The state of warshades.

[Doomrider]

2 things can be true at the same time.
It is technically true that Nova form has a higher ranged damage modifier than blasters but the actual base damage values assigned to Nova blasts and a 300% damage cap will never allow a Warshade's damage output potential to be greater than a Blaster's damage output potential.
Warshades weren't designed to supplant Blasters though, nor can you really slot one to achieve that so it's kind of a silly point to make. Even more silly if you're talking about Fire blast.



 

[dtj714]

On 1/9/2021 at 10:33 AM, chi1701 said:

1 - Keldians base damage is significantly lower than that of Blaster which requires them to have a larger damage scale. For a Keldian to match the base damage of a Blaster, they would need a damage buff of 60% which is acquired by use of their inherent.

 

2 - Dwarf form which also limits availability of powers or requires perma hasten to get llightform or eclipse on cooldown. 

 

3 - Anyone can reach hit cap and even with max damage buff still wont match blaster. Refilling endurance and hp requires mobs to be defeated and present on the floor.

 

4 - Thats a no, again, forms restrict available powers making it a difficult choice to drop dwarf when taking hits from an av to activate other buffs.

I did not mean to or actually say WS > blaster, tanker, etc.  The basic point is that WS can fill many roles well (especially through leveling content - endgame just about any AT is equally useful/useless).  If all you do is focus on one aspect/element at a time, then yes the calculus becomes much different.  But that’s not a valid comparison given the very nature of the AT (inherently multi-faceted). 

[JnEricsonx]

I love my WS because her Dark Eclipse power is just over a 10 sec CD.  Just follow the brutes and lay down some aoes and dying becomes very hard.

[Crasical]

I don't enjoy playing mine.

I tried building biform, dwarf/human, and while I can zap in, stun everything with Inky Aspect, charge up mire, and start blasting while Orbiting Death Chews on everyone.... then you get hit with a microstun from a tsoo's kick, and your powers drop, and if you don't instantly die from your anemic armors toggling off, you pop Dwarf, and have to finish the fight with its long, slow attacks, so that you can put your armors and auras back up as a human, then go to the next fight.... and most of the endgame builds are just 'Perma-Eclipse'; which means that it just invalidates everything from 1-38, like building a character around Granite Armor, actually leveling to that point is awkward. 

 

They're hard to play, and you have to heavily invest into them before they are as good as the next leading brand. 

[Ohsirus]

On 1/17/2021 at 3:50 AM, Crasical said:

I don't enjoy playing mine.

I tried building biform, dwarf/human, and while I can zap in, stun everything with Inky Aspect, charge up mire, and start blasting while Orbiting Death Chews on everyone.... then you get hit with a microstun from a tsoo's kick, and your powers drop, and if you don't instantly die from your anemic armors toggling off, you pop Dwarf, and have to finish the fight with its long, slow attacks, so that you can put your armors and auras back up as a human, then go to the next fight.... and most of the endgame builds are just 'Perma-Eclipse'; which means that it just invalidates everything from 1-38, like building a character around Granite Armor, actually leveling to that point is awkward. 

 

They're hard to play, and you have to heavily invest into them before they are as good as the next leading brand. 

Honestly that seems like a painful way to go in. Inky and Orbiting are such throwaway powers. You're right though Perma Eclipse is the game changer and with some stupid recharge rates you can keep yourself double buffed. I agree you have to invest heavily and get a build that works well for you if you want that uber feeling. 

[Cybot X-22]

Warshade works Fantastic in large enemy groups, but drops off against few harder targets. I tend to act like a tank with optional nukes and pets. Works well for me as bi-form. Tanking in human form is foolish due to poor mez protection. Go in dwarf, mire to grab everything. With the Alpha behind you I can then swap back and drop and eclipse to cement my resists and normal mire, nuke, or something else. I tend to act in bursts in tune with your mires for increased damage. Fully Io'd I am near unstoppable unless it is all psi damage or they end drain me. It is a lot of fun as I decide how I want to engage the group with different options and gain momentum as I get my pets up, teleporting into groups, teleporting stragglers to myself. It is a very dynamic class.

 

Binds are a MUST! if you cant rapid shift to the form that you need, it gets stale and you cannot play the class to its strengths. That is when it gets difficult and not fun.

[Iron Alex]

i for one dont play PVE anymore (find it boring, and really dont have the time).. all i do is make toons for pvp.. my fav toon was a peacebringer.. i pvped with pbs since i8.. 

 

Imho the best time for PBs in coh was prior to shutdown with all the pb changes.. PPM killed kheldian dmg in pvp.. and then the new pvp change pretty much put the nail in the coffin.. now i just focus on my sents and scraps for pvp..

 

Kheldians need a overall.. for pvp.. espiecially ws.. they need either extra dmg, or some better debuff.. and WS need either better heal or some kind of absorb mechanic.. 

 

Also what would benefit both toons would be the ability to pick more that 4 pool powers.. since we dont have a mastery.

