#The Problems With Spell Shadestepper (LONG)

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

hasty gate
#

Theres been many posts recently made about the current state of assassin and as someone who has exclusively played spell shadestepper and trickshade since 2.1s release i’ve decided to throw my own hat into the ring.** (Very long thread incoming)**

I’ve done hundreds of raids (mostly nol but I have done the other ones as well), completed almost every world event and have soloed almost all of the games endgame bosses in spell shade so I think I have a pretty strong understanding of the archetypes problems

Spell shade has many problems but the main one is it’s inconsistency which is a result of the way many of it’s abilities are designed.

Most of shades abilities can be classified under 1 of 2 categories

#

Tied To Vanish

The following nodes only do something when you are either vanished or it requires you to be vanished to do

Death Magnet

  • After leaving vanish, pulls all nearby marked mobs towards you
  • Death magnet is awful, the pull does not help, cci exists on most bosses and its 2 ability points, this is the most useless node and the only redeeming factor is that its optional which also means nobody will ever use it

Nightcloak Knife

  • Cast spin attack in vanish consume marks, summon a knife for every 2 marks (max 10), each knife copies 8% of your damage
  • It being tied to vanish is fine since you only ever really need to cast knives a few times in a fight since knives last 40 seconds but theres a different problem I have with knives I'll adresss later.

Surprise Strike + Ambush

  • Next hit while in vanish will deal 120% more damage

Shadow Travel

  • Increase your speed by 120% while in vanish

Dissolution

  • When entering/leaving vanish become immune to knockback and gain resistance for a brief moment
#

The Vanish Effects

Now for the other 3 it only makes sense that they are tied to vanish but being tied to vanish means that they all share the same 5 second cooldown and honestly I do not mind vanish (and by extension surprise strike, shadow travel, and dissolution) having a cooldown but what I do have a problem with is the fact that you cannot choose when you want to vanish

Let’s say your vanish cooldown has refreshed but you just need to dash once to dodge an attack, wallah ***you have now wasted effectively 4 abilities and must wait 5 more seconds. ***

This is especially annoying since the invisibility from vanish combined with dissolution and shadow travel allows shadestepper to get close to a boss (which you need to do because shade has very small range) safely and quickly.

Furthermore if a boss is aggroed on you, you usually need vanish to position yourself to land successful backstabs (which are boosted by the surprise strike boost that is tied to vanish)

And by landing successful backstabs shadow siphon reduces vanish cooldown which in turn reduces the cooldown on all these other abilities!

But since you can’t choose when you want to use vanish you often have to burn it which in turn makes it harder for shade to get in and you also lose out on a lot of potential burst damage for backstab chaining.

When I say backstab chaining i’m referring to vanishing, then going for 2 backstabs in quick succession to proc shadow siphon twice so you can vanish shortly after

upper pier
#

🦅 🦅 I have interrupted your pretyped post 🦅 🦅

Jokes aside real

hasty gate
#

I often get into situations where I’m just stalling waiting for vanish cd to reset which isn’t very fun (granted with the mythic aspect its not as bad but without it ask;udbaskl;jdbas;ldf/basjld)

Now honestly having like 40% of your abilities (and all of them being good with the exception of death) tied to one ability wouldn’t be that bad if the rest of the archetype could stand on it’s own.

Except it doesn’t stand on it’s own because another 40% of your abilities don’t do anything half the time.

#

Significantly Stronger if theres Minions/Doesn’t do anything if there aren’t any

Depending on the situation Shadestepper will either thrive or severely underperform and the main factor that decides what card your dealt is the presence or absence of minions in a fight.

Silent Killer

  • Reset’s vanish cd after** killing an enemy**

Violent Vortex + Stronger vortex

  • Dealing over 2.5x of your max health as damage in a single hit will deal 70% of the damage to** other nearby enemies.**

Harvester + Devour

  • After killing an enemy, gain +10 Mana for each leftover Mark it had.

