Assault Shadow Warrior AoE Detaunt?

[Everdin]

The fact it no longer exists is my point exactly. Healdebuff is placed conveniently to allow it to function as a default, and is indeed mandatory. Had it been at 13pt we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Your point was that the whole tree is not worth speccing, the fact this tactic was replaced by armor pen, which is mandatory to do any damage with skirmish seems not important to your conclusion.

You are 90% of a skirmish SW, is what is written, for obvious reasons I didn't say you don't need a SINGLE point spent, but you really only go for that one thing in there, maybe spec the AoE tactic to be able to hotswap for a funnel or whatever. You may misread or miscomprehend, but you may not alter what I actually wrote.

False re armorpen tactic. You can reach more than sufficient penetration as far as light armor and medium armor is concerned without it. Not least because the options for replacement include +15% conditional damage, which will beat the throughput of more pen on most targets (yes yes, get over it, I get that it's hard to comprehend that penetration has value strictly tied to opposing stats, but please), and a tactic that grants about 9% worth of pen for all physical abilities, which in the context of an assault specced SW isn't an unreasonable thing to bring forth.

In the context of a group you could also reasonably expect both single and plenty of double armor debuffs to be provided that exceed Acid Arrow. Penetration simply goes through various stages from utterly wasted investment to incredible value based on specific target and debuffs present. In most cases where assault+skirmish is concerned and some semblance of group building takes place, you really don't need that 90% pen figure, as you won't be duelling or hitting tanks too much.

Add: Really, I should have pointed to even more of my initial post, but honestly just re-read it. Such a poor attempt lol.

Armor pen tactic is more then a single point spent. There is the possibility of missunderstanding, always.

The 15% damage tactic is tied to nearly melee range, it may be interesting for close behind the enemy chasing, but in a fight you don't want to be this close to a choppa in skirmish stance. Going assault stance on the other side while not at ~5-10ft range removes the ability to auto attack.

Bringing other classes abilities on the table is the dead end, you always can they "but if you have 15 slayers by your side you will get someone dead"

[saiho]

Your point was that the whole tree is not worth speccing, the fact this tactic was replaced by armor pen, which is mandatory to do any damage with skirmish seems not important to your conclusion.

You are 90% of a skirmish SW, is what is written, for obvious reasons I didn't say you don't need a SINGLE point spent, but you really only go for that one thing in there, maybe spec the AoE tactic to be able to hotswap for a funnel or whatever. You may misread or miscomprehend, but you may not alter what I actually wrote.

False re armorpen tactic. You can reach more than sufficient penetration as far as light armor and medium armor is concerned without it. Not least because the options for replacement include +15% conditional damage, which will beat the throughput of more pen on most targets (yes yes, get over it, I get that it's hard to comprehend that penetration has value strictly tied to opposing stats, but please), and a tactic that grants about 9% worth of pen for all physical abilities, which in the context of an assault specced SW isn't an unreasonable thing to bring forth.

In the context of a group you could also reasonably expect both single and plenty of double armor debuffs to be provided that exceed Acid Arrow. Penetration simply goes through various stages from utterly wasted investment to incredible value based on specific target and debuffs present. In most cases where assault+skirmish is concerned and some semblance of group building takes place, you really don't need that 90% pen figure, as you won't be duelling or hitting tanks too much.

Add: Really, I should have pointed to even more of my initial post, but honestly just re-read it. Such a poor attempt lol.

Armor pen tactic is more then a single point spent. There is the possibility of missunderstanding, always.

The 15% damage tactic is tied to nearly melee range, it may be interesting for close behind the enemy chasing, but in a fight you don't want to be this close to a choppa in skirmish stance. Going assault stance on the other side while not at ~5-10ft range removes the ability to auto attack.

Bringing other classes abilities on the table is the dead end, you always can they "but if you have 15 slayers by your side you will get someone dead"

Precisely this aswell, 45ft range is not worth staying within as a Skirmish class if certain melee classes can have burst abilities and KD's at 30ft range. Its way too unreliable, the point you bring up about not being able to AA from Range in Assault stance is another great point as to why SW fails as a hybrid class.

[what63]

Lets go through this

Swift Strikes was okay enough at one point indeed for the movementspeed. Until shadowstep, which in combination with whirling pin was more than enough. That being said, currently the channel gets both 25% crit chance and 50% crit damage from Merciless Soldier unless the "bugfix" was reverted. May still not be better than AAs, all I will say is that it most certainly deals more damage now. Draw Blood also gained both benefits when I tested.

