Shadowblades

[Osrill]

Are SBs really that gimp?, i mean is there any SB who can actually give high rr infs a good run for there money? atm mids have str relics, add in heat LGM weps and maybe 10% style and 10% melee dmg from ToA and overcapping str
and you will be doing good dmg or so i would imagine, and with ToA haste/ buffs etc you will be getting cap or near enough cap swing speed with 4 speed or so weps, it cant be theoretically possible to infs to out dmg you tho with that kind of set up and with str relics and all, + i think SBs can have naturally slower weps than infils so they should hit naturally harder

Discuss, why is it infils still beat the crap out of SBs, or that is what i hear alot anyway just from where ever you know

Some dmg logs would be helpful of high RR SBs

 

[vintervargen]

if you disregard CS attacks, its because of :

• infils have more specpoints, hence generally more WS
• dual shadows is an uber style for 1vs1 situations
• dragonfang
• sb's suffer more WS loss from the debuff assasins use

imo

 

[Slytale]

I'm finding SB's with good TOA gear harder than infils.

 

[Melachi]

Some problems with Shadowblades:

Problem 1:
Left-Axe's weaponskill is derived from Left-Axe spec rather than Weapon spec, unlike Dual-Wield/Celtic-Dual, this means a Shadowblade taking the spec of 50weapon/39leftaxe, has only the weaponskill of 39spec on his left-hand, making it evaded/parried/blocked/miss more and higher variance in off-hand, also making it be a requirement to spec if you plan to dual-wield. For Dual-Wield and Celtic-Dual if you go with a spec of 50weapon/1dualwield you still have the weapons skill of 50spec on your off-hand.

I have tested the extent of this problem, now first off ill say that I only tested with level 20 characters, but nonetheless the problem does exist, what I did was /leveled a berserker, specced 20axe/1left-axe and bought him to exactly the same 3.3spd axes that could be equiped in off-hand. Then I tested my damage over time and average damage whilst using 1 3.3spd axe (no offhand), then I tested my average damage using 2 3.3spd weapons, to see how much greater my damage would be. I was shocked to find it actually panned out to roughly the same damage (it was a tad lower) and my average damage hit was lower, reason? Lower weapon-skill on the off-hand was actually enough to offset the ability to use two weapons, meaning quite litterally SB's do need to spec LA in order to dual-wield. In laymans terms using 2 weapons actually underperformed using 1 weapon.

The above scenario is not possible with DW/CD mechanics.

Having said that I prefare LA mechanics on a whole especially on berserkers, however I really think they should fix this by simply making LA weaponskill come from the main weapon spec like it does with DW/CD.

Problem 2:
Another problem is the hitpoint bonus Shadowblades recieve. I personally think it is just not enough, 5% bonus literally means when your talking about a Infil with lets say 2000hp, the Shadowblade would have 2100hp, not a big differnce if you ask me. I think it should be upped slightly.

Second issue with the hitpoint bonus is that its partially negated by the use of the Str/Con poison. Example:

Lets take hypothetical numbers here for example since they are easier to use since they are more rounded.

Imagine an Infil had 300 con, and from this 300con got 2000hp. Which means the Infil gets 6.6666 hits per point of con.
Imagine a SB had 300 con also, and because of his bonus got 2100hp from the 300 con. Which means the SB gets 7 hits per point of con.

Now lets debuff them both, of them with the 118con poison.
First the Infil:
Starts at, 300con 2000hp, 6.666hp per 1con.
After debuff; 182con * 6.6666hp = 1213.3333 hps after debuff
Meaning he lost 786.6666hp

Now the SB:
Starts at, 300con 2100hp, 7hp per 1con.
After debuff; 182con * 7hp = 1274 hps after debuff
Meaning he lost 826hp

See? The SB loses more hp from the debuff because of the way the SB bonus is. This is a bad example though since the numbers are strange because I made them up just to show that the SB looses more from the con debuff, but I assure you it works the same way with normal numbers, I'll even dig up the exact figures for hits per con for exact testing later if I can find em.

