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The Gathering Storm - A GWF Dps Guide
phymn
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 8 Arc User
Greetings!
First of all, I'd like to thank you for reading this. It really means a lot to me.
For you who hate reading and ain't nobody got time for that, there’s a TL: DR version at the end.
The reason I write this guide is thanks to one player on the Dragon Server that got out damaged, out tanked and out awesomed, even though he had better gear. Cheers!
My thoughts about GWF so far…
First and foremost, you’ll never out dps a rogue on a single target. There’s a snowballs chance in hell that you’ll succeed, unless the rogue is somewhat HAMSTER. If you wanted to dominate single target dps, you chose the wrong class.
My thoughts about being a “GWF” is about killing the mobs your wizard gathers so neatly at your own chopping block. It’s about protecting the key players in your team. That’s your Cleric and Wizard. You’re going to have a hard time before you if one of them dies, especially the cleric.
You’re the off-tank, the cannon fodder, the player that gets to do the work no one else wants to do. Yet, in my mind one of the most vital players out there. If you’re surrounded by monsters of every sort, you can still hold your ground, and do it well. You’ll never be better at tanking than a Guardian. You’ll never be better at controlling monsters upon monsters than a Wizard. You’ll never ever be a healer, and you’ll most likely not outdps a rogue on single targets.
You will however dominate the boss fights when the adds spawns. You will dominate the waves of monsters before you even reach the boss. I’ve yet to stumble across a boss in this game that doesn’t spawn adds.
Enough ranting about this class being god almighty and whatnot.
Be Unstoppable!
When I started to play my “GWF”, after hours on my Guardian, I started out as an Instigator. I read a nice guide about it and did some numbers, the usual. However, after reaching level 60 and doing some dungeons. I felt something was lacking. I couldn’t quite put my finger around until I re-read everything from the paragon paths. Soon it dawned on me…
I was lacking Determination. Simple as that. Determination.
Determination is your bread and butter. Your biggest source of damage. The only way to get Determination as an Instigator is to get hit, or use Steadfast Determination (useless). As a Destroyer you get a small amount of determination each time you hit something, which you’re always doing.
So why not boost your DPS by gaining more determination?
Determination works like a double edge sword. Only the edges on this sword will harm your enemies, and not yourself.
By increasing your determination gain you will ultimately increase your defense, damage output and the rate you gain action points. You gain so much from determination it would be a crime to not use it properly.
Feats
Heroic feats.
• Unstoppable Action 5/5: Don’t let this go to waste, and you don’t have much else to pick
• Disciple of Strength 3/3: You don’t have much else to choose. You don’t need the HP.
• Endless Assault 3/3: More damage!
• Steely Defense 4/5: You will always have some Defense. So why don’t get more from it?
• Weapon Mastery 2/3: See Devastating Critical.
• Devastating Critical 3/3: I would gladly sacrifice 1% critical chance to gain 5% more critical damage.
When you start getting your Tier 1 gear, your critical hit will increase. With the passive Weapon Master you’ll have more than enough critical chance.
Paragon Feats
This is where things starts to get fun! As I mentioned before. The first 60 levels and a lot of Dungeon running I ran around dominating the AoE fields as an Instigator. Thanks Ironwill and Extinction! Both their guides are awesome. They’ve helped me reinforce my faith in this class and made my journey a lot funnier! Doubt they’ll ever read this, but anyway - Thanks a lot guys/gals!
In this part, I won’t go through every feat that I’ve picked. I will just go through what I believe are the most important ones.
Disciple of War and Battle Awareness
That’s about it! These are two of the most important feats in our tree so far. I’ve noticed that a lot people out there are missing the importance of having Armor Penetration and Recovery. Ironwill made a nice point of the stats priority that I’ve really taken to heart.
I’d recommend reading Ironwill and Extinction’s guides on the forums. They have a lot of experience and made some nice points. Some of the points however, I disagree with.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?268941-Ironwill-s-GWF-PvE-DPS-Instigator-Guide Ironwill's Guide
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?173021-ExtinctioN-style-GWF-Initiator-leave-them-all-bloody ExtinctioN's Guide
If you are aiming to get 3000 Recovery, 2222 Armor Penetration and 3000 Critical Chance. It won’t leave room enough for your power.
