ShadowBlades

[Dranwin]

Hey guys,

I wanted to start a discussion of various classes and strategies that people have come up with to utilize the skills effectively. (If there are already posts like this please direct me their way, I had trouble finding some that were updated.)

I've recently been trying to proceed with a shadowblade which seems to be one of the more complicated and difficult classes.

It seems like Shadowblade's were made as a combo class, with some roguelike combat abilities and various magic utility spells. They do they their own Shadow Combat tree but it seems fairly ineffective besides shadowstep. The first ability ( I believe is Shadow Mastery...or Shadow Combat) which grants additional shadow damage per hit for a minor mana cost is very nice early game! But...seems to drop off the table as you upgrade your equipment. At level 5, shadow combat is dealing 16 additional damage.

The Second ability in the tree gives you additional spellpower from a % of your cunning...this seems promising but your first Shadow Combat ability doesn't seem to scale with spellpower and is a fixxed 16 shadow damage. Is it supposed to be this way?

For those that have attempted Shadowblades, what are you thoughts on the tree?

Dranwin

[greycat]

You're right that most of the discussions about strategies are outdated, because the game has changed dramatically, and very recently. Players haven't really had time to adapt to the changes for all the various classes yet. Think of yourself as a pioneer.

I don't know for sure whether Spellpower affects the damage from Shadow Combat, but I'd be surprised if it's only tied to talent level and not to the Magic stat. And, for the most part, anything that's affected by the Magic stat is also affected by Spellpower bonuses, whether the description says so or not. (Many of the descriptions are a bit lacking....)

The other thing to remember about Shadow Combat (or indeed anything that gives you bonus damage per hit) is that it's per hit, not per turn. There are talents that perform mutiple melee strikes in a single turn -- for example, Dual Strike does two, and Flurry does six. That can add up quickly.

[Dranwin]

Well from further testing I can confirm that the damage granted by Shadow Combat is purely tied to talent level and not to your magic stat or spellpower.

Yes the damage is per hit and definitely adds a lot as it adds up. I would like to see it get affects from either magic or spellpower, as the rest of the tree would make more sense (affecting the other skills, boosting abilities). The Shadowblade doesn't have much more in terms of combat spells and I'm not sure how much spellpower affects utility spells, (phase door range?) I know most of the tooltips hint at "Magic increases (X)" or whatnot but im not sure what spellpower does for non damage abilities.

When looking at efficiency of talent points, I found the Rogue had a better synergy of abilities working for eachother, whereas pumping your knife abilities or abilities that increase crit damage/chance, they all seemed to balance eachother our whereas the Shadow tree seems a standalone that seems almost wasted when your points could be better suited (damage wise) in the pure combat techniques and such.

I reallllly like the idea of the shadow tree and hope that it gets further tweaked.

[Gwai]

I on the other hand, think it would make a non-easy class significantly harder if shadow combat was based on magic. Rogues have enough things to spend their stats on without magic being REQUIRED as opposed to a very good idea?

[Dranwin]

Agreed.

It's always nice to have various options, and since its the only other option under the rogue tree, making a rogue/magic variant is a great idea! However, because of the numerous rogue abilities to choose from and how much your talent points spread out, I would like to see the magic that Shadowblades do have more effective to warrant the skill points.

[Wombat]

Actually, all of the talents in the Shadow Magic tree seem to depend on cunning and not magic. Even so, they do not scale with either stat. I've played a few shadowblades since b15, and it doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind to put many points into this tree. I can confirm that the strength of shadow combat never increases aside from adding points into the skill. In one game, I found a randart hat (!) that added triple per hit in damage over what shadow combat provides. It's much more effective to pump up the combat skills, especially the dual wielding trees. The extra damage is nice, but it's nicer to have flurry and other talents operating at full strength. I'm still trying to determine the best way to prepare them for this east in this beta.

[Wombat]

Actually, in my disappointment over shadow combat, I never tested to see if shadow cunning made any difference in the damage done by shadow combat.

[Grey]

The real strength in Shadowblades is using the support magic with the rogue skills. Forget stealth, get some decent armour, stun and Flurry enemies and phase door away when needed. Invis at high levels is very powerful, but you'll need to pump Willpower a lot and get a good mana regen rune (with Shadow Feed enabled) to really get anything out of it. Essentially they're rogues with a few extra tricks up their sleeves.