Swift Strikes was good for its utility, which you yourself say until Shadowstep which in combination with whilring pin was more than enough. Well, the shadowstep you say is such a saving grace is the single clunkiest feelsbad ability in the entire game in its current form. It has been nerfed to be slower now, which indirectly nerfed it in 3 ways. You cannot use it as a gap closer anymore, because people walk away from it and you get hit and die during it. It is so slow that when you appear at your target, you apply a mini stun to yourself that yet again lets them walk away from you, which defeats the purpose of a gap closer & also wastes an EXTRA GCD ontop of the GCD you just used pressing shadowstep itself. It is now only usable in POINT Blank melee range for the defensive buff, which also was nerfed from 25% Defensives + 25% Auto attack speed, to just 15% defensives.

As for Swift Strikes, it was good because of its movement speed. Which is also now gone, so shadowstep u cant chase with anymore, swift strikes you cant chase with anymore. You say it deals more damage, it does. But nowhere CLOSE to just spamming Grim slash + auto attacks would get you not to mention the very expensive AP cost of using it only to deal less damage. Draw blood deals good damage but thats it.

Anyways, you're still neglecting to account for the ranged kit

I am not neglecting the ranged kit at all, however the ranged kit for ASW doesnt give ASW much to work with. You keep saying SW is a hybrid class, which by design it should be. But by practicality has never been, not in live, not in this server, not in any balance patch. Not ever. If you spread yourself out too much you accomplish nothing as SW, you need to specialize.

And it was in fact my very first character on live, allthough being a wee teenager at the time the results were so-so :^)

On live, shadow warrior was quite literally the worst class in the entire game hands down no doubt about it, its not even argued its universally agreed that it was so **** wank. The hybrid class didnt matter at all back then

ASW functioned very, very well from the second the initial buffs went live,

It did, ASW was very good after its buffed. But since then, all the buffs have been removed and its actually been just as weak as before the buffs.

You seem to be stuck in a mindset that all you should do as assault, is to ensure that you get to a target, and stick to that target, and if it doesn't die while you are in melee, it's GG.

In no way shape or form am I stuck in the mindset that you should sit in melee, every fight is opened in Skirmish for every ASW to gain an early upperhand. But all your damage is realistically tied into your ASW Stance. UNLESS Youre fighting tanks/choppas which are very easy to kite, but then ASW Is a hard counter to choppas. So the point is null for skirmish there since ASW carries that matchup. The ranged matchups where its supposed to help, it cant do enough to actually be impactful, and you as an ASW cant reach the target or stay on the target due to no MS Buff or root/slow breaks. So you never get out any significant damage before you die. Burst is king in this game, and always has been.

The fact that the ranged kit is capable of far higher damage than it was for years and years isn't a detriment to this playstyle either.

The ability to deal damage matters not if all the damage you deal is padded damage, youre not killing anyone or anything unless you have applicable burst in the current state of the game.

ASW also lacks neither a slow break nor AoE detaunt. Detaunt tactic is perfectly affordable when needed. If you min-max purely for damage, of course you will do only damage. Taking detaunt is a marginal loss in damage

In an absolute best case scenario, going for aoe detaunt tactic. Youre losing 15% of your overall damage in the entirety of your kit, only to use a tactic slot that other classes dont have to. You like to mention that SW is a hybrid class, well DPS DOK Gets AOE Detaunt baked into one of their mandatory tactics, and they are by no means less of a hybrid class. Theyre damage dealers AND healers who can repeatedly heal themselves to max hp. Its an actual hybrid class to SW, it does more than one job, yet doesnt need to suffer the same fate of the taunt.

So why should the melee kit be tooled in a way where these tools take a backseat, as opposed to ensuring you actually use your entire kit?

The entire kit in this case being 3 usable GCD's at the cost of swapping your stance and losing out on all your defensive stats, only to gain no extra offensive stats during the stance. So you had 5 Abilities prior in ASW, now you have 3 extra at the cost of a 5 second CD stance swap. Congratulations, youre now up to 8 abilities that serve a purpose. Still a far cry from any other class if youre specced into ASW. (These 3 being Takedown, acid arrow & broadhead arrow

Magus, Sorc, ranged squig and especially 2h chosen are barely inconveniences in a group setting

This is probably the single most absurd thing ive ever read in my life, Sorc is quite literally THE class that can instantly remove someone from a 6v6 group setting if they are not properly dealt with.

Skirmish is very much capable of engaging in the latter in the context of an actual, capable 6 man. There are so many aspects to this game, just looking at any one of them in a vacumm will get us absolutely nowhere. And the skirmish kit most certainly is competitive in any setting where consistent damage with great mobility and survivability is an objective.

