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SW PvP discussion
luthandrose
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
First, I just want to state this is my personal opinion of the SW class and my first pass at some feedback to the Development team. I know others might have a different opinion than mine and I can respect that. I hope people can use my comments to build a good discussion thread regarding some of the issues the class faces.
My view point is purely from a PvP perspective and isn't intended to impact PvE in anyway. My SW is pretty well geared for PvP; two pieces of BI gear, 2 Profound, legendary weapon, two legendary artifacts for an overall gear score of 17.4k at the moment, along with rank 10 enchants and perfect SF and perfect Vorp. Not as well geared as top end players but for an SW, I think I'm very well geared...for now.
At this point in time, SW is the worst class for PvP facing other classes of equal gear/skill. The ability to solo (1 v 1) is important in PvP and the ability to stay alive/outlast even more so. In the case of the SW, it's much harder than other classes have it. Most people look to kill the SW right away because they are easy to kill, have high burst DPS if left unmanaged, and heal the party if temptation spec'ed. The only defense we have is run and if using the class feature, run faster.
Here is a list of my issues with SW as they stand today:
I'm sure other people will have a different opinion than I do and I welcome anyone to voice up their concerns regarding SW. If nothing else it might help the Devs think of some new feats for another class path for SW!
My view point is purely from a PvP perspective and isn't intended to impact PvE in anyway. My SW is pretty well geared for PvP; two pieces of BI gear, 2 Profound, legendary weapon, two legendary artifacts for an overall gear score of 17.4k at the moment, along with rank 10 enchants and perfect SF and perfect Vorp. Not as well geared as top end players but for an SW, I think I'm very well geared...for now.
At this point in time, SW is the worst class for PvP facing other classes of equal gear/skill. The ability to solo (1 v 1) is important in PvP and the ability to stay alive/outlast even more so. In the case of the SW, it's much harder than other classes have it. Most people look to kill the SW right away because they are easy to kill, have high burst DPS if left unmanaged, and heal the party if temptation spec'ed. The only defense we have is run and if using the class feature, run faster.
Here is a list of my issues with SW as they stand today:
- We are FAR to squishy! There are feats/powers you can take to help with DR but I've tried them and they don't really help against the onslaught of red dragon glyphs, reflect build mechanics, and lock down CC of other classes. SW has to face that they can't break CC or lifesteal enough to counter these tactics. If CC'ed, life steal becomes useless because you aren't damaging anything unless you managed to get a DoT off or two. I've tried to throw DoTs and use LoS (line of sight) to my advantage but when I hide, my DoTs no longer proc when I break LoS (I have a huge problem with this one).
- Very limited CC ability. We have two encounters and one daily for CC.
- Harrowstorm: two step process with a long casting time/animation. The advantage to this one is that it does prone instead of stun. My take on this one is that it's almost useless in PvP because you just can't waste the encounter slot for something you won't stand at least a decent chance of landing or die trying to cast.
- Wraith's Shadow: This is a THREE step process. You have to curse someone, then cast the encounter, then trigger the encounter to get the CC to work. You can take advantage of the lesser curses, if it happens to be on your target, because you've feated that way...good luck seeing that icon on your target though. Half the time the curse icon doesn't seem to show up on a target and I have to curse them again and again and again.
- Brood of Hadar: Locks the target in place and is only useful if they are alone really. Otherwise, the DPS is spread out and not really that impactful in my opinion.
- Harrowstorm: two step process with a long casting time/animation. The advantage to this one is that it does prone instead of stun. My take on this one is that it's almost useless in PvP because you just can't waste the encounter slot for something you won't stand at least a decent chance of landing or die trying to cast.
- Cast times are slow on dailies, most encounters and Hellish Rebuke at-will. I compare this to other classes that are much more fluid in their animations and ability to cast encounters, dailies, etc. The risk/reward isn't there for such long wait times with SW. Hellish Rebuke seems to have an animation issue at the tail end. It seems to lock you in place after the animation has completed and you can't move for about 1 second.
Now, I will state that Dreadtheft cast time is fine but the aiming of this ability needs some attention. This encounter is good for AoE, even in PvP, but requires so much movement that it really is easy to dodge out of, unless you were the primary target when it was cast. Now, in PvP, this encounter is easy to dodge/counter, just CC the SW and that is the end of Dreadtheft. Oh, or run in a circle and make sure the beam arches off of you (I think this happens because of a lag issue though). This encounter is the main DPS for most SW's. Hit hits hard and fast while the beam is active and if you jump on the glyph band wagon, you can do some serious damage due to the proc rate of damage tics. CW ray of frost and DC divine beaming abilities target and behave much better than this ability for some reason. Also, the reduced run speed while casting this is a little much. Don't get me wrong, I think you need to be slower when using this ability but compared to a GF moving while blocking...this is a joke. - The curse mechanic and how it reacts with encounters could use a little more thought. I kind of like having to manage the curses on my targets but at times, this gets to be a little overboard it seems. Just my opinion here. I wish a curse did a little more to help the class. I would like to have seen a feat in one of the trees the slows your target when cursed if cursed more than once, then get an added bonus for taking the time to build up before firing off an encounter or daily.
I'm sure other people will have a different opinion than I do and I welcome anyone to voice up their concerns regarding SW. If nothing else it might help the Devs think of some new feats for another class path for SW!
