Suggestion Deathmark/Shadowstep

[Egorh]

Ok, so I think the majority of us know that ninja is not in a very good spot. It requires a very specific play style and even then it is not that effective. A couple of weeks ago there was talk about giving Dreadknight shadowstep again. But I honestly don't see a need for the class to have a skill like shadowstep (this thread is not about Dreadknight changes). Ninja is a class that relies on backstab damage and often enough you don't get off as many as you need. I have said before that Ninja should be the class to receive shadowstep and other people have suggested this on threads/in offtopic chat. Instead of just giving Ninja shadowstep I think that we should change Deathmark to incorporate it.
Deathmark

• You mark you target for death for 15s leading you in their direction (your compass will point towards them as usual). If you are within 10 blocks of the target you can activate this skill again to teleport to their back. Your next hit will do a bonus 15% damage.
• Warmup:1.5s
• Cooldown: 30s-It will only go on cooldown after the 15s duration or after using the 2nd effect of the skill
• Take away the health cost

If we take this route with Ninja it will allow them to get off the extra couple backstabs they need in the middle of the fight. It also gives deathmark a more practical use in the middle of combat-before it would do two hearts of damage to you for 10% increased damage over the duration but the tradeoff was not good enough for a fight

 

[Ahrall]

I completely agree that ninja is in dire need of a way to get some backstabs off and addition of shadowstep is a great step (lol) in the right direction. Backstab is an essential part of the ninja's kit that, unfortunately, you will almost never be able utilize in a normal fight because no half decent player will let you get behind them
That being said, I'm not entirely sure combining it with deathmark is the best course of action. Perhaps if we merged it with garrote instead? My thoughts would be to scrap garrote entirely (the skill is extremely clunky) and combine its effects with shadowstep:

Shadowstep:
Teleport behind your target within 10 blocks (scales with agility) silence them for 2 seconds, and activate sneak (this part optional)

I'm not a fan of giving a gap closer a warm up (kind of defeats the purpose.) Or having a highly mobile and nimble assassin with warm ups (not very nimble if you have to stop moving all of a sudden). However if the warm up did not slow you it could be acceptable.

Discuss

 

[MichaelRL]

Yeah I agree, warm ups on ninja are not so fun (blitz)

 

[RShooter2000]

Steps to Make Ninja Good:
1.) Give shadowstep to ninja
2.) Remove garrote
That right there will make ninja a good class.

A small raise in base hp would be a nice addition too.

 

[mikehk]

just a question about ninja (i dont play it much) why does everyone hate garrote? its a 3 second silence that does 55~ damage, 3 seconds!

in my opinion, dont add it to deathmark, just make it another skill. dont change deathmark either.

 

[Ahrall]

Garrote sucks because of a few reasons:
1: it really really REALLY sucks to have to pull out string to cast it. Yes this is "thematic" but pulling out string when you are in melee range for a skill that is only marginally better than kick is a bit of a let down
2: kick has a significantly smaller cooldown, identical damage, nearly identical silence AND you can cast it with your sword out (so it doesn't halt your dps)

Essentially garrote is just kick, but it has some extra requirements to cast that don't provide a big enough benefit to warrant casting it

 

[Ultanian]

Garrote sucks because of a few reasons:
1: it really really REALLY sucks to have to pull out string to cast it. Yes this is "thematic" but pulling out string when you are in melee range for a skill that is only marginally better than kick is a bit of a let down
2: kick has a significantly smaller cooldown, identical damage, nearly identical silence AND you can cast it with your sword out (so it doesn't halt your dps)

Essentially garrote is just kick, but it has some extra requirements to cast that don't provide a big enough benefit to warrant casting it

Honestly I think the best way to improve garrote is to add slowness and blindness to it...

 

[Ahrall]

Slowness would be very nice and might be that extra something that the skill needs to make it worthwhile
Blind is odd on a melee class because if you are in range to blind someone then they can still see you when they are blinded rendering it pretty much useless

 

[lordprettyflack0]

I love this skill true, it really brings the limelight to ninja and what potential it has

Great skill truecorruptor!

Fuck u jay

 

[0xNaomi]

ShadowStep doesn't need to be added into another skill, nor does it need a "next hit will do X" when ninja has backstab.
The issue with it on DK was that after the GCD was added, you couldn't combo it with whatever DK's behind the back drainsoul is/was.
Backstab is a passive skill, and ShadowStep puts you in a perfect position to backstab (literally).
You might want to combo it with a separate stun skill in your strategy, but you don't need a stun BUILT INTO it.

