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• • Shadow Warriors got a LOT of love - no longer the worst class?

  • Originally posted by Magter
    

    One of the stances give you 100% more armor which will change it almost to medium armor. You are a ranged class...stay away from the melee's.

    
     

    Why would any shadow warrior switch to assault mode (which gives the 100% boost to armor) if they planned on staying out of melee range completely?  Why would there be an assault mode if it was a 100% ranged class?

    There is also an assault mastery line that is all about melee attacks, with one ability even hitting multiple melee targets in an arc.  Obviously, Mythic either doesn't agree with you or they had a hard time figuring out what skills to give the class, so they created a bunch of worthless abilities to help "fill it out."

    I'm betting on the latter.

  • Posted: 12/02/08 9:52 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)
• • Shadow Warriors got a LOT of love - no longer the worst class?

  • Originally posted by aesperus
    

    I'm stunned. I cannot tell if you are being serious about half these points or not.

    1 - The range issue: (melee target out of ranged for spiral) Take a look at your ranged abilities. There is a Minimum and a Maximum range for these skills. They are working correctly. If a target is in melee range, unless you kite them in a specific way, they will be too close for ranged (hence the out of range message).

    2 - Sorry for the Vengence acronym typo, but I did understand the skill you were talking about, it's probably the most unique skill in the game, so it's easy to tell. And no, it's not supposed to make you a 1v1 powerhouse. That was my whole point. You pop it to finish off that hard to kill target, either via the damage boost, or the bonus effects the skill grants to your abilities. It's a highly situational skill, that is it's intended purpose.

    3 - You're a RDPS, you're supposed to be vulnerable at all times. That's the trade off for having such a nice range and good damage. You're ability to defend yourself, is your ability to pay attention to your surroundings. Not how fast you can punch that VoN button or PBS.

    This is the purpose of the class. He's a scout, he can pick people off from a distance, has good damage, and a decent amount of survivability. However, if he's cornered, he's screwed. This applies to all stances. He is not a sword master, he's not supposed to tank (though the buff to assault is welcome). His melee skills are just there to finish the job or to give him options when he does get cornered. They by no means guaruntees melee victory.

    I know traditionally people have gotten used to the archer who has top DPS, survivability, and can kite. This is not those games.

    
     

    1) I'm aware of the "Target is too Close" message.  I wasn't getting that.  I was getting an out of range message.  I'll admit that half of the problem was simply due to latency making the melee damage messages appear a little while after they actually are calculated.  Regardless, an easier replicated ranged bug phenomenon occurs when both the shadow warrior and target are standing perfectly still, yet the shadow warrior gets an "out of range" message right before the server actually allows the shot.  There are serious bugs with the client/server range calculation coordinations and they become even more obvious as client/server latencies are increased.

    2) Not a 1v1 powerhouse?  As I noted, the ability in no way ensures success in any 1v1 encounter.  It's simply an ability that might be a deturrent to being an easy mark all of the time, while actually allowing success in a less-than-ideal situation some of the time.  And if you play Warhammer at anything above super novice level, 2 minutes is a really, really, long time in terms of combat maneuvers.  I think I've taken a tier 4 keep in less than 2 minutes before.

    3) Shadow warriors (despite their mastery line) do not make good scouts, partly for the reasons/bugs I already listed, and partly because they are too vulnerable in non-group situations - vulnerable to interface/latency malfunction, vulnerable to stealth, vulnerable to speed.  Witch hunters/witch elves and marauders/white lions make better scouts.  Shadow warriors are actually constructed more as a hybrid class that should be able to switch to different strategies based on the situation. In other words, the effective strategies they can employ should be moderate in power, but extremely numerous and diverse in possibilities.  Strangely, the opposite seems to be true.  Effective tactics seem to be rather limited on a shadow warrior (though some are more than just moderately effective), with stance dancing making even the limited tactics often frustrating to employ.

    The bottom line is that Mythic seems to be as confused about the function and purpose of the class as you are.

  • Posted: 12/02/08 6:29 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)
• • Shadow Warriors got a LOT of love - no longer the worst class?

  • Originally posted by aesperus
    

    I'm actually glad they didn't touch those issues (except some minor stance glitching, which I agree need to be hotfixed).

    #1 The armor is fine, they are not and never will be intended to be the heavy armored RDPS class, that is left to the engineer / magus. Their survivability atm is between that of a BW and an engineer, exactly where it should be. If you find you are getting hit for too much, try stacking wounds / toughness instead of just ballistics. A lot of RDPS should be doing this anyway, to avoid from getting steamrolled.

