Shadowdancer ideas.

[zohlor]

Been discussing about the Shadowdancers with a few people and there has been a few ideas.So, to liven up the guild here are a few:

1.) If the Shadowdancer has high masteries, they should be able to backstab without having to hide. The hiding should be more or less automatic for the skilled assassin.

2.) After a certain amount of devotion (say ..200,000) one should be able to use the shadows to teleport back to the guild. Maybe even a few other places? Some hp,sp and ep cost would seem natural and it would not be instant. Just trying to improve the effect of devotion in the guild.

3.) A spell that would enable piercing weapons to lessen the effect of protection the target as against physical damage. Lower the armour class in other words. Would make partying a more popular opinion for this class.

4.) Critical backstabs! Make them RARE!

5.) New critical for shadow strike. Would enable the shadow of the assassin to fight in the battle, would leave after the combat was over.(opponents are dead or the player flees from the room)


Just throwing a few euros to this discussion.

[artic]

6) use shadow sense on room exits, to tell whats in the next room. Seems silly that i can already see to the other side of the world, but cant see into the next room.

7) use shadow sense or pre-memorised locations with orienteering. (similar to how the cronomancers can create a rift to a pre-memorised location from the other end of the world.) Wouls increase the ability to spy on yopur enemy.

8 ) This is a longshot, but... would be nice if icesus had a new weapon with wich one could strangle ones oponent. Two handles connected with a wire or thin rope (weaker material means it can be broken easily), you sneak behind the enemy, wrap the wire around their neck and pull the handles. Of course if enemy has better dex than yours (r you are not stealthy enough), they will notice a wire being wrapped around their neck, and they will attack you. Once wictim is being strangled, a strenght check is applied to see if wictim can break free of your grip (or break the weapon). Of course the strangle maneuver could only be used to initiate battle, or if enemy does not notice you (move silently) for you have to get behind the enemy and if hes already fighting you, its quite impossible. Shadowdanceing would give only a slight bonus to this maneuver, and other guild could also perform it - probably not as well because of low stealth, but they migh be able to srtangle longer, because of better strength than the average shadowdancer. Strangleing would do damage to wictim each and every round, also the wictim would be a bit hindered in fighting other party members- so the longer you can hold on to your wictim the better, unfortunatelly strangeing also costs you a lot of ep each and every round, so either are god enough to kill your enemy fast or youll have to let go and fight on with other means. Also size matters. Id like to see a halfling trying to strangle a troll- Hed be tangleing from the monsters neck like jewlery.

9) A darkness spell that would create small droppable orbs of darkness. These would only last for a short time, but you could stack them in a room making it for a short while extra dim.

[solar]

Probably not my place to comment on this, since I've never played a shadowdancer, but from what I can tell, most/all of these ideas seem like a pure uptune with little or no negative sides in them.

What about the balance of power? You want something, you give away something, isn't that how it should go? No, I'm not saying that any one of the abilities that already exist should be removed, but there should be a downside in every major uptune.

Granted, some of these ideas seem very reasonable to be implemented.

Oh, and by the way, the strangling-weapon is called a "garotte" or something like that.

[artic]

What about the balance of power?

I wouldn't go as far as to say that my ideas 6 through 9 would be upptunes. They would just be new features, additions that in my view seem logical enough to wonder why they were not implemented in the first place. Like the sensing of other players- although it is a very draining ability (takes major sp and average ep and fails a lot even with high %) it is very limited in use and adds actually almost no offensive power. And is i can sense what you are up to from miles away, why cant i just sense what is going on in the shadows just around this corner or who is lurking around in my secret camp (memorised location).?
--The 9th idea could be called more a prank than an offensive power. It is suspected that the darker the room the more offencife power would a shadowdancer have in it, but darkening a room a bit does not increase the power a lot. Also the same trick is already used by the enemies of the shadowdancer, namely they buy many torches, light them and than drop em. Also they ahve to possibility to extract torches from fires, and bring along oil lamps. There are no darkness lamps and neither can nether torches be extracted from fires. So how is that for balance? Make a oil lamp that sheds darkness?
--As for the 8th idea, i think there are many pros and cons for that weapon and maneuver. It could be efficiently used by rangers and other guilds aswell, not just shadowdancers. It requires dex and str, and size help a lot (picture a troll strangleing a halfling - or two at once ,not really but, it would look cool) and those are not just criterias that apply to shadowdancer.