 

but this is just my opinion.. ive been advocating for kheld changes since the early days of the game.. the best was pre shutdown.. but the homecoming devs like blasters 

[Bill Z Bubba]

I just stripped/deleted both my triform and humanonly WS. Even with perpetual mez protection from clarion, the humanonly was painfully weak against hard targets. The triform might have been ok with clarion so that I could drop out of dwarf form and not be instamezzed, but in the end, the constant form hopping was trashing my DPS more than helping and having to wait until 50++ before getting proper mez protection means a whole lotta sittin in dwarf form and doing all other manner of things to get past the constant mezzing.

 

Khels are awesome to watch in action and back before the snap I really did love my triform WS and PB. Now? With the current game? It's like stone armor. Why deal with all the negatives when you can dish out the same or better damage with the same or close to it mitigation with something else with far less hassle and annoyance?

 

I still have a humanonly PB but she's not long for existence either for the same reasons.

[Greycat]

8 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I Why deal with all the negatives when you can dish out the same or better damage with the same or close to it mitigation with something else with far less hassle and annoyance?

 

Because the game is, after all, an mmoRPg, not just a "get biggest numbers=win game" spreadsheet, and they offer a different sort of gameplay that some people obviously find enjoyable. Just like some find masterminds (yes, even petless) enjoyable while others find them a hassle, or - hell, insert any AT or powerset here. I can't get excited about scrappers, for instance. I can't put my finger down on why - I've got two staff/willpower characters, one a brute, one a scrapper, and the brute's far more fun to me, even if they're both pretty much as capable. Might be the RP side there, too, honestly.

 

It's perfectly all right to say "they just don't do it for me any more," you know. 🙂 The ones you like - if I remember properly from other threads - tended to be scrappers and such, or at least melee-heavy, and that's very much a different sort of gameplay with different expectations from what a 'shade is designed around. So I think it's less ... how can I put this. If you've played them since live (and the game hasn't changed *that* much where a WS's concerned,) you know a 'shade is built to buff off of large numbers of enemies - so honestly, it's less "the shade doesn't do well in the situation it's not designed for" (single hard targets) and more "BZB's game preference is much more solidly in the camp of ATs that *are* designed for it."

 

And there's nothing wrong with that. COH's a very flexible game. Enjoy it with what you like.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Greycat said:

And there's nothing wrong with that. COH's a very flexible game. Enjoy it with what you like.

Absolutely true. I suspect the biggest change since the snap is that I've become even lazier.

[Doomrider]

On 3/1/2021 at 12:19 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Khels are awesome to watch in action and back before the snap I really did love my triform WS and PB. Now? With the current game? It's like stone armor. Why deal with all the negatives when you can dish out the same or better damage with the same or close to it mitigation with something else with far less hassle and annoyance?

 

Because some of us need to push lots of buttons to do the same things other classes pull off with less.😛
Also, training wheels AT setups that do most of the work for you like Claws/SR put me to sleep  😂
*shadow steps out of shockwave range*

[Bill Z Bubba]

50 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

Because some of us need to push lots of buttons to do the same things other classes pull off with less.😛
Also, training wheels AT setups that do most of the work for you like Claws/SR put me to sleep  😂
*shadow steps out of shockwave range*

What others call training wheels I call playing without self-gimping.

 

Edit: But I'm not here to kink-shame.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Voltak]

On 12/30/2020 at 1:52 PM, Calzano said:

So I have never played a warshade or peacebringer so I decided to make a warshade just for the heck of it. I have been asking sg mates about it and 90% of them just say don’t bother because they are trash. I’m just wondering is warshade really bottom tier of all archtypes? Is it really that bad?

War Shades came out just about the time that I joined the game. 

One thing the community, at least some of us, have been saying this -  

WAR SHADES ARE STARVING FOR SLOTS 

War Shades need to be granted more slots than any other character in the game 

WS and PBs could be in the same basket. 

If War Shades would be given more slots, then ONLY because IOs exist now in the game, only because of that they would be OK. 

I have ideas on how to make those War Shades much better, but I don't have enough slots to carry those ideas out.   

VEATs were and are still a masterpiece

VEATs are perhaps the best or the peak of what excellence in designing a class to play 

To say they are EPIC is an understatement. 

[tjknight]

Warshades basically getting 'Fold Space' for free is a game changer.  You can pull a large mob into your orbiting fields of disorient and death. Unleash multiple AoE's, and most things are kaputt before long. 

[Carnifax]

17 hours ago, Voltak said:

VEATs were and are still a masterpiece

VEATs are perhaps the best or the peak of what excellence in designing a class to play 

To say they are EPIC is an understatement. 

I find them intensely dull. Especially Crabs, it just feels like "stick toggles on. 1. 2. 1. 3. 4. 1. 2. 1...."

 

But yes, PBs / Warshades should get an epic which is essentially "Powers which give more slots". Although I'm not sure if that's possible. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Carnifax

[Voltak]

9 hours ago, Carnifax said:

I find them intensely dull. Especially Crabs, it just feels like "stick toggles on. 1. 2. 1. 3. 4. 1. 2. 1...."

 

But yes, PBs / Warshades should get an epic which is essentially "Powers which give more slots". Although I'm not sure if that's possible. 