Black Hole (technically not apart of shade archetype but it’s clearly intended to be used with shade)

  • Smoke bomb will pull nearby enemies

Nightclock Knives (I’ll explain)

#

The Main Offenders

I cannot stress enough how much stronger shadestepper is when theres minions. Silent Killer, Violent Vortex, and Harvester form an absolutely insane combo.

Let’s say you land a vanish boosted backstab on a boss here’s what happens next

1. Violent vortex triggers, most likely killing many of the nearby enemies
2. By killing these enemies you refill most of your mana or at the very least get back the mana you spent to land the vanish backstab

And finally the really big one
3. Your vanish cooldown resets because violent vortex killed something

SIlent killer is the biggest offender when it comes to feast or famine because since your vanish cooldown reset this also means surprise strike, shadow travel, and dissolution also have their cooldown reset.

Meaning you can now go land another vanish boosted backstab which triggers violent vortex, which refills your mana and then lets you do it all over again.

Harvester is frustrating and out of all of shade’s abilities I want this one to get reworked the most. Unlike other mana nodes (that are actually good), you can’t build with harvester in mind because many bosses just don’t have minions to reliably farm mana off of. So you are left with two option, either build sustain assuming harvester doesn’t exist (and then have extra mana you don't need in fights harvester does something) or you just don’t have enough mana 50% of the time. And shadestepper not having a proper mana node is a really big problem in my opinion for reasons ill explain later.

Violent vortex is the least offender between vortex, harvester and silent killer since the node mainly exists to compensate for shades meh aoe/crowd control so if there's no enemies around its not a big deal if you lose out on this.

But like I said before its the combination of these three abilities that is a problem because none of these nodes do anything if theres no minions.

Now for the other two

#

Blackhole

Blackhole is very meh, it’s there to help shade apply marks with smokebomb but most bosses have cci so the only thing your pulling are minions. And with the buff made to marks in 2.1 fatal spin applys 2 marks total so you don’t really need a node whose only purpose is mid crowd control and appling marks easier (but only if they don’t have cci). I wouldn’t recommend this node and imo this node and better smoke should just be combined into 1 since currently blackhole is not worth 2 ability points. If you want a node to make applying marks easier I’d much rather take sticky bomb 9 times out of 10 since it works even if the boss has cci or moves around a lot (cough orphion) and it also gives some extra damage.

Nightcloak Knives

Now you might be wondering how nck falls under this category. Well the knife cap is 5, 8 with aspects but it’s not possible to get anything more then 4 knives if there are no minions. This is because consuming marks when you already have knives doesn’t give you more knives, it just replaces your current knives with however many new knives you got. 4 to 8 knives is a 32% damage increase! This is a pretty significant damage increase that further widens the gap between shadesteppers power level with and without minions.

#

Mana

Now other spell shade players (the 3 that exist) might disagree with me here but I’ve found shade to be very very mana hungry. Spin attack and backstab are both instant spells with very short duration so to maximize your damage you need to be rapidly cycling these spells which burns a lot of mana.

Now you could decide to play full burst applying marks, getting knives and going for hit and run vanish backstab chaining with shadow siphon but I personally found that a lot less flexible and although you can probably hit higher bursts the playstyle and dps is a lot more inconsistent (also if you mess up its doom)

I’ve had much better results playing a mix of spin front stab cycling and vanish backstab chaining. This leads to a lot more consistent dps imo but you need to build so much mana because harvester is unreliable and building a lot of mana also leaves less room for damage pieces.

#

Identity

So now that I’ve gone over most of shades major nodes I just want to talk a bit about shadesteppers identity. Shadestepper is an archetype that is supposed to be a glass cannon that “deals devestating damage at the right time.” The problem with this is that the damage you get is not comparable to the amount of time it takes.

If you want to go for the full boosted backstab that is with marks, knives and satusjin heres what you need to do.

Apply marks -> vanish spin attack for knives -> apply marks again -> vanish backstab

Now this might not sound like a lot but remember vanish has a 5 second cooldown and because satsujin activates on any multihit with 4+ marks you cannot use backstab to cycle or else you’ll waste your satsujin proc.

