test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Fixing the GWF, really this time.

dekallisdekallis Member Posts: 3 Arc User
edited June 2013 in The Militia Barracks
So nobody's really happy with the patch that 'fixed' the gwf....because we're not really fixed at all. Here's a list of stuff I figure we need. I doubt we'll get most of it because cryptic seems intent on leaving broken skills alone but let's just see what happens.

I'm going to go through skills in level order, at wills and encounters will be in the same section, dailies and class features will be in their own section, and then feats will get their own section.


At wills and encounters
Reaping Strike:
There's a lot of ways to improve this skill but the most straight forward ways I can think of to improve it are either
A. Increase charge speed with rank ups in addition to the current bonuses.
B. Tweak the mechanics of it so that instead of charge 'levels' it simply goes off literally how long you charged it.
C. Add a charge speed increase to the Executioner style feat.

Sure Strike:
For the most part sure strike feels ok right now, I'd just like to see a slight bump in it's AP generation, it currently gives about 3% for a full combo. I'd like to see that go up to 4.

Not so fast:
Add a slight pull to the skill, giving the GWF a second skill that pulls allowing the GWF to setup in such a way that they can force enemies to face them. Alternatively this could beef up the GWF's move speed for each target hit, allowing them to run down a fleeing enemy.

Mighty Leap:
Increase the damage radius, adding a second range indicator around the first, targets inside the first circle get briefly stunned. This allows mighty leap to act as a interrupt against most enemies.

Restoring Strike:
....Restoring strike's fine. leave it alone.

Take down:
After the patch take down feels pretty good, no more missing people that were practically right in front of you. Seems fine now to me.

Wicked Strike:
Pretty much fine now, wish the damage bonus on the third hit was larger but that's more a nitpick than an issue.

Roar:
Roar's probably one of the best overall GWF skills right now simply because of it's sheer utility as an interrupt/disable and it does moderate damage....plus it generates determination and AP....Yeah....leave this alone.

Daring Shout:
Needs it's description clarified for starters, it improves your defense, but the improvement won't show in your character window, so it's impossible to know how much defense you actually got and in many cases it's difficult to notice a significant improvement. I'm not even going to get into marking just yet. I'll do that later but as it is the only reason to use this skill really is to generate determination and roar does that better while dealing damage and disabling enemies.

Flourish: Flourish stuns a enemy.....for and for some reason this stun is at the start of the skill instead of the end of it. There's a feat which adds a second stun to the last hit but really that should be how the skill works to begin with. It's description is a bit misleading as it implies the enemy will be stunned afterward, but in actuality the stun is over by the time the skill ends so it doesn't really serve it's purpose in giving you an advantage against a single target, in PvP(where it's most commonly used) people can simple dodge after the last hit and whatever followup you planned on will whiff. In PvE the time it takes to execute the skill leaves you standing there vulnerable to enemy power attacks. All in all this has more drawbacks than benefits and requires spending 5 feat points to make it decent. I haven't even touched on the fact it has a wind up time before activation yet either.

Weapon Master Strike:
There aren't words for how much I hate this skill,It forces you to use it constantly to maintain 'optimal' dps, which is frankly just annoying and after awhile painful on the wrist/hands to keep alternating for long periods of time. If the point of the skill is the debuff then make the debuff last longer than a few seconds, if the point of the skill is damage then beef up it's damage so it can actually be a main attack skill.

Come and Get It:
Ok this one's easy. It's so terrible it's almost impossible not to improve it. Instead of being only the next attack make it the next 3 attacks, so people can actually do a full wicked strike combo or weapon master strike+reaping combo. lower the damage output of it slightly to compensate for it giving bonus damage 3 times instead of just once and add that these bonus hits generate extra threat. Fixed.

Battle Fury: Duration increase with rank ups. It desperately needs more duration. In the time it takes you to go through the animation the buff is practically over, Forcing people to use sprint canceling to even get some use out of it. It needs a significant duration to make it appealling to put on the skill bar compared to skills like Indomitable battle strike, or roar which both generate extra AP and will be more effective overall compared to this.

