Kidding aside, those build code names are interesting. Good luck! I personally am working on 4 other builds right now. A new TR build that concentrates on having ITC up 80% of the time, a GWF build that's similar to the Iron Maiden but can have 100% uptime in Damage Immunity, a CW build with 100% Recharge Speed Increase for the Spell Mastery, and a Devoted Cleric support build that's... well, pretty normal. It can generate heaps of Divinity but that's it. DC's have nothing cool on em so far.
todes I have posted a pve dps auto healer power buff leader AC cleric guide in the temple it's info may be relevent to this page for newb and learned player alike.
never mind the disclaimers you are good and are thusly partially exempt.
todes I have posted a pve dps auto healer power buff leader AC cleric guide in the temple it's info may be relevent to this page for newb and learned player alike.
never mind the disclaimers you are good and are thusly partially exempt.
Hey, man. Been awfully busy lately and haven't had the time to check the guide. I just saw this message of yours. I'll drop by your thread to give it a read!
Great guide! i have been having a lot of fun with this build and been having people actually ask for my gF to come into DD with them. the mitigation aspect is very awesome and can really help the squishies survive, so when running the t2 with undergeared parties, you keep them up.
I have some questions and would ask that you maybe update the first few pages of this thread and the guide to reflect the changes/discoveries that are revealed later in the thread. My problem is I read the first couple of pages, got very excited, respec my toon and then spawed and burned gear while investing in the original enchants you recommend, but now that i have finished reading, i may have 'over invested' or even have the wrong enchants as well as focus.
so question 1) i am using lifedrinker on my weapon, but it seems like lightning is the better option for aggro. the only issue i have with this build is it works really well when you are with a weaker party, but in a high end party, it seems to fall down. The weaker the party, the better you do... where high dps folks make it very hard to pull and hold aggro. So i have normal life drinker and normal lightning which i have been leveling both ,but should I focus on upgrading the lightning? I thought the goal was perfect lifedrinker because of the interaction with SOS/KV/Brair?
2) i had someone tell me i should really forgo the Lifesteal for regen, and in the boons i did take regen over life steal, but i have been focusing on life steal and i think it work well - but that said, is it better still ot focus more on LS than regen? I am at 575 regen and 885 ls.
3) I have been upgrading my brair enchant for armor, I have a normal and a normal i ma leveling to go to greater, but it seems you are now saying I should go with thunderhead (but doesn't that only proc every 60 seconds) over brair and it seems you are saying lesser brair is all we need? I thought the orginal post says we should shoot for a perfect life drinker and perfect brair and then we will really shine? I have to say i notice a huge improvement from the lesser lifedrinker and briar to the normal, however, i did them both at the same time, so not sure if it was one or the other, or a combined effect.
4) someone told me i would be better of going all regen/def/deflect and use negation enchant. aside from negation only working every 60 seconds, wouldn't this enchant actually reduce the effectiveness of this build?
Great guide! i have been having a lot of fun with this build and been having people actually ask for my gF to come into DD with them. the mitigation aspect is very awesome and can really help the squishies survive, so when running the t2 with undergeared parties, you keep them up.
I have some questions and would ask that you maybe update the first few pages of this thread and the guide to reflect the changes/discoveries that are revealed later in the thread. My problem is I read the first couple of pages, got very excited, respec my toon and then spawed and burned gear while investing in the original enchants you recommend, but now that i have finished reading, i may have 'over invested' or even have the wrong enchants as well as focus.
so question 1) i am using lifedrinker on my weapon, but it seems like lightning is the better option for aggro. the only issue i have with this build is it works really well when you are with a weaker party, but in a high end party, it seems to fall down. The weaker the party, the better you do... where high dps folks make it very hard to pull and hold aggro. So i have normal life drinker and normal lightning which i have been leveling both ,but should I focus on upgrading the lightning? I thought the goal was perfect lifedrinker because of the interaction with SOS/KV/Brair?
2) i had someone tell me i should really forgo the Lifesteal for regen, and in the boons i did take regen over life steal, but i have been focusing on life steal and i think it work well - but that said, is it better still ot focus more on LS than regen? I am at 575 regen and 885 ls.
3) I have been upgrading my brair enchant for armor, I have a normal and a normal i ma leveling to go to greater, but it seems you are now saying I should go with thunderhead (but doesn't that only proc every 60 seconds) over brair and it seems you are saying lesser brair is all we need? I thought the orginal post says we should shoot for a perfect life drinker and perfect brair and then we will really shine? I have to say i notice a huge improvement from the lesser lifedrinker and briar to the normal, however, i did them both at the same time, so not sure if it was one or the other, or a combined effect.
4) someone told me i would be better of going all regen/def/deflect and use negation enchant. aside from negation only working every 60 seconds, wouldn't this enchant actually reduce the effectiveness of this build?
thanks again and look forward to your feedback.
Hey, man. Glad you're having fun with the build. It's pretty flexible so if by any chance you wish to change gear or stat allocation, feel free to do so. It's just that Steel Defense + Supremacy of Steel is the combo that makes or breaks the build. With either of those gone it's impossible to play as an Iron Maiden. To answer your questions...
1. Lifedrinker is also a good enchantment to have as it generates extra threat by healing. We can't really say for sure whether Lightning is better than Lifedrinker because both of them have perks that are unique to them which the other cannot provide. In terms of generating threat, Lifedrinker falls behind compared to Lightning, but only by a small margin. What Lifedrinker can provide players is something Lightning cannot readily give, which is increased sustainability. If you wish to live longer in combat while tanking masses upon masses of adds, Lifedrinker will serve you well. At perfect, it heals you for 8.8% of your Weapon Damage and deals the same amount to your opponents. This equates to 17.6% of your Weapon Damage as Threat (Threat = DPS and/or Healing combined). Perfect Lightning on the other hand deals 20% of your Weapon Damage as DPS, but it makes pulling mobs so much more easier. Having a Perfect Lightning on will make you seem like a walking Arcane Singularity because you hit mobs that may be way off your threat range because of Lightning's ability to arc from foe to foe. It makes managing aggro easier, but of course the survival you gain from Lifedrinker is something Lightning cannot provide. Even more so if we combine Lifedrinker with Endless Consumption (T5 Dread Ring Boon) which multiplies the HP you steal from opponents by 3 at a decent proc rate. Life Steal can be a very good stat for us Iron Maiden users because of how Cleave, Aggravating Strike, and Supremacy of Steel, these 3 of our main abilities have no target cap, meaning we can steal HP from mobs with relatively good returns, the more we have in sight. Life Steal from the Stat and Lifedrinker will also turn your Supremacy of Steel into something that can heal you while you are getting hit by mobs while immune. This will give you further comfort in the process of tanking, as it increases your room for error.
2. Hmmm. I can't say that your friend is entirely correct. That would have been correct if this was pre-Mod 2, but nowadays it's really easy to get the DR for Regen. Forgoing Life Steal for more Regen may sound like a good idea at first but that is until you hit the diminishing returns for Regeneration. 1.4k is enough, and 1.4k Regen is really easy to reach with artifacts and our upcoming gear. Why settle for only 1 sustain stat when we can have 2? Using Life Steal will give you the ability to heal back more damage and inherently generate more threat for you since threat generated is equated to your DPS + your overall healing, multiplied by any Threat Generating buffs you currently have. For us GF's, we have an inherent bonus of 35% across the board. Just imagine how much more threat you can generate just by adding Life Steal. It's pretty decent, right? If you read this previous post of mine, I laid down one of my plans to further increase my Regen AND add 9% Life Steal at the same time in order to double my sustain rate. 9% Life Steal can be incredible with Endless Consumption, the Dread Ring Boon I'll be using once I respec my GF.
