U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Shadowdancer

[Renvar]

IMO, The meld changes will make heavy and medium armor a cosmetic thing only for melees, especially ones that can deal sneak damage. (Easiest way to max charges).

I get what they were going for: We don’t want all builds to have meld twist mandatory and give everyone, including casters, a brief 100% dodge. Now it’s only 30% over 20 sec for builds that don’t “build for it”. But for a melee “building for it” is such a low bar as constructed that, combined with other sources of dodge, it becomes exceedingly compelling compared to an ac/per/mrr heavy/medium armor melee option.

Combined with the fact that the 3 trees framework allows you to get what you need here and still spend a lot of points in another melee dps ED.

[elvesunited]

Shadowdancer is now the illusionist / assassin tree. These are not compatible build types. Most of the abilities apply to one or the other. There's no choices in this destiny. Illusionists take their abilities. Assassions take theirs. ( non-assassin rogues are better off going to a different destiny ) I'm not sure that there is enough AP in this destiny that the illusionist can spend 30 AP without having to burn some on abilities that have no value to them. And assassins? They have no ability past shrouding strike/shot that is not passive buffs or defensive abilities. Executioner's shot was taken out and replaced with nothing.

Trapfinding: I fail to see the value of giving Trapfinding to a character with no skill do anything about it. ( and likely not even the skills to use it )

Tier 1: Assassinate Assassin ability needs illusionist multi-selection option.
Tier 1: Technician Rogue skills needs illusionist multi-selection option that increase spellcaster skills

Tier 2: Long Shadows Assassin ability needs illusionist multi-selection option
Tier 2: Sleight of Hand Rogue ability needs illusionist multi-selection option
Tier 2: Shadowform Needs bonuses that apply to illusionists. Pretty much all rogue.
Tier 2: Meld into Darkness: This would be a useful ability for illusionists as well as rogues except .... illusionist build up arcane charges not martial charges and the only spender ability in shadowdancer takes martial charges! Multi-selection!

Tier 3: Crippling strike Needs illusionist multi-selection option
Tier 3: Grim Precision Needs illusionist multi-selection option
Tier 3: Shadowdancer spell focus: Needs Assassion multi-selection option

Tier 4: Pierce the Gloom: Needs illusionist multi-selection option
Tier 4: The Drop: Heavily Illusionist favored. Needs assassin bonuses.
Tier 4: Linger in the Dark: Needs illusionist multi-selection. Though the 1 minute cooldown makes this a joke anyway. Got to remember to tumble once a minute for my 20 second buff. I can't see anyone doing that.

Tier 5: Just a taste: Needs illusionist multi-selection
Tier 5: Weird: Needs assassion multi-selection ( something good )
Tier 5: Greater shadowdancer spell focus: Needs assassin multi-selection
Tier 5: Shadow Mastery needs illusionist multi-selection

[elvesunited]

something I just realized .....

Shrouded strike/shot has a cooldown of 12 seconds. Charges decay after 10 seconds. The other way to activate a martial charge through shadowdancer can only be done once a minute. It's actually impossible to build up more than one charge using Shadowdancer.

[Lynnabel]

Howdy friends! Happy Thursday morning

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the Shadowdancer thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Shadowdancer. These are also in no particular order

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

3: Sealed Soul needs to come back. It will mostly likely get added to the Mantle in Tier 2.

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

5: The Builders need shorter cooldowns to match the other trees at 6 seconds.

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

7: Whispers is currently nonfunctional and also quite controversial. In its place, I am considering some sort of alternative that uses your Bluff score to temporarily confuse or distract an enemy, and allowing this to be usable from Stealth. We want to add more tools to help stealthy players approach combat in different ways, and this feels like it could be an interesting tool to add to the toolbox.

So! There's obviously quite a lot more to do here, and there are things I didn't get to mention, but I'd love any additional feedback or new thoughts you all might have. I look forward to hearing from you!

[A-O]

Howdy friends! Happy Thursday morning

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the Shadowdancer thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Shadowdancer. These are also in no particular order

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

If you in any way can get even 30% dodge that's 100% uptime, it will break the game. Whether this requires arcane or martial or both charges is fairly irrelevant. This can be rectified by making dodge have the reaper penalty that incorp has. The reason meld is so good is because it's the only defense we have in high reaper. By removing/reducing it for reaper it you can tune down damage significantly in high reaper.

