Effects trigger on both gaining charges and releasing charges
Charges are gained even if you miss, effects are triggered only if you’re attacking a target, you can gain charges by hitting air but effects won’t trigger
Charges last 30 seconds
Phoenix Strike and Claws of Thunder NHD reduced to 3 frames
Cobra Strike add -1% enemy poison resist per level to each charge stage, add Venom synergy of -1% enemy poison resist per level to each charge stage
Finishers
Uninterruptible
Remove always hit when charges active
Dragon Claw now cleaves hitting 1 target adjacent to primary target each swing, charges only release on primary target hits
Dragon Talon stops kicking when target moves out of range
Dragon Tail always hits, fire damage is applied independent of physical damage
Dragon Flight no longer needs target to teleport but line of sight still required, max range of 16 yards - if target moves beyond 16 yards teleport to its last location within 16 yards, NHD reduced to 3 frames
Shadow Disciplines
Auras
Burst of Speed and Fade stack
Venom duration to 4 seconds at same DPS and add AR bonus, add Cobra Strike synergy of +1% poison damage per level, fix poison damage canceled by physical damage bug
Passives
Claw Mastery add chance of open wounds on hit per level, 20% chance max, AR bonus applies to blade skills
Weapon Block at 1/3 block rate when running, increase block chance and FBR works, capped 65% block chance
Summons
Don’t consume player trap count
Combine stat bonuses of both summons
Shadow Warrior only uses Martial Arts and Shadow Disciplines skills and switch to Shadow Master AI
Shadow Master only uses Traps and Shadow Disciplines skills
Crowd Control
Psychic Hammer pulls target towards you, deals magic damage
Cloak of Shadows CD removed
Mind Blast converted enemies can be damaged, deals magic damage
Traps
Bombs
Shock Web NHD reduced to 15 frames
Sentries
Minus resists and plus elemental damage on items work on traps
Wake of Fire NHD reduced to 3 frames, gain 1 shot per 4 levels in Wake of Inferno synergy
Wake of Inferno projectile speed moves faster behaves more like a beam
Death Sentry shoots Chain Lightning, NHD reduced to 3 frames
Blades
No longer use weapon durability
Claw Mastery bonuses applied across the board if claw equipped
Add AR across the board, decrease damage to compensate
Blade Fury windup removed and ricochets to 2 additional targets, CB DS OW triggers
Blade Sentinel CD removed and NHD reduced to 15 frames, capped at 5 active and independent trap count from sentry traps, DS OW triggers, applies CTC on strike
Blade Shield OW triggers, non weapon ED applies, CTC on attack replaced with on strike
I prefer some other solutions to martial arts and Next Hit Delay that I’ve posted elsewhere, so I won’t really comment on those parts.
Agree on Weapon Block while walking/running, summons and trap maximum, cloak of shadows cooldown, applying -% resistance and +% damage to traps, blade shield weapon durability, blade fury windup, and blade sentinel casting delay.
Disagree on restricting Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master skill tabs, stacking burst of speed and fade, and psychic hammer pulling (just because a “hammer” pulling feels off), and on further boosting blade fury attack rating (since it already gets 10% per level).
I have seen suggested elsewhere and like the idea of being able to summon both the Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master at the same time, and fixing their boot/kick issue.
I’m indifferent on converted enemies being damaged. Current or changed are both fine with me. Also don’t feel particularly strongly about Venom. I mainly just see it as a 1-point wonder skill to prevent boss regen anyway.
Not sure what you mean by consolidate summon stats.
For the charge up skills the idea was to address their problems while preserving their fundamental play style. Make charging less frustrating and more rewarding rather than diminishing or replacing the mechanism.
The restricting of skill trees is to better differentiate the summons. Right now there’s no reason to choose SW over SM. By restricting the trees you can control the playstyle of your summon, you could either have them tank or sit back. Consolidating them means combining the bonuses they get from skill levels so they will have the same stats and you choose which one you want based on which behaviour you want and not by the stats alone.
Physic Hammer pull is to give the skill more utility, there’s little reason to use it over Mind Blast. But if you’re able to pull specific monsters in a pack towards you to avoid aggro it might give the skill more utility.
