Shadestepper general discussion

As much as I want to love Shadestepper, it's is just straight mid-bottom tier. The problem with the design is that you need to get as close to 1 shot as possible, but because the range is so short on backstab 9 times out of 10 after a backstab you get traded by the boss when trying to get away if you don't kill it. This means that, in terms of how to design builds, shadesteppers need to spec into high damage but also good tankiness to survive trades. The only 2 or 3 weapons I've found this works with are Cata, Obli, and Inferno (weathered maybe but lower damage, also mana isn't usually an issue on shade), effectively making shade a mythic-locked archetype except for maybe some flameshot builds out there. Even with these weapons, though, the archetype can only shine if you are able to near-one hit a phase of a boss (ie oceanic judge), otherwise the gameplay feels clunky and the player can be easily punished (as in most fights).

I remember in the initial reveal live stream salted said Shade is supposed to be high risk, high reward, and stack damage to 1-shot enemies, but at least in my experience, 1-shotting isn't really possible after the nerfed marks effectively halved the total damage backstab could do (I get around 360k backstabs on cataclysm when its the highest base damage weapon by far for assassin, without factoring in elemental defenses). On paper I could just revanish and backstab+spin to keep up the marked cycle every 5 seconds, but in practice I find the gameplay significantly slower.
The gameplay is slow and deliberate because making a mistake on Shade can be incredibly punishing. Since cci exists another aspect that required more skill was learning to aim the trajectory of sticky bombs (I feel like the bomb just drops out of the air after a certain distance but I haven't proven this yet). I actually find these high risk aspects fun because it increases the skill cap for the archetype. It did feel a little disappointing when I started trying other classes and found that the increased risk doesn't actually buy me anything in terms of damage, since sharpshooter, boltslinger, riftwalker, arcanist, fallen, and all 3 shaman archetypes/hybrids all significantly outpace it.

On a completely separate note, I think shade would benefit from replacing death magnet with some form of damage-based life sustain. As an archetype, it depends heavily on vanish so it can't capitalize off hpr effectively, but since its designed to have short bursts of high damage with long disengages in between, it also can't use lifesteal well. The current meta (from what i've seen) is to build in a bit of both, but usually its hard to get enough of either. Plus, death magnet is basically never used.

The positive of shade is that if you get full devour + harvester, mana usually isnt a big problem and you don't need high mana at all to sustain, even with like 20+ mana costs.

This is my 2 cents on shade, I'm interested if the general community's experience is similar to mine.

 

tbh, if they added a sort of reverse vanish ability after you backstab, sort of like archers escape spell, then it would work, because the concept alone isn't bad

it's playable right now, just needs a lot of vanish spam

 

Idk if it's just me but sometimes when I use backstab on a mob (sorry Lutho citizen) out of Vanish, I can one shot them. But then there are other times where I do the exact same thing on a different mob (ex: a different Lutho citizen, no differences whatsoever, Satsujin triggers for both Citizens) and backstab will deal literally 0 damage. And this happens a lot. I tried leveling up a Shadestepper class but I stopped at level 40ish because I just can't deal enough damage without Marked. Shadestepper is extremely satisfying when you do actually one shot something but it feels so inconsistent it's not even funny

 

The only problem I see is with backstab is that mobs tend to spin around randomly which makes it incredible hard to actually, well, stab them in the back

 

I only had 2 assassin classes before 2.0 and I was excited to start another one with the upcoming update. I got to level 20 on my 3rd Assassin class and let me tell you, Vanish really killed it for me. Not only is it an upgrade rather than a base spell, but it's been nerfed to shit. Even if you play a very high intelligence build the cooldown on vanish is still absurdly long. Thinking about scrapping the class and playing warrior instead

 

That's the problem with Vanish: it's so powerful that if there wasn't a cooldown, it would be insanely overpowered. That's why 1.20 assassin was busted af, because people would just mad abuse the Invisibility and 80% damage buff. Also you probably shouldn't be playing Shadestepper with high Intel since you aren't spell spamming, it's really just the high mana sustain that you need to worry about.

