First Look: Shadar-Kai Adjustments

[Steelstar]

Hey, everyone!

SteelStar here to give you a first look at a pair of smaller revamps currently slated for Update 50! These two passes are quick sets of changes we did around other upcoming features we're working on, so while they may not be complete overhauls, we hope they add some interesting build options, and wanted to bring them to you ahead of the Lamannia previews! (The second revamp, Cleric Radiant Servant, can be found here!)

The first of these two passes is adjustments to the Shadar-kai Iconic! Shadar-kai don't really have a good niche in most of today's meta, and what they offer is a bit lackluster compared to a lot of other Iconics and base races. Like we said above, these passes are fast, so while there are definitely other things we could improve in the future, we aimed for changes that were both fast and would help address the issues above. The usual warning applies: This is early preview content, and will likely change before it goes live!

Currently, Shadar-kai get two Spiked Chain attacks; one in T1 (that does 3 swings) and one in T4 (that keeps whirling as long as you stand still). Neither is an actual attack (they don't use your equipped weapons), the animations don't scale and you can't move using them. This made them... not very compelling to use. So we changed that!

The Changes:

• At level 1, all Shadar-Kai characters now get a Feat: Spiked Chain Attack: Light Melee Weapon Attack: Using a Spiked Chain (but the stats from your main-hand weapon), perform 3 AOE melee attacks with +1[W], +1 Critical Threat Range, and +1 Critical Multiplier. Your Shadar-Kai Racial Enhancements may add to this attack. (12 second cooldown).
  
  • The Spiked Chain attack is now an innate feat all Shadar-kai get without needing to spend points in the tree. Existing Shadar-kai characters when this goes Live will have the feat versioned onto them! While pretty powerful, Shadar-kai don't otherwise get any free feats, free skill bonuses, or free weapon proficiencies.
  • It now also functions as a weapon attack using your main-hand weapon, but it must be a light melee weapon.
  • This uses the 3-swing animation the T1 Chain Attack currently uses, but this version is faster than the current Live version at its base, and also scales with your Attack speed. It's longer than Cleave, but also hits three times!
  • Importantly, you can now move while using it, and cancel out of it early by tumbling. You won't get the remaining hits, and the attack will be on cooldown, but you can bail out that way.

• Vicious Chain has moved down from T2 to T1. It's otherwise unchanged, giving a 33% chance to Bleed on each hit of the Spiked Chain.
• Forceful Chain has moved down from T3 to T2. It keeps its essential role, but now reads: Your Spiked Chain Attack now has a 5% chance to knock non-boss enemies down with no save for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, they make a Balance save of (17 + DEX Mod + Trip DCs) to get up again.
• Slashing Chain is gone. Its role was primarily to bulk up the bad damage of the old chain, and it's no longer needed.
• New T3: Ghastly Chain: When you use your Spiked Chain Attack, you gain 5% Dodge for 6 seconds. This ignores Dodge Cap.
• New T3: Displacement SLA. 0 SP Cost.
  
  • Yes, this is very good - But Shadar-Kai is a long way from "good" currently, and we feel that their ties to the Shadowfell and Rogue-theming mean they should have good access to one of the stronger Avoidance defenses out there.
  
  
• T4 Whirling Chain has changed to: Greater Spiked Chain Attack: Light Melee Weapon Attack: Using a Spiked Chain (but the stats from your main-hand weapon), perform 3 AOE melee attacks with +3[W], +2 Critical Threat Range, and +2 Critical Multiplier. All abilities that enhance Spiked Chain Attack also apply to this Enhancement. In addition, when you Vorpal with this attack, you knock enemies down with no save for 6 seconds. Every 2 seconds, they make a Balance save of (17 + DEX Mod + Trip DCs) to get up again. (18 second cooldown)
  
  • This now also uses the 3-swing animation that the base feat uses, with all the improvements that version got.
  • The advantage of this version is higher damage, the extra chance at knockdown, and being on a separate cooldown! Which is important to the last new addition:
  