Problem 3:
2handed weapons, really these are sub-par when compared to dual-wielders. They do not scale in the same way DW/LA mechanics do, and they are actually worse for PA's in a DPS sense if you have higher than (16~ LA).
LA pumps out much higher DPS at high specs, and is really better in every way unless you want to frontload, which in these days of Brittleguards is becoming less and less usefull.

Also, Dual-Wield halves evade and 2handed doesnt so your at a disadvantage there.


Summary:
Sb's arent half as bad as people make out, too many of them try to spec like an infil and are upset with the results, Shadowblades arent infils, our strength really only comes from Shadowzerker these days, if you want to play a Dual-Wielding critstriker roll an infil/nightshade.
If you want to roll a Assasin killing stealthed light tank, roll a Mercfil, or Shadowzerker(though they are a bit behind Mercfil).

SB's will do well if they do this: Get an uber-suit, 25str cap, 10 melee spd/dmg style damage. Spec 50weap 39la 35stl 33env (or some close variant, cs sucks these days except for infils/shades, or high rr SB's). Get a buffbot and a hastebot (get a friend to do this and you make the shammy or vice versa), and hold onto relics. Then you will do well.

P.S. Regarding the whole, no str/dex weapons, yeah ok its a problem for Kobolds mainly, but given the choice, I would still use str weapons for the easier +25cap

Long post, Zzz

 

[judas]

sbs have more hp more relics and have higher poprate aswell as yell range :<
but allso are much worse players "skill" wise then infils so maybe its that what makes some ppl think they are more gimped.

 

[Lethul]

sbs have more hp more relics and have higher poprate aswell as yell range :<
but allso are much worse players "skill" wise then infils so maybe its that what makes some ppl think they are more gimped.

you play sb or what?

 

[Wmv]

sb with relics vs infils is doing fine, just like before TOA, give infils relics and it would be another story

 

[Aloca]

sb with relics vs infils is doing fine, just like before TOA, give infils relics and it would be another story

I would say Sbs need all str relics or they cant compete atm, most people even me forget about this in the general rvr, i fight sbs 1v1 and win mostly even tho they have relics, this means that they are underperforming me by 20-40%

 

[judas]

you play sb or what?

ofc not. but i heard you got wtfpooned by elajt when he was lvl42 :<

 

[SeeN]

sbs have more hp more relics and have higher poprate aswell as yell range :<
but allso are much worse players "skill" wise then infils so maybe its that what makes some ppl think they are more gimped.

That qualifies as the dumbest post I have seen on this forum yet.

 

[Wmv]

I would say Sbs need all str relics or they cant compete atm, most people even me forget about this in the general rvr, i fight sbs 1v1 and win mostly even tho they have relics, this means that they are underperforming me by 20-40%

yus, but i said vs infils, nightshades are alot harder to kill then infils, rr6 ns gives bigger challenge then rr8 infil

 

[Leel]

It's a well known fact that more spec points and access to AP grants more skill. So by default, sb's have less skill than their counterparts, which they have to counter by being more skillful players. It's SICK when a mercfil hits harder than a shadowzerk with 20% relic bonus. And given that heat weapons favors the classes that can spec str/dex based weapons more than pure str based ones, it's apparent that sb's are at a disadvantage. Before toa, an infil or ns could spec thrust/pierce to get evade styles with stun, but be at a disadvantage vs mid leather and studded, or they could choose to spec slash/blades to get bonus on mid leather and studded, but take a heavy penalty vs str/don debuff, but toa made it kinda pointless to spec slash/blades. Now you can spec for the evade stun and still get the bonus damage. Sick imo. Still, some infils are slash spec, but that's only because of the uber battler and malice combo really. It would not be pretty if alb got those str relics, they would hit prolly 60-80% harder than sb's.

 

[Aussie]

so a sb is gimped because of the class and if an alb says they are gimped then its the player

make sence to me

 

[Aloca]

After toa i have more problem with infil's than sb's

 

[Aloca]

so a sb is gimped because of the class and if an alb says they are gimped then its the player

make sence to me

Yes becouse there is just 2-3 classes in alb that is gimped the rest can be good if used correct. Problem is that albs grps maybe is harder to build and that there is to many people that do not want to play healers due diffrent reasons ( no kill spam being 1) thats what i noticed most in alb, there isnt any non bb clerics.