Now the amount of time it takes to do this will vary depending on the situation (if theres mobs that u can reset ur cd on with silent killer, how often/fast the boss is moving, etc) but lets say this takes about 8 seconds, 5 from waiting for vanish to reset and 3 seconds to apply marks, get knives, reapply marks

Now during this entire process your dps is awful since as I mentioned before, you cant cycle backstab leaving you with no good dmg spell to cycle with spin attack and once you finally land the backstab youll deal maybe like 300-400k? Now this sounds like a lot of damage until you remember how long it takes to do it and how in that time any other damage dealing archetype can do 2x that.

#

This is just a problem with spell shade in general, it’s meant to be a burst dps archetype but you don’t deal enough damage to make up for the time lost.

And after landing your first satsujin boosted backstab good luck landing your next one because the cooldown is per enemy meaning the game can’t tell you when it refreshes. This means theres a very high chance you end up wasting your satsujin on a non boosted backstab while cycling spin stab or on your second backstab when backstab chaining.

Now I’ve been told this problem with satusjin is on the list of things to be changed but for now this is still another thing that contributes to the inconsistency of the archetype.

#

Conclusion

Currently the archetype is riddled with many problems that are holding the archetype back. The inconsistent nature combined with the really bad effort to damage ratio has caused spell shade to be one of the most underplayed playstyles. In my hundreds of raids I have not found a single level 100+ spell shade player. Which I think is a shame because I think shadestepper has a lot going for it. The overall aesthetic of the class is really cool and I enjoy the depth of gameplay from the marks to the knives and I get a lot of enjoyment from landing backstabs which is why one day I hope this archetype will get the meaningful changes it needs to thrive in modern wynn.

#

ok im done i could have talked more but ill leave it at that @covert flame @tepid obsidian sorry about the pings but i wanna hear what you two think (since you two are the only people i know who have played/play spell shade)

oh yea also im going to bed now so im not checking this post for the next like 8 hours like

calm stratus
#

this is so real

hasty gate
next sail
#

😔

hasty gate
next sail
#

yep

hasty gate
#

The other rooms also took a while

next sail
#

I'd also like to mention

#

having minions not only increases qol but it nearly doubles your damage

#

violent vortex proc + nightcloak knife constantly chaining between both mobs

hasty gate
#

^^

covert flame
#

Very much agree with all of this except the mana one because ofc my cycle/sustain is just completely different, though my cycle is 100% less consistent than yours as a tradeoff for infinite sustain

I really want to emphasize that the issue of inconsistency is not with backstab but rather with the abilities.
Nightcloak knife needing minions might be ok if spellshade actually had decent damage in the first place, but rn its just another layer of things that absolutely nuke your dps that u literally cant do anything about in most scenarios.
Satsujin is as mentioned just a slot machine. As spellshade currently is with backstab chaining, it is effectively completely out of your control whether or not satsujin procs on a surprise strike or not and this again just kills your damage for no reason
Backstab itself being inconsistent, in my opinion, is a huge selling point of the archetype. I know that a lot of people don’t like that, but if backstab always procced on vanish or something along those lines then spellshade would lose so much flavor as a unique archetype and just become a basic dps option. Sure, it can suck to miss backstab, but it makes it feel like im on a high when i get a good backstab chain going. It makes it feel fun and rewarding to position backstabs, and my real problem with the class is that it just isn’t actually rewarding damagewise. It feels like the damage numbers of the class were designed around fighting a target that doesn’t turn or move and you have max knives and always hitting boosted satsus and all that consistently, but the archetype is inherently inconsistent, so the damage ends up trash in practice and you get rewarded for your efforts with very mediocre dps (and its burst and after setup!!!).

hasty gate
pulsar ginkgo
#

shade having the identity (imo) of high singletarget damage and low aoe, is really funny when the actual kit relies on having multiple enemies

wintry wagon
# hasty gate # Tied To Vanish The following nodes only do something when you are either vani...

oh epic a spellshade thread, let's see here

I consider myself a very dedicated spellshade player and spam raids (usually pfinder) with weathered, I have 300+ 2.1 NoL and 250+ 2.1 TNA and I think most of those are from playing this class. I just find it very fun because I love spy tf2.