If you have 5/5 in Disciple of War you will get 25% Armor Penetration based on your Recovery. That means it leaves at least 25% more room to get the other stats you need.
I’m going to quote both Ironwill and ExtinctioN, hopefully they won't sue me for copyright infringement.
Recovery can be found on a lot of items throughout Neverwinter, so why are we not using it the way it should be?
My recommendation on the stat priority will be, while keeping a mind on the numbers above.
Power > Recovery > ArP/Crit > Defense
A healthy combination of both Armor Penetration and Critical Chance will suffice well enough in the long run. Don’t forget that around 100 armor penetration equals about 1% damage increase.
Disciple of War.
This feat is Godlike! You gain 25% more Power when using Slam. With this enormous boost of Power your GWF will be tearing through Boss minions and trash mobs like a sharp sword through flesh.
When it comes to a GWF’s damage output, it’s all about timing. Timing your Unstoppable and your At-wills (Weapon Master’s Strike and Wicked Strike/Reaping Strike) is crucial to increase your damage output. The Weapon Master’s Strike and Reaping Strike is one of the hardest combination. However, if you manage to time your Reaping Strike, you will increase your damage output even further.
The debuff from Weapon Master’s Strike will last for Three Wicked Strike hits.
So the rotation on that skill (without Unstoppable) will be:
Weapon Master’s Strike > Wicked Strike > Wicked Strike > Wicked Strike > Weapon Master’s Strike
Or
Weapon Master’s Strike > Reaping Strike > Reaping Strike > Weapon Master’s Strike.
The only downside to being a Destroyer that I’ve bumped into yet is the diminishing damage from Wicked Strike, whilst the Instigator path eliminates the diminishing effect.
Encounters
I’ve gone with the same set up of encounters since day one, which seems to work.
Not So Fast – Roar – Indomitable Battle Strike
Depending on what kind of battle the team is up against I’m switching between Roar and Flourish.
A boss fight that doesn’t spawn too many minions, or a boss fight where you have to go flat out on the boss. A GWF have never been good at single target dps, and I doubt they’ll ever be. But at least you’ll help the tricksters out. Don’t forget your role in the fights! Pick Flourish.
If a boss like the eight legged freak in the Temple of the Spider, you might want to use Roar. Your job is to keep the Cleric and Wizard safe. Using Roar pushes the enemies away and you get a big boost in both determination and action points. The faster you gain determination and action points, the more damage you’ll do.
Dailies
The most obvious choice with this build is Slam, and since we’re lacking the single target DPS I run with Crescendo as my second choice.
Using Slam together with Unstoppable and your At-wills, you will dominate the damage meters and you get to see the big numbers flying around on your screen like flies to light.
Passive
My choice on these two where quite obvious. Since we’re going to lack critical chance I chose to run with Weapon Master.
The last pick had to be Steel Blitz. Since our job is to kill monsters upon monsters this passive ability will be slightly overpowered.
Thanks!
If you took your time reading through this big wall of text, you have my deepest appreciation. If you have anything to add, by all means! We’re all here to contribute to this class, and help out our fellow players. If there’s anything you’re wondering about, reasoning about some of the abilities/feats or just want to chat, give me a call on the dragon server!
Best regards,
Ricben
TL: DR Version
Dailies:
Slam and Crescendo
Encounters:
Not so Fast, Roar/Flourish and Indomitable Battle Strike
At-wills:
Weapon Master’s Strike and Wicked Strike/Reaping Strike
Passive:
Weapon Master and Steel Blitz
Stat priority:
Power > Recovery > ArP/Crit > Defense
Ability Score:
Strength and Dex
First of all, I'd like to thank you for reading this. It really means a lot to me.
For you who hate reading and ain't nobody got time for that, there’s a TL: DR version at the end.
The reason I write this guide is thanks to one player on the Dragon Server that got out damaged, out tanked and out awesomed, even though he had better gear. Cheers!
My thoughts about GWF so far…
First and foremost, you’ll never out dps a rogue on a single target. There’s a snowballs chance in hell that you’ll succeed, unless the rogue is somewhat HAMSTER. If you wanted to dominate single target dps, you chose the wrong class.
