Shadow Dancer Epic Destiny: Rebalanced from Unbalanced Melee/Range

[Sneakywink]

Visage of Terror was just an example. It could be something like on a failed Assassinate the target/s become paralyzed in fear? For example Assassinate would be useful on 'warded against death' monsters or against a failed Assassinate attempt. This could also apply to Shadowstrike as every other melee Destiny has crowd control. Even Unyielding Sentinel has crowed control.

Edit: One little gripe I have is that Shadow Jaunt shares cooldown with From the Shadows making Jaunt unusable.

 

[Bjond]

could be something like on a failed Assassinate

Not good; SD is themed as a tree that works for ALL builds. They do a v.nice job of making sure it's a DPS tree with a shadowy flavor rather than "assassin tree version 2". It does need help. The epic strike and mantle are particularly bad; no matter what you're running, you can do MUCH better from other trees for both strike and mantle.

I still use SD in almost every build despite that: MM immunity + MDB + Sneaks + Evasion + Drain immunity + Double already make it nearly generically useful as a splash tree. I almost never take it to T4, though.

Want to upgrade it from Splash-Dancer and make it truly SHADOW Dancer!? Improve strike and mantle in T4 & T5 like this:

• T4: Dark Mercy = requires depths + while in mantle +2/4/6s to your strike imbue (still worse than adrenaline, but it's closer)
• T5: Greater Form = requires dark mercy + while in mantle you are always considered to be sneaking + current bonuses

This is actually not as wild or as good as it sounds, but we'd see a ton of shadows floating about if it worked that way and probably more than one assassin every other month, too -- just because it would be fun to float/sneak at runspeed. IMHO, slow movement is the single biggest impediment to using assassinate in a group or raid, too.

 

[VinoeWhines]

Please fix Shadow Dancer devs, with these myriads of suggestions from Stealth players.

Tactics/Assassinate should have means of cool downs just like Spells do on Live. Maybe hard cap it to 6 seconds, even though some spells I see go down to 4 seconds cool downs on Live.

 

[saekee]

Not sure how things will go with Lammania changes coming but I have tier 4 SD right now and do From the shadows. I have the imbue buff not meld one and it seems to have a hidden effect of 2% doublestrike. When I removed the buffs to SD’s epic strike I lost 2% doublestrike.
I have 9 points in US for guard up
and renewal plus 2 cores.
Since I wanted tier 4 adrenaline and all doublestrike from the tree, I ended up going tier 5 in Fury but only for the crit multiplier. I ran out of destiny points (I think I have 67) to take anything else (no epic moment lol). I get a mini-epic moment wheneve I use From the Shadows so that is my consolation.

I am not sure what I will do with all the changes. Adrenaline hits have enabled me to stealth tough quests while isolating with bluff the reapers. The 9 second cooldown means that if you do not drop a foe in the four seconds of helplessness, they will have just enough time to get up and whack you before adrenaline is off cooldown.

There are a number of attacks that do not break stealth and I use these with adrenaline: Rapid Slash (vistani) and Fast and Furious. Not WAI but not worth it for the devs to fix (well, I hope, or I and other stealthy players are in trouble).

 

[VinoeWhines]

Now that Adrenaline will be changed to an active attack and not a Builder, like they originally stated, they seem to be going away from their concept that they first wanted, then decided against(Builder build up), then to modify it, to now it being a single attack.
Like others have said; Build up underperforming and adjust overly high performing. MCL 20 on all things I guess is the way they're starting with.
It would be great if Shadow Dancer Epic Strike would add 50% more damage each upgrade and put the Meld portion on a separate action button. This would also open up the ability to also invest to get Dark Imbuement as well. The Imbue sneak attack dice damage is a nice idea, unfortunately it's shackled to choose between two separate abilities that were always chosen before to have together if you wanted them, now they made it to have one or the other, which is short sighted.