The shadow meter for Shadow Pips fills up too slowly, and you can't get a shadow spell cast fast enough in PVE to defeat the mobs and bosses in Khrysalis, Polaris, Mirage, and Empyrea before they lower your wizard's HP.
I did some testing about the shadow pip bug/problem with bosses last night on the test realm and posted about it but it seems those post have been deleted. So I will repost it here with the addition of the test to confirm that I did on live today.
My wizard that I tested with last night on test realm and today on live was my level 125 storm. His gear is level 120 storm teacher shoes and Darkmoor hat and robe. My shadow pip rating is 97
Last night I did testing of the shadow pip rate for wizards and npcs. I tested in khrysalis around and inside the black hole area of the Hive. With npcs in and around the black hole dungeon the first fight took 7 rounds for my first shadow pip. It took around 5 rounds after that in most fights even with the non-shadow pip boss in the black hole dungeon. It took 3 rounds once but almost every time it was 5 rounds. The I went to Polaris and to fight Baba Yaga. She got shadow pips 2-3 times faster than me in the couple fights I had with her. In the first fight with her for example, I got my first shadow pip the round after she got her 2nd. I got my 2nd shadow pip the round after she got her 4th.
This morning on live I went back to Polaris and to fight Baba Yaga again to test and it was the same rate for her again. In the first fight, The round after she got her 3rd shadow pip I got my first. When she got her 5th then the round after I got my 2nd shadow pip.
Bosses are getting there shadow pips 2-3 times faster than players. Others had posted on the test realm forums of the same thing. This can't be intended. How is that balanced and fair? Please look into lowering the shadow pip rate for bosses or increasing the players shadow pip rate of gain.
I was sad to see that the changes to the shadow spells is live even though there were so many active discussions about the changes on test. My problem isn't even the change to the spells. It is the fact that shadow spells are pretty useless now.
1. The gain on shadow pips takes too long for a shadow spell to be useful. I got on and tested and in my 130 gear which had a 10% change before translates to a 103 rating now. In Wizard City I get a shadow pip every 3 rounds. In Empyrea I gain a shadow pip every 5 rounds now. In 5 rounds I can either have a 12-14 pip tempest or a glow bugs. That is 940 with glow bugs to all or 960-1120 tempest. The damage is compatible between those spells but why am I going to bother waiting for that when I can use Sirens 2 rounds earlier for 765-904. So now my shadow spells are only really useful in boss fights.
2. Players get shadow spells at level 100. I switched to my mac level 100 gear and my shadow rating went down to 35. In Krysalis it took 10 rounds to get a shadow pip. One of the things I looked forward to the most when I hit level 100 was casting my shadow spells. If it takes 10+ rounds for me to get a single shadow pip most fights will be over before I see a single one. If you have a good group even boss fights are not going to be lasting 10 rounds except for the very hard ones.
3. The two pip shadow spells are even worse. Waiting 10-24 rounds to get 2 shadow pips is outrageous. I will never use another one.
The shadow pip gain needs to be constant in every area. Shadow spells need to be useful enough to be worth the wait. Players need to be able to use the shadow spells more often for them to be exciting to get.
Yes the comparative shadow rating is imbalanced. Bosses have too high of a rating causing players to have to wait 10 rounds for a single shadow pip. I remember devs saying they wanted players to generate shadow pips at least every 3-5 rounds. So i know waiting 10 rounds is not intended. Hopefully this gets fixed!
I was sad to see that the changes to the shadow spells is live even though there were so many active discussions about the changes on test. My problem isn't even the change to the spells. It is the fact that shadow spells are pretty useless now.
1. The gain on shadow pips takes too long for a shadow spell to be useful. I got on and tested and in my 130 gear which had a 10% change before translates to a 103 rating now. In Wizard City I get a shadow pip every 3 rounds. In Empyrea I gain a shadow pip every 5 rounds now. In 5 rounds I can either have a 12-14 pip tempest or a glow bugs. That is 940 with glow bugs to all or 960-1120 tempest. The damage is compatible between those spells but why am I going to bother waiting for that when I can use Sirens 2 rounds earlier for 765-904. So now my shadow spells are only really useful in boss fights.
2. Players get shadow spells at level 100. I switched to my mac level 100 gear and my shadow rating went down to 35. In Krysalis it took 10 rounds to get a shadow pip. One of the things I looked forward to the most when I hit level 100 was casting my shadow spells. If it takes 10+ rounds for me to get a single shadow pip most fights will be over before I see a single one. If you have