The MFing Warshade: A Guide by Dechs Kaison

[BroFoSho]

In honor of Dechs Kaison and the Warshades of yesteryear, I present to you his guide:

 

The MFing Warshade

[Treacheres The Dastard]

Absolutely mandatory if you're learning to get the most out of playing your shade. Very likely to make the difference in deciding to roll a shade if you're on the fence or haven't been interested to this point.

 

It's so memorable and helpful that I pulled it up again yesterday after having found it almost a decade ago. Anyone not familiar with this should give it a read.

[Action Sloth]

Seconded, some of the information is outdated, but it's still an essential read for any prospective WSs

 

It definitely inspired me to create my own tri, then bi, and eventually human form builds and gave me my favorite alt of all time, across any game

[Timeshadow]

Wow, never thought I'd see this again.  It may be outdated now but it's still an excellent guide for anyone looking to pick up the AT.

[Azrath]

I only did Smurfsquids in elder days.  I found this guide from here because I was bored and queued.  I read it and laughed my ass off.  Then I read it again and scratched my chin.  Now I keep it open while I'm playing my face-stomping, soul-ripping, unstoppable MFing Warshade.  I know what my first 50's going to be.  :D

[Generator]

I'm chuckling at the description of Dechs' work as outdated.  We did have a six and a half year hiatus, y'know.  ;)

[Azrath]

Well, it does recommend burning a respec at 6 to move slots out of the basic blasts that we now get to keep using when shifted.

 

Update: Ran a Synapse last night on Excelsior! and about midway through I'm pulling stunts with hotkeys across all three forms (dwarf-step, taunt, mire, human mire, nova AoE, back to human for Stygian circle)  My team are doing well, but I'm up to my armpits in brass, there's purple flying everywhere, things are dying en masse and all that does is feed the beast for the next wave.

 

I've never micromanaged harder or felt so rewarded for finger-strain.  I just wish the Battle Cry box was long enough for: "I'm a shape-shiftin', void-steppin', soul-suckin', fluffy-wranglin' double mire-stacking UNSTOPPABLE MFing WARSHADE!"

[Ausseke]

One of the best moments I ever had  in COH was on a Shade.

 

A friend after much poking and prodding got me to make a MFing WarShade, he already had one so he talked and walked me thru all of the build and the binds . And after some time, some cussing, and one broken keyboard, I got my Shade to 50 and then to full IO'ed.

 

One night there was a shout out for a TF ( sorry don't remember what one) , so we both joined. While we waited for the team to finish up last min things, the tank told us " Look I know you warshades think your crazy and bad but stick to me and I will keep you alive."  So I told my buddy " That's it , we are going to run right over this tank." The team goes into the first mission and the tank wants to have a chat about how he wants to run this TF.

 

Tank,  " Ok gather around",,, " Where are you two going?",,,,  " What are you DOING? I am the TANK! "  5 min later " Why am I even here? "  10 min later tank leaves the TF

 

Good times :)

[XenivouS]

One of the best moments I ever had  in COH was on a Shade.

 

A friend after much poking and prodding got me to make a MFing WarShade, he already had one so he talked and walked me thru all of the build and the binds . And after some time, some cussing, and one broken keyboard, I got my Shade to 50 and then to full IO'ed.

 

One night there was a shout out for a TF ( sorry don't remember what one) , so we both joined. While we waited for the team to finish up last min things, the tank told us " Look I know you warshades think your crazy and bad but stick to me and I will keep you alive."  So I told my buddy " That's it , we are going to run right over this tank." The team goes into the first mission and the tank wants to have a chat about how he wants to run this TF.

 

Tank,  " Ok gather around",,, " Where are you two going?",,,,  " What are you DOING? I am the TANK! "  5 min later " Why am I even here? "  10 min later tank leaves the TF

 

Good times :)

 

Hey that friend was me! Good times... =P

[Papaschtroumpf]

One of my 50s was Claire de lune, and I had built her as a human only WS and she kicked ass.

I'm think about re-spinning her as a tri-form this time around, I had a tri-form Peacebringer so I'm familiar with the binds, etc.. and the basic of constant form shifting. To be honest I mostly stopped playing the PB after I got my WS

 

Looking for Ward to any updates to the guide for i25, not that I can't figure it for myself but it's nice to get other perspectives.

 

It's funny, I forgot a lot about the game and some of the stuff I remember was removed in later issues and I forgot about it (I grabbed the bike on my corruptor last night and discover that it no longer crashes!?! Is that true for the glowie ball mode of the PB too?). This game is getting too easy :)

 

 

Gotta curb the altitis. Only one Kheldian this time :)

[Azrath]

About the only update the guide needs is to cover the basic blasts now not being complete trash.

