SW feedback 2026/7/23 Patch Nite

[Panzer80]

I don't think much of the original post. Just pure emotion. SW AOE spam was overpowered and mindless. Scout stance was boring and FESTERING arrow didn't fester. It was an instant damage. Shouldn't FESTERING arrow, um, fester? I'm only disappointed it can't be on the move now. Lileath's Arrow was hitting too hard. Glass Arrow hit too hard and makes better sense being an early scout mastery. Flame arrow hit too hard and makes better sense in scout (bc lighting an arrow on fire isn't a quick shot). Steady Aim makes more sense on a single target. It actually makes no sense that it would be AOE. Assault SW disarm was redundant SW shouldn't have an armor buff if there's no logical reason for it. SW is an agile elf class that parry increase makes a lot more sense for. Like a lot more. Just as SH makes since with + armor since it's inside an ARMORED SQUIG.

From a design standpoint skirmish should not be the armor pen style. It should be the quicker draw/shoot on the move style. Armor pen and quick shooting on the move never should have been paired up. Scout makes more sense for armor pen. Long draw= harder shot=armor pen. I don't recall if they actually moved armor pen to scout but it def doesn't make sense in skirmish.

[ponko22]

I don't think much of the original post. Just pure emotion. SW AOE spam was overpowered and mindless. Scout stance was boring and FESTERING arrow didn't fester. It was an instant damage. Shouldn't FESTERING arrow, um, fester? I'm only disappointed it can't be on the move now. Lileath's Arrow was hitting too hard. Glass Arrow hit too hard and makes better sense being an early scout mastery. Flame arrow hit too hard and makes better sense in scout (bc lighting an arrow on fire isn't a quick shot). Steady Aim makes more sense on a single target. It actually makes no sense that it would be AOE. Assault SW disarm was redundant SW shouldn't have an armor buff if there's no logical reason for it. SW is an agile elf class that parry increase makes a lot more sense for. Like a lot more. Just as SH makes since with + armor since it's inside an ARMORED SQUIG.

From a design standpoint skirmish should not be the armor pen style. It should be the quicker draw/shoot on the move style. Armor pen and quick shooting on the move never should have been paired up. Scout makes more sense for armor pen. Long draw= harder shot=armor pen. I don't recall if they actually moved armor pen to scout but it def doesn't make sense in skirmish.

Your opinion that it's too strong lacks any logic; it's just your emotion. Could you please explain more logically what it's strong compared to, and what it's being compared to? I agree with the AoE adjustments.

As I've stated many times, I'm arguing that we've lost so much without gaining anything. Furthermore, we're forced into meaningless stance changes, which doesn't lead to smooth gameplay. The adjustments also force melee attacks, but since defensive capabilities are eliminated and there are many counters, it's not the "high risk, high return" the developers claim, but rather "high risk, no return."

[Rugal]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

[Fenris78]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

We lose the previous no positional requirement on Brutal Assault given by VoN, AND the armor bonus... I guess in real combat position, Brutal assault will not connect so easily against high parry targets, especially since facetanking is very easy...

The inconvenient with this patch is 3s CD is "too short" to be used considering the amount of debuffs and DoTs aSW need to place within a 10s rotation window :
- Crosscut
- Draw Blood
- Grim Slash (if you play with Wrist slash) every 20s
- Shadow Sting
- Now Opportunistic Strike

So trying to spam Brutal assault because it's 3s cd under VoN will lock you out of 1.Possible debuffs/DoTs refresh and 2.hit windows because you cannot use BA from front now, leading into not so useful cd reduction.

I honestly prefered the old "no positional" under VoN because you could at least connect 2-3 hits of brutal assault into a 15s window, instead of trying to hit from facetanking enemy and losing a ton of seconds trying to make BA work.

[Farrul]

If this version goes live, defences will be inadequate for ASW / Assault stance ( All RSW specs nerfed defensively as well)

1) Detaunt.

