Yet another shadestepper balancing post

As of 2.1, the shadestepper archetype is somewhat lacking in gameplay as vanish, currently its only viable damage source, has a 5 second cooldown. The changes I suggest are in favor of nerfing vanish (slightly) and instead buffing shadestepper’s archetype specific abilities for more overall damage (also satsujin was buffed to help balance it and bamboozle).

Buff backstab

At first glance, backstab appears to be balanced. It deals 250% dps normally and 500% from behind, while standard multihit deals 320% (8 hits at 40% dps), which fits nicely in between. However, fatality boosts that damage by 150% and with stronger multihit adding +3 hits; the total damage is 590% dps. Increasing backstab’s damage to 300% (600% from behind) would be an improvement for damage aside from vanish. The backstab damage (from behind) is significantly higher, but backstabs outside of vanish rarely occur.

Add frontstab

As the buffed damage still falls behind fatality, adding extra damage for backstabs (not from behind) would help fix this. Frontstab would increase backstab damage not from behind by 125% (100% neutral, 25% earth), putting it on par with fatality.

Marked

Gaining marks past the max amount now grants overflow marks up to an additional 100% (for a total of 200%). Overflow marks do not give extra damage, but refresh normal marks when they expire.

Nightcloak Knife

Casting spin attack while holding shift summons the night cloak knife, which consumes 100% of your marks (starting with overflow marks). Your next 7 non-vanish boosted hits deal 4% more damage per mark consumed (spin attack counts as 2 hits, and it does not activate for smoke bomb or poison damage).

Fatal spin

Fatal spin now increases spin attacks’s damage from 20% to 25%, and spin attack only consumes one of nightcloak knife’s charges.

Replace harvester

As shadestepper’s design leans to single target damage, and harvester benefits most from multiple enemies, it should be replaced with sigil of descent. Sigil of descent activates when a marked entity loses a mark (including nightcloak knife), they are damaged by 20% dps (15% neutral, 5% thunder), and you regen 1 mana per second for 5 seconds per mark (does not trigger nightcloak knife or use vanish’s damage boost).

Satsujin

Satsujin can only be activated in vanish by backstab and powder specials, and will always function as if you attacked an enemy from behind. Satsujin deals +150% damage.

Debilitating marks

You take 0.8% less damage from marked enemies per mark (including overflow marks).

Cycle of pain

Using all available nightshade knife charges will heal 15% of your max hp (10s cd).


Vanish changes

As vanish’s perks are spread across several abilities, they will all be listed here for convenience.

Surprise strike is consolidated with vanish.

Vanish now deals 70% boosted damage (instead of 80%).

Ambush now deals 30% boosted damage (instead of 40%).

Remove shadow siphon and silent killer.

Mana regen is halved while in vanish.


Also a few changes for trickster:

Change bamboozle buff from echo to +400% (previously 800%).

Forbidden art buffs bamboozle by +400% dps.

Mirror image no longer requires vanish.

Bamboozle conflicts with vanish.

 

Okay, lets give feedback per section

Completely agree that backstab needs more dmg in general. I would even go so far as to suggest boostin the dmg to 350% (and 700% from behind) or higher, because unlike multihit, you cannot simply spam the maximum dmg backstab. There for, the dmg of multihit should be significantly less than what a backstab from behind does.
However, I would lock this upgrade further down the ability tree than just base backstab, simply because it will than not disrupt the early game balance.

I would much rather that it boosted backstab as a whole, as to keep the insentive for the player to pull of a succesfull backstab. If there is not enough dps difference to offset te ease of use, then no player is really going to use backstab from behind. Also, I might be misunderstanding it, but is the 125% additive, or multiplicitive? (is the enresult 425% or 675%)

I take these two together, because the changes I presume are coupled.

The overflow marks are a nice idea to maintain marked uptime and increase the amounts of marked that nightcloak knife can consume in single target. Those are nice changes to have.

However, the changes made to night cloaked knife I am less a fan of. One of the the main benefits that night cloak knife has, is that it's one of the few AoE dmg boosting abilities that shadestepper has (the other being marked), with an very long duration that can be maintained 100% of the time. By making it only boost a limited amount of hits, that also doesn't work on smoke bomb, you make it a straight up worse version of the current version. Yes because of overflow you can make it deal a lot more dmg in single trarget, but that comes at a cost of decreased duration and AoE dmg.