Punishing Charge: More or less fine as it is, rank 1 damage is a bit low, but overall a decent skill.

Indomitable battle strike: Not much to say here, it's good burst damage, and it generates bonus ap on kills, not sure why this is the only other skill that marks targets, it seems like an afterthought.

Class Features and Dailies

Destroyer: Buff Duration increasing with rank ups. As it stands right now the buff times out a little too quickly so reaping strike users actually can't effectively use the best class feature for beefing up reaping strike damage. Currently the buff will generally time out literally as you're in mid swing after a full charge and that's assuming you're starting your reaping strikes immediately after one another without repositioning.

Bravery:
Bravery's fine as it is, one of the better options for GWF's right now.


Steadfast Determination: Simply put it's too slow, even with the 'fix' that corrected the rank 2 and rank 3 versions not being better than rank 1 it's still too slow to matter. your enemies would have to ignore you for almost a whole fight for this to be relevant. Otherwise simply taking a hit or two or using roar, or any other determination generating skill will do the job this was meant to do and do it better.


Weapon master:
Also fine as it is.

Steel Blitz: Needs to list it's base chance in the description, as well as the chance added by extra enemies hit. Otherwise it's pretty much fine.

Steel Defense:
Ok, but it feels like it should have a secondary effect to it.

Steel Grace:
Honestly, there's not much use for this to the GWF. CC resistance is good, but you're a GWF. Breaking CC is litterally what unstoppable is for. I feel like the CC resist should be move into Steel Defense as a passive second effect, and steel grace getting a totally new effect, like a stacking buff that increases attack and movement speed synergizing with unstoppable's attack speed buff to make At-will's rapid dps.

Spinning Strike: Needs a base damage increase. Right now it's less damaging than sure strike. That's just not ok. Sure I get that it's got powerful defensive properties now but a daily should not have less damage than an at will.

Slam: Pretty much the bread and butter daily of the class. Nothing to do here move along.

Savage Advance: In my opinion the second best daily skill in the GWF's kit, second only because slam is #1. Fine where it is.

Crescendo: The bandwagon daily, it has the most stated damage but, given the time it takes to go through the whole animation it leaves the user pretty vulnerable and you can potentially end up wasting your AP if you get CC'd while doing it. The only improvements here would be either to add a dash to it like takedown or speed up the incredibly slow jumping slash at the end.

Feats

Unstoppable Action: Fine as it is, a bit of a sink hole for newbies though since you have no idea how much AP you actually get for attacks to begin with unless you stop to test it. For the record sure strike gives you 3% this makes it give you 3.75% per 4 hit combo, most encounters give you 6% this makes those give you 7.5% (without taking recovery bonuses into account) This really feels like it was meant for reaping strike builds, as they get the most use out of it. Because it's kind of a niche bonus, which relies on stats you won't have till later in the game i really feel like either this shouldn't be in the first set of feats, unless you're building recovery right from the get go you're not getting as much of a benefit out of this as you probably imagined, or it should be one of the 3 point feats with it's value's adjusted accordingly.

Disciple of strength: one of the many bonuses which doesn't show up on your character window, in order to see it you have to check your skill damage before putting points into it then check again...at low levels you may need to wait till you have some decent base damage to be able to see the effect or save a few points and put them all in at once since it's a small % increase. this should be a 6/8/10% increase instead of it's current bonus or maybe 4/8/12. Either way it needs a buff.

Toughness: maxing out at 9% max HP is less than impressive. scale this up to being a 5 point feat instead of 3 and simply make it a 3/6/9/12/15% max HP increase.The description should probably also be changed to 'base hp' as I noted it does not affect bonus HP from items or enchantments.

Fast Runner: A potentially great feat, but it takes 3 or 4 points into it to even see a difference. The first two points feel like points wasted. Change it to 7/9/11/13/15% same max but the first couple of points become much more effective.

