Shadow Warrior Rework Feedback

[Uchoo]

Hello all. I don't know if there's an official thread for this, so please redirect me if my post is misplaced.

I played my Shadow Warrior from 31 to 40/43 so far post-rework as Scout and here are my results as follows:

Scout is way too strong in midtier. It very consistently kills a person with a 3 ability combination that is very hard to read, very hard to react to and the target dies in about 3 seconds.

Festering Arrow > Rapid Fire > Fell the Weak. You don't need to connect crits. The only reason you use Vengeance is to make Festering undefendable and FtW spirit damage. So if you want to kill tanks (Yes this spec will kill a tank, add an extra Fester or Rapid Fire as needed) then add in VoN before the rotation.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png Fairly typical result of a scenario where Scout can have free reign; Black Fire Basin, Toonfish and I were both Scout.

https://i.gyazo.com/thumb/1200/b0034592 ... 2c-png.jpg Damage potential; This one was Rank 32 SW against a Magus. The results don't vary much, the crits didn't matter, Broadhead didn't matter, VoN was not active. Note the timestamps and order in which the abilities hit. The Modus Operadi for achieving a 2s kill from their PoV like this is as follows: Identify target selected for extermination, Cast Festering Arrow > Immediate follow up with Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire's first hit and auto attack will hit first, Festering Arrow will hit. If target hits 30% or lower and you are predicting target might react with a potion or a healer will react in the next 1 second, immediately interrupt with Fell the Weak. Rapid Fire is enough damage on very soft targets, so you can hold Fell the Weak. Every one of these hits will also apply Glass Arrow. This is a 5-6s rotation for the caster, but the damage hits in 2-3 seconds.

You are achieving near maximum potential on Festering Arrow with some Ballistic talis due to Bolster in midtier.

The easiest way to fix this in my opinion is to give Glass Arrow and Festering Arrow weapon DPS scaling and rebalance around that. Festering Arrow goes from being a 30-60% HP chunk to just okay at 40 in gear. As far as I have seen, it has 0 weapon dps scaling but very strong ballistic/ranged power scaling. I have an idea that the weapon rework coming up is being done in part to address some of these kinds of issues but I won't be presumptuous and assume as much.

Steady Aim I'm very unsure about. The drawback is very large and I would personally rather see it as a cooldown that applies to the next few attacks with no drawback, or a proc effect; or even better, an ability that give the class a stronger tool against block and/or dodge. A little history of Steady Aim: Shadow Warriors had very slow flight times on live because you fired your abilities, hit Steady Aim while they were in the air and never suffered the drawback. Shadow Warriors here didn't like the long flight times (even if they offered advantages at times) so they are much faster now. I tried using it twice and it made my damage way too easy to outplay so it wasn't worth it. That being said, 25% crit damage is a lot of damage and if someone has an efficient way to make it work, please let me know.

40 has been okay thus far, Scout is still a 110 foot spec, which is far shorter than Engi/Magus and they have Undefendable attached to their main attack. It's a bit harder to be as successful but the rotation is still very, very effective at the medium 110 foot range against targets with low dodge/block and armor mostly because it is very, very fast damage and there's no way to predict it with a leading DoT attack or something like that.

Some Establishing Facts:

One of the biggest problems that classes with targeted aoe have (and part of the reason why BW/Engi and their counterparts have been so strong) is that unlike live, targeted AoE abilities do not AoE if the first target avoids the attack. If you fire Flame Arrow at a tank and he blocks/dodges, the attack does nothing and does not try to affect other targets. I haven't tested to a point of certainty, but I'm pretty sure that Spiral-Fletched Arrow and Broadhead Arrow with the AoE tactic respect the same rule. RoR has much higher avoidance than we ever saw on live, even from very low gear and RR, so this problem is compounded. Engineers can apply Pierce Defenses easily due to their ground target effects not following the above rule, which is probably balanced because Destro shield tanks tend to have much higher avoidance, but a Shadow Warrior can't apply PD too easily, Lileath's is a 5s cooldown now at 65 feet and Barrage is 40 feet. Squigs I believe still have 0s CD Shoot Thru Ya at 65 feet so that's Destro's best option to apply PD.

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other regarding those statements, they are just establishing facts.

TL;DR: I would recommend weapon dps rebalancing on Festering Arrow and Glass Arrow to make the spec not so overpowering in midtier and perhaps a bit stronger in late game; Allowing targeted AoEs to apply their effect regardless if the initial target avoids the attack might be a welcome test; It might be worth considering an option to have a stronger way to deal with massive amounts of block/dodge to the Shadow Warrior as well.


Thanks for the read and sorry for the hastily constructed wall of text,

Uchoo

Edit 1: Grammar and Clarification

Edit 2: More Grammar, more clarification

[Kobra]

It's generally felt to be overpowered in every tier.

Tier 1 people have around 2K HP, the SW spam ticks for around 500 (for every SW). So figure out how long fights last there... 5 seconds is a bit generous. All of the way up to tier 4 it's OP. It's also why dest is getting bullied right now. As your screenshot shows, actual RDPS classes are being 3, 4 even 6 times overpowered by SW in terms of raw damage on most encounters.

So now everyone is rushing to find specs to deal with SW's, and suddenly they are respeccing/allocating gear away from a setup designed to survive WL's and in the process now giving WL's that are still playing op WL's and not the grossly op SW's a free lunch. Dest is getting pounded right now by what is a pretty grossly op synergy (WL/SW/SM). People can make excuses for the declining pop of the game all they want, but when frustration reaches a crescendo like this, something has to give..

But I do appreciate you coming here and explaining why you, as an SW, feel it is quite substantially overtuned right now. Thank you.

