Curse

Siren · Jul 04, 2006, 03:23 PM // 15:23

I'm positive we won't be seeing the Dual Shadow Form build much outside of WM. We've seen people here talking about facing "scrubby" versions of it? Versions that were nowhere near as well-played as War Machine's?

Yeah. It's not a gimmick build, because I tend to view gimmick builds as something that most people can play easily (Blood Spike, IWAY, etc). This is not one of those builds. Hell, I was mathing out the logistics of such a tag-team earlier, and the two characters have to be in complete unison the entire time to minimize the downtime of the build. I've worked out a way to keep Shadow Form up for close to a full 60 second, using 20% Enchant mods, and staggering the use of Arcane Echo-->Shadow Form-->Arcane Mimicry, but the timers of Arcane Echo and Mimicry necessitate using them at 22 seconds of the previous Shadow Form.

It's pretty fragile--much moreso than I realized previously.

With 20% Enchant mods and a Shadow Arts at 14-15 (which is very risky in and of itself), you can get the duration of your initial Shadow Form up to approximately 22-23 seconds...the starter duration of Shadow Form at 14-15 Shadow Arts is roughly 19 seconds. Mathematically, you can keep Shadow Form up all the time.

Problem is it's so fragile and so skill and build-intensive that it's not worth it.

So there's no nerf bat coming. lol

TheOneMephisto · Jul 04, 2006, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siren

I'm positive we won't be seeing the Dual Shadow Form build much outside of WM. We've seen people here talking about facing "scrubby" versions of it? Versions that were nowhere near as well-played as War Machine's?

Yeah. It's not a gimmick build, because I tend to view gimmick builds as something that most people can play easily (Blood Spike, IWAY, etc). This is not one of those builds. Hell, I was mathing out the logistics of such a tag-team earlier, and the two characters have to be in complete unison the entire time to minimize the downtime of the build. I've worked out a way to keep Shadow Form up for close to a full 60 second, using 20% Enchant mods, and staggering the use of Arcane Echo-->Shadow Form-->Arcane Mimicry, but the timers of Arcane Echo and Mimicry necessitate using them at 22 seconds of the previous Shadow Form.

It's pretty fragile--much moreso than I realized previously.

With 20% Enchant mods and a Shadow Arts at 14-15 (which is very risky in and of itself), you can get the duration of your initial Shadow Form up to approximately 22-23 seconds...the starter duration of Shadow Form at 14-15 Shadow Arts is roughly 19 seconds. Mathematically, you can keep Shadow Form up all the time.

Problem is it's so fragile and so skill and build-intensive that it's not worth it.

So there's no nerf bat coming. lol

Exactly, 1 shockwar consistently interrupting mimicry can kill or at least shut down one of the assassins forever. It takes some skill to manage to position yourself so that you're not getting shocked whenever you use those skills, especially if you're playing against a good shockwar who has memorized the timers and such. Also, a well timed blackout can give you enough time to kill the assassin before he can put up his next shadow form.

Also, if you look at WM's build, you see that it would've failed quite badly if those assassins had been shutdown. If mn had been prepared for it, they could've slaughtered WM in a straight 8v8 fight. The build depends on mn having to send 3, 4, even 5 characters, including a monk, back just to try and take down those 2 assassins.

I'm preparing to bet that a lot of the top guilds are watching or have watched that observer match and come up with ways to take it down if they meet it. I doubt that WM will try to pull that trick out again if they know that they will be facing prepared teams.

nutsngum · Jul 04, 2006, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kijik Oni Hanryuu

this build won't fly, not because it sucks, but because this build is begging for the nerf bat, either they are going to make Arcane Echo an elite, or they are going to do something absolutely horrible to shadow form, and all hell will break loose again, Sins will be done one more build when they only have like three really good ones to start with. oy, I hate GvG sometimes, they always get us nerfed..

Yes, they are going to make Arcane echo elite, because there isn't already an elite version in the form of Echo.