3. Hmmm. I can't really remember which post it is where I mentioned that Thunderhead is better than Briartwine, but there has to be some confusion here. I'm pretty sure I keep saying that Briartwine is the best enchantment for us, since it makes managing aggro so much more easier due to how it readily refreshes the threat on the mobs whenever they attack us. I just chose to go for Thunderhead because it looks really good on my GF.
4. Negation is nice but like I always say, effects that come only once every 60 seconds is not something we can readily rely on. The only time I'd use an enchant that comes once every minute (or more) would be when I want to slot Soulforged (which I most probably will not do because it covers up my gear transmutes with black smoke), or when an enchantment has an effect that would look particularly cool with my character. The benefits I get from using a once-per-minute effect enchantment is far too small compared to the satisfaction I get from seeing the transmutations I worked hard on for my character. Next, Briartwine, you can actually just settle for Normal or Lesser. When it comes to enchantments, I like to consider Cost VS. Benefits. If the benefits I can gain from the item is far too low for its cost, I will settle for something that will tell me that benefits = cost. Lesser Briartwine is good enough, Normal Briartwine is technically better but doesn't really give any noticeable increases in threat generation or management. Anything above Normal Briartwine is a waste of AD's, in my opinion. I could have spent those AD's gearing up other characters or investing on Professions to create a solid line of income by selling pants/shirts. I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Regen + Defense + Deflect is a decent path to take, but in my opinion, you can pretty much ditch defense. We've got a lot of it already. As long as you have 50% Damage Reduction in the end, you can forgo defense for something else of your preference.
This is a flexible build, and you can turn your Iron Maiden into something unique simply by changing your Stat Allocation. This build is more of a "play style" and not just a class build, so there is not one solid path to take as an Iron Maiden for there are so many things you can try out with a flexible build. You can modify whatever it is that you want on your Iron Maiden, as long as you retain its core principles/philosophies.
I have finally done my tests... and I have found some interesting thing
Firstly, just a quick feedback about conqueror way :
- Really effective for solo
- Viable for tanking 90% of donjon
- Not so bad for PvP
- Require to know how to well play iron maiden
So the most interesting thing I have found now.
I was looking for stack as much recovery as possible but I found the gain was not so good when I have start sacrificing other stat like 1000 life steal, 1000 regen, 1000 ArP for a 5% AP gain.
I also found I was really squishy when a mob was able to get me down on the ground or able to bump me.
So I was looking for reach... 50% deflection.
Unfortunately, because of diminishing returns, it's not possible.
And I consider less than 50% to deflect chance is not something you can count as mitigation of incoming damages because it's too much random : many time you will just deflect weack hit and take a non-deflected big/crit hit.
For your information, I got more than 4500 points on deflection (7 rank 8 enchant + full deflection gear) and I reach 33% deflection chance.
So as stacking recovery was a fail, stacking deflection is also another one, but remember deflection stay a good stat to reduce dammage, I recommend to keep 25% chance (easy with +5% on protector way and regent/sharandar gear).
So I can actually affirm the best way to survive is to mix all stat who works to mitigate damages with that priority : Regen (50% max > life steal (8%~16%) > deflection (20%~25%) > armor pen (22% cap) > def (only if nothing else available)
with this priority you will insure your survivability and can't be wrong.
Don't forgot to get some recovery and also mix 2x 2 set bonus (I like high general + sharandar legendary) because 4set bonus are really weak for tank.
Quick explanation about ArP : that offensive stat give you extra dammages so you indirectly boost your life steal (more than power/crit).
Also, I highly recommend to try tactician build : you will be able to buff team global dammages, got extra PA (really helpfull because in fact you always take some dammages), and also some other cool thing (more about team utility)
Hey, another feedback : SoS dammages are not improved or reduced by anything, it seem these SoS dammages only depend of base incoming dammages so don't think you are able to improve SoS
Again sorry for my English, don't fear report some misunderstanding
I was trying to improve my agro when i speed run donjon with epic team...
... And it seem that electric enchant proc twice with weapon master strike so that fact mean a hidden dammage bonus for this power up to 17.5% (perfect + 4 target), or 15% with 3 target/greater, or 10% with 2 tTarget/normal.
So If you are not a conqueror, with electric enchant you will do better work with wm strike than cleave
Hey, First. I agree, staying in 25% Deflect is a good choice right now. I just decided to stay at that range. Here's my current gear setup right now. (LINK) I'll take a screenie of my most recent stat percentages as well in order to update the guide.
I have 25.7% Deflect, 9.5% Regen (Survival and Threat), 9% Life Steal (Survival and Threat), 51% Defense (all Defense from Gear), 10% ArP, 34% RSI (10% INT, 14% Recov, 10% Fight On), and I'm planning to further improve my stats via an Ioun Stone by adding more ArP/Power for Threat, and maybe some Regeneration as well.
And yes, you are correct. SoS is not affected by power, but rather they depend on the amount of damage you are supposed to take. The only possible way to increase the damage of SoS is to reduce your Defenses and make yourself paper thin. But that's not the smartest thing to do, apparently. I'm loving the Protector Path so far but there has also been times when I spec-ed for Tactician just to compare things on live. Protector is really much tankier, in my opinion.
As for Lightning Enchant, yep. I also like it. I'm planning to get a Normal or Greater Lightning one of these days but perhaps after I complete another of my builds.
You seem to be getting the hang of the Iron Maiden play style. Keep it up, First!
hey todes I'm making another SM GF using many of the same tactics I learned here but it will be a conquerer build mixed with some tactician for party buffing aggro generation care if i let you know how it goes?
So fun thing about this sick *** build!!! it can completly neutralize ( even kill sometime... ) gwf's in pvp whattttt!!
how you ask?? simple... you know how we always get run over when they go unstopable well the point here is wait till they go unstoppable and jump on you like rabbid dogs then surprise!!! pop SoS then KC them youll nerver see a Gws back up so fast in your entire life and if better they dont realize whats going on then its over for them !!!
Was just curious how these changes that are coming impact this build, in particular the sos - all in all i think these are all great for us GF.
Guardian Fighter
Guard: Now blocks targeted player powers that do not originate from the caster regardless of facing.
Mark: Now applies a "Focused Mark" on the target. This effect does not end if the affected target damages you. Only one target may be affected by focused mark at a time. If a new target is selected, an existing target’s focused mark will be converted to a standard mark.
Lunging Strike: Now deals 1/3rd of its damage in a cone behind the primary target. Threat will be generated on these targets as if they were struck for the full amount.
Enforced Threat: Target cap has been increased from 5 to 8.
Griffons Wrath: Animation lock has been reduced.
Kneebreaker: Now moves the player slightly closer to the target when activated.
Knight's Challenge: Cooldown has been reduced from 28 to 20 seconds. Now only enters cool down when the target has been killed or the effect’s duration has elapsed.
Anvil of Doom: Animation lock has been reduced.
Supremacy of Steel: Will no longer be triggered by reactive damage sources.
Iron Warrior: While under the effect of Iron Warrior, players will now generate 150% more threat.
