Shadow warrior balanced proposal

[anarchypark]

Why would the two have to be related? Kinda grasping at straws here dude.

it's simple question I quoted from first place.
someone asked reason of few changes. I gave ASW related answer.
you disagree and seem to have some insight about it.
so what's ur answer ?
ofc i expect one that not related to asw.

And i answered you, just cause you don't agree/like an answer doesn't make it wrong but I'll answer them all again.

Eye Shot Nerf - this was mainly due to an overwhelming amount of destro whine on forums and the misonception that RKD non-core is too strong; the issue is they never compensated SW for the nerf to the core kit.

Heal debuff nerf - this was pairity with SH where they chose to nerf SW instead of buff SH (and also prevent SW from getting RKD with FtW build in ST cause obviously our ST was too high)

Outrider Patrol -> Ambush - this was because they wanted to add Shatter to sorc's to balance out BW/Sorc WB disparity and to give parity to SW/SH (again, choosing to nerf SW over buffing SH) BUT MSH also retained their 2.4k Big Shootin' M4 from 100 ft with a self-morale pump which was the original balance between the two classes in morale play for large scale

Expert Skirmisher Nerf - this was an overarching nerf to all RDPS classes primarily to combat unintended uses with Engi/Magus with Keg/Magnet/Pet summoning for half speed with no negative effects; this was also the time when Phalanx were running around with UF + ES on their RSH with self pump to get UF within 15s and "bomb" large groups in ORvR wiping zergs over the 7s so SW/SH got no sympathy for losing all their AoE potential.


But you're right, it has everything to do with the ASW changes that happened months after these occurred spurred by a string of Balance Proposals.

I patiently await your next Haiku.

maybe correct question should've been why they stayed that way.

Eye Shot - should melee get RKD at core ? no. asw is reason RKD stays in high invest.
HD - every melee HD are at 9+. some requires more invest. should melee get ranged HD at 6 ? no. so it stays.
m2 - yea let's blame morale bomb meta.
ES - afaik current version is due to technical issue. guess they have to hurry to fix expliot.

so asw is the reason why range trees can't have nice things.
from range PoV, asw's blocking RKD and HD changes.

[teiloh]

melee squigs essentially have a "ranged KD" with horned squig. RKD on SW would not be any worse, especially if it's tied to VON.

[Ugle]

There have been too many replies for me to bother with quoting the right ones.
Instead I will reply and you'll figure out who it was meant for.

First; AOE AA and AOE SS will be WTF OP, and will only need 1 SW per WB.

Well, that would be a 100% increase in SW demand WB wise..

On a more serious note;
Redesigning AA spec investment contribution into a exponential curve would make sure you will not get the top armor debuff unless going fully into scout. You will still have a CD and a limited AOE of 20feet so you probably would need more than one in your WB for full effect.
The same for AOE SS tactic; it will need a CD to not be spammable as it is without, also the limited AOE will ensure it is not game breaking.
You want both in one SW to make roome for "better classes", enjoy them at a reduced level, also SW will then be nothing but a debuffbot, while with the other proposed changes, a less niche specced SW will actually be a dps contribution too, which would make WB leaders want to take more than one.

Will it be good, even very good, yes, definatley, but for SW to have a place in WB you need something very good and rare. Also there is no reason not to add this in some/same form on SH/desto side, so the "will make order OP" argument dosen't stand.

As a last note on this specifics of the proposed AOE armor/heal debuff, it might have some good overall effects;
You need to equip your wb with something to counter it, hey, AM/Shaman suddenly have a purpose beside braindead instaressing/moralepumping (or the handful properly geared/well played ones with FOTG/EOV spec), with their aoe cleanse.

You want to morale bomb, better not stick together too tight for too long because you might just get debuffed and prone to actual dangerous damage.
It might even give a counterplay to the insanely boring morale bomb meta that dumbs this game on a wb level gameplay.
Slayer will become more effective? Well so will anything with physical damage, on both sides, hardly a bad change compared to "pump, pump, navigate, morale bomb"

Secondly, buffing ranged spec without nerfing the overperforming aspects of ASW will indeed make you an overpowered monster.
Reducing effectiveness of shadowstep will only make it a dead skill because of the high placement in the melee path, hence it is better if it goes away.
The class concept and class mechanic suggests you should perform you long/medium/close range fighting, but with slightly different weighting of effectivness based on your spec choices. Not make it a full blown MDPS, like ASW is now, due to no place for necessary tactics for medium/long range efficiency.

