Microcosm

I haven't; Dark Melee on Stalkers has too few AoE options for me to want to try it, but you should give it a whirl and let us know if you can. IMO Soul Drain > Build Up, so I always figured the Stalker version wouldn't be that much superior to the Scrapper one, but I've never seen data on it.

I found this build where I was just messing around to see if I could softcap range defense on Nova form. It is definitely not what I used for the pylon tests (don't have that anymore), but the proccing in here should be about the same as what I did. Note this build is terrible, just something I was having fun messing with. For incarnates, all damage all the time: Musc Core, Ageless Core or Radial, Degen Core, Assault Core. I never test with Assault Core turned on, but I generally have it slotted as the passive +damage.

It was incarnated and procced. I'll look to see if I still have it, but probably not. Not too hard to make one though with so few attacks, just proc up ebon eye, the t2 Nova blast and Nova cone, then use the entire rest of the build for recharge, damage, acc and end set bonuses to taste.

Oh I had another idea for the AS animation. What if you summon a meteor from the sky to hit your opponent with smashing/fire damage? That feels epicly damaging enough for an AS. Could use the Hurl Boulder object but make it appear from x feet above the target instead of coming from the caster.

If you mean for single target damage, I tested a procced out nova form WS a while ago, got about 200 dps against a pylon with no pets (pets die). That's lower than a procced human form can do, and much lower if that procced human form can keep the pets alive via taunt/maneuvers/whatever else (good luck with that though).

Love it. That is actually very similar to my idea when Arbiter Hawk changed khelds for PB photon seekers: make them a clone of Ws pets that you can only summon one of but would periodically summon a classic seeker to explode on mobs. The current PB pet isn't a pet at all, it's a weird second nuke. I would still prefer the other change for the WS pets if possible so they are more helpful in AV/GM etc fights, but an explosive desummon is cool and thematic.

Right, that's inconsistent with Stalker offensive toggles which suppress in Hidden state. Kheldian forms are more like a 'Hidden' special status than being mezzed, so that logic doesn't seem right. Luckily CP seems pretty open-minded, so we'll see. If Inky Aspect and Orbiting Death don't get the toggle suppression thing those powers will remain all but useless to anyone other than a human form. Most of this list is just to try to make the powers stop actively fighting each other, not "make mai WS the OP, plz" so hopefully we can get it done.

It would be Fault under the old paradigm. But I'd rather Fault be made a damage dealing power and they remove Stone Mallet and move Heavy Mallet to where Stone Mallet is. For animation, what about a stone spear forms around your arm? Or even make it unique and use the Dominator Stone Spear up from the ground, just lengthen the animation time.

Don't know, might be. Probably easier to just start a summon at the corpse's location immediately upon activation. Can keep the animation duration if necessary, just have the fluffy appear sooner (or start out invisible and affecting only self for x seconds for the same effect as current).

You're going to find a lot of opinions on best secondary. The truth is they all have their ups and downs, and it will depend on what you want to do, what kind of build you want to invest in and what primary you are pairing with. My personal favorites on stalkers are electric, ice and nin, but the first two want heavy IO investment.

Can do. I'm wary of any change to dwarf mire as it is pretty fantastic in its current state, but an aoe taunt makes sense for dwarf.

The changes to Lightform and Inner Light brought them very close. What really clenched it was the nuke changes that only got proliferated on Homecoming. That brought the gap between PB AoE and Warshade AoE muuuuch closer. They obviously still aren't perfect (hello knockback, IStrike, Pulsar), but they can perform pretty well now.

We all want the same thing I think, so let's just leave it at that. Otherwise I think this will turn into a flame war and then nobody cares about the suggestions any more.

I'll let you in on a secret if you promise not to tell ANYONE. It's not always that hard... We just always say it is to make sure you really want it enough. >.> But seriously, don't tell anyone, they'll ban me from the club. The self-righteous smirks are a requirement though, can't get rid of that. It hides the pain of constant Cheeto dust.

Yep. I am a programmer. I am aware it's not something that currently exists. It is possible to add it. Could it be very difficult? Yes. Could it turn out to be not that bad? Yes. We don't know. I haven't had the pleasure/pain of seeing this code base, but I'd be quite willing to help. But honestly, changing them to a wormhole function like you're saying already exists and would be functionally adequate, so let's go with that. For Gravitic Em, it wormholes them in front of the caster. For Dark Detonation (and other target summons) it wormholes them to the target. Not sure I'd even care about the visual FX, just to make the existing function not counter to the rest of Warshade powers.

