Shade "How to" guide.

[Hex]

Ok, I keep seeing a lot of completely horrible "advice" given out to people wondering about Shade, and so many horrendous Shades in-game so I'm going to explain how and why.

If you don't want to get the most out of the class, then that's fine, do whatever you want but I'm going to explain what is *OBJECTIVELY* best kit for a Shade.

1. Basics.

You are a squishy Elf with a stealth and backstab bonus. Stealth breaks on hitting something but gives a massive dmg bonus of 250 per hit, according to the dummy at least. So, how to get most out of this toolkit? I'll tell you.

2. Talents.

power when holding a grim, dodge distance, backstab damage, temp health on crits once they fix it and cd reduction, you'll understand why (hopefully) by the end of this write-up. And cd reduction on ulti.

3. Weapons.

This is where most people go so, so wrong. Daggers are by FAR the best weapons for several reasons.

They both hit when you power attack, meaning that your hit from stealth, that 250dmg hit? Yeah, it hits with both, doubling your biggest burst damage.

They are fast enough that you can cut through a horde if you do it right and practise a bit. Since you always kill everything on crits, the low damage of the fast attacks DOES NOT MATTER, all that matters is that you crit, which means that you need crit from everything you can.

So, you have fast attacks and high crit but a long CD ulti? Obviously you take the trait that lowers cooldown per crit, cause you crit often with daggers, you can ulti stealth a lot, so you can have it ready when you need it.

Everything except bosses die from a single hit to the face when done from stealth with dual daggers and the huge headshot bonus coupled with backstab damage means you can 2shot even Chaos warriors from behind without using your ulti and everything else just dies regardless due to crit.

The ranged weapon is upto you, I personally use the volley xbow cause it does massive damage in a pinch to bosses from range and the tripleshot instantly kills specials regardless of headshots. It's good for quickly taking out threats and with the 2 ammo on crits trait, it can go for a long time.

4. Stats

Obviously you should take crit as much as poosible, for every slot because that is the only stat that you absolutely must max out to make it work. Crit power is a bit of a waste because, again, 99% of mobs die regardless to a crit. I would take VS armoured as a secondary because you need it to kill CW in 2 hits on Legend without using ulti. You get a lot more value out of it than from crit power, because you don't always crit. 20% health on neck is essential IMO, you need all the health you can get as well as curse resitance.

5. How to play.

So, how do you actually play the class? First, always try to flank enemies unless they are attacking you and even then, strafe behind them asap if there is room. Dodge distance from talent is really good because it allows you to kite bosses better, and you WILL be kiting bosses and it also allows you to get out of reach of everything much easier, your super low stamine on daggers means you can't block much but the speed of daggers means that you don't slow down while blocking, which is something a lot of people don't know. You move faster while blocking with faster weapons and you dodge further as well. Blocking with daggers doesn't slow you down at all, so when you're not attacking you should be blocking so you don't get those random hits out of nowhere, your healthpool can't take it.

On bosses, first back stab a much as possible till you get agro, then pop your ulti to drop, drink a pot and strike from stealth, you're gonna tank the rest of the boss until they fix Bardin boss taunt.

When a horde comes and you get agro from them, drop it with stealth, you'll cut through enough of them to have your ulti ready afterwards. Move into a flank position and start cutting through them. If you don't get initial agro, save your stealth in case you get those annoying hookrats in the middle of the spawn so you can take them out as you can walk through enemies while stealthed. If you get Chaos warriors, just get behind them. If you get multiple, you can try to stab 2 at a time from stealth, it's possible to kill 2 instantly from stealth if they are bunched up nicely. For SV packs, let them run to someone else first and then just cut through them from behind, if you get agro, stealth and get behind them.

Save your ammo for ranged targets cause you rely on ammo boxes. With ammo from crits though, and conservative ammo usage you don't really run out.

Those are the fundamentals of making the career work.

[Elisa]

Useless class for random due to her very 'delicate' gambling, mayfly. Maybe she is not so useless in premades. Waystalker and Handmaden are both way better for brudeforcing in randoms.

[PayThePiper]

Shade is in a terrible spot. Legend difficulty it's completely useless with the amount of horde spawns and specials and elite patrols. It needs a lot of work to make it viable beyond veteran and maybe champ.

[Hex]

I didn't write this to argue that Shade is better than the other careers. I wrote this to explain how to get most value out of her current state.

[Li77lehorn]

Nice read, I learnt some news things. Thanks!

[Aurora]

tl;dr - play waystalker

[Raizerd]

Originally posted by Hex:

Ok, I keep seeing a lot of completely horrible "advice" given out to people wondering about Shade, and so many horrendous Shades in-game so I'm going to explain how and why.



Those are the fundamentals of making the career work.

A vid of actual gameplay will be much apreciated. Especialy against horde. Ps. Learned some new tips about bloking and double strike.

[Moldon]

Thanks for the guide, your post helped me to better understand her gameplay. Shade has a particular style that is difficult to apprehend, I already got the attack from the flank stuff, but I used to ulti a boss first, I'll change that.

[Raizerd]

What is better unload Xbow or backstab untill boss agro at you?
And about weapons, Xbow is awesome on boss, but with dual daggers it leaves us without antihorde weapon. Maybe it better to use swift bow(did you know that it has 2 steps of zoom at alt atack buttun?)

[Xuse]

Spot on mate. This is my play style love playing Shade.

Mainly playing cause of all the ♥♥♥♥ wits saying melee is useless

[Xuse]

Wait I thought he Grim talent wasn’t working, is it?

[Hex]

Originally posted by Raizerd:

What is better unload Xbow or backstab untill boss agro at you?
And about weapons, Xbow is awesome on boss, but with dual daggers it leaves us without antihorde weapon. Maybe it better to use swift bow(did you know that it has 2 steps of zoom at alt atack buttun?)

Daggers are your anti-horde weapons. If you aim the fast swings to the head, the trash in hordes still die with one hit to the head due to the bonus head damage daggers have and while it doesn't cleave through enemies like bigger weapons do, you can still hit 2-3 enemies per swing with them and considering their speed, that's not any worse than a big but slower weapon. The trick is to learn the distance, which is short but you still don't have to be right in their face.

[V ! P]

max champ character.
legend bahh

[Hex]

Originally posted by Xuse:

Wait I thought he Grim talent wasn’t working, is it?

I don't know, but the other 2 talents are pretty pointless anyways.

[Specialka]

Clearly, the Shade is the hardest to play. It is a high risk high reward class. But dodge distance as a talent is bad, as you said, you need crit chance, so the +5% crit chance is far better and with dual dagger, you have a good dodge range anyway.

You can do Legend, I do it but you have to work harder than everyone else to pull your weight. It is a class for real players, those that like a challenge.

[Hex]

Originally posted by Specialka:

Clearly, the Shade is the hardest to play. It is a high risk high reward class. But dodge distance as a talent is bad, as you said, you need crit chance, so the +5% crit chance is far better and with dual dagger, you have a good dodge range anyway.

You can do Legend, I do it but you have to work harder than everyone else to pull your weight. It is a class for real players, those that like a challenge.

Umm, Shade has no +crit talent. It's attack speed, which you don't need with daggers.