Shade with Spear and Longbow?

[Sciophyte]

I've been playing Shade a lot and so far, I've been running with the Crossbow, as intended, and the Glaive, which is so delightfully capable of cracking the nuts on armored opponents. But for Horde-Control, the Spear for the push-RC-LC attack is far superior to the Glaive, imo. I'm also personally more handy with a LB than with the CB (whose need to regularly reload I'm not in love with).

Testing with the dummies, the damage numbers for a fully charged LB headshot and a triple shot with the CB seem acceptably close to one another, and I found the same to be the case for backstab attacks (from cloak and w/o) with the Spear compared to the Glaive.

The Glaive of course is great for cleaving armor, but in my perception that's what any decent Kruber does as well, and probably better all around. Besides, I've gotten pretty decent at landing headshots with the spear.

So why not just play WS, you may ask? Well, while the WS ult is great for dealing with that hard to target gas rat or leech, I find it generally less useful than cloaking and backstabbing.

Long story short, I've only one concern: Am I missing some vital reason Shades shouldn't run around with Spears or LBs? I feel pretty happy with that setup, but one never knows!

Thanks for reading, and for any helpful pointers!

[Sciophyte]

Sooo... I guess this means, whatever works for me, and all that?

[OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle]

Spear does work fine on shade, it's just a rare pick because Waystalker or especially Handmaiden can leverage the spear's advantages more effectively. But if you're more comfortable or proficient with the spear, there's zero reason you can't just bring it anyway. It does fall off against armor compared to the glaive though--in theory they're close but in practice not as much, especially against multiple armored enemies.

I do also like the glaive on shade, but ultimately I still think daggers are really where it's at. With cooldown on crit and their innate crit/aspd, combined with that giant cd reduction we just got, dagger shades can go completely nuts with their ult. You just need somebody on the team with a shield or hammer or something for melee cc, and daggers are golden.

Longbow vs volley bow is a lot closer and you can easily justify using longbow or even swift instead of the volley. It reduces the need for the ammo on backstab talent for one, which is pretty liberating. And yeah, reloading is a hindrance in tight spots, plus both regular bows snap-shoot much better.

[Sciophyte]

Thanks for your elaborate and supportive comment! Off I go a-spearing and a... well, shooting stuff with a longbow.

Yeah, Double Daggers is amazing, you basically turn into a blender, but I don't feel quite confident that I can manage the insane damage avoidance required to pull that off and survive consistently. Someday, though!

[Lunacy]

Pretty much use whatever works. I like to run dual daggers and longbow with cooldown reduction at 25 to pop all the bosses and chaos warriors.
Think you get the full bonus for every target you hit in the same swing too so it can be a good crowd clear if it doesn't stop on meaty targets.

[OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle]

Originally posted by Sciophyte:

Yeah, Double Daggers is amazing, you basically turn into a blender, but I don't feel quite confident that I can manage the insane damage avoidance required to pull that off and survive consistently. Someday, though!

For future reference: the buff to dodge range talents is a huge help for daggers and other 'dancing' weapons. Currently I run daggers with that and the move speed talent, and move speed accessory, and the avoidance game is really strong. It does take some getting used to though, I had to get my butt handed to me a good handful of times before it locked in.

[Sciophyte]

Thanks again, guys! Will definitely play around with DD soon as I find a nice pair of'em. Meaning, daggers. A pair of daggers. Yeah.