My thoughts about being a “GWF” is about killing the mobs your wizard gathers so neatly at your own chopping block. It’s about protecting the key players in your team. That’s your Cleric and Wizard. You’re going to have a hard time before you if one of them dies, especially the cleric.
You’re the off-tank, the cannon fodder, the player that gets to do the work no one else wants to do. Yet, in my mind one of the most vital players out there. If you’re surrounded by monsters of every sort, you can still hold your ground, and do it well. You’ll never be better at tanking than a Guardian. You’ll never be better at controlling monsters upon monsters than a Wizard. You’ll never ever be a healer, and you’ll most likely not outdps a rogue on single targets.
You will however dominate the boss fights when the adds spawns. You will dominate the waves of monsters before you even reach the boss. I’ve yet to stumble across a boss in this game that doesn’t spawn adds.
Enough ranting about this class being god almighty and whatnot.
Be Unstoppable!
When I started to play my “GWF”, after hours on my Guardian, I started out as an Instigator. I read a nice guide about it and did some numbers, the usual. However, after reaching level 60 and doing some dungeons. I felt something was lacking. I couldn’t quite put my finger around until I re-read everything from the paragon paths. Soon it dawned on me…
I was lacking Determination. Simple as that. Determination.
Determination is your bread and butter. Your biggest source of damage. The only way to get Determination as an Instigator is to get hit, or use Steadfast Determination (useless). As a Destroyer you get a small amount of determination each time you hit something, which you’re always doing.
So why not boost your DPS by gaining more determination?
Determination works like a double edge sword. Only the edges on this sword will harm your enemies, and not yourself.
By increasing your determination gain you will ultimately increase your defense, damage output and the rate you gain action points. You gain so much from determination it would be a crime to not use it properly.
Feats
Heroic feats.
• Unstoppable Action 5/5: Don’t let this go to waste, and you don’t have much else to pick
• Disciple of Strength 3/3: You don’t have much else to choose. You don’t need the HP.
• Endless Assault 3/3: More damage!
• Steely Defense 4/5: You will always have some Defense. So why don’t get more from it?
• Weapon Mastery 2/3: See Devastating Critical.
• Devastating Critical 3/3: I would gladly sacrifice 1% critical chance to gain 5% more critical damage.
When you start getting your Tier 1 gear, your critical hit will increase. With the passive Weapon Master you’ll have more than enough critical chance.
Paragon Feats
This is where things starts to get fun! As I mentioned before. The first 60 levels and a lot of Dungeon running I ran around dominating the AoE fields as an Instigator. Thanks Ironwill and Extinction! Both their guides are awesome. They’ve helped me reinforce my faith in this class and made my journey a lot funnier! Doubt they’ll ever read this, but anyway - Thanks a lot guys/gals!
In this part, I won’t go through every feat that I’ve picked. I will just go through what I believe are the most important ones.
Disciple of War and Battle Awareness
That’s about it! These are two of the most important feats in our tree so far. I’ve noticed that a lot people out there are missing the importance of having Armor Penetration and Recovery. Ironwill made a nice point of the stats priority that I’ve really taken to heart.
”3000 Recovery > 2222 ArP > 3000 Crit > Power > Defense”
I’d recommend reading Ironwill and Extinction’s guides on the forums. They have a lot of experience and made some nice points. Some of the points however, I disagree with.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?268941-Ironwill-s-GWF-PvE-DPS-Instigator-Guide Ironwill's Guide
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?173021-ExtinctioN-style-GWF-Initiator-leave-them-all-bloody ExtinctioN's Guide
If you are aiming to get 3000 Recovery, 2222 Armor Penetration and 3000 Critical Chance. It won’t leave room enough for your power.
If you have 5/5 in Disciple of War you will get 25% Armor Penetration based on your Recovery. That means it leaves at least 25% more room to get the other stats you need.
I’m going to quote both Ironwill and ExtinctioN, hopefully they won't sue me for copyright infringement.
“Recovery is the most important stat cause it gives massive Cooldown Reduction and action point gain, combined with Unstoppable it's just insane. After a value from 3000 it has too massive Diminishing Returns so 3k is the cap. After that comes Armor Pen. A boss mob has 22 % reduction and you need 2222 ArP to penetrate that.” - Ironwill
"I want to express how important recovery is to maximum dps and effectiveness. When you get geared up with recovery from your purple gear your action point gain gets pretty crazy. In longer battles against elites with trash you can have slam up 2 or 3 times its that fast of gains." - ExtinctioN
Recovery can be found on a lot of items throughout Neverwinter, so why are we not using it the way it should be?