Problem is, in no competitive setting is mobility and survivability the true objective. The ONE Good thing Skirmish brings to a fight, is shadow sting. Which every other spec gets with ease anyways. They provide no actual burst damage in comparison to ASW or Scout. And in this day and age, burst damage is the thing that matters. Padded damage does not mean anything, consistent damage is laughable outside of Warbands. Even then its questionable

Again, won't bother fixing the quote chain

Right, so the fact that skirmish isn't a burster is exactly how it should be. It always was a supplement to a group. You bring CC, healdebuff, self sufficiency and sustained damage, with decent enough burst. Not "I'm gonna go solo kill that DoK while y'all deal with the rest of them fellas!" damage, but this shouldn't even be the case lol, I don't understand what kind of logic lead to this even being the goal for any of the specs it has. It was skirmish for as a support class. With the ASW buffs assault became a valid thing to invest in to increase that personal killing power and burst, it finally had that oneshot oomph skirmish alone lacked, even when not intending to brawl all day long. This was a very good dynamic. Scout was too weak to fill that hole properly, not least because of awfully long cast times. Making scout a wholesale one trick pony was very much detrimental to the experience. At any rate, skirmish by itself, should very much be healable. It already errs too much to the side of being way too high by itself after changes. It very much should be a far wetter noodle than it is.

The buff I'm speaking of is mostly related to just Merciless Soldier. This still exists and is even stronger. The AA buff was ridiculously broken, needed to be tuned down. That was literally enough with the other minor tweaks. Crosscut and all that jazz that came later was just the pumpkin spice in the latte. It's very much not worse than it was pre-2017 lol.

It very much did fulfill the hybrid aspect. I mean I understand that it is desirable to do more, be better, all the time, but something as simple as old skirmish + assault burst was more than enough and indeed far more balanced than most of the implementations we have gotten since. It was just good enough, and had two strong playstyles that managed to complement eachother despite the surface level anti-synergies in the same spec without making you a 100% melee DPS and 100% ranged DPS at all times.

DoK detaunt is significantly shortened, at the very least. But it never should have gotten a free AoE detaunt to begin with. DoK went through a whole period of godhood over the insane changes it received and ultimately had to be brought down aswell, though I still say not sufficiently. It was absolutely monstrous for a minute with a DPS DoK being ran in every single 6v6 we had for months on end, everything from LoB to russians were running it because it simply had no weaknesses. SW should not end up in the same place over loosing its hybrid cost. Messing with classes that excel in untypical areas is always dangerous, and SW is no exception.

Swapping stance allows you GCDs that very specifically provide utility and better damage on the move (outside of edge cases of heavy armor on target I guess). The fact that you also get AAs on the move during the swap is minor, but relevant, as is the crit. BHA being moved out of assault I don't like to be fair, but it is what it is, you get a better setup from doing the dance, and it does enhance non-melee aspects. The dynamic on the whole is fine. Could reasonably argue that making Steady Aim only active in skirmish/scout would go towards furthering this.

Inability to stay on target is again a healthy thing given the rest of the kit, it shouldn't be able to run people down, it should simply be beneficial to enter assault at the right time instead, though I can't help but wonder what kind of friendly group would leave you dead in those scenarios unless severely outnumbered.

As for the sorc thing, it's almost like the detaunt the SW actually gets is incredibly potent at shutting down a rotation that attempts to punt a DPS out from guard as opposed to the other way around :^) Not to mention sorc is still very much just absorb pottable, M1able, cleansable and all other counterplay that does not extend to outright LOSing. Hell, just recently RP got the ability to grant an additional layer of "**** off, sorcs".

Mobility and survivability is always key in more "competitive" groups out in the open. Dying = shame. Tis all about maximizing potential both offensively and defensively, and mobility/dealing with enemy mobility is king here. SW always brought more than just shadow sting in skirmish even when its damage was around half of what it is now, simply because it allowed very rapid target switching, damage on the move, peeling and in general just a lot of flexibility both in terms of kiting, dealing with kiters and the moments where you turned to kill.

[saiho]

Again, won't bother fixing the quote chain

Right, so the fact that skirmish isn't a burster is exactly how it should be. It always was a supplement to a group. You bring CC, healdebuff, self sufficiency and sustained damage, with decent enough burst. Not "I'm gonna go solo kill that DoK while y'all deal with the rest of them fellas!" damage, but this shouldn't even be the case lol, I don't understand what kind of logic lead to this even being the goal for any of the specs it has. It was skirmish for as a support class. With the ASW buffs assault became a valid thing to invest in to increase that personal killing power and burst, it finally had that oneshot oomph skirmish alone lacked, even when not intending to brawl all day long. This was a very good dynamic. Scout was too weak to fill that hole properly, not least because of awfully long cast times. Making scout a wholesale one trick pony was very much detrimental to the experience. At any rate, skirmish by itself, should very much be healable. It already errs too much to the side of being way too high by itself after changes. It very much should be a far wetter noodle than it is.

The buff I'm speaking of is mostly related to just Merciless Soldier. This still exists and is even stronger. The AA buff was ridiculously broken, needed to be tuned down. That was literally enough with the other minor tweaks. Crosscut and all that jazz that came later was just the pumpkin spice in the latte. It's very much not worse than it was pre-2017 lol.