Bull Charge: Lunge distance has been increased from 18’ to 28’.
when i first started playing this build, i thought it was a team only build, but i am now doing decent soloing in DR area because of the high recovery on the build. I have a 5 second cool down on Lunge, 8 second on Bull and i use grif strike which is almost always available.
My goal with this build is to be able to aggro and tank the mobs in FH without running... not sure it is possible, but we all need goals - currently lifedrinker and Brair are at the normal level - was going to go to greater on life drinker, but the increase from 6.1 to 7 did not seem worth the 200K in potency needed (coupled with the total nerf of tal bars from lockboxes for the coal wards)
So fun thing about this sick *** build!!! it can completly neutralize ( even kill sometime... ) gwf's in pvp whattttt!!
how you ask?? simple... you know how we always get run over when they go unstopable well the point here is wait till they go unstoppable and jump on you like rabbid dogs then surprise!!! pop SoS then KC them youll nerver see a Gws back up so fast in your entire life and if better they dont realize whats going on then its over for them !!!
That sounds like a neat combo for PVP. I usually take Iron Warrior, Lunging Strike, Bull Rush in PVP to maximize my node control and Shield uptime, so you can imagine that I play very defensively in node 2. I think I may try that combo of yours out one of these days, and switch Iron Warrior with Knight's Challenge. This build would work a whole lot better with an Emblem of Seldarine. Sadly that thing is so rare.
"Supremacy of Steel: Will no longer be triggered by reactive damage sources."
What does this actually mean? Any ideas?
Reactive Damage Sources = Storm Fury, Split the Sky, the sort of skills that require you to damage others before you get to damage them. IDK if Fey Thistle or Briartwine counts too. But if you fight a Wizard in PVP with Storm Fury on, and you have Supremacy of Steel, they just committed suicide by fighting you because you reflect what their Storm Fury dishes out. So whoever has more DR and more HP wins. Storm Fury only activates at 50% HP so you tend to win all those sorts of encounters.
Here's a video by my friend, Malekhai. He's using a Swordmaster GF as well, Tact spec-ed. Enjoy.
Was just curious how these changes that are coming impact this build, in particular the sos - all in all i think these are all great for us GF.
Guardian Fighter
Guard: Now blocks targeted player powers that do not originate from the caster regardless of facing.
Mark: Now applies a "Focused Mark" on the target. This effect does not end if the affected target damages you. Only one target may be affected by focused mark at a time. If a new target is selected, an existing target’s focused mark will be converted to a standard mark.
Lunging Strike: Now deals 1/3rd of its damage in a cone behind the primary target. Threat will be generated on these targets as if they were struck for the full amount.
Enforced Threat: Target cap has been increased from 5 to 8.
Griffons Wrath: Animation lock has been reduced.
Kneebreaker: Now moves the player slightly closer to the target when activated.
Knight's Challenge: Cooldown has been reduced from 28 to 20 seconds. Now only enters cool down when the target has been killed or the effect’s duration has elapsed.
Anvil of Doom: Animation lock has been reduced.
Supremacy of Steel: Will no longer be triggered by reactive damage sources.
Iron Warrior: While under the effect of Iron Warrior, players will now generate 150% more threat.
Bull Charge: Lunge distance has been increased from 18’ to 28’.
when i first started playing this build, i thought it was a team only build, but i am now doing decent soloing in DR area because of the high recovery on the build. I have a 5 second cool down on Lunge, 8 second on Bull and i use grif strike which is almost always available.
My goal with this build is to be able to aggro and tank the mobs in FH without running... not sure it is possible, but we all need goals - currently lifedrinker and Brair are at the normal level - was going to go to greater on life drinker, but the increase from 6.1 to 7 did not seem worth the 200K in potency needed (coupled with the total nerf of tal bars from lockboxes for the coal wards)
Well, majority of these changes are positive for the entirety of the GF population and not just us, with the exception of the changes for Knight's Challenge.
For one, Guard in the Preview Shard feels a LOT tankier, the changes are significant as Guard depletes less whenever we are hit by direct damage (which used to take up a lot of our guard). It's better now that we can block AoE's that do not have a real origin like Smokebomb, Icy Terrain etc.
Focused Mark means we get a permanent Mark, and we can place one on a target which we absolutely want to generate lots of threat from; the Boss. Focused Mark will also work well with Daunting Challenge for a -10% damage debuff against our chosen foe, and Enhanced Mark for increased Threat over time. We've also received testimonies from other players that Focused Mark will keep a stealthed TR Marked until he dies, and you will see that Mark. So that's also a plus for PVP.
The buff for Lunging Strike is awesome! It does 6x more Threat now. Threat on the primary target you hit, and threat for the other 5 targets your cone AoE hits behind your primary target. It's really good. Easier threat gain.
Griffon's Wrath is an encounter that generates a lot of AP, and this change right here is basically a faster animation. It feels more fluid right now in Preview, and faster animations means faster AP gain for those who wish to incorporate this skill for their Iron Maidens.
Kneebreaker... lol. I'm sure the devs can do better.
Knight's Challenge. Basically this skill is now broken. It now acts like Knight's Valor, and we all know how prone that skill is to bugging out.
Anvil of Doom is very useful against large mobs and bosses with HP's below 25%. So faster cast time is always good to have.
For Supremacy of Steel, all this implies for us is we will no longer be able to react against reactive damage like the ones from Storm Fury or Split the Sky. A good example of this in action is in the video link I posted before this quoted post.
Iron Warrior is now much more of a beastly skill. I love this change! 150% more threat and our uptime on this skill just further contributes to more threat. It'll be easy to maintain threat now, probably against high end parties as well.
Bull Charge's buff is more on PVP than PVE. This means we'll be getting less of those instances where we try to Bull Rush someone but suddenly he's far away, which causes us to rubberband a bit.
All in all, the changes for the GF is a good start. I'm pretty sure the devs still have a lot of fixes in their mind, so let's give em some time. If the GWF's got an insane buff, I'm not sure what's preventing them from buffing GF's in a similar manner as well.
Hi, read through the first few pages in this thread and this is pretty much what I envisioned my GF as. A quick question on game mechanics though, do all of the "teflective" type of attacks do direct damage? As in do they bypass damage reduction and what not? If not do they use our AP? Are the different types of reflects(boons/feats/etc) act differently. Main concern is that I have gotten my deflect into the high 3k(stone/buffs included) and am deflecting just under a 1/3 of of attacks for the 400 damage(thisle) but is that typr of damage directly applied?
Todes ive completed my SM conq/protector build I'm going to edit some of my build in here when I get around to it.
I've hit 12k with griffons, 19k with anvil(now much faster:)), and 10k with enforced threat. 9k with stab, and 5k with tide of iron and i hit a 12k flourish at 12.8k gs. I'm using WMS for the mitigation debuff to my at will and encounters and with tide of iron stacked they all end up hitting much more. The damage kind of fluctuates depending on how many debuffs i have placed and if i have temp hp and at least a half guard meter. These numbers are all highest damages that I have achieved.
and steel defense works like a dream. I'm running with villains menace and fighters recovery using knights challenge (gonna be faster now ) and into the fray on boss fights it works really well. I hope they fix knights challenge before they drop the patch.
I still use sos and kv as well when the party need it gonna see if I can do this type of damage in karru prolly sometime this week.
because recovery can crit I can heal almost instantly to full health if i hit hard enough while steel defense covers any damage.
now ill be able to use Iron Warrior for a better damage bonus too instead of enforced threat because of the thp and the buff to guard and now will give additional threat? Sign me up.
pretty syched about these changes should they work and I'm wondering if these changes will have any impact on my playstyle.
lol knee breaker....
