test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Forums > Home› Class Forums›
Options
Guardian Fighter (almost)Totaly Worthless In Endgame
chrsylte
Member Posts: 4 Arc User
I will explain why GF is totaly worthless in endgame.
I find that 95% of groups in the endgame are going for the game "glitches"(bug) to take down bosses. This means ranged groups with healers. This also means GF's are totaly useless taking down bosses in this way (range), and normally get booted from the groups. To take down bosses in the normal way is so hard (not using game glitches to get boss) they usualy have not a chance. In boss fights, hard hitting adds swarm out, and GF's have little or none chance to keep the swarm under aggro. Even if he can, he dies fast since the mob eats he's guard very very fast. Even with full Guard build.
For me it seems like the lack of tank function is making players looking for glitches to take down bosses.
I feel clearly the GF need a overhaul. Give us the tanks ability. Now the GWF is tanking better then GF (mybe a overstatement) but not far from the truth.............
A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature.
The term derives from the German glitschig, meaning 'slippery', possibly entering English through the Yiddish term glitsh.
I find that 95% of groups in the endgame are going for the game "glitches"(bug) to take down bosses. This means ranged groups with healers. This also means GF's are totaly useless taking down bosses in this way (range), and normally get booted from the groups. To take down bosses in the normal way is so hard (not using game glitches to get boss) they usualy have not a chance. In boss fights, hard hitting adds swarm out, and GF's have little or none chance to keep the swarm under aggro. Even if he can, he dies fast since the mob eats he's guard very very fast. Even with full Guard build.
For me it seems like the lack of tank function is making players looking for glitches to take down bosses.
I feel clearly the GF need a overhaul. Give us the tanks ability. Now the GWF is tanking better then GF (mybe a overstatement) but not far from the truth.............
A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature.
The term derives from the German glitschig, meaning 'slippery', possibly entering English through the Yiddish term glitsh.
Post edited by chrsylte on
0
Comments
But you are right about GF gonna need to be overhauled sooner or later, right now it is in a bad spot.
Again, good group or good GF can make things work. You can still play depends how end-game you wanna be. If you plan on going hardcore or use this as your main I would say stay away from GF.
Pretty accurate. High end groups have no need for exploits - they can clear everything with relative ease legit. The most used exploits, imo, are TR skip runs because they are faster. But, as said here, the GF becomes even more irrelevant in such groups. Tanking is not required by design - the devs have said they want to keep every group composition viable. As a result, it is obvious that a composition that stacks dps instead of tanks, is faster and more efficient. Also, the reason why GF is so lacking in damage is that they have not seen any buffs or fixes for a very long time. There was a time when GF was a decent contender in the dps contest, but ever since other classes have gotten a ton of buffs and fixes, while the GF has been completely ignored and is way behind now.
Actually GF was fine up till MOD 1 when they Nerf Stalwart Bulwark into the ground and made the set worthless. GF's using the set could get upwards of 15k Power (self buffed) and do as much damage or more than the top geared CWs. Since then the DPS GF's have had no love and continues to fall behind.
As stated above the issue is the games design to allow full DPS groups to zerg thru content and no need for a tank.
That said, the GF seems quite viable outside of dungeons, the sheer defense inherent in being able to block combined with rocking defense scores means I tend to blow through most content with relative ease, even if I'm not too fast. Messing with the foundary it seems a lot of encounters people find hard, are actually quite easy for the GF, and in getting feedback for my first dungeon building attempt the relative solo power of various classes has become fairly apparent, and GF seems pretty high. In PVP or dungeons though... lol.... cripes, let's just say I think it's too easy for an actual player to get around your shield blocking in melee, damage output from other players is *not* scaled with defense specced other players (they hit much harder than they should for the level of defense being used...), and when I do actually manage to hit someone with anything other than an encounter power it seems like they pretty much laugh it off because I'm just so anemic with almost everything going into defense. PVP as a GF reminds me of why other games got into concepts like "Critigation" (negating/reducing other people's ability to crit) and hardening (a direct counter to penetration/armor piercing effects). With just straight defense/deflect offense has waaaay too much of an edge with the way it's built. In general if I'm all defense even a really tricked out offense character should find his damage massively blunted in comparison to my hit points as our respective numbers cancel each other out.... but that's just me... and honestly this isn't the first time I've tried to PVP as a tank and come away with similar opinions. Oddly though in beta it seemed GF was much more competitive in the arenas though, if not somewhat OPed.
