Go ahead and pull up a chair and grab yourself something to drink.
Tonight I want to talk to you about the Shadow Warrior. As many know already, the Shadow Warrior is one of the careers currently being looked at to have some changes made.
Why am I writing another blog post you ask? Well mainly I want people to be able to have decent and constructive discussions on the possible changes. Now remember once again that the things I discuss are not guaranteed, so there is no need to lose your mind. I will make mention that abilities are no longer tied to VoN, so please take that into consideration. My personal thoughts follow the *
Glass Arrow (Possible Mirror to SH)
Instant cast
Single Target DD with Debuff
Debuff lasts 3 seconds ability has a cool down of 5 seconds.
Debuff reduces the range of target’s abilities to 75% of their intended range.
*Now looking at this, I can see how folks will get distracted by the lasting 3 seconds for the debuff, but in my opinion it looks as if it is one of those abilities when used effectively it can wreak havoc on your opponents. Reducing someones attack from 100ft to 75ft, while they are working on their attack cycle, you can cripple some players pretty effectively. It seems to be designed as a limited advantage against ranged, and not just lock down ranged abilities.
Flanking Shot
Chance to deal critical damage will scale upwards based on the amount of life lost by the target. (If target has 50% health left, then the crit chance for the ability is 50%…20% left then it would be 80%)
Can only be used from behind
10 sec CD
Instant Cast
*Not much I can give an opinion on with this change. I like it since it gives me an attack that can do some good damage when needed. It still has it’s normal CD so not bad, and it gives some good damage when you need it.
Whirling Pin (Possible Mirror to SH)
AoE Root has been replaced with an AoE snare
SW jumps back a certain distance. (Think along the lines of WE and WH)
*A very nice ability that can be used when in a group or when out solo. A bit of defense mixed in with some minor CC that you don’t have to really worry about immunity timers keeping you from gaining that extra distance you need in order to perform your job, and sometimes just when you need to survive.
Vengeance of Nagarythe
Does not use a GCD
30 second cooldown
Gives damage buff to you for 10 seconds
Increases damage while active by 25%
*Something we can actively press, and work into our regular attack rotations. This change is one that is very interesting, because technically it can be used every 30 seconds, but at the same time one can hold it back can be used at key times to give you some extra output when needed.
Now I am going to hold off here for the night, as I wanted to get some of the info out to players in order for them to discuss these possible changes in a constructive way. Whether you like the changes or not, please discuss them in a civil way.
I will make another post later so that other possible changes can be discussed. But remember once again this is not me trying to hype things up. I am just putting out information for the player base to discuss.
So sit back relax, get yourself a drink and maybe a nice fruit plate.
Peace,
M.
11 Comments
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P-O-D-C-A-S-T 
I have seen worse Ideas. Quite frankly SW hit hard enough already, People just compare them to BW/Sorc too much, and their Damage is just OP.
I was looking at my combat log after a SW kited my tank to death, and not a single attack did I mitigate more than the damage i took, not bad considering i have 100+ mitigation.
I made a post on the forums: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/224/index/7926748
Leave feedback, remember these are not set in stone.
also remind me in two weeks to get a hold of you.
This blog of ideas pretty much in line with what i’ve been hoping for. A bit of CC/ Utility to improve our class.
Glass Arrows > thats an awesome idea, 1 sec cast, shut down sorcxs. Can work like an extra silence if you have range on them and they appear to be attacking you. good duration, not too long and nice cooldown
Flanking shot > Another nice idea, crit scales as targets life drops. May I suggest however, to deal critical dmg rather than to increase critical chance? Similar to the slayers tactic which increases their critical dmg as they drop in health. I don’t think it would be OP as SW’s don’t have any current forms of critical dmg modifiers such as Increased pain, and it would only apply to the one move on 10s cooldown. I don’t think the SW needs much work in dmg output, however this skill is in a tree which doesn’t deal as much dmg as Scout, decent cooldownm, depends on their targets hp, i think it would work better if you make this small tweak
Whirling Pin > This is probably my favourite idea of yours. Its just what the class needs, we lack survivability in certain situations, especially for a mobile kkiting class. Its important not to overdo it and make SW OP, but this idea is really balanced and well thought out. Much better to snare the target, say 5 seconds, and pounce back a short distance than rely on a root that can easily be broken, parried, or ignored due to immunity. Its a nice bit of utility as well, if you are trying to save a healer on your team or something. The skill has been a point of reference for a long time for the class as one that needs work, i like your idea
VoN > Your idea is a good improvement on its current form. Having knockdown associated with a 2 min cooldown is not fair to us. 30 s cooldown on kd will be much more balanced. I might add, this is what I had hoped for VoN, a shorter cooldown and shorter duration. You could even go 7 sec duration, or 6, but i feel 5 would be too short. 30 second cooldown is perfect. If the cooldown becomes 1 min, then I feel a 15 s duration would be fair. However I am most in favour of 30 s cooldown, 6/7/10 sec duration.
