Hello.

This thread is not about critblade vs shadowmerc nor even about shadowmerc vs mid shadowzerk.

I made my choice and i wont change my mind.
So please answer to the question below without starting a debate or going off topic.

I m questionning myself between two specs.
For both i ll be ATing stealth to lvl 48 and for both i will stay 50 thrust 50 DW. Not 44 nor 39, just 50 that s it.

Keeping that in mind, there we go :

Option 1 : 50 thrust 50 DW 29 poison (lvl 40 dot with +11) 38 stealth, 10 CS
This is for rank one spec.

At rank 2 i ll have 50 composite stealth guess 49 composite stealth at rank1 wont hurt. I ll then decrease stealth with ranks and up poison but i ll always keep 50 composite stealth.

Why 10 CS ? Full DW/thrust shadowmerc who choose to keep envenom at descent lvl will sacrifice heavily CS line. This has good davantage vs many class but will hurt vs casters if purge is not up.

10 CS offers Backstab II. Dmg will suck ofc. Point is to BREAK bubble, caster is stunned for 3 secs, enough to land the DW backstyle chain, when he will face and q/c anything i would be able to land a dual shadows before being CCed.
Ofc dot/snare/debuff will have been applied and ofc most of the time i ll prefer to have purge up.
So yes 10 CS is low, but break bubble and give à free short stun. Chance to hit is not a problem since it will rely on my thrust spec and i ll have 50+11.

Option 2 : 50 thrust 50 DW 34 CS 35 stealth and 4+11 envenom.
This spec is totally sacrifying envenom. This is the spec i would prefer the less. This spec allow to kill casters easily on paper. Dont get me wrong, like the first option, the only reason to up CS for a shadowmerc is to have a stun. A shadowmerc spec with 21 CS wont be useful to me.
Here we have creeping death 7 seconds stun.
Dont get me wrong again, i would have hamstring leaper chain too, but the option 1 give me DW side chain. Which is not AS GOOD, but descent chain after à dragonfang if i play option 1.
I m more sceptical vs other class, not having envenom at all... this is the REAL QUESTION i m asking here.

Concerning option 2, how is it viable to you ?

no poisons could be hard vs other stealthers.

Not even mentioning other classes (hybrides, tanks or support classes) but yes, vs casters it sounds far easier than option 1.

Important : in addition i will only have 35+11 stealth at rank 1. How bad does it sound if you really know the stealth mechanics ?

If you have an option 3, go on, from the moment it is not off topic nor ironic.
Again, this is not a debate shadowmerc vs critblade. I made my choice, there will be a lot of critblades around, feel free to teach them the way.

Thx sharing your knowledge, advices and opinions.

Have fun

Wow, i guess nobody is interesting in my thread lol

i thought something simular but the problem is you can only run (in my opinion) >rr8 like this. before you loose too much.

crippling envenom is not an option at all, you just dont loose the dot you loose more important the con debuff.

what an option is to sacrifice stealth and

my setup would look like
env 32 with rr5 47er con debuff
stealth 30 , with this power you WANT action so its no big deal
dw/T 50
and CS 21 gives you pa with 7sec stun.
i would not like to trigger stun timer with only 3 secs

and remember when you say
" I ll then decrease stealth with ranks and up poison but i ll always keep 50 composite stealth."
this is classic, inif temp is already very expensive and you dont got access to respecs so easy. so better plan for a long time your setup

my 2 cent

elwuff wrote:and CS 21 gives you pa with 7sec stun.
i would not like to trigger stun timer with only 3 secs

21 CS? More like 34 CS, since the stun is a followup to PA, it's called 'Creeping Death'.


I like option 1 most tbh, it should be viable, and how often will you be able to place a successful PA anyways? Especially against moving targets with the pretty bad latency from time to time (just play any melee class and try to face stuff and do styles, you will get 'not in sight' pretty often!). Backstab is a bit more viable.

silenced wrote:

elwuff wrote:and CS 21 gives you pa with 7sec stun.
i would not like to trigger stun timer with only 3 secs

21 CS? More like 34 CS, since the stun is a followup to PA, it's called 'Creeping Death'.


I like option 1 most tbh, it should be viable, and how often will you be able to place a successful PA anyways? Especially against moving targets with the pretty bad latency from time to time (just play any melee class and try to face stuff and do styles, you will get 'not in sight' pretty often!). Backstab is a bit more viable.

yep you are right, my mistake

Thx for this advices.

Indeed, question is 34 CS basically no poison (easier vs caster) or 10 CS and descent poison to BREAK bubble (no stun immunity prob vs caster since no dragonfang, ofc i would never BS a meleer and waste a dragonfang opportunity).

Maybe with option one, lowering stealth from 38 to 36 rrk5 composite. That will give 31+11 envenom (last snare at rrk 1) and last debuff at rank 6.

Is that so hard to live with lvl 37 debuff for 6 ranks ?

In that scenario i ll start rank 1 with 47 composite stealth.

Keep up that thread guys. It become interesting i need more to share their opinion.

Cheer

good part is soon there will be i50 option so we can test a lot.

then we know what makes sense or not

i personally wouldnt drop env. at any time, but this is just my personal preference.
if you ignore env. you dont need inv full of weapons

imho if u mind to train an infiltrator to make shish kebab of mages dont train thrust.. instead go for slash!

if AT til lv48: 39stealth 39poisons 39slash 50dw 18cs (13cs w/o AT)


that's it

Docz wrote:imho if u mind to train an infiltrator to make shish kebab of mages dont train thrust.. instead go for slash!

if AT til lv48: 39stealth 39poisons 39slash 50dw 18cs (13cs w/o AT)


that's it

I'd never give up dragonfang a 9sec off evade stun is ridiculously good.