Endless Assault: against with the 6% thing. Damage bonuses smaller than 10% typically don't matter.Most of the other damage bonuses are 10% I don't see why this is mysteriously placed at 6. I'd suggest the same change be made here I suggested for disciple of strength.

Armor specialization/steely defense/ and constitution focus: are all fine as is.

Grit:The recent patch made this completely obsolete. Needs a totally new effect. I'd suggest gaining a temporary increase to damage mitigation when affected by CC. Say 3/6/9% Only triggering once every 20 seconds.

The final 3 heroic feats are all fine as is. Ubiquitous shield is borderline OP, people have no idea just how much damage combat advantage can add.

Paragon Feats:
Unstoppable recovery: Fine as is.

Fleet Footed: Feels a bit out of place on this spec feels more like a destroyer's type of ability, but otherwise fine.

Stunning Flourish: Shouldn't even BE a feat. As I said before Flourish should already do this. This shouldn't be here. This is taking up a perfectly good spot for another feat. It feels like it's just filler.

Vicious Advantage: Great feat, no change needed.

Nimble runner: Somebody explain to me why sprint doesn't already give deflection chance? GWF's are the ONLY class with no way to mitigate incoming damage with their shift ability. Rogue's/clerics/and CW's all get to dodge GF's get to block. Both nullify damage completely. Yet we can't even get innate deflection? And why is this even in the instigator tree? This is really more the Sentinel's kind of thing.

Allied Opportunity: Fine as it is.

Group Assault: Also fine.

Crippling strike: Feels pretty 'meh' but I suppose if you simply need to keep up with a target it's a good way to go and it actually makes spinning strike useful for something other than running away.

Instigators Vengeance: Would be a great feat if power were more effective at it's job. Should be tweaked though so you only lose one stack at a time when hit instead of all of it.




Great Weapon Focus: Fine as is.

Deep Gash: Either needs a increase to 5/10/15/20/25% or to stack with itself once. Also needs a change to it's proc condition considering the destroyer path is meant to rely on reaping strike and encounters for most of it's damage and relying on crit rolls isn't exactly a great way to go about using reaping strike I feel like the condition should change to simply being a chance on every hit of 10/15/20/25/30%

Staying Power: fine as is.

Disciple of War: this seems like it was meant to take some of the burden off destroyers needing to focus on so many different stats but the ratio isn't large enough so a 10% buff should make it feel a bit more like it's worth it to focus more on recovery which is oh so important to destroyers.

Executioner style: Should also improve reaping strike's charge time/swing speed. Using reaping strike against a single target in PvE isn't that hard, in PvP good luck with that.

Relentless battle fury:Fine as is.

Focused Destroyer: Could also add duration to the destroyer buff, fixing the previously mentioned issues using it with reaping strike and actually give reaping strike users enough time to position for their strikes.

Battle Awareness: This would be fine as it is except for one crucial flaw. It's duration. It never mentions how long you get these bonuses, and it's an incredibly short window of about 3 or 4 seconds. Which means your power bonus from slam won't get to do much and the cool down bonus from savage advance will only matter if you rapidly fire off all your encounter powers one after another immediately after using it. Beef up the duration on this to at least last the full duration of a max rank slam so both of it's bonuses are relevant.

Destoryers Purpose: Gaining determination from dealing damage sounds great. Except the rate of determination generated from damage deal is a pretty big let down almost as much of a letdown as stead fast determination. The bonus damage to encounter powers is pretty much the only reason to put a point in this. Beef up the determination from damage a little and it'd be a much more satisfying feat.



Student of the sword: For anyone running crits...which is basically everyone this feat is pretty much OP. It's the go to feat even when you're not going sentinel. Ironically it's probably the reason GWF's got nerfed so hard in the first place, two GWF's can stack this up resulting in damage far greater than was probably intended.Which would explain how cryptic came to the conclusion GWF's were doing 'far too much damage'

Scale Agility: Good feat, overshadowed by Student of the sword but still solid. Fine as it is.

