Shade passive - Suggestion (edit)

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Feedback
1

Add this passive for Shade :

“Shadow strike”: Your next Charged/heavy attack is a guaranteed critical hit. (Doesn’t have to be a backstab.) Buff refreshes every 8 seconds or on a successful backstab.

Then you also replace the lvl15 talent that returns arrows/bolts on backstab. You regain 1-2 Arrows/bolts (depending which bow you have, swift bow should get a few more) on a successful “Shadow strike”.

This way you have a passive buff for melee burst similar to bounty hunter’s ranged and ironbreaker’s tanking one, that totally fits shade’s character imo. Also, you have some improved utility on that lvl15 talent.

12 Likes
2

I LOVE this idea!

3

Wait… Shade’s not viable? Since when?

4

Hmm you’re right, I think my phrasing was wrong. I do believe Shade is bottom tier, though, and a buff like this would improve her viability and put her on par with Kerillian’s other 2 subclasses
What do you think?

5

Really nice idea :smiley:

Altho I feel this would change a bit the Shade role. Right now her main role is boss melting (you get a lot of backstab easily on them, can lose aggro and go behind them, and the repeater xbow is kind boss killing designed). Going from “Regen ammo on Backstab” to “Regen ammo on Charged attack” would lower a lot her ammo regen when behind a boss (you can easily regen smth like 8/9 ammo right now, with charged i won’t be that easy), swapping this for more consistent regen over the map against elite mob.

Dont get me wrong, I love this idea, but it all depend of what FS want the Shade to be. This won’t fit well on a Boss killing archetype. Tho the Shadow Strike alone can be quite good in any archetype, without touching the level 15 trait.

6

What about a passive where all non special enemies have a chance to change shade aggro to the nearest ally. So a horde comes in, shade flanks the horde and instead of all of them turning around and attacking her you’ll have maybe 3 or 4 that the passive didn’t trigger on and then the rest to start backstabbing. Won’t apply specials or bosses so it’s not like permanent invisibility, this would allow the shade to make use of backstab on more than just bosses.

7

Interesting point Winthiefow. If you put some more thought into it, though, I think you will prefer this more for boss killing:

Shadowstrike backstab - light attack backstab ( to reset your shadow strike) - shadowstrike backstab again. By this point the boss will, most likely, be in your face and you will have to tank it until you lose aggro. If not, just keep doing this massive damage combo that returns you a few bolts back as well. I don’t think any class can beat the damage in that combo which makes shade remain the top tier boss killer ( in a way that fits her, up close backstabbing and not in a way that waystalker is supposed to do it )

Also, you can retrieve bolts easier by heavy attacking adds during a boss fight (think halescourge burbledude) and during your runs to help with killing specials ofc which makes the ammo retrieval talent useful in general and not only during boss fights.

8

Imo she needs some passive to be the least priority for enemies. Replacement of “kill man-sized on crit” with guaranteed crits as long as you backstab would do her some good, but how often can you actually backstab something though? Like the only time you get to backstab elites\specials is when you use your special or IB taunts them. And bosses just switch aggro to you after a few hits making you the best boss tanking career.
Also her special should really get a lower cd and give some MS.

2 Likes
9

Never said you have to heavy attack from behind for this passive to proc

10

Fantastic idea!

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You’re right here, didn’t though about the adds, I was focused on the Screaming Bell Roger that got none ^^

About a less aggro passive I was thinking about one too, just can’t think of an efficient way to make one :confused:

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I’d say resets on kill or every eight seconds. This way if Shade gets behind a horde she can oneshot everything because she will be constantly backstabbing. I.E. her role will be clearer, crap from the front, awesome from the back, and give players a greater advantage while using a lighter weapon, such as DnD, for increased dodge to get behind breeds easier.

And also, drop the lvl 15 connection, leave it as it is or lower the ammo per backstab.

13

Shade is all about playstyle. Without the 15% power talent working rn two handed weapons and wave clear are pretty bad. Also her ult only hitting once if you have a 2h or 1h equipped, but twice with dual wield is an issue. I have a lot of exp as Shade on Legend. It feels viable now, but can do with a few tweaks. Shade’s only issue atm is that Waywatcher is too good and Handmaiden is better for wave clear. If you play Shade right you should have no problem doing good damage though.

To play Shade you really need a good melee front line. If you have too many range it’s not very good (maybe after power is fixed). A tank Kruber or Bardin is perfect. Our comp is usually Kruber(Hal), Bardin (Axe+Shi), Sienna (God Staff) and Shade(Daggers). I mostly float around the back of Bardin and Kruber quickly moving in on Elites so they can keep clearing.

The most viable alternative to Glaive is Dual Daggers, and the playstyle with them is to stand behind melee clear making sure they don’t get flanked and helping with hordes. You sacrifice your own wave clear and survivability for Elite/Boss/Special killing and a bit of utility.

Flanking Elites whenever possible, Ulting Chaos Knights and quickly killing specials is your job. Being able to chunk Elites by playing smart and flanking when it’s safe is huge. The pressure relief from being able to kill a Chaos Knight inside a horde or just for efficiency is great too.