 

On an unrelated note, I'm currently using Agility in my Alpha slot; but Cardiac is sitting over there waving its +Resistance like a floozy... any opinions?

[Xiiharu]

I've been looking at this guide and it's been great fun. One thing I don't understand though is the Phase 2 section, 6th paragraph, it says to just put Hasten on Auto. What does that mean.

[Redlynne]

it says to just put Hasten on Auto. What does that mean?

 

Auto

[ShadowSokar]

About the only update the guide needs is to cover the basic blasts now not being complete trash.

 

On an unrelated note, I'm currently using Agility in my Alpha slot; but Cardiac is sitting over there waving its +Resistance like a floozy... any opinions?

 

 

I'm thinking of doing a warshade, any ideas on what should be done with the blasts or could i follow the guide as is?  thing is im on extreme budget atm since i just started and i only have a lvl 17 MM that im currently working on leveling.

[Azrath]

I'm using them as a place to stick the two Kheldian archetype-specific enhancement sets.  *shrug*

[Action Sloth]

 

 

 

I'm thinking of doing a warshade, any ideas on what should be done with the blasts or could i follow the guide as is?  thing is im on extreme budget atm since i just started and i only have a lvl 17 MM that im currently working on leveling.

 

If you mean in terms of IOs, that really depends on your end game goals and what forms youre going to be using. If youre going triform, I imagine you wont want to slot them too much, at least not over Nova's blasts, so maybe something like force feedback, the ATO uniques, or the decimation build up proc? Entropic Chaos proc could work too, I guess, but wont be as useful on a WS with stygian circle.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I didn't see any mention of the heal power (drain essence I think it's called?) I'm guessing because it's obvious you should take it?

[Treacheres The Dastard]

Nope, the cooldown on stygian can be dropped to under 10 seconds and will full heal you off of 3-4 corpses even from being deep in red. Dwarf form gets the same power for free but heals for almost twice as much, and in an AT absolutely saturated in good/great options for how you should be using your time in a fight you're not really looking for a single target 10% heal that doesn't even crack 50 base damage at level 50 and has poor recharge and endurance consumption.

 

So save yourself a powerslot and thank me later.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I thought Stygian circle was endurance, not health, it's obviously been too long since I played a warshade.

[Azrath]

Stygian Circle recovers both Endurance and Health.  It lets you go from "trying to remember your Stygian return keybind" and "about to be de-toggled" to full fighitng shape and that's not even frankenslotted for awesome.  Say it with me now:

M̴̠̹̯̟̓ṵ̸̑̐s̶̺͇̾̈͌̈́͠t̸̡̥̬͕̮͌ ̷̼̱̿́͋͐͝f̴̢̝̬̥̀̈i̸̹̹̒̆n̵͉̖͑̉͜d̶̗̊ ̵̢̻͕̄̀̄͋ͅm̴̟̮̾͊͜o̵̝̍̽r̷͉̀̌e̵̫̻͌̅ ̸̢̪͒̒̅͑̽͜b̶̛͍̜̗͋̓̋ö̷͕͈͇̔d̴̳̮̕i̵̹̰̓̓ĕ̶̠̳͋̾s̴̱̘͓̾͗͂

[Papaschtroumpf]

I read somewhere (I think I was a guide from the old forums) that stamina turns off when you switch form (only affect human form). Can you confirm? I currently have it 3 slotted and it might be overkill although I do some d a little more time in human form now that I have various things that go boom. 20-30 it was mostly while out if combat and dropping into it quick to mire and recharge.

[Azrath]

All four Fitness inherent powers, the Archetype inherent, and Incarnate abilities remain available regardless of form.

[Papaschtroumpf]

Nice!

[myarkstir]

Can we get a pin on this? ;D

 

 

[Orivon]

One of my 50s was Claire de lune, and I had built her as a human only WS and she kicked ass.

I'm think about re-spinning her as a tri-form this time around, I had a tri-form Peacebringer so I'm familiar with the binds, etc.. and the basic of constant form shifting. To be honest I mostly stopped playing the PB after I got my WS

 

Looking for Ward to any updates to the guide for i25, not that I can't figure it for myself but it's nice to get other perspectives.

 

It's funny, I forgot a lot about the game and some of the stuff I remember was removed in later issues and I forgot about it (I grabbed the bike on my corruptor last night and discover that it no longer crashes!?! Is that true for the glowie ball mode of the PB too?). This game is getting too easy :)

 

 

Gotta curb the altitis. Only one Kheldian this time :)

 

Altitis for real tho

 

But also, LF is usable in forms (Nova tank) and the crash still happens but brings you to 50% health/end!