Lower expectations, greater happiness

I have a currently level 48 Warshade. Throughout my time with the character, I have been told that they are enormously powerful against large groups of enemies, and the nature of the various powers seems to bear that out. So I have tried to play the Warshade against large groups of enemies.

And died, and died, and died, and died.

I consulted guides. I burned respecs. I bought IOs. I double, triple, quadruple checked to make sure that I have the right powers, the right slots, the right tactics. For whatever reason, it does not work for me. If I try to fight x4 Arachnos, I die. If I try to fight x4 Malta, I die. If I try to fight x4 Carnies, I die.

Yesterday I respecced one last time, to pick up inherent fitness, and set my difficulty down to +0/x1. And I didn't die, and it wasn't painful, and it wasn't frustrating. I could control groups without worrying too much about scatter. I could clean up enemies quickly. I didn't get crushed under mez or debuffs. I could keep my pets alive. It was nice.

I'm putting this out here to say that if a Warshade (or any character, really) isn't performing the way it's "supposed to", it's okay to turn down the difficulty. There's a lot that's been said about how great Warshades are, and I fully believe that some players can work miracles with them. Some can't. Specifically, I can't. But I can play in a way that is enjoyable. You can leverage numbers with a Warshade. You don't have to in order to enjoy the AT. I think that's worth mentioning.

Good advice!

Strangely, I had the opposite issue. I didn't have enough bodies to keep my WS going, so I had to turn up the number of enemies (but not levels).

Very glad to see you enjoying your 'shade, no matter how you accomplish it!

I had a lot of the same reaction to Warshades, then found mine got suddenly a lot easier after level 30. OTOH, the lessons I learned in putting myself through the experience of upping the difficulty, lowering it again, raising it again, and overall continuing to tweak it over time helped me. The Warshade IS powerful, but there's a "sweet spot" where your damage output balances out against your survivability. I still don't push myself too far, I know just about where my difficulty level needs to be, and keep it there.

I suspect it's either a different place for most people, or most folks hear the (possibly overexaggerated) stories from this forum and overestimate the setting. You want to be SLIGHLY overwhelmed, but not EXTREMELY overwhelmed.

At level 48, I'm pretty sure power availability is no longer the issue. I'm also pretty sure build in general is not the issue. I expect that tactics is the issue, but I'm either unwilling or unable to implement the correct tactics. All the powers are great on paper, but I can't make them work in practice.

I can play bouncy claw shrimp, though. That works okay.

You might find it interesting to try, say, -1/x4 or something; some tactics are better at smaller numbers of tougher targets, others better at larger numbers of weaker targets.

I'm aware that this thread is likely to attract advice. Probably good advice, certainly well-intentioned advice. Without slighting this advice or anyone who offers it, my point here is not to solicit advice. I already know I'm doing it wrong, and I have a pretty good idea of precisely how. However, getting the higher performance out of the 'shade involves more effort in play than I'm willing to expend. I totally admit it's a skill thing: +0/x1 isn't the theoretical maximum that a warshade can be played at, but it is the practical maximum that I can play like an idiot at. And I'd rather expend low effort for low performance than expend much more effort, possibly more than I'm actually capable of, for high performance.

I guess what I'm saying is that warshade performance is much more strongly dependent on player skill than any other AT I play. I can get good performance out of other ATs, but because of the skill requirement, I can only get passable performance out of warshades. C'est la vie.

It's probably the enemies you're fighting. All of the ones you listed have significant end-drainers among them, which is something a shade really does not have good protection against. I can do +4x8 against a lot of stuff, most really, but throw me in 0x6 against a Malta ambush and my day is ruined.

You can, however, counter that problem a bit if you throw in some range defense (helps against sappers and mu, but not really carnies).

Edit since you posted while I was typing this :P: totally agree it takes much more effort to do well with the shade, which is why I think it appeals to certain types of people. For a similar reason I have never played a tank, and probably never will.

Sometimes it's down to bad runs of luck. I was so downhearted the other night as I faceplanted 7/8 times on an ITF. Never happened on my 'shade before.
I do think the mez needs looking at. When I press my relevant key to shapeshift into Lobster, I expect to shapeshift not stand staggering around as the mez just hit at the exact time I press my key. Sooooooooooo frustrating especially as I'm then poised to hit my first attack etc. Totally throws me off and usually ends up with faceplact. Grrrrrr.
I do love my warshade though

I'm one of the people suggesting warshades turn the difficulty up to x6. I should be more clear when I say that this really only works when you have a relatively small downtime on eclipse (30 seconds or so).

I completely understand that it doesn't work for everybody, but believe me that there's math behind why it should be easier.

Let's say you're on standard difficulty, so you mostly fight groups of three minions. For simplicity's sake, let's say these minions each do 1 unit of damage. Eclipse can reliably hit two of them, which brings you 22.5% resist (assumes no slotting). Now you're taking 2.325 units of damage from the three minions.

Let's keep the ratios the same and make it six minions, hitting four. Now your resist is 45%, and the 6 units of damage incoming is reduced to 3.3 units of damage.

One step farther is twelve minions, but now you can hit enough to cap your resistance at 85%. The 12 units of damage is reduced to 1.8 units of damage. You will be taking less damage from twelve enemies than you do from three.

This is oversimplifying things a bit, because spawn size increases add lieutenants which are tougher enemies. Even assuming the spawn of twelve does 18 units of damage, though, you'd still be taking only 2.7 worth of damage, just barely over what the three minions do.

This also isn't taking into account the fact that you will have a much larger damage buff from mire, will be able to leverage your AoEs better, and be able to heal more often from Stygian Circle.

There's a good chance you're not actually capping your resistance on the x4 difficulty. Might I suggest giving it one more try, but at -1/x6. Just ensure you're getting enough eclipse food. Then turn it up to +0/x6 if you're comfortable with that. You must find more bodies.

I've tried -1/x6, Dechs, and the problem isn't incoming damage, but incoming secondary effects. Resistance is an extremely powerful damage mitigator, to be sure, and resistance that scales to spawn size is exactly as powerful as you explain. However, the following effects also scale up with spawn size, and resistance does not help against them:

- Mez
- Debuffs
- Enemy force multiplication
- Endurance drain
- Aggro control difficulty

These are the things that prevent me from leveraging my multiplied resistance and damage, and kill me by degrees - by pushing me into Dwarf Form, thus slashing my damage and my versatility; by overwhelming my aggro control and killing my pets; by presenting more problem enemies than I can lock down at one time; by removing my ability to hit enemies for buffs and to produce bodies; and so on and so forth.

If I were more skillful with Gravitic Emanation, if I were better at positioning enemies and choosing targets, and especially if I were more willing to use breakfrees, I doubt I'd be having these difficulties. But I'm not, so I do.

+0/x2 is all right though. That gives me 3-5 targets per spawn, 1-2 of which are serious threats, which is comfortably within my ability to manage. And of course, on teams where the above secondary factors are mitigated, I am able to leverage all my tools to their maximum benefit.

I feel your pain, Trashcan! I have the same problems with Warshades. Every time I go back to my Warshade, I'm a complete noob again, dying in seconds with a fully saturated eclipse. In a day or so (sometimes as long as a week) I remember what I'm supposed to do and pwn hell and earth with him, but I'm just not skilled enough to pick it up immediately after even a week or two on another toon.

Usually that's when I just go back to playing my PB. Sigh. Wish I was a better Warshade Driver, but what are you going to do? Like you, I settle for less and have fun.