 

[northeaster345]

Slowness would be very nice and might be that extra something that the skill needs to make it worthwhile
Blind is odd on a melee class because if you are in range to blind someone then they can still see you when they are blinded rendering it pretty much useless

Maybe slow and nausea because you got strangled?

 

[0xNaomi]

Blind is odd on a melee class because if you are in range to blind someone then they can still see you when they are blinded rendering it pretty much useless

On this note, we can't really do a visual-only blindness. Blinding prevents targeting, period.

 

[Ahrall]

You might want to combo it with a separate stun skill in your strategy, but you don't need a stun BUILT INTO it.

Unfortunately due to the (much needed) removal of blackjack ninja has no stun. A slow on Shadowstep would be cool, but not necessary.

All in all the only effect we need tacked on to Shadowstep would be a silence. The silence would prevent your target from simply blinking/jumping/piggifying/entangling away the second you step to them which would render the ability utterly useless.
As far as a +X% damage on your next attack, that is an effect that would be better added to Smoke.

On this note, we can't really do a visual-only blindness. Blinding prevents targeting, period.

We don't need a new blind effect. The vanilla minecraft blind is prefect as it is. The only issue is that blindness shrouds everything beyond a 6 block range and melee hits are a 4 block range meaning that even if the target is blinded they can still see the ninja, but this is a conversation for a different hread

 

[0xNaomi]

We don't need a new blind effect. The vanilla minecraft blind is prefect as it is. The only issue is that blindness shrouds everything beyond a 6 block range and melee hits are a 4 block range meaning that even if the target is blinded they can still see the ninja, but this is a conversation for a different hread

It's not new. Using Heroes to inflict blindness (as is proper procedure when making a skill) prevents targeting.

 

[malikdanab]

Garrote can be changed to a stun (As it was intended to be)...

 

[Egorh]

Garrote can be changed to a stun (As it was intended to be)...

I don't think Ninja should have a stun again--there are better options than giving it what I would call a 'win' key.

Another idea that came to my mind is to remove garrote and attach it on to shadowstep, so when you activate it, it will silence the target but do no bonus damage. If a silence would be too strong on a gap closer like this one an interrupt would work as well.

And then there is the warmup. Because this skill would be fairly easy to cast and no 'punishment' it should be a bit more difficult to land a good shadowstep.

• Is not a part of Deathmark
• Is a projectile like the Throw Axe skill or a shuriken. When it hits it does A little bit of damage and 'marks' them, you then can activate it again to teleport to their back
• This makes it so that the tanks/peeling class can block it to help keep people off their squishes

 

[Ahrall]

Is a projectile like the Throw Axe skill or a shuriken. When it hits it does A little bit of damage and 'marks' them, you then can activate it again to teleport to their back

Not too sure about this one. Other classes have ways to close the gap through the front line (jump, lunge, blink) it would make sense that the slippery assassin would have a similar benefit. It's a cool idea, but doesn't really "fit"
From a balance standpoint I can understand having a warm up, but warm ups on ninja ruin the feel of the class. Blitz having a warm up is arguably one of the most frustrating mechanics out there, it doesn't feel ninja. You cant profess to be a nimble assassin if you have to stop movement for a few moments to cast a spell. Especially if that spell is a gap closer, it just thematically doesn't make sense

 

[Egorh]

Not too sure about this one. Other classes have ways to close the gap through the front line (jump, lunge, blink) it would make sense that the slippery assassin would have a similar benefit. It's a cool idea, but doesn't really "fit"
From a balance standpoint I can understand having a warm up, but warm ups on ninja ruin the feel of the class. Blitz having a warm up is arguably one of the most frustrating mechanics out there, it doesn't feel ninja. You cant profess to be a nimble assassin if you have to stop movement for a few moments to cast a spell. Especially if that spell is a gap closer, it just thematically doesn't make sense

Although I do agree that warmups don't exactly fit Ninja it will be needed unless it trades off in other places.

 

[malikdanab]

If you leave it as a plain teleport, I could see it without a warm-up. Maybe to trade off the fact that it's instantaneous instead of a leap, it could have a shorter range.

 

[Ahrall]

What if we had a slightly longer warm up (1.5-2 seconds) that didn't restrict your movement, identical to a Pyromancer's Dragon Breath? This would give your target time to react/prepare for the impending teleport without ruining the fast moving flow of ninja.
Or what if it had a fairly ridiculous stamina cost?

Range should be the standard 10ish blocks, 7-9 is acceptable but anything under 7 is too small for a gap closer
Cooldown should be something in the early/mid 20s, too much more than that and then all of a ninjas unique skills would only be cast once a fight