I personally don't have too much of an issue with 2.0 vanish for multiple reasons:
1) Silent Killer negates this cooldown and if you're Shadestepper, you should be sniping everything anyway. The only part where this sucks and you have to be patient is against bosses with no minions or if you just can't output enough damage (basically the entirety of Shadestepper before Marked). I think Silent Killer would function better if it was like Violent Vortex where the cooldown is reset if you deal damage equal to like 2-3x your max health in a single hit. This way it can still trigger on bosses (although this sounds like it can easily be abusable, ESPECIALLY with Weathered)
2) Vanish is useless for Trickster. Only purpose it serves is to summon Clones. Kinda wasted AP if you ask me, but it would be weird if Clones just got summoned from thin air so I understand why they made it require Vanish
3) Vanish is also useless for Acrobat. Acrobat is about spell spam and Acrobat is already out of enemy range 98% of the time so it has no reason to get Vanish

 

I posted this for another thread; I agree that the vanish mechanic changes had good reasons, and I do think there are ways to rework it while still having a cooldown in mind. For example something like a vanish energy bar(they already have the UI built for acolyte) that drains when you use vanish but recharges otherwise would prohibit vanish camping but give the player more control. Perhaps even lower the maximum vanish period or increase the cooldown in exchange for more control of *when* to vanish. From what I’ve seen at least in the hive, the aggro AI is good enough that the mob can relock its aggro almost immediately when the player exits vanish so it does get strategic for when the player decides to vanish.

Shadestepper especially gets traded 9 times out of 10 even when trying to disengage immediately because dash without vanish is insanely vulnerable. Using vanish is punishing because you’re almost guaranteed to be traded by the boss after a backstab

I do think there are some ways to rework vanish so as to restrict the specific vanish camping scenarios that the devs are trying discourage, while still giving the player the ability to control when best to vanish deaggro.

 

BlueTheSniper, #1 fan of Oblivion, has finally gotten around to using Shadestepper.

I've used a bunch of builds including Crusade Sabatons, Dawnbreak, Stardew, Resurgence, even TWA Slayer.

I'll be replying to a few people below however it will be covering issues I think are worth reading. (I might end up making a thread complaining about Assassin as a whole in future once I've done more testing)

Sounds kind of OP however this is Wynncraft 2.0 so that isn't a good enough reason to not implement something... right?! *looks over at archer archetypes*
Reminds me of Mineplex's Champions gamemode Assassin kit which had an ability that teleports you back to where you were 30? seconds ago. Was it called Recoil? I can't remember - I was a Ranger main anyway.

This is true but it's not the hugest problem I've noticed. HOWEVER, my testing has only been in solo situations, so I can image this possibly becoming a nuisance when mobs target other players - once again making Shadestepper require a higher level of skill i.e spacial awareness of party members' locations (even though you're not a support class) and chasing after potential runaway mobs - even trying to melee/backstab them.

Adding on to the above, Backstab/Multihit seems to have a 4 block range which in practice is likely to be less if you play in f5 because of slightly downard aim.

Unfortunately, I don't speak for pre-endgame as I have 3 level 106 assassins. I did have 4 before 2.0 and I may end up with 2. At endgame I think at its core Vanish/Surprise Strike is fine. it does make Shadestepper a lot harder to use without essentially infinite invisibility. FOR ME, the problem stems with sustaining health whilst out of vanish and dodging incoming attacks (looking at you Virus Doctor). The nerfs to mana steal and life steal really hurt Shadestepper's playstyle - especially life steal.

Plus, Silent Killer and Harvester - even Sandbagging are very QoL for sustaining mana which is why I don't see much of a problem even though I'm using Oblivion.

And the fact that Acrobat doesn't have a single high damage attack. The two archetypes are totally incompatible.

I get tired when writing long ass responses on the forums aaaaaaaaaaa
I'll probably write a thread responding to assassin as a whole after more thorough testing.

TL:DR

Mana sustain isn't a problem - at least at endgame
Shadestepper is super incompatable with Acrobat - I haven't tested Trickster
FINAL PROBLEM I DIDN'T MENTION ABOVE: playing Shadestepper feels unfair or even not worth playing at all to some because the high-risk high-reward DPS requires much more skill and thinking when the other classes can achieve the same with minimal effort.

 

I feel like assassin was the best class for all the game then the admins naturally wanted to nerf it for 2.0 and i think the archetypes are really cool designs (i chose to ignore trickster) but they just arnt strong like acrobat is cool but most builds get like 20k multihits max and shade stepper is just not viable due to damage not working sometimes and most issues stated above

the damage of assassin needs a buff and probs also ehp changes feel like they havent been balanced across the whole game yet

if you look at the entire community everyone hates trickster and everyone wants more assassin damage

 

I think this thread has really hit the nail on the head in terms of health sustain. I haven’t extensively playtested Trickster or Acrobat, but Shadestepper is super glassy even with mythics and most of your point put into defense and agi. You can still get damage off, but you burn so much in doing so the playstyle doesn’t really feel worth it in comparison to every other class/archetype out right now.