Game Mechanics Making Shadestepper More Consistent (Shadestepper Mini Revamp!)

I personally love shadestepper's concept. The archetype's gameplay loop looks fun on paper: slipping in and out of vanish after every successful backstab as every foe around you drops like flies. However, it's not as fun when you realize you're the fly zipping around being a minor inconvenience to massive bosses.

As much as shadestepper's DPS seems inconsistent, buffing the archetype with it's current structure risks it being overpowered instead. On top of that, there's also the unforgiving dev time we always have to consider. With all that in mind, I came up with a revamp idea that aims to make shadestepper more consistent without changing or removing its core aspects.

Spoiler: Vanish

VANISH
Definitely the number one weak point of shadestepper is vanish cooldown. I noticed that the assassin archetypes are just different ways of avoiding damage: acrobat has mobility, trickster has clones, and shadestepper has vanish. The two other archetypes can consistently rely on their tools to get away with dealing damage. Shade on the other hand needs to ensure a kill whenever they trade in their vanish, which isn't guaranteed at all especially in 1v1's.

One way to resolve this is by making vanish access more consistent.


(this replaces Silent Killer)

This sets vanish's cooldown to 1s if you're always in your smoke bomb, creating a clearer gameplay loop where playing around your smoke bomb defines your success as a shadestepper. Following this, I'll be making smoke bomb more reliable for shadesteppers.



This creates a power fantasy of vanishing in and out of your smoke bomb, like the shadestepper you're always meant to be.

Spoiler: Death Magnet

DEATH MAGNET
Death magnet has recently been changed a bit, but it's still pretty confusing to work with. The concept is a good start, though. I'm slightly modifying it to be a good set up for an easy group backstab.



It's like the current death magnet, but instead it triggers when you enter vanish to make it easier to control. It will also make them face towards where you vanished so you can backstab them easier. I don't know if that's possible to add in wynncraft, though.

One problem this might add is mobs on your face when dashing, putting you in a vulnerable position that might prematurely end your vanish. To cover for this, I'm merging dissolution with death magnet. (surely trickster users don't mind *cough*)

Spoiler: Nightcloak Knife and Harvester/Devour

NIGHTCLOAK KNIFE
Nightcloak Knife is a pretty new ability that rewards longer setups with bigger damage, on paper at least. I use nightcloak combined with spin attack to shred through thick hordes of mobs, but in 1v1's it tends to be an underwhelming conclusion to a long buildup. I personally like how it feels to execute, so I'm just gonna change its function to a simpler stackable damage boost that works for every situation.



This will work like other stack abilities where you can keep storing more and more to deal more and more damage. This will make nightcloak knife influential even in 1v1's. However, there's still the problem of nightcloak knife getting rid of marks, thus making harvester give less mana. So I'm changing harvester (and devour) to work with nightcloak too.


(uhh I'll explain satsu consuming marks in the next section)



Much like vanish's cooldown reset, looking for a kill before you can restore your mana can be frustrating especially in 1v1s. By integrating harvester (and devour) into shadestepper's gameplay loop, the player can influence their mana gain more. With the abilities being more influential in combat, I'll be reducing their power a bit.

Spoiler: Satsujin

SATSUJIN
I initially scrapped this idea because Satsujin isn't that bad right now. But we can improve shadestepper's dps further by making Satsujin more consistent too!



The goal is to make Satsujin happen a lot more, but only with consistent mark application. With its cooldown removed, shadestepper's damage will become more prevalent in 1v1s. With both satsujin and nightcloak knife consuming marks, marked's application rate needs a little boost, so I'm change better marked to buff marked's cooldown instead of damage.


(this sets it to 4 marks per second, syncing vanish's cooldown reset with meeting satsujin's marked quota)

Swapping damage for marked application rate shouldn't feel like a nerf to shade's dps. It will decrease shade's big numbers, but it will make it happen more often so you won't have to wait around for your next Big Backstab Burst anymore.

Overall, the goal of these changes is to add more player influence towards the outcome of fights as a shadestepper. By giving the archetype more tools to work with, shadestepper can be more flexible in combat, allowing for more creativity and dimension to its gameplay.