It very much did fulfill the hybrid aspect. I mean I understand that it is desirable to do more, be better, all the time, but something as simple as old skirmish + assault burst was more than enough and indeed far more balanced than most of the implementations we have gotten since. It was just good enough, and had two strong playstyles that managed to complement eachother despite the surface level anti-synergies in the same spec without making you a 100% melee DPS and 100% ranged DPS at all times.

DoK detaunt is significantly shortened, at the very least. But it never should have gotten a free AoE detaunt to begin with. DoK went through a whole period of godhood over the insane changes it received and ultimately had to be brought down aswell, though I still say not sufficiently. It was absolutely monstrous for a minute with a DPS DoK being ran in every single 6v6 we had for months on end, everything from LoB to russians were running it because it simply had no weaknesses. SW should not end up in the same place over loosing its hybrid cost. Messing with classes that excel in untypical areas is always dangerous, and SW is no exception.

Swapping stance allows you GCDs that very specifically provide utility and better damage on the move (outside of edge cases of heavy armor on target I guess). The fact that you also get AAs on the move during the swap is minor, but relevant, as is the crit. BHA being moved out of assault I don't like to be fair, but it is what it is, you get a better setup from doing the dance, and it does enhance non-melee aspects. The dynamic on the whole is fine. Could reasonably argue that making Steady Aim only active in skirmish/scout would go towards furthering this.

Inability to stay on target is again a healthy thing given the rest of the kit, it shouldn't be able to run people down, it should simply be beneficial to enter assault at the right time instead, though I can't help but wonder what kind of friendly group would leave you dead in those scenarios unless severely outnumbered.

As for the sorc thing, it's almost like the detaunt the SW actually gets is incredibly potent at shutting down a rotation that attempts to punt a DPS out from guard as opposed to the other way around :^) Not to mention sorc is still very much just absorb pottable, M1able, cleansable and all other counterplay that does not extend to outright LOSing. Hell, just recently RP got the ability to grant an additional layer of "**** off, sorcs".

Mobility and survivability is always key in more "competitive" groups out in the open. Dying = shame. Tis all about maximizing potential both offensively and defensively, and mobility/dealing with enemy mobility is king here. SW always brought more than just shadow sting in skirmish even when its damage was around half of what it is now, simply because it allowed very rapid target switching, damage on the move, peeling and in general just a lot of flexibility both in terms of kiting, dealing with kiters and the moments where you turned to kill.

I mean I fail to take any of this seriously, I'm sorry but you seem to be situated in a world where the things you're saying actually exist on the server. Where they just dont, and its very common knowledge that it doesnt. Theres a reason not a single person on the entire server runs Skirmish. Because it doesnt work, no matter how much you preach it can accomplish anything you need in a 6 man, in a real world it cannot. and its not because Scout is too strong, most people enjoy the playstyle of Skirmish far more but its just complete dogshit. A Skirmish padding damage on you means nothing, when kills during KD's is all that matters. You cant burst someone in a KD, you cant win. Someones going to pop two regen pots for 10,000 HP regen and a 2k shield ontop of it. And youre running out of AP and using AP pots + M1 just to regen AP back to keep tickling them for no reason. It doesnt work. And you replied to my pin about the Sorcs, but you only focused on how a shadow warrior can counter a sorc with M1. But not that the Sorc can take over the 6v6 where an ASW or Skirmish warrior cant.

Inability to stay on target is NOT a healthy thing, when you dedicate most of your build to being melee, because thats the game. You have to, youre limited on skill tree points. You harp on about hybriding, but in 90% of real situations you can only rely on one part of the kit. Which leaves you as half a class.

You mention mobility & survivability is key in competitive groups, because dying = shame. But you being mobile and surviving, means you cant kill anyone means you cant actually bring anyone to shame or win the fight. And their "peeling" is literally just the slow. Which half the slow is wasted if you instead use VoN To make it a knockdown. Which by the way, is arguably the worst KD in the game after its nerf. Youre sacrificing 2 large cooldowns, and a potential movement slow. Just to get a lousy 2 seconds KD which is a free Unstoppable for the enemy. Its the best KD to get hit by, because it has the smallest window to actually die in. You fit 1 GCD in the KD thats it. This sounds like someone living in a fairytale reality of how they think something functions, when theyre the minority in the face of the majority. Everyone knows Scout is super strong atm, but everyone knows ASW and Skirmish is beyond asswater aswell. Ive spoken to pretty much every single SW Main, or high RR SW and we would ALL like to see Scout get nerfed in favor of buffing Assault AND Skirmish because everyone likes Skirmish more, but its literally so **** bad outside of aoe'ing warbands. If you go Skirmish you lose to a regen pot.