Don't try it in NotG though, it can work in TCC if your build is made for that.

you have now wasted effectively 4 abilities and must wait 5 more seconds.
as you mentioned it, the mythic aspect does fix it but shadow siphon is all you will need.

if a boss is aggroed on you, you usually need vanish to position yourself to land successful backstabs
this is not true especially if you are solo (which is the best dps environment for shade lol). frontstabbing (landing proper backstabs by being in front of the target) can easily get shadow siphon procs allowing you to very aggressively chain backstabs/vanish, although at the cost of health sometimes.

I’m just stalling waiting for vanish cd to reset which isn’t very fun
in raid bosses/big bosses situation this shouldn't happen too much (if you can't get siphon that means the boss is zoning you out aka you wouldn't be able to do much anyways)

40% of your abilities don’t do anything half the time.
and the time it does anything its very mediocre, shade is not a good clear class, let's face it. it is only good against minibosses and such and many of them are just impossible to backstab one way or another. I'm unsure how they would fix this though

satsujin
it is certainly an ability, personally I just disregard its existence in bosses and see it as "double your stabs every 10s so its more significant the worse you are doing", it is definitely much weaker on spell shade compared to hmelee but thats the unfortunate states of things

#

also it might be worth mentioning that I use dissolution aspect instead of nightcloak knife. I find it better because with shadow siphon you can have insane uptime on the resistance. chances are you will not be getting more than 5 knives when you want it (bosses) unless your teammates are silly and spawn greater one (although you could argue its much easier in orphion) so I prefer the massive resistance uptime

#

especially when I'm aggressively frontstabbing

#

on a side note:

I have not found a single level 100+ spell shade player.
part of why I spammed NoL pfinder was to hunt you down during early 2.1 (I wanted to get you for making fun of spellshade in trickshade vid) but you must be on the opposite timezone or something lol.

I think I've ran into like 2 or 3 spellshade players so far minus 1 of my friend so yeah its a very extinct archetype

#

up there with pure trickster and pure paladin I would say

#

For what's it's made for (bosses) I think spellshade feels very complete as an archetype, it could use some numbers change but it's kit is very equipped for that, the clear leaves a lot to be desired but I suppose that's not what it is made for.

buoyant ingot
#

Shadestepper is best for hm

#

Just 6mark and earth powder boom 2m dmg

edgy wave
#

I think it would be better to shorten the duration of the Nightcloak Knife’s buff, increase its damage multiplier, and add a cooldown. Having a buff that lasts for tens of seconds doesn’t really fit the class’s style.

wintry wagon
#

since you are giving up a backstab's damage to refresh it

#

(also because nightcloak is the most unreliable damage booster to exist)

eager dew
#

they won’t listen to people saying buff spellshade
i already tried

covert flame
covert flame
#

it doesnt change enough in clearing to matter and then its literally only useful on phase 2 orphion with chain lightning

#

and there’s like 3 aspects that can viably take that slot for spellshade (main attack range, spin range, disso) depending on playstyle

wintry wagon
#

yeah

#

near perma disso at 60% dr is so juicy

covert flame
#

etw when i have effectively 111 defense😋

wintry wagon
#

shade's worst nightmare is honestly teammates who can't kite for you

#

I can't backstab when the enemy is turning around erratically or when the mage decides its cool to teleport behind bosses

covert flame
#

i think its fine on orphion cuz hes not rlly that fast but on greg it actually goes unplayable sometimes

wintry wagon
#

orphion does have a lot of attacks that locks his rotation, yeah

#

you can even get backstabs in safely between his charges

#

wait where he'd impact wall in vanish (it won't hit you) and when he turns away for the next charge you can get 1-2 in

covert flame
#

ngl im too afraid of him doing the thing where he targets the same wall and just murders you so i just try to catch him while he charges through mid