Just gonna say todes that you're my hero lol. I never would have come up with this if you hadn't posted this thread.
Hi, read through the first few pages in this thread and this is pretty much what I envisioned my GF as. A quick question on game mechanics though, do all of the "teflective" type of attacks do direct damage? As in do they bypass damage reduction and what not? If not do they use our AP? Are the different types of reflects(boons/feats/etc) act differently. Main concern is that I have gotten my deflect into the high 3k(stone/buffs included) and am deflecting just under a 1/3 of of attacks for the 400 damage(thisle) but is that typr of damage directly applied?
Thx in advance for any clarification.
Hey, Backbite. Deflect will only damage the opponents if you have Fey Thistle, and sadly they are affected by Damage Reduction. But Fey Thistle only adds utility to our Deflection stat. What we want from Deflection is its ability to give us a straight 50% decrease in damage on top of our Damage Reduction. Every bit helps!
Todes ive completed my SM conq/protector build I'm going to edit some of my build in here when I get around to it.
I've hit 12k with griffons, 19k with anvil(now much faster:)), and 10k with enforced threat. 9k with stab, and 5k with tide of iron and i hit a 12k flourish at 12.8k gs. I'm using WMS for the mitigation debuff to my at will and encounters and with tide of iron stacked they all end up hitting much more. The damage kind of fluctuates depending on how many debuffs i have placed and if i have temp hp and at least a half guard meter. These numbers are all highest damages that I have achieved.
and steel defense works like a dream. I'm running with villains menace and fighters recovery using knights challenge (gonna be faster now ) and into the fray on boss fights it works really well. I hope they fix knights challenge before they drop the patch.
I still use sos and kv as well when the party need it gonna see if I can do this type of damage in karru prolly sometime this week.
because recovery can crit I can heal almost instantly to full health if i hit hard enough while steel defense covers any damage.
now ill be able to use Iron Warrior for a better damage bonus too instead of enforced threat because of the thp and the buff to guard and now will give additional threat? Sign me up.
pretty syched about these changes should they work and I'm wondering if these changes will have any impact on my playstyle.
lol knee breaker....
Just gonna say todes that you're my hero lol. I never would have come up with this if you hadn't posted this thread.
Great job, man. And it's NP! You should post your build sometime for those who are curious as to how you did your Swordmaster Conqueror. I like the overall idea behind it. You did well.
So I've just being leveling up a new gf using this build, and I only recently hit lvl 40. At 41 I had 1 point in SoS and 1 point in Steel Defense. In theory that should give me 3 seconds of immunity plus another 3 seconds of immunity on the second activation of SoS.
What I've noticed is that I'm immune to damage for about 1 second. Or about 1 attack. The rest seem to ignore the immunity and just hit me as normal. Now I've been watching the first immunity closely to see if I'm just way off and 3 seconds had passed already, but I don't think so. I guess I should check my logs.
I have no idea what happens on the second activation since I've been so focused on the first and how long I'm immune for.
tl;dr
Is SoS and Steel Defense working correctly after the latest patch? 'Cause purely observational evidence is that it is not.
So I've just being leveling up a new gf using this build, and I only recently hit lvl 40. At 41 I had 1 point in SoS and 1 point in Steel Defense. In theory that should give me 3 seconds of immunity plus another 3 seconds of immunity on the second activation of SoS.
What I've noticed is that I'm immune to damage for about 1 second. Or about 1 attack. The rest seem to ignore the immunity and just hit me as normal. Now I've been watching the first immunity closely to see if I'm just way off and 3 seconds had passed already, but I don't think so. I guess I should check my logs.
I have no idea what happens on the second activation since I've been so focused on the first and how long I'm immune for.
tl;dr
Is SoS and Steel Defense working correctly after the latest patch? 'Cause purely observational evidence is that it is not.
Any opinions?
edit: Just checked a fresh combat log. It's hard to tell if I'm getting the full 3 seconds for the first activation because I wasn't getting attacked every second. So...maybe. As for the second activation, no immunity. Nothing.
So were multiple activation dailies "fixed" to only trigger powers that rely on dailies once, or is this a bug? I know that HR's went through something similar with Forest Ghost, but there were multiple bugs going on there at the same time so it was a bit more complicated than this SoS issue.
So only a second (or maybe 2) immunity on first activation of SoS (1 point in SoS and 1 point in Steel Defense) and zero seconds of immunity on second activation of SoS.
Just as I feared. It's a bug, one we've been reporting for months now since we observed it in Preview. Apparently the devs ignored it like most of the bug reports sent to them. I'll test this later. If I get the same results as I did back in preview, I'll report it again.
Coincidentally Panderus did mention that Steel Defense just got a "fix". Apparently it didn't go through this PVP patch. Let's check Thursday's patch. Hopefully we'll get the fix by then.
If not, I guess they're not leaving us much reason to trust what they say in the future.
Just as I feared. It's a bug, one we've been reporting for months now since we observed it in Preview. Apparently the devs ignored it like most of the bug reports sent to them. I'll test this later. If I get the same results as I did back in preview, I'll report it again.
Coincidentally Panderus did mention that Steel Defense just got a "fix". Apparently it didn't go through this PVP patch. Let's check Thursday's patch. Hopefully we'll get the fix by then.
If not, I guess they're not leaving us much reason to trust what they say in the future.
Thanks. If you could report back with your results that would be cool. Since I just hit 41 and am new to SoS (although not new to gf's in general) I am a little unsure exactly what I should be seeing. The more I try it though the more I'm sure it's not working as intended.
Hate to see this build bugged into oblivion since I just bought new character slots to try it out. =D
If it were working properly, what you should be seeing would be 5 seconds of Immunity on the first activation of SoS and then another 5 seconds of Immunity on the 2nd activation. The challenge within those frames of immunity would be surviving hordes of mobs while generating enough AP to activate SoS again for more Immunities. Once it's fixed, you should try it out. It's a pretty fun way to play, making mobs attack you which eventually kills them.
I've been playing with your spec for a week or so now so I'm just learning how to play it and it's fun although I'm surprise how low a GS we get once we switch over. But to me game play beats GS any day and so far it's been a blast.
What are your thoughts on the new PVP gear and which set do you think would be a good fit for your build?
Actually had another question. With tenacity slightly lowering the item budget on the other stats, are the PVP sets still best or would one of the reg dungeon sets be better.
Hey, Tyedor. Thanks for playing the build and I'm glad you are enjoying it. The new T2.5 gear will definitely be our new BiS gear. I personally like the gear with the Recovery/Regen/Defense/Deflect stat allocation. I can't remember which one but I remember seeing them in Preview. Basically those will improve our survival, as we generate our threat much more easily thanks to the recent buffs to our skills. We lose Power, but the threat we gain from Power can be easily attained from our skills so in essence we are gaining much more than we are losing, most specially since we get 5% more Guard Meter with the new set and faster run speed.