That said I like the way GF plays better than the CW, at least it works the way I think a defensive fighter should, and feels right in a way CW never did. It just needs some work on the numerical aspect of things.
I'll also say that despite my initial comments that being critical of the players isn't entirely fair as much as it irritates me. At the end of the day the endgame in Neverwinter needs a lot of work. For example in "Malabog's Castle" the problem seems to be that the endgame fight simply cannot be won without a very specific combination of characters, as people have explained it to me you NEED two GWFs or CWs with Slam/Maelstorm to even attempt the fight otherwise it becomes mechanically impossible since only those abilities will disrupt Valindra's death-drain move. Given the overpopulation of TRs and HRs the odds of having the right skills in any particular group are minimal, not to mention TRs and HRs can contribute to killing the dragon (TR can throw daggers) with the glitch, so it appeals to them.
What's more it seems like most of the final battles were not very well tested, typically involving utterly insane numbers of mobs being spawned. I hate to say it but the guys I see winning "fairly" especially within the intended playtime for the dungeon tend to be those who are overpowered for the content, involved in mark farming. Guys who themselves achieved that power by glitching everything themselves. It's also contributed to the whole "gear score discrimination" you see going on because those wanting to breeze through a dungeon on a farming run know that it takes a certain level of stats for the fights to work more or less as they were probably intended and not be a headache.
Being something of a casual game contributes to this as well, you just don't see the mentality of it being intended to be difficult to run a dungeon, and potentially take an entire night even if you know what your doing. Something reinforced by labels that say "this should take 45 minutes". As a result you just don't see people showing up with the raider/dungeoneer mentality, they want to pwn stuff quickly, especially with the huge farming requirements to get stuff. It's actually a common problem, and really "The Secret World" wound up hitting a lot of these same stumbling blocks when they built themselves up around quick, fast, dungeons that happen to also have some insane requirements to win them easily, combined with rewards that require so many runs that nobody wants to take the time to deal with newer players or risk slowing down. It's also why I think some games like "Wildstar" have been making a big deal in their hype that they want to go back to old school dungeoneering and that kind of mentality since this type of thing hasn't been working as well as it seems on paper, I think they mentioned launching with 40 man raids.
At any rate, unless the GF is seriously powered up (which might cause some other balance issues) I suspect we won't always be welcome, given the reliance on glitches and speed-clearing with overwhelming DPS. Unless of course the balance of the current dungeons is changed substantially.
*IF* Neverwinter ever includes hardcore content, like serious, serious, raids which require carefully balanced pulls (instead of always drawing in massive clusters of mobs) and are intended to take a long time, you might see things change, but that would represent a serious paradigm shift from it's design philosophy (and what we've generally seen so far from Cryptic's other games as well).
I PUGGED my way to 2/4 Timeless Hero pieces yesterday alone. I created the FH group but advertised myself as a GF for Karru & Spellplague and was invited. 4 dungeons (2 FH runs, 1 Karrundax run and 1 Spellplague run). All runs were successful. Only wiped once in Karrundax (2nd boss) and Spellplague (lag was horrendous in this run). In Karrundax and Spellplague I also finished 3rd in damage and 1st in damage taken, so it is quite clear I was a valuable contributor in my runs.
On Saturday night we 3/4 CN with a GF that finished 2nd in damage. Granted, Greater Vorpal + Timeless and Radiants slotted helped.