I'm glad you keeping an eye on it. But if you realllly want to keep dodge as the best defense in high R, consider separating the dodge % from charges. Make it 5/10/20%, or 5/10/15%, and just let the charges determine the buff duration. At least then we won't be seeing 95% dodge 100% uptime max dps builds.

My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

Could easily just be too strong. Make sure to keep it in check. But the idea sounds fine.

[slarden]

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

Having a strong offensive option would definitely be great. I like having meld work for spellcasters because they typically have weaker defenses but still have big bads aggro on them and it's not always something they can control or mitigate.

I also think big aoe caster options like weird and mass frog should be multi-selectors with an alternative big single-target dps option so that casters can fill raid dps roles if they go that route, but they are giving up a really good tier 5 ability for that single-target damage.

3: Sealed Soul needs to come back. It will mostly likely get added to the Mantle in Tier 2.

Thank you for bringing this back.

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

I really like the debuff option in tier 5 where you have to specialize to get it so it creates a niche raiding role for stealthy builds.

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

This would be a great place. Another solid place would be Celestia, but Celestia also needs +4 will save removed and replaced with +4 evocation / +2 to all dc.

[salmag]

Is the Weird spell going to added as a spell in addition to this tree, because Wizards should be able to add it as a level 9 spell long before they reach level 30?
This has been advocated before (ever since the weak Illusion school had nothing)...

To add it ONLY in this tree is just wrong on so many levels.

The same could be said for Evards Black Tentacles (conjuration), Mass Frog (transmutation), etc.

[mr420247]

Agreed esp since Tsunami is being added to druid spell books also thinking it should be added to water clerics too

[Montegue]

You guys added Weird! I'm so excited to AoE PK Nuke some mobs!

Now...

Add it to Wizard in general.

And rehab Archmage.

[elvesunited]

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

It would be very difficult for a character to build up both arcane and martial charges at the same time so definitely not a lower dodge % per charge. this is a tree for both assassins who don't cast illusion spells and illusionists who don't sneak attack with very little overlap.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

It would be interesting if an epic destiny had more than 1 spender. An offensive ( with both caster and assassin options ) and a defensive one. The character then in combat would have to make a choice. Do I use my offensive spender? Or do I hold off because I may need to use my defensive one. You could make room for a new offensive spender by combining some abilities into a multi-selector. Grim precision could become fortification bypass or Spell DCs.

[Pandjed]

Howdy friends! Happy Thursday morning

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the Shadowdancer thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Shadowdancer. These are also in no particular order

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

Would prefer an arcane version. Getting arcane charges atm is easy with the 1 charge each illusion spell (as shadowblades also charge you up), though the initial charger doesn't seem to work without that enhancement.
With a great defensive option that can be kept up, an illusionist caster becomes much more interesting, as it can be build up as a dodge tank with insta kills.
Would also second the aformentioned duration bonus per charge instead of the dodge bonus, seems to be easier handable.

Also, I think every tree that can build up charges should also be able to spend it, to get a better gateway to each ED at low epic levels.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

Maybe a form of Executionor's Strike/Shot? Seems to be missed by some.

3: Sealed Soul needs to come back. It will mostly likely get added to the Mantle in Tier 2.

Thank you. I think many mantles could use some more beef even b4 tier 5.

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

Sounds good. Maybe also a spell version for it because of the multiclass casters that won't be able to get Weird? I like to gatekeep some options for people with max spell level, but doesn't mean that I want to give those multiclassers no

5: The Builders need shorter cooldowns to match the other trees at 6 seconds.

Agree.

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

Actually missed it, when I tried an illusionist SD. Took Feywild as well. Maybe it could also be buttered into a second feat for the more evocation focused casters? Maybe a smaller bonus to all elemental plane feats?

7: Whispers is currently nonfunctional and also quite controversial. In its place, I am considering some sort of alternative that uses your Bluff score to temporarily confuse or distract an enemy, and allowing this to be usable from Stealth. We want to add more tools to help stealthy players approach combat in different ways, and this feels like it could be an interesting tool to add to the toolbox.

I think this is a nice design idea. Maybe something like an automatic diplomacy when going into stealth? Would be cool, if you could diplo all around you (maybe even with Stealth value) maybe once every 20 seconds by going into stealth mode.

So! There's obviously quite a lot more to do here, and there are things I didn't get to mention, but I'd love any additional feedback or new thoughts you all might have. I look forward to hearing from you!

