Great Sword Build @ 51: Feedback greatly appreciated
I had tried the same thing around your lvl and found that putting points into wilderness and nature magic to boost toughness and vitality so you are not nearly as squishy. This sacrifices the damage from marksmanship and skirmishing. In turn you are much tougher and get a few traits aimed at the greatsword. If you choose the nature magic major trait that grants 5%vitality as a bonus to power then the damage loss I s offset quite a bit. I don’t mind the lower damage but ymmv. I hope this was helpful.
I agree with Lorian.4028. Toughness and vitality will make melee combat not nearly as punishing, plus you get the benefit of traits that are geared towards melee combat (X in WS and IX in NM).
I’d use Sharpening Stone, Quickening Zephyr, and Lightning Reflexes along with Wilderness Knowledge and you’ll have pretty good up time on all three of those abilities. Troll Unguent is a good heal, but I personally prefer Healing Spring for the combo field, but to each his own.
Right now I’m running pure melee for fun and have been able to successfully solo swarm events including some in Orr, and its just MAD FUN. I run with greatsword and sword/torch and it’s an amazing complement to each other, crazy AoE and dps. like one big storm of havoc, and lots of mobility, swooping, evading, and two longer range throws and aoe combos like fire aura. In terms of skills I have, usually I run with Signet of Wild, Signet of Renewal to make sure I survive those tougher swarms and throw in something that works for the situation, i believe we all just switch skills for necessary situations. a good trap like spike for cripple effects, or chill, if i’m dealing with a lot of swarms, but lightning reflexes or zephyr if there are fewer numbers but like something stronger. Entangle for those swarms, but hounds of balthazar if I need more damage to be dealt, rampage if i’m against things with knock down and other effects. Vets are quite fast to take down with ranger melee actually.
My build is right now 25, 25, 5, 15, 0 something like that with full berserker gear and weapons that are power/precision/crit. Yeah I was building a dps power but also survivability build rather than doing anything for my pet. However, this way my pet actually doesn’t die often because I am right along side it doing tons of damage and clearing out mobs faster before they actually threaten us. I just pet swap when they’re in trouble or if i also need healing just pop the heal as one.
What I’ve found from experience is that you need vit rather than toughness though toughness traits have great skills. But just for the vit… Comparing pets, for example, i’ve seen that a toughness pet would die faster than a vit bear, however, my wolf, which has powerful attack, actually is durable bc it kills things off relatively fast. I’ve seen it tank like six mobs at once before and with little bit of healing came out unscathed. Comparatively, from experience and when talking amongst friends, players who has lots of toughness but no vit also dies fast around me in pve events while you can remain as last one standing.
Somehow, going melee with ranger actually helped me survive longer than with a long range set up from experience. So my personal opinion is if you are going melee or going to take lots of damage, up your vit, but meanwhile, boosting your power and precision to make sure you don’t have to stand off for so long. I usually stay long range if i need a long stand off. like bows for champs/dungeons.
:P That’s just how I’m playing right now and it’s mighty fun, so mobile and so much dps, it appears almost as if you clear mobs as fast as a warrior or another class built for dps. and we know how much super fast dps they have…
(edited by takatsu.9416)
Right now I’m running pure melee for fun and have been able to successfully solo swarm events including some in Orr, and its just MAD FUN. I run with greatsword and sword/torch and it’s an amazing complement to each other, crazy AoE and dps. like one big storm of havoc, and lots of mobility, swooping, evading, and two longer range throws and aoe combos like fire aura. In terms of skills I have, usually I run with Signet of Wild, Signet of Renewal to make sure I survive those tougher swarms and throw in something that works for the situation, i believe we all just switch skills for necessary situations. a good trap like spike for cripple effects, or chill, if i’m dealing with a lot of swarms, but lightning reflexes or zephyr if there are fewer numbers but like something stronger. Entangle for those swarms, but hounds of balthazar if I need more damage to be dealt, rampage if i’m against things with knock down and other effects. Vets are quite fast to take down with ranger melee actually.
My build is right now 25, 25, 5, 15, 0 something like that with full berserker gear and weapons that are power/precision/crit. Yeah I was building a dps power but also survivability build rather than doing anything for my pet. However, this way my pet actually doesn’t die often because I am right along side it doing tons of damage and clearing out mobs faster before they actually threaten us. I just pet swap when they’re in trouble or if i also need healing just pop the heal as one.
What I’ve found from experience is that you need vit rather than toughness though toughness traits have great skills. But just for the vit… Comparing pets, for example, i’ve seen that a toughness pet would die faster than a vit bear, however, my wolf, which has powerful attack, actually is durable bc it kills things off relatively fast. I’ve seen it tank like six mobs at once before and with little bit of healing came out unscathed. Comparatively, from experience and when talking amongst friends, players who has lots of toughness but no vit also dies fast around me in pve events while you can remain as last one standing.
Somehow, going melee with ranger actually helped me survive longer than with a long range set up from experience. So my personal opinion is if you are going melee or going to take lots of damage, up your vit, but meanwhile, boosting your power and precision to make sure you don’t have to stand off for so long. I usually stay long range if i need a long stand off. like bows for champs/dungeons.
:P That’s just how I’m playing right now and it’s mighty fun, so mobile and so much dps, it appears almost as if you clear mobs as fast as a warrior or another class built for dps. and we know how much super fast dps they have…
This is fantastic and thank you very much for spending the time to write it. I am excited to try this build. The hardest thing for me will be to give up my bow for the second weapons set after using it for 50 levels, but I really want a change and I think this is exactly what I need.
(edited by Callim.2981)
I had tried the same thing around your lvl and found that putting points into wilderness and nature magic to boost toughness and vitality so you are not nearly as squishy. This sacrifices the damage from marksmanship and skirmishing. In turn you are much tougher and get a few traits aimed at the greatsword. If you choose the nature magic major trait that grants 5%vitality as a bonus to power then the damage loss I s offset quite a bit. I don’t mind the lower damage but ymmv. I hope this was helpful.
Thanks I will try this! You were very helpful.
(edited by Callim.2981)
I agree with Lorian.4028. Toughness and vitality will make melee combat not nearly as punishing, plus you get the benefit of traits that are geared towards melee combat (X in WS and IX in NM).
I’d use Sharpening Stone, Quickening Zephyr, and Lightning Reflexes along with Wilderness Knowledge and you’ll have pretty good up time on all three of those abilities. Troll Unguent is a good heal, but I personally prefer Healing Spring for the combo field, but to each his own.
I will have to look into the combo field for healing spring, I am very ignorant at times at how those work. Thanks for the tips!