Depthswalkers: Post your findings.

Omor

If you guys really think that I meant that I just "dor reap zulah" when he had his shield up, then discussing this further doesn't have any point.

Last time. 
Zulah keeps shield up. I shadow strike;queue add eqbal shadow reap curare. AS SOON AS the reap hits, his shield is back up. Which is enough time for me to break/attack/break/attack/break/attack/ repeat forever. Which completely halts all momentum whatsoever. 
Go to the arena with a DW right now, put shield on keepup, and wait. You can sit there all day, get yourself a beer, enjoy it. As long as you don't let them shadow sever you, you're fine. Only way around a shield keepup right now is to shadow sever;shadow strike;reap, and that's assuming they get a low sip % and don't heal for more than you can reap for on the balance between strike and reap.

Amranu

nvm...

Farrah

@Omor That's called combat balance, so I guess we just don't understand why you're saying it? Every momentum class would be like that against DOR TOUCH SHIELD.

The commentary shows an extreme lack of understanding of our other classes and how they are balanced.

Thankfully, you can't fight while touching shield on every eq.

Zulah

Before you insult @Omor's knowledge he is correct. You dont have to lean on shield at all.

Its 100% impossible to kill someone as DW who knows when to shield for 2 seconds.

There is no slow prep path. @Borran just saw that first hand. You dont have to believe me. People will see soon enough and something will change. The class is great and can wreck people easily on every other aspect but a half way decent shield touch wins. Its not even key moments that need shield. You've got plenty of time. Most the kill routes whence known give you a good 6 second window to shield in and break completely out of in seconds then go right back on the offence with the DW being back at square one.

Id be happy to spar you and show you.

Farrah

Have you tried comparing it with Alchemist and Priest and determining whether it is any different?

I don't understand what is so difficult to understand about what I'm saying. People are waking up, trying a new class, and thinking suddenly everything about combat has changed.

No one is disputing that good shield use counters momentum classes. People are disputing that that is a problem, or unique to this class.

Synbios

Omor said:

Only way around a shield keepup right now is to shadow sever;shadow strike;reap, and that's assuming they get a low sip % and don't heal for more than you can reap for on the balance between strike and reap.

My pedantry acting up, but you can just shadow dictate once you land sever, since you get balance back by the time sever hits.

Borran

Zulah and I sparred quite a bit, and as two momentum classes, but if we both performed optimally, we would fight until we were about to enter the final kill route, one determines that two is going to kill him first and spams shield until momentum is reset, and then go at it again.  Barring someone getting greedy or just being ignorant of its mechanics, no one is going  die to DW.

Borran

We're both DW, I don't know why I said two momentum "classes"

Ryzeth

Borran said:

Barring someone getting greedy or just being ignorant of its mechanics, no one is going  die to DW.

You can quite literally say this about any class in the game. Except the one Druid route, that is actually not possible to escape, barring killing them first. You either get reclaimed, or die to damage.

Atalkez

Shield is strong but it's not something so drastically devestating that you can't kill at all.

It's the same for Serpent. A well timed shield can keep you alive. Any small error though and you don't survive.

Theory is theory for a reason. Practice is entirely different. It's too early for anyone to make statements like that when no one (myself and Farrah included) has come anywhere near to mastering the class.

Synbios

So I tried another utility-focused PvE build:

5 augmentation/2 hunting/3 environmental/1 dominion

The loss of barrier can be negated by judicious running/images/chrono rewind, while having some escape options like burrowing.

"But why the forced-follow?"

For the rare event that a citymate gets disconnected while bashing, and needs a ferry home.

Ahmet

@Synbios

"But why the forced-follow?"

Elad -> Go fulcrum -> Boosted doom in locked room -> Lolz

Synbios

Ahmet said:

@Synbios

"But why the forced-follow?"

Elad -> Go fulcrum -> Boosted doom in locked room -> Lolz

If I remember right, people can't follow you while fulcrum'ing.

Ahmet

Synbios said:

Ahmet said:

@Synbios

"But why the forced-follow?"

Elad -> Go fulcrum -> Boosted doom in locked room -> Lolz

If I remember right, people can't follow you while fulcrum'ing.

You are not remembering right.

Ryzeth

Synbios said:

Ahmet said:

@Synbios

"But why the forced-follow?"

Elad -> Go fulcrum -> Boosted doom in locked room -> Lolz

If I remember right, people can't follow you while fulcrum'ing.

Can follow fulcrum. Can't follow shadow step.

Ankhareoutef

Ryzeth said:

Borran said:

Barring someone getting greedy or just being ignorant of its mechanics, no one is going  die to DW.

You can quite literally say this about any class in the game. Except the one Druid route, that is actually not possible to escape, barring killing them first. You either get reclaimed, or die to damage.

Pre-apply on the bind. If they don't bind, you can just walk away or shield. It is 100% beatable - it just doesn't get used often enough for people to know how to beat it.

Ryzeth

Ankhareoutef said:

Ryzeth said:

Borran said:

Barring someone getting greedy or just being ignorant of its mechanics, no one is going  die to DW.

You can quite literally say this about any class in the game. Except the one Druid route, that is actually not possible to escape, barring killing them first. You either get reclaimed, or die to damage.

Pre-apply on the bind. If they don't bind, you can just walk away or shield. It is 100% beatable - it just doesn't get used often enough for people to know how to beat it.

Makarios would disagree. Either that, or you're thinking about a different one. He did say he's not seen anyone use it.

Synbios

Ahmet said:

You are not remembering right.

Ryzeth said:

Can follow fulcrum. Can't follow shadow step.

Ah, thanks.