#

not remotely consistent tho

wintry wagon
#

with my ping catching him mid-charge isn't as feasible

#

but yeah that can happen if your teammate is silly

covert flame
wintry wagon
#

one day we will be able to backstab axon and hammer guy

covert flame
#

oh yeah regarding spellshade only being good on bosses/minibosses this is me coping but like my favorite thing is ending up in a party with an hmelee shade player and then i do setup for them to one shot the miniboss before i can even backstab like its actually so fucked

wintry wagon
covert flame
#

i legit dont want to play tcc because of 3rd room😭

#

actually fundamentally worthless in that room

wintry wagon
#

"i'll mark this crystalline decay, ok it's at 8 now I vanish and" quakes

#

spellshade clowns on athlantic witness at least

#

chiropterror wildly depends on your team

covert flame
#

yeah but its soooo annoying sometimes because the boss wanders when you’re vanished

wintry wagon
#

LI as spellshade saltroll

#

(and world events minibosses too)

covert flame
#

LI spellshade except death metal❤️

wintry wagon
#

I think some WE minibosses also don't have backs

#

the big robot things in decommissioned war machines for one, and I think the 🗿 too but unsure, that or they just wander too much to be backstabable

covert flame
#

i havent played like any of the late game world events lol but it at least sounds managable there assuming theres minions everywhere to proc vortex and silent killer

wintry wagon
#

mobs are easy to get rid of but for minibosses, good luck

covert flame
#

but like omg please why are so many random things unbackstabbable :((

#

u can backstab shit like the defend challenges in canyon lr and then u cant backstab the massive tcc miniboss with a huge back

#

you can backstab the eye’s first phase, which doesn’t have its back exposed and then you can’t backstab its second phase which does have its back exposed

#

actually miserable sometimes

wintry wagon
#

it is honestly quite incredible

#

eye p2 take almost if not as long as p1 for me

open minnow
#

yea it’s a bit annoying sometimes

#

it’s super satisfying to land actual backstabs but it feels bad to not be able to on certain enemies

#

maybe like a satsujin proc could guarantee a successful backstab?

covert flame
#

just give enemies a back😭

#

if they can give the void holes in room 1 of tna a back they could totally give the void holes in room 3 a back too

rustic stirrup
#

Just make backstab activate on powder specials once you get Satsujin

lavish isle
#

Spell shade thread yipee
(I am hybrid but this is very nice i want to play spell shade but since hm works so well i go hybrid)

rustic stirrup
#

Oh shit this is spell shade my bad

#

I suggested a hmelee solution skull

lavish isle
#

Silly

patent seal
#

to me shade is like the biggest damage assassin archetype except it fails at it

hasty gate
# wintry wagon oh epic a spellshade thread, let's see here I consider myself a very dedicated ...

First thanks for reading the whole thread it is very long so i appreciate you for taking time to go through my points and comment on them with ur own experiences

if a boss is aggroed on you, you usually need vanish to position yourself to land successful backstabs
this is not true especially if you are solo (which is the best dps environment for shade lol). frontstabbing (landing proper backstabs by being in front of the target) can easily get shadow siphon procs allowing you to very aggressively chain backstabs/vanish, although at the cost of health sometimes.`

Yea this is a fair point and I prob over exaggerated by saying you *need *vanish when that's not the case but I think it’s not wrong to say vanish definitely helps a lot with landing backstabs since as you mentioned you could easily just front stab but it comes at a cost of health which in my opinion is just kinda weird design since shade is supposed to be a glass cannon

#

I’m just stalling waiting for vanish cd to reset which isn’t very fun
in raid bosses/big bosses situation this shouldn't happen too much (if you can't get siphon that means the boss is zoning you out aka you wouldn't be able to do much anyways)