The damage while converted is a QoL change, in group play it’s really annoying to have your shadow convert a pack and everyone is losing their minds.
Venom is a staple in WW builds, with a short duration you can’t really attack consistently enough to take advantage of the on paper dps Venom has. With a 4 second duration it gives you more leeway to mess up or play defensively.
Stacking Fade and BoS is quite powerful but as of now assassins are lacking. Even with this change not sure if it compares to max block, max res, high def, high life paladins.
This isn’t really true, but the reason to choose it is not evident unless you really dig into the mechanics of how Shadow Warrior works. You can effectively “teach” Shadow Warrior to use certain skills, and you can actually give it synergy bonuses over the 20 level maximum synergies normally have this way. That’s the main advantage of Shadow Warrior.
I think we’re just talking past each other on all of the other points. It’s not that I disagree with some of the things you mention, but we are prioritizing things differently so arriving at different conclusions from some of the same premises.
It’s alright to disagree but I just like hashing out ideas for the fun of it. I know that summons get bonuses from your skills. Having it separated by Traps and MA makes it more intuitive on which one you choose based on your build. On every assassin I’ve made melee or caster I’ve chosen Shadow Master because it’s better most of the time.
But that’s not really a distinction that exists currently. I.e. it’s not the case currently that you should always use Shadow Warrior for martial arts and Shadow Master for traps, and people not doing that are just doing things sub-optimally. So restricting their skill tabs isn’t really just steering people towards a “correct” choice.
Right now you can control which skills Shadow Warrior uses. You cannot do the same for Shadow Master. That’s the big #1 difference. As a side-effect of that is that you can manipulate Shadow Warrior’s skill levels a bit more than Shadow Master, but admittedly this doesn’t come up in most gameplay.
Restricting their skill tabs would also lead to bad AI behavior of Shadow Warrior if you have trap skills on your active skills, because those would effectively be dead/blank skills for it. If you try to get around that problem by desyncing its choice of skills from your active skills, then you eliminate the main appeal it has (control over what it does).
I’m open to disagreeing, but just saying that’s why I am strongly against that change.
Much easier to just let the player summon both and not mess with their skill tabs and AI.
I probably forgot to mention that Shadow Warrior uses the AI behaviour of Shadow Master. So essentially it’s 2 Shadow Masters split by skill trees. Shadow Master is much tankier with the resists, Shadow Warrior dies too easily without the same resists. As a trapper I usually have Shadow Master as a 1 PT wonder, it’s really annoying having to recast it every it gets itself killed trying to melee. I really don’t want it to do anything else but cast traps and mind blast.
Having 2 summons would be even more powerful but assassins aren’t really a summoner class. That’s just a preference for me.
I don’t want that at all. I like that you can actually influence what Shadow Warrior does.
This is an entirely separate issue that can be solved without messing with their skill tabs. I’m fine with giving Shadow Warrior better equipment than it gets currently (likely to improve resistances among other things) and/or some innate resistances.
You’re right, but “teaching” SW is tedious (so not feasible for short runs) and not documented in the game (just like Fade’s DR bonus used to be), so very few players are aware of it, let alone use it. And “uncapped synergy” (on top of the mechanics not being documented) looks like an old bug in the original code rather than a planned feature.
Assassin already uses complex mechanics, such as MA chargers and finishers. Besides light trap build with Infinity, which, like other casters, uses just one skill and obliterates everything, -sin is a low tier class. Because of that, I see no reason not to simplify and buff her summon skills.
That was exactly my thought process, the assassin already has too many things going on to be worried about what her summon does. I knew about shadow warrior mechanics, but I’ve never bothered with it, I just want to summon it and forget about it. Having a clear cut option between melee or ranged makes the choice more intuitive rather than just defaulting to the “better” one because the mechanics are too convoluted.
Even at a bare minimum, your two active skills influence Shadow Warrior’s actions, without getting into more complicated “teaching.” We clearly disagree on whether we like that control or not, and I don’t think I or you or neph are coming around on this, so you’re welcome to have the last word.
It’s just how non-player skills work. It’s the same for mercenaries. All their skill levels are base skill levels too.