    #2 For VOH, I do not think the cooldown should be 1mins, that's pretty quick for such a powerful skill. They'ved uped the damage for the SW across the board, which makes VOH more beneficial indirectly. VOH is not intended to be a commonly used powerhouse skill. It's meant as a safety, to help kill / finish off those hard to kill targets. That's all it's meant for.

    #3 As for range, with the exception of 2 skills SWs have the best range in the game. If they need to adjust anything in regards to range, it's updating the hotkeys to change from red to white apropriately, when in scout stance. If you've played SW passed tier1 though, you start to get a feel for the range anyhow, and I personally almost never look at my hotkeys anymore.

    Anyhow, I'd hardly call this patch a failure, especially if you've tried it on the public test realm. SWs were capable of nice damage output even before the patch when they were 'useless', and this patch is only going to amplify that.

    
     

    You are showing just how little you understand about the class with these statements.  First of all, you admit that the stance glitching is at hotfix priority level.  You've already conceded half of the argument.  As for the rest:

    1) Armor is not working right on a shadow warrior.  My shadow warrior has been at roughly 40% (in assault stance) mitigation for about the last 20 ranks (now at rank 40).  I also have a swordmaster on the same server, and I think at rank 10 he already matches or beats that.  Either the armor mitigation is following a curve of decreasing returns (which shouldn't be), or something is just flat out screwed up horribly.

    2) VoN (not VoH), Vengeance of Nagarythe, is the only ability that can save a shadow warrior from getting steamrolled by any other class basically, and in no way ensures success in a 1v1 situation - especially against those who can shrug off a snare as soon as they get up from a knockdown (if they even get knocked down in the first place).  Having a 3 minute cooldown on a (15 second?) buff was completely uncalled for, and a 1 minute cooldown would allow precisely enough buffer to keep the shadow warrior from being almost continuously vulnerable while preventing spamming of the ability.

    3) This one is funny.  Range has huge issues on several different levels.  First, the client/server interaction with range is not working correctly, at all.  I have screenshots of a melee attacker hitting me with melee attacks while my client is reporting that I'm out of range for a spiral fletched arrow against the same foe (and the foe shows up as being quite distant on my client, as well).  Second, melee abilities and especially melee morale abilities sometimes have equivalent, if not better, ranges than the shadow warrior's, while  wizards and sorcerors simply have better (more numerous and more distant) ranged abilities across the board.  Squig herders have a ranged disarm ability, while shadow warriors have to stance dance to assault and get up close and personal to disarm anyone (and throat shot works for about 2 seconds longer than it takes to fire the shot).  Lastly, geometries are compressed in the game, and combined with the difference in speed values (which are unrealistic based on said compressed geometries) between shadow warriors and several other classes, it makes ranged advantages virtually nil except in closely guarded group situations.  Ranged advantage should not be entirely subordinate to group tactics.

    I'm not saying that competent players cannot find ways to make shadow warriors work well, especially in group situations. The level of frustration (wih the interface, with tactics when the group isn't conforming perfectly, etc., etc.) while making them work well is far too high, however.  To put it bluntly, I don't think anyone at Mythic has fully tested a shadow warrior from beginning to end.  I can't imagine the stance issues alone making it through a comprehensive test of the class.

  • Posted: 12/02/08 5:28 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)
• • Shadow Warriors got a LOT of love - no longer the worst class?

  • To get the thread somewhat back on track, it would be important to notice that basically every class got increases to damaging abilities - even witch elves.  This has the net result of not balancing anything, and making everyone more squishy and more dependent on a significant number of healers being in the party/warband/scenario - something which can't be guaranteed and makes playing the game extremely reliant on a specific player's behavior.  (Specific players, not even the group as a whole.)

    I have to say Mythic has come a really long way from it's early days in the MMORPG industry.  Unfortunately it's just been a really long way downhill.

  • Posted: 12/02/08 4:51 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)
• • Shadow Warriors got a LOT of love - no longer the worst class?

  • Originally posted by susanto1228
    

    too bad they  Ignored more pressing issues with the SW

     

    Stance issues

    and reducing VON to 1 minute cooldown....

    on the Mythic EA PTS private forums, these 2 were the ones that most people wanted to get worked on

    who cares about the buffs, the SW does good dmg already.....

     

    Stance dancing

    No stance, greying out....is killing this class.

     

    IMO they should of worked out these 3 issues

    #1 Armor

    #2 Stance issues

    #3 Von/and range...

    and none were implemented

     

    so no the patch still sucks

    
     

    Spoken like someone who knows exactly what they are talking about.

    Well said, I concur completely.

  • Posted: 12/02/08 2:23 PM
    WAR (Warhammer Online)