Played this tree only with an illusionist. It was very easy to get full arcane charges, but I missed some oomph in my spells, because traditional illusionists somewhat need a lot of feats. Maybe an active metamagic feat while in mantle (like old fatesinger)? If you like to cover spell DC, spell pen, quicken, and more into your heroics for your PKing goodness, there just seem too few feats, unless you have a bunch of spell pen pastlives or such.

[shabam]

Figured I would chip in but i was testing out the new Weird spell and i think its bugged atm? It states that it should be an aoe pk but its only single target atm

[Monkey_Archer]

you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it.

Permanent 95% dodge is the equivalent of 2000 PRR. If you think 2000 PRR is overpowered you should think the same about meld. If this is actually intended (even with effort required) where is the heavy armor equivalent of +1000 or more PRR boost with 100% uptime?

[jetster11]

Howdy friends! Happy Thursday morning

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the Shadowdancer thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Shadowdancer. These are also in no particular order

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

3: Sealed Soul needs to come back. It will mostly likely get added to the Mantle in Tier 2.

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

5: The Builders need shorter cooldowns to match the other trees at 6 seconds.

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

7: Whispers is currently nonfunctional and also quite controversial. In its place, I am considering some sort of alternative that uses your Bluff score to temporarily confuse or distract an enemy, and allowing this to be usable from Stealth. We want to add more tools to help stealthy players approach combat in different ways, and this feels like it could be an interesting tool to add to the toolbox.

So! There's obviously quite a lot more to do here, and there are things I didn't get to mention, but I'd love any additional feedback or new thoughts you all might have. I look forward to hearing from you!

1. So will Meld stack with all other sources of dodge? Will it ignore dodge cap?

2. Still no replacement for executioners shot. So no ranged instakill.

3. Shadowform should not ne a T5 ability only available at level 30 and only if you use shadowdancer as your exclusive tree. Somehow this stance needs to be available much earlier. This could be done in two possible ways , Lower it to a T3 or T4 ability or as many on the forums are saying make T5 available much earlier than level 30. i think it is ridiculous that currently we have all these abilities available at level 20 now (once we did the grind) and now we can't even use any of the most critical shadowdancer abilities for survival until cap.

4. Same for dark imbuement, a consume equivalent (or something worth taking in the tree that is similar). and shadow man8ipulation. And if you are afraid consume did not have a proper DC, fix that don't kill it. Also, death-block basically made consume not work so, most champions were immune. Also all those big moment spells have huge cooldowns so why killing 6-7 trash non champion non death-blocked mobs once every 2 minutes remotely unbalancing. Most end game content has rooms of 20+ mobs in every group and encounters every 20-30 seconds if moving consistently.

5. As for executioners shot, how is that unbalancing. Only a 35% chance on one mob every 12 seconds assuming you don't roll a 1 and that the monster is not deathblocked. So effectively that adds 1 kill every 30 seconds. Once again not unbalancing even at lower epic levels.

Ranged players seem to be losing almost all crowd control for epic leveling other than Pin and Otto's whistler (which were often twisted in) and way too many Rpic game monsters are immune to dancing such as all the plants in Ravenloft, all the undead, etx.... And pin is useless towards moving targets which is really the ones you want to stop and pin.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Permanent 95% dodge is the equivalent of 2000 PRR. If you think 2000 PRR is overpowered you should think the same about meld. If this is actually intended (even with effort required) where is the heavy armor equivalent of +1000 or more PRR boost with 100% uptime?

If Unyielding Sentinel doesnt come with a similar ability like new Meld, Tanks are getting royally screwed over.

Current Meld is super crucial for Tank's survival during crazy damage spikes in challenging reaper raids.
Letting go of shield block in order to use any type of offensive charge builder will result in one shot and just out of the question.

[LittleLexi]

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

I like your thinking behind this. The way I would do it is make illusory shadows appear that attack at the same time as you that do x% of your damage and apply effects; thereby stacking on your bonuses and the physical vulnerability. And they can each grant incorporeality while they linger, for good measure.

[rabidfox]

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

Isn't force spell power already in Scion of Arborea?

[Stravix]

I like your thinking behind this. The way I would do it is make illusory shadows appear that attack at the same time as you that do x% of your damage and apply effects; thereby stacking on your bonuses and the physical vulnerability. And they can each grant incorporeality while they linger, for good measure.

