[SW] needs luv

[wiscel]

Having played Destro on RoR for most of the time and with 4 R80+ destro characters now I thought it was time to play Order. My destro main is a ranged squig herder so I decided to roll a Shadow Warrior to see how they compare. The difference between the 2 is quite big. On my Squig Herder I could easily take out any class 1 vs 1, but on the Shadow Warrior I'm struggling against any class. When I'm in Praag and see a WE go stealth on me I run all the way to Nordland hoping the WE wont chase me. Both my Squig Herder and Shadow Warrior have same spec, gear, weapons, jewels and talismans.
What I feel the ranged Shadow Warrior is missing is some decent crowd control like a Disarm (like the squigpet has), and a Run Away ability like the squigherder has. You can have a Speed ability as Shadow Warrior but you have to sacrifice a tactic slot for that, and constantly change Stance to use it. Maybe make Whirling Pin undefendable? Most of the time it gets parried.

[Fenris78]

I have the opposite experience, but you need BiS gear (warlord/Tirumphant) and assault as main spec to get very good results romaing solo.

In this spec you can wreck about any WE (except Agonize, I only dropped him to 25% HP but he had much luck with parry + full deftard build :p), and pretty much any other class 1V1, saving some 2H tanks (Chosens are near to impossible unless you kite a lot before engaging, BG are 50/50 if they play well) and monstro mara who will outlast you.

Assault/skirm was (and still is currently) the best solo experience I ever had for a while, even compared to my BiS WH wich I find far too easy to counter.

Just stance dance, stay in assault when roaming solo (to counter WEs) while spamming detaunt, then get up, shadowstep them and let's dance !

If you need to get some space, whirling pin (wich is undefendable btw, like all other self-bumps), then skirmish stance - potion - re-snare if needed, put all DoTs (Flame arrow deals good damage despite broken tooltip) while kiting away, and when contact is unavoidable, get back to assault > shadowstep > grim slah with tactic to steal stats > crosscut > kd > etc.

Against ranged, you have one of the best M1 to remove all sorc sequence, all Shaman/Magus/rSH/mdps DoTs and snares, wich will prevent many damage (like 50% less damage from magical rdps at least) + shadowstep netting you a 15% disrupt and dodge bonus its huge.

Against rSH, detaunt the pet (about -10% less damage taken), put all DoTs + snare, then go assault and spam spiral arrow ; with 4k armor (BiS + 3 armor Talis) you should win by default, especially if you specced bullseye and had 12-15% base crit.

You should get up to 950+ weapon skill using assault + wrist slash bonus, wich is about 70% ArPen (no need for the 25% mastery tactic).

Against kiting targets, you also have ambush wich is a 60% speed debuff, wich most of the time should allow you to close again and wreck them with assault skills.


To summarize : it will take you much time to learn the ropes and master this gameplay, but when you can just tank the 3s kd of any WE popping on you, get back up with 75% remaining HP, dusting you clothes before dancing, you know you have a very good class and spec to play with. This, and you still can provide a good chunck of AoE pressure in funnels + mass debuff with Pierce Defenses tactic, it's just soo satistying...
All of that with a simple switch of your tactic set, it's even better. :p

[Karl]

I'm with Nasty on this one! The one thing i miss is a way to remove snares from SW.
(Having fought against Nasty plenty this is not a ltp issue)

/wave from Kharlion

[wiscel]

I'm with Nasty on this one! The one thing i miss is a way to remove snares from SW.
(Having fought against Nasty plenty this is not a ltp issue)

/wave from Kharlion

Hi there Kharl, no need to worry about me anymore as I'm playing Order for the moment

[wiscel]

I have the opposite experience, but you need BiS gear (warlord/Tirumphant) and assault as main spec to get very good results romaing solo.

In this spec you can wreck about any WE (except Agonize, I only dropped him to 25% HP but he had much luck with parry + full deftard build :p), and pretty much any other class 1V1, saving some 2H tanks (Chosens are near to impossible unless you kite a lot before engaging, BG are 50/50 if they play well) and monstro mara who will outlast you.

Assault/skirm was (and still is currently) the best solo experience I ever had for a while, even compared to my BiS WH wich I find far too easy to counter.

Just stance dance, stay in assault when roaming solo (to counter WEs) while spamming detaunt, then get up, shadowstep them and let's dance !

If you need to get some space, whirling pin (wich is undefendable btw, like all other self-bumps), then skirmish stance - potion - re-snare if needed, put all DoTs (Flame arrow deals good damage despite broken tooltip) while kiting away, and when contact is unavoidable, get back to assault > shadowstep > grim slah with tactic to steal stats > crosscut > kd > etc.

Against ranged, you have one of the best M1 to remove all sorc sequence, all Shaman/Magus/rSH/mdps DoTs and snares, wich will prevent many damage (like 50% less damage from magical rdps at least) + shadowstep netting you a 15% disrupt and dodge bonus its huge.

Against rSH, detaunt the pet (about -10% less damage taken), put all DoTs + snare, then go assault and spam spiral arrow ; with 4k armor (BiS + 3 armor Talis) you should win by default, especially if you specced bullseye and had 12-15% base crit.

You should get up to 950+ weapon skill using assault + wrist slash bonus, wich is about 70% ArPen (no need for the 25% mastery tactic).