  
• New T4: Assassin's Mark: Non-boss enemies caught in your Spiked Chain Attacks have a 33% gain a stack of Dizzying Spiked Chain on each of the three hits (-10% Damage per stack, -5% Attack speed per stack, -2 Concentration per stack, stacks up to 8 times. 20 second duration per stack)
  
  • This is the same debuff that Shadar-kai monsters throw around! But rebalanced slightly for the player version: Only a 33% chance of each hit applying a stack, and it can't apply to Bosses or Raid Bosses.
  • It's pretty strong in practice, but stuff that dies fast also can't accumulate many stacks. So we're still balancing the numbers on this one.

Like we've said, this is early, we're still tweaking numbers and playtesting internally, and you'll see it on Lamannia before it goes Live, but we wanted to show these off and see your thoughts! Let us know what you think!

[IntrepidBear]

YAY!!
finally Shadar kai getting some love !!!!! Thankyou!

[Lanadazia]

this actually looks quite playable now!

[Vyrzain]

Confused………

Update 49 includes significant adjustments to melee and missile combat to address long term concerns about game performance.
One of the most frequent causes of lag happens when an Effects Queue forms, which means that players have applied a ton of on-hit effects to a monster and the game has reached a buffer and must clear its queue in order to continue processing new information.
We are specifically targeting Server-based lag with this change.
Behind the scenes, the server crunches damage, effects, and debuffs in a big queue.
We can measure how efficient the server is at processing this queue by measuring the server frames.
To begin researching and addressing the root cause we put together simulations of a standard large group and their on-hit profiles.
What we found was that the amount of damage dealt didn't matter; it was about the frequency that effects were being applied.
It didn't matter if a simulation was against one target or many - if the effects queue was in trouble the rest of the instance had its performance significantly impacted.
That means lag for not just you and your group but for other people on the server.


NOW YOU ARE ADDING MORE “ON-HIT” effects ? ? ? ? ?


Highlights....

T4 Whirling Chain
In addition, when you Vorpal with this attack, you knock enemies down with no save for 6 seconds.
Every 2 seconds, they make a Balance save of (17 + DEX Mod + Trip DCs) to get up again. (18 second cooldown)

T4: Assassin's Mark
Spiked Chain Attacks have a 33% gain a stack of Dizzying Spiked Chain on each of the three hits
Only a 33% chance of each hit applying a stack

It's longer than Cleave, but also hits three times!

perform 3 AOE melee attacks

Vicious Chain giving a 33% chance to Bleed on each hit of the Spiked Chain.

Forceful Chain a 5% chance to knock non-boss enemies down with no save for 6 seconds.
Every 2 seconds, they make a Balance save of (17 + DEX Mod + Trip DCs) to get up again.

What am I missing here ????

Would these attacks not hinder Game performance for others on my server?

Also Spiked Chain is now a Light Melee Weapon…. thus any “on-hit” effects on that light weapon are now also added to this queue along with the Chain Attacks of 3 AoE melee attacks.

I would have thought / hoped that the DEV’s would be limiting things that add to the “effects queue” not adding to them.

But again... I could be missing something.... please explain.

[mikarddo]

Confused………

NOW YOU ARE ADDING MORE “ON-HIT” effects ? ? ? ? ?

please explain.

A most valid comment. I second the request for an explanation.

[LightBear]

Looks impressive.

Am looking forward to building some Shadar-Kai Aura-lock and/or a Bard SwashBuckler and/or Feydark Illusionist.

Which brings me to the questions:
- Will the chain get the material properties of the weapon used in main hand?
Like Echo of the Sunsword's light effect, Feydark's Force or even just plain simple cold iron?
- Will the effects on the weapon carry over to the chain?
Like Echo of the Sunsword's Brazen Brilliance or SwashBuckler Resonant Arms' Sonic Damage?

[J1NG]

Looks impressive.

Am looking forward to building some Shadar-Kai Aura-lock and/or a Bard SwashBuckler and/or Feydark Illusionist.