[etadan]

1. hmm, i though we can allready stab without shadowdancing.. yep, we can. with less damage probobly, but we still can.

2. Imo that's just silly. But, even if by some strange miracle we'd get it, considering sp costs for 'true darkness' and other spells, it'd be more than we can afford. Anyways, mount gets you to graemor very quickly, portals too. Ferry is the slowest thing in this trip.

3. In our dreams :) (just an imo)

4. see 3.

5. *Etadan dreams about Little Fighters 2 for a while* For those who haven't played it, a ninja there, can create 2 npc copys of himself which will die when they fall. Don't see how this(or Zohlor's version) would start from shadow strike tough, it should be more like an offensive 'mirror image' kinda spell.

6. hmm, no comment. altough imo we should use move silently for exploring. another thing is that we shouldn't be wasting any ep if the room we move in is empty.

7. only use i can think for this, is memorizing 'ferry room' and checking if there's any suitable targets coming in... but orienteering can only be used in outworld?

8. yeah, it'd be cool. Sneaking form behind and slitting someones throat open would be cool too :) (see 3. tough)

9. nah. don't even see need for it, one sphere of darkness is enough for me, unless it involves players. and as for balance concerning light/dark sources that's just... to create light, you just burn something. for darkness you need magic.

What shadowdancers realy need is some help files on poisons research. Anyone who has tryed researching probobly agrees. One thing that might help the situation, is gaining a poison recepie uppon gaining max levels in one guild.

As for balance.. strange/slit would only be usable out of combat, like backstab, so if they'd cost/give about same damage(and you couldn't use strangle/slit after allready using backstab, and viceversa) it'd be more of a rp choise, which to train.

*Etadan growls 'Coffee.. must .. have .. coffee'*

[zohlor]

Unless backstab was changed, there was a very high chance of failing it if you didn't hide before it. Imho, after a certain amount of mastery, it should be possible/less failing to backstab without shadowdancing.

'Avatar of the dark gods' - nice title, aight. But imho, there SHOULD be ingame benefits for devotion. It does take time to build a good amount of devotion after all. And since the guild is closely linked to the shadows (we have shadow magic ; shadow barrier for example) I wouldn't think it's horribly uberpowerful if the more experienced shadowdancers would be able to get to the guild. Would like to know who these "dark gods" also are. There hasn't been any explanations so far

Critical backstabs should be possible. I don't see anything wrong with this.

The guild is supposed to have an connection with the Shadows. Shadow strike, imho, should have a small chance(the current critical shadow strikes don't happen too often, just a reminder..they are rare) of harnessing your own shadow to assist in the battle.

Someone was supposed to write an FAQ for the Shadowdancers, but guess something else turned up. I wouldn't mind writing one by myself. The current help files are horribly outdated (and especially the one about the poisons.)

In terms of exping, this guild is meant to be a soloer or the party leader(and not that effective in bigger parties.). I find it sad that as a monk, which is definetely not meant to be a solo guild, I could do about the same rate.

The current wizard that is "looking after" the Shadowdancers hasn't been active for a long time. Imho, the guild needs some modifications.

And good ideas about the shadow sense.

[felgand]

If I remember right, shadowdancers are already able to backstab if they aren't hidden, the success rate just isn't that high. It's probably reasonable to allow for more partially successful backstabs in that case where a very skilled assassin could get off a quick backstab (sacrificing damage) without hiding. Critical backstabs might be a useful possibility if the average damage of backstab was lowered somewhat to justify it.

I think allowing shadowdancers the ability to meld into the shadows back to their guild would be reasonable if a sizeable timer was placed in between each casting and the shadowdancer must not have been in combat for the last several minutes prior to attempting it. I don't think shadowdancers should be able to meld/shift into memorized locations purely because it exactly duplicates a vital part of another guild the shadowdancer can already join. If you want to move to a memorized location, become a chronomancer.

Allowing a new special for shadow strike would be interesting, agreed. Perhaps the crit "shadow" mob would do psionic damage as it is purely caused by the shadowdancer convincing their victim that others were attacking them.