[Illuminati]

It's generally felt to be overpowered in every tier.

Tier 1 people have around 2K HP, the SW spam ticks for around 500 (for every SW). So figure out how long fights last there... 5 seconds is a bit generous. All of the way up to tier 4 it's OP. It's also why dest is getting bullied right now. As your screenshot shows, actual RDPS classes are being 3, 4 even 6 times overpowered by SW in terms of raw damage on most encounters.

So now everyone is rushing to find specs to deal with SW's, and suddenly they are respeccing/allocating gear away from a setup designed to survive WL's and in the process now giving WL's that are still playing op WL's and not the grossly op SW's a free lunch. Dest is getting pounded right now by what is a pretty grossly op synergy (WL/SW/SM). People can make excuses for the declining pop of the game all they want, but when frustration reaches a crescendo like this, something has to give..

But I do appreciate you coming here and explaining why you, as an SW, feel it is quite substantially overtuned right now. Thank you.

This aligns to the imbalance right now of Order having more burst classes. Destro have 2 (Sorc/WE), whereas Order have 5 (BW, SW, WL, WH, Slayer w/ID ticks). There was an imbalance to AoE but that was recently corrected and is more closely aligned (Order has better stationary AoE, Destro Mobile AoE). Hope these are corrected soon as players are leaving due to lack of fun in all areas of gameplay due to these imbalances.

[Uchoo]

I main destro and only do city on Destro as those toons still need gear. What do you guys find overpowered about the Shadow Warrior in t4? Every Broadhead stack is removed with 1 cleanse so we haven't been too initimidated by it thus far. Triple Broadhead absolutely does ridiculous damage if left unchecked, probably too much damage, but the fact that a cleanse deletes all 3 stacks goes a long way.

[Adelmar]

I main destro and only do city on Destro as those toons still need gear. What do you guys find overpowered about the Shadow Warrior in t4? Every Broadhead stack is removed with 1 cleanse so we haven't been too initimidated by it thus far. Triple Broadhead absolutely does ridiculous damage if left unchecked, probably too much damage, but the fact that a cleanse deletes all 3 stacks goes a long way.

I'll admit that the SW got maybe a couple of buffs due to the rework but basically everything else was a nerf in some sense. The people complaining about them now are the exact types that are doing so due to blatant biases (some of those people are actually advocating for MSH buffs...that should tell you enough) or they simply are completely ignorant to how the class played before and after. Personally, I'd be happier with a re-do at this point as I think it'd actually be easier to tweak them from where they were compared to where they are now.

[Kobra]

I'll admit that the SW got maybe a couple of buffs due to the rework but basically everything else was a nerf in some sense.

Now I've heard it all... Spinning this dramatic overtuning into a nerf?

I thought it was hilarious when I logged into order and found Knacks and Angelfuram saying DPS-AM's need a major buff.

Order really does live in an alternate reality, which appears to have some official support to encourage this myopic view.

[Illuminati]

I'll admit that the SW got maybe a couple of buffs due to the rework but basically everything else was a nerf in some sense.

Now I've heard it all... Spinning this dramatic overtuning into a nerf?

I thought it was hilarious when I logged into order and found Knacks and Angelfuram saying DPS-AM's need a major buff.

Order really does live in an alternate reality, which appears to have some official support to encourage this myopic view.

I think Contract (SW), whom I respect, is probably referencing the range nerf to their heal debuff, etc. and the fact the changes were broad and not focused on the core issue (WB AoE).

[Uchoo]

I don't know if Shadow Sting's range was part of the plan with the rework, or an oversight; but I think I completely agree with it. I would feel very, very powerful if I also had a heal debuff in my long range toolkit. That said, I'm far less experienced at endgame SW, I haven't done it since live; I understand Order lacks on heal debuffs and that's a large draw of the Shadow Warrior.


Scout spec no 98ft heal debuff? No problem.

[Mazdryk]

The class is ridiculously OP all tiers. I dusted off my SW and was an instant SC hero. Broad head arrow stacking 3X is just insane considering it was already one of the strongest Dots in game. Glass arrow and rapid shot just drops people before I can even target them for a heal or guard. Their damage needs to be nerfed hard. I went from enjoying destro to hating destro because of this one class.

[shadowcraft22]

Now I've heard it all... Spinning this dramatic overtuning into a nerf?

It most certainly IS a nerf. But you wouldn't notice if you don't actually play skrimisher SW. While the flat damage increase is a buff, changing powerful draw from +50% range to 25% armor pen was a huge nerf. maybe after you hit 40 all you care about is fighting City, But the rest of the time all other SW are pvping, we are doing it in open field and sieging forts. Taking a range increase talent from a RANGED class is the worst part about this change. Doubly so because they rolled a pointless flat damage increase in with it. So you get plebs cheering for the change and people complaining about it who don't have any clue about the class. PLEASE stop buffing classes just it has a bad reputation. People repeat memes they've heard without actually trying the class. Anyone who gives SW an honest chance will find that the class is fine.

Without the 50% range increase offered by Powerful Draw, SW are now forced to put themselves in increased danger just to deal these aoe moves, whereas before you only had to close to 97 meters away. This prevents you from aoeing ramparts and harassing groups in the open field. Now you are forced to close an additional 32yards to dot or aoe with skrim skills. What's the point of having a flat 25% armor pen if i die on the way in, or on the way out while using it? Ruining the aoe spec and forcing all SW into the single target role is not a solution.

Shadow Warrior was Fine. Stop changing the game to suit a meta that only concerns 5% of the game. This is what ruined wow, when they started balancing pvp around arena only.