Game Mechanics Shadestepper Revamp

First of all, I want to clarify that this is not in any way intended to be offensive or hurtful to the Content Team. I know that me and the entire community appreciates everything you guys do. You’ve created an amazing game for us. Thank you.

Anyway, on to the actual suggestion.

Why a revamp?

Shadestepper is not very good right now. At least, in endgame. Maybe it is useful in Legendary Island, but in almost all other high-level content, it just cannot compete. With, like, anything at all. That’s why I think Shadestepper needs a full overhaul, turning it into a more active and aggressive playstyle like Boltslinger or Fallen.

For this suggestion, I imagine an entirely different playstyle. The current one is something of building up Marks, to summon a cool knife, and then doing it again, to deal one hit of mediocre damage. It isn’t really effective against most bosses and takes too long to be worth it. Also, this is subjective, but I don’t think it’s very fun.

Instead of this playstyle, I think that there should be a totally new one.

New Playstyle

Here’s the main idea: You cycle Vanish with other spells to gain buffs. Casting the right spells in the right order will increase your damage. Eventually, you can summon the Nightcloak Knife, which will serve as the final red ability for Shadestepper, an ultimate.
It will be a high risk/high reward kind of thing.

To make this new playstyle possible, new abilities would have to be added and old ones would have to be changed.
So, let’s go through the specific changes to abilities, going in order of the tree.
If I could, I would make an image that would look like an actual ability tree, but I don’t know how, so I just typed them.

New and Changed Abilities (lots of text)

First, Backstab will be replaced with Triple Spin. Spin Attack will strike 3 times at double the speed, dealing -20% damage per hit.

Vanish will stay the same.

Surprise Strike will apply the damage bonus to the next spell cast after casting Vanish.

Silent Killer will reduce the cooldown of Vanish by 3 seconds when Surprise Strike procs. This might seem OP right now, but it will make more sense later.

Black Hole will be left unchanged.

Violent Vortex will be changed completely, now being a purple ability called Shadow Step. While invisible, casting Dash while holding shift will teleport you forward 8 blocks, pushing away and damaging all enemies that are near wherever you end up. The attack will deal 120% of your DPS. CCI enemies will not be pushed, but if they are in range, the damage will still be dealt.
This ability will prematurely end your Vanish, but will also proc Surprise Strike.
The mana cost is your Dash cost + 5.

Marked is now replaced with Vicious Cycle, a red ability.
Triggering Surprise Strike will increase the damage of your next Surprise Strike by +30%, as long as a different spell is used. This damage bonus will stack to a maximum of +150%.
You must cast a different spell each time you use Surprise Strike or the damage bonus is reset and you cannot cast spells for 3 seconds. Using the same spell every other time will also reset the bonus and apply the debuff. For example, using a cycle of Multihit and Spin Attack will not increase your damage past 60%, and leave you vulnerable to attacks.
Using an ability-modified spell like Shadow Step or Death Magnet counts as a unique spell.
If you don’t proc Vicious Cycle for 2 seconds, the damage bonus resets.
The damage bonus from Vicious Cycle is additive, not multiplicative. So, Surprise Strike will grant a 110% damage bonus with Vicious Cycle (80% + 30%), not 80% * 1.3. If you get what I’m trying to say.


Death Magnet’s name will not be changed, but the ability will be. Holding shift and casting Smoke Bomb will pull enemies towards you in a slightly larger radius than Black Hole, and then launch them away from you for 250% of your DPS. The mana cost is your Smoke Bomb cost + 10.

Nightcloak Knife will be replaced with Killstreak. Triggering a damage bonus from Vicious Cycle will increase your damage by 5%. (Max 25%)

Fatal Spin will simply increase the damage of Spin Attack and Lacerate by 30% instead of adding Marks. Marks don’t exist anymore, silly.

Stronger Vortex will be renamed to Stronger Cycle and boost Vicious Cycle’s damage bonus by 20%. The maximum damage boost from Vicious Cycle becomes increased to 250%.

Harvester: Gain 5% of your maximum mana back each time you proc Surprise Strike.

More Marks is replaced by Better Killstreak. Killstreak now grants a 10% bonus to damage with a new maximum of 50% bonus damage.

Satsujin gets replaced with Nightcloak Knife, the final red ability of Shadestepper.

If you have a full Killstreak and a full stack of Vicious Cycle, casting Multihit while invisible and shifting will consume all stacks of Vicious Cycle to summon the Nightcloak Knife. The Knife will mimic your attacks for 75% of the damage, and Vanish’s cooldown is disabled for the duration of the Knife.
The Nightcloak Knife lasts 5 seconds. Spells cast during this time will have their mana cost halved.

Devour now makes Harvester give 10% of your maximum mana.