Now that sounds like a Shadow dancer Epic Moment style ability to me. /signed

[HuneyMunster]

Howdy friends! Happy Thursday morning

I've been gathering up a ton of feedback and I wanted to take some time to write up what I've gleaned from you fine folks so far. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, and also note that (given that this is the Shadowdancer thread) it's going to be centered on stuff that directly relates to Shadowdancer. These are also in no particular order

1: Meld is way too strong! This leads me to point 2.

2: Meld is way too weak! Hey, hey, put down those pitchforks, let me explain!! It feels like we were right on the money on making Meld a defensive martial spender. In practice, you trade Charges for defensive ability, and with careful play, you can even keep it up 100% of the time at a moderate magnitude. That's rad, and I don't want to change it. The problem is that this tree is half Arcane - and Meld doesn't do anything for that.

So, with that in mind, what if Meld had a lower dodge % per charge, but also took Arcane charges into account? Or what if you had two versions, one that only took Arcane and one that only took Martial? I think there's a lot of ways to slice this shadow, so to speak, so I'll be keeping a very close eye on further feedback.

2b: Meld will also likely be multiselected with an offensive version, most likely an adjusted form of the old Pierce the Gloom active mixed with some offensive firepower. It will need to be strong to compete with the defensive capabilities of Meld, but there's a lot of good design space still open that makes me confident we can find something that fits this niche.

3: Sealed Soul needs to come back. It will mostly likely get added to the Mantle in Tier 2.

4: The T5 of this tree needs something that multiselects with Weird that uses your Assassinate in some cool, flashy way. It's unlikely to be a carbon copy of Consume (to my knowledge, that was bugged and had no actual DC) and I'd honestly rather build something new than reuse anything that wasn't 100% up to par. With that in mind, what if the new T5 was like an assassinate, but rather than an instakill, was a very effective boss debuff? This way a Rogue will have two ways of opening a fight from Stealth - versus trash, Assassinate. Versus a boss, this new attack. And someone who wasn't a rogue still gets to experience some of that gameplay by using this new from-stealth ability. If the boss debuff is punchy enough, that means that having at least one Shadowdancer in the party would make a considerable difference. My initual thoughts were to bring back the Physical vulnerability from the current Shadowdancer but turn it up to 11.

5: The Builders need shorter cooldowns to match the other trees at 6 seconds.

6: Force spellpower needs to be in a Legendary feat if we want it to be a serious consideration for a damage option. My initial thoughts are to place it with Sonic in Feywild, which also has the benefit of giving you Illusion DCs.

7: Whispers is currently nonfunctional and also quite controversial. In its place, I am considering some sort of alternative that uses your Bluff score to temporarily confuse or distract an enemy, and allowing this to be usable from Stealth. We want to add more tools to help stealthy players approach combat in different ways, and this feels like it could be an interesting tool to add to the toolbox.

So! There's obviously quite a lot more to do here, and there are things I didn't get to mention, but I'd love any additional feedback or new thoughts you all might have. I look forward to hearing from you!

1. I think everyone would agree about the strength of the old Meld it's just we don't want to lose it.
2. I don't mind the change to Meld as overall i would benefit from it more with 30% at almost full upkeep. I can still use Improved Uncanny Dodge to hit the 95% dodge cap in some circumstances.
3. Would be nice to see this return though I dropped it on my rogue for extra Dex to bump my Assassinate DC's due to lack of effectiveness in Sharn and Feywild.
4. Greater Shadowdancer Spell Focus and Shadow Mastery should be multi-selector. I would still like to see Executioners Strike return at Tier 5 so that my Assassinate items have more than just a single use again.
5. An attack that acts like Improved Feint would be a nice that uses your Dexterity Mod instead of Charisma Mod + Assassinate Bonuses.
6. Agree.
7. The problem with Bluff is that Charisma is a dump stat for rogues. This would just end up being close to auto fail bluff check. It's impossible to fit bluff items in when you have 2 items slotted already reserved for Assassinate DC. Edit and Shadai-kai starts at 6 Charisma.

The overall problem with the Destiny is that it's still trying to do two things in the same tree. Why not just create a new Destiny for the caster stuff to remove the bloat? Something like Arcane Trickster could still fit the theme for that.

[Pandjed]

If Unyielding Sentinel doesnt come with a similar ability like new Meld, Tanks are getting royally screwed over.

Current Meld is super crucial for Tank's survival during crazy damage spikes in challenging reaper raids.
Letting go of shield block in order to use any type of offensive charge builder will result in one shot and just out of the question.

I think, good ways to get charges for tanks would be to be hit while in block or to when using a block attack.

US will be interesting to build around, I presume.