My recommendation on the stat priority will be, while keeping a mind on the numbers above.
Power > Recovery > ArP/Crit > Defense
A healthy combination of both Armor Penetration and Critical Chance will suffice well enough in the long run. Don’t forget that around 100 armor penetration equals about 1% damage increase.
Disciple of War.
This feat is Godlike! You gain 25% more Power when using Slam. With this enormous boost of Power your GWF will be tearing through Boss minions and trash mobs like a sharp sword through flesh.
When it comes to a GWF’s damage output, it’s all about timing. Timing your Unstoppable and your At-wills (Weapon Master’s Strike and Wicked Strike/Reaping Strike) is crucial to increase your damage output. The Weapon Master’s Strike and Reaping Strike is one of the hardest combination. However, if you manage to time your Reaping Strike, you will increase your damage output even further.
The debuff from Weapon Master’s Strike will last for Three Wicked Strike hits.
So the rotation on that skill (without Unstoppable) will be:
Weapon Master’s Strike > Wicked Strike > Wicked Strike > Wicked Strike > Weapon Master’s Strike
Or
Weapon Master’s Strike > Reaping Strike > Reaping Strike > Weapon Master’s Strike.
The only downside to being a Destroyer that I’ve bumped into yet is the diminishing damage from Wicked Strike, whilst the Instigator path eliminates the diminishing effect.
Encounters
I’ve gone with the same set up of encounters since day one, which seems to work.
Not So Fast – Roar – Indomitable Battle Strike
Depending on what kind of battle the team is up against I’m switching between Roar and Flourish.
A boss fight that doesn’t spawn too many minions, or a boss fight where you have to go flat out on the boss. A GWF have never been good at single target dps, and I doubt they’ll ever be. But at least you’ll help the tricksters out. Don’t forget your role in the fights! Pick Flourish.
If a boss like the eight legged freak in the Temple of the Spider, you might want to use Roar. Your job is to keep the Cleric and Wizard safe. Using Roar pushes the enemies away and you get a big boost in both determination and action points. The faster you gain determination and action points, the more damage you’ll do.
Dailies
The most obvious choice with this build is Slam, and since we’re lacking the single target DPS I run with Crescendo as my second choice.
Using Slam together with Unstoppable and your At-wills, you will dominate the damage meters and you get to see the big numbers flying around on your screen like flies to light.
Passive
My choice on these two where quite obvious. Since we’re going to lack critical chance I chose to run with Weapon Master.
The last pick had to be Steel Blitz. Since our job is to kill monsters upon monsters this passive ability will be slightly overpowered.
Thanks!
If you took your time reading through this big wall of text, you have my deepest appreciation. If you have anything to add, by all means! We’re all here to contribute to this class, and help out our fellow players. If there’s anything you’re wondering about, reasoning about some of the abilities/feats or just want to chat, give me a call on the dragon server!
Best regards,
Ricben
TL: DR Version
Dailies:
Slam and Crescendo
Encounters:
Not so Fast, Roar/Flourish and Indomitable Battle Strike
At-wills:
Weapon Master’s Strike and Wicked Strike/Reaping Strike
Passive:
Weapon Master and Steel Blitz
Stat priority:
Power > Recovery > ArP/Crit > Defense
Ability Score:
Strength and Dex
Post edited by phymn on
0
Comments
first i notice you saying: but than recapping:
Secondly:
I currently run a build similar but without the stats priorty, which i will likely change now. My problem is that i currently dont find the right role in dungeons, most mob groups are being thrown off the map. Damage is even good at singel target but good equiped roques still beat me. Thats why i am unsure if prioritizing def and defl migth be better. I recently did CN but at the last boss figth we just couldnt figure out what role i would do best at the boss. ( every other class seems to have been a better fit)
I'm running slightly different build myself and after smacking a target dummy for a total of 1 hour I averaged at 5386 dps (counted with Advanced Combat Tracker), and those test were made by only hitting 1 dummy. And trusting only the client's own dmg dealt numbers I'm ending up at around 12-14 million dmg done during Spellplague runs.