Some people may argue that Knight Captain is the set to go for PVE, so it's also good to have a set just in case your party requests for it.
todes im going to place the build in this box after maintenance here its incomplete as i was just leveling im gonna need to respec i scattered too many powers around due to testing them as it was my first conq. and i didnt realise that the powers were going to be upgraded till after lv 60; least the feats work, lol. Thanks for the vote of confidence :cool:
When I post it all feel free to paste it in the opening page posts for easier reading if you so wish.
and the new speed of the GF is amazing I literally had to get re-used to playing my gf because I kept missing and double casting gryphons and anvil because i was used to them being slow lol. Not a big deal at all; its sooo much better now.
i really want a grand regent set for my conq as it will increase my power even more when stacked with the capstone. I went economical getting cheap pieces with decent attack stats but having good r6 enchantments for a total of 13k gs as of today. I chose these pieces because they were offensive and most of the set pieces only have defensive ones.
dungeons have been dropping necks and rings so i haven't gotten anything great yet but gear is never really my focus when building its the feats and powers and strategies behind them gear just adds to them.
Attributes
str 19 guard meter and damage bonus
con 19 hp and AP
dex 19 to deflect and arm pen
int 13 not amazing but slightly useful
wis 14 helps with control
cha 16 to make combat advantage my friend as i usually am where the advantage is sometimes not even by choice.
Heroic Feats
Action Surge 3/5 to increase my ap gain from blocking by 6%
Strength focus 3/3 to make my shield stronger if it does and mainly to increase damage
Toughness 3/3 9% max hp
Shielded Resurgence 1/3 for a small heal when controlled
Armor Specialization 2/3 for more AC and defense to protect myself
Potent challenge 1/3 for 5% more threat as i am still a tank
Powerful attack 4/5 for at will and encounters 8%
Grit 1/3 Thp wrathful warrior proc
Weapon Mastery 3/3 3% crit
Conq feats
Improved Vigor 2/5 4% to stack up with action surge when at 50% hp
Take Measure 4/5 Wrathful warrior proc 4% max hp thp
Wrathful Warrior 4/5 8% damage increase with thp which can stay up a while if i block or kite especially with iron warrior.
Stunning flourish 1/5 so flourish will stun throughout hit but its a mini stun that goes with gryphons
Staggering challenge 5/5 for knights challenge and gryphons to rock
Menacing impact 2/5 as im using Villains menace to increase attack power which makes the area and damage slightly better.
Tactical Superiority 2/5 because its not a huge deal to have all the time; since I'm a tank I will likely be hit eventually.
Capstone 1/1
Protector Feats
Plate Agility 5/5 5% deflect makes me more tanky and was required to get staying power
Staying power 3/5 makes weapon masters reduce protections from all my attacks using WMS which stacks with tide of iron debuff.
Tactitian
Crushing Pin 2/5 for when I knock or stun increases damage by 4%
It's far from useless. With the right timing, encounter setup, ect, you can still do everything you could and more without the 2nd activation bonus. SoS, even after the initial 5 seconds, appears to reduce the damage your guard meter takes while it's active. but not the AP you gain from blocking. I just did SP and I found that intentionally getting hit by the mobs I was kiting when sos was active was giving me the ability to almost have my AP meter completely filled by the time Sos wore off or I released it. I've found you can keep the sos buff on for over 10-12 seconds before you release it. If you time it with knight's valor, you pop it as you pop kv, then use the 2nd activation as kv ends. Sadly, yes, you don't get that extra 5 seconds, but I didn't have a problem staying alive, really. At least after I figured out it wasn't working.
Unfortunately, while very fun, I feel I may have to go back to the cookie-cutter conq spec. this build has zero pvp viability, especially now that the 2nd activation is broken. While it's fun to be damage immune and watch their hardest hitting attacks come up with nothing, I spend a good 60% of the match either dazed or prone because you DON'T have control immunity. I can't kill anything, flourish is a laughably pathetic excuse for a control power, and the best I can do is bump them off the cap for a second or two. And you're still nowhere near as tanky as a DC or gwf. All you are is a minor nuisance that's easily disposed of with some proper control spam. Sadly, knight's valor really doesn't help the party much either in pvp.
As for pve, where this build really shines, it's still incredibly inefficient. I was just in a party without a cw (i.e. a perfect opportunity to test out my aggro control) doing spellplauge. -- don't ask why, lol. tos que was broken with a 3 person party and I'm sick of fh and karru. -- After almost 3 hours (not a mistype), we were just finishing the 2nd boss. We only wiped once the whole time till that point, so it wasn't cause we were dying. The damage is just so incredibly slow, and swordmaster spec severely nerfs any control that the GF may have. We spent another hour and a half trying to beat the last boss. I would have on average 20-30 of the frogs following me, along with the zombie adds. But this fight would take so long that people would inevitably make a mistake, and die. We never finished it, after 4.5 hours.
I don't wanna be negative nancy here, cause I like this build, but this game isn't meant for tanks. That experience proved it. I felt like a real tank, despite the 2nd activation not working. It was really cool. However, it did NOT produce acceptable outcomes in the end. No control, no damage, no defense debuffs to speak of... Stuff just takes too long. I'm not basing this conclusion on just one bad experience. In every dungeon I've done with this build, progress is slower. I did the FH dungeon the other day with a cw in my party. 15k+ gs. It took exponentially longer than it did when I was conqueror spec. And kiting the adds at the end is harder without threatening rush. =( Dailies are also horrible cause they take so long.
I may, however, try this build exactly as it is, but switch back to iron vanguard. No steel defense, but imo only 5 seconds of damage immunity now isn't worth the loss of the other IV utilities and damage.
Comments
Kidding aside, those build code names are interesting. Good luck! I personally am working on 4 other builds right now. A new TR build that concentrates on having ITC up 80% of the time, a GWF build that's similar to the Iron Maiden but can have 100% uptime in Damage Immunity, a CW build with 100% Recharge Speed Increase for the Spell Mastery, and a Devoted Cleric support build that's... well, pretty normal. It can generate heaps of Divinity but that's it. DC's have nothing cool on em so far.
My first Foundry mission, The Valley of Darkness NW-DG9DOTZLU
never mind the disclaimers you are good and are thusly partially exempt.
Here; http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?608251-ACDC-dps-battle-cleric-pve-guide&p=7286501#post7286501
-edit thanks todes any time.
Thank you for reading!
Hey, man. Been awfully busy lately and haven't had the time to check the guide. I just saw this message of yours. I'll drop by your thread to give it a read!
I have some questions and would ask that you maybe update the first few pages of this thread and the guide to reflect the changes/discoveries that are revealed later in the thread. My problem is I read the first couple of pages, got very excited, respec my toon and then spawed and burned gear while investing in the original enchants you recommend, but now that i have finished reading, i may have 'over invested' or even have the wrong enchants as well as focus.
so question 1) i am using lifedrinker on my weapon, but it seems like lightning is the better option for aggro. the only issue i have with this build is it works really well when you are with a weaker party, but in a high end party, it seems to fall down. The weaker the party, the better you do... where high dps folks make it very hard to pull and hold aggro. So i have normal life drinker and normal lightning which i have been leveling both ,but should I focus on upgrading the lightning? I thought the goal was perfect lifedrinker because of the interaction with SOS/KV/Brair?
2) i had someone tell me i should really forgo the Lifesteal for regen, and in the boons i did take regen over life steal, but i have been focusing on life steal and i think it work well - but that said, is it better still ot focus more on LS than regen? I am at 575 regen and 885 ls.
3) I have been upgrading my brair enchant for armor, I have a normal and a normal i ma leveling to go to greater, but it seems you are now saying I should go with thunderhead (but doesn't that only proc every 60 seconds) over brair and it seems you are saying lesser brair is all we need? I thought the orginal post says we should shoot for a perfect life drinker and perfect brair and then we will really shine? I have to say i notice a huge improvement from the lesser lifedrinker and briar to the normal, however, i did them both at the same time, so not sure if it was one or the other, or a combined effect.
