Shads have mediocre damage and utility. We need more love.

gonna paste this here, since the original post is a copy paste from another thread:

I have never played shadower before so I cannot comment on most of your opinion.

However this, I find it really hard to ignore.

This is a skill that literally DOUBLES your EXISTING HP, I don't see how this skill us bad in anyways.

Lets see, the clutch to survive PB based on what others have said is 15k before HB (which is 7.5k before meso guard)

So for Bucc, 14k before T10 ring. For shad, 6.5k before T10 ring.

Using chew's calculator:
For bandit, you can hit it at lvl 150, 120 base int


For Bucc, you can hit it at lvl 165, 120 base int


For reference, bandit lvl 165, with 120 base int


It's exceeds what buccs can achieve.

Don't forget, for other classes, T10 ring is 1k HP, for shad its friggin 2k HP

 

Speaking from literally no experience at all besides reading this thread, maybe smokescreen would be better if it removed debuffs or boss buffs on cast. Then it would be more of an actual support skill than a luxury. Other than that I don’t think there is so much that is worth changing

 

That is priest skill dispell

 

Might as well kill magic guard too while we're at it. That should solve the ulu1 crisis as well, killing two birds with one stone.

Thank me later

 

I feel like people are heavily undervaluing the effect of smoke. It actually got buffed recently to give even more utility, with the shorter CD. It's an incredibly broken skill that needs to be balanced carefully. Any less CD and you can easily get 100% uptime.

For bosses like Zak, it's essentially a better holy shield; you can't get stunned and there's no knock back. Ever wonder why NLs are the best dpm class? It's because they don't need to reposition and their skills aren't interrupted when they get hit. For BM, it certainly boosts my hurricane dpm at zak by more than 10-15% which is what SE/SI does for most classes. It also maximizes the effectiveness of stopper/apple usage as well.

 

HT:
Mass sed -> bishop has no will -> 1/1 -> party dies to rock

OR

Mass sed -> bishop has no will -> 1/1 -> Chad shad uses will cause 1/1 missed and smokes at the rock -> party does not die to rock

 

Although this post as a whole has some of the most misinformed balance whine I've ever read, the meso guard complaint stands out as particularly incoherent and illogical.

Shadowers are absolutely fine

 

Shadowers are op.

op4shad

 

#MakePickpocketGreatAgain :c

 

Me making a 10k+ HP Bishop

 

jokes on you i washed to 6k HP

 

Still more DPH with sight+nate combo over sight+nate+bstep (for single+cleave) idk why you'd say its bad lmao, don't do entire cast maybe.

idk what the fuck you're doing at 7f but I'm casting Bstep and meso guard 24/7 lol.

Maybe you should get more shads friends and discovered why screen is the coolest meta buff to have a boss.
Every felt like 45 seconds ain't enough? Why not have 3 shads and have a whole ass 135 seconds of godmode.
Yes, I was able to cast my smoke and go pee + grab a glass of water while others casted it too

bruh are you trying to farm funnytoxic emotes or what, legit meso guard is what I see as a good proposal for making hp washing more optional for specific classes (thank god Shads got this class)
I'd be fucking dreaded thinking of having to wash hard on a shad even for grinding more efficiently.

To your end note

Ayo, Hero is fucking 9/10 at bossing and basically 2/10 at grinding, grab a pinch of salt and think.

Maybe start increasing your avoid? work towards low str / low dex and high luk for that avoid meta and being sed mule is not bad, don't have to click many buttons no cap.

All I read is you basically just leeched your shad from 30 to 12x+ and didn't enjoy crying with savage blow over teddies, STDs and random questing.
3rd job can be amazing with BoT to farm cards, yes I did farm cards that way until bstep was hitting more mobs.
Shad is not a support class... its a grind-meta class, you pop up pickpocket and go to town on mobs grabbing that 200x2 meso bags over the normal meso drops and have fun that way.