Yea this is true in raids this doesn’t happen too much and when I made this point I had bosses like some of the legendary island ones in mind since some have attacks that are a lot harder to predict/dodge and will deal a lot of damage if you are too close (mainly the ones that have projectile attacks like dr legendary 1st and 3rd phase)

also it might be worth mentioning that I use dissolution aspect instead of nightcloak knife. I find it better because with shadow siphon you can have insane uptime on the resistance. chances are you will not be getting more than 5 knives when you want it (bosses) unless your teammates are silly and spawn greater one (although you could argue its much easier in orphion) so I prefer the massive resistance uptime

Yea I also don’t use nightcloak aspect lol shade has a lot of good aspects you can choose from so I think its very hard to justify taking knives aspect when you can’t even get value out of it 9 times out of 10

part of why I spammed NoL pfinder was to hunt you down during early 2.1 (I wanted to get you for making fun of spellshade in trickshade vid) but you must be on the opposite timezone or something lol.
I make fun of spell shade lovingly <3 (but also yea im probably in the opposite time zone you sent this at 4 am for me)

#

Also another thing I want to mention is that although shade has some really good aspects i dont really like the fact that its kinda necessary to get these aspects (ok well not necessary since you can play without them but it feels so much worse without the mythic aspect and +marks adds so much to ur damage)

#

Something I also didn't really talk about was what I would do to fix spell shade and well the reason why I didn't is because I don't know anything about balance lol I would need to be able to test things and see how they actually feel in gameplay to make decisions but if I had to suggest a few things

Make satsujin only proc on vanish

This makes satsujin a lot more consistent since your always going for a backstab while in vanish anyways so if you make satsujin proc only in vanish youll always get max value off ur satsujin proc so you dont have to worry about wasting it on an unboosted hit

This change also shouldnt really affect hm since (and i could be wrong since i dont play hm) you only quake when your in vanish anyways to get the suprise strike boost

Make it so you can actually get max knives even if theres no minions

I really think that if you consume marks while you have knives you should just more knives like I think this just makes sense and also it would help with shades damage output

Rework Some of the nodes

I've seen a lot of ideas for possible harvester reworks but I think it would be nice if some of the other nodes that aren't really utilized got a rework (cough death magnet) and I also think black hole + better smoke should be combined into 1 node since as I mentioned in the thread black hole is not worth 2 ap lol

#

Now I don't know if this would be enough to fix spell shade since it would depend on how some of the nodes are changed/reworked but I think these are some good starting points for how to improve the consistency and damage of the archetype

bright nymph
#

wowzers bro said what i said but better

fast echo
#

good thread

eager dew
#

will be forgotten like the rest of the spellshade threads

give it a few days

wintry wagon
#

less forgotten than spellshade itself

patent seal
#

spellshade has least assassin qol

#

so it should do most damage right??

tepid obsidian
#

haha lol

burnt cypress
burnt cypress
hasty gate
burnt cypress
burnt cypress
hasty gate
#

trickster also needs a lot of things fixed tbh 💀

#

assassin isnt in the greatest state...

burnt cypress
#

I AGREEEEEEE

#

actually I also wanna add here how easy it is to miss backstab with its thin hitbox and short range, which makes shade's vanish problems even worse

#

because even when you successfully set up your marks, get in vanish, and prepare your backstab, your target can just suddenly jump or teleport then you're useless for 5s again

#

at this point I'm fine with backstab being like that, but it needs to be hella rewarding to land at least. even when only backstab can do a single, impressive hit, if it doesn't add up to a good dps then that big number is just for show

#

it sounds absurd on paper, but if backstab needs to do 5m in a single hit then so be it. the bottom line is, spell shade is hella unpopular and needs a buff

hasty gate
#

(ok it probably should not deal 5m but yea spell shade and trickster could really use some buffs)

burnt cypress
#

lmao yeah no defo not 5m, but more like the concept of backstab dealing a massive single-hit damage shouldn't be declared unbalanced just because the number is considered "too big". that number doesn't exist in a vacuum

hasty gate
patent seal
#

make it 2m

hasty gate
#

Now shade is still fundamentally feast or famine but I'm glad that they buffed the damage at least

open minnow
#

been hoping for that change for a while

hasty gate
#

Im really excited to test to see how much my dps increases but I'm not looking forward to having to actually grind for nck aspect now

