ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

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Nebuchadnezzar
Posts: 45

ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#1 » Thu May 28, 2020 2:58 am

While obviously not as desired/viable in large scale PvP as melee SH, Assault SW still brings some interesting debuffs, tools and burst to the table that make it fun and useful in smaller scale PvP. However, it struggles much more than the many other melee classes I've played(tanks and MDPS) with maintaining melee range to the point of almost being painful at times.

This stems from a few factors:
  • Shadowstep is awkward as a gap closer ability as it travels to the enemy's initial rather than current location and has a slow travel time relative to Pounce etc. This frequently leads to the scenario where on moving targets you end up a fair bit behind their current location when the ability ends, which can make it difficult to close the last few feet to melee range
  • It lacks access to a reliable melee range slow to help with maintaining melee range, meaning that even if Shadowstep gets you there initially it's easy to lose melee range for whatever reason. In contrast, all other melee classes have some form of reliable 40% movement speed slow in their kit to help them with this issue(mSH included)
  • Lastly, it does not have access to a reliable snare/root removal like many other melee classes(including other hybrids like DPS DoK/WP)
The combination of these factors frequently leads to painful situations where your target is just there but not quite actually there that other melee classes don't have to deal with nearly as often.

Therefore, I propose the following changes:

Proposed Change 1 - Improvements to Shadowstep
Spoiler:
  • Increase travel speed of Shadowstep to match that of Pounce/Squig Leap
  • Upon completion Shadowstep now grants a 35% run speed buff for 3 seconds that ends whenever you use an ability(same as Pounce/Squig Leap)
Justification:
  • These changes bring Shadowstep's effectiveness as a gap closer in line with similar, established abilities which function well and are less awkward when used on moving targets
  • The total effects of the ability being stronger than Pounce are justified by the fact that it's a 15 point ability with double the cooldown of baseline Pounce and no way to eliminate the cooldown
Proposed Change 2 - Add a slow to Draw Blood when used in Assault Stance
Spoiler:
  • Draw Blood now also applies a 40% movement speed slow when used in Assault Stance
  • Increase cooldown of Draw Blood to 5 seconds
Justification:
  • All other melee classes have a reliable 40% movement speed slow that helps them stick to their target. This implementation would match the Big Claw ability available to melee SH
  • The added cooldown prevents abuse of the ability to spam slows on multiple targets and puts it in line with other slow abilities
  • Swapping to Skirmish stance to use Takedown does not qualify as a reliable melee range slow, as this prevents any meaningful melee damage for 5 seconds and thus cannot be worked into any reasonable skill rotation. Takedown can instead be compared to other secondary gap closers such as Fetch/pull, Quake/Wave of Scorn or stealth
Proposed Change 3 - Add a new snare + root immunity ability usable only in Assault Stance - Proposal removed in light of further analysis, info left for reference
Spoiler:
  • New Ability: Agile Movement - 45 AP, 60 s cooldown, requires Assault Stance
  • Your super awesome ninja training allows you remove all slow and root effects from you and provides you immunity to these effects for the next 10 seconds
Justification:
  • Almost all other melee DPS classes have this same or similar ability(including hybrids like DPS DoK/WP)
  • The Assault Stance requirement prevents this from being used by Skirmish SWs and making kiting too easy
  • Parity against melee SH is justified by the fact that they have other options for dealing with slows, including Outta My Way! and the fact that Squig Leap has no cooldown when used with a tactic that most players run anyways and provides aforementioned run speed buff
These changes will significantly improve the ability of Assault SWs to get to and stick to their targets and bring its performance in this regard in line with other melee classes. This will make it more fluid to play and less frustrating at times while not increasing its overall damage output or utility potential unnecessarily.

This will also help the class to retain its identity as a stealthy single target capable class, rather than morphing it into some weird copy of melee SH like has been proposed in some other places
Last edited by Nebuchadnezzar on Fri May 29, 2020 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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anarchypark
Posts: 2072

Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#2 » Thu May 28, 2020 3:21 am

maybe it's not mdps.
maybe It's rdps with melee tree.
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diedrake
Posts: 410

Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#3 » Thu May 28, 2020 3:38 am

Stupid question but... Cant an asw still use thier bow to apply a slow and other debuffs on the target by switching stances? I admit i dont play a sw but occationally i play my mara. What i mean is just like a mara, cant the asw also stance dance a little to help with thier weaknesses in assault stance by switching to one of thier other stances and applying debuffs again such as the slow?

Imo asw is more of an advanced class as its not what the initial overall class was designed to be. So instead of playing an asw as a true melee, play them as a med to close ranged fighter.

I play a sh but i have my own gripes with the msh as its too overloaded but thats another topic all together.
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Nebuchadnezzar
Posts: 45

Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#4 » Thu May 28, 2020 4:15 am

diedrake wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 3:38 am Stupid question but... Cant an asw still use thier bow to apply a slow and other debuffs on the target by switching stances? I admit i dont play a sw but occationally i play my mara. What i mean is just like a mara, cant the asw also stance dance a little to help with thier weaknesses in assault stance by switching to one of thier other stances and applying debuffs again such as the slow?

Imo asw is more of an advanced class as its not what the initial overall class was designed to be. So instead of playing an asw as a true melee, play them as a med to close ranged fighter.

