Reforming Shadow Form:

I know this is a beaten subject, and I know that Guild Wars is mostly dead, but hear me out.

Since the game is still being balanced and they seem to be trying to corral the whole idea of speed clears and the nearly invincible META, I want to discuss some ideas about it.

First of all, I want to ask you guys what you think Anet was looking for when they created that skill? I doubt they wanted an invincible tank. The idea, to me, was a skill to get the squishy Sin into the fray and back out without dying. It's a great idea, really.

So I believe making the skill less effective, providing a damage cap or whatever is not the answer. I don't know what is possible with the way the AI works, but imagine this:

Shadow Form would be an instantaneous like 1/4th second activate. It would have no recharge (or a very short one...), but would be disabled for x amount of time (depending on shadow arts) and deactivated as soon as you do damage. So, you could use it to get in and get out, only being vulnerable (ideally) while you are doing damage. But you'd also get owned if you deactivated it while over-aggroing.

Obviously, it would give full invulnerability, and if possible it'd be great to even have it make so the enemies didn't know you were there until it deactivated. Then, it would still be a pretty cool skill without being game breaking.

Good idea?

-CM

But that's exactly what they want now. They are pro using a shadow form guy as the tank for a bunch of nukers to spank off of. They are anti shadow forms solo farming everything with their own damage, allowing one character to clear portions of elite missions that should require several.

invinsible tank would allow easy maneuvering to ball up massive mobs into easy balls for aoe spikeage. you could run through everything. nty.

/notsigned

That's not what he's saying. Reread it. He's stating instead if the idea of shadow form being a tank skill to make it a spike utility so sins can get in do dmg and get out fast without bring harmed. No elongated effects. Can't upkeep it either. He also states removing the damage cap would help imporve SF along with adding the above effect. Kinda like siphon strength+shadowfang+aura of displacement thing. So reread it, he's not talkingabout making sf a tank skill.

/ signed

so you cant do dmg but you can still be a goldy tank? have you ever done any doa speed clears? the sins dont do the dmg (other then sliver which could be changed) the spikers do (eles necros mes or rits) so this would drive the price of arms down even more bad idea.

Bad idea? Lol so them being high is a good idea? Dude easy money. He wants them to Get In Get OutAfterDealingDmg. Damn... No tanking. monks and wars were meant to tank. Sins were meant to spike . FFS read!!!!!

Ah, I think I've figured out what you're proposing. Seems incredibly pointless. The main idea is getting in and out unharmed... so basically it's an elite self-disabling shadow step except you have to do the walking instead of jumping straight in.

Note: Disabling and recharge is set so it cannot be permanently maintained, so there won't be any invincible runners or ballers or anything like that. Reread the OP a few times and you get what he/she is talking about.

ah yea its hard to under stand maby thats why...

Read carefully and you'll see:

He's not talking about making it a tank skill. He's talking about making it an invisibility skill, like rouges from WoW. You sneak in, spike something down, lose invulnerability while you're attacking, and then when you're done, sneak out. If enemies can't see you while SF is up, you presumably lose their aggro, therefore you aren't tanking them.

While it's an interesting concept (I know WoW has something like this, and perhaps we'll see something similar in GW2), It seems to me like it would take quite a bit of reworking to get this functionality now. As long as there was a limit to the duration of the effect to keep it from being broken, I think it could be an interesting addition. But at the same time, I feel like this could be abused in PvP with teams of invisible assassins running around and spiking people out of nowhere.

Invulnerability has no place in an MMO.

If you wanna make it not an incredible tanking and farming skill bring it back to its original usefulness. But then they would have to make something else extremely awesome at farming to make up for the gap...

Yea... I think that it would be hard to work, but it was just an idea to bring back more of the 'main idea' of shadow form. I wasn't really taking into account pvp... but it would be kind of funny if they could make sins be able to jump out of nowhere and spike you. That would be something that you would expect from an assassin class.

^ Is that sarcasm? I think the reason I even had to make this point was because of Shadow Form offering invulnerability. This is just a less exploitable, more innovative idea. Obviously SF is better now, but before it was literally full invulnerability.

I just want to see Shadow Form changed... because right now it's ruining pve. Shadow Form IS the meta. I understand what it's like to be nerfed to hell (like the first minion nerf, although we all adapted... didn't we?), and I don't want to see that happen. I want to see Shadow Form still be a very viable skill and Sin still have their place in pve. Because, let's face it, back in factions and for awhile thereafter, nobody wanted to do high level pve with a sin.

I guess it all comes around, and they can have their moment to shine, too, but I just hope that, at least, anet learns from this and doesn't put a skill that gives invulnerability to either spells or attacks in GW2.

-CM

/Signed

I really like run in all the world without problems xD

all the problems created by the first update that created perma shadow form could of been ended just as fast if Anet reverted it back to the original release version. 5E/1sec cast/60 second recharge. lasted only 5-20 seconds. back then the only way it was used was with arcane echo on your bar. that was also before deadly paradox and con sets too.

/notsigned

Shadow form desperately needs a change but invisibility isn't the answer. It does need a complete functionality change (not tanking) but from what I understand in the OP (which isn't much), this idea is not the way to change it.

Shadow Form was awesome when it didn't have other skills like Glyph of Swiftness and Deadly Paradox to allow you to maintain it all the time. Damage was not reduced, so you could kill things without worry of getting killed, but you had to kill things within the time it was active, AND retreat to safety in that time. Was fun using Shadow of Haste with it to teleport to safety when it ended, and it required some skill to use (some, but not a lot). And of course the addition of cons to boost attributes and adjust casting/recharge of skills makes it too easy to keep it up.

I don't know if they can or will, but I would be happy to see a form of Shadow Form like it was originally. Would take some careful adjustment of multiple factors though, as new skills and items make the upkeep too easy.

/not signed.

How about they get around to actually rebalancing the horrible reward/effort ratio in so many places first. With all the complaint about bad reward from courier lets not forget that people still get two worthless gems from dungeons after spending 2+ hrs in there "normally". I actually missed having an actual pug groups for dungeons even if it was just SF tank sin + 2 monk + 5 damage dealers. The last SF adjustment did absolutely nothing (as predicted) except increase bot population and create more rata sum farmers.

Also...underpowered Derv, Para, Damage Ele, and Ranger are still waiting.