Okay, spin attack dmg buff is fine, my opinioins on the knife charges are already clear, altho it elviates them a little. Does fatal spin still apply marks?

It seems that you don't completely understand the point of harvester. It was originally designed to (partly) refund the costs of a spell cycle, that triggers if you manage to kill the enemy with shadesteppers frontloaded dmg burst (vanish-succesfull backstab-satsujin-max marked). It is true that in most bossfights it works way better, but that doesn't mean it was designed that way.

As for your changes, they are very original. However, they might be a bit to overpowered, since after ~10s you will constantly regenerate mana just because of marked decay, an because of the overflowmarks, the enemy can continuesly provide you with mana just by having marked. Als the regain of the mana when absorbing through knife cloaked knife is too much for how little it costs. That on top of dealing dmg, that's just too much

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side note: It seems in general that you want to priorotise the use of night cloaked knife over the use of vanish, however, because of how you design it, it kinda seems like you either use the knife or vanish, but not both. That makes it so that shades playstyle and power budget is split.
On top of that the night cloaked knife playstyle becomes way to similair to other class and architypes, their by decreasing the uniqueness of shade

 

* Further in other comment, because I accidently clicked post

Okay, the dmg boost might be to big, might not be. I think it's fine, but I am not sure. As for the behaviour of Satsujin, I like that it only works from vanish, but am torn on the "always succesfull backstab" angle. On the one hand, it does boosts Satsujin's dmg and makes it more consistent, but it also disincentives the player from trying to succesfully land a succesfull backstab. Since that is kinda the whole gimmick of shade, kinda dislike it making players not want to use it.

A nice defensive boost, if not a bit weak. Maybe increase the number to 1%.

Also a nice defensive boost. I feels like it should be fine.

Okay, the big thing

Consolidating surprise strike in vanish: Good idea, might be a bit unbalanced in the early game.
Decreasing the dmg boost: Considering the other dmg boosts, not that detrimental.
Remove shadow siphon and silent killer: No. People already feel like that the vanish CD is to long, removing CD resetting mechanisms does not make that any better. It does decrease the use of vanish, as sofar that it will only be used to set up night cloaked knife and then forgotten. No body is going to use it to trigger satsujin, because then they are a sitting duck, with no defensive option, and sub optimal dps. This means that Shade stops being a very frontloaded build and just becomes the same as al the other classes and architypes.
Removing silent killer is the worst of the two, as it is the main reason to maintain near 100% uptime on shadowtravel, and is also very usfull for jumping from enemy to enemy. Imagin doing a satsujin on one enemy and then having to wait 7s to trigger it on another enemy, because vanish isn't up. That feels extreemly unpleasant in multitarget combat.
Mana regen is halved while in vanish: No. This wil first of all make major ID "roving assassin"useless. Secondly it incentivises vanish camping to regain mana, with out being at risk in a fight.

You really don't like bamboozle trickshade. Personally I don't have a problem with it, it has it up and down sides. The main problem that I have is that full spell Shade is not strong enough to compensate the lack of comfort that bamboozle trickshade offers. The architype itself is fine, and even a different type of fun compaired to full spellshade.

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General thoughts:

I like some changes you made proposed, others less.
However, I feel like the majority of changes you made, made Shadesstepper less like the idea it embodies. It is meant to be one of the few (the only one I belive) really frontloaded dmg dealing classes in Wynncraft, that relies on positioning, patience and less spellspam. The changes you made, while creative, made it a bit too similair to other architypes.
Furthermore, the problem of shadestepper is not that too much dmg is locked behind vanish, because in a good spellcycle (and a aspect), vanish CD is not as much of a problem as people think. (AKA: Get good, mate, and you don't notice it too much).
The main problem of shade is twofold: Too little dmg in general (I have done the math, Spellshade misses a little bit of dmg, to compensate the added skill expression that is needed to play) and being too unforgiving if a DMG threshold isn't met. If one of these problems is alleviated, the other also becomes less of a problem.

Despite my critiques, I did really like some reading this post. Your Ideas are fun to think through, so keep up the good work.
I hope my feedback has been helpfull, not hurtfull, to you.

Sincerely, Moi