Aylek

The best way I found to defend against a depthwalker at any point was simply shield every other attack when you see warning bells (lots of affs etc).

No punishment for it, if your prios are right you can utilise this to cure out of their "lock" paths/damage paths etc, with no worry of really being killed.

Omor

@Aylek Was mine and @Zulah's point at the top of this page/bottom of the last. It's an unpopular opinion around here.

Aylek

Omor said:

@Aylek Was mine and @Zulah's point at the top of this page/bottom of the last. It's an unpopular opinion around here.

I agree with you, its pretty simple to just touch shield for 3-4 rotations and easily cure the damage/avoid the affliction traps from it. Maybe slightly harder with unlucky madness procs, but definitely one of the best options outside of just dashing.

Zulah

I voiced a few thoughts. I was shot down for not being a "combatant" So I'm not going to pretend to suggest any balances. But for those interested, I've a couple dozen logs now fighting all sorts of classes and levels of skill. Atalkez was kind enough to spar me a few times too. Lots of great potential with the class. Liking it more as I get my aeonics working smoother in fights. If anyone wants to see some logs with kills that utilized preempt, accelerate, causality all deciding the key moments of the fights hit me up.

Atalkez

Atalkez said:

Shield is strong but it's not something so drastically devestating that you can't kill at all.

It's the same for Serpent. A well timed shield can keep you alive. Any small error though and you don't survive.

Theory is theory for a reason. Practice is entirely different. It's too early for anyone to make statements like that when no one (myself and Farrah included) has come anywhere near to mastering the class.

This still hasn't changed, though.

Shield is strong.

We can spar more!

Jhui

Maybe needs confusion as a capstone aff?

Zahan

Zulah said:

I voiced a few thoughts. I was shot down for not being a "combatant" So I'm not going to pretend to suggest any balances. But for those interested, I've a couple dozen logs now fighting all sorts of classes and levels of skill. Atalkez was kind enough to spar me a few times too. Lots of great potential with the class. Liking it more as I get my aeonics working smoother in fights. If anyone wants to see some logs with kills that utilized preempt, accelerate, causality all deciding the key moments of the fights hit me up.

The way you've been expressing yourself, really comes across as you're doing this for the lulz.  It seems like you're mad about dpw, from the word go.

First you were going, "ermagerd this class way too op can't be beaten" as you loltested combos on people who stood there and let you wail on them with proficy-grade credit-whoring.  It looked as if you had a clear goal to get it nerfed right out of the gate.

Then you come back with, "hurrr this class is weak and worthless" when you did stuff with people actually fighting back.

Now, it has 'lots of great potential'.  I'm confused as hell.

I myself appreciate your effort with testing, I only wish you were putting forward the information in a genuine and more complete manner so I wasn't naturally disregarding stuff due to a perceived bias.

Antonius

Jhui said:

Maybe needs confusion as a capstone aff?

Possibly. I don't know how long the madness instill stun is, but that seems like a decent candidate for replacement with confusion as a capstone affliction (it feels like it's by far the least useful of them). Madness attune has confusion as an affliction already, but I don't recall if it's its capstone affliction when you have all of the others or if it's just a potential proc affliction; attune might be a bit too slow to reliably get confusion before they start shielding, though.

Ryzeth

Antonius said:

Jhui said:

Maybe needs confusion as a capstone aff?

Possibly. I don't know how long the madness instill stun is, but that seems like a decent candidate for replacement with confusion as a capstone affliction (it feels like it's by far the least useful of them). Madness attune has confusion as an affliction already, but I don't recall if it's its capstone affliction when you have all of the others or if it's just a potential proc affliction; attune might be a bit too slow to reliably get confusion before they start shielding, though.

About the same as a pesante stun, barely a second regardless.

Farrah

You're crazy if you think pesante stun is as long as madness stun! We'd never fight back against bards.

Pesante is about .2 seconds
Madness is 1 second

I agree it's not particularly necessary though and could be replaced.

Ryzeth

Pesante is ~0.5-0.7. Hence 'about' the same. Also happens considerably more, and considerably faster from a bard >.>. On top of percussia, paralysis, clumsiness, you might as well not be fighting back against them especially with heartsfury etc giving para. #notbitter #fuckbard.

Agreed DW would be better off with something else as madness capstone, but can't really think of anything that wouldn't be crazy strong.

Zulah

Zahan said:

Zulah said:

I voiced a few thoughts. I was shot down for not being a "combatant" So I'm not going to pretend to suggest any balances. But for those interested, I've a couple dozen logs now fighting all sorts of classes and levels of skill. Atalkez was kind enough to spar me a few times too. Lots of great potential with the class. Liking it more as I get my aeonics working smoother in fights. If anyone wants to see some logs with kills that utilized preempt, accelerate, causality all deciding the key moments of the fights hit me up.

The way you've been expressing yourself, really comes across as you're doing this for the lulz.  It seems like you're mad about dpw, from the word go.

First you were going, "ermagerd this class way too op can't be beaten" as you loltested combos on people who stood there and let you wail on them with proficy-grade credit-whoring.  It looked as if you had a clear goal to get it nerfed right out of the gate.

Then you come back with, "hurrr this class is weak and worthless" when you did stuff with people actually fighting back.

Now, it has 'lots of great potential'.  I'm confused as hell.

I myself appreciate your effort with testing, I only wish you were putting forward the information in a genuine and more complete manner so I wasn't naturally disregarding stuff due to a perceived bias.

Thank you for your thoughts. I never realized I used terms like that. I'll attempt to express myself better.

To be more clear: I was offering my combat logs to people who like to see them since their aren't a lot here.