4) someone told me i would be better of going all regen/def/deflect and use negation enchant. aside from negation only working every 60 seconds, wouldn't this enchant actually reduce the effectiveness of this build?
thanks again and look forward to your feedback.
Hey, man. Glad you're having fun with the build. It's pretty flexible so if by any chance you wish to change gear or stat allocation, feel free to do so. It's just that Steel Defense + Supremacy of Steel is the combo that makes or breaks the build. With either of those gone it's impossible to play as an Iron Maiden. To answer your questions...
1. Lifedrinker is also a good enchantment to have as it generates extra threat by healing. We can't really say for sure whether Lightning is better than Lifedrinker because both of them have perks that are unique to them which the other cannot provide. In terms of generating threat, Lifedrinker falls behind compared to Lightning, but only by a small margin. What Lifedrinker can provide players is something Lightning cannot readily give, which is increased sustainability. If you wish to live longer in combat while tanking masses upon masses of adds, Lifedrinker will serve you well. At perfect, it heals you for 8.8% of your Weapon Damage and deals the same amount to your opponents. This equates to 17.6% of your Weapon Damage as Threat (Threat = DPS and/or Healing combined). Perfect Lightning on the other hand deals 20% of your Weapon Damage as DPS, but it makes pulling mobs so much more easier. Having a Perfect Lightning on will make you seem like a walking Arcane Singularity because you hit mobs that may be way off your threat range because of Lightning's ability to arc from foe to foe. It makes managing aggro easier, but of course the survival you gain from Lifedrinker is something Lightning cannot provide. Even more so if we combine Lifedrinker with Endless Consumption (T5 Dread Ring Boon) which multiplies the HP you steal from opponents by 3 at a decent proc rate. Life Steal can be a very good stat for us Iron Maiden users because of how Cleave, Aggravating Strike, and Supremacy of Steel, these 3 of our main abilities have no target cap, meaning we can steal HP from mobs with relatively good returns, the more we have in sight. Life Steal from the Stat and Lifedrinker will also turn your Supremacy of Steel into something that can heal you while you are getting hit by mobs while immune. This will give you further comfort in the process of tanking, as it increases your room for error.
2. Hmmm. I can't say that your friend is entirely correct. That would have been correct if this was pre-Mod 2, but nowadays it's really easy to get the DR for Regen. Forgoing Life Steal for more Regen may sound like a good idea at first but that is until you hit the diminishing returns for Regeneration. 1.4k is enough, and 1.4k Regen is really easy to reach with artifacts and our upcoming gear. Why settle for only 1 sustain stat when we can have 2? Using Life Steal will give you the ability to heal back more damage and inherently generate more threat for you since threat generated is equated to your DPS + your overall healing, multiplied by any Threat Generating buffs you currently have. For us GF's, we have an inherent bonus of 35% across the board. Just imagine how much more threat you can generate just by adding Life Steal. It's pretty decent, right? If you read this previous post of mine, I laid down one of my plans to further increase my Regen AND add 9% Life Steal at the same time in order to double my sustain rate. 9% Life Steal can be incredible with Endless Consumption, the Dread Ring Boon I'll be using once I respec my GF.
3. Hmmm. I can't really remember which post it is where I mentioned that Thunderhead is better than Briartwine, but there has to be some confusion here. I'm pretty sure I keep saying that Briartwine is the best enchantment for us, since it makes managing aggro so much more easier due to how it readily refreshes the threat on the mobs whenever they attack us. I just chose to go for Thunderhead because it looks really good on my GF.
4. Negation is nice but like I always say, effects that come only once every 60 seconds is not something we can readily rely on. The only time I'd use an enchant that comes once every minute (or more) would be when I want to slot Soulforged (which I most probably will not do because it covers up my gear transmutes with black smoke), or when an enchantment has an effect that would look particularly cool with my character. The benefits I get from using a once-per-minute effect enchantment is far too small compared to the satisfaction I get from seeing the transmutations I worked hard on for my character. Next, Briartwine, you can actually just settle for Normal or Lesser. When it comes to enchantments, I like to consider Cost VS. Benefits. If the benefits I can gain from the item is far too low for its cost, I will settle for something that will tell me that benefits = cost. Lesser Briartwine is good enough, Normal Briartwine is technically better but doesn't really give any noticeable increases in threat generation or management. Anything above Normal Briartwine is a waste of AD's, in my opinion. I could have spent those AD's gearing up other characters or investing on Professions to create a solid line of income by selling pants/shirts. I'm sure you get what I'm saying. Regen + Defense + Deflect is a decent path to take, but in my opinion, you can pretty much ditch defense. We've got a lot of it already. As long as you have 50% Damage Reduction in the end, you can forgo defense for something else of your preference.
This is a flexible build, and you can turn your Iron Maiden into something unique simply by changing your Stat Allocation. This build is more of a "play style" and not just a class build, so there is not one solid path to take as an Iron Maiden for there are so many things you can try out with a flexible build. You can modify whatever it is that you want on your Iron Maiden, as long as you retain its core principles/philosophies.
I have finally done my tests... and I have found some interesting thing
Firstly, just a quick feedback about conqueror way :
- Really effective for solo
- Viable for tanking 90% of donjon
- Not so bad for PvP
- Require to know how to well play iron maiden
So the most interesting thing I have found now.
I was looking for stack as much recovery as possible but I found the gain was not so good when I have start sacrificing other stat like 1000 life steal, 1000 regen, 1000 ArP for a 5% AP gain.
I also found I was really squishy when a mob was able to get me down on the ground or able to bump me.
So I was looking for reach... 50% deflection.
Unfortunately, because of diminishing returns, it's not possible.
And I consider less than 50% to deflect chance is not something you can count as mitigation of incoming damages because it's too much random : many time you will just deflect weack hit and take a non-deflected big/crit hit.
For your information, I got more than 4500 points on deflection (7 rank 8 enchant + full deflection gear) and I reach 33% deflection chance.
So as stacking recovery was a fail, stacking deflection is also another one, but remember deflection stay a good stat to reduce dammage, I recommend to keep 25% chance (easy with +5% on protector way and regent/sharandar gear).
So I can actually affirm the best way to survive is to mix all stat who works to mitigate damages with that priority : Regen (50% max
with this priority you will insure your survivability and can't be wrong.
Don't forgot to get some recovery and also mix 2x 2 set bonus (I like high general + sharandar legendary) because 4set bonus are really weak for tank.
Quick explanation about ArP : that offensive stat give you extra dammages so you indirectly boost your life steal (more than power/crit).
Also, I highly recommend to try tactician build : you will be able to buff team global dammages, got extra PA (really helpfull because in fact you always take some dammages), and also some other cool thing (more about team utility)
Hey, another feedback : SoS dammages are not improved or reduced by anything, it seem these SoS dammages only depend of base incoming dammages so don't think you are able to improve SoS
Again sorry for my English, don't fear report some misunderstanding
I was trying to improve my agro when i speed run donjon with epic team...
... And it seem that electric enchant proc twice with weapon master strike so that fact mean a hidden dammage bonus for this power up to 17.5% (perfect + 4 target), or 15% with 3 target/greater, or 10% with 2 tTarget/normal.
