I think I'll finally toss my two cents of suck into the arena of whatever this is =^.^=
I've played my warshade sparingly as of late due to regular ATs eating my time, but I've still made it to 38 with 1 bub to go for 39. I've used three respecs trying out all the powers, but I have skipped dwarf (I don't have the slots, I'm generally in human).
I kept nova. I've never slotted it, and I never will. Having fly on demand and mire into aoe is too handy.
I've taken the control type powers (inky aspect, grav well, grav snare, grav em, etc)
I've taken my nuke (quasar), corpse bomb, and pets.
I have eclipse, though it only has one slot at the moment.
I played the whole way up using unslotted nova and human form. I've burned 3 respecs playing with different human form setups.
Here's my beef with the warshade.
Three of my powers (corpse bomb, pets, heal) require corpses that I am not able to make very well on my own, short of quasar. Nova is too squishy to manage, unless I have used eclipse prior to going nova. This buys me enough time.
My pets are very squishy, and I have no way to heal them. Due to their long fire range, they tend to stop next to other groups on the street to shoot the one I am fighting, thus agroing more mobs on them. They move slow enough that they are quite good at agroing random crap; they'll show up for the fight I'm in with a quarter of their HP beat down. I have tried slotting them many ways (everything from 6 recharge to the standard "phantasm slot of 1 acc, 3 dmg, 2 rech) and it's bloody difficult to keep two out consistantly, due to the need to make a corpse just as they reset.
I have "lost" pets due to activating on a corpse only to have it fade before the 5 second animation completes, so no pet pops out.
I have trouble using the corpse bomb effectively many times due to things getting scattered all over by knockback. It sucks as a cleanup for quasar, but that's fine. It makes a decent team power.
My biggest beef with the warshades is the reliance on corpses for pets. They die quite easily unless I take agro, and I die quiet easily when Eclipse isn't up.
Actually, it's corpses in general. By the time I've made one, my endurance is suffering and I can't take advantage of whatever I have just defeated without burning a blue. Eclipse can fix this, I suppose.
I can't control that well, due to only having one hold and one snare, both single target. Gravity well is also an end hog.
My cone disorient is more of a panic button, as it always knocks back and scatters things apart too far for me to easily keep a handle on. I use it as such, as all experimentation with my playstyle and this power have proven that it isn't effective (for me) in any other situation.
Warshades have no real way to stack disorients / holds to deal with a boss. Minions are no problem, as inky aspect handles that...until they full speed drunken stumble right out of the aoe range. If it's a larger group this happens quite quickly, due to them all going different directions.
My endurance gets demolished, though I hope that a six slotted eclipse will fix this. I do have stamina six slotted, as you can imagine.
Notice a recuring theme? Eclipse seems to be the only power that salvages warshades. It's a whole bunch of suck on the way up (I avoid bosses like the plague, and I stick to even cons or less) to reach a power that'll make me (I suspect) quite viable at 40, once it has devoured six slots.
I realize many classes are redefined by their level 32 or 38 power (old unstoppable, elude, etc) but they typically are able to function prior to that.
Not warshades. Until I had quasar six slotted, I couldn't solo or even safely contribute in a group without taking stupid amounts of damage. I can't fathom having less hp than I do now, even with the removal of the resist penalty. Judging by the damage I take from quantum before and after eclipse, it won't make a bloody difference other than garunteeing the 1.5 shot kill.
I have a peacebringer as well, currently level 26. I don't have stamina. I have hasten, but it isn't slotted. I took it for lack of anything better to do at one of the levels and use it as a situational power only. I play strictly in nova form, only going human to blap. I won't be taking dwarf.
I die a lot. I never solo, as this toon is part of a 3 person perma group that usually has additional people with us, for a total of 4-6 players on the team. I plan on getting up to 31 and then using my respec to build out into a full blown blapper just for giggles.
I enjoy the PB a lot more, thanks to my unhealthy addiction to blaps. I won't say it is better, but it certainly is more focused and capable of functioning on the way up than warshades were. I can be in human and feel very useful, other than my lack of stamina and hasten. I get to fire off one round of attacks, then morph nova for something to do while the powers reset.
I can't say I have a beef with PBs yet, as I haven't gotten close enough to 40. I will say they're amusing, at the very least.
*******************STILL READING?*********************
It's 3am PST on a Friday, and I'm fresh home from turtle racing (los angeles, yay) so this is mostly a ramble that won't make much sense, I am sure.
The short points I was attempting to getting to (and never did) - Reducing HP = bad. Reducing end cost even a fraction = good. Tweaking warshades to have stronger control options = wet dream. Making the warshade pets independant of corpses, more resiliant to damage, and less craptastic over all = mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I can live with the -30% resistance, but I don't think I could live with blaster hp. At least I have a teaming option to help reduce the resistance penalty (though upping the team bonus would be nice), I won't have an option as a warshade to up my HP. We don't get that funky dull pain action the peacebringers get, and our two heals require corpses and a boatload of endurance, or heavy slotting and melee range combat to function worth a darn.
If I could beg one thing of the devs, it would be to make the warshades more viable as a human earlier than level 38. Either that, or make the powers a little more combo friendly, as opposed to counter intuitive.
Wubbas!
Katze Alleine (38 warshade, Triumph)
Alleine (26 peacebringer, Triumph)
Holy crap that's a name I haven't seen in a long time
