Basic Consensus For SW Fixes?

[Avernus]

Skirm sw works like bw, worst part of it is cocaine rotations that requires piano with 2dots, veng+ww barage spam, spirale/lileath. And u have zero armor and - 7k hp in radius of choppa pull. And no antisnare on top. And you need pick up targets with 3fps in dedtro zerg. While lion have 3dps buttons without target, armor/wounds, antisnare/pounce. Thats ehy no one want to take sw into strong setup. 5sec on sweeping don fo anything for asw in wb. It must be on zero cooldown, and still i dont see reason why u take asw into 24man, hat just do same work but better coz he have 2healdebuffs, sparm armoringore, stake. What have asw? Armor and basic copy of we/wh spell without executions. Waste of slot. And i forgot how skirms sw AP hungry, u litearlly go to zero ap in seconds so you forced to take refresh ap from fodges tactic. If devs really want to help sw they need to give normal armorshred on acid,like lions, make shadow sting usefull for scout, make zero cd on barrage or lileath and sweeping, give antisnare or squigs +30%speedboost panic button, and fix that 7k nonsense. For asw brutall assault must go without ww too. In all specs sw is a slave of WW, exept scout. But i dont believe its gonna happen. And this treads will go infinite

I will be happy even if they just make skirmish 100ft+return old eye shot.

[dtjror]

So, basically, revert it to what it was, like, two iterations ago, where:

1. Eye Shot and Flame Arrow positions were swapped, and ES was castable on the move (idr if FA had 100 ft range, but it should so class has at least some 100 ft AOE).

2. Skirmish abilities had or could get increased range (Powerful Draw used to do this).

3. Remove Lileathes Arrow CD.

4. No BHA lockout in Assault Stance (idr if Takedown was locked out before, but it shouldn’t be, so we have a snare castable in melee).

Do all of the above, PLUS give Skirmish Stance a useful defensive component (e.g., increased dodge/disrupt or wounds instead of toughness), make BHA and Shadow Sting corp dmg, remove/greatly reduce CD on Sweeping Slash.

[Avernus]

So, basically, revert it to what it was, like, two iterations ago, where:

1. Eye Shot and Flame Arrow positions were swapped, and ES was castable on the move (idr if FA had 100 ft range, but it should so class has at least some 100 ft AOE).

2. Skirmish abilities had or could get increased range (Powerful Draw used to do this).

3. Remove Lileathes Arrow CD.

4. No BHA lockout in Assault Stance (idr if Takedown was locked out before, but it shouldn’t be, so we have a snare castable in melee).

Do all of the above, PLUS give Skirmish Stance a useful defensive component (e.g., increased dodge/disrupt or wounds instead of toughness), make BHA and Shadow Sting corp dmg, remove/greatly reduce CD on Sweeping Slash.

1. I just realised that i took eye shot for takedown...my bad. Yes you are right.
2. Yes.
3. Make it spammable, yes. Its ok if this may force you to slot special tactic (BW can do AoE just fine though). Remove WW addiction.
4. BHA - Yes. Yes both takedown and eye shot were locked in assault, it would be good to being able to snare someone using assault stance.

Dunno about the last one though...It would be good to have at least this things above.

[Deadpoet]

Since we're back on the topic, I'd like to double down on the idea that I don't think we are asking for a complete reroll of the latest changes. Things were not so rosy before that. Actually, those changes were trying to address the shortcomings of the class, but maybe they were too far reaching and failed to take into account many further complications and implications. Actually, I think we would like to salvage what was efficient and well designed in the iteration previous to those changes, and at the same time include what was good in the new stuff.

Just as an example: Steady Aim was almost unusable and extremely gimmicky and situational (Festerbomb one-trick-ponyness). Now it's a valuable skill, even with the AP strings attached to it.

Anyway, I'd like to suggest yet another change, since suggesting is free and I'm kinda bored and with nothing more interesting to do at the moment.

FLAME ARROW REWORK:

reasoning: Flame arrow is a subpar ability that struggles to find its place in a suitable mastery tree and would need a tactic to have an impactful amount of damage.

solution:
Make Flame arrow work like BHA:
-100ft range
-ST DoT
-included in Split Arrows tactic to make it AoE at the cost of decreasing its range to normalized AoE skirmish range
-usable in scout stance
-the tactic Enchanted Arrows now includes Smoldering arrows

benefits:
Scout stance can again benefit from an ability and a tactic that synergize to perfection with Festering arrow, adding a non physical dmg DoT that ignores resistances and hits hard now.

This ability retains its value in skirmish AoE builds and joins BHA and SFA as long range weapons for skirmish ST builds.