Grim Promise: Pretty much just a PvE feat. If you've just used Crescendo on someone in PvP and hit them you should probably be finishing that target off soon after if the crescendo didn't. So this is basically a 'debuff the boss' kinda deal and that's fine I guess.....except if the description is to be believed it only affects you. either that descriptions wrong or this is the oddest feat in the game. Why is it not just a debuff to their damage in general?

Powerful challenge:Great feat actually. Underrated by most. Marks are a bit odd in the way they work but what people need to figure out is that when you mark a target that's meant more for your team than you. Other people on the team don't see the mark disappear till it times out, which means whenever someone else marks a target you get the full advantage of the mark. regardless of whether the target hits you or not. So GF's complaining about their mark have no idea what their doing.

Grudge Style:Buff up sure strike? Sure why not. Crit works well on sure strike since it's quick, and you can easily get upwards of 40% crit chance with the right build so I see no problems here.

Intimidation:I haven't much used this feat, simply because it requires using come and get it and I hate that skill. Daring shout doesn't often find a home on my skill bar for long periods of time either.However since this is basically just a weaker deep gash with extra threat, I'm gonna go ahead and say this needs a buff....or at least someone to rethink what this was supposed to do.

Master at arms: I have no complaints. In fact I'd almost call this feat Epic.

Defiance: Basically battle awareness all over again.

Sentinels Aegis: Probably the best of the 3 final feats no changes here.






So assuming you read all that. Let's hear what you guys think. Agree? Disagree? too op? Not enough?
Post edited by dekallis on

Comments

  • theliethesametheliethesame Member Posts: 104 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Sorry to come here only to say that, but TOO LOONG did not read
  • raamoonsingraamoonsing Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I have to say that is a great breakdown of the GWF, after the patch we seem to be getting somewhere but I agree with most of your points.

    we have a good class but just needs bringing into line with the others. it is a pain to be thrown out of dungeon parties simply for being a GWF. in my opinion we need slightly more than the patch, while we do have a good DPS, with the buffs from the other classes it is often hard to bring this damage into combat especially in PVP but also in dungeons.

    we could do with having one or two changes to the daily powers or encounter powers that do longer/wider ranging stun effects. it is painfull to be surrounded by CW and TR who can keep you stunned in rotation when we have no response to do likewise though i suppose thats simply a GWF role. our powers as you say have the painfull animation times that often finish after our prey has moved on or been killed and need sevre attention
  • originalcopseoriginalcopse Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    dekallis wrote: »

    Intimidation:I haven't much used this feat, simply because it requires using come and get it and I hate that skill. Daring shout doesn't often find a home on my skill bar for long periods of time either.However since this is basically just a weaker deep gash with extra threat, I'm gonna go ahead and say this needs a buff....or at least someone to rethink what this was supposed to do.

    They "fixed" the threat gain from intimidation, by giving it a boost in damage based on your power stat. but the threat is only generated from the power that is added to the attack, and seeing as you wont have all that much power in a sentinel spec and gear, you wont be getting much threat
    + both of the abilites have way to long animations, which leaves you vulnurable if you manage to get agro.

    I like the idea of roaring "come and get me!" to get the mobs attention, but it needs to be more effective to be viable.

    P.S. the fact that almost none of our attacks hit more than 5 targets is infuriating especcially as a sentinel when trying to position ranged targets and the herd of melee targets after you are picked as the 5... maybe 7-8 would be more fair? on some abilities at least.
  • rollmassbandrollmassband Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Cryptic should hire you, dekallis!
    Sophisticated and "fun" improvements for the GWF!
  • torquedsoultorquedsoul Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I certainly haven't analyzed all the skills in that level of detail but the class seems effective as a mob killer. I'm pretty much #1 in kills in instances. I don't play pvp so I cant speak to its effectiveness there.

