WAR (Warhammer Online)

Listen, this is mythic, they HATE anything with a bow and like it when they are so useless that only a few fanatics will want to play them.

I stopped playing my SW at lvl 31 because after an argument about healing I swore I would make my own healer and made a WP.

The WP at lvl 25 does more damage than the 31 SW while also buffing his group and healing for 3 to 5 times the damage the SW did. And with as many kills as the SW.

Thats dps/support. I am sorry to say this but as the SW is atm then any group is better off bringing ANYTHING else with them. They do not provide dps, their support is pitiful compared to real support classes and they have less surviveability than a BW.

But you also see it already, as I am moving through T3 now with the WP then its extremely rare to see any SWs anymore.

I only played a only Legolas briefly in the beta, and quickly decided it wasn't my kind of career. I do like the Squig Herder, though. People say the Herder needs some love at the higher ranks however (mine is only tier 2).

   I joined my DAOC guild on the Skull Throne server , everyone rolled Elf archmage , I picked up a Shadow Warrior , I m only rank 10 , but I love it. My group only rvr in the instance normally 3 or 4 hours a nice , I top the kill list and damage list within the top 3 ranks.

     I dont use any other stance than the Scout , I select healers , and tanks , cripple them from running or distract them with arrows. Last night I went toe to toe with a Chaos Chosen , lvl 11 , and killed him , mostly by snaring him , breaking his armor , then moving around rocks and things , so he was chasing me most the time.

     The only class I like better , since my brother plays at 3 am , after work , on the Dark Side , is my goblin shaman. I m much more in tune in being support / mild dps.

      The key to the Shadow Warrior for me , is I focus on Ballistic , I use a green bow with +14 Ballistic , my shoulders have high spirit resist , and all my body/feet/ gloves / helm have Intivative(spelling). Most times, I set up on roofs , or behind plants , snipe people.

     The only target I have major problems with is DoK , they close too fast and end up tying me up so like five people gank. I think I m more paired with Mutant thing on Chosen side then I am with squig herder.

      Bright Wizards I m being to hate , even level 1 ones will critical my shaman for 1k damage o.o

Azure, I loved my shadow warrior in T1 also.  With a nice blue sword and decent bow I was a terror on the battefield.  I could kill people from range, not as effectively as a wizard, but still something to be concerned about.  I could jump into melee stance and put some real hurt on people who ignored me.  Nothing like a witch hunter, but still deadly enough to finish people off.  I found the class a great mix of abilities that did not resort to kiting enemies around.

All I will say is that T1 isn't very representative of the game IMHO.  Wait till T2 and see how things go.

Actually, in T2, with skirm spec and the way the opponent bunches up in morkain's, you can do some fair dps with spiral-fletched arrow... But in Tor (T3) your relative dps goes down, but you still have that punting people into lava moral move. But dps seems to be slowing down, and skirm is getting harder.

Then in i hear that in T4, (still in high 20s), it just gets worse. Don't know if I will hang in there or not (actually already getting into several other toons). Even in the high 20s, the quest part of the game sort of died; just too hard to find space to kite.

The relative balance changes a whole lot in this game as you level up. Feels like it does that more than other games I've played (ac2,eq2,wow,lotro). I know people object to the "play it to max level and then talk" argument, but it really does apply in this case. Once that BW gets all his utility moves (he gets them later than the SW), then doing 1/4 the damage for nothing just starts gnawing at your brain, and you will most likely roll something else.

I tried the spiral fletched arrow build and it was pretty fun.  It wasn't effective, but it was fun. 

Honestly the damage is pretty meaningless, because it is just little bits of damage spread across a few people.  It does do a nice job putting up big scenario damage numbers and steals a fair amount of killing blows of people at low health.  I still felt the class was ineffective and could easily be replaced with just about any other class.