I look forward to ur next installment, however i’m totally impressed by your ideas. They are 100% in line with what I had hoped, and have a good balance of what we need, but not going over the top and making us OP.
Arthem
100 SW of Gorfang
Reading over my post i wanna add that I think the cooldown on the glass arrows idea is a bit low. Maybe 10/20 sec cooldown would be more fair on Sorcs/SH’s etc. Given its a short duration, it shouldn’t go higher than 20s cooldown
And again on flanking shot, I don’t want to sound like i’m unaware of the gear procs which increase your critical dmg, but i was more refering to 50% critical dmg tactics.
Arthem
Hi, love the concepts behind most of this. The focus on more/tweaked cc is spot on imo.
Whirling pin becoming a snare with a self knock back is clever, distance for knock back needs to consider the needs of mdps and be less than 65ft to maintain some form of balance or we would be in danger of going to the extreme of becoming uncatchable, somewhere between 35 – 45 ft would be good. With the snare that still leaves the option/chance of escape but doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion.
Changes to flanking to graduate crit chance rather than crit dmg is a nice twist to FoTW which works with a dmg component. Nice to have a more usable finisher in Skirm tree. Would suggest that the positional component is from side or back rather than just from back to make it more usable. Also is the thinking to have the positional component mitigated by being vengeful/having VoN active?
Glass is a interesting, sounds like a bit like a ranged version of counterstrike, but only really effective at 75ft – 100ft. Would like to see it on a 10sec cool down rather than 5 though, or at least 2.5 – 3x the duration of the debuff.
5 secs gives a couple of sw’s working together the ability to shut down a sorc (or even 2) pretty much permanently against rdps/healers who hold their distance. In a situation where a group are turtle necking in a sc spawn rdps are often their only chance of fighting their way out by taking down a healer from distance.
All in all like the way this is moving.
Taire – gorfang
Reading the glass arrow thing, my simple question is:
So your approach on fixing the SW is to make it the only ranged class at a keep siege?
This change would guarantee the SW to win any ranged fight since the enemy would be unable to fight back any more. (110 feet vs. 75 feet. ) So, defending range DDs would have to leave the keep and play melee DDs to be able to fight back, attacking range DDs should better stay at home?
Sorry, but while the idea sounds nice at first read, the actual consequences are unacceptable.
On flanking shot, i pesonally would rather replace that thing with anything, really anything, which is based on a completely different effect. Getting behind an attacker is a feat which a melee class can achieve. Thanks to stealth, low running distance to get behind the target and perhaps even charge. If a ranged class would try to stay outside of melee range and still get behind a target… wish you fun running for a long time, just to be countered with the target turning around. Not good, either.
About the whirling pin, hmm… the ability currently is as as good as the engineers barbed wire. Which ammounts to: quite worthless. Your suggestion might be an improvement, but i very much doubt that Mythic wants another self-punt in the game. The existing ones are bad enough and hold some evil exploits.
So while i see the problem, that a melee-range root is of limited use for a ranged class, i would go another approach with those thingies: change it to a duplicate of the shamans and AMs ground targeted AoE snare. That one would be very useful to a ranged class in about any situation. (Yes, the SW has a ranged snare. But hey, with the vengeance getting changed, the SW will loose his knockdown. Unless for example the ranged snare becomes a ranged knockdown and the whirling pin becomes the suggested AoE snare. )
Sorry for tearing your ideas apart like this, but expecially the range decrease would very unbalancing and thus unacceptable.
I just want to clarify that these are possible changes, and not me theory crafting. I added a link to the forum discussion, in one of my previous comments for folks to be able to discuss on the forums.
Peace
It’s not as unbalancing as you think. Glass Arrow would only work from 88ft away. Thus a SW couldn’t even cast it if you stood at 90+ft from the wall. On keep defense, it is easily defeated by the same means people win ranged duels now: only popping up to apply your instants and duck behind the wall the rest of the time. If a SW runs up to 88ft to apply his debuff, he will get focusfired into oblivion just like he does right now when he applies flamming arrow.
For ranged duels Glass Arrow (80ft range) only provides a 5ft range advantage from the stances you can actually kite in. That’s not much of an margin for error.
So yes it is a great help but it’s not a tremendous advantage, it just evens the playing field to help us get off a dot or two before the real fight starts. It’s not we can combine it with Festersbombs in a ranged duel. There are about half a dozen ways you could easily defeat such an attempt.
Hey Mykiel, just want to say that I agree with your comments on the forums. You’re aren’t the only veteran SW who thinks these are positve changes. I think everyone on Mythic boards just needs to chill out and ponder things for a while rather busting out the pitchforks in typical knee-jerk fashion.
I now dub thee Fanboi Secundus. Wear it like armor.
It’s probably straining credulity to call me a “fanboi” of any rank, but I do recognize a buff patch when I see one.
It’s been the same every single time SW gets buffed. Mythic gives 20% and take back 10%. But it seems like everone concetrates only on the 10% lost.
I really hope people stick around to realize that this time it’s a pretty large net gain, because we will every SW we can get to win the Glass vs Shrapnel Wars.