[what63]

You are 90% of a skirmish SW, is what is written, for obvious reasons I didn't say you don't need a SINGLE point spent, but you really only go for that one thing in there, maybe spec the AoE tactic to be able to hotswap for a funnel or whatever. You may misread or miscomprehend, but you may not alter what I actually wrote.

False re armorpen tactic. You can reach more than sufficient penetration as far as light armor and medium armor is concerned without it. Not least because the options for replacement include +15% conditional damage, which will beat the throughput of more pen on most targets (yes yes, get over it, I get that it's hard to comprehend that penetration has value strictly tied to opposing stats, but please), and a tactic that grants about 9% worth of pen for all physical abilities, which in the context of an assault specced SW isn't an unreasonable thing to bring forth.

In the context of a group you could also reasonably expect both single and plenty of double armor debuffs to be provided that exceed Acid Arrow. Penetration simply goes through various stages from utterly wasted investment to incredible value based on specific target and debuffs present. In most cases where assault+skirmish is concerned and some semblance of group building takes place, you really don't need that 90% pen figure, as you won't be duelling or hitting tanks too much.

Add: Really, I should have pointed to even more of my initial post, but honestly just re-read it. Such a poor attempt lol.

Armor pen tactic is more then a single point spent. There is the possibility of missunderstanding, always.

The 15% damage tactic is tied to nearly melee range, it may be interesting for close behind the enemy chasing, but in a fight you don't want to be this close to a choppa in skirmish stance. Going assault stance on the other side while not at ~5-10ft range removes the ability to auto attack.

Bringing other classes abilities on the table is the dead end, you always can they "but if you have 15 slayers by your side you will get someone dead"

Precisely this aswell, 45ft range is not worth staying within as a Skirmish class if certain melee classes can have burst abilities and KD's at 30ft range. Its way too unreliable, the point you bring up about not being able to AA from Range in Assault stance is another great point as to why SW fails as a hybrid class.

The point is more so that it is a synergy that works out decently for the ranges you typically will be around when running in a group. Yes, you won't be trying to stay at just around 45ft in skirmish to cheese it. But it will be there in many a case where you unable to get into the melee, but still have a reason to be doing damage. Essentially it's a very nice boost for ranged abilities in the situations where you want to be melee range, but cannot be, which by all accounts, is a very common thing Crux of the issue is pretty much that the value of this is lost on people.

Yes, armorpen tactic is more than a single point spent, I'm not including it as something you want to run as an assault specced SW at all. I value even paying the cost for Guerilla Training over it for stated reasons.

[saiho]

Armor pen tactic is more then a single point spent. There is the possibility of missunderstanding, always.

The 15% damage tactic is tied to nearly melee range, it may be interesting for close behind the enemy chasing, but in a fight you don't want to be this close to a choppa in skirmish stance. Going assault stance on the other side while not at ~5-10ft range removes the ability to auto attack.

Bringing other classes abilities on the table is the dead end, you always can they "but if you have 15 slayers by your side you will get someone dead"

Precisely this aswell, 45ft range is not worth staying within as a Skirmish class if certain melee classes can have burst abilities and KD's at 30ft range. Its way too unreliable, the point you bring up about not being able to AA from Range in Assault stance is another great point as to why SW fails as a hybrid class.

The point is more so that it is a synergy that works out decently for the ranges you typically will be around when running in a group. Yes, you won't be trying to stay at just around 45ft in skirmish to cheese it. But it will be there in many a case where you unable to get into the melee, but still have a reason to be doing damage. Essentially it's a very nice boost for ranged abilities in the situations where you want to be melee range, but cannot be, which by all accounts, is a very common thing Crux of the issue is pretty much that the value of this is lost on people.

Yes, armorpen tactic is more than a single point spent, I'm not including it as something you want to run as an assault specced SW at all. I value even paying the cost for Guerilla Training over it for stated reasons.

Another thing regarding Guerilla Training, it is not good at all on ASW. It has been extensively tested by ASW Players, on paper it sounds good but in practice once again, it is not. You have 3 mandatory tactic slot, then you need to trade roughly 15% of your Damage for Guerilla Trainings utility. Which sure, it fills our weakness of mobility. So everyones tried it, but it doesnt work the way it works in a scout/skirm setup. Because then you kite, and you stay at ranged. You never once have to really have to change your terms of engagement. It remains the same just with more movement speed.

However with ASW Its completely different, if you swap from ASW into Skirmish to get movement speed to catch up a certain distance to a player thats away from you. Youre still in cooldown to go into ASW, so you could effectively be next to them but you cannot go into ASW to deal damage to them. You slotted this movement tactic to get CLOSE to enemies to be able to use ASW, but youre CD locked from doing so. Even worse, if youre in skirmish to chase down a player with this movement buff, if they turn on you and and CC you. Youre now in skirmish stance with no armor and you die like paper. Its a negative limbo to be in, and in actual gameplay reality. It does not compliment ASW well AT all, DESPITE movement speed being one of the weaknesses of ASW. Any ASW Player thats tested this, like Contract will attest the same.

