Melee vs Ranged.

thats the point!

 

Don't let the shadowers get away with their stolen cleave valor, they are no where near as bad as the truly oppressed DKs and Heros.

 

Speaking at a conceptual level, I would say that the reason is because shadowers have a real endgame niche which cannot be outclassed by another class, and this remains true even in a setting with infinite resources (NX and gear).

More concretely, one big advantage shadower has over DK/Pally/Hero is that they perform significantly better in PB. All of the warriors have a very high chance of dying to a 10 second seduce from the right bird, having a run that is not composed nearly entirely of thieves will result in a very chaotic run in phase 4/5. Furthermore, from what we've seen thusfar, shadower dpm's on both statue and body are comparable with archers on statue and warriors on body. Effectively, shadower is a far more resiliant class that does not rely on SE or SI compared to the warriors.

Another point that is important is that although shadower is not ideal as a choice for your singular main class, it is quite good as a secondary character. In addition to serving as a sed mule and providing smoke, it is also quite viable for dual attacking strats (unlike BM for example).

 

As mentioned above, which is also more suitable for JC dual clienting rather than hero's 3 target cleave versus shad's 4 with bstep stun and transitioning to Assasinate when spawns are cleared. Reducing the need for SI mule than for heroes, 1 less mule to bring along.

 

It depends how you value various pieces of content, in my mind auf is more or less meme content which is ran very infrequently and generates unimpressive EV. In contrast, PB is the most popular endgame and offers profits that can surpass even multimaging. If you count the total number of auf haven runs per week and compare that to the total number of PB runs per week, it might not be so different. Shadowers are better at the important content.

As for the comment on HP washing requirements, I'm coming at this from the perspective of endgame players, who have the resources to unlock the full potential of each class. Of course if you are a new player with limited nx the warriors offer some benefits in the form of easier washing.

 

This is true, however I would bench a hero/pally/dk/mage/corsair and in some cases even a MM/BM for a shadower. This consideration is no purely theoretical as well, there are only so many good NLs out there, and most of them are already on good runs, so the construction of news runs should take this hierarchy into account.

 

7 shads on next weeks run

 

i think all of the above classes do about the same in my daily captain latanica and apq runs

 

That's absolutely not true. Shads are S-tier and a step above the rest in APQ. Who else can singlehandedly take down Geist Balrog in one go?

 

Note that the benched classes have a significantly higher tendency to die (ress wastage/ higher chance of fail) in PB as compared to shads, which drains party leads, multi-clienters and buccs overall DPM which in essence; is a headache.

 

fascinating! i will be updating my apq tier list tonight

 

LF @dpm 10-15secs command

 

apq

 

The rationale mostly resolves around what content has restrictive recruiting requirements and what content doesn’t.

PB is extremely restrictive on who you can bring, and “viability” carries a lot of weight, especially given it’s arguably the most important endgame content, the thing players work towards.

On the other hand nobody cares what class is better between Shads and Heroes in Zak or Verga because they’re incredibly easy bosses and it doesn’t really matter how good a class is, they can get into groups extremely easily.

In the content where it counts, Shads can often consistently pull their weight whereas DrKs are considered liabilities and little more than mules. While a Shad on body can easily pull 3-3.5m dpm, it would be surprising for a DrK to even break 1m dpm.

The only content where a Hero’s place is guaranteed whereas a Shad’s is not would be CWKPQ which is meme content anyways and not really profitable in terms of either mesos or exp unless you’re hella multiclienting or insanely strong