    I think some of the problems with buffing things too much is you end up with an OP'ed class once the synergistic effects kick in. Defense buffing power and then power buffing crit damage. Combine that with the speed and mobility of the class and it could get out of control fast.

    I just started playing this class before the patch and with a cleric companion the GWF is pretty much "unstoppable". I can agree a little with the mob tanking because I see its function as defending casters ... but on the damage front ... no thanks. It would become too overpowered and boring.
  • kolatmasterkolatmaster Member Posts: 3,111 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I enjoyed the read, thanks for posting!
    va8Ru.gif
  • bayne3bayne3 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I'm pretty happy from a sentinels point of view. They just need more threat generation for tanking adds. Possibly somewhere in the sentinel tree a paragon feat that increases threat generation when bravery is slotted.
  • tyrannic32tyrannic32 Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    i actually got scolded by a GF today for using Roar, says its annoying that the mobs are being pushed away..
    i was like.. ok.. nvm, i changed skill back to Not So Fast..
    oh well..
  • maximiliousmaximilious Member Posts: 54 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Sorry but I have to break it to you, if you still suck as a gwf after the patch you should reconsider your class or game. They are the most dominant class in pvp right now, not only are they the best 1v1 but they actually tank a whole team focusing them down while regaining health.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • chudovishyechudovishye Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    One thing to note, the Flourish feat in the Instigator track is HIGHLY useful, and under-appreciated. With the double-stun effect, you actually always stun, like 100% no joke, and, even better, it BREAKS enemy attacks. So, for example, yesterday in an epic Karrandux, while we were fighting a mob and there was a magma brute or whatever in there, I waited until he lifted his fire rock, then let loose Flourish. Drops the rock, dazed, no damage to anyone, no fire effect AOE. Awesome. Works on bosses too, most of the time.
  • bayne3bayne3 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Sorry but I have to break it to you, if you still suck as a gwf after the patch you should reconsider your class or game. They are the most dominant class in pvp right now, not only are they the best 1v1 but they actually tank a whole team focusing them down while regaining health.

    Game's not all about PvP. They're great in PvP. But still have issues in PvE.
  • slayorianslayorian Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    These are some great points. The patch helped and I think GWF is pretty decent at this point. However, the mostly useless or subpar feats, powers, ect... should be fixed up to be viable options. There are too many that are nearly pointless.
  • taintsaint1taintsaint1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Great post, read the entire thing. I like how you actually provided good feedback on how to improve things. Hopefully, someone at cryptic will take this more seriously since it is a well written post instead of the typical "GWF SUCKS! FIX IT!". Keep up the good work!
  • maximiliousmaximilious Member Posts: 54 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Great post, read the entire thing. I like how you actually provided good feedback on how to improve things. Hopefully, someone at cryptic will take this more seriously since it is a well written post instead of the typical "GWF SUCKS! FIX IT!". Keep up the good work!

    pretty good, except the fact that GWF don't suck now.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • silknightsilknight Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 199
    edited June 2013
    I agree with the OP, Alot of these changes could help.
  • wolfenhowlwolfenhowl Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 26 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The problem with our class is not the class itself it's mechanics of other classes/encounters.And I wish people would stop with their PvP comeback thinking it's all the games purpose...
  • katbozejziemikatbozejziemi Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 856 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Roar - I would like to see the range reduced in favor of increased cone angle, because you can easily ruin other people's targets by accident.

    Battle Fury - I probably wouldn't use this power even if we had 5 encounter slots.
    Crescendo: The bandwagon daily, it has the most stated damage but, given the time it takes to go through the whole animation it leaves the user pretty vulnerable and you can potentially end up wasting your AP if you get CC'd while doing it. The only improvements here would be either to add a dash to it like takedown or speed up the incredibly slow jumping slash at the end.
    Why add a dash when this ability already teleports you to the target a fair distance away (which I feel was reduced in the patch, and you can actually waste your AP now by activating it on a target that is too far, because there's no range activation limit).