[Akalukz]

this thread is rich! Please allow my mara to pull people from the loading screens again.

[what63]

Again, won't bother fixing the quote chain

Right, so the fact that skirmish isn't a burster is exactly how it should be. It always was a supplement to a group. You bring CC, healdebuff, self sufficiency and sustained damage, with decent enough burst. Not "I'm gonna go solo kill that DoK while y'all deal with the rest of them fellas!" damage, but this shouldn't even be the case lol, I don't understand what kind of logic lead to this even being the goal for any of the specs it has. It was skirmish for as a support class. With the ASW buffs assault became a valid thing to invest in to increase that personal killing power and burst, it finally had that oneshot oomph skirmish alone lacked, even when not intending to brawl all day long. This was a very good dynamic. Scout was too weak to fill that hole properly, not least because of awfully long cast times. Making scout a wholesale one trick pony was very much detrimental to the experience. At any rate, skirmish by itself, should very much be healable. It already errs too much to the side of being way too high by itself after changes. It very much should be a far wetter noodle than it is.

The buff I'm speaking of is mostly related to just Merciless Soldier. This still exists and is even stronger. The AA buff was ridiculously broken, needed to be tuned down. That was literally enough with the other minor tweaks. Crosscut and all that jazz that came later was just the pumpkin spice in the latte. It's very much not worse than it was pre-2017 lol.

It very much did fulfill the hybrid aspect. I mean I understand that it is desirable to do more, be better, all the time, but something as simple as old skirmish + assault burst was more than enough and indeed far more balanced than most of the implementations we have gotten since. It was just good enough, and had two strong playstyles that managed to complement eachother despite the surface level anti-synergies in the same spec without making you a 100% melee DPS and 100% ranged DPS at all times.

DoK detaunt is significantly shortened, at the very least. But it never should have gotten a free AoE detaunt to begin with. DoK went through a whole period of godhood over the insane changes it received and ultimately had to be brought down aswell, though I still say not sufficiently. It was absolutely monstrous for a minute with a DPS DoK being ran in every single 6v6 we had for months on end, everything from LoB to russians were running it because it simply had no weaknesses. SW should not end up in the same place over loosing its hybrid cost. Messing with classes that excel in untypical areas is always dangerous, and SW is no exception.

Swapping stance allows you GCDs that very specifically provide utility and better damage on the move (outside of edge cases of heavy armor on target I guess). The fact that you also get AAs on the move during the swap is minor, but relevant, as is the crit. BHA being moved out of assault I don't like to be fair, but it is what it is, you get a better setup from doing the dance, and it does enhance non-melee aspects. The dynamic on the whole is fine. Could reasonably argue that making Steady Aim only active in skirmish/scout would go towards furthering this.

Inability to stay on target is again a healthy thing given the rest of the kit, it shouldn't be able to run people down, it should simply be beneficial to enter assault at the right time instead, though I can't help but wonder what kind of friendly group would leave you dead in those scenarios unless severely outnumbered.

As for the sorc thing, it's almost like the detaunt the SW actually gets is incredibly potent at shutting down a rotation that attempts to punt a DPS out from guard as opposed to the other way around :^) Not to mention sorc is still very much just absorb pottable, M1able, cleansable and all other counterplay that does not extend to outright LOSing. Hell, just recently RP got the ability to grant an additional layer of "**** off, sorcs".

Mobility and survivability is always key in more "competitive" groups out in the open. Dying = shame. Tis all about maximizing potential both offensively and defensively, and mobility/dealing with enemy mobility is king here. SW always brought more than just shadow sting in skirmish even when its damage was around half of what it is now, simply because it allowed very rapid target switching, damage on the move, peeling and in general just a lot of flexibility both in terms of kiting, dealing with kiters and the moments where you turned to kill.

I mean I fail to take any of this seriously, I'm sorry but you seem to be situated in a world where the things you're saying actually exist on the server. Where they just dont, and its very common knowledge that it doesnt. Theres a reason not a single person on the entire server runs Skirmish. Because it doesnt work, no matter how much you preach it can accomplish anything you need in a 6 man, in a real world it cannot. and its not because Scout is too strong, most people enjoy the playstyle of Skirmish far more but its just complete dogshit. A Skirmish padding damage on you means nothing, when kills during KD's is all that matters. You cant burst someone in a KD, you cant win. Someones going to pop two regen pots for 10,000 HP regen and a 2k shield ontop of it. And youre running out of AP and using AP pots + M1 just to regen AP back to keep tickling them for no reason. It doesnt work. And you replied to my pin about the Sorcs, but you only focused on how a shadow warrior can counter a sorc with M1. But not that the Sorc can take over the 6v6 where an ASW or Skirmish warrior cant.