With these node changes a lot of adjustments will need to be made to other abilities, like nerfing Surprise Strike/Ambush since vanish is more accessible now. There may also be a lot of details I overlooked, like how balanced shade is when mixed with other archetypes. So please comment your responses, feedback, or anything really! At the end of the day we all want shadestepper to be fun, so yk let's work together or some cheesy shi--

 

Additional stuff. This one's a node suggestion instead of a node change, so I'm separating it from the post. It's meant to give shade more area to work with in combat. It also makes smoke bomb more convenient to work with by allowing you to recast smoke bomb, which you'll do a lot as shadestepper, without getting rid of the first one. Unlike double/triple totem, overlapping smoke bombs will not speed up mark application or vanish cooldown reduction.

 

I like these changes. They really do fit. The main one I like is Smokescreen, in name and function. I play a 3000 hp shadestepper (lvl 105) and I need to wait 5 seconds every time I backstab before I get a chance to run away again. Smokescreen is better than silent killer, because with shadestepper, you're trying to setup a great attack on an enemy, but killing another thing isn't a part of that, while casting smoke bomb repeatedly is. Also I see capabilities for trickstepper with smokescreen delirious gas.

 

Thank you! I really wanted smoke bomb to feel like a smoke bomb, especially for shadestepper.

Yep! I'll be honest, I'm pretty worried about how good trickster's synergy is with smokescreen. Though a lot of shade's damage comes from the latter nodes so I guess it's fine?

 

I like this a lot. I made a post yesterday that totally revamped Shadestepper, but a few people mentioned that it took away a lot of the core aspects of the archetype. I feel like these changes would be really good additions, nice job!

 

Perhaps this could take dissolutions place

 

The vanish cooldown is definitely one of the biggest issues in my opinion. Gating 5 seconds of actual gameplay behind 5 seconds of waiting every time you want to do something is just boring design and seriously hurts both the enjoyability of shadestepper and the actual effectiveness of it. Remember 1.20 assassin? It was so much fun, largely because it played a lot like that.

 

Yeah, a lot of really good ideas aren't being considered because of how long it would take to implement. But it can always give inspiration and ideas to others, including content team members. So keep posting those good ideas of yours!

Totally! I'm also thinking about removing Ambush entirely as a way of nerfing Surprise Strike. It would loosen up shade's AP requirements, which is incredibly strict right now.

Yep! Back then, vanish's main weakness was mana. The new Marked and Harvester/Devour abilities added in 2.0 got rid of that weakness, so it needed a new one to make it balanced again.

Adding cooldown to vanish and a way to reset it with Silent Killer was a great idea! It seemed to synergize with shade's identity as a bursty, one-shotting archetype. But it overlooked situations where killing something to keep the gameplay loop going isn't an option.

Right now it's definitely the most awkward aspect of shadestepper, so I looked for a way to make vanish access more consistent without making it too powerful.

________________________________

Anyway thank you for all the feedback so far, I really appreciate it! Shadestepper is really fun to play, but it isn't that viable right now. With a few adjustments, it can easily be one of the coolest archetypes out there!

 

I edited the post y'all, I added Satsujin. Check it out!

 

I'm not the only person that whant better shadestepper I am happy

 

totally agree with u, shadestepper should get more importance

 

I missed this detail but since these kinda changes would warrant reducing shade's single-hit burst, Violent Vortex would need to be adjusted. I think a lot of players already struggle with triggering vv, so maybe reducing its max health requirement to 1x/2x for the stronger vv upgrade should be fine?

 

Personally, I don't have any trouble with vv or upgraded, but that's cause I have very low hp. Although for people who play more normally, I could see how it would be difficult to 2.5x your health in one hit.
Maybe a range or damage nerf if it became easier, although it would still be difficult so not too big of a nerf.

 

i won't lie idk what you mean by this

 

I mean if it got easier to trigger it would probably need at least a slight nerf.

 

oh that's fair yeah

 

It's not often I am on the forums. Though I came across this, and I am a shadestepper player myself.

Most problems people have with the archetype is waiting, so seeing vanish cooldown be reduced by a lot by standing is smoke bomb is really good, not sure if it's ideal but probably will work.
Also, better smoke bomb having an actually decent range is really nice, and also duration. (I know blackhole exists, but it's not stopping mobs from leaving the smoke bombs range so yeah).
As for applying marks, I don't know if it's the mark cooldown that needs to be changed or just the rate at which smoke bomb damages enemies. It might be both. Maybe make it so it deals half damage (per tick) at double the speed for the same duration (sounds like a major ID lol). Pretty much the same overall damage (outside of when the marks are added) but just builds marks faster.

