[Shadow Warrior] Assault Tree redeemer?

[Toldavf]

There's allot of bad stuff in trees out there. In fact half of the skills and tactics in game go unused because they are just dramatically inferior.

Until this weapon disability is fixed (not buffed, FIXED) there will never a strong enough reason to include a melee oriented SW in a premade.

I disagree it is a buff your asking for, the SW and SH are very strong in their own right already and they are rdps classes first and foremost.

Increasing a classes potential is a risky thing don't forget the damage potential of the shadow warrior in melee is balanced around its total ability set debuffs, tactics, buffs, cc, morales and changing a class in this way can throw that badly out of sync.

[Deadpoet]

Agreed that any change should take into account all the other variables of the class you mention. I wouldnt wish melee SW to result in a OP subclass. SW as rdps is already OP as it is. And I agree wholeheartedly with Roadkillrobin about ranged SW being ezmode and applaud his reaction ditching his SW as a result. In fact I was dead set on playing a melee SW because some unconscious part of me probably wanted to make a statement and prove that not all SWs are easymoders who won't get their balls nearer than their 65ft + 25% extended range in skirmish tree allows them to if they can help it (and by Jove with RKD+takedown they CAN help it).

However I still believe that SWs should be encouraged to live up to their hybrid nature instead of being another purely ranged class, which is too easy at this stage of the game and has been since tier 1. If t4 will mirror the melee superiority over ranged equilibrium of the official game remains to be seen. And Toldavf, while I appreciate your caveats and the peaceful and reasoned way you have to argue your point, I still think that if Grace tree for WP for example is being looked at and will be assessed in the meta, a similar effort could be attempted regarding the Assault tree. The problem is that the playerbase interested in assault SW is far less numerous than the melee WP fans, so I don't expect miracles anytime soon.

In my opinion every tree of every class is meant to be of real use in a party context. I know this is really a tall order (no pun intended), but it is the ideal that we should strive for. I completely understand that the ROR team doesnt have the manpower to achieve this soon, not even in a distant future perhaps. I am far too thankful to them to plague them with unreasonable demands. These here are only my wishes for an ideal meta, and somehow feels good to be able to write them down. In the official game the devs were so far from the players that there was no pont in even expressing your opinion on the forums.

[Foxbeep]

The unfairness and inconsistency with which the balance of SW and SH is dismissed is laughable.

Azareal and other devs have specifically stated "Anyone who thinks that a class should have one of their mastery trees ignored specifically because the character creation screen says 'healer' has no point to make."

This is paraphrasing, obviously, as I don't feel like going to find the exact quote, but if DPS AM, DPS WP etc are worth adjusting to make the playstyles work then Assault and Path of Stabbin' are absolutely indebted attention and balancing.

The justification to ignore the Path of Stabbin' and Assault is often "But the class does just fine at RDPS and is an RDPS class," which holds no logic since clearly they are meant to be able to do both.
These same players turn around and say "Brightwizard should do the most damage because it's their niche, Shadow Warriors and Squig Herders shouldn't do as much damage because they're hybrid classes," which implies they SHOULD be able to enter melee range with efficiency.

The players who want these changes made aren't looking to match both BW and WH (Sorc and WE for you destro scum) they want their class' variety and versatility to be expressed. SW and SH don't have the utility of Engi nor the raw damage of BW, they are meant to be good at everything but not particularly great at anything.

EDIT: Changed the wording of my first sentence to better reflect the nature of my post