Inability to stay on target is NOT a healthy thing, when you dedicate most of your build to being melee, because thats the game. You have to, youre limited on skill tree points. You harp on about hybriding, but in 90% of real situations you can only rely on one part of the kit. Which leaves you as half a class.

You mention mobility & survivability is key in competitive groups, because dying = shame. But you being mobile and surviving, means you cant kill anyone means you cant actually bring anyone to shame or win the fight. And their "peeling" is literally just the slow. Which half the slow is wasted if you instead use VoN To make it a knockdown. Which by the way, is arguably the worst KD in the game after its nerf. Youre sacrificing 2 large cooldowns, and a potential movement slow. Just to get a lousy 2 seconds KD which is a free Unstoppable for the enemy. Its the best KD to get hit by, because it has the smallest window to actually die in. You fit 1 GCD in the KD thats it. This sounds like someone living in a fairytale reality of how they think something functions, when theyre the minority in the face of the majority. Everyone knows Scout is super strong atm, but everyone knows ASW and Skirmish is beyond asswater aswell. Ive spoken to pretty much every single SW Main, or high RR SW and we would ALL like to see Scout get nerfed in favor of buffing Assault AND Skirmish because everyone likes Skirmish more, but its literally so **** bad outside of aoe'ing warbands. If you go Skirmish you lose to a regen pot.

So just right off the bat- there is absolutely no reason for you or any of the people mentioned to be capable of gauging the actual state of a skirmish oriented playstyle, because there is simply no point in not doing scout to a large degree as is. And no matter what you do, your point of reference will be scout. We agree on one thing, and it is that scout needs to be tuned down.

This needs to happen before anything else is even relevant. For as long as you are giving that up, you cannot properly gauge the rest of the kit as it's straight up playing with one hand behind your back relative to your own potential. That doesn't mean that the skirmish abilities benefiting from higher ability damages along with 25% additional crit damage is in any way balanced however.

Anyways, I'm not saying I wouldn't love to see the KD go back to what it was, along with the snare being uncoupled. This is pretty much exactly what I would be advocating. But, I would also be advocating for the damage to be lower. Again, skirmish shouldn't be something that burst anyone in a KD. It should be something that facilitates a full group or even twelve man doing so. Or you know, as noted, supplements the other aspects of the class.

As for masteries, with shadowstep no longer being a 15pt ability, skirmish+assault aren't even remotely starved for masteries. You don't even require RR70 for full build. If RKD were to be moved back to 13pt you would have a point, then it would be back to choosing between RKD and melee KD like we used to have to.

[saiho]

I mean I fail to take any of this seriously, I'm sorry but you seem to be situated in a world where the things you're saying actually exist on the server. Where they just dont, and its very common knowledge that it doesnt. Theres a reason not a single person on the entire server runs Skirmish. Because it doesnt work, no matter how much you preach it can accomplish anything you need in a 6 man, in a real world it cannot. and its not because Scout is too strong, most people enjoy the playstyle of Skirmish far more but its just complete dogshit. A Skirmish padding damage on you means nothing, when kills during KD's is all that matters. You cant burst someone in a KD, you cant win. Someones going to pop two regen pots for 10,000 HP regen and a 2k shield ontop of it. And youre running out of AP and using AP pots + M1 just to regen AP back to keep tickling them for no reason. It doesnt work. And you replied to my pin about the Sorcs, but you only focused on how a shadow warrior can counter a sorc with M1. But not that the Sorc can take over the 6v6 where an ASW or Skirmish warrior cant.

Inability to stay on target is NOT a healthy thing, when you dedicate most of your build to being melee, because thats the game. You have to, youre limited on skill tree points. You harp on about hybriding, but in 90% of real situations you can only rely on one part of the kit. Which leaves you as half a class.

You mention mobility & survivability is key in competitive groups, because dying = shame. But you being mobile and surviving, means you cant kill anyone means you cant actually bring anyone to shame or win the fight. And their "peeling" is literally just the slow. Which half the slow is wasted if you instead use VoN To make it a knockdown. Which by the way, is arguably the worst KD in the game after its nerf. Youre sacrificing 2 large cooldowns, and a potential movement slow. Just to get a lousy 2 seconds KD which is a free Unstoppable for the enemy. Its the best KD to get hit by, because it has the smallest window to actually die in. You fit 1 GCD in the KD thats it. This sounds like someone living in a fairytale reality of how they think something functions, when theyre the minority in the face of the majority. Everyone knows Scout is super strong atm, but everyone knows ASW and Skirmish is beyond asswater aswell. Ive spoken to pretty much every single SW Main, or high RR SW and we would ALL like to see Scout get nerfed in favor of buffing Assault AND Skirmish because everyone likes Skirmish more, but its literally so **** bad outside of aoe'ing warbands. If you go Skirmish you lose to a regen pot.