So If you are not a conqueror, with electric enchant you will do better work with wm strike than cleave
If somebody could confirm that...
I have 25.7% Deflect, 9.5% Regen (Survival and Threat), 9% Life Steal (Survival and Threat), 51% Defense (all Defense from Gear), 10% ArP, 34% RSI (10% INT, 14% Recov, 10% Fight On), and I'm planning to further improve my stats via an Ioun Stone by adding more ArP/Power for Threat, and maybe some Regeneration as well.
And yes, you are correct. SoS is not affected by power, but rather they depend on the amount of damage you are supposed to take. The only possible way to increase the damage of SoS is to reduce your Defenses and make yourself paper thin. But that's not the smartest thing to do, apparently. I'm loving the Protector Path so far but there has also been times when I spec-ed for Tactician just to compare things on live. Protector is really much tankier, in my opinion.
As for Lightning Enchant, yep. I also like it. I'm planning to get a Normal or Greater Lightning one of these days but perhaps after I complete another of my builds.
You seem to be getting the hang of the Iron Maiden play style. Keep it up, First!
how you ask?? simple... you know how we always get run over when they go unstopable
Guardian Fighter
Guard: Now blocks targeted player powers that do not originate from the caster regardless of facing.
Mark: Now applies a "Focused Mark" on the target. This effect does not end if the affected target damages you. Only one target may be affected by focused mark at a time. If a new target is selected, an existing target’s focused mark will be converted to a standard mark.
Lunging Strike: Now deals 1/3rd of its damage in a cone behind the primary target. Threat will be generated on these targets as if they were struck for the full amount.
Enforced Threat: Target cap has been increased from 5 to 8.
Griffons Wrath: Animation lock has been reduced.
Kneebreaker: Now moves the player slightly closer to the target when activated.
Knight's Challenge: Cooldown has been reduced from 28 to 20 seconds. Now only enters cool down when the target has been killed or the effect’s duration has elapsed.
Anvil of Doom: Animation lock has been reduced.
Supremacy of Steel: Will no longer be triggered by reactive damage sources.
Iron Warrior: While under the effect of Iron Warrior, players will now generate 150% more threat.
Bull Charge: Lunge distance has been increased from 18’ to 28’.
when i first started playing this build, i thought it was a team only build, but i am now doing decent soloing in DR area because of the high recovery on the build. I have a 5 second cool down on Lunge, 8 second on Bull and i use grif strike which is almost always available.
My goal with this build is to be able to aggro and tank the mobs in FH without running... not sure it is possible, but we all need goals - currently lifedrinker and Brair are at the normal level - was going to go to greater on life drinker, but the increase from 6.1 to 7 did not seem worth the 200K in potency needed (coupled with the total nerf of tal bars from lockboxes for the coal wards)
What does this actually mean? Any ideas?
That sounds like a neat combo for PVP. I usually take Iron Warrior, Lunging Strike, Bull Rush in PVP to maximize my node control and Shield uptime, so you can imagine that I play very defensively in node 2. I think I may try that combo of yours out one of these days, and switch Iron Warrior with Knight's Challenge. This build would work a whole lot better with an Emblem of Seldarine. Sadly that thing is so rare.
Reactive Damage Sources = Storm Fury, Split the Sky, the sort of skills that require you to damage others before you get to damage them. IDK if Fey Thistle or Briartwine counts too. But if you fight a Wizard in PVP with Storm Fury on, and you have Supremacy of Steel, they just committed suicide by fighting you because you reflect what their Storm Fury dishes out.
Here's a video by my friend, Malekhai. He's using a Swordmaster GF as well, Tact spec-ed. Enjoy.
Well, majority of these changes are positive for the entirety of the GF population and not just us, with the exception of the changes for Knight's Challenge.
For one, Guard in the Preview Shard feels a LOT tankier, the changes are significant as Guard depletes less whenever we are hit by direct damage (which used to take up a lot of our guard). It's better now that we can block AoE's that do not have a real origin like Smokebomb, Icy Terrain etc.
Focused Mark means we get a permanent Mark, and we can place one on a target which we absolutely want to generate lots of threat from; the Boss. Focused Mark will also work well with Daunting Challenge for a -10% damage debuff against our chosen foe, and Enhanced Mark for increased Threat over time. We've also received testimonies from other players that Focused Mark will keep a stealthed TR Marked until he dies, and you will see that Mark. So that's also a plus for PVP.
The buff for Lunging Strike is awesome! It does 6x more Threat now. Threat on the primary target you hit, and threat for the other 5 targets your cone AoE hits behind your primary target. It's really good. Easier threat gain.
Griffon's Wrath is an encounter that generates a lot of AP, and this change right here is basically a faster animation. It feels more fluid right now in Preview, and faster animations means faster AP gain for those who wish to incorporate this skill for their Iron Maidens.
Kneebreaker... lol. I'm sure the devs can do better.
Knight's Challenge. Basically this skill is now broken. It now acts like Knight's Valor, and we all know how prone that skill is to bugging out.
Anvil of Doom is very useful against large mobs and bosses with HP's below 25%. So faster cast time is always good to have.
For Supremacy of Steel, all this implies for us is we will no longer be able to react against reactive damage like the ones from Storm Fury or Split the Sky. A good example of this in action is in the video link I posted before this quoted post.
Iron Warrior is now much more of a beastly skill. I love this change! 150% more threat and our uptime on this skill just further contributes to more threat. It'll be easy to maintain threat now, probably against high end parties as well.
Bull Charge's buff is more on PVP than PVE. This means we'll be getting less of those instances where we try to Bull Rush someone but suddenly he's far away, which causes us to rubberband a bit.
All in all, the changes for the GF is a good start. I'm pretty sure the devs still have a lot of fixes in their mind, so let's give em some time. If the GWF's got an insane buff, I'm not sure what's preventing them from buffing GF's in a similar manner as well.
Thx in advance for any clarification.
Todes ive completed my SM conq/protector build I'm going to edit some of my build in here when I get around to it.
I've hit 12k with griffons, 19k with anvil(now much faster:)), and 10k with enforced threat. 9k with stab, and 5k with tide of iron and i hit a 12k flourish at 12.8k gs. I'm using WMS for the mitigation debuff to my at will and encounters and with tide of iron stacked they all end up hitting much more. The damage kind of fluctuates depending on how many debuffs i have placed and if i have temp hp and at least a half guard meter. These numbers are all highest damages that I have achieved.
and steel defense works like a dream. I'm running with villains menace and fighters recovery using knights challenge (gonna be faster now
I still use sos and kv as well when the party need it gonna see if I can do this type of damage in karru prolly sometime this week.
because recovery can crit I can heal almost instantly to full health if i hit hard enough while steel defense covers any damage.
now ill be able to use Iron Warrior for a better damage bonus too instead of enforced threat because of the thp and the buff to guard and now will give additional threat? Sign me up.
pretty syched about these changes should they work and I'm wondering if these changes will have any impact on my playstyle.
lol knee breaker....
Just gonna say todes that you're my hero lol. I never would have come up with this if you hadn't posted this thread.
Hey, Backbite. Deflect will only damage the opponents if you have Fey Thistle, and sadly they are affected by Damage Reduction. But Fey Thistle only adds utility to our Deflection stat. What we want from Deflection is its ability to give us a straight 50% decrease in damage on top of our Damage Reduction. Every bit helps!