They are far far from Dull

Crabs can be amazing

Widows are nothing short of amazing and supreme 

Fortunatas are so strong as well.

About the slots for Warshades and PBs

THe developers should award them more slots for their powers as soon as the power is grabbed or selected, auto awards of some slots 

Something like that 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Restarted my chaos mage HO warshade for 10th time (or more, no clue,) Loaded her up with amps and double xp, she's run nothing but Shadowstar's arcs and is lvl 20 again. Maybe this time I'll get her right.

 

I do find that for all the downsides, warshades are still a blast to watch in action.

[chi1701]

On 3/16/2021 at 12:56 PM, Carnifax said:

I find them intensely dull. Especially Crabs, it just feels like "stick toggles on. 1. 2. 1. 3. 4. 1. 2. 1...."

 

But yes, PBs / Warshades should get an epic which is essentially "Powers which give more slots". Although I'm not sure if that's possible. 

 

i can fully slot both dwarf and nova with their attacks, and still have enough to slot for abilities that can be activated/used whilst in human form, and then switch back into either nova or dwarf, more slots would only benefit human only. the only way more slots would benefit me would be having more abilities accessible in forms, but, its a known fact, that this will never happen.

[Fire Chief]

I love my Human PBer' he's all tier 4 now with purps,  ATO's and kb to kd's and no light form never took it and never looked back on that decision. I love my blasters but the survivability of the Human PBer' really makes it fun. Was just in PI smackin' stuff and someone whispered me that I had a nice little setup on it. Diggin' it lol.

[Voltak]

18 hours ago, chi1701 said:

 

i can fully slot both dwarf and nova with their attacks, and still have enough to slot for abilities that can be activated/used whilst in human form, and then switch back into either nova or dwarf, more slots would only benefit human only. the only way more slots would benefit me would be having more abilities accessible in forms, but, its a known fact, that this will never happen.

This is certainly not the case with a Warshade. 

And, about PBs --  the point is strengthen by your statement -  human form ends up lacking slots.  

So, the point stands and you are helping it.  Giving it more slots would be great.   You can then spread them into human form as well. 

[chi1701]

5 minutes ago, Voltak said:

This is certainly not the case with a Warshade. 

And, about PBs --  the point is strengthen by your statement -  human form ends up lacking slots.  

So, the point stands and you are helping it.  Giving it more slots would be great.   You can then spread them into human form as well. 

 

Would fully support it if more abilities are accessible in both dwarf and nova forms, not just "human"

[Carnifax]

20 hours ago, chi1701 said:

 

i can fully slot both dwarf and nova with their attacks, and still have enough to slot for abilities that can be activated/used whilst in human form, and then switch back into either nova or dwarf, more slots would only benefit human only. the only way more slots would benefit me would be having more abilities accessible in forms, but, its a known fact, that this will never happen.

 

There's two aspects to this for me. 

 

1) I could use more slots for my build. Some attacks are underslotted (just Kinetic Combat in some Dwarf attacks for example. Nowhere near enough slots to take some Human things like Unchain Essence) 

2) Past level 40 I didn't take a single power which wasn't a 1-slot Mule I never use (Stealth pool / Combat Jumping and the like). My post 40 build is like anti-epic 🙂

 

I've also said in the past that Dwarfs should be allowed Orbiting Death and Nova Grav Emission (the cone stun thingy) and that both forms should also allow Pool toggles to keep on running (Leadership / Combat Jumping / Tough / Weave / Stealth etc)

[Voltak]

11 hours ago, chi1701 said:

 

Would fully support it if more abilities are accessible in both dwarf and nova forms, not just "human"

But read the posts, people are saying that they have enough slots in other forms outside of human. 

The AT needs more slots, period. 

That's a fact. 

These ATs are just starving for slots since they were created. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Voltak

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 3/22/2021 at 5:15 AM, Voltak said:

But read the posts, people are saying that they have enough slots in other forms outside of human. 

The AT needs more slots, period. 

That's a fact. 

These ATs are just starving for slots since they were created. 

 

Mostly due to them being horrifically designed from the get go.

 

Human only Khels don't need more slots than any other AT. It can then be argued that if you choose the other forms, you are actively choosing to de-power the human form, because no AT needs more slots than any other AT.

[PhoenixV117]

On 3/22/2021 at 9:17 AM, Carnifax said:

 

There's two aspects to this for me. 

 

1) I could use more slots for my build. Some attacks are underslotted (just Kinetic Combat in some Dwarf attacks for example. Nowhere near enough slots to take some Human things like Unchain Essence) 

2) Past level 40 I didn't take a single power which wasn't a 1-slot Mule I never use (Stealth pool / Combat Jumping and the like). My post 40 build is like anti-epic 🙂

 

I've also said in the past that Dwarfs should be allowed Orbiting Death and Nova Grav Emission (the cone stun thingy) and that both forms should also allow Pool toggles to keep on running (Leadership / Combat Jumping / Tough / Weave / Stealth etc)

Yeah allowing toggles to stay when form shifting would ‘fix’ a lot about ws and pb