Nightcloak knife is that one ability that really demolishes my soul.
This idea kind of seems to make it better by removing the duration. With the vanish changes this now makes the issue waiting for marks to buildup, but this thread suggests it now takes around 1 second to get 4 marks, I think. Which probably makes it much better?
Devour changes are good, I think.
Satsujin sounds like it might need a bit of a nerf in terms of damage just because of how it would stack up with nightcloak knife. (This is also assuming marked still applies it's damage bonus, if marked doesn't this is probably fine).

As for death magnet changes, these are not that great, especially because this seems like it would not work with CCI enemies, and even if it did, it sounds janky.
I feel like this ability is kind of on its death bed and deserves its rest (It also makes shades AP costs even higher, so no one uses it because of that). Dissolution is whatever, because you know shade is themed around being a glass cannon (it's in the subtext).

I did see the more smoke bombs ability as well, I'm not too sure how big a fan of it I am. It would probably make mark buildup and vanish cooldown better but it's the cost of basically having to play smoke bombs like double totem from shaman, which I don't think works well. Don't know though.

Also weathered is a thing which is constantly being brought up as it makes spell shadestepper more bearable. Now it seems like it's kinda like an easy way to get mana and hp back, so it's probably a bit too busted. (EDIT: It's probably fine tbh).
Idk this is just my opinion.

 

Hey! First of all, thank you for the hefty feedback!

I actually don't intend More Smoke Bombs to be for faster vanish resets/mark buildup; overlapping smoke bombs won't speed up either of those functions. The idea behind these changes is to make it a lot easier to stay inside your smoke bomb/s so you can consistently reset your vanish/apply marks. It's really just to increase the area in which shade can thrive in during battle. Is that good?

Smoke bomb really feels like the assassin's utility spell, even for shadestepper. Between smoke bomb damage rate and mark cooldown (application rate), I think upgrading the latter would have a more significant effect to shade's dps. If what you mean by "the rate at which smoke bomb damages enemies" includes mark application, then yeah that's what the upgrade is for!

"This thread suggests it now takes around 1 second to get 4 marks, I think." Yep, you got it right! With smokescreen reducing vanish's cooldown to 1s, that means both Nightcloak and Satsujin would always be available whenever you enter vanish, assuming you consistently play around your smoke bomb/s of course.
And yes, I do intend for all damage bonuses (marked, satsu, nightcloak) to stack together. It works like this:
Marked would increase backstab's/powder special's damage multiplicatively based on the amount of marks. Satsujin would then consume those marks to further increase the total damage. Finally, Nightcloak will deal a portion of that total damage overtime. By then the marks would be consumed, but new marks would increase its damage further. I know that sounds like a lot of damage stacked together, but if I'm not mistaken the current shade also works this way! The nightcloak change simply removed its duration as you said. Excluding that, the only difference is that Satsu's damage bonus can increase with marks instead of just +100% all the time. But honestly it's fine if it stays that way!
When it comes to the numbers, I like to leave it arbitrary for now. The numbers can always be adjusted if it's too op, or if it makes shade's damage fluctuate too much. If only I could test these stuff out so I can set some baseline numbers lol.

I think it's only fair if it doesn't work against cci mobs, much like warrior's war scream pull. Death magnet isn't really meant for bosses, but rather for dealing with lots of mobs at once. With most of shade's damage being funneled to backstab due to the nightcloak change, shade can make use of a crowd control ability that groups lots of enemies together, making it easier to hit them with backstab's limited range.
As for the mob facing effect, yeah it does sound janky even for non-cci mobs I don't mind it being scrapped lol.
Meanwhile, dissolution isn't meant to make shade tanky at all. Like before, its effects would still last for a split second. Death magnet triggering on vanish can put you in a vunerable spot and end your vanish prematurely. Dissolution being merged with the ability is to make sure death magnet's effects is not being a liability to shade.
I know death magnet is pretty weird right now, but I believe it has great potential to serve the archetype! It just needs a little bit more love.

Ok but tbf isn't that roving assassin's main strength to begin with? I think these kinda changes would restore roving assassin to it's former glory more than anything, which is especially good with all the comments and rework ideas about the major id lol.
I can't comment much about this bc it's more of an item balance thing which I don't really know much about, but I don't think it would be too powerful.


Anyways thank you so much for the feedback, I highly appreciate it!

 

this is good, I like this

 

Hey man, glad you like it!