With only 4 possible tactics and the need to choose between an array of vital ones, the existence of two separate tactics like Enchanted Arrows (FA and Flame arrow ignore resists) and Smoldering Arrows (Flame Arrow DoT is increased to a meaningful amount) is hardly justifiable when they clearly belong together, merged in one single tactic whose theme is SW’s non-physical damage.

[Avernus]

Since we're back on the topic, I'd like to double down on the idea that I don't think we are asking for a complete reroll of the latest changes. Things were not so rosy before that.

I do agree with this if it's about assault/scout. But i'll be honest - this skirmish is unplayable and unusable piece of squig, even when the game was just released skirmish wasn't THAT bad. Like, TERRIBAD. The ONLY thing that is better now compared to release SW is lileath's arrow. And ONLY because -50% casttime at 5ft (expert skirmisher) didn't exist at that moment. Now It's basically living corpse.

[Farrul]

Alas, so many things to fix with the class, i will add: Whirling Pin.

This ability is vital for the Shadow Warrior's defences yet it is unreliable and will result in many deaths.

Problem(s):

1)The animation and Cooldown will fire off despite the ability doing nothing and the SW standing there dumbstruck, this happens frequently when e.g knocked down, i can't tell what is the cause but it's annoying as hell and punishes players with High APM (action per minute, which is required to play a squishy archer class efficiently).

2) When it triggers a pull can reverse direction // cancel the animation mid-air, this again will result in many death's. The bugged-range Marauder pull is especially a cause for this.

unlike 'bow' Squig herders Shadow warrior's do not have the privilege of multiple defensive abilities, the one's we got need to at least work properly, otherwise imho a new defensive tool is needed.

[Ruin]

I would propose those changes improve SW, they don’t require new abilities or tactics just improve on the existing ones:

- Revert damage changes for BHA, back to the multiplier before the change with stacking BHA
- Make Split Arrows affect Draw Blood, and Grim Slash so it would affect area around your target, maybe a 50% -75% of the area.
- Swap Flame arrow with Eye Shot to Scout, since its affected by this mastery tactics,

[Avernus]

Alas, so many things to fix with the class, i will add: Whirling Pin.

This ability is vital for the Shadow Warrior's defences yet it is unreliable and will result in many deaths.

Problem(s):

1)The animation and Cooldown will fire off despite the ability doing nothing and the SW standing there dumbstruck, this happens frequently when e.g knocked down, i can't tell what is the cause but it's annoying as hell and punishes players with High APM (action per minute, which is required to play a squishy archer class efficiently).

2) When it triggers a pull can reverse direction // cancel the animation mid-air, this again will result in many death's. The bugged-range Marauder pull is especially a cause for this.

unlike 'bow' Squig herders Shadow warrior's do not have the privilege of multiple defensive abilities, the one's we got need to at least work properly, otherwise imho a new defensive tool is needed.

1) As far as i can remember - you can't jump away from your target if your target is immune to snare. You must apply your snare first and only if you managed to do so you can jump away. SH has the same problem. Well, that was on live so i can't say that it's 100% true.

2) Yes, if you are jumping you are still susceptable to CC. Kinda bad (and it's even worse that while SH has some other options SW has whole lot of nothing).

[Farrul]

I would propose those changes improve SW, they don’t require new abilities or tactics just improve on the existing ones:

- Revert damage changes for BHA, back to the multiplier before the change with stacking BHA
- Make Split Arrows affect Draw Blood, and Grim Slash so it would affect area around your target, maybe a 50% -75% of the area.
- Swap Flame arrow with Eye Shot to Scout, since its affected by this mastery tactics,

Yes, swapping Flame arrow for Eye shot is something that wouldn't take much efforts to do and it makes a lot of sense for mulitple reasons, as already suggested 100 range Flame arrow in scout stance and the smoldering arrow' tactic could be integrated into enchanted arrows, the aoe effect made part of Split arrows.

Sorry but Draw Blood and Grim Slash makes no sense as part of split arrows, these are not projectiles and hence shouldn't be part of it.

As for BHA is currently a 'shadow' of its former self, any improvement would be welcomed.

[Avernus]

I would propose those changes improve SW, they don’t require new abilities or tactics just improve on the existing ones:

- Revert damage changes for BHA, back to the multiplier before the change with stacking BHA
- Make Split Arrows affect Draw Blood, and Grim Slash so it would affect area around your target, maybe a 50% -75% of the area.
- Swap Flame arrow with Eye Shot to Scout, since its affected by this mastery tactics,

1. Can't say anything about this.
2. Basically, allow aSW to do AoE. Dunno i'm not sure that this should be a top priority change but...Split Arrows are kinda useless now anyway unless you just want to leech rr.
3. It's not even improvement (more like rollback) but yes - just make Eye Shot like it was before.