    Also do something about its awful "animation".
    bayne3 wrote: »
    They're great in PvP.
    Yeah, if you make your whole build around it.
    And even if by some chance they ever add the ability to have multiple specs, it won't include ability scores, which are a big factor, thus making the whole thing pointless.
  • imobiusimobius Member Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    I absolutely hate that Roar, our strongest AoE attack has a knockback.
    Does everything in this game always need to have some form of control effect?

    Its such a ******* obnoxious thing to be pushing targets back constantly, not only for me but for my entire party, melee specifically.

    I just want them to buff Intimidation feat. Either have its damage based from Defense or double/triple the damage gain from Power.
  • originalcopseoriginalcopse Member Posts: 17 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    imobius wrote: »
    I absolutely hate that Roar, our strongest AoE attack has a knockback.
    Does everything in this game always need to have some form of control effect?

    Its such a ******* obnoxious thing to be pushing targets back constantly, not only for me but for my entire party, melee specifically.

    I just want them to buff Intimidation feat. Either have its damage based from Defense or double/triple the damage gain from Power.

    i agree, though i do see roar as a positioning tool at times, but the times that you can actually use it where it wont hurt more than help are limited and i feel you just end up wasting a slot where you could have had a dmg dealing encounter or CaGI for positioning..

    if grudge style applied to wicked strike or even reaping that would be a step in the right direction (and of course intimidation still needs a buff, 10% of power as damage, come on..)
  • irk2013irk2013 Member Posts: 241 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    bayne3 wrote: »
    Game's not all about PvP. They're great in PvP. But still have issues in PvE.

    Do they? I don't see it only people with closed minds see it as they still have this stigma that the class sucks when in actuality it is one of the better ones right now.
  • trique76trique76 Member Posts: 95 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Hello,

    I've been off for 2 weeks now and a friend told me about some patching in the GWF class. I rolled one today and I did noticed some improvement on the damage (newbie area). Someone can clarify what changed? I though this would be part of the next patch (20/6).

    Thanks!
  • chudovishyechudovishye Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    trique76 wrote: »
    Hello,

    I've been off for 2 weeks now and a friend told me about some patching in the GWF class. I rolled one today and I did noticed some improvement on the damage (newbie area). Someone can clarify what changed? I though this would be part of the next patch (20/6).

    Thanks!

    http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=907501
  • tyr216tyr216 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    GWF is very strong now. There's still some issues and bugs that need to be fixed, but the damage is definitely there if you know what you're doing. Every class in every MMO is always a work in progress. I know you all want the GWF to be perfect, but can't we just take a minute to appreciate how much better off we are now compared to before the patch? Every patch isn't going to be a class balance patch so you better get used to things now because it's going to be a bit before we see any more big changes. It took them this long to make us not suck so much. They're going to take their time addressing your nitpicking, because honestly that's what it is. If you're still getting kicked from groups because you're a GWF, it's actually because you're a bad GWF.
  • chudovishyechudovishye Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    tyr216 wrote: »
    GWF is very strong now. There's still some issues and bugs that need to be fixed, but the damage is definitely there if you know what you're doing. Every class in every MMO is always a work in progress. I know you all want the GWF to be perfect, but can't we just take a minute to appreciate how much better off we are now compared to before the patch? Every patch isn't going to be a class balance patch so you better get used to things now because it's going to be a bit before we see any more big changes. It took them this long to make us not suck so much. They're going to take their time addressing your nitpicking, because honestly that's what it is. If you're still getting kicked from groups because you're a GWF, it's actually because you're a bad GWF.

    This. It's noticeably better than before, or you need to respec and rethink what you're doing. Today, for example, I just ran a quick PvP to waste some time. First place. 25 kills 5 deaths 43 assists. I'd say that's pretty good for a GWF. Too bad the item drop SUCKED.
Sign In or Register to comment.