In my runs I tanked the first boss in FH, kited the last two. I tanked the first 2 bosses in Karrundax, kited the dragon. I tanked the first two bosses in Spellplague, kited the last boss.
I don't doubt that elitists have no need for tanks, but elitists are the minority. The novice and moderately skilled TR/CW on the other hand does have a need for a tank that can keep his butt safe. When I was popping Enforced Threat against the first two bosses in Karru and was getting covered in a sea of red, no doubt the 10.5k TR was grateful. Must be said though, the DC was a legend in this run. It allowed me to sit in fire for sustained periods.
Just as you the post with the word PUG - yes, as noted many times before on PUG level the GF is not that bad. But, the fact that elite groups have little need of you is just really off putting. Do you want to stay on the pug level for the rest of you play time? Or, do you want to stay the 5th slot filler that has little impact in elite teams, thinking to yourself "sorry i didn't log on ANY another class that could contribute MUCH more" in the high end bracket?
Elite groups are in the minority and elite players tend to stick with guild runs or friend fellow elites who they will run with often. You are talking about a minority element within the game. You cannot use elites to argue that a class is near worthless. If you yourself are not an elite and you can do just fine with PUGs, why are you worried about elites not wanting you? And personally, I have run with elites and I don't like it. They are too impatient and throw a fit if they have to slow down for a less experienced player. And god help you if you make a mistake with an elite in the party. The 4 elite CWs and a token DC can go and have fun in CN or MC, I'm doing just fine pugging my way to my full Timeless set.
The only area I won't argue the value of the GF is in MC, CN and VT, but in all three instances the preferred party is 4 CWs and a DC. Maybe a GWF can tag along in MC, but for the most part HRs, TRs, GFs & GWFs will be marginalised by the ''4-CWs-will-burn-everything'' concept.
Yes, maybe the game is broken for GFs and pretty much all the other melee classes at the CN (final boss), MC (final boss) & VT level, but GFs can do just fine if you are not so caught up in the minority elite level. And saying that, did you not read what I said about the GF I ran with in CN? He lead the damage charts up until the last boss with two CWs in the party. I would have traded the TR for another CW and kept the GF to try and kill the dragon. He finished with 20 million damage, 2 million less than one CW and 3 million more than the other one.
I don't want them to do more damage, but have more survivability than they do. My GWF has WAY more survivability than my GF (mobility + CC immunity + regen/lifesteal). GFs ought to have considerably more health than they do, a bit more CC immunity other than blocking, and then enemies that deal damage that only GFs can survive. If those changes were to be made, I'd be more than ecstatic to put my GF back to use. Until then, it's just me looking at my GF in the character select screen, wishing I had that spot for something more useful...
When you say this, are there specific dungeons you are talking about or is this just a broad statement?
I think this is the crux of the problem. There is no way they properly tested these dungeons. They list minimum GS to get into particular dungeons, but there is no way (without exploits) that a random mix of classes (yes that means a good chance of not getting even 1 CW) with those gear scores can comfortably complete the dungeons.
It seems all these battles are made difficult by spawning tons and tons of adds. So either you have enough dps to melt the boss (not going to happen with a group just meeting the GS) or you control the adds (again not going to happen with a minimal GS group without at least 1 CW).
So essentially you have the "solo" content which is rather easy and then you have the epic dungeons which are close to impossible (without out gearing it and/or a specific group composition).
0. Except almost every single dungeon was completed at GS or just a little higher (9k), with even more add spam, even more dangerous mechanics, and many/most of them without specific stacked comps back in early beta. This is when the GS requirements were added and tweaked.
1. LFG spam almost always requests the highest GS players can get away with to ensure completion of as many dungeons within the crucial DD hour. If this requires stacking classes or not taking entire classes at all, like GF and DC, then that's what will likely happen.
