Marshal_Lannes
Well-known member
Should I find a way to link my previous thread on this I will do so, until then, we will continue our discussion on the Elven Ranger.
Hunt's End vs Shadowstrike
I did a good amount of questing, testing Shadowstrike (from Shadowdancer) versus the usual Hunt's End most of us take. Shadowstrike was underwhelming. Extremely underwhelming. While playing, I kept thinking, it feels like the design philosophy was (the old) Meld needed to be nerfed then, using that as the starting point, other abilities were put into place. Shadowstrike, of which Meld is a weird offshoot upgrade, has a ponderous cooldown. Placing Meld, which the design team I guess wants on a long cooldown, with an offensive attack makes combat awkward, difficult to use in a regular attack chain, and frankly, not too much fun. To make matters even worse, Hunt's End inflicts significantly more damage than Shadowstrike. In theory, Shadowstrike can be upgraded to blind targets - but you have to build for the DCs to hit that blind (which only triggers on a vorpal hit). Going through all that work to trigger an effect where the target would already be dead if you were using Hunt's End (blind also doesn't work on red names so it's only a normal mob effect).
The other issue with the Shadowdancer Destiny is that the first 10-15 points are amazing, but the further you go up in the tree the less attractive it is for our Elven ranger. Looking at T5, we can't cast Weird, so Consumed by Shadows - you need to be in sneak which simply isn't feasible for the marginal effect it does - opening a 5-second window of 0 AC. With a 30-second cooldown. Just a Taste is fine, same ability as almost all T5s for crits. Greater Shadowform - it's cool to float, but we aren't using the Shadowdancer mantle since it's far inferior to the DPS provided by either Shiradi or Primal. We can't use the spell DCs. The epic moment is quite cool, but going all the way up to T5 (T4 is almost as bad) for something that can only be used once every 5 minutes?
You begin to see the problems with Shadowstrike and a deep investment into Shadowdancer. I wanted to like this tree, I really did. I wanted to see if our Elven ranger could become extra sneaky and lethal but it turns out none of this can replace Hunt's End. As a point of reference, I was testing this on a 14 Monk/6 Ranger/2 Rogue version of the Elven Ranger (Wood Elf).
Having picked up an extra +3 to damage (Monk life plus two Enchanted Weapon epic past lives), our next incarnation of the Elven ranger will be primarily Rogue focused. 12 Rogue/6 Ranger and 2 Warlock. Yes, our Horizon Walking stalker slayer is making a pact!
Hunt's End vs Shadowstrike
I did a good amount of questing, testing Shadowstrike (from Shadowdancer) versus the usual Hunt's End most of us take. Shadowstrike was underwhelming. Extremely underwhelming. While playing, I kept thinking, it feels like the design philosophy was (the old) Meld needed to be nerfed then, using that as the starting point, other abilities were put into place. Shadowstrike, of which Meld is a weird offshoot upgrade, has a ponderous cooldown. Placing Meld, which the design team I guess wants on a long cooldown, with an offensive attack makes combat awkward, difficult to use in a regular attack chain, and frankly, not too much fun. To make matters even worse, Hunt's End inflicts significantly more damage than Shadowstrike. In theory, Shadowstrike can be upgraded to blind targets - but you have to build for the DCs to hit that blind (which only triggers on a vorpal hit). Going through all that work to trigger an effect where the target would already be dead if you were using Hunt's End (blind also doesn't work on red names so it's only a normal mob effect).
The other issue with the Shadowdancer Destiny is that the first 10-15 points are amazing, but the further you go up in the tree the less attractive it is for our Elven ranger. Looking at T5, we can't cast Weird, so Consumed by Shadows - you need to be in sneak which simply isn't feasible for the marginal effect it does - opening a 5-second window of 0 AC. With a 30-second cooldown. Just a Taste is fine, same ability as almost all T5s for crits. Greater Shadowform - it's cool to float, but we aren't using the Shadowdancer mantle since it's far inferior to the DPS provided by either Shiradi or Primal. We can't use the spell DCs. The epic moment is quite cool, but going all the way up to T5 (T4 is almost as bad) for something that can only be used once every 5 minutes?
You begin to see the problems with Shadowstrike and a deep investment into Shadowdancer. I wanted to like this tree, I really did. I wanted to see if our Elven ranger could become extra sneaky and lethal but it turns out none of this can replace Hunt's End. As a point of reference, I was testing this on a 14 Monk/6 Ranger/2 Rogue version of the Elven Ranger (Wood Elf).
Having picked up an extra +3 to damage (Monk life plus two Enchanted Weapon epic past lives), our next incarnation of the Elven ranger will be primarily Rogue focused. 12 Rogue/6 Ranger and 2 Warlock. Yes, our Horizon Walking stalker slayer is making a pact!