I don't think the concept of the guild really justifies them having a spell to reduce the resists of other people nor would it be that balanced. If you want shadowdancers to party more often, allow dancers to cast infravision-type spells on other people and add a "feature" to backstab where a shadowdancer needs to sacrifice some of their health to perform a decent backstab (thus they will need healers).

A garrote-type weapon would be an interesting skill could be based primarily on strength and would require the shadowdancer at least two hands free (yay chitines) to perform. The dancer would need to purchase single-use garrote wires from Ceawin. A successful garotte could lower their victim's combat abilities for a time and perhaps the dancer could end the attack with some damage (less than backstab, but still reasonable to be useful...40% damage of a normal backstab?).

[artic]

A garrote-type weapon would be an interesting skill could be based primarily on strength and would require the shadowdancer at least two hands free (yay chitines) to perform. The dancer would need to purchase single-use garrote wires from Ceawin. A successful garotte could lower their victim's combat abilities for a time and perhaps the dancer could end the attack with some damage (less than backstab, but still reasonable to be useful...40% damage of a normal backstab?).

I don't like the idea of single-use garottes. I did mention that garottes could be broken, if they were made of a weak material and the sum of the wictims and stranlers strengths were great enough, but i fail to see why i would break/lose a garotte every time i used one.
Being strangled should certainly hinder the wictims combat abilities. Picture him trying to free himself of the strangleing wire.
I agree that strangleing shouldn't last to the death. Either the strangler get tired or the wictim manages to break free on the account of hes strength.
And i don't see why only shadowdancers should use garottes.

[iluth]

hmm i notice that all the other guilds can train nicely without needing to waste a level in chronomancers, mages suffer in the same way, needing to waste a level to get the return home spell.

high levels become very expensive obviously, it might not seem like much to have one of them wasted when you're level 10 or so, but it's 1 extra level you didn't need, meaning each level you take costs you additional exp.

[felgand]

All the guilds, including shadowdancers, can get along without any chronomancer levels at all. For the most part, it's basically just a convenience and time-saver. (Except for casters and haste...in which case it's an invaluable boost to their combat prowess).

[khade]

i think that the garrote could have a couple of different uses, like the whirling blades, like you could sneak up on an enemy and be choking them in such a way that most other enemies hit this enemy and he can not attack and that would not do much damage, on account of the fact that it would be hard to choke someone like that. the second way i can think of is that you attack with the intent to do major harm to your enemy and so concentrate on strangling him. and maybe one other way of useing them, if someone can think of one.

[artic]

well you could also use the gorotte for one strong jerk around the neck, damaging the throat soo bad, that the wictim would have trouble breathing the rest of the battle.

[torvus]

Damage its attack speed for a few rounds aswell as damage?

[zaec]

Yes, I agree with Zohlor in the issue concerning the use of higher devotion. It's very frustrating that devotion just runs its purpose as an 'Exp II' more dev just equals more damage->rate->exp as actual experience does. And the neat titles have always been a bonus but in the long run it just does not keep me motivated enough to keep no soloing for ever and ever and ever... Something must be done to this. If someone wants a dancer to a party nowadays he must be retarded or does not know anything about the game.And when talking about 'uptune' like a teleport to the guild we are just talking about skills that make the playing of a shadowdancer less frustrating, not in anyhow more effective so if this discussion leads to something like 'we get a teleport to the guild but lose backstab damage' its pointless even to continue.
Everybody knows that dancers are a guild that was never actually finished (due to the disappearing of Treax) and it can be clearly seen that the great ideas, backgrounds, events, characters and purpose was supposed to be something more complete than these fragile, anti-partying, assassins with no concrete purpose in the game world. or at least so i hope. and btw. huck has committed to take care and work with the guild but i have not seen him do anything but the very useful glowing eyes thingie to the look-message.

[felgand]

What you need to do is explain why shadowdancers should get a teleporting ability over all the other guilds that aren't situated in a centralized location such as Vaerlon. Tell this the Coven, sorcerers, psionicists (though that one is arguably reasonable), gaesati, and monks...especially since the shadowdancer guild is already situated in a large city with a permenant rift and most, if not all, necessary amenities suitable to be self-sufficient.