The fact that your reading comprehension is so low you come in here and immediately start complaining about Shade damage is extremely worrying. If you can’t bother to read the OP then I suppose there is zero point in even discussing balance with you.
Because RV has double the cooldown on his ability. Because RV doesn’t have a huge damage burst linked to his ability. Because the area RV can deploy on and still maintain their stealth is limited by default.
And the CDR Talent is just that, a Talent. Changes to those don’t affect the base ability. And the Talent in question is actually more interesting now, as it changes the way Infiltrate is used (or should be used) instead of being the always-picked option that simply makes the ability 30% better.
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Take them in a vacuum where you ignore their talents and the damage buff, from a purely utility standpoint they are (or were) the closest analogous skills.
Assuming that something about Shade’s 10 second stealth was overpowered, what was it? Was it the distance you could cover in 10 seconds? Then why is RV’s talent Surprise Guest not being altered? This talent makes them functionally identical from a utility standpoint does it not? Should a talent that returns Infiltrate to 10 seconds have been offered to keep the options in parity?
The talent for firing while maintaining stealth has also been removed oddly enough, although at 5 seconds it would hardly be worth it IMO.
Addressing backstab damage again for a moment. For sure, it needed a burst reduction that’s why it got nerfed via changes to CoM but stealth duration is not directly tied in to stealth damage. This is where I’m confused, from a design perspective there’s no way I can dissect this decision and see what they were going for. It’s very obvious what the changes to CoM are for, the duration reduction just seems ill-conceived in comparison.
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Why not take the route of raising the cooldown on Infiltrate to match RV? Then you could manage burst damage, reduce the damage output of CDR builds by artificially reducing the number of infiltrate backstabs you can perform back-to-back AND maintain utility.
With talents RVs stealth now has more utility than the class that is defined by stealth.
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The entire appeal, the entire purpose of a shade is burst dps. You’re asking to remove that in favour of utility? I’d have to say no thanks to that.
Also, you can compare nearly anything in a vacuum and come to completely different results. Shade currently does what she does amazingly well, and for highly skilled players you can push her to extreme damage. I’ve personally been in games with a shade ULTing two SV then quickly moving through the patrol doing light attack dual Dagger headshots and just melting everything. I think it fits her playstyle very well, of an agile deadly assassin. I don’t think balancing her around revives and healing people while stealthed should be the priority.
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I think you are going in to a difficult terrain. Ok we supposed we are in a vacuum blank space (This is structure!) and no talents and no buff are considered. Well even with Shade 10 secs ULT there would be something unbalanced. If i remember correctly cooldown of Shade is 60 sec, and Ranger was 90 secs. Shade can walk in any direction , in all the distance she want until te 10 secs are vanished. Bardin has a short distance he can make before the invisibility disappear (because he has a limited area where he can walk), and this + 90 secs of cooldown make the RV ULT garbage even in this case. So for balanced all of that we need to change the cooldown of Bardin and make it 60 sec like Shade and make it he can walk for any distance he wanted. Than it was balanced…but now add all the talents, and all the buff…Bardin come back in the trash can like before, and shade become even more powerfull. Unfortunately you have to make compromises and 5 sec shade ult is one of these.
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Now we’re getting somewhere!
Pre-2.0 Shade had the better out-of-the-box stealth. Post-2.0 Bardin does, with the only consideration possibly affecting that being cooldown. His smoke area takes roughly 4 seconds to cover end-to-end in my tests (Shade can move freely but can only cover 5 seconds of ground which gives them a similar effective area) but lasts twice as long, he can melee without destealthing (which arguably provides damage in the same realm to Infiltrate backstab over those 10 seconds) and has talents to expand its utility and reduce its cooldown. Shade no longer has a viable cooldown reduction talent if you want to keep the infiltrate damage bonus, you can only proc resourceful combatant now.
This change would make sense if there were talents there to support it, but there aren’t. If FS wanted to balance out the utility of the moves then the cooldown of Infiltrate should have been brought in line with Disengage.
I think we are missing something fundamentally, here, my dude.
The reason we keep bringing up her massive damage capabilities is that she shouldn’t be able to do everything well. When you say:
You are totally right; Ranger-Veteran’s skill is better suited for utility than Shade’s skill is. 100%, you are correct. The problem is that, if you take them both in a vacuum and, removing all utility, just look at their damage, Shade’s skill is better suited for everything else.
That, and I’d say that Infiltrate is closer to the Huntman’s Prowl, as I see it.