Sure, if that's the way to get it to work, why not. Even if it cost endurance in the forms to keep them toggled, it would still be worth it though. If you didn't want to pay that cost you could simply detoggle all of them as part of your shift binds. Yep, I'm advocating for a new mechanic in this case. It shouldn't be too rough to do, honestly. Existing Knockback needs a magnitude and a vector from the origin of the KB (either the player or a power summons, like Dark Detonation). This would require a copy of the Knockback mechanic applied to these powers with a reversed vector. That way Dark Detonation would "suck" affected enemies into the target, and Gravitic Emanation would "suck" enemies toward the player. It could otherwise function the same as Knockback, allowing enhancements to increase or nullify the knock mag. This is obviously the most work of all the suggestions, but I think it would be very valuable.

Either way works. I prefer the Eclipse variant, as that makes your most recent pets very sturdy for a while and your older ones as they are now, while giving them inherent resist or defense will make them all a little sturdy for the duration. I prefer to have at least one pet that is almost guaranteed to survive (and the one with the longest remaining lifespan at that) than to have them all take one or two more hits, especially since we have no ways to buff or heal them. I actually do have a human build that uses them in case of both exemplaring and when facing a lone target, but I wouldn't be super sad if Twilight Shield was axed. It might mess up some peoples builds though, so it would need to be done carefully. That works as well, I'm just being careful to make Dwarf still the go-to for mez and status protections. If you were to put it in Stygian Circle, I'd prefer it not to require hitting a body first, as otherwise it means you'd have to wait until an enemy has fallen to get your -end protection which can be too late. Not at all against this. Shadow bolt and Gravimetric snare are very dubious value. I expect nothing less 😉 I do list Absorption as one of them, which is auto and something you have to take anyway. I place 1 each in the shields as it gives a reason to take them and actively forces you to make build choices of "well do I want that extra point of mez protection enough for this shield, or am I good with these two plus the Absorption" etc. Another point in Eclipse seems fine, as long as it was 1 point and not 1 point per enemy hit. The lack of mez protection in Nova form was intentional. I realize this makes the PB version better in that regard, but honestly WS Nova is a bit better at damage in its primary use case of AoE so it's a wash. That's a cool idea. Right now I +5 an acc IO for it, but a set around it would be interesting. I prefer to keep them as they are damage-wise. Managing the pets, to me, was part of the roller-coaster fun for a WS, at least until I got to Homecoming and watched them drop like flies. It was part of what made Warshades more difficult and more rewarding to play than anything else. If they moved the damage around and kept the pets as fragile as they are now, I think I'd be pretty bummed. If they were more durable and the damage was shifted from them to you, it might be ok. Thanks for the responses guys; good thoughts 🙂