- Distracting Shot: Now has the following additional effect: While using Assault Stance the duration of Distracting Shot is reduced to 5 seconds but you will additionally detaunt all enemies within 25ft around you.

This provides the Shadow Warrior with another tool to help survive when suddenly being focused by several enemies while in melee range.

SW got the worst possible detaunt.

All the MDPS classes have 50% uptime on detaunt (10/5 or 30/15), SW version 15/5 has only 1/3 uptime.

Solution: Give a proper MDPS equal detaunt. or give the warrior priest/ Dok detaunt updates in the healer patch , WP & Dok recieved a new Detaunt (Atonment) equal to this SW version( 15/5) for AOE but kept their singletarget detaunt 15/15.


2) Blurring Blade:

New ability at 9 pt in Path of Assault: Enchantment. 35 AP. 5 ft range. Instant. 30s CD. Requires Assault Stance. - You become one with the shadows, increasing your chance to Parry, Dodge and Disrupt by 35% for 5 seconds, then striking your enemy for (262+1.5*DB+1.5*WDPS) damage.

5 seconds is too little uptime for a 30 sec cooldown skill that only boosts defences by 35%, should be at least 7-8 seconds. Whilst giving defences vs all channels it isn't powerful enough to match something like Repel blashemy ( 100% parry) justifying the half minute CD for a 5 seconds protection.

It's sad that SW lost all armor which wasn't deserved at all, but at least the new stuff dont have to be relatively poor. This SW version going live like this will melt.

[Rugal]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

We lose the previous no positional requirement on Brutal Assault given by VoN, AND the armor bonus... I guess in real combat position, Brutal assault will not connect so easily against high parry targets, especially since facetanking is very easy...

The inconvenient with this patch is 3s CD is "too short" to be used considering the amount of debuffs and DoTs aSW need to place within a 10s rotation window :
- Crosscut
- Draw Blood
- Grim Slash (if you play with Wrist slash) every 20s
- Shadow Sting
- Now Opportunistic Strike

So trying to spam Brutal assault because it's 3s cd under VoN will lock you out of 1.Possible debuffs/DoTs refresh and 2.hit windows because you cannot use BA from front now, leading into not so useful cd reduction.

I honestly prefered the old "no positional" under VoN because you could at least connect 2-3 hits of brutal assault into a 15s window, instead of trying to hit from facetanking enemy and losing a ton of seconds trying to make BA work.

Easily delivered Brutal Assault in real PvP. Also you can't parry with back, so BA and Knockdown will land no matter what. So BA > Exploit Weakness > BA > Crosscut > BA will kill any target, coz of 100% armor pen (above hard cap) from Sinister Assault.

P.S. feel free to DM me for PvP testing. [TBE] Taznad on RoR discord.

[FeelFreeToDie]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

We lose the previous no positional requirement on Brutal Assault given by VoN, AND the armor bonus... I guess in real combat position, Brutal assault will not connect so easily against high parry targets, especially since facetanking is very easy...

The inconvenient with this patch is 3s CD is "too short" to be used considering the amount of debuffs and DoTs aSW need to place within a 10s rotation window :
- Crosscut
- Draw Blood
- Grim Slash (if you play with Wrist slash) every 20s
- Shadow Sting
- Now Opportunistic Strike

So trying to spam Brutal assault because it's 3s cd under VoN will lock you out of 1.Possible debuffs/DoTs refresh and 2.hit windows because you cannot use BA from front now, leading into not so useful cd reduction.

I honestly prefered the old "no positional" under VoN because you could at least connect 2-3 hits of brutal assault into a 15s window, instead of trying to hit from facetanking enemy and losing a ton of seconds trying to make BA work.