Stealth gives you huge flexibility during big fights and where your team feels like it’s losing. You can get almost anywhere and do what you like. I’ve been running off and picking up bandages, coming back and healing people etc. Using the ‘Shoot while stealthed talent’ is huge for this too. Killing specials in hordes is gamebreaking.

Bosses and patrols. As Waywatcher with Glaive, I can knock off one or two in a Chaos Knights with charged attacks and vs a Stormvermin patrol it’s easier( except for Shield Vermin, which are just silly rn). As Shade I have an insta-kill for at least one enemy vs Chaos Knights and my backstabs are way more devestating, reliable and safe than Glaive charged combo. If Bardin taunts a Chaos patrol, there’s nothing to stop you getting 3-4 kills on Knights and cleaning them up afterwards.

In regard to bosses. Only Daggers and Dual Swords are worth using with 2h + 1h being classed as a single hit and dual wield as 2. You’ll get 2 ults on map bosses and 1 on normal ones. Her Crossbow damage from behind is really good.

Shade’s main issue is that other classes are just so strong right now. BH and Pyro to be specific. They can both easily outdamage Shade on unarmoured bosses and their special killing capabilities can make Shade feel useless. This is where you would run Handmaiden or Waywatcher. I’m not sure that giving her a huge buff instead of tweaking her and other classes is the answer.

TLDR: is Shade viable? Yes. Is Shade harder to make viable than other classes? Yes, probably the most difficult class to play and get right rn.

I think the power bonus from the talent will fix a lot of the issues. (I have a big feeling that they’re going to do lots of class changes in the future too.)

14

Problem is: The turnout for her playstyle isn’t large enough to warrant her squishyness and her lack in ranged combat ability. She is high risk, mediocre reward. Her active is to underwhelming to warrant the cooldown it has. Her boss killing on live is godlike, on beta it is very subpar.

1 Like
15

I’m not sure if you have read anything in this thread besides the title, which I admitted was missphrased. What you describe is, more or less, how we all play shade on Legend.

I think you are correct to claim BH and Pyro are strong now but have you ever wondered why that is? I play all 3 characters (they are the only 3 I have at lvl 30). There is a nice synergy between their passives, their talents and their weapon traits which makes them fun and powerful when you play them correctly.
In the chaos of a horde a BH can one-shot a SV with his repeater, switch to falchion, kill a slave rat to reset his passive, switch to repeater, one-shot another SV, use his ulti on a miles away blightstormer, switch to falchion again and kill another slave, switch to repeater and deal massive dmg on a CW inside the horde and so on… This way he maximizes the dmg he can offer to the group while not losing a single bullet. A good player that knows BH well can do that and save his group from a difficult situation. I would describe similar situations for Pyro but I think my point was made.

It always comes down to the player but the tools are there for them(pyro/bh) to use. Shade doesn’t have such tools. I think this passive could be one of them.

Edit : The 15% power bonus talent works on the beta version. Check it out

16

My point was that there is a way to make Shade work without buffing it at all. Some things need looking at, like ult damage with certain weapons, but it’s a build specifically for killing certain enemy types. Shade does have great tools if you use them right. It feels underpowered because other classes are overpowered.

You pointed out why you shouldn’t use BH and Pyro as good gauges of balance. The crit reset unlimited ammo for BH is incredibly broken with the Repeater Crossbow and will probably get nerfed and Pyro can do the most damage in-game with ease and both can do more damage than Shade on bosses.

17

I understand your point and I agree, that’s why I still play this class even on Legend but the tools are not enough. You can even see that quantity-wise, she has 2 only passives and 1 of them (Murderous Prowess) we could live without since what it describes happens most of the time due to the other passive anyway.

If they nerf BH and Pyro to the ground then yes, shade could feel on par with them. Personally I would prefer if they had strong classes with plenty of tools and options for people to play around and focus on making the game more challenging ( e.g buff the enemies?) rather than insisting on sucking out the fun of the classes. But this is about balancing and it’s a whole other discussion.

18

The only problem I have with shade (love playing her btw) is that backstab is very difficult to use when you don’t have an ironbreaker to taunt. I can see her working without any changes if they just give her reduced threat in some way. Killing sv and maulers in one hit with a light attack is always really satisfying, it’s just difficult to do when they are looking right at you.

1 Like
19

Nice idea. How would the guaranteed crit work with glaive’s heavy? Would only the first hit crit?

20

This is precisely the problem with shade. Both her passive and active are, in theory, very mighty. But the way this game works, you cannot actually “sneak up” on enemies, 90% of the time, they will be facing you and your teammates. “Soloing” away from the group in order to get a good backstabbing chain on a group of enemies is counter-intuitive and -productive. Only characters that have very slow attack windup like CW or Maulers are viable targets and while they are definitely a threat, making use of her staple abilities still requires alot more setup and work in order to net a reward in form of additional backstab damage. Shade needs some other way to boost her damage dealing potential apart from backstabs and her skill and a little more survivability (take slayer Bardin as a blueprint here).

1 Like