help assault SW

[Deadpoet]

Hi there, i know some of you would advice to simply RESPEC. But I want to try this melee tree.

right now I am r32 rr26 3 piecdes stalker and rest green Echelon gear (my sowrd does only 36 dps). My idea is a defensive SW with defensive stats, so I specced wounds and parry in renown. My plan is to provide the ofrensive stats with tactics (wrist slash, also the one that gives str weapon skill and bal and takes away toughness). All my gear si slotted with armor talis (lvl 16 blue and green ones) currently I have 81% armor mitigation in the tooltip.

My problem is I am being parried A LOT against mdps. Like parry/parry/parry/parry.... I can hardly connect a blow. I have that tactic taht debuffs enemy chances to block/dodge/parry by 15% when they defend an atatck, but it seems to do nothing.

I guess the problem is my low str (500ish), not enough to bypass mdps with high parry. or maybe I am encountering enemies that love to pop their confusing movements morale 1 on me.

Any clues?

[daniilpb]

1) Parries - you need atleast 600+ str to bypass mdps parry rate.
2) 32lvl 40rr max - you have no tactic for this one: bal. skills and ws - toughness. At this stage of the game there are no possibilities for real Assault sw. One thing u can do is use this one at 32-40 http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sw; ... :;;0:0:0:0: (fu*ing SS at 10 points ruins builds a lot)
3) With your stats you will die as random mdps, but did dmg like WP in heal spec. Does it worth?
4) There is no real interesting gameplay for sw with switching stances today because of nerfs, 10 points SS and max lvl. It makes me very sad btw.
Today sw is lower then any random rdps and worse then any mdps in assault spec.

Spoiler:

#QQ
#prayforsw
#elfshate

[Reesh]

You've typed out the problem right there. You need to respec your renown, so that you'll have capped STR. You need to have STR at above 800 (with a potion) no matter what, assault stance switches BAL to STR from items, so try to get as much BAL on your gear as possible until capped.
My proposal of a build is here:

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sw; ... 0:;0:0:0:0:

You need to increase your dmg potential as shown in terms of tactics, you can however be defensive with your talismans, so slotting armor ones are a good choice, HOWEVER:
Assault stance doubles your armor, right? But did you know, that armor debuff that someone puts on you, also has it's amount doubled?
Example: You've got 3000 armor, SH places his armor debuff on you with amount of -700 armor, but stance makes it to -1400 as it's doubled, so you're back to being squishy once again.

Basically, as an Assault SW you're good vs classes that can't kite you out and melee without armor debuff. Your best bet is to Solo and best enemies would be choppas specced into Furious choppin, as Counterstrike destroys them. Counterstrike also is effective vs melee doks, sorcs that are still channeling abilities close to you and 2h BO, with their dmg channel.

In terms of rotation, start with broadhead arrow, followed by takedown. If it's a healer use shadow sting and keep it constantly on a target, especially when he's getting healed. If the target is melee don't use eye shot, and use opportunistic strike as it has 1 second longer cripple factor.
Open with Draw blood, then pop up VoN and spike enemy with Brutal assault as long as you can.
Watch out for channeling especially in classes i typed in above, If they're doing one - counterstrike, if counterstrike is on cooldown you either use swift strikes, if you think you can drain him down with it, if not Whirling pin. Then you have a bit more distance to use Acid arrow with eye shot quickly, and then you return back to rotation.

If you will achieve the tankiness through gear, always remember to bring good potions: armor potion as a must, ballistic one, and heal pots, especially those that heals you by a lot over time.
Hope that helped a bit.

[daniilpb]

You've typed out the problem right there. You need to respec your renown, so that you'll have capped STR. You need to have STR at above 800 (with a potion) no matter what, assault stance switches BAL to STR from items, so try to get as much BAL on your gear as possible until capped.
My proposal of a build is here:

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=sw; ... 0:;0:0:0:0:

You need to increase your dmg potential as shown in terms of tactics, you can however be defensive with your talismans, so slotting armor ones are a good choice, HOWEVER:
Assault stance doubles your armor, right? But did you know, that armor debuff that someone puts on you, also has it's amount doubled?
Example: You've got 3000 armor, SH places his armor debuff on you with amount of -700 armor, but stance makes it to -1400 as it's doubled, so you're back to being squishy once again.

Basically, as an Assault SW you're good vs classes that can't kite you out and melee without armor debuff. Your best bet is to Solo and best enemies would be choppas specced into Furious choppin, as Counterstrike destroys them. Counterstrike also is effective vs melee doks, sorcs that are still channeling abilities close to you and 2h BO, with their dmg channel.

In terms of rotation, start with broadhead arrow, followed by takedown. If it's a healer use shadow sting and keep it constantly on a target, especially when he's getting healed. If the target is melee don't use eye shot, and use opportunistic strike as it has 1 second longer cripple factor.
Open with Draw blood, then pop up VoN and spike enemy with Brutal assault as long as you can.
Watch out for channeling especially in classes i typed in above, If they're doing one - counterstrike, if counterstrike is on cooldown you either use swift strikes, if you think you can drain him down with it, if not Whirling pin. Then you have a bit more distance to use Acid arrow with eye shot quickly, and then you return back to rotation.

If you will achieve the tankiness through gear, always remember to bring good potions: armor potion as a must, ballistic one, and heal pots, especially those that heals you by a lot over time.
Hope that helped a bit.