Which brings me to the questions:
- Will the chain get the material properties of the weapon used in main hand?
Like Echo of the Sunsword's light effect, Feydark's Force or even just plain simple cold iron?
- Will the effects on the weapon carry over to the chain?
Like Echo of the Sunsword's Brazen Brilliance or SwashBuckler Resonant Arms' Sonic Damage?

If I were to hazard a guess, I would imagine it's basically treated as a (less than) 360 Degree long range Cleave attack, and thus that procs normal attacks. So actually, instead of a chain that takes properties from your weapon, you add the Chain effects to it (long range 360 cleave) instead. So it should:

1. Have Material Properties of the main hand
2. Have chance to proc Echo of Sunsword light damage.
3. Have Echo of the Sunsword Brazen Brilliance chance too.
4. Have any Augment properties too, like Neg Drain on 20 with the Endless Night Ruby

But that's just me looking at it. Could still be done differently.

J1NG

[Entyri]

Looks cool, looks fun! Shardar Kai definitely need the help so glad to see a bit of love.

Couple questions off the top of my head:

Does each attack with the "chain" have a chance to doublestrike? Offhand strike? Interaction with animal forms?

Would probably prefer ghastly to be something like hitting an enemy with the chain attack gives you a stack. Once per mob total, not 3 per mob with the full attack. Each stack gives you +1 dodge and dodge cap. Max stacks 10. Decays 1 per 3 seconds or so. This would have a similar effect to what was suggested but also encourage keeping stacks up and jumping into groups.

Assassins mark looks fun. On trash mobs Id suggest leaving it at 100% proc chance *or* making it work on red names (not purple names). As you noted trash mobs die rather quickly and while one stack is nice it isnt really all that great, but 3 stacks is pretty decent aoe cc. Ap cost can also be adjusted to balance this ability. Two ap per rank with 3 ranks (each increasing chance to proc 33-66-100) would be pretty hefty investment but potentially worth it.

Thank you for what you folks do and I hope everyone has a great day.

[Arkat]

Would probably prefer ghostly to be something like hitting an enemy with the chain attack gives you a stack of ghostly. Once per mob total, not 3 per mob with the full attack. Each stack gives you +1 dodge and dodge cap. Max stacks 10. Decays 1 per 3 seconds or so. This would have a similar effect to what was suggested but also encourage keeping stacks up and jumping into groups. Dizzying chain looks fun. On trash mobs Id suggest leaving it at 100% proc chance *or* making it work on red names (not purple names). As you noted trash mobs die rather quickly and while one stack is nice it isnt really all that great, but 3 stacks is pretty decent aoe cc. Ap cost can also be adjusted to balance this ability. Two ap per rank with 3 ranks (each increasing chance to proc 33-66-100) would be pretty hefty investment but potentially worth it.

It's "ghastly," not "ghostly."

[Memnir]

On the right path, looks like. If this is near what goes live, I may roll another one after my first tester who was rapidly abandoned.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Looks pretty good to me. It addresses every major issue I have with SDK

I like that it incintivizing melee rogues. Some sneak attack synergy with chains would be neat
I think displacement is too much. I would not object to a lesser amount of concealment or some incorporealability.

[Steelstar]

Looks cool, looks fun! Shardar Kai definitely need the help so glad to see a bit of love.

Couple questions off the top of my head:

Does each attack with the "chain" have a chance to doublestrike? Offhand strike? Interaction with animal forms?

Would probably prefer ghastly to be something like hitting an enemy with the chain attack gives you a stack. Once per mob total, not 3 per mob with the full attack. Each stack gives you +1 dodge and dodge cap. Max stacks 10. Decays 1 per 3 seconds or so. This would have a similar effect to what was suggested but also encourage keeping stacks up and jumping into groups.