Draw blood, shadow sting, grim slash and crosscut(after patch) should be used before you use VoN. Opportunistic strike should be used after kd, then ba, then swift strikes and after that another ba(with snare from new kd and movespeed from swift strikes you can easily get your opponent back)

[Panzer80]

I don't think much of the original post. Just pure emotion. SW AOE spam was overpowered and mindless. Scout stance was boring and FESTERING arrow didn't fester. It was an instant damage. Shouldn't FESTERING arrow, um, fester? I'm only disappointed it can't be on the move now. Lileath's Arrow was hitting too hard. Glass Arrow hit too hard and makes better sense being an early scout mastery. Flame arrow hit too hard and makes better sense in scout (bc lighting an arrow on fire isn't a quick shot). Steady Aim makes more sense on a single target. It actually makes no sense that it would be AOE. Assault SW disarm was redundant SW shouldn't have an armor buff if there's no logical reason for it. SW is an agile elf class that parry increase makes a lot more sense for. Like a lot more. Just as SH makes since with + armor since it's inside an ARMORED SQUIG.

From a design standpoint skirmish should not be the armor pen style. It should be the quicker draw/shoot on the move style. Armor pen and quick shooting on the move never should have been paired up. Scout makes more sense for armor pen. Long draw= harder shot=armor pen. I don't recall if they actually moved armor pen to scout but it def doesn't make sense in skirmish.

Your opinion that it's too strong lacks any logic; it's just your emotion. Could you please explain more logically what it's strong compared to, and what it's being compared to? I agree with the AoE adjustments.

As I've stated many times, I'm arguing that we've lost so much without gaining anything. Furthermore, we're forced into meaningless stance changes, which doesn't lead to smooth gameplay. The adjustments also force melee attacks, but since defensive capabilities are eliminated and there are many counters, it's not the "high risk, high return" the developers claim, but rather "high risk, no return."

The damage is too high compared to the rest of the game. It's not a mystery. It's too easy to spam glass arrow, which is supposed to be a special effect ability, instantly and hit for 1100. It's too easy to spam Lileath's Arrow and hit for 1200 damage on 5 targets. I don't agree with every change, but a lot of them do have seemly good design intention. The stance changes won't be meaningless from what I've read. If you have a marauder they will be using similar design changes for stance swapping.

[Rugal]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

We lose the previous no positional requirement on Brutal Assault given by VoN, AND the armor bonus... I guess in real combat position, Brutal assault will not connect so easily against high parry targets, especially since facetanking is very easy...

The inconvenient with this patch is 3s CD is "too short" to be used considering the amount of debuffs and DoTs aSW need to place within a 10s rotation window :
- Crosscut
- Draw Blood
- Grim Slash (if you play with Wrist slash) every 20s
- Shadow Sting
- Now Opportunistic Strike

So trying to spam Brutal assault because it's 3s cd under VoN will lock you out of 1.Possible debuffs/DoTs refresh and 2.hit windows because you cannot use BA from front now, leading into not so useful cd reduction.

I honestly prefered the old "no positional" under VoN because you could at least connect 2-3 hits of brutal assault into a 15s window, instead of trying to hit from facetanking enemy and losing a ton of seconds trying to make BA work.

Draw blood, shadow sting, grim slash and crosscut(after patch) should be used before you use VoN. Opportunistic strike should be used after kd, then ba, then swift strikes and after that another ba(with snare from new kd and movespeed from swift strikes you can easily get your opponent back)

Why would i do that rotation ? If i can deal with everything with rotation on the video.

[nocturnalguest]

Hmm, can't find anyone talking about nerfing Brutal Assault. It's not ok as it is right now.
One or more solutions required to tone DPS of Brutal Assault. Here are my suggestions:
- Remove Brutal Assault from Merciless Soldier tactic.
- Sinister Assault tactic: change to 15% Armor Penetration to all Path of Assault.
- Reduce base Damage and/or Scaling to land in a 25-30% reduced damage.

Here is small demonstartion of what it is doing right now

Click here to watch on YouTube

Damn, thats actually really scary... SM-WL-aSW will literally delete stuff, thats gonna be none counterable oneshot. 1,8k average and 5,5k total and all that within 6 seconds just by aSW plus AAs which you can further boost...