So just right off the bat- there is absolutely no reason for you or any of the people mentioned to be capable of gauging the actual state of a skirmish oriented playstyle, because there is simply no point in not doing scout to a large degree as is. And no matter what you do, your point of reference will be scout. We agree on one thing, and it is that scout needs to be tuned down.

This needs to happen before anything else is even relevant. For as long as you are giving that up, you cannot properly gauge the rest of the kit as it's straight up playing with one hand behind your back relative to your own potential. That doesn't mean that the skirmish abilities benefiting from higher ability damages along with 25% additional crit damage is in any way balanced however.

Anyways, I'm not saying I wouldn't love to see the KD go back to what it was, along with the snare being uncoupled. This is pretty much exactly what I would be advocating. But, I would also be advocating for the damage to be lower. Again, skirmish shouldn't be something that burst anyone in a KD. It should be something that facilitates a full group or even twelve man doing so. Or you know, as noted, supplements the other aspects of the class.

As for masteries, with shadowstep no longer being a 15pt ability, skirmish+assault aren't even remotely starved for masteries. You don't even require RR70 for full build. If RKD were to be moved back to 13pt you would have a point, then it would be back to choosing between RKD and melee KD like we used to have to.

This is also incorrect, Im not blinded by the strength of Scout since I literally do not play Scout. Ive played every mix of SW Builds that are not scout that there currently is, because I enjoy those builds far more and even the futile attempts to make them work. But both those specs, and the mix of them. Are lacking in general.

They only offer two choices. You go a spec that can burst (ASW) but you cant reach your target to burst. or you go a spec that cant burst, but can always hit a wall (Skirm) You also say we arent point starved in the tree, which technically is true but the only reason we even travel in Skirmish tree at all is Shadow sting bc its the only useful thing that tree offers, everything else is beyond wank unless youre going for aoe in warbands. It contributes absolutely nothing in single target other than Shadow sting, and some aoe dots by themselves aint enough in a smallscale to win a fight. Because like we all know, burst in KD is the way to win anything that isnt a 24 man WB

in a game that revolves entirely around burst. Skirmish runs out of AP before anyone ever gets close to even dying.

I understand that you dont want burst, but the entire game in the current state is centered around burst. Thats not an inherent SW issue, its an issue with the game you must resolve then, because as long as Burst is the only way to actually have an impact. Skirmish will never.

You can start by locking Potions to shared CD's instead of letting people regen over 12k+ EHP with consumables alone. Completely nullifies any consistent dmg build by its own no matter what class you face

[Farrul]

I dont think ASW Lacks damage in any way shape or form, it just lacks utility. Especially after they lost the movement speed on Swift Slashes, or the KD or even the auto attack damage buff on Assault stance list goes on and on.

But one thing I feel is severely overlooked, is an AoE Detaunt for Asasult Shadow Warrior, every other melee has it for a reason. Because you really cannot survive without it, I wonder if theres any way for the devs to implement an AOE Detaunt for ASW WIthout adding it for Ranged SW.

I know they have the tactic for it, but they cannot spare the tactic slot to have something that is already baseline for every other melee


Make it so that you gain AOE Detaunt baseline if you have majority points specced into Assault Mastery Tree?

Give them a new ability thats only usable in assault stance which is an aoe detaunt, but the detaunt debuff goes away on every target once you swap stances? (This ones a bit iffy because u could become very tanky as a ranged SW by sitting in ASW while getting trained.)


Honestly Im not sure exactly how to properly implement something like this without giving it to the other two specs, but I do believe it something that could greatly benefit ASW While also not making them an overpowered mess, because as we know rn. They are pure hot **** garbanzo. Im sure ACTUAL Developers could do a better job than me regarding implementations of things and how their own code works.

ASW lost tons of survivability in the latest WS -> INI change ( more collateral damage that devs do not consider). I mean ASW easily rolls with 900WS in BIS so this was a significant defensive nerf to the spec , but this is just the latest of nerfs that has been going on for years.

Let's think about this.

ASW used to have 4,5-5K armor but then armor talismans were nerfed.

ASW used to have broadhead arrow from Assult stance, then that got removed. Broadhead arrow used to stack 3 x , removed.

ASW 60% auto damage removed in the wakes of the ability rework patch.

Now interestingly with all those added, ASW never was considered afaik OP by anyone at the time. Why? Because ultimately it is a melee --off spec without the necessary melee tools nor any aoe melee capabilities to truly shine.

Hence i think your post ( although i do understand where this comes from , trying to be reasonable) is aiming way to low, ASW is not an acceptable spec at this point in time and aoe detaunt would not do that much to change this, it will still remain the red headed stepchild of the Order DPS choices.

I think what the ASW truly need is a major overhaul in the upcoming dps balance patches.