peterthepan3 wrote:Mystriss wrote:
Whirling pin self punt was the most rediculious thing to give us SW frankly, they never should have done that, it made zero sense in lore, nor in game play needs (basically they caved to crying scout stance primaries who didn't dance or move around.) If I had been less intrigued by melee combat (and a good fight) I would/could have been near untouchable; some of our skirmish SW in fact were. As an assaulter looking for a rush I didn't use it "properly," but even with my primary melee play-style it made it way to easy to defeat a single combatant... way to easy.
If you are playing a melee SW, you lack any escape tools. The movement a melee train is on a WE/WH, they can self punt; a DPS DOK/WP can aoe punt; a Choppa/SL/WL/Mara can charge away. A melee sw? Disarm/KD (potentially wasting CC) and hope for the best. Whirling Pin is a welcome addition to melee SW/SH.
Defeating a single combatant (solo roaming/1v1) has no bearing on balancing a class around group play.
SW's already had a punt... It's been like 6+ years since I messed with builds so I don't recall the name but it's a Moral 1. (In my years of playing SW I cannot recall ever even using that punt personally, but I know my scouts and skirmishers used it often. I just always took Concealment because magic was my weakness; sacrificed for melee play-ability as far back as RR50ish.)
As far as whirling pin in assault I only really used the self punt for positioning - like if a WE got on my healer while I was in the front lines I could get back to them quicker to drop my mdps on them, or to sling-shot over the melee line to get into the squishies. I did occasionally use it as a defense for a marauder pull if I was already wounded, just so I didn't have to burn my moral to avoid it until a friendly healer had time to offer a HOT or heal pots came off CD. To be fair though, I typically ran in with the order melee train as front lines dps assist (even in Skirmish spec, though with the recent AOE changes on RoR th latter might not be advisable.) my squishy Destro buddies didn't much like my sword in their faces and rather quickly learned to punt me away, so my biggest hurdle was actually the opposite of "escape" - I struggled to stay /in/ melee heh
The point of my bringing up skirmisher/scouters and self punt was not that the class should be balanced on solo play (more on that later,) but rather that no matter how you shake it, a good skirmisher with self punt can easily be untouchable - and worse (perhaps,) in skirmish, and to a lesser degree scout, they have the deeps to wreck their opponent at self-punted range. It doesn't work to compare self-punt on other melee classes because they can't waste someone at range like a SW can. (Although I've been hit by some pretty nasty axes/knives in my days heh)
peterthepan3 wrote:Not sure anyone proposed bringing back the minimal range thing. I agree with you on that.
Yeah, AnarcyPark had suggested min range return.
peterthepan3 wrote:Note: the X second CD (30/60/whatever) would ONLY pertain to those SWs who had invested in the tactic. Given that, as per what I proposed, said tactic would be moved really high up in the Assault tree and, thus, only really be taken by dedicated melee SWs, it would have no bearing on Skirmish/Scout and the CD would remain the same for them. In retrospect, the ranged damage is already gimped somewhat while in Assault stance (as you said), but I just thought that if we are to make the melee SW viable in melee range, then at the very least it ought to have a CD on its stance-swapping potential (ONLY those Assault SWs who have the tactic)
The idea of the SW being a jack of all trades is nice and all, but does't really translate well into competitive group play. Noone is saying that the SW shouldn't be utilising their stance-dance mechanic (same with Marauder), but if Assault SW is to be made viable (as it stands now, it is gimmicky and only useful for M2+Whispering Winds bouts/solo killing - lacks survivability, too, as you said, especially with the ws/str tactic), the other specs must not benefit.
