Sea of Moving Ice Svardborg Guide: Group Composition

After introducing to the Powers and Mechanics as well as Phases of the Svardborg Trial, I’d like to conclude the guide by talking about group composition a bit. We’re going through roles and discuss the class viability and usefulness.

Healing

Forget the AC/DC, meet the AA/DC… Currently DC only need to switch one character to fit the new meta! It’s that easy! The formerly not working as intended now massively overpowered Anointed Army catapults Clerics to the most wanted class for the Trial. AA spamming Healers pretty much make the raid largely invulnerable to everything, trivializing the content in the process. Take two of those and forget Parts 1 and 2 of this guide. Because quite franky, you don’t need to pay attention to anything.

Because of that the Devotion Pally currently is not really happening in Svardborg unless there’s really not any DC available. That’s a bit unfortunate because with their great buff/debuff and shielding capabilities they could be a very usefull class.

Tanking

With DCs providing pretty much all the protection you need, tanks are reduced to a full buffing role. Since GFs can also dish out decent damage with the correct builds, they once again fit perfectly next to DCs.

Pallys trail the GF, but not by much. As far as I’m concerned groups still like OPs because they offer great tanking and buff the raid as well. If people have the choice, they still tend to pick GFs, but Prots do not suffer from the same problem than their Devotion friends. Most groups I’ve seen run with a GF in the DPS group and a Pally in the support group.

*** Edit: Draco makes some valid points for OP over GF in the comments, so give it a look. ***

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9NNqnCs0jE” https=”yes”]

Video by Irfaan Khan

DPS

The best DPS currently out there is the GWF, but also the main beneficiary of AA. Normally melees trade greater damage for the risk at operating at the boss. Except that there’s no risk at the moment. Owners of the other classes will probably find arguments why they should be picked and I’m experiencing a healthy mix on the paingiver. So I wouldn’t be too stubborn here. In the end this won’t decide on the success, only on the speed of the completion. Plus if you’re not blessed with permanent AA you need ranged DPS to deal with Winter’s Fury.

The TR still seems the odd DPS out. Not sure what Rogues have to do to get picked these days. It’s not even that they are bad, in fact there are great builds with tons of damage. Just seems that the meta forget them at some point and they really need to severely outperform other classes to enter the landscape again.

Buffing

People are slowly getting that a Master of Flame Renegade Buffer should be mandatory. I’m both seeing more and more groups request a MoF as well as CWs specifically advertising themselves as buffer. If you have solid DPS then not even an additional GWF can top the damage that the buffs of a MoF are generating.

Not as powerful as the MoF a Longstrider HR is still a very decent addition to the team. It will top an additional pure DPS in most situations. SWs can also add sizable buffs and debuffs to the party, but I don’t see them requested a ton. They are still mostly seen as pure DPS.

Best compositions

If I could freely choose near best-in-slot level, I’d roll with two DC, two GFs, four GWFs and two buffers. AA is so powerful that you can just steam through without caring for any mechanics.

Whenever AA will get fixed or you operate closer to the minimum requirements, you have to cover more situations with your group. A DC, Devo OP, GF and Prot OP is a good mix of protection, healing, buffing and tanking. If you have competent GWFs that know how to position themselves and handle Hailburst they should remain the top choice of DPS, but ranged ones can deal with some mechanics much easier. A MoF remains mandatory.

It’s best to build one support group and one DPS group. The support group contains DCs, Pallys and buffers, because their powers affect players in the whole raid. GFs however should be teamed with the DPS since Into the Fray is limited to members of their group.


This wraps up Svardborg guide and I hope it’ll help you guys to beat the challenging encounter. Please post any questions or remarks in the comments below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board.

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

9 thoughts on “Sea of Moving Ice Svardborg Guide: Group Composition

  • December 12, 2016 at 9:47 am
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    “Pallys trail the GF, but not by much.” You got something wrong there. OPs are way better than GFs in SVA since they buff the whole raid and not only 1 group like GFs do.

    • December 12, 2016 at 4:54 pm
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      You forgot GF marking, its worldwide. Unsure if debuff bonus from offhand works outside party. I see often 1 GF per party or GF+OP as tanks, that work nicely. AA spam make whole tanking trivial tho.

    • December 13, 2016 at 2:26 am
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      Thanks Draco! Your comment made me realize I had forgotten an important tidbit about group setup. I like the overall package of the GF better, but you’re very welcome to share your in-depth analysis of GF vs. OP here if you like 🙂

      • December 13, 2016 at 6:31 am
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        So OP is Aura Gifts/Aura of Wisdom/Aura of Courage/Bane (All this skills work for both groups). For GF it is only Mark and crushing pin (and crushing pin only if the GF is a tactician). Into the fray and commander strike only work for 1 group, so basically only 3 damage dealer profit from them if the gf is not a good conqueror.

        Aura Gifts by itself is as insane as Into the fray. Aura Gifts will give a power buff to all companions in range which then gets applied to the player through Bonding’s. To sum this part up. An OP provides way more damage through buffs to the raid then a GF. (To be fair the OP is hardly gear depending, since a high amount of power share is linked to high enchantments. A tactician GF in comparison doesn’t need gear to improve his buffing potential).

        The best group composition from my experience is:
        Group 1= OP, DC, DC, mof cw, good conqueror GF
        Group 2= tactician GF, DC, 3x damage dealer.
        (the one dc from first group can be traded for an additional damage dealer)

        • December 14, 2016 at 11:52 pm
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          Thanks man, I pointed to your comment in the post.

  • December 14, 2016 at 2:31 am
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    The constant talk about GWF’s makes me wonder as a CW, why my dps was never beaten by a GWF through 100+ Msva runs. I can think of a few HR’s and locks raising the same question.

    • December 14, 2016 at 11:52 pm
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      Absolutely. Like mentioned in the post quite a few classes are competitive on the paingiver, which is great.

  • December 14, 2016 at 5:53 pm
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    Why specifically GWFs when CWs and HRs can do as much damage if not more from range? you cannot believe that GWFs are top DPS right?

  • December 15, 2016 at 12:22 am
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    Just like to add that most of the so called MOF debuffers don’t really know what they are doing and they do a bad service to the group that picks them. Bad stats, wrong race wrong enchants etc. They just use th tag “renegade MoF” it to get easier into groups and finish their weapons.

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