covert flame
#

holy shit

#

backstab buff too

lavish isle
#

very much shade looks way better now

#

still a bit to go i would imagine but nightcloak change is super nice

hasty gate
#

Wynncraft make satsujin activate only on vanish next patch and my life is urs 🙏

covert flame
#

real

wintry wagon
#

a reason to use nightcloak knife aspect

#

I don't like this it means there's more opportunity cost now

#

because I'm not letting go of that disso duration

#

anyways that backstab damage change is... scary to say the least

#

I think I'll reach like 400k-500k bursts every 2s now

covert flame
#

yeah knife aspect being yet another competitor for 5th slot is kind of annoying

calm stratus
#

hmlee one ups spell shade again..

eager dew
hasty gate
ornate sleet
dense dew
#

Something I thought I would ask here just to get some opinions @hasty gate @wintry wagon @covert flame since you guys were the most involved here:

I hope you've seen the knives change in the prospective changelog :)

With regard to satsujin showing its cooldown. The easiest implementation would be simply to make it a global cooldown instead of it being per mob. Obviously that is also technically a nerf but I was wondering if you shade players actually ever use satsujin for non boss mobs or single targets? Is it even useful having the cooldown be per mob as it is right now

wintry wagon
# dense dew Something I thought I would ask here just to get some opinions <@262212188553478...

The knife change is awesome, thank you!

I find it extremely useful in very specific scenarios and not so much anywhere else.

A good example is Nexus of Light's 2nd resource room miniboss branch, where you can basically cut the miniboss's health by 70%-80% due to satsujin, finish it off and repeat for the next one that spawns. It is also somewhat useful inside world events when a wave has more than one enemy with >200k HP. The specific scenario here is "a constant barrage/a group of miniboss-sized enemies" which is rarely found.

#

So yeah it is used quite a bit especially on spellshade where your satsu-proccing hit is used often but is sometimes not quite enough to 1 tap on its own.

#

(I also like it on small enemies so i don't need to care about backstab since the x2 would get me the kill as well)

pulsar ginkgo
#

is it possible to highlight a mob only for one player? if so you could potentially highlight enemies that have satsujin cooldown on them? highlight as in the glow effect

rustic stirrup
#

Shapes In The Dark: woah! They all have Satsujin!

dense dew
#

Per-Player identifiers (like other abilities use on the mob nametag) is something we could do but it isn't something we can currently do. That is looking like one of the best options though. (For ex: a mob would show the icon if it is on cooldown for just you)

wintry wagon
#

is it possible to have some extra visuals on enemies that has 4 marks and is not on satsujin added on top of mark particles?

#

ah that answers it

dense dew
#

Yeah its difficult because satsujin is per player & per mob

#

so we cant just show an icon on the mob because then how would you know its your satsujin and not mine

#

(unless we do what i said above)

wintry wagon
#

I will accept the global cd if shadow siphon can also shorten it 🔥

hasty gate
# dense dew Something I thought I would ask here just to get some opinions <@262212188553478...

woah a dev saw my thread

thanks for the knife change its one of the biggests things ive wanted changed 🙏 🙏

i agree with badname that it is really useful especially for minibosses/medium hp enemies but it can be a bit niche outside of that

Excluding bosses and minibosses I feel like I don't actually get to use satsu on minions/small hp mobs since by the time I get 4+ marks on them one of the following happens

  1. They died from spin attacks + smoke bomb
  2. They died from a violent vortex activation when I go for a backstab on a bigger mob
  3. I cleanse the marks for knives and by the time I reapply enough marks for satsu to be online theyre dead
#

personally im ok with a global cooldown (would also enable sandbagging synergy 👀 ) even if it would technically be a nerf but I was wondering if its possible to make satsu proc only on vanish boosted backstabs

#

ur always going for back hit while vanished meaning u dont have to worry about satsu activating on non boosted stabs

dense dew
#

thanks for the quick feedback :) We'll definitely think about these points :)

hasty gate
#

thank you for taking the time to read our feedback 🙏

wintry wagon
#

can't wait to see the new change in action

dense dew
#

the changelog did miss that it now uses the shadestepper dagger instead of the previous sword