Assassins mark looks fun. On trash mobs Id suggest leaving it at 100% proc chance *or* making it work on red names (not purple names). As you noted trash mobs die rather quickly and while one stack is nice it isnt really all that great, but 3 stacks is pretty decent aoe cc. Ap cost can also be adjusted to balance this ability. Two ap per rank with 3 ranks (each increasing chance to proc 33-66-100) would be pretty hefty investment but potentially worth it.

Thank you for what you folks do and I hope everyone has a great day.

Each attack with the Chain has a chance to doublestrike. I don't believe it can offhand strike.

Interaction with Animal forms is TBD. I should really check how it currently works, my guess is "badly". Off the top of my head, we may require you to not be in Animal Form in the new version, not sure yet.

Ghastly is still a work in progress. We don't want it to be so good at a unique channel of avoidance defense that it becomes good for tanking, but want it to be good enough to be useful.

To get it out of the way early, we can't apply the Assassin's Mark debuff to red- and purple-names. It does bad things to encounters and Content has said "No" in no uncertain terms.

[Artos_Fabril]

The Changes: [...] [*]It now also functions as a weapon attack using your main-hand weapon, but it must be a light melee weapon.[*]This uses the 3-swing animation the T1 Chain Attack currently uses, but this version is faster than the current Live version at its base, and also scales with your Attack speed. It's longer than Cleave, but also hits three times![*]Importantly, you can now move while using it, and cancel out of it early by tumbling. You won't get the remaining hits, and the attack will be on cooldown, but you can bail out that way.[/LIST]

Each attack with the Chain has a chance to doublestrike. I don't believe it can offhand strike.

So the new unique vision for Shadar-Kai is SWF Swashbuckler?

[Nandos]

These changes look pretty good. If plans change and Ghastly Chain or Displacement somehow don't make it into the tree, then buff up Ghostly Essence and Improved Ghostly Essence some to help.

[Szling]

I am 100% on board with Shadar-Kai getting a displacement SLA, NOT unlimited displacement however. You need to either give it a limited use pool (like the GH SLA from human) or make it cost Something to acivate

Personally I would give them a T2 Blur SLA with 3 ranks 1 use at rank 1 and +1 use per rank (including rank 1 so you would have 2/3/4 uses), this would act a pre-req for the displacement SLA and contribute additional uses there as well.

[GramercyRiff]

unlimited displacement is obviously fine. you can essentially get unlimited displacement in the game already on any race. this ability fits this iconic unquestionably. it might even need to be better than just displacement. give it an optional rider or two for some AP and an SP cost.

This looks pretty good. At the very least it makes Shadar-Kai a playable option. I'd reduce the cooldowns on the spiked chain attacks. It's great they are separate cooldowns though.

[Artos_Fabril]

Personally I would give them a T2 Blur SLA with 3 ranks 1 use at rank 1 and +1 use per rank (including rank 1 so you would have 2/3/4 uses), this would act a pre-req for the displacement SLA and contribute additional uses there as well.

Perma blur is already available from gnome or feydark illusionist at T2 for 2AP. Why would you make Shadar-Kai purchase 4 charges for 3AP?

If you want to make it more cost-intensive, give them a T2 Blur - > T3 +10% - > T4 +10% Perma.

[kamimitsu]

Each attack with the Chain has a chance to doublestrike. I don't believe it can offhand strike.

Interaction with Animal forms is TBD. I should really check how it currently works, my guess is "badly". Off the top of my head, we may require you to not be in Animal Form in the new version, not sure yet.

Ghastly is still a work in progress. We don't want it to be so good at a unique channel of avoidance defense that it becomes good for tanking, but want it to be good enough to be useful.

To get it out of the way early, we can't apply the Assassin's Mark debuff to red- and purple-names. It does bad things to encounters and Content has said "No" in no uncertain terms.

In another thread about Thief Acrobat and race choices, SDK came up and was dismissed quickly as using q-staff rendered the proposed chain changes almost moot. I'd like to add support to Thief Acrobats being be able to treat Q-staffs as light weapons (perhaps only if they have taken the Dex to Hit option) or some other workaround to allow stick build SDK chainers.