The reason the duration was reduced, as I see it, is that Shade had too much capability in too many realms of the game. The reason we keep bringing up damage is that we are pointing to her major strength; it’s not supposed to be utility. I don’t believe that her ult was ever meant to get you through the discs of Athel Yenlui, nor to both pick up and heal an ally, nor really use stealth to hide.
It’s supposed to be a mechanic entirely used to position and execute 1-2 very powerful opponents. Receiving so much additional capability out of it makes it too powerful; if you want those “support-y” mechanics back, take the 45% CDR talent and use it to pick up allies.
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I think you’re missing the point. No one is saying the Shade needed more utility, but rather the question is “why did the utility she had get taken away?” No one is saying to take away her dps, rather the question is being asked, “if her DPS was considered unbalanced, why also nerf her utility?”
What was the balance reasoning behind the reduction on her ult Stealth?
I haven’t played much elf in 2.0, because half the playerbase does and you can’t find a QP game to save your life, so I can’t comment on the changes from personal experience. Honestly until this thread I had no idea that her ult had its duration reduced. And I don’t understand why either…
I will comment that the Talent that removes her Damage in favor of CDR is every bit as trash as Kruber’s that removes THP for the same.
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I’m going disagree on this last point. Bardin can melee for 10 seconds, Shade has higher burst (though not as frequently anymore) but Bardin can sustain damage. They’re different roles but I wouldn’t say Shade’s skill is better for everything else.
This is why I’m confused, the change would make sense if there was a way to get the 10 seconds back via CoM but remove the infiltrate damage bonus. Instead the class that is named Shade, whose career skill is called Infiltrate, and whose entire shtick is about moving and striking unseen is being outperformed in that very category by a stunty dwarf with a vape habit.
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Her ult reduction was never documented in the 2.0 patches which is just a whole other slap in the face.
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I’m 100% sure that question was asked, and the answer the devs came to was to half the window for utility, take away being able to shoot while stealthed, and to remove the stealth damage bonus if a player desired a CDR build.
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Well, that bit there was explained, in full, on your other thread. And, moreover, @Fatshark_Hedge owned that mistake up-front; he meant to put it in and didn’t.
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The new shade is most certainly stronger and more versatile than before. She is just a little bit different but fundamentally, she still has the capability of killing elites and bosses quickly on cata. You just need to play her and get used to the changes.
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Please re-read the OP, this is about her utility and talent changes and how they don’t seem to make sense. Her damage changes were actually thought out, and I have no issues with them.
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I first posted about that issue 10 days ago actually, that’s my second thread. They fixed Kruber’s animation bug faster with 2.0.9.1 than they’ve addressed this.
And owning it or not, it’s still a slap in the face that a 50% reduction to a career skill is able to slip through and I think adds to the argument that FS pushed through too much too quickly.
I just don’t understand why you are so hung up on the stealth duration part of her ult. Sure stealth duration nerf is a nerf but what truly makes shade so powerful is the massive damage bonus she can do in her ult as well as the 100% crit chance. The stealth part just makes it easier for her to deal that massive damage. Comparing her ult to RV ult and concluding her ult is inferior because of shorter duration is as laughable as it is misguided. You really ought to play the new shade more or just watch Jsat video on the new shade to really see just how powerful she is.
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My dude, I don’t think it was something they “pushed through too quickly.” I think Hedge was assembling a list of changes and forgot to add a change that was present. He knew about it, just missed it on an honest mistake. Happens to the best of us. You ever made a mistake?
I’ll agree with quickkill here; the stealth duration was nice but not necessary for her to operate at the top tier. It removed some of her utility (which I believe was the point). She had too much and she was reigned in; I’ve not suffered any problems by it and I’m still equally as potent on Shade, so I can’t see where the issue is. I suppose this might simply be a difference in preference 
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FS was aware of this when they published the 2.0.9.1 patch notes, it could have been included then, there was certainly enough space. I don’t think it was malicious omission though.
I just don’t understand why she needed that utility removed, and at such a drastic reduction (I have a conspiracy theory that involves versus mode). Otherwise, different strokes for different folks. 
It had already been covered in closed beta patch notes multiple times. They seem to have forgotten to add it on release. An oversight, but this was tested in beta a lot.
Versus mode will be an entirely different game if I remember correctly, not balanced around current at all.
Also, if anything. It would have been to stop shades from cheesing high level weaves. They could chain back stabs during the beta, allowing them to stay invisible for ages on control points with a base 10 second invisibility.
None the less, as an Elf main, I prefer this version of shade 100% over the 1.6 counterpart. It’s something they got bang on in my opinion.
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