 

[Salamurhaaja]

Just givf SBs str/dex based weapons and I might bother to test my SB once again in RvR.

 

[UriZeN]

the problem with sbs is that unlike the dual wield mechanics is tha la affects mainhand damage in a large scale so if u decide to have low la spec u are forced to use 2hander to get highest damage posible! what i think its an advatage about la is that it swings everytime giving steady dmg over time and with dr it hits almost always! another thing is that sb vs infi with the same hp bonuses has the advantage of at least 400hp more which is a considerabe advantage! as for the damage output dont forget that infis play with almost 100af more than sbs which i think is much much better than haste,hitting an infi wo af buff is like a knife in butter!
as for which class is gimped and which is not i cannot say since the game is gamble mode with all those procs around!
may the best proc win....

zerg spec=1 button gameplay
crit spec=skill

 

[censi]

crit blades tear me a new asshole. but then again they can see me from like 10 miles away when stealthed so its not that hard to line up PA. if i dont phase shift before creeping death lands im dead.

roll on master of stealth 5 payback.

will be nice to see how assasins fair when archers get the jump on them with their crit shot. dont say i agree with it but after 12 months of being PA fodder I dont care.

 

[Sofus]

Does infils beat the crap out of sbs ?

 

[Aloca]

Crit blade is probably the best spec vs rangers atleast, rangers doesnt have high evade or any other defence, vs other assassin crit blade if lucky owns the problem there is that you atleast 1 time get evaded and as most ns/infils have a after evade stun the sbs loose.

 

[-Freezingwiz-]

The reason SBs hit for less on Infils is because albs have Spec AF (give me 140-150AF or so on my mincer THAT makes a huge diff tbh.) I would guess is the reason why SBs hit for so much less on infils, and infils hit harder on SBs.... but ofc haste should make a bit up for it, but after ToA and the 25% buff bonus I got a lot more AF from that buff I doubt u got the same benefit from haste buff...

and ofc Dex/Str based weaps make a diff aswell :<

(btw nerf Str/con debuff and malice debuff I have same hits as when I'm unbuffed )

 

[Loxleyhood]

Critblades with the relics are pretty monsterous. Other Shadowblades can't kill me 1v1.

 

[living]

Yes becouse there is just 2-3 classes in alb that is gimped the rest can be good if used correct. Problem is that albs grps maybe is harder to build and that there is to many people that do not want to play healers due diffrent reasons ( no kill spam being 1) thats what i noticed most in alb, there isnt any non bb clerics.

No its not so much the non killspam, would be plenty of clerics IF they could get grps lvling up. I enjoy playing cleric alot but its just a fact that there are no reason to grp em in pve as a 50 BB will be better, and in the end they just give up because they can't level on their own.

 

[Belomar]

Perfect windup by Judas--look at all the SBs falling over themselves to prove their skillz0r! :worthy:

 

[Lethul]

ofc not. but i heard you got wtfpooned by elajt when he was lvl42 :<

he was 44 and i was 42, and i won 4 times and lost 1. wtfpwned

 

[Varg]

There are a few very well outfitted/skilled infils, but the masses, from the very high to the low RRs, don't utilize the infil class to the max.

Many don't even come close ;X

So I would rather have it the other way; infiltrators are generally gimps on this server

 

[Smilewhenyousaythat]

SBs are mostly fine - its just there were a lot of fotms attracted to the class pre 1.62 who are still whining that godmode got removed.

 

[Dathcald]

Critblades with the relics are pretty monsterous. Other Shadowblades can't kill me 1v1.

Thats funny lox, Ive killed you quite a few times 1vs1, and Im a sz, only rr7 too.

 

[Jaem-]

I've found NS reasonably alright, tho with SB I tend to be free RP, but I guess this is due to the str relics that they have.

 

[Aloca]

Thats funny lox, Ive killed you quite a few times 1vs1, and Im a sz, only rr7 too.

None have ever killed lox in a 1v1 you should know this by now