Great job, man. And it's NP! You should post your build sometime for those who are curious as to how you did your Swordmaster Conqueror. I like the overall idea behind it. You did well.
What I've noticed is that I'm immune to damage for about 1 second. Or about 1 attack. The rest seem to ignore the immunity and just hit me as normal. Now I've been watching the first immunity closely to see if I'm just way off and 3 seconds had passed already, but I don't think so. I guess I should check my logs.
I have no idea what happens on the second activation since I've been so focused on the first and how long I'm immune for.
tl;dr
Is SoS and Steel Defense working correctly after the latest patch? 'Cause purely observational evidence is that it is not.
Any opinions?
What I've noticed is that I'm immune to damage for about 1 second. Or about 1 attack. The rest seem to ignore the immunity and just hit me as normal. Now I've been watching the first immunity closely to see if I'm just way off and 3 seconds had passed already, but I don't think so. I guess I should check my logs.
I have no idea what happens on the second activation since I've been so focused on the first and how long I'm immune for.
tl;dr
Is SoS and Steel Defense working correctly after the latest patch? 'Cause purely observational evidence is that it is not.
Any opinions?
edit: Just checked a fresh combat log. It's hard to tell if I'm getting the full 3 seconds for the first activation because I wasn't getting attacked every second. So...maybe. As for the second activation, no immunity. Nothing.
So were multiple activation dailies "fixed" to only trigger powers that rely on dailies once, or is this a bug? I know that HR's went through something similar with Forest Ghost, but there were multiple bugs going on there at the same time so it was a bit more complicated than this SoS issue.
So only a second (or maybe 2) immunity on first activation of SoS (1 point in SoS and 1 point in Steel Defense) and zero seconds of immunity on second activation of SoS.
Little help from someone more knowledgeable?
Coincidentally Panderus did mention that Steel Defense just got a "fix". Apparently it didn't go through this PVP patch. Let's check Thursday's patch. Hopefully we'll get the fix by then.
If not, I guess they're not leaving us much reason to trust what they say in the future.
Thanks. If you could report back with your results that would be cool. Since I just hit 41 and am new to SoS (although not new to gf's in general) I am a little unsure exactly what I should be seeing. The more I try it though the more I'm sure it's not working as intended.
Hate to see this build bugged into oblivion since I just bought new character slots to try it out. =D
I've been playing with your spec for a week or so now so I'm just learning how to play it and it's fun although I'm surprise how low a GS we get once we switch over. But to me game play beats GS any day and so far it's been a blast.
What are your thoughts on the new PVP gear and which set do you think would be a good fit for your build?
Actually had another question. With tenacity slightly lowering the item budget on the other stats, are the PVP sets still best or would one of the reg dungeon sets be better.
Sorry for the **** questions
Some people may argue that Knight Captain is the set to go for PVE, so it's also good to have a set just in case your party requests for it.
When I post it all feel free to paste it in the opening page posts for easier reading if you so wish.
and the new speed of the GF is amazing I literally had to get re-used to playing my gf because I kept missing and double casting gryphons and anvil because i was used to them being slow lol. Not a big deal at all; its sooo much better now.
i really want a grand regent set for my conq as it will increase my power even more when stacked with the capstone. I went economical getting cheap pieces with decent attack stats but having good r6 enchantments for a total of 13k gs as of today. I chose these pieces because they were offensive and most of the set pieces only have defensive ones.
dungeons have been dropping necks and rings so i haven't gotten anything great yet but gear is never really my focus when building its the feats and powers and strategies behind them gear just adds to them.
Attributes
str 19 guard meter and damage bonus
con 19 hp and AP
dex 19 to deflect and arm pen
int 13 not amazing but slightly useful
wis 14 helps with control
cha 16 to make combat advantage my friend as i usually am where the advantage is sometimes not even by choice.
Heroic Feats
Action Surge 3/5 to increase my ap gain from blocking by 6%
Strength focus 3/3 to make my shield stronger if it does and mainly to increase damage
Toughness 3/3 9% max hp
Shielded Resurgence 1/3 for a small heal when controlled
Armor Specialization 2/3 for more AC and defense to protect myself
Potent challenge 1/3 for 5% more threat as i am still a tank
Powerful attack 4/5 for at will and encounters 8%
Grit 1/3 Thp wrathful warrior proc
Weapon Mastery 3/3 3% crit
Conq feats
Improved Vigor 2/5 4% to stack up with action surge when at 50% hp
Take Measure 4/5 Wrathful warrior proc 4% max hp thp
Wrathful Warrior 4/5 8% damage increase with thp which can stay up a while if i block or kite especially with iron warrior.
Stunning flourish 1/5 so flourish will stun throughout hit but its a mini stun that goes with gryphons
Staggering challenge 5/5 for knights challenge and gryphons to rock
Menacing impact 2/5 as im using Villains menace to increase attack power which makes the area and damage slightly better.
Tactical Superiority 2/5 because its not a huge deal to have all the time; since I'm a tank I will likely be hit eventually.
Capstone 1/1
Protector Feats
Plate Agility 5/5 5% deflect makes me more tanky and was required to get staying power
Staying power 3/5 makes weapon masters reduce protections from all my attacks using WMS which stacks with tide of iron debuff.
Tactitian
Crushing Pin 2/5 for when I knock or stun increases damage by 4%
will add more later.
They fixed it this patch. This build, unfortunately, has been rendered useless.
Unfortunately, while very fun, I feel I may have to go back to the cookie-cutter conq spec. this build has zero pvp viability, especially now that the 2nd activation is broken. While it's fun to be damage immune and watch their hardest hitting attacks come up with nothing, I spend a good 60% of the match either dazed or prone because you DON'T have control immunity. I can't kill anything, flourish is a laughably pathetic excuse for a control power, and the best I can do is bump them off the cap for a second or two. And you're still nowhere near as tanky as a DC or gwf. All you are is a minor nuisance that's easily disposed of with some proper control spam. Sadly, knight's valor really doesn't help the party much either in pvp.
As for pve, where this build really shines, it's still incredibly inefficient. I was just in a party without a cw (i.e. a perfect opportunity to test out my aggro control) doing spellplauge. -- don't ask why, lol. tos que was broken with a 3 person party and I'm sick of fh and karru. -- After almost 3 hours (not a mistype), we were just finishing the 2nd boss. We only wiped once the whole time till that point, so it wasn't cause we were dying. The damage is just so incredibly slow, and swordmaster spec severely nerfs any control that the GF may have. We spent another hour and a half trying to beat the last boss. I would have on average 20-30 of the frogs following me, along with the zombie adds. But this fight would take so long that people would inevitably make a mistake, and die. We never finished it, after 4.5 hours.
I don't wanna be negative nancy here, cause I like this build, but this game isn't meant for tanks. That experience proved it. I felt like a real tank, despite the 2nd activation not working. It was really cool. However, it did NOT produce acceptable outcomes in the end. No control, no damage, no defense debuffs to speak of... Stuff just takes too long. I'm not basing this conclusion on just one bad experience. In every dungeon I've done with this build, progress is slower. I did the FH dungeon the other day with a cw in my party. 15k+ gs. It took exponentially longer than it did when I was conqueror spec. And kiting the adds at the end is harder without threatening rush. =( Dailies are also horrible cause they take so long.
I may, however, try this build exactly as it is, but switch back to iron vanguard. No steel defense, but imo only 5 seconds of damage immunity now isn't worth the loss of the other IV utilities and damage.