2. For many reasons, Gear Score is only suitable as a minimum content requirement. This also means that players can enter to do dungeon content and gear up or to farm, not necessarily completing the first boss or all bosses. Hence, one of the reasons you see many requests for partial higher level dungeons such as MC 2/3, VT 1/2, CN 3/4, DV 2/3.
3. Of course, the caveat is that the level of control of CWs and mitigation offered by DCs keeps decreasing almost every major patch, making completing dungeons at stated gear levels significantly harder for average skilled, non-experienced groups. This actually means that having well-played GFs for such groups becomes MORE useful not less.
4. However, despite the news GF's are even more useful for at-level content these days, pug players prefer to just stack CWs to fill the control, aoe damage and mitigation uptime gaps created by consecutive nerfs to CW and DC. You cannot really blame random players for this effect, it is a logical consequence.
5. GF's scale worse than other classes into the type of content in much of the endgame, i.e. in general, massive CC-able aoe add spam, high mobility, high survivability requirements. They also scale worse in terms of damage due to no base crit from Ability Scores, unlike all other classes.
Finally, to whoever was stating that high level endgame play is irrelevant, you could not be more wrong. No matter where you start from, eventually everyone becomes experienced and gears up, including pugs. Random/pug players expectations also change as a result of this, hence one of the reasons why stacking of clases, for example, exists at all in LFG pugs.
In addition, if the gameplay of your class is not sustainable, why would you keep playing it? Eventually, at best, you will be forced to eke out a niche like a "buffbot" or you will be forced to re-roll, or use that character for something else (e.g. PvP, solo play or economics), or stop playing entirely. This has already happened to many GFs...
I've also run with GFs when we've cleared ToS (legit clear) and 3/4 CN not once, but twice with a GF in the party.
So do tell, what is this ''high level endgame'' wall you speak of that GFs can't get past? I can only think of 2; the MC and VT final bosses. I've 2/3 MC with a GF. CN boss would be easily doable with a GF so long as he is the only melee. Because as I've already mentioned and what everyone likes to ignore, I ran CN with a beast of GF that dealt 20 million damage in CN before we wiped at the last boss. He was 2 mil behind one CW and out damaged a 2nd CW and the TR.
You just don't get it. At all.
We are talking about high end groups. "Finishing" a dungeon is not even a topic, it's how fast you farm them since lets face it - completely maxing a char would take you somewhere between 50-100 million AD (thats 0 gear prices, only max enchants, artifacts, companions) and that AD doesn't come easy. Of course you can finish any dungeon on a GF, that's a given. But, a high end group can just as easily 4 man any dungeon (ok, i admit i have not tried to 4 man MC and VT final bosses legit). Your CONTRIBUTION in a high end group is just lowest of any class in the game, by a VERY large margin. Tanking as such is 100% not required. In a FEW situations it is somewhat convenient, a GWF can fill all of them while dealing twice the damage. Also, if a CW/GWF/HR does not deal twice your damage then i'm sorry, but they are just very low geared and/or skilled. In such a group, as stated a million times, you have a role. Low - Medium gear/skill a GF can even essentially carry the slow runs.
EDIT PS: also, clearing CN up to the last boss is easy. I would even say i could probably carry any low group that meets the minimum GS requirement up to the last boss on a conq GF. And there, where it actually becomes a bit of a challenge - your ability to control the situation fall off FAST. Yeah sure you can run around spamming KN valor (if it doesn't bug out and go on perma cd) but the odds are you will still fail if the CW-s aren't skilled. The run would of course be slow as hell, so in terms of profit it wouldn't even be worth it. You would be better off with just queue on FH, hoping to enter right at the boss camp where some group miraculously managed to fail and start kiting.
You are using a minority aspect of this game to make an argument. It is silly to expect the entire gaming population to ever be at the level of rank 10s, orange artifacts and BiS gear. Aside from the AD needed the hours required to reach that are incomprehensible. Sure, we'd all like that but many of us don't have the skills or time to ever get there. I for one cannot invest the kind of time needed to make 100 million AD and I'm okay with that. I sure as hell won't let my rank 6s, lesser enchant and blue artifact get in the way of my enjoyment.