Phades · Jul 05, 2006, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Given that they usually cast a second or two before their previous shadow form ends, you'd only have a couple seconds of vulnerability. That's not to say it wouldn't work, but it's by no means the best solution since you have to have a squishy Dom mesmer back on your split team. Assassins like these can drop casters quickly, even with monk support.

The aforementioned ideas are probably better. Signet-based enchantment removal or interrupts, or just non-targeted damage like traps and smiting.

They cant kill the mesmer without using a combo and the blackout just stops one of em cold regardless, while creating holes in time where they cant re-apply the skill. Granted the situation given 2 assassins vs 1 blackout guy, making a requirement to at least match them in numbers. A ranger could split points for blackout as well, but that does tend to split the attributes a bit thin.

I think part of its sucess was the 2 of them working together along with being hard to target. If the damage was that overpowering, then they would have just made a complete team of that style of assassin, while running around invicible the majority of the time. Of course i would have to laugh if someone brought things like unnatural signet, bane signet, and sig of judgment and just killed them when the enchant wore off and their hp took a dive.

Aug · Jul 05, 2006, 01:52 PM // 13:52

IMO, this isn't a gimmick. A gimmick to me is a build that utilizes synergies across all (or most) characters, not just having two with nearly identical skill bars. Hell, in a lot of GvGs there are a pair of Warriors (Shock/Axe) or Monks (Boon/Prot) with nearly identical bars and usually those builds are considered "balanced".

There is another skill that could kill one of these assassins pretty easily that hasn't been mentioned yet: Illusionary Weaponry.

I still think Shadow Form could use a little modification, however. Perhaps change it to a skill or stance, so you can't Arcane Echo it. Or make it cause Exhaustion (preferably half-Exhaustion... but I don't know if ANet can/would do that). That would prevent you from abusing it via echo, but not terribly impact assassins that use it as intended.

Skuld · Jul 05, 2006, 02:21 PM // 14:21

Touch rangers are fun

TheOneMephisto · Jul 05, 2006, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aug

There is another skill that could kill one of these assassins pretty easily that hasn't been mentioned yet: Illusionary Weaponry.

I still think Shadow Form could use a little modification, however. Perhaps change it to a skill or stance, so you can't Arcane Echo it. Or make it cause Exhaustion (preferably half-Exhaustion... but I don't know if ANet can/would do that). That would prevent you from abusing it via echo, but not terribly impact assassins that use it as intended.

Of course, IW is total and utter ****, so why would anyone use it either way outside of RA?

I doubt that Anet will make it cause exhaustion, just because they are wary of sticking self-inflicting exhaustion on non-eles. I personally think that this is perfectly fine, just because it is so hard to pull off. The most nerf I would like to see might be 2-3 sec shorter duration, making it even more fragile.

nohooiam · Jul 05, 2006, 03:12 PM // 15:12

best i could come up with is a monk / mesmer split.

blackout before shadow form reapplies, then e burn (wand?) it. -_-;

need the monk to keep stuff alive while assassins have form on.

Red Locust · Jul 06, 2006, 01:56 AM // 01:56

It's not hard to pull off. You can easily and consistently pull off ~9 shadow forms in a row, the 10th (or maybe 9th) becomes what I assume to be impossibly difficult to achieve since the timer on mimicry is nowhere near completion by the time you need it. You can see how WM cannot maintain an indefinite presence in the base, on several occasions they need to run out before SF expires. Anyways, it just takes about 30mins of practice to nail the technique down.

ubrikkean · Jul 06, 2006, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Well, I was experimenting with getting many different constant Shadow Form builds a while back, far before this community uproar

, though with the target of TA, which is a bit different.... We ended up abandoning the A/Me for A/R, with Quickening Zephyr and Serpent's Quickness, which allows us to, however painful to the energy, keep up a truly constant Shadow Form, though obviously since the QZ is killable it's very susceptable, and not really practical for use unless the opposing team is really stupid. I've got no comment on whether it should be nerfed or not, but I like seeing a use for the combo.