Shadower - Assassinate

I really wish this skill could be reworked to be better but sadly is limited what it can be done about it, or thats what I think.

 

I like the suggested change, I think that is how it's supposed to behave. As it stand right now, it feels really buggy because of how inconsistent the dash procs.

 

tap your macro don't just hold it down

 

In my experience, it's not inconsistent or random; and this is coming from someone who has died countless times from dashing into zak body.

The dash procs unless you have another skill queued up. That’s why you can do a ds -> nate -> bstep macro without dashing, or why you can continuously repeat ds -> nate without dashing as long as you hold the key down.

My queues get interrupted if I pot at a certain time in the ds -> nate macro, or if I don’t properly time my next skill. The latter can happen when I do a ds -> nate macro, then use a skill like meso guard or booster too late such that it doesn’t queue up, causing the dash to proc. The timing of when you should use the next skill comes with practice; I’ve noticed recently that I proc the dash a lot less frequently than I did a month ago, which was less than the month before, and so on.

My advice would be to try this out at dummies or at bosses where you can safely tank the touch damage.

 

Has anyone have issues where you stay in DS when you use the DS > Nate > BS macro. I am not sure if it is a ping thing or if I am doing something that is making me stay in DS and not finish the Macro.

 

I believe its mostly due to lag. I experience this sometimes as well.

 

I dash into Zak every once in a while just holding down ds nate macro without using any pots or queuing up any skills. Could just be due to lag.

 

As a shad, this definitely hits home for me. Died a few times to the dash forward at the end of assassinate although i was still holding down my key. there was a recent spade of lag issues for about a week in my area, couldn't boss for a week or so because i couldn't darksight-assassinate macro properly cos there was massive delay.

 

This is responding to some of the comments on nate's dash, not the lag ping issues. Everything Jess said is true, in my experience the dash functions exactly as it's supposed to and I don't really recall "fluke" moments with the dash barring lag (if you're lagging a lot you have bigger problems). It's finnicky for sure tho

Generally speaking, if you take damage and you want to use the dash to reposition, you can either use potion to both pot and dash or use the left/right arrow key. If you are not standing on a ledge while casting the nate macro, the best way to cancel the dash is to hold boomstep, dark sight, or a buffing skill like haste or booster (any of these solo keyed, not macro'd) before the nate segment of the animation ends - so you either continue attacking, immediately start charging the next nate, or buff, while remaining in the same position. If you are standing on a ledge, any use item (if you happen to need to use one) as well as the up arrow key (which would otherwise rush you forward) are also options to stop attacking ASAP. For any classes outside of shad, up arrow key is probs the cleanest way overall to cancel the continuation of any attack macro.

Regardless of if on a ledge, shads lowkey can always hold the down arrow key to "pause" the nate macro. If you go from spamming nate macro to holding down, it lets you crouch while remaining in dark sight, and when you release the down arrow key the macro will continue, which is pretty useful for timing attacks on any boss with iframes like thief/pirate in cwk, bigfoot, or toad. You probs wouldn't use this for charging nate since it takes a while, but it's nice for split timing precision.

I think part of playing any character in ML well is navigating a class' kinks and figuring out the best timing and keypress combinations to control your character. For shads, like Jess said, the timing at which you stop pressing your nate macro key and start pressing another skill or potion makes all the difference. If you catch yourself dashing forward unintentionally, you should probs focus on quickly getting back to pressing your nate macro after using a potion. If you catch yourself getting stuck in dark sight while using the nate macro, most likely you're using a potion or skill at just the wrong moment - during that brief dark sight segment of the nate macro animation, which you want to avoid doing. What can matter regarding the dash, aside from which key you press and the timing of it, is also whether you hold or tap the next key - for example, if I hold down my nate macro and then tap jump (and nothing else after) after nate's segment of the animation starts, it will rush me forward. But if I hold jump, I'll jump instead.

I also want to note that there's enough time within the long ass nate macro animation to make the wrong keypress accidentally and still press the correct key in time. It's also plenty enough time to for example use an all-cure to cancel a status condition and continue attacking without skipping a beat. It's very easy to accidentally press the wrong key, or the right key at the wrong time, and lose your rhythm. But it's like anything else, becomes more comfortable the more you do it

 

Honestly vanilla Assassinate is pretty bad.
There were alot of problems with vanilla assassinate.
-Because of the possibility to dash over without your consent, you could touch a boss and just ended up getting deleted. Which means the skill is practically never used unless HP washing comes into their minds. You were stuck having to bstep/savage blow so that you won't hope that you touch it. (Never rely on RNG on avoid/shifter)
-Any hits except the last hit cannot deal a critical hit. Sharp eyes isn't going to boost your damage.
-The last hit is almost never used because your character will have to dash (assaulter-like) which requires you to reposition back or in places where you cannot dash simply because you are at the corner of a platform or at the map's end.
-Extremely high delay though you deal high damage. Makes it very difficult to react to gimmicks from bosses. But more importantly, you wield a Faster Dagger, but why you attack as slow as basic attacking with a Frozen Tuna.
-Dark sight is a buff which is affected by ping which makes the difference between forcing to boomerang step + savage blow than just dark sight + assassinate.
-Damage cap makes charging assassinate pointless. If it didn't had a damage cap, charging assassinate would feel alot better for the time spent on charging to deal big damage.

Assassinate should be something like this (its a wishlist but due to server limitation = RIP)
-Dark sight optional, only to charge up damage. (If you simple spam it, remove the PING issue entirely)
-Using your last hit without needing to dash. (Use all your 3 hit + final attack)
-Reduced delay. Daggers are fast attack speeds, now "Slower" attack speed like delays.
-Can critically strike on every hit rather than on last hit with a built in 90% critical chance for +250% critical damage due to absurd damage multiplier of 600%. Yes sharp eyes makes it 100% critical chance and +390% critical damage. (Sharp eyes buff works on shad)
-No Damage cap. It encourages charging assassinate to deal big numbers. (250k damage lines pogchamp)

 

inb4 shads turn into the new HH mules.

 

I mean if you want to play Shad like this you already can with meso explode. If it has a super long cooldown and the damage scales then people aren't gonna mule it I feel.

 

Doubt it, you still need equips to get over 200k damage though . You might as well call them Snipe mules instead because a casual 155 shadower already hits as hard as snipe damage on a 12 second assassinate charge time thanks to assassinate now giving them 1 extra attack line

~8k attack range gets you 200k damage with fully charge 12 seconds of assassinate
~10.7k attack range gets you 200k damage with 8 seconds of assassinate.
~16k attack range gets you 200k damage with 4 seconds of assassinate.
You still need strong gear to hit 200k though. But even without it, it still hits pretty hard because of their pitiful minimum damage of ~58% after maxed dagger mastery.

2500% damage x4 is pretty pogchamp for a "Snipe mule" though

 

Hello, 2 years late, but now, with you in balance team we can expect that ping reliant changes? As a high ping player i really think this is very important to do