GF are fine.
GF suck because they're too slow. We want to be as fast as possible and they can't do it.
So no one is saying they are bad. They're just saying they're slow. Since the elite want to be fast, they don't take GF and complain, loudly and constantly, that they're bad.
For anyone who doesn't care about being absolute fastest possible, can probably easily still get 2 to 3 runs in per DD with a GF, they're fine. Can probably end thread there.
It's Cryptic's interest to satisfy the widest spread of players, so they should do something about/for the high end lovers too. For example they could include an optional boss in every dungeon doable only by endgame premades (requiring all classes and team coordination). If nothing changes , people gets bored of the current state and will move to other interests
Optimal parties in NWO are more of a rarity than what people may think. Out of those who have invested the most time and money in this game, the optimal players are the most skilled. Because after all the farming is done (till next mod), all the money spent, what you have is class and skill.
Jugger Conq GF
....
Damage scales, and continues to scale: more damage will always be better.
Control scales reasonably, especially with the addspam in this game.
Ability to take damage does not scale to anything like the same extent. Monsters can only deal so much, after all.
Classes with a primary focus on damage-dealing and control will therefore remain relevant all the way to insane GS, whereas classes without will ultimately become redundant. If you've got enough damage-dealing and CC, nothing even hits you, so eventually even DCs are redundant as anything other than debuffer/buffers to speed things up.
What fondlez is saying is that this is very much a problem, and ignoring the fact that it's not a problem apparent at lower levels of gearing (where tanking and so on is still useful) does not make it any less of a problem.
It does however make it less likely to be fixed any time soon, since the top, top-end players, while vocal, are still a minority (and most of them that have GFs probably reroll GWFs and CWs anyway, for faceroll farming time. :P).
Exactly. Every class should be viable right up to the end. Why would you want to spend time gearing up a class when it will eventually become redundant as you grow in skill and make connections with high end groups? Also, these threads serve another purpose besides raising hopes for a buff - beginners who DO have their sights set on high levels of play can get to this info BEFORE investing a lot of time just to find out they picked a severely gimped class and need to start over. This can leave a very sour taste in your mouth, and as has been said before - cause people to quit altogether.
The problem with this thread is that it says GFs are bad, when they're not. Everything CAN be cleared with a GF. They can be used. It's just if you run with those people that demand speed runs with the OMGABSOLUTEBESTESTEST!!!! possible run, that the GF falls behind.
I think that should be pointed out and people can decide. Do they want to do the bleeding edge 'we took a whole 30 seconds off our CN run!' or play what they want to play.
GFs are in a bad place, and I would love for them to get altered so that they can have a role again. Just, at the moment, they shine at nothing. Maybe grabbing aggro, but that's so far from being a necessity it hardly counts...Even GWFs take damage better than GFs.
The simple fact is the game no longer needs "TANKS" to run dungeons. Back during BETA/Release when everyone was gearing up you needed "WANTED" a GF to tank the trash. But now since a large population is geared there is no "NEED" let alone a want for GF's in PvE. So GF needs a rework to resolve the issue an removal of the tank class.
Quite frankly, these statements are utter, utter rubbish.
When I play with my DC our core group is a DC, 2 CWs and a TR. We ACTIVELY search for GFs or GWFs because we like that added toughness and advertise in LFG as such. We have taken GFs into CN, Karrundax, Spellplague and ToS (yes, you can legit that boss with a half decent party that includes a tank). The biggest joke is, the only bit of elitism we have ever encountered was a GF that told us were were too weak to kill Syndrth. We killed her.
On the weekend, playing as my GF, I joined a Spellplague party that advertised that it was looking for a GF. Yes, I was asked to kite the last boss but I was also asked to face-tank bosses 1 & 2, so I wasn't just strung along for the ride.