Gotcha. I guess I'm just not sure how beneficial parry would be, its possible that combining such a tactic with No Respite giving +20% parry and +10% crit chance on successful parry would offset the dps loss enough (I cannot remember if NR stacked) - if one was willing to burn two tactics on it anyway. I don't think I would be willing to do it, but as I noted, I've not had time to play seriously on RoR yet so its entirely possible I'm wrong. I do recall that one of my favorite WEs had a parry spec that was ridiculously OP heh
On the last bit there though, I completely disagree that SW /needs/ to "translate to competitive group play" or that "solo play has no bearing." To put it a bit bluntly, I didn't start playing Sexy Boots to be some elitist groups dps slave, if I was interested in that group role I'd have played my BW or Slayer. I play SW because I loved the classes utility and, in a lot of ways, because of it's soloing pliability. Personally, I'll never be playing consistently in a premade on /any/ class, that was the beauty and addiction of the SW for me - I didn't /need/ a group, I played my SW 99% solo, and I was "useful" and "viable" enough to merit unsolicited heals, shields, and guard from pretty much everyone around. Order didn't name us "The Renown Train" for no reason heh
I am a bit... hostile to the idea that "only group play matters." I will always speak adamantly for the "cause" that solo and casual players are just as important to a server's community and health as "competitive groups" are, and therefore the needs/wishes of solo players and casual's should indeed be considered when looking at game play and class changes. If elitist group play is the direction that RoR is headed, then my opinion on SW changes can be disregarded because I flat out won't play on the server - seriously bad experiences on my first server... as in I'd rather trap shoot my $10,000 computer than ever play on an elitist guild server again >.<
I think ultimately SW changes boil down to the choice of either tailoring the SW class to the popularity of a few cookie-cutter play style builds VS tailoring toward the flexibility of the classes ability to work in multiple play styles at the same time. SW is the only class in the game that you can build entirely around a unique and individualized play style bridging range and melee. I think it would be a real shame to lose that trying to force SW's into a group-centric square DPS hole. [Because seriously, that's what so-called "competitive" groups really care about; the ability to easily FF through enemy heals and mow down other groups.] ...uhm can you hear my disdain for elitist groups who think they are hot chit players heh Sorry, Monolith has forever soured me on elitists.
Elftwin95 wrote:Thank you Mystriss for showing me that information, I will have to try out your stance theory, what keybinds do you use? What is L2strife by the way?
Strafe is basically running sideways, its all about movement flow and LOS/cone of fire. Instead of using the standard turn left (a) and turn right (d) use strafe left (believe the default keybind is q) and strafe right (believe it's default is e) instead; it changes everything about shooting on the run.
Compare the movement fluidity in the following short bits of fights; this bit:
https://youtu.be/6eQHFmtvtfI?t=1m39s vs this bit:
https://youtu.be/rK7wSzbJHJ8?t=39s
See how the first video required me to "flip" around to fire off a shot while running away? You'll also see me getting "Cone of Fire" errors a lot back then. In the second video bit I'm using "strafe" right/left instead. See how I can shoot that black orc while running away from him? It makes a huge difference on the field if you use any shoot on the run abilities (or use positional attacks ala assault) and its oft overlooked by players, especially SWs who typically start out in Scout "turret mode" and/or players who use mouse movement (which quite frankly is no good for a SW.) Strafe also lets you shoot an enemy that's running parallel to you as in this bit:
https://youtu.be/62vZ2h-hG3g?t=35s This last one is actually a hybrid movement, I use mouse move for forward/back and the keyboard for strafe right/left, I find it works well to retain the camera panning feature and I've still got keyboard forward/back if I need to use the clicker for targeting (or getting those stupid loot windows off the screen heh)
As far as my stance swapping setup, I have a Corsair K95-RGB so I'm betting my key binds wouldn't work for you heh
If you're only dual dancing then you could leave the unused stance off your action bar to make it easier (only need one keybind then.) If you're trip dancing though you'll have to remember the stance bindings. My suggestion/guideline would be that Assault is the more important one to hit in an emergency so always make that your easier to hit binding. Pair the binds best you can so you don't have to remember so much, to example mine was:
In Scout stance G16=Assault/G17=Skirmish.
In Skirmish Stance G16=Assault/G17=Scout.
In Assault G16=Skirmish/G17=Scout.
Most of the time Assault is G16, and Scout is G17. Skirmish was my "off spec" when I had first set it up, aka the stance that I went into the least, so I had made that my "moving" stance keybind. It also worked out well that in assault stance I had skirmish on the easier to hit button since that's the more mobile stance - its all kinds of bad accidentally going into squishy scout stance when you're ditching melee; although I did get decent at mobile Scout because of fumbles like that heh
It's funny, but once you get the stance binds in your head it apparently hangs out there forever, just like the swap of abilities seem to. I'm not even positive I have my key binds set up on my RoR SW, certainly I haven't played it in many months, but just putting my hand over my g-keys I can tell you that G4 is Acid Arrow. G6 is Exploit Weakness/Fell the Weak, ~ is Take Down/Throat Shot, G15 is Spiral. G18 is Eagle Eye. G10 is Grim Slash. G12 is Broadhead etc... It's like riding a bike!
