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Comments
The reason Targ rolls heavy with DW is because our factional classes suck in comparison, and DW is A+ utility. Plus Aeon.
Has nothing to do with "we do so much damage this way".
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Honest question, was the class designed to be a Jack of All Trades, Master of None with a low barrier to artefact/combat experience entry?
It was designed to balance out Occultist, which is equally good at everything
Though, I've already said it has many downsides. It has no prep route. It kills slower than many momentum classes. It doesn't have passive curing. It doesn't have great damage stacking for multiple DW. It has no real ranged attack. Distort doesn't last as long as piety/gravehands. And many classes have unique, game-changing abilities that DW doesn't have: retardation, grounding destab, nairat salve strats, instant disabler/bite setups like battlecry, hangedman/impale, and the list goes on.
Not all classes are equal in group combat, and they never have been, but it isn't as if DW is the only class worth playing now, and DW did a lot to balance out factional disparities that were just stupid. It is infinitely better for everyone to have the option of "go DW" when they hate their factional than to have some sides just suck due to class imbalances.
Ultimately, I don't know if DW is 'overpowered' or not. But it suffers the same issue that many other classes in many games have. It's a class with low risk/effort/skill, high reward, and that's really frustrating to fight against. People don't like losing to people who are categorically 'worse' than them, less skilled, less experienced, etc., at least not in scenarios where they didn't get caught off guard, outflanked, or what have you.
DW has an absurdly low skill floor, requires no artefacts to be effective, and is extremely dangerous (in groups, mostly, but in 1v1 it's pretty good too). This means Joe Newbie who has spent 0 time (or money, which some people value just as much, though imo money obv shouldn't even play a factor) can be almost as effective as someone with years of experience and thousands of dollars of arties.
Yes, it's good for newbies to be able to engage in combat. But the difference is that newbies in other artefact-independent classes have to at least learn some kind of mechanics, and the classes have room for error. DW is pretty impossible to screw up as, in comparison.
This is an argument that comes up in lots of games, like I said before. It's been like a heated thing for a rl year now in overwatch, it's happened in wow arena when cleave comps just mashed one button to do absurd damage, etc. Having classes where it takes much more effort to defend against it than it does to be dangerous at it is inherently frustrating. This has often been the case with damage classes, of course, especially back when arties were a lot more brokenly powerful. Depthswalker is just the newest iteration of this, and doesn't even require arties.
At least, if you're curing without using class cures.
So that's like.. what.. 12-ish seconds where the depthswalker is literally doing nothing but paralysis to hinder your offense, just to do a damage kill.
I know I'm a noob, but I had to duel a Syssin as a DW and I got absolutely trashed... and they admitted that they were still learning their class. 12 seconds is a long time to just prep for the actual fight.
I can't contribute on any other kill route, though. Not having the Arti dagger means that I have to sacrifice momentum just to switch my focus, so whatever I attune at first tends to determine what I'll be doing. Degen = damage. (Also, I can't really survive long enough without the clumsiness and paralysis that instilled degen/curare gives me.)
Sol 2. Delete Farrah
Sol 3. Delete Mhaldor
Obviously, DSB is a better finisher than DW damage route is, but to say that 12 seconds to prep while giving curare is somehow bad is ridiculous.
Aeon itself is certainly a low skill mechanic, mind you, but that's where we go back to factional balance. It's far more aggravating to lose to something your team doesn't have than it is to lose to something you can do back.
Shadow prep is not real prep. It's momentum "prep." Knights don't need momentum to prep in the same way. It's not really worth comparing.
Though, @Voli your attune shouldn't really be forcing you to damage strat. Degen attune works fine with any strat. It provides hinder for you, which always helps.
Which just proves my point that the class is frustratingly designed (and I'd say the design is ultimately flawed, tbh, other competitive games try to avoid this to some extent). That everyone has access to it doesn't make it any less so. Everyone in wow could play physical cleave comps but that didn't mean people didn't find it a terrible meta.
Should really start by deleting the aeon aff, though, or leaving it only for vodun/puppetry.
I've fought a Sword and Shield knight and I have a roughly 50% chance to win the fight before they have me proned and dead. The other 50% has them exploding in a shower of gore. I'm pretty sure they can outpace my degeneration capstone, now. (Cause they are a better fighter than I am, lol)
What do you mean by your comment of "compared to what I regularly get rekt by"? I've a hard time believing you get regularly rekt, but I've not had much time to play with a mini-me around (no, not a Minifie, screw that guy
I mean, if we could delete all factionals and DW, I'd be perfectly content. Fighting Occultist is by far the most aggravating thing to me, and is just as ez-mode.
Room damage: spam chaos rays
Damage: spam warp/hound
Affliction locks: spam aeon
Damage and locks: just Truename
DW was a huge relief.
If you're getting outpaced in a straight fight (assuming he's not slow prepping) then the knight is just massively out of your skill level, in which case using it as an example for class balance isn't really very productive. If anything, the fact you're winning 50% of the time despite that says a lot about DW's skill floor in that case. If he's slow prepping you, then welcome to life as a momentum class in a game that heavily favours slow prep.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
That's pretty much how balancing a class works with game theory design in mind.
Depthswalker was released to bridge the gap between Occultist and everything else. Occultist is still better than DW in nearly every way, except that to maximize you have to spend quite a lot more to reach maximum output vs DW.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Yes, that is what the class was designed to do - and it serves that role extremely well. It was intended to be an easy-to-grasp class, with lots of utility/augments built in to reduce the investment burden. The class offers the ability to contribute in meaningful ways, that isn't faction locked, and doesn't require a massive investment. The artefacts were designed to add extra benefit - not directly buff the offense (through speed upgrades like Thoth), which has worked great as well.
It's 2018, if you want new players to come and actually retain them, I'd think those would be nice features of a class.