On the weekend, again as my GF, I advertised myself as a ''15.6k GF + stone LF Karrundax''. I was invited within seconds. I was on add management/killing during the last fight but was asked to face-tank bosses 1 & 2 as well.
Yes, this game does seem to be easier with 3 or more CWs and 2 of the last bosses look pretty much impossible without 3 or more CWs, but there is very much room for a GF. I don't dispute that we could use a buff here and there or at least rework the mechanics of bosses and adds so a tank becomes more valuable in final fights, but it is really only 2, maybe 3 final fights that this is necessary. If anything I'd say the last boss fights in VT, MC & CN were poorly designed resulting in a tank becoming useless. I mean, if CN was similar to Mad Dragon, in which I can solo face tank Chartilifax away from my party, that would be perfect.
If someone that rolled his GF just as Mod 2 was launched has thus far had no problems finding parties to gear up, I just cannot believe these stories of how everybody hates us. I dunno, maybe a lot of the GFs quit on their characters and thus supply has now met demand, but my GF is getting invited every time I advertise in LFG and I'm getting into the hardest T2s.
Party wants a gf to kite last boss in spellplague.
you think facetanking bosses is a big deal.
you think tos legit is a big deal (you also seem to think it requires a tank)
You then go on to say gfs have issues in cn/vt/mc while simultaneously saying gfs have np in the hardest t2s. Unless you consider those dungeons as t2.5 ones, in which case there are no hard t2s (edv perhaps). For the record of those 3 dungeons that you think are nearly impossible without 3 or more cw, only cn benefits from stacking 2+cw and thats only if you are lazy/want the extra security on draco. Mc 1-2 cw is fine and vt is easier with no cw.
That said, I have personally cleared and tracked cn with 5 classes (hr not ready yet) and it seems the most efficient group for a full clear is gwf, 3cws, and a dc for Draco. Sadly dc does almost nothing in the clears as killing to the dragon is far to easy. We could probably 3 man cn no problem, it would just be slow.
A run with gf instead of gwf takes about 33 minutes clears vs 27 minutes clear. It might not sound like a lot but a 20% time increase is noticeable. That is why most people would prefer gwf to gf.
However the gf takes Draco and makes him a puppy. It is amazing control of the boss, and the cows love you because you control the dragon. That said it take a the kill from 5 or 6 minutes to 8 minutes or so, so taking a gf makes the run 20% longer.
Couple that with the fact it is easy for me to find an experienced, 15k+ gwfs the result is that the only time I take a gf to Draco is when I play the gf, and the only reason then is because 4 cw is bad for Draco (cw is my best class)
So in my thought gf is not bad at all, it's really good, it's just slower. In fact I have only heard of 4 to 5 gfs out there who regularly clear cn, though there are likely more.
As for pugging, I basically never do it. I will invite guild it's, or friends, or someone who comes in with a recommendation. The reason is simple
Killing Draco involves a lot of teamwork and group synergy. One new person works fine if they are well geared or experienced. However, someone new, someone not on raidcall, even with a great gs can lead to an hour of wiping. I hate wiping at Draco. Quite honestly I would rather run around sharandar or pvp than have a difficult cn run. So I will never pug a slot.
This means all you good tanks don't get to run in high end groups. So much if it is who you know. If you are very very good people will know and invite you, but it is hard to break in. It is harder for gf because almost no one has seen a good gf. The guy who taught me the basics quit four months ago and since I have never seen another good gf in PvE.
So not only is there a networking barrier, but there is also the unknown barrier, so I think it is very difficult for gf.
However I do love mine and I don't mind sharing her build. I will post the cw build soon.
Sorry for the sad state too, gfs are a blast to play.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Just curious, but how exactly is VT easier without a CW?
the dungeon is not add-heavy, and CWs single dps(for valindra) is meh compared to TRs/GWFs