Against kiting targets, you also have ambush wich is a 60% speed debuff, wich most of the time should allow you to close again and wreck them with assault skills.


To summarize : it will take you much time to learn the ropes and master this gameplay, but when you can just tank the 3s kd of any WE popping on you, get back up with 75% remaining HP, dusting you clothes before dancing, you know you have a very good class and spec to play with. This, and you still can provide a good chunck of AoE pressure in funnels + mass debuff with Pierce Defenses tactic, it's just soo satistying...
All of that with a simple switch of your tactic set, it's even better. :p

I will certainly will give this a try even when it means going into Assault Stance mode, which I don't like at all

[Lime]

Seems like Shadow Warrior performs well with high end gear and renown level.

And somewhat below average at the lower end and while leveling before you can get max mainstat + weaponskill together and survivability to jump in.

Perhaps due to ASW being an rr70+ enabled build. Maybe the tree should be shuffled to make ASW work at rr50 or so?

[Farrul]

What I feel the ranged Shadow Warrior is missing is some decent crowd control like a Disarm (like the squigpet has), and a Run Away ability like the squigherder has. You can have a Speed ability as Shadow Warrior but you have to sacrifice a tactic slot for that, and constantly change Stance to use it. Maybe make Whirling Pin undefendable? Most of the time it gets parried.

Yes SW is generally lacking and this isn't exactly news, it is the status quo unfortunately everyone that likes this class has to endure(and abuse that comes with it, i.e picked last or blamed when Order loses).

The other ranged bow class( Squiq Herders) performe better since it has the necessary tools a squishy kiting class need, for some reason SW are deprived of this yet does not have the punch of Sorc/BW nor the tankiness of magus/ engineer. It's a weird in between which doesn't work well, you either kite well( Squig) or delete people(sorc) or tank it Magus/Engineer. If you're an exceptional player you can still make it as a Scout roaming spec but the game puts you at a disadvantage due to poor general balancing of the class.

To give you a clear example of poor balancing and lack of dev attention to this class, Squiq Run Away is set at 30% movement speed buff, it has another passive tactic set at 30% run increase, yet for some reasom SW guerilla training(which is clunky to utilize well) is set at 20% movement speed, hell the generic ''Flee'' ability is set at 30% as well, incomprehensible how this can be set at 20% on a squishy ranged spec that is supposed to be ''mobile''.

I have the opposite experience, but you need BiS gear (warlord/Tirumphant) and assault as main spec to get very good results romaing solo.

I've seen you comment everytime SW is being questioned, whilst i respect your solo roaming experience and i agree Assault SW is good for roaming solo(personally i think WL is better for solo due to aoe detaunt, much better mobility/root snare immunity/pull vs kiters and M2 morale snare is not reliable all the time) outside of this niche the class clearly isn't on par with most other dps classes, in fact i can't think of one that is worst (Engineer's and Melee Squig's both stronger at AoE, hence at the bottom of the barrel in the dps hierarchy, well except WH/WE but these are a different story because of their Stealth mechanic and currently overpowered in a roaming sense).

Btw Piercing Defences is also provided by Engis and all other SW's so in a funnel etc it's not going to make much of a difference if you have it or not, perhaps exception in super low population NA hours where you would be one of the few providing it.

[Farrul]

Seems like Shadow Warrior performs well with high end gear and renown level.

And somewhat below average at the lower end and while leveling before you can get max mainstat + weaponskill together and survivability to jump in.

Perhaps due to ASW being an rr70+ enabled build. Maybe the tree should be shuffled to make ASW work at rr50 or so?

Assault Shadow is only viable for small scale roaming, hence it is a niche spec with weak AoE damage which dooms it (Sweeping Slash might as well not exist). Skirmish spec is the AoE tree but even fully specced into it remains the weakest of the bunch accross all aoe dps classes in the game, logically a hybrid Assault spec/Skirmish is even worse than that.

So no, Shadow Warriors generally does not perform well in a comparative sense, of course logically with better gear performance increases but the same applies for every single class out there.

It has a popular roleplaying aspect (The elf Archer/Legolas) and some players might like the challenge and are passionate about it (a good player will always beat a bad one no matter the class) but overall the nerfs to SW have been unacceptable considering it wasn't really impressive to begin with (Stupid things like removal of Broeadhead from Assault stance, even remains after they gutted Broadhead arrow, again seemingly small stuff that are frustrating and incomprehensible )

[inoeth]

chosen impossible to kite what?
kill any WE what?

either you or your enemies fail completely here wtf

[BluIzLucky]

To give you a clear example of poor balancing and lack of dev attention to this class, Squiq Run Away is set at 30% movement speed buff, it has another passive tactic set at 30% run increase, yet for some reasom SW guerilla training(which is clunky to utilize well) is set at 20% movement speed, hell the generic ''Flee'' ability is set at 30% as well, incomprehensible how this can be set at 20% on a squishy ranged spec that is supposed to be ''mobile''.

...

While I anecdotally agree with the rest (from playing with, not as, SW), your example is not really great since you are comparing SW's 20% speed boost with 100% uptime vs a 30% speed proc with at best 50% uptime and ability with 22% uptime.
Maybe you prefer SH's version, but giving SW 30% speed at 100% uptime would just be straight up better.