[Aelonwy]

I would say that (revised) Shadar Kai does offer some interesting build opportunities, and much like PDK and Bladeforged, it's iconic class isn't the one it's best suited to. The most interesting options are for weird class splits or require +1 hearts.

Bolded for emphasis. I really loathe that about iconics. I get it, +1 hearts make them $$. I understand. And I don't mind an iconic having good synergy with something else that takes a lot of effort and possibly already having tomes or certain past lives however IMHO there is no excuse for an iconic to have POOR synergy with two-thirds of its native class trees. That suggests intention. Now, to be fair, perhaps this is more an issue with rogue than it would be for other iconics/classes because rogue trees as previously mentioned are already incredibly specific not just to a particular playstyle but to particular weapons within those broader categories.

In another thread about Thief Acrobat and race choices, SDK came up and was dismissed quickly as using q-staff rendered the proposed chain changes almost moot. I'd like to add support to Thief Acrobats being be able to treat Q-staffs as light weapons (perhaps only if they have taken the Dex to Hit option) or some other workaround to allow stick build SDK chainers.

Perhaps you didn't notice but that is my thread you're mentioning. Hmm I like the direction you are thinking in... but I'm not sure how they would/could do it. The way it is now most weapons will go off whatever options you have (by feat/enhancement/or innate) and then by whatever is highest. So for example if you are using a quarterstaff, have the first core of Thief Acrobat, it will show Str/Dex to hit and Str to dmg until you get the next core Stick Fighting then it will show Str/Dex to hit and Str/Dex to damage but only give you whichever is higher. The Dex option doesn't replace the str, it only becomes an available option. It would be unusual, an exception even, but they could require a Tier5 like Spinning Staff Wall or the level 12 core from TA making it something you have to be very invested in TA to acquire as a Shadar-kai. But that wouldn't be a hardship to an actual TA player and certainly not one starting at 15 as iconic is intended. I suppose it could be problematic for someone using Sdk and TA on HC but on HC you have to plan carefully anyway. However requiring that much investment in TA would discourage some min-maxing looking for some unintended multi-class split that perhaps didn't even include rogue, let alone 12 rogue.

[IBCrabin]

Bolded for emphasis. I really loathe that about iconics. I get it, +1 hearts make them $$. I understand. And I don't mind an iconic having good synergy with something else that takes a lot of effort and possibly already having tomes or certain past lives however IMHO there is no excuse for an iconic to have POOR synergy with two-thirds of its native class trees. That suggests intention. Now, to be fair, perhaps this is more an issue with rogue than it would be for other iconics/classes because rogue trees as previously mentioned are already incredibly specific not just to a particular playstyle but to particular weapons within those broader categories.



Perhaps you didn't notice but that is my thread you're mentioning. Hmm I like the direction you are thinking in... but I'm not sure how they would/could do it. The way it is now most weapons will go off whatever options you have (by feat/enhancement/or innate) and then by whatever is highest. So for example if you are using a quarterstaff, have the first core of Thief Acrobat, it will show Str/Dex to hit and Str to dmg until you get the next core Stick Fighting then it will show Str/Dex to hit and Str/Dex to damage but only give you whichever is higher. The Dex option doesn't replace the str, it only becomes an available option. It would be unusual, an exception even, but they could require a Tier5 like Spinning Staff Wall or the level 12 core from TA making it something you have to be very invested in TA to acquire as a Shadar-kai. But that wouldn't be a hardship to an actual TA player and certainly not one starting at 15 as iconic is intended. I suppose it could be problematic for someone using Sdk and TA on HC but on HC you have to plan carefully anyway. However requiring that much investment in TA would discourage some min-maxing looking for some unintended multi-class split that perhaps didn't even include rogue, let alone 12 rogue.

You are going to end up with some weird build using swf swashbuckler. The issue with the current game design is a lot of the changes are very specific to a playstyle which causes 1 dimension class split to min max for end game.