Really? Cause I have 5 unused feat points that I was planning to put into Deep Gash (or Unstoppable Recovery) but I never did because something just doesn't seem right about it. Now I'm thinking I would get a lot more out of learning Battle Awareness. I mean, slam just lasts soooo long.
I'm also really liking Focus Destroyer atm. It's good for pvp and lots of extra DPS when soloing a boss or elites, which is quite often honestly.
Besides that, my feats are the same as this guide. Thanks for posting, OP.
NO, u need 1900 aRP as 15 CON (minimal base), im not sure how strong power really is, if i get 600 power down i loose like 13 +bonus dmg and healing.
It depends on the fight at hand. For instance, at the last boss in spellplague cavern I switch out everything for single target dps skills.
It usually looks something like this:
Passive: Steadfast Determination (At single target dps, where you're not taking damage, this will be your friend) and Weapon Master.
Encounters: Flourish, Roar or Restoring Strike depending on how much determination you gain and Indomitable Battle Strike.
At-Will: Weapon Master Strike and Sure Strike.
If you're lazy, Weapon Master Strike works as a single target DPS as well, not just as good as SS.
Thanks for reading!
Sadly no, I don't have any DPS numbers at all. The thing I've used for measuring is my damage output in the same instance, with the same gear and running that instance several times just to get fair estimation.
So far, this build has given me an increase in damage with several percentages.
Thanks for reading, and taking notice of the DPS part!
Deep Gash is an awesome way of doing even more damage.
At 4000 power, which most of the GWFs with some tier 1 and 2 are at. The Deep Gash will hit for approximately 600 damage over 5 sec.
Add those numbers to a pack of 10 monsters. That's 6000 damage over 5 second extra spread out across 10 mobs.
Deep Gash works supprisingly well against single targets as well.
As of now, I'm doing critical hits between 1500-2200 with Wicked Strike depending on the monster at hand.
When the DoT applies, it will increase my DPS with 120.
DPS isn't about doing huge numbers every once in a while, it's about keeping your damage output as constant as possible.
There are a few good examples of that.
My friend played a Trickster with a stealth build(Pre-patch). In the same group we had another Trickster with better gear and a build that made huge numbers once in a while and lower survivability.
Who do you think had better damage output when the instance was done? The one who survived and could keep a more regular DPS curve. You want to eliminate your high tops, and your low bottoms. The straighter the curve, the better.
The Focused Destroyer feat is a bit too random for my liking, to switch it out for Deep Gash.
An increase of damage of 12% at 3 stacks sounds awesome, which it is. But spending 5 points on those few fights where you actually get the chance to dps a single target isn't worth it in my opinion. I've yet to come across one boss where there are no minions or less than three including the boss.
And if you read the description on the feat, you'll notice it says Any number of targets. That means you're sacrificing 75% of the 100% chance you had while fighting more than three minions. That's why I didn't pick it. Does the feat override the 100% chance or just adds 25% if you're fighting less than three minions?
As for the Armor Penetration part. You don't actually get(what I've noticed so far) diminishing effect from the Con. penetration. But from the actual armor penetration stat. What I've seen is that the Con effect is not included at all in the armor penetration calculations.
So theoretically you could do True damage towards a boss at 18% armor penetration(ArP) + the Con. effect.
I've been thinking about this for a while before. If you get 22% armor penetration(ArP) + the con. effect.
Does your damage increase even after you do true damage?
Care to elaborate?
Thanks for noticing that error! It's now corrected
As I mentioned in the guide, a GWF is actually only the best at one thing, and that's AoE damage.
You'll never do more damage on a single target than a rogue. Rogues are made to do that insane damage on a single target, but they're HAMSTER at AoE damage. As for your role in any instance. Be a multi-tool, a MacGyver of sort. You'll be there to back your comrades up if something goes straight to hell.
Lacking DPS on the boss, you'll be there. The Tanking having a hard time? Get some of the minions off him/her.
Wizard having a hard time kiting, same as before. Get some the minions off the Wizard and start kiting. GWFs are actually really good at kiting! If the Cleric is having a hard time healing all the damage. Tell your fellow players to start using that precious dodge instead of only using it as a means of travel.
Go do some sole searching and you'll find your answer!
Thanks for reading!