The changes proposed to reduce cast time on steady aim will help scout spec the most, skrimish to some extent but assault to a very small extent due to instacast melee abilities so it wouldnt break the class.
In addition it would buff other classes that rely on long cast time and being stationary in orvr and again give them a reason to be picked in a WB/group because of synergies.

Moving around some of the "class defining" abilities, which it seems most of us agree upon, would open up a lot more spec variety which in itself would increase SW viability in smallscale and large scale combat.

Last point that I forgot to add in my initial post ws that stance switching should get a technical redesign to be less clunky than it is today. (remove from GCD or whatever it is that makes it clunky, but keep 5 sec CD IMO)

To those propagating the (ranged) SW is fine, yeah thats why they are abundant in premade WBs, premade smallscale groups etc..

[Manatikik]

Spoiler:

There have been too many replies for me to bother with quoting the right ones.
Instead I will reply and you'll figure out who it was meant for.

First; AOE AA and AOE SS will be WTF OP, and will only need 1 SW per WB.

Well, that would be a 100% increase in SW demand WB wise..

On a more serious note;
Redesigning AA spec investment contribution into a exponential curve would make sure you will not get the top armor debuff unless going fully into scout. You will still have a CD and a limited AOE of 20feet so you probably would need more than one in your WB for full effect.
The same for AOE SS tactic; it will need a CD to not be spammable as it is without, also the limited AOE will ensure it is not game breaking.
You want both in one SW to make roome for "better classes", enjoy them at a reduced level, also SW will then be nothing but a debuffbot, while with the other proposed changes, a less niche specced SW will actually be a dps contribution too, which would make WB leaders want to take more than one.

Will it be good, even very good, yes, definatley, but for SW to have a place in WB you need something very good and rare. Also there is no reason not to add this in some/same form on SH/desto side, so the "will make order OP" argument dosen't stand.

As a last note on this specifics of the proposed AOE armor/heal debuff, it might have some good overall effects;
You need to equip your wb with something to counter it, hey, AM/Shaman suddenly have a purpose beside braindead instaressing/moralepumping (or the handful properly geared/well played ones with FOTG/EOV spec), with their aoe cleanse.

You want to morale bomb, better not stick together too tight for too long because you might just get debuffed and prone to actual dangerous damage.
It might even give a counterplay to the insanely boring morale bomb meta that dumbs this game on a wb level gameplay.
Slayer will become more effective? Well so will anything with physical damage, on both sides, hardly a bad change compared to "pump, pump, navigate, morale bomb"

Secondly, buffing ranged spec without nerfing the overperforming aspects of ASW will indeed make you an overpowered monster.
Reducing effectiveness of shadowstep will only make it a dead skill because of the high placement in the melee path, hence it is better if it goes away.
The class concept and class mechanic suggests you should perform you long/medium/close range fighting, but with slightly different weighting of effectivness based on your spec choices. Not make it a full blown MDPS, like ASW is now, due to no place for necessary tactics for medium/long range efficiency.

The changes proposed to reduce cast time on steady aim will help scout spec the most, skrimish to some extent but assault to a very small extent due to instacast melee abilities so it wouldnt break the class.
In addition it would buff other classes that rely on long cast time and being stationary in orvr and again give them a reason to be picked in a WB/group because of synergies.

Moving around some of the "class defining" abilities, which it seems most of us agree upon, would open up a lot more spec variety which in itself would increase SW viability in smallscale and large scale combat.

Last point that I forgot to add in my initial post ws that stance switching should get a technical redesign to be less clunky than it is today. (remove from GCD or whatever it is that makes it clunky, but keep 5 sec CD IMO)

To those propagating the (ranged) SW is fine, yeah thats why they are abundant in premade WBs, premade smallscale groups etc..

Eh, just from your posting I'm going to assume you don't do too much organized play (smallscale or WB) so a lot of your balance assumptions are rather short sighted for the larger picture/balance impact. This isn't meant as an insult or whatever just an observation about everything about you that I know.

You don't want to increase demand in WB by making it so OP its necessary or single-handily resetting the meta. AoE armor debuff that can be safely applied from 100 ft with Tank level of Armor especially at such a high level will re-define WB play and not in a positive manner. AoE HD brings a similar problem; compounded by the fact that if all healing is reduced for Destro by half and all of Order's healing is amplified by 15-35% due to FM and ED then you can just build a melee train on Order and sit on destro and wipe them before they get their (ridiculously fast) morale drop.