I play a sh but i have my own gripes with the msh as its too overloaded but thats another topic all together.
Yes, I covered this. You technically can switch to Skirmish stance to use the ranged slow skill Takedown, however as mentioned this locks you out of Assault Stance for 5 seconds(like you'll have on your Marauder with mutations). This is a big issue because ASW's ability to have its melee skills actually deal damage comes from the fact that Assault Stance converts ballistics/ranged crit to strength/melee crit and gives an armor bonus - Without it you're running around with 300 strength, 0 crit chance and 1600 armor. With how quickly damage needs to be applied to kill anything in this game, there's simply no way to work a 5 second lock out to 30% of regular damage into a reasonable rotation.

An alternative would be to make Takedown usable in Assault as well, however I feel that giving a ranged slow to a mostly melee spec could be too powerful and has no precedent on other classes(aside from the ranged slow via DoK Covenant, but that's only 20%). All these proposed changes have precedents on existing comparable classes and have been demonstrated to be reasonably balanced.

The issue with considering it as a medium to close ranged fighter as you've suggested is there are few ranged skills that are actually available in Assault and none of them do a significant level of damage, and as mentioned swapping out of Assault produces significant issues. 2 of the skills are slowish dots and one has a fairly long cast time that you need to stand still for. The remaining spammable one does about as much damage as the ranged spammable attack from a DPS DoK/WP, so enough to maybe run a straggler down but not enough to kill in a group setting. So basically your melee skills are the only ones that deal any real amount of damage.

anarchypark wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 3:21 am maybe it's not mdps.
maybe It's rdps with melee tree.
The same could be said about melee SH, and yet it's accepted the way it is. These modifications simply bring ASW in line with what melee SH is able to do in terms of maintaining melee range and do not fundamentally change its damage output, utility or play style

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Arbich
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Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#5 » Thu May 28, 2020 4:40 am

Is this a joke?
Classes have certain limitations, thats called balance in a group based game.
The increased speed after pounce is one of the worst changes on this server (makes no sense to give this tool a class with already quite high mobility)
Melee Squigherder should never come up as an example when comparing different classes (any classes). For ASW in particular it doesnt matter anyway, cause no party would (could :D ) pick a mSH instead of a ASW.

The statement that your proposal doesnt change the damage output of ASW is wrong. You propose changes to the offensive capabilities of the ASW and not to his escape tools (and even then your claim would be doubtful).
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Manatikik
Posts: 1249

Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#6 » Thu May 28, 2020 4:54 am

Definitely don't need a melee snare; swap to skirmish when moving into a target or as it starts to get away from you.

Snare break component on Swift Strikes could be interesting; but a new ability seems like overkill. The only argument for a snare breaker on ASW is the fact WP/DoK get one; but thats a pretty weak argument.

Shadowstep does NOT need the boost component. If anything to increase the mobility would be to reduce the CD to 10s to match Pounce/Squig Leap but then you'd have to address the Defensive proc portion of it. The tradeoff to have less mobility is you still can stay on targets/debuff your targets as compensation.

The only realistic changes ASW needs is Grim Slash to 25 ap (why is your spam-base attack 35 ap is beyond me) and possibly address Sinister Assault to actually ignore all armor and not just the first 75% (haven't tested this in a few months could be fixed by now).
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Fey
Posts: 760

Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#7 » Thu May 28, 2020 6:39 am

The stance mechanic is particularly clunky and punishing, limiting your abilities and range for a mediocre buff. This is ultimately the flavor of the class, and also why it kinda sucks out loud.

ASW needs no help. Complaints about how their pounce isn't very good is not sympathetic. Lots of mdps would love a buggy pounce.

Decoupling initiative debuff from Eye Shot is a good start. Like put it on split arrows tactic. Initiative debuff on 3 people with reduced SFA damage would be decent. Initiative debuff and KD should not be on the same ability. Do anything other than buffing Assault spec.
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Wdova
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Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#8 » Thu May 28, 2020 8:59 am

SW is a hybrid with 2 ranged and 1 melee tree. Lets work with that other than making him pure MDPS comparable to other MDPS who has no other option than melee range.

You try compare mSW to mSH. My opinion was that melee SH needed the buff to be viable. What they get went just too far. They combine Slayer, White lion and Squig herder, now has more than solid melee damage (toping scenario/city chart by total damage dealth), tools like 2 mentioned MDPS(pounce/shattered limbs/rune of absorption) and still can use Kaboom, AOE snare + self punt like they were using in theyr ranged spec.

To be honest I dont want to see this with SW on order side.
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Grock
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Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#9 » Thu May 28, 2020 9:06 am

You have gapcloser and selfpunt and ranged CC

Aren't you supposed to have some weaknesses?

Its already better mdps than some actual mdps.
It should've never been what it is, it should've been a hybrid, not a full on mdps
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Re: ASW - Improvements to ability to maintain melee range

Post#10 » Thu May 28, 2020 2:08 pm

All morons say that asw is op @ sw is least played class @ asw is barely wiable at 6v6 and sc, doesnt needed at rvr and worst pick at city what is end game @ mirror spec in the game in destro side have all asw have but better and best mdps for city @ this server is full of hypocrites who doesnt want fair play but scared to not be able of killing the worst class in the game by pressing w and pve rotation at button 2 with nerfed buttons.

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