How should Shadow Form be balanced?

I've seen alot of people talk about shadow form being overpowered in PvE, alot of people talking about it needing a nerf, but I rarely see suggestions for how to balance it. My apologies if this thread has been created before, I couldn't find anything like it through search. My idea is to have the enchantment itself have a longer duration, say 60 seconds, but have a definate down time afterwards, it would function similiarly to Dervish form spells do in PvP. This would allow people to still use it in groups for tanking, and even farming, but would force you to use it the way I believe it was intended to be used, to grant temperary invincibilty (in most situations), during which time you must either kill what you have aggroed, or run like hell if you can't. The down time wouldn't really even need to be that long, maybe like 30 seconds or so. This could remove the need for glyph of swiftness and deadly paradox on the bar, allowing the sin to do more stuff while in shadow form. That's just one idea, I would love to hear other ideas.

I think the health sacrifice should be removed but the skill should be disabled for 45 seconds so you can't maintain it, but you are still able to use it to save yourself.

I 100% agree with this.

I 100% DISagree with changing this skill again for the 500th friggin' time! if you don't like a skill don't use it. posts like this is why the devs always change things.

For 10...30 seconds, all hostile spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss, but you can't deal any damage. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 Health.

Energy: 10
Activation: 1second
Recharge: 60

Yes I agree with this. It shouldn't be allowed to deal damage.

If they make it so you can't deal damage, all the people who use their sins to farm will suddenly all be runners instead.

I think extending the recharge and leaving the rest alone is the best option.

Shadowform was made originally for a more farming oriented elite, they just didn't realize how out of hand it was going to get. Shadowform is only so deadly because it used to be able to farm anything people set their minds to. Right now, why would they even need to nerf Shadowform? If they want to nerf the current meta farming builds, nerf Essence of Celerity. This will leave raptor farming, and umm.. hmm... farming bosses. Sounds like what every other profession can do!

Using most of the bars with Glyph of Swiftness now is not working very well as the damage done already isn't cutting it, however Strength of Honor has proven to help bring this back up, but then you're farming with two people and the problem is no longer solo farming. You are forced to pick the ele secondary, and though it is possible to echo chain shadowform, the success rate plummets for a lot of farms and using A/Me is also quite limiting moreso than A/E.

OK for one when shadow form was nerfed months back they had said that they will not take it away but make it harder to keep up and they had said they would never Nerf a build like that to make it not usable but they will nerf ways of farming like they had just done with keg farming

I think removing the ability to do damage under shadow form changes what shadow form was originally intended as, a way to do damage without having to worry about your health for a brief time, but afterwards needing to gtfo. Shadowform not allowing damage makes it a pure tanking skill only, something it really isn't meant for, why would an assasin (somebody who kills stuff), want invulnerability but not be able to do damage?

ok there is a difference from dealing and casting spells because what i take from dealing damage is using weapon but when you use like sliver armor its just an enchantment for when a monster attacks you so really the guys are killing them selves

Yeah,this might be the main idea,but I still believe that assassins are doing great as tanks. And if I am not wrong,they are supposed to live in shadows, thus Shadow Form,and here goes the invincibility.You can't really kill shadows,can you?
I don't want them to nerf SF at the first point,but if they have to,that how they should do it in my opinion.

Revert it back to the original form when you had to mimic the skill so we return to A/Me.

i think they just need to change the casting time for 1 sec to 2 or 3 sec's that would stop people form being able to perma it all the time

While you maintain this enchantment, all hostile spells fail that target other ally and all attacks against target ally miss. Target ally deals 41...5% less damage. When Shadow Form ends, you and target other ally lose all but 5...41 Health. This enchantment ends if you use a skill on yourself or become enchanted. Prior enchantments stay on and don't prevent SF from working.


10 Energy, 6 sec cast time, Disabled for 60 seconds, -1 Energy regen.


It may be a bit radical, but it's fundamentally the same. There's no reason to ruin one invincibuild if you're going to let others live, so I propose it be made a maintainable enchantment that you can't self-target with. The Parameters that make it end are there so you don't see UW/DOA teams with 7 Permasins, none of whom are actually assassins running about, causing mayhem with epic Speed.

Make it like shadow walk.

While you are under the effect of this enchantment, you cannot cast enchantments.

DoA 7perma sins? Seriously,something is wrong with that,the main idea of DoA is tank and spank,so you will only see 2permas who deal no damage whatsoever there.
Anyway,I kinda like this idea but it's pretty complicated,kinda hard to see them changing to something like that.

I agree. Its been nerfed what? Three times now? Leave it be, if you dont like, dont use it. I dont like RoJ, but you dont see me screaming at the top of my lungs to nerf it. Jeez. Oh, and so no one will say 'I bet you perma!' No, I do not, have not and will not ever make a perma.

neither am I a perma. i have tried it and dont like it. i will farm with my monky or necro instead

If you don't like it, then don't do it? Hmmm, If I don't like Murder, then don't do it? Yeah, that makes sense.

I would change it to last like 15 second max duration and have either a 45 or 60 second recharge. That way you can get in there, so some dmg without getting slaughtered and get out. Or purely defensive.