Shadestepper Ability Concept

Hello there,

I had some fun ideas for the Shadestepper tree that I wanted to share here since Shadestepper is currently the furthest away from the meta as you can be.

Concept 1:

Name: Adrenaletic Poison

Description:
If cast while in Vanish, Smoke Bomb will apply Adrenaletic Posion to your next attack.

Adrenaletic Posion will cause the affected enemy to instantly cast one of it's Abilities against the player but deals an additional 125% damage to the enemy after 1 second has passed.

Mana Cost: -5

Shadestepper Archtype

Ability Point: 2
Required Ability: Smoke Bomb


I think something like this is a good way to reward players taking higher risks with more DPS.
Instead of raw damage it could also inflict a high amount of poison stacks.

Concept 2:
One thing I always think about is how the first ability you get for Shadestepper is poison focused but after that it doesn't appear at all. Poison is a mostly underused ID in Wynncraft currently which is in the process of getting fixed. So why not add some poison focused abilities since it fits the theme?

Name: Deadly Poison

Description:
Poison ticks apply twice as fast.

Shadestepper Archtype

Ability Point: 1


Deadly Poison should probably only be a side branch and only added alongside Adrenaletic Poison or any other Poison focused ability. Furthermore multiple already existing abilities could be reworked to lean more into this poison aspect.


Conclusion:
It hurts me to see my favourite archtype gather dust for so long. The minor buff in 2.1 is nice but after talking to some people won't pull it into the spotlight. These abilities and a slight refocus into poison might be just enough to achieve that.

 

I'm not sure if these are the changes that shadestepper needs, though I do like the concept of Adrenaletic Poison as a high-risk, high-reward ability. But, I don't think Shadestepper should force you to play a poison build. If doing damage in shadestepper requires a poison build, then it becomes even harder for shadestepper to be good at all. Especially considering poison is just bad right now.

 

could you please make this dark mode friendly
pretty pretty please i would love to read this

 

I would, I just don't know how to.

 

The default color of the text changes based on the mode, but if you set it to black it will look black on dark and light. The only way I know how to make it dark-mode-friendly once you've set a color (without making the text white) is to change the text to a color like blue or green that is readable in both.
EDIT: You can apparently select a 'none' option and it will go back to the default.

 

fixed

 

The words are still black on dark mode

 

Well I set the color of all black text to "none" like suggested. If it doesnt work then I have no idea what to do.

 

I don't like how this derailed into a trivial conversation sooo

This is a very interesting way of designing a high-risk high-reward ability. This is especially risky since you're trading Vanish for delayed burst damage, so you'll have to dodge the attack. I also like how this adds another spell option for shade to cast from Vanish while Nightcloak is at full stacks or while Satsujin is on cooldown.

This feels more like a Major ID than an ability, especially since the atree has been removing stat conversion/modification abilities. I think Poison needs to be reworked first if it's to become a stat that feels impactful to get from the atree (like Walk Speed or Raw Damage).


And yeah I was hella promoting "less Vanish cooldown" for shadestepper like months ago and in retrospect I think that's just one way to deal with an awkward aspect of shade's gameplay: there's nothing to do outside of Vanish. The new ability feels like a band-aid solution to be quite frank. Although who knows, maybe it's enough for shade.

 

yeah we'll have to see for the new ability, shade just needs a full rework at this point, it's a hot mess

 

nah I wouldn't say that at all. that's pretty pessimistic

 

it kinda is tho. you’d have to change like 5 different abilities to get it to work well and have good gameplay, and then whatever else it needs at that point to be fun and viable. considering that that’s an entire archetype, i’d consider it pretty hot of a mess ngl

 

Shade is a hot mess

 

Shadestepper is really good, I don't know what you're waffling about. I literally had to make tweaks to some bossfights because Shadestepper and Lightbender were the two archetypes capable of making everything into an absolute joke

 

I mean, yeah, it is strong damage-wise in a lot of situations, but every time you use vanish to do anything, you block yourself off from 5 seconds of actual gameplay, which makes for a not-so-enjoyable gameplay loop, IMO. It’s great damage wise (but inconsistent), but almost everything else about it just isn’t good, and the gameplay loop isn’t very fun. I guess that is subjective (there are certainly people who like shadestepper), but when 95% of the playerbase agrees that it’s unfun, inconsistent, and weak, I think that’s reason enough to change it.

 

Agreed, except spell shade is mid and would suck if not for the nightcloak bug

 

The new ability in 2.1 fixes that by 30% but of course that won't be enough. A large portion of the Skill Tree getting reworked might be a good idea. Like who even uses Death Magnet, it's completely useless

 

Both of these statements are true. Shadestepper has insane burst, but is highly unforgiving to play. Locking insane damage behind high requirements like Marks, Backstabs, high Satsujin cooldown, and strict Vanish availability makes sense on paper, but then you get cases like these where people's opinions on the archetype is highly polarized (I may need data to back this up lol). Shadestepper can be very strong, but it's downside for that can't be "it's not fun to play".

This I think is the case. Shadestepper's mechanics solely revolving around Vanish makes its cooldown a point of frustration. Shadow Siphon can reduce Vanish's cooldown, and is available out of Vanish and has no cooldown. I'd say it might be more helpful than we initially gave it credit for.

I cannot comment on how effective this ability is at giving Shadestepper something to do outside of Vanish as I have not tried it yet. However I imagine that it would give Shadestepper the high-risk high-reward option of Backstabbing enemies outside of Vanish to reduce its cooldown further, which I think is fitting to the archetype and could be a fun little challenge (not to mention the cooldown is already reduced if you used Backstab to exit Vanish).