#

and that it spawns the number of knives that you have around you rather than 1 AND hass a bossbar showing how many knives you have and how long they have left (no more only being able to look at tab)

hasty gate
#

So with aspects you can have 8 knives around you

#

Can't wait to see this in game 🙏🙏

wintry wagon
dense dew
#

just thought that using a single paladin sword skin was a big mediocre for how cool it could look

open minnow
#

so sick

covert flame
# dense dew Something I thought I would ask here just to get some opinions <@262212188553478...

Pretty much all my thoughts have been said already but yeah, it’s extremely good on medium hp enemies since you get a ton of momentum from one shotting an enemy (silent killer, violent vortex, harvester). The Orphion boss fight is a pretty good example since you can set up 4 marks on a crystal, 1-2 backstab it with satsu then immediately rush over to do it again with your refreshed cooldowns and shadow travel. also a global cooldown would suck in lootruns but i dont think anyone else has tried spellshade in lr
I think a global cooldown would probably be fine with the shade t2 aspect (that i dont have), but it might get annoying without. I still agree with Wintel that if you can make satsujin only proc when you have surprise strike that would fix the issue. I’m aware that it’s like “taking away skill” but shade has plenty of stuff to manage already

hasty gate
#

(challenges were fine but the mobility was awful)

covert flame
#

ive done it a few times but the intermission makes me want to die

hasty gate
#

I've been able to get all 4 crystals before getting crystallized but with global cooldown I don't think I could have

dense dew
#

to be honest getting all 4 crystals solo on any class before getting crystallized isnt that easy xdd

#

but yeah all fair points thank you guys like

wintry wagon
covert flame
#

that sounds a lot safer with bad pfinder yeah

rustic stirrup
#

And then

#

ORPHION’s BREATHS

#

Dunno how it interacts when you vanish and solo

wintry wagon
#

bosses are idle when you solo vanish, they don't turn or start casting non-threshold attacks

#

ongoing attacks will continue and things like skulls can still track you fully

hasty gate
#

^^ yea the scream continues so you can just land free backstabs during that attack

rustic stirrup
#

I meant while you are going for the crystals

eager dew
#

in my opinion these knife changes are like the best that can happen as of now in a really long time

#

now we just need satsujin changes and some damage buffs and shade can actually be decently good in end game!

#

also to add onto the satsujin cd comments:
i’d rather have it be a cd for individual mobs over a shared cd because then you can just chain proc satsu on adds for easier kills

hasty gate
#

Yea I think the best solution honestly is to keep individual cooldowns but make it only proc on vanish and I think thematically it also makes sense this way

rustic stirrup
ornate sleet
#

i'm of the opinion that individual cooldowns go hard since it seems like the vast majority of mobs in raids have like 100-200k health and being able to frontstab off of four marks for a kill makes life significantly easier

#

i mostly want satsujin to proc on-kill effects to allow for greater longevity and momentum against enemies that would otherwise hard-wall you and stop your offense (like any raid boss and certain world event targets)

#

and in a case like that it could maybe warrant a global/per-player cooldown

rustic stirrup
#

But unfortunately they want less “mana-printers” on the tree.

wintry wagon
#

is your momentum really halted vs your raid boss though

#

make harvester give mana whenever marks are lost (consumed, decays, or mobs die) saltroll

rustic stirrup
#

Then… just perhaps, Oblivion would be the pick

hasty gate
#

ok this is so sick

2024-10-25_15.16.33.png
wintry wagon
#

oh it surrounds you like that

#

sick.

hasty gate
#

ok the damage buffs

#

are pretty significant holy

wintry wagon
#

i queued into old world for a raid so i havent got to play it yet sadly

hasty gate
hasty gate
#

after playing with the buffs more new knives feel so unbelievably better thank you wynncraft team 🙏

lavish isle
#

I am excited to try when i get back home