Better Marked is replaced with Satsujin, a yellow node.
After the Nightcloak Knife’s duration ends, it will deal 450% of your DPS in 6 rapid slices.

The End

That’s the whole thing! The damage scaling might be a little overpowered as I don’t have a good sense of that kind of thing, but I think that the abilities I added and changed would result in a much more engaging, fun, and rewarding experience than the current one. Thank you for reading, have a good day/night!

Also thanks to Enter34 for inspiring this post

 

As a based Shadestepper enjoyer, I like some parts of this while also not liking some parts.

I kinda liked the more systematic playstyle of Shadestepper, which unlike Boltslinger and Lightbender were just spellspam, although tbf Boltslinger does have a defense disadvantage, this actually had a more intriguing combat system. Cycling Vanish with other spells does sound alright, but I prefer how it currently is.

Backstab was one of my favorite parts of Shadestepper, involving the whole systematic playstyle thing I mentioned before. I wouldn't necessarily mind an upgrade to Spin Attack, but Backstab is something that made Shadestepper compelling.

I'd suggest if Backstab were to go away as an ability node then somehow work it in to Surprise Strike, like maybe its damage is tripled as one hard-hitting strike is dealt if an enemy is hit from behind.

Don't really mind this, as it makes the playstyle more systematic instead of mindless.

This is a pretty neat upgrade to Violent Vortex, and really does feel adequate for Shadestepper's playstyle. +1

This actually seems like a neat ability. I really like the whole Marked thing Shadestepper already has going on for it though, so I kinda wish that would also stay here as just another way to increase damage. Also working Backstab into this from Surprise Strike could be something like chaining Backstabs will also count towards stacking the damage.

Definitely support this idea. Death Magnet has always been a bad ability from the get-go, so this is definitely a welcome upgrade.

Putting these both here as they are pretty connected. I don't mind Satsujin getting banished. The only cool thing it had going on for it would be the damage bonus and the japanese characters when you killed an enemy with it.

Neat change, just wish that last part was still a part of the suggestion.

Stronger Vortex was also kinda a throwaway ability too, so this is also welcomed.

Neat change.

Neat change.

Neat change.

We still get the Japanese characters so that's neat ig.

Overall, some stuff from the current Shadestepper (Backstab & Marks) is something I would've kept, even if Marks were just things added to enemies that just stopped there if this was implemented, but the other stuff definitely is a welcome change to some parts of Shadestepper.

 

if you combine this with trickster you get the ultimate dps class, the ideas themselves are good though

 

Wow, thanks for the detailed response. In retrospect, I think that Backstab would be better with this instead of regular Multihit. I feel like Shadestepper's whole issue was that it revolved around Backstab way too much, which made it clunky and annoying. But having it as an extra ability that isn't the gimmick of Shadestepper sounds great.

I originally had Marks as a part of this, adding one to the enemy every time Surprise Strike was procced. But it felt kind of weird that it only affected the enemies you attacked, so I replaced it with Killstreak as a more well-rounded upgrade, at least in my eyes. But I definitely understand where you are coming from.

I do agree that a systematic playstyle is good, but Shadestepper was SO systematic that it was boring and repetitive. At least to me. So, I made this version of Shadestepper as still systematic, like you said, but not so repetitive that it isn't fun. I built it trying to make it possible to play it many different ways instead of just one endless cycle. However, this is just my opinion, and other people will probably see it differently.

Again, I appreciate the detailed response. Thanks for the great feedback :D

 

Warning Big Reply
wha--

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but you're going to stop me from casting spin attack thrice and getting 9 spins?

Ok, I sort of get this, but shadestepper seems to be more about big hits than little hits, but okay.

Wow. The entire tree is getting changed. Right now Marked is kind of better winded, and the playstyles feel somewhat similar.

Carpal Tunnel?

Okay. I'm going to point out that satsujin requires marks and the marked ability which no longer exist.

And you just removed my favorite shadestepper ability.

Creative ideas, I'm just not sure how much cycling I can take.

 

1. You can cast Spin Attack 3 times, you just can’t Vanish, Spin Attack, Vanish, Spin Attack, Vanish, Spin Attack, and so on.
2. Yeah, if I changed this someday I would keep Backstab in the new ability tree.
3. It is called Shadestepper *Revamp*.
4. Yes, I tried to make it have fast-paced gameplay. Although this specific reset time would make it impossible to actually use the damage bonus, so let’s just pretend it is 6 or 7 seconds.
5. Did you even read the ability description? The name is the same but the ability is changed and does not require marks.
6. Violent Vortex is cool, if there was more space in the tree I would have included it.
Thanks for your feedback!

 

oh i see it now I just thought the thing below it was another ability tree adjustment. Sometimes my brain skips over things. Sorry.