Post edited by luthandrose on
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My thoughts:
We're not very durable, that's true, but we're not that bad either. First of all, fast movement can be a very powerful tool in itself. We have no way of dodging damage, but we have a very good way of staying the hell away from it. Shadow slip can also be used in short bursts to "dodge" cc abilities. Between LS, Regeneration and mobility, defense really isn't that much of a problem. That's how I see it at least. I play a temptation lock, however, so Eldritch Momentum might be giving me a slightly biased perspective.
It's very, very far from being useless, even though I partially agree with you - the animation is way to long, making it cubersome to use sometimes. Despite that, I usually have no problems whatsoever with landing the surge to drop someone on his @ss. Depending on the class I'm facing it just may require a slightly different approach - for example, there are situations when it's better to land harrowstorm but wait a few ticks before cursing. That's because people recognize the ability now and are careful to dodge the surge. Waiting can confuse them, and since the curse is practically instant and can be done while moving, it's a very good way of getting your prone just when you need it.
Dreadtheft's main problem is it's reliance on time and therefore vulnerability to crowd control effects, which may severely lower your damage. That's why harrowstorm is so good - it creates an opening to use DT. Other than that I feel it's more than fine and for an ability with so many uses and effects (deals single target damage, deals aoe damage, debuffs your foe and buffs you) having a weak spot is not so bad.
On this one I agree completely. It's pretty useless as it is.
Things I would like to see changed:
That about sums up my own observations.
There's an artifact weapon to help with that if that's important enough to you.
I play a templock and PVP quite a bit (again not as geared as TS, only around 16k) both of your comments in general seem pretty apt. I think we really will need to wait until at least the first round of class changes that will surely be coming and for a good number of locks to get fully geared for PVP before we get a solid picture of where we stand.
It's an odd class atm as we have a little bit of everything but not really much of any one thing to make us formidable in PVP. All this from the perspective of a Templock who only solo pugs, of course.
So for me it's difficult to identify a particular role that the SW should take in a match (a mixed blessing I guess) and often resort to simply being a pest at far and roaming kills as and when either opportunity or necessity presents itself - I'm feated and slotted for reducing a target's damage output and mobility so can contest 1on1 to a certain extent.
Anyway, I'll keep my input shortish for now. Thanks for starting the topic.
After getting my tenacity up past 900 has been a huge help. I have no BI gear, (just full grim pvp domination HAMSTER) but I can sustain most cw rotations and still live. I only started using pvp potions like 2 days ago! My dum HAMSTER just now figured out that waters artifact can break some cc! my current rotation is harrow, warlock bargain, then killing flame 'em. that almost always kills non melee players if I can get them off.
My deflect is about 1300k, and my def is about 1100. I think that has helped my hugely! 1 week ago before I was full dom gear, a gwf would 3 hit kill my HAMSTER. Now I can live through that rotation.
I'm still under .500 on winning matches, mostly cuz I pug it, and ppl quit way too early, etc, but get a halfway competent grp, and we decent chance. I usually try to camp enemy node too, pulling away help from mid, helping us to at least cap and hold that for a longer period of time.
- wizard/has holds, shields, great aoe and single target and also has the abillity to up its powers
- great weapon fighter/ has great stunsmoves fast and good heals also high def
- g fighter / has lots of prone abillitys super high def and a shield also can move very fast in combat if used right
- cleric/ has good dam good def and can heal at will
- trickster rough/ is always a pain in every ones #%%^ has amazing stealth and great dam witch makes him very dom in pvp
- hunter / i have nothing to say about him iv never played him
- these are some ideas that i think would give some balance to sw for pvp and pve,
- killing flames/ should do full dam to 5 toons no split dam , and maybe root for pvp, the reason i say this is becouse wizard has avalanche and that does full dam to every one it hits
- infernal spheres/ should have a range of 80 and does not fire on it own but has to be fired by the playier and can only hit 3 targets in pvp maybe 5 in pve this would help life steel big time in pvp and pve
- dread theft/ to me this is a big one this power should arc in to more then one toon and should have the animation to match and you should still beable to shadow slip with it
- harrow storm / should add lesser curse or a chance to add it
- hellish rebuke/ should have faster animation and hit more then one target . or it hits one target but hits a max of 3 if they are cursed
- wraiths shadows / should have a big aoe affect with better animation
- blades of van should be treated like a dam shield or have the ability to telaport to the cused target honestly, for me this is the worst power sw has , its are end game power and it only lasts 2 seconds worst power i hope they fix this one most of all .
fiery bolt should have prone and a chance of lesser curseYou guys don't want much do you ! lol
I don't want to break down Theos post too much because he wants to address PVE and PVP and I don;t want to misrepresent his intentions wrt PVP.
In general in PVP we should hope to find ourselves a well balanced class for a given role (still tbh maybe) and not the next OP FotM for a few weeks until the nerf hammer falls. Be realistic if you want to be taken seriously by the community/devs if they are willing to listen, otherwise it's hard to pull out the good suggestions from the desire to be uberpowerful in all situations.
If you want high burst damage you will have to sacrifice something - in this case survivability.
If you want a good CC from an encounter power you can't expect high damage too - and prone is one of the best CCs in the game.