Shadestepper But Good (Revolutionary)

Hi this isn’t a suggestion this is the wrong place for it :D

Quick survey to the community because this is the best and quickest most accessible way to grab genuine answers from people directly playing the game. Assuming full creative control over the archetype, what things would you like to see come out of Shadestepper?

I know Shadestepper was kinda unpopular for a good while and I want general feedback (real ones please) on what parts of the current archetype you enjoyed, and what new changes or additions you would like seeing for it.

Could be changes to current abilities, could be brand new ones. Preferably fitting the “burst damage” style but whatever that fits the theme of Shadestepper is also welcome





Definitely not doing a Shadestepper version of the Friends on the Other Side post no sir

Spoiler: Ok but seriously though

(I’m not necessarily looking for ideas from the community, I already have the entire archetype planned out and currently working on it. What I’m really looking for is what the community really likes or dislikes when it comes to ability tree abilities and nodes, in this case, for current Shadestepper.

This way I am able to gauge community reaction to what I’ve made and alter whatever depending on how positive or negatively they will react to my iteration of the archetype.)

 

I literally just want pre-2.0 assassin but with the damage scaled for 2.1. Seriously, not to knock the changes made in 2.0, but that's the most fun I've ever had with gameplay for any class.

In theory I like stuff like satsujin where you slowly build up and then do massive damage, but right now the build up is the majority of the time, and that largely consists of waiting. I'd love to see it built up in a more active way. Likewise, waiting for vanish sucks. Since the entire archetype is built around doing damage from vanish, it's basically a ton of waiting for vanish. I think pre-2.0 assassin got it right with giving you a second of damage boost to get in several attacks, then being able to immediately vanish out of combat to reposition yourself, but without the damage bonus. I'd love to see that with the additions of stuff like backstab and satsujin so you aren't using the same combo over and over. Backstab is great conceptually, but the positioning is really iffy since enemies tend to spin erratically. Honestly that was probably my biggest issue when I used shadestepper. I think that having some way to stun an enemy so you can near-guarantee a backstab would be really good. My personal thought was that if there was a second or so of damage bonus, you could have spin attack stun an enemy and then quickly go for a backstab. With the right timing, you could have backstab still be difficult to land, but due to the skill required, not because of random chance.

 

greater emphasis on stealth

 

Excellent feedback so far, very valuable

Spoiler: .

Removing backstab and delegating Vanish to an endgame ability might have been a mistake

Spoiler: .

(I'm kidding I know what I'm doing lol you'll see)

 

I generally like the flow of getting a good rotation, and the felling of jumping fron enemy to enemy with it is awesome. Sadly the rotation is very hard to pull of consistenly. I think the main thing holding shadestepper back is not the dmg, but the quality of life. (And maybe a little bit the dmg. bamboozle trickshade deals more dmg, more consistently, in a bigger radius, while being more tanky. That doesn't feel balanced, if shadesteppper is supposed to be all about dmg.)

 

What are everyone’s opinions on the stealth aspect of Shadestepper? Do you think that Wynncraft can reasonably pull off a fun-to-use stealth ability while still not making the entire archetype overpowered because of it?

 

yeah (any changes would make shadestepper better)

 

There's a chance mine are unpopular

I think I've made some controversial ones this time
Whole reason I made this post, really

 

I.. don’t have much to say about this other than keep it simple, and to increase the damage of spell aspect of the archetype to match the damage it could do with the classic melee quake.

You set up, you go for a single big hit, then you do it all over again.

 

How far into the "burst damage" style of combat are you guys willing for me to go?

And by burst damage I mean like, preparation for single large attacks

This doesn't necessarily mean that the archetype itself will favour heavy melee or heavy spell builds or whatever, I do account of that and try to make sure that pretty much most playstyles will benefit from this. Hell, I would argue that high mana regen spell builds and melee builds do actually have some pull when it comes to whatever I've been planning

But anyways, the point that I'm trying to get at is your opinions on the main idea of burst damage in particular
Or is the general gameplay loop of "do a bunch of small regular attacks as usual for an amount of time, launch a really big attack, repeat" simply just not one that appeals to most people in a game like that

 

idk i really like the 'hide in a corner/chip damage for like 5 seconds then Big Slap' playstyle but maybe thats just me <-idiot who doesnt use spin attack

spellshade looks like it should be good against single bosses (it's not, youre better off with a hybrid tree or something) while hmelee shade from experience is good against summoner bosses (except orange cybel) and some multi-phase bosses because of how phases are handled. (it counts as a kill for vanish refresh. i think.)

im mostly just sad at spellshade being outperformed in pretty much everything.

 

I do find that people tend to find that a little bit inactive though

About the second part of the post, I am curious on less on performance issues and more on how players enjoy the playstyle or gameplay loop in of itself. Combat performance and numbers can be easily arranged, the actual archetype less so

I basically want to find out what many players who are already used to the fifteen archetypes consider "fun" or "enjoyable" to just use, regardless of how much damage you're doing
I recognize that big numbers are also a factor in what makes things fun but I believe that the other aforementioned aspects also have at least some standing when it comes to all this

 

shade stepper is fun, but definitely needs SOME quality of life

a white node that has a flat vanish CD reduction, or even a node that EXTENDS vanish duration would be very appreciated.

I’ve been trying Hmelee shade and for starters it is so fun, and surprisingly not that bad, that being said Current shade stepper is definitely more powerful than pre rekindled shade stepper, but that’s most cause of aspects

in terms of aspects from all rarities shade-stepper definitely got the best it’s honestly insane how much shadestepper is kinda carried by aspects

 

I understand that people find the "hit, run and wait" playstyle less fun, but it makes sense for assassin. Both Trickster and Acrobat don't really fit the definition of what an assassin does. Making Shadestepper too spellspammy makes it that none of the assassin classes feel like an assassin.

In my opinion it's okay to have less populair classes that not everybody enjoys. (Also shadestepper is less laggy of an architype (looking at you Trickster))

I agree spellShade needs some QoL, but I don't think the duration of vanish is the problem. The problem is more that Schade has no contingiency for when the enemy survives the first frontloaded dmg burst.

 

vanish having no cooldown was laughably broken please do not return us to that era

a node that, like, lets you hit a single spell while remaining in vanish or something could maybe be a useful qol feature if nothing else, but vanish definitely needs some cooldown

 

I’m surprised no one has mentioned this post in this thread so far: https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/vanish-change-rework.318795/#post-3675727

Vanish shouldn’t have a cooldown, it should be a resource to manage. It seems like a no brainer to me because it fixes a lot of problems with vanish while still effectively having a cool down.

 

yeah no this seems like a pretty good fix