Facepalm. Did you ever play SW at this server? Seems not. First of all Shadow Sting is !10 points! ability.
Next: any proofs about armor debuff increase in stance? I dunno, so just interesting.
Then imho losing points in Swift strikes and Sinister Assault isn't worth it today.
Also another thing: what about AP with your tactics? Without Replenishing Strikes I mean?
For theory crafting your post is not bad, but for reality of the game...

Some videos with Assault gameplay: http://youtu.be/x4ZNevQ4P1Q
http://youtu.be/KiwZPZPq4Tc
They are old but can show some tricks

[Reesh]

Oh I did forgot that Shadow Sting was so high in the tree! Then forget about this one exact stuff and get higher into assault tree in terms of mastery points.
About armor, It was a core issue from live and from what I know, it still exist here.
If ap would be a problem, pickup merciless soldier and run it. Hunters fervor also helps. Although with all +AP gear, which half of them are dirt cheap on AH, I don't see how it would be that much problematic.

You're right, I do not run as SW on RoR, but it was a class that I spend most of my time on Live servers, a lot of game days.

Overall, assault builds doesn't suit SWs in T3, as mastery points are missing to get crucial skills. I'd say that tree is a gimmick atm.
In T4 that might be viable once again.

[MyKingdomForAHorse]

Interesting thread. I recently changed my shadow warrior and am now running with an assault build. And actually, I've never been able to murder so many destruction in my life, although that could say more about my inabilty to kite, but I stray

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've found that the shadow warrior functions quite nicely in close combat. They sting like wasps but you have to try and make the kill fairly quickly while your vengeance buff is active and your DoTs are working their magic. They do get ground down in prolonged fights.

First thing I did was slot as many purple armour talismans in to my armour as I could find. In assault stance, with half-decent armour, this should provide atleast 85% physical damage mitigation thanks to the +100% armour from items. I aim for just as much, if not more armour than a tank.

Add as much wounds/toughness/ballistic skill as you can in the way of accessories, and then ballistic skill talismans in your weapons. This BS gets converted to strength.

I then levelled up the assault tree, taking any useful close combat tactics and buying exploit weakness. My renown points were spent on the the parry skills and then the rest on weapon skill.

So the plan when I see somebody of which I don't like the look, is to first use acid arrow to dent their armour, then broadhead arrow. Then use the vengeance buff. Once they are close enough, smack them down to the floor with exploit weakness and immediately use draw blood. After that a brutal assault or 2 (with the tactic that ignores armour) and a combination of grim slash. When fighting enemies with long cast times or continuous abilities (like the choppa) make liberal use of counterstrike to shut them up.

Once they get back to their feet, opportunistic strike disarms them and you have a few more seconds in which to chip away at them.

And so it goes from there.

Most of the time it's merely a case of taking away their ability to strike back. Using exploit weakness and opportunistic strike with each other, you can render them weaponless long enough to deal some pretty awful damage while suffering not much in return. Although you do have to focus and pace yourself as the abilties that let you knock down and disarm have cooldowns.

Magic users still tend to make a mess of you since you have concentrated so much on countering foes with physical weapons Haven't yet worked out how to deal with shamans yet.

[Reesh]

Interesting thread. I recently changed my shadow warrior and am now running with an assault build. And actually, I've never been able to murder so many destruction in my life, although that could say more about my inabilty to kite, but I stray

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've found that the shadow warrior functions quite nicely in close combat. They sting like wasps but you have to try and make the kill fairly quickly while your vengeance buff is active and your DoTs are working their magic. They do get ground down in prolonged fights.

First thing I did was slot as many purple armour talismans in to my armour as I could find. In assault stance, with half-decent armour, this should provide atleast 85% physical damage mitigation thanks to the +100% armour from items. I aim for just as much, if not more armour than a tank.

Add as much wounds/toughness/ballistic skill as you can in the way of accessories, and then ballistic skill talismans in your weapons. This BS gets converted to strength.

I then levelled up the assault tree, taking any useful close combat tactics and buying exploit weakness. My renown points were spent on the the parry skills and then the rest on weapon skill.

So the plan when I see somebody of which I don't like the look, is to first use acid arrow to dent their armour, then broadhead arrow. Then use the vengeance buff. Once they are close enough, smack them down to the floor with exploit weakness and immediately use draw blood. After that a brutal assault or 2 (with the tactic that ignores armour) and a combination of grim slash. When fighting enemies with long cast times or continuous abilities (like the choppa) make liberal use of counterstrike to shut them up.

Once they get back to their feet, opportunistic strike disarms them and you have a few more seconds in which to chip away at them.

And so it goes from there.

Most of the time it's merely a case of taking away their ability to strike back. Using exploit weakness and opportunistic strike with each other, you can render them weaponless long enough to deal some pretty awful damage while suffering not much in return. Although you do have to focus and pace yourself as the abilties that let you knock down and disarm have cooldowns.

Magic users still tend to make a mess of you since you have concentrated so much on countering foes with physical weapons Haven't yet worked out how to deal with shamans yet.

So that's basically what I've wrote, everything almost the same. I'm glad then, that not much has changed from live that I played on

About Shamis... What's bad for an Assault SW vs them is their ability to kite. At this point it will be hard, really hard. Basically good shami will kill any class he wants to be honest, BUT, you'll stand more chances at 35r, when at this point SWs have access to 4s ranged silence, which helps tremendously against magic users.

Overall get some decent AP pots from AH, and when he puddles you, snare or knockdown him immidiately, or both, use flee to escape the puddle and get close to him back for combat, while drinking AP pot. Also, carry with yourself good pots that heals you over time, as that's where shamis dmg come from - slowly draining you down while constantly kiting, so you negate that for at least 15s with decent potion.