Realistically SW needs a more reliable spammable LA so they can either do some suppression damage (not enough like BW to just kill people) and their Outrider Patrol back so they can meaningfully contribute to the win condition of Order. The goal should be to make taking a SW a non-liability not a must-have great WB component; not everything can be the very best. When balancing you don't want to try to jump ahead several echelons of rank and be top dog; you want to slowly creep your way up to an appropriate and comfortable level.

Your thoughts on ASW are just asinine. Just because you don't like to play ASW doesn't mean you should gut the only functional part of the class that has a very comfortable spot in a niche gameplay - its just pathetic to be quite honest. The notion that the melee spec should be nerfed to justify buffs to ranged is just silly (to put it politely); there is no way to double dip and be too strong ranged/melee with the current layout of Assault masteries and required tactic requirements for both ranged and melee. With a proper redesign of Scout/Skirmish you come up with a variety of spec's where none of them are overpowered and still achieve the same design choice for SW - assist DPS that brings decent secondary damage with excellent debuffs (without being too strong).


Last point that I forgot to add in my initial post ws that stance switching should get a technical redesign to be less clunky than it is today. (remove from GCD or whatever it is that makes it clunky, but keep 5 sec CD IMO)

This one sentence literally invalidates any opinion or thought you could ever have on SW. SW Stance is far from clunky (where as Mara, for some reason, needs fixed to match SW) except for the Stance drop bug in Assault. Stances are off the GCD and are unaffected by CD manipulators. If you don't even know the most basic principles of the how the class mechanic works who the hell are you to propose balance changes or try to pretend you know anything about what the class needs? Please, just stop.

[Ugle]

Making errenous assumptions and jumping to conclusions based on them rarely invites to a constructive conversation

You have one assumption correct, based on my posts, and that is that I would very much like a shift/reduction/correction/counterplay, whatever you would call it, of the morale bomb meta, which I find extremely unrewarding, both for the moraled and the moralee and indeed my proposal regarding aoe HD/AD is a step towards that.

Will it induce that shift by itself, I think not, it might be debatable based on perception and the values on the skills, and if it did, I personally wouldn’t mind, based on my above paragraph, not because “make me OP”.

It’s not the intention to do so singlehandedly by two skills+tactics, moreover the effectiveness could be adjusted by increasing CD/reducing figures of the HD/AD, whatever it takes, the point is to give SW (and SH, or more precisely both realms, something which you conveniently refuse to acknowledge in you reasoning), a reason to be picked in WB.

Your solution being “make LA more efficient, and gief back M2 ranged bomb” for increased wb demand, which I find unimaginatively and dull, and that would as fun and rewarding as bringing back the toggling of KotBS/Chosen auras in terms of gameplay, wouldn’t shift the meta or SW WB demand, because other classes would perform the task better, based on class concept and mechanic.

Regarding your other assumptions, the above should be enough indication why I am not a full time “warbandshltter”, however, that does not mean I do not have enough experience to propose changes that have large scale combat meta consequences.

To your information I have played assault extensively, and I like it a lot, even back before the ASW changes, where you were much more reliant on actually using your stances and ranged skills to soften the target and build morale for M2, which upon it had about the same burst potential as it does now with merciless soldier, albeit for a shorter window of time. And tbh, it took about 30 secs of combat of the first day of release of the current ASW spec to recognize the ASW changes was very close to over the top. That is a subjective opinion of course.

And yes, I mostly solo/duo in the lakes, because that’s what I find the most rewarding given the state of larger scale combat and amount of time to play the game.

About stance mechanic, maybe my choice of words was bad, what I meant was, now this based on assumptions with the aforementioned risks of assumptions; the backend technical application of how stance change works, feels clunky compared to live (again, might be rose tinted memory), but the flow of using skills does not feel the same when changing stances like it did on live, and which is essential since we’re talking about class mechanic.

BTW; Implying lacking cognitive capabilities to understand the ramifications of my proposal is indeed insulting, and the condescending, “I know it all” wording/tone, makes you appear as an a.hole, which I assume, you are not.

[Arthem]

.

I guess excessive fester bombs on both order and des some 2 years ago might've been behind it

No it was a blanket nerf to SH/SW for LA/STY spam in Summer 2017 and to grab other more utility skills such as Magnet/Rift.


@Fox - IDK i think you overestimate what most average players weigh the defensive proc as vs a shorter CD.

@Arthem all of those are decent changes I agree with; My full list of changes (roughly thought up and typed out) are:

Skirmish
• Powerful Draw allows you to AA on the move, ranged, in all stances
• Eye Shot to core
• Flanking shot to 13 point; add a snare component/crit chance reducer
• Shadow Sting back to 5pc
• Barrage to 9 pts with fleeting AoE snare
• Rework Keen Arrowheads into making LA 1s cast, and reduce AP by 5-10

Asault
• Remove the defensive proc on Shadow Step but replace with 5s fleeting speed boost OR reduce to 10s cd
• Swift Strikes now applies a snare immunity/removal for 1s per hit that lands
• Counterstrike does half base damage BUT if successfully interrupts a spell then deals and additional 83% of the original damage (so a successful Counterstrike is 33% stronger than before but a missed Counterstrike is only 50% current damage)
• Reduce Grim Slash AP from 35 -> 25 (consistent with other spammable attacks)
Scout
• Increase Flame Arrows range from 85 -> 100 ft
• Swap No Quarter and Enchanted Arrows
• Increase base damage of Rapid Fire by X%
• Make Festering Arrow undefendable (mirrors Snipe/BoC but keeps lower range due to No Quarter possibilities)
• Increase Range modifier to 25%

General
• Increase all tool tips by X% and an additional Y% on Scout abilities
• Reduce Hunter’s Fervor to 30s CD
• Return Outrider Patrol and remove Ambush

These are all good well thought out calls and I'd support em. I have some experience helping with SW balance as I was asked towards the tail end of live by Mythic / Bioware dev to help them balance the range spec, so I wouldn't back anything I thought would be bad for the class. The key is you don't wanna go overboard we just want to be like the OP said as a master of none but able to bring some beef to the table when played well.

[Arthem]

Revert eye shot back to core. Don't know why it was nerfed.

Revert heal debuff to 6 points. Don't know why it was nerfed.

Revert Ambush morale 2 to Outrider Patrol. Don't know why we lost our best DD morale 2.

Revert Expert skirmisher from requiring a target to apply build reduction. Don't know why our aoe was nerfed.

because of ASW. making them align with other mdps.

As it was mentioned these changes were simply nerfs to the range spec due to illogical complaints at the beginning of RoR. An Engy can currently timestamp just as well as they could when they had UF atm whereas SW can't. Once UF was changed the rest of the nerfs were uneccessary.

Regarding ASW the kd will be 65 feet as they aren't using powerful draw in that spec. Several melee have multiple 65 foot gap closes in addition to root break and charge so it makes little sense to say they shouldn't have range kd. It will not be used in the main toolkit of an ASW anyway except for solo play. The other changes also are also unrelated to melee.

The heal debuff could effect it but as Fenryl said there could be a nerf made to the defensive aspect of 15 point ASW ability to compensate.

[saupreusse]

.

I guess excessive fester bombs on both order and des some 2 years ago might've been behind it

No it was a blanket nerf to SH/SW for LA/STY spam in Summer 2017 and to grab other more utility skills such as Magnet/Rift.


@Fox - IDK i think you overestimate what most average players weigh the defensive proc as vs a shorter CD.

@Arthem all of those are decent changes I agree with; My full list of changes (roughly thought up and typed out) are:

Skirmish
• Powerful Draw allows you to AA on the move, ranged, in all stances
• Eye Shot to core
• Flanking shot to 13 point; add a snare component/crit chance reducer
• Shadow Sting back to 5pc
• Barrage to 9 pts with fleeting AoE snare
• Rework Keen Arrowheads into making LA 1s cast, and reduce AP by 5-10

Asault
• Remove the defensive proc on Shadow Step but replace with 5s fleeting speed boost OR reduce to 10s cd
• Swift Strikes now applies a snare immunity/removal for 1s per hit that lands
• Counterstrike does half base damage BUT if successfully interrupts a spell then deals and additional 83% of the original damage (so a successful Counterstrike is 33% stronger than before but a missed Counterstrike is only 50% current damage)
• Reduce Grim Slash AP from 35 -> 25 (consistent with other spammable attacks)
Scout
• Increase Flame Arrows range from 85 -> 100 ft
• Swap No Quarter and Enchanted Arrows
• Increase base damage of Rapid Fire by X%
• Make Festering Arrow undefendable (mirrors Snipe/BoC but keeps lower range due to No Quarter possibilities)
• Increase Range modifier to 25%

General
• Increase all tool tips by X% and an additional Y% on Scout abilities
• Reduce Hunter’s Fervor to 30s CD
• Return Outrider Patrol and remove Ambush

The idea of giving flanking shot a snare component is not the correct way to approach this. If sw has enough of something its snares and cc. Id rather add an crit dmg mod to it. Also
You dont mention steady aim and acid arrow anywhere. Also the toughness buff in skirm doesnt do anything for the spec. Im still in favor of giving skirm something more useful in this regard. Most of the rest seems reasonable.