Buffing the Shadow Warrior/What change would you like to see?

[peterthepan3]

as said above, assault SW is starved as hell for tactics as it is (ws/str is a must, brutal assault tactic is a must, no respite a must, and the last is either wrist slash or a utility tactic/ap tactic in assault). having a 5-10% dmg increase through the MA tactic won't fix problems inherent to the melee SW, imo.

I spoke to a few guildies and thought allowing the assault SW the ability to go dual-wield - at the cost of having SIGNIFICANTLY weakened bow attacks/a 1minute CD (or so) on being able to swap to the bow - could be interesting: it's in the lore, was advertised in the trailers, and was something most people were hoping to see at one point in war's lifespan. alas, that was not to be, but was part of the allure to the class. Perhaps tying in dual wield with the Sinister Assault tactic, and moving it up to 11 points. Will write a proposal if it is permitted.

Skirmish and Scout both function well, and so any buffs to Assault would have to be done in such a way that they don't indirectly buff skirmish/scout (similar to balancing grace and wrath specs, preventing too much overlap, lest the class become op).

[Tesq]

dual wield feel resonable enough, give 10% parry and add dmg to melee skill only

[Aquilon]

Damage is capped at 4K however...

Indeed. Still a nerf.

I'm curious how does rolling back enchanted arrows correlate to realm-lock introduction.

With 30% order mains vs. 70% destro mains correlations is a no-brainer.

as said above, assault SW is starved as hell for tactics as it is (ws/str is a must, brutal assault tactic is a must, no respite a must, and the last is either wrist slash or a utility tactic/ap tactic in assault). having a 5-10% dmg increase through the MA tactic won't fix problems inherent to the melee SW, imo.

Probably won't. But now SW struggles just to reach enough strength to not to be parried 100% of the time.

[sanii]

I spoke to a few guildies and thought allowing the assault SW the ability to go dual-wield - at the cost of having SIGNIFICANTLY weakened bow attacks/a 1minute CD (or so) on being able to swap to the bow - could be interesting: it's in the lore, was advertised in the trailers, and was something most people were hoping to see at one point in war's lifespan. alas, that was not to be, but was part of the allure to the class.

Sounds like a fairly reasonable idea . Would you make a new ability for it or tie it to a different ablity (and which ) or would you just put it into assault stance ?

[Dabbart]

My SW had over 850 str in assault stance... str only hits parry from WS, so unless someone is stacking WS to over like 800 or so, you won't get any benefit from more str...

And the 4K max affects everything(Sc Damage increases this beyond the cap I believe) not just festering arrow. How anyone can argue for that a 4K max damage in one shot is a bad thing is besides me...

As for %s of mains... yea. I can still smell where you pulled that one from...

[anarchypark]

The stances work fine. The issue is the number of SWs that don't stance dance.... imo...

You're not supposed to stay in Melee range or stationary turret 100% of the time...

Seeing a lot of new SWs doing this recently, made me scream
iirc there was a minimum range of bow skill
reintroduce this so force them to change stances
It will make turret SW moving, hence buff
ok it's a half joke
but SW cover long range, mid range, close range all
trade buffing close range with limit of long range, fair trade

[sanii]

With 30% order mains vs. 70% destro mains correlations is a no-brainer.

one of those famous Out-of-my-ass numbers

Probably won't. But now SW struggles just to reach enough strength to not to be parried 100% of the time.

I play SW quite a bit and melee in particular , even without Knight Str aura i have no issues reaching 900+ str without a single point in renown using strength ( i only use 120str/120ws tactic) and without a pot.

[Elftwin95]

Very interesting you all! I would love to be able to use two swords, I wish you the best of luck on the proposal Peterthepan!

[Aquilon]

And the 4K max affects everything(Sc Damage increases this beyond the cap I believe) not just festering arrow. How anyone can argue for that a 4K max damage in one shot is a bad thing is besides me...

Didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

As for %s of mains... yea. I can still smell where you pulled that one from...

Can you?

one of those famous Out-of-my-ass numbers

Say what you want.

I play SW quite a bit and melee in particular , even without Knight Str aura i have no issues reaching 900+ str without a single point in renown using strength ( i only use 120str/120ws tactic) and without a pot.

Good. The point remains, though.

[peterthepan3]

I spoke to a few guildies and thought allowing the assault SW the ability to go dual-wield - at the cost of having SIGNIFICANTLY weakened bow attacks/a 1minute CD (or so) on being able to swap to the bow - could be interesting: it's in the lore, was advertised in the trailers, and was something most people were hoping to see at one point in war's lifespan. alas, that was not to be, but was part of the allure to the class.

Sounds like a fairly reasonable idea . Would you make a new ability for it or tie it to a different ablity (and which ) or would you just put it into assault stance ?

Came to the conclusion that the most logical/balanced way to achieve this would be to, as you said, tie it to an existing tactic, Sinister Assault, while moving it up to the 11 point slot (Merciless going where SA is now). No Respite wouldn't be fair on the adventurous types who like to play Skirmish/Scout and play within 45ft for extra dmg/lols.

tldr if you wanted to dual wield:
1) You will have to invest a LOT of points into Assault, limiting your potential to offspec (felt it prudent that being able to get Skirmish heal debuff was still possible). If it were possible to tie dualwield into the 13 pt ability, then it would be even better.
2) You would have to use a tactic to do get dual wield. Melee SW, in order to deal respectable damage even with dual wield, absolutely needs 2/3 other tactics to function semi-well (15% dmg, WS, WS/STR). This means you won't be getting either the range incr, ballistics, leading shots, or anything else, assuming you want to be effective at melee.
3) So as to avoid becoming OP, i.e. an MDPS and RDPS simultaneously, your ranged damage - upon equipping tactic - would be reduced by 50%. Slotting the tactic would also make swapping stances trigger a X second cooldown, preventing you from switching whenever you want (similar to how the .ab ex DPS DOK was functioning).

all speculation atm, but could be fun to see some melee sw love! also str seems to be even easier to get on the melee SW than it is on mdps.