Hi all, I've been thinking this over as I've struggled with challenges of Warshades in the current game. We often talk about Peacebringers needing changes, but I honestly think they are better off right now than Warshades. I'm also pretty careful about buffing to the point of overpowering classes, as I feel the power creep has gotten out of hand in most of the game. To that end, here is the list of things I would like changed without going overboard. Feel free to flame. Need Dark Melee improvements applied. In Issue 13, the then under-performing Dark Melee set was given tweaks to smooth out its attacks and improve its single-target abilities. These consisted of Changing Soul Drain (map to Sunless Mire) to front-load its buffs with smaller buffs for more targets hit. This was so that against a single-target you would get a buff more similar to a build up effect, and fully saturated you would get the same buffs as originally Siphon Life (map to Essence Drain) recharge reduced and damage increased Midnight's Grasp (partial map to Gravity Well) initial damage increased and DoT shortened These changes were proliferated everywhere these powers existed... except to the Warshade clones. Warshades are ridiculously bad at single-target damage currently (possibly the worst in the game), and this is part of why. We don't have to apply the change to Gravity Well, but the other two absolutely should be. Toggle suppression. The biggest and most agreed upon QoL change requested. The code exists at least in part already (Stalker offensive toggles suppress when Hidden), we just need it applied for Kheldian forms. 'Nuff said. Pets. Warshade pets make up a significant chunk of their damage, both single-target and AoE. They are also fun, unique and challenging in their use. As it stands though, they are almost worthless in the current game. They like to kamikaze enemies even though they have no melee attacks at all, and they die to a stiff breeze because they have no native resistance or defense. Even fire imps get some resistance to fire damage. Most other pets get some resist/defense, and are also paired with a class that can buff or heal them to keep them alive, unlike Warshades who cannot. There was a time on live where they would inherit their owner's Eclipse buffs and get good resistance values for at least a small amount of their life span, but that was apparently removed at some point; currently they will inherit Sunless Mire buffs but not Eclipse. How to fix: 1) make them not close to melee like the recent mm changes, 2) let them inherit Eclipse buffs again. Pets...2 shigan5 noted something here that most the rest of us just got used to being painful over so long. If you use the Dark Extraction power on a defeated enemy and that enemy disappears before the (longish) animation is complete, you will have "used" the power, but you get no pet. This is just a silly thing that punishes people for no reason. As soon as you kick off the power against a defeated enemy it should guarantee a resulting pet. Want (very badly) Status protection from shields. The human shields are largely useless on both Kheldians because of no toggle suppression and because Eclipse/Lightform, well, eclipse them. Warshades also have 0 mez protection (Pbs get some in Lightform) on a class that is designed to operate mostly in melee range. I would like to add a single point of mez protection against Hold, Sleep, Stun and Fear to Absorption and each of the toggle shields. (Pbs I would do the same except Confuse protection instead of Fear, seems more thematic for the two). This makes the shields no longer worthless, but not overpowered, and does not step on the toes of Dwarf as the magnitude is small even if you take and run all of the shields. Knock-to instead of Knock-back. Warshades pay a knockback tax on many of their powers. This is not at all thematic, as their powers are mostly based on Gravity... Why do we hit enemies with Gravitic Emanation and have them fly away from us? These powers should be changed to a new, unique mechanic of knock toward the player. This fits the theme, works better with the Warshade's powers which actually require enemies near them, not scattered, and would make them uniquely valuable on teams as a class that can actively cluster small groups of enemies. Edit: Redlynne pointed out another option is to use the wormhole group teleports to mimic this behavior without additional code. Whatever works to make it happen I say. Want (less badly) End drain protection in Dwarf. Dwarf form is the turtle shell, oh crap, protection form. You can, however, easily be detoggled from Dwarf form by end drain attacks. Normal tanking characters can run toggles, either from their powersets or pools, to avoid end drain attacks or have built in end drain protection. Since Dwarf cannot run any defense toggles, I think a small amount of end drain protection would be in order to allow you to keep tanking a little in -end situations. Damage cap increase. For both Kheldians. They are built with low base damage and the ability to buff themselves fairly well. This works ok-ish solo, but on teams means they top out in performance way before anyone else does, and actively makes their current inherent less valuable. Addition: Dwarf Mire Taunt. Request from Doom that seems reasonable. Simply put, PB Dwarf gets a taunt in their AoE attack to help with off-tanking, but WS Dwarf does not. This seems needlessly inconsistent, and makes WS Dwarf an inferior off-tank. That's it. Flame away.

Yeah, Stj, DB, Svg, Nin are all pretty high up there. I haven't tested any set that is severely lacking in AoEs though (Em, Ma, Dm).

You could just swap out the purple sets with non-purple sets that also have +recharge for leveling (Entropic Chaos/Decimation, Positron's Blast, Crushing Impact, Obliteration). The problem with a "leveling" build for Khelds of any variety, is the build changes substantially at certain points, especially at 38. You could probably make a build for pre-38, and one for 38 to 50, then finish with a 50 build if you want to actually have a good leveling experience. I think Redlynne's got a leveling PB build post floating around here, though for triforms. I never got through it because the wall of text hit me with a crit (apologies to Redlynne), but you might want to try that at least until you get to Solar Flare at 26, because leveling without Nova to that point is a bit painful.

DB and Dark don't have any particularly special synergy, so just grab what you want from both. As far as combos go, if you are looking at leveling advice, just take what seems fun and if you get a combo to land then that's a bonus. Many people get turned off by the DB combo system because they get focused on that, but a single miss will instantly derail the combo. It's better generally to focus on your good powers, and if you see an opportunity for a small buff/debuff from a combo, go for it. The really "good" powers are Ablating Strike, Blinding Feint, and Sweeping Strike. I generally just go with Empower and Sweeping Strike while leveling, or the Sweep combo for its knockdown. At the top end, you will be much better off maxing recharge and using your best attacks without combos. You can alternatively proc your build out and still use a combo for overall better dps. Either way I tend to keep Sweep around for AoE as it's just good mitigation. I don't know that I would recommend a proc build with /dark though, as proc builds do better when they don't have to slot as much for endurance or accuracy, etc., and dark doesn't really give you that option.

Ya, this or elec are also my preferred secondaries for wm. Try softcapping s/l and you will be golden.

Hey man. There was a very brief moment before these forums got reset where Smiling Joe was on here too, but haven't seen him since unfortunately.

At 50 right now I've got a staff/ice, db/elec, svg/nin, svg/bio, and ice/ice. Those first two are pretty rare.. On test server I've had a ton of other combos at 50 for testing, but that doesn't count 🙂

I'm not saying they should be "about" single target damage, but right now they are fighting for worst single target in the game. This is largely because of the things I mentioned with the pets and not receiving the dark melee tweaks that they should have to the dark melee powers in their kit. PBs are now slightly worse than WSs in most normal AoE situations and significantly better in most single target ones.