you in matters of dps. If you don't care about maximizing your dps potential, and want some survivability instead, other options can be viable too.
Edit
The matter about Steely Defense is that other options wont benefit your damage at all, If you care about PvP mostly, fast runner or toughness/armor specialization might be better. But for PvE and maximizing your dps potential ,the power it provides is the only option .
Maybe with 3 greater Tenebrous enchantments Toughness is viable for dps reasons though, but I guess difference with Steely defense will be minimal.
Edit 2.
If you are familiar with the WMS weaving trick, i can see Fast Runner of some use there, that is situational though (and havent test it)
Hey there I'm a Half-Orc, but I plan on following this build, with a bit of a variation... Instead of taking Armor Specialization, I took 5/5 in unstoppable action, 4/5 in steely defense and 2/3 in weapon mastery. Do you think that's a viable option? Overall, great build
Comments
Until you find out your Cleric goes boom the moment his Astral Shield goes down (and it will since its only got a 66% uptime with capped Recovery. A Sentinel specced GWF is going to be almost required on most fights now to main agro on all the adds.
Character is what a man is in the dark
What about mages that chain Singularity and are still able to do so after the class nerfs? Where does a Sentinel fit into that? Basically, Sentinel is there if your CW is bad. I do not believe that the class nerfs and GWF buff's will result in Sentinel being a 'required' spec, although it is vastly improved from it's 'useless' previous status. At least it's a contender now, but don't pretend that CW's don't exist.
If you've parsed all these logs, maybe you could add some constructive criticism from empiricism? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is a snide sounding post you're proffering. I haven't seen many folks offering up viable builds besides Instigator builds, which -- though good at doing damage to large numbers of mobs -- have not (for me at least) been very useful at killing the larger elite types. And that is to say nothing of mobs flying around from various knockbacks.
We're early on in the theorycrafting of the game: people are figuring out what stats work for what class, the caps of those stats, feats and powers that are bugged and broken, &tc. I knew once I picked up these two-handed weapons, it was not going to be an easy road, and I appreciate the work people are doing to figure out game mechanics. Perhaps a build like this with a little bit of single target pop would have greater utility, as we always have Slam and WMS to take out pukes. I look forward to trying these different builds and think our little community is doing an bang-up job of trying to tease out the tricks of the GWF.
It's silly how much it costs to respec. Very discouraging aspect of the way they subsidize free to play, and I'm sure it's limiting a lot of our excellent GWF playerbase from trying out different builds. Also, no dual spec. I'm sure we'll be able to buy it for a nominal fee at some point!
And really, should we be surprised that spacejew hates the SS so much?
Also instead of RS why isnt takedown an alternative?
Greatweapon focus?
Disciple of War?
or Battle awareness?
thank you
Restoring Strike: The cooldown of this power has been decreased.
Sure Strike: The damage from this power has been increased.
Unstoppable: This power now grants temporary health based on how much Determination the player had when activating it.
Feat: Deep Gash: The damage from this feat is now considered a DoT.
First of all, you should have great weapon focus already. It is mandatory, and there is no reason not to take it. So i will consider that you never asked that / or you made a mistake.
Now to the point, Disciple of the War will be your best choice if you dont have the armPen cap (2222), In order to get to all stat caps (2.2k Arm Pen, 3k recovery, 3k crit), you will need for sure ioun stone or cat as companion.
Now in order to get all these 3 caps with the companion ,you will either have to spend some million of AD. If you cant afford it, Disciple of War will make it a lot cheaper. Without it you will need for sure some rank 8 enchantments, and piercing berseker gear (Neck,rings,belt that has offensive slot each of them gives 244 armpen or close to that, keep in mind its rare (blue) not epic).
For me, with Disciple of War, 2 piercing berseker (ring neck) and rank 6 enchantment were enough. . To put it in numbers, if you have 3k recovery , it will give you 750 armpen.
Thank you for this feedback - was thinking about this build but wasn't sure how it will play out after the patch. I'm still below level 50, so I've some time. But with the free respec token we got, I might already refocus on this build.
thank you for the feedback.
Now on feats, some dude mentioned that STEELY DEFENSE is a no-no. Is that true?
Is RS still essential after the patch? should i take EXECUTIONER's STYLE?
Is POWER still a crappy stat?
thank you
PS- A gear guide would make this the ultimate GWF guide, hope to see this in the future.
Mizery,
I was thinking of rolling another GWF. Would this build still be fie after the patch as I tend to level quickly? Also wouldn't Half-Orc be a more optimal choice than Human with the +5% crit severity and +2 DEX?
Well I am not the op, but I would recommend taking 2 points out of Weapon mastery (crit chance bonus) and 1 point of of Steely defense. As you are a Half orc you already have 2 extra dex giving you the 2% crit so you would still have same crit chance as a Human. Half Orc is actually a better choice than human as 5% crit severity is much better than 4% of your defense as power.
I think this build would be much stronger if you used Steel Blitz instead of destroyer and moved the 5 points in Destroyer to Battle Awareness. You seem to be trying to optimize your deep gash damage and that will give you 25% more power while Slamming which means 25% more bleed damage. Steel blitz is near as good as Destroyer is on a single target and better on multiple targets so this would make the build stronger IMO. You might also consider moving the 5 points in powerful challenge to Disciple of War as the GWF sets don't have Armor Pen on them and its very important to get to the Armor Pen Cap.
I actually really like this build and will be respecing to it (with my changes) myself. I don't think the AOE is going to be as good as instigator but you will be very close and your single target is far better. This seems like a very solid middle of the road build with decent to good AOE and Single Target damage with some added survival with armor spec.
I went Sentinel with the free respec and I am very
I haven't try RS this patch. Don't think I need to do though, since sure strike and wicked strike are buffed, they seem better (without testing it). SS/WMS or WS/WMS are you only options i fear.
Power is a crappy stat indeed, but it will give you some dmg boost , so not useless. Your 1st priority should be the caps I mentioned above. 3k rec, 2,2k arm pem, 3k critical. Beyond these points they become less and less beneficial , so they would suck too.
About Steely defense, I am personally using it .~400 power is boost in dmg, so if you play mostly PvE, it will be the most beneficial for you in matters of dps. If you don't care about maximizing your dps potential, and want some survivability instead, other options can be viable too.
Edit
The matter about Steely Defense is that other options wont benefit your damage at all, If you care about PvP mostly, fast runner or toughness/armor specialization might be better. But for PvE and maximizing your dps potential ,the power it provides is the only option .
Maybe with 3 greater Tenebrous enchantments Toughness is viable for dps reasons though, but I guess difference with Steely defense will be minimal.
Edit 2.
If you are familiar with the WMS weaving trick, i can see Fast Runner of some use there, that is situational though (and havent test it)
First of all, he uses Destroyer / Steel Blitz in his guide. And those are the most beneficial in end game .Weapon Master is when you lack critical ,but when you are at 3k crit it becomes almost useless. Unless you mean any other defensive passive (and I hope not Steadfast Determination).
I personally play with Disciple of War as I mentioned above, because I cant afford bis belt and rank 8 enchantments. And i do recommend it. Also you should use destroyer along with Focused Destroyer feat, and if you want to spec into Battle Awareness I would recommend you to take the points from Staying Power instead, (but it wont be better overall).
Unlike TR, Deep Gash dot won't be your main source of damage. Also, your thinking about Battle Awareness has a flaw. Deep Gash is 15% of your power. Battle Awareness won't give you 25% more damage , but only 15% of the 25% of your power. Cba to do the math atm, it is late here ,but I guess it would be a 8% (?) dmg more on Deep Gash when slam is up. Destroyer gives you 12% dmg with 100% uptime on all sources of dmg, the 25% extra power when slam is up (25% uptime in a rough guess), is a much less boost, not only for Deep Gash, but for your At-will and encounter too.
I am pretty sure that Half-Orc is a better pure DPS choice than human but not sure it is better overall.
The reason is that it really comes down to +1% crit chance (+2% from +2 DEX, minus one as you only get 2/3 in the additional crit feat), +5% crit severity and defence bonuses from +2 DEX against the extra 3% defence boost and 2 feats. Remember that +5% crit severity actually translates to about 1.25% extra damage (since crit severity is already around 200% and the maximum effective crit rate is around 50%).
Now let's assume that the defensive bonuses cancel as they seem pretty close (although the Human's might be very slightly better as it adds to Power). So we have 2 feats versus 1% extra crit chance and 5% extra crit severity, or around 2.25% extra damage.
I can't find any heroic feats that would add this much extra damage but just taking 2/3 in Toughness (and there may be better choices) would make the Human far superior defensively. So, for pure DPS while I am pretty sure Half-Orc is better, it is likely that Human could be better overall, especially in PvP. If I have missed something or made an error please let me know
TLFR: As everyone probably intuitively guessed Half-Orc is RAWR DPS and human is better balanced.
I see that I had his passives wrong now, thought he was using weapon master/destroyer. My suggestion should have been to swap destroyer for Weapon Master and make said changes. Been reading too many builds lately lol. For me I almost always prefer more crit chance, as I like to ensure that Student of Sword stays up all the time. The flat crit buffs like from weapon master and dex don't seem to suffer from diminishing returns the way crit rating does and thus stack quite nicely with it, though perhaps going over 50% crit or so would be excessive.
I also did not care for the Focused Destroyer talent when I tried it, I had difficultly keeping up the stacks on a single target, due to having to run out of red and the 25% proc rate, granted this was a while ago and it could have been bugged or something.
If Deep Gash works the way it should work then increasing your power by 25% would increase the bleed damage by 25%. My assumption is that when you crit Deep gash applies a bleed that is equal to 15% of your current power. So if you power is 25% higher when you crit, the bleed will be 25% larger. For example lets say you have 2000 base power, when you Slam with Battle Awareness you will go up to 2500 power. Normally when you crit with the 2000 power you would get a bleed doing 300 damage, but if you crit with slam up you would get a bleed doing 375 damage, an increase of 25%. Its entirely possible that it doesn't work this way but that seems to be the intent.
You are correct in that it isn't a whole lot of damage or even the main part, but giving that he lists power as his most sought after stat, I would try to make it as valuable as possible. Its definitely much stronger for the instigators because of their capstone. For me I would take 7.5% extra crit and 25% extra power during slam over a not entirely reliable extra 12% damage on Single targets as this build seems to be trying to find a happy medium between AOE and Single target specialty. Destroyer could be superior in AOE situation though, but you do not need Focused Destroyer for those situations and can easily change out features before going into combat if needed.
As for racial choices, IMO there is nothing that the 3 extra points from Humans can get me that is more valuable than 5% crit severity as it is a very difficult stat to increase and the class encourages you to stack large amounts of crit already even as a Sentinel. This being said if you are looking for a slightly more defensive GWF the Human is a better choice, as you can take some of the defensive feats like toughness without having to give up the important offensive ones. There is very little difference between the two over all and I would just pick whichever one you like better.
Your Deep Gash deals damage according to 15% of your Power .So when you gain 25% extra power, it will only take benefit from the 15% of that power. I don't think 25% extra overall dmg is the truth. The problem is, this build will suffer too the less targets you hit, so it will suffer in single target too.
Yeah, destroyer passive is the to go for AoE situations, and while you might loose stacks single target due to avoiding boss mechanics, the same can be told for Weapon Mastery. In my understanding though ,getting a few hits with more %dmg ,will benefit more that a few with a bit more %crit, especially granted you are at ~34% crit chance already, you can still get enough crits without Weapon Mastery (at least I never have that problem).
I think the catch here is the difference between 12% sustained OVERALL DMG buff, and 25% POWER buff. While Deep Gash should be affected too by Destroyer (will have to test later to be sure), Power will benefit you less than bold dmg increase.
So to put it simple, 12% overall dmg increase > the %of dmg 25%power will give you.
I might be wrong ,but I was using what you say some time ago, and over the course of time Weapon Master seemed a waste of passive. While Focused Destroyer might be proved not the best option for single target ,Destroyer passive seems to be the end game option in my opinion, especially by the time we have such a bad benefit from power. To be honest, if I were you ,I would consider swapping Steel Blitz for it ,if Weapon Mastery seems so important.
Edit:
I will disagree with you that these 3 have a little difference .In my opinion Destroyer passive pulls ahead the more gear you have, and I have seen a considerable difference in my damage by the time I tried it along with Focused Destroyer (as I told you I was using 25% power and Weapon Mastery in the past). I don't have parses to prove my points only thing I can base my words, is the difference I saw in overall dmg during runs, it could only work for me and my playstyle ,but personally I see a difference
thank you for enlightening me sir.
now i would like to know your opinion about this build:
http://nwcalc.com/gwf?b=cn4:2hwcg:5m9s,1x3l03i:60000:b5z51:b0000&h=1
Thank you so much sir.
I have a HOrc GWF around 25 I am looking for a new spec for.