The last point made me think you didn't start this class for the entire motivation it exists.
Shadower is a avoid meta meme class which abuses the fact its got higher shifter avoid % and high avoid from thief class that can basically get missed or shifter skill like 60~70% of the times.

Heck I fucking laugh when I do a CWKPQ run and I only use 60 pots as a cleaver

As always, stay salty and remake to a class you think is "better".

And oh yeah #makepickpocketgreatagain
(and damn, I feel like this post was made for react farming f3)

 

Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes this is a bad post

You obviously don't PB.

??? Meso Guard is probably one of the greatest blessings since we don't need to hoard millions of NX to HP wash, and can be playable within months rather than years. With Meso Guard I can tank PB as an unwashed Shad. I'm saying this as someone with an 18X Shad with 7K HP (without Zombie/Anni rings, and obviously more with) and 17X NL with 18K HP clean.

Meso Explosion comes in extremely clutch for PB runs where lots of runners DC or damage needs to be upped toward the end.

Yeah...I think this sentence says it all.

 

gms should buff gacha rate from everyone who had patience to answer this post

 

smfh

 

This has to be satire right

 

OP hasnt post a single reply, so it must be

 

I'm going to go against the grain here and be a bit of a contrarian and say that, despite several exaggerations and and some incoherence, I think some of the points mentioned here merit a more in-depth examination rather than just the circle jerking going on, as tempting as it is to increase OP's standing in the toxic funny reaction rankings. Ever since I've started playing, there has been a deeply-rooted belief held by the community that "shadowers are perfectly fine as they are" and any attempt to challenge this consensus was generally met with ridicule and toxic funnies. I'm not here to paint a picture of gloom and doom for shads; they aren't quite on the level of paladins just yet . I would like to, however, hopefully offer another perspective on the matter and also dispel some inaccuracies. There are too many points to touch on here, both in the OP and in the replies, so I'm just going to go through them systematically.

Nate's Range:
Anyone who has played shad in HT can get behind this one. I had made a suggestions thread here before about increasing nate's horizontal range where I talked about how needlessly frustrating it was for shads to nate the left head and arm, and how the right arm can't be nated at all unless it extends out, which singles out shads as the only class that can't properly focus it down, outside of buccs off of ST. Since the head cleaving change, the woes of nating left head are no more. They continue, however, in PB. During stages 4 and 5 of the statue phase, shads can only bstep the left owl while range takes out right owl because nate range is too short to reach left owl without proccing mass sed. Nate range is also too short to reach ariel during stage 5. This effectively results in a lot of downtime and leads to an artificial reduction of shad dpm.

Smoke Utility:
Smoke is no doubt a nice luxury. Smoke isn't just a pot saver though; any end game bosser knows that smoke can substantially increase the dpm of certain attackers, can be used to secure resses, and in rare scenarios, save your party from a mass sed. I dislike, however, that this once-every-5-minutes skill purportedly pigeonholes shads into the role of support and as a "jack of all trades" or "all-rounder" because they so often are used as justifications for holding shads back. For some basic comparisons, buccs come with utility in the form of SI and TL and do better single target damage, and DKs come with utility in the form of HB and do better single target damage and vastly higher cleave damage. Does this mean the utility of smoke is comparable or greater than that of SI + TL, or HB? No one would say that. Even magnet is greater utility than smoke in PB. The fact that every useful ability under the sun, apart from smoke (so far ), from HH to SE, has been muled, speaks for itself.

Meso Guard: "A skill that is holding shadowers back"
This bit obviously could have been phrased better, but I think the main point remains largely intelligible, and that is that the high survivability of the class granted in part by meso guard justifies a significant trade-off for damage. Obviously I don't agree with the conclusion of the section, which is to remove meso guard altogether (though I suspect this is a hyperbole anyways being used to make a point, assuming the whole post isn't a troll). I agree that the resilient nature of the class appears to hold it back from receiving any buffs in the non-support direction. But let's see if this is rightfully justified.

A lot of the comparisons being made by people in this thread make the odd choice to compare the washing needs and "tankiness" of a shad, a melee character, to that of ranged characters, which is especially strange since no one is making the case that shad dpm should be anywhere near that of ranged characters. As a melee character, a shad by necessity needs to have significantly more HP than their ranged counterparts by default or how else could it survive? The more logical choice would be to compare them to warriors: an unwashed level 200 shad has 4843 HP, which with meso guard we can say is effectively 9686, and an unwashed level 200 warrior will have 12896 HP. A fresh HP wash for a shad effectively increases hp by 36 (18 * 2) and requires 12 mp, whereas a fresh HP wash for a warrior increases HP by ~52.5 and requires 4 mp, or more simply, a shad gets about 3 hp for every 1 mp above min MP and a warrior gets a bit over 13 hp for every 1 mp. I'm sure this comes as a surprise to no one that warrior washing is much easier than a shad. Additionally, I would argue that the majority of people who initially choose to play shads do so because they are told that they do not require much, if any, washing at all (very few people play shads as second characters). For that reason, there are almost no shad players with ~15k+ hp, and the overwhelming majority have much less than 10k.

So with that being said, we have established that in general, with respect to effective HP, warriors are tankier than shads. And yet they do better single target damage and vastly higher cleave damage. "Okay, but wait, what about the nature of meso guard halving 1/1's" you might ask. Unless you're netflixing too hard to pot after a 1/1, this is really only relevant in the context of sed, which is only truly relevant in HT and PB, and in the former where a shad is supposed to shine best a shad is almost always going to fulfill the role of sed mule, meaning they are "tanky" almost out of necessity here, and because they are sed they won't be dealing a whole lot of damage anyways compared to heros and DKs, who would still do more damage even if you weren't sed, especially after the head cleaving change. That is to say, if meso guard didn't halve 1/1's, there would be little merit to bringing a shad to HT over a DK/Hero. This was all a long-winded way to say meso guard halving 1/1's really only matters in the context of mass sed, because it is only under mass sed that shads having higher survivability compared to other classes is relevant. That being said, mass sed is hardly a threat in HT anymore with arms almost always being left for last, rendering mass sed only a mild inconvenience. Gone are the exciting days when groups would burst down arms before heads. As far as mass sed in PB is concerned, I concede that the extra survivability granted through the halving of 1/1's is not insignificant, though I will add that if your group is experiencing several mass seds the run is likely scuffed anyways .

So do shads having higher survivability than warriors in essentially just PB warrant a clamp on their damage and them being relegated to "support"? To that, I say no.

CWKPQ Cleave Damage:
Yeah, it's bad. As an aside, since it apparently isn't that well-known, even paladins are better cleavers at CWKPQ, though they rarely seem to be accepted. So next time you're about to deny another paly when you would normally be willing to accept a shad, give them a chance .

"Meso Guard helps save money on pots":
It doesn't. It's more expensive to use meso guard than just chugging more honsters once you have 6k+ hp. In other words, turn off your meso guard when you're grinding at 7f or in a bossing context where you have more than enough HP to survive without it and aren't going to be sed.

"Shad isn't supposed to be a main attacking class":
Because they have smoke? I'm not sure of the logic behind this.

"Shads are a jack of all trades/all-rounders":
I've come to hate these titles after seeing them being used time after time almost exclusively to justify their lower damage output. Heroes and DKs can grind just as well at 7f, do more single target damage (outside of PB body if DR functions correctly), have vastly higher cleave damage and practically have just as high survivability as shads, but no one ever calls them jacks of all trades, even when DKs also have better utility with HB.

"Shads have the highest effective avoid rate/spends the least on pots":
End game shads avoid about 70% of all attacks with just their avoid. With 40% shifter, this means they avoid 0.7 + (0.3 * 0.4) = ~82% of all attacks (more when spamming bstep). NLs of course have the same total avoid but with 30% shifter, meaning their effective dodge rate is 0.7 + (0.3 * 0.3) = ~79% of all attacks. This is only a 3% difference. While one class has the lowest dpm, the other has the highest dpm. This is a long-winded way to say that a class's avoid rate or how much a class spends on pots has no correlation with how much damage it should do.

"I would prefer that my class was at the bottom of the dpm tier list if it meant I could save more money on pots." - said no one ever

"Shads don't need buffs to reach their max damage":
This could only be construed as an upside if shads weren't at the bottom of the barrel. Warriors without buffs are only slightly worse off than shads in the single target department, but much better off with. In the cleave department, they blow shads out of the water, regardless of buffs.

"I would prefer that my class was at the bottom of the dpm tier list if it meant I didn't need SE or SI." - also said no one ever

TL;DR:
Nate's range sucks.
Other non-ranged classes provide more utility than smoke and still do more damage.
Warriors in most practical senses have just as high survivability as shads and do much more damage.
Shad CWKPQ damage is atrocious.
Meso Guard does not save pots.
Heroes and DKs are every bit of a jack of all trades as shads are.
Avoid rate and pot consumption has no correlation with how much damage a class should output.
Shads being unaffected by buffs, or being "self-reliant", is not a plus if they already do the least damage.

I'm also just going to leave some anecdotal evidence here that almost all the level 200 shads I know are planning on, or already have rerolled classes.

Since it seems unlikely that we will ever see buffs to shad damage, we might as well pivot hard in the support and personal utility direction and go all in on #makeppgreatagain and have pp work with nate. haha money printer go brrrrr

 

Many great points listed imo. I don't play shad so I cannot comment on most of them, thus I'll only cherry pick afew pointers where I feel I can have a discussion on.

It's true that buccs and dk's buff are highly muled for. But for HT, doesnt shads get muled often too? Not for their SS ofc, but as a sed mule. Correct me if I'm wrong tho.
Also for DK, the penalty for having HB, is the requirement to zerk. Without zerk, DK's damage is pretty trashy, while shad's are doing decent without zerk.

I agree with the meso guard statement. Meso Guard essentially makes shads as tanky as a bucc (if you take out the T10 ring that is), and buccs themselves ain't really tanky at all.
This is the main reason why I'm reluctant to start a shad, or a bucc. Many people have said about how buccs and shads requires only light-washing (low INT, aka 40-70 total INT w/o MP washing, low NX) but with this low INT, it cannot even net you the basic 15k HP required to go PB, let alone trying to run NTs without HB.

But to say meso guard is holding it back, I don't think that makes any sense. Meso Guard hasn't been use as an excuse to go "ohh shad doesn't require more buffings". Going by the same logic, smokescree" should be the skill "holding shads back", denying them the ability to have higher damage.

As a hero, I agree with this statement. Heroes are IMO, are just as independent as shads too. Perhaps the only 2 thing lacking is a useful party buffs (I don't think anyone mule Heroes for rage, just buy cider kekw) and lacking an ability to farm massive mesos (no MU, no pickpocket)

But we still grind 7F easily, and if hardcore enough, I'm sure we can hit-up CDs for a small income. NPCable items from ravana/pap are also decent mesos for those starting out as first characters like I did.

 

Thanks for the response!

Yes, in a few rare circles shads are muled as sed mules, but as you said, it's not for their smoke but primarily for their survivability.

That is true, but considering NLs are the highest dpm, we know that the amount of effort a class requires also has no correlation to how much damage it should output. Otherwise, buccs should be top dpm .

I say that the hardy nature of shads is what holds them back because it is the #1 thing that people bring up whenever a discussion about shad dpm is brought up. It is always about their avoid rate, how little pots they use, how their HP is doubled, that they don't require as much washing and how 1/1's get halved. On the other hand, I've never heard of anyone say that smoke was OP. I would suspect it would be difficult for anyone to build a case for shads not getting buffs because of how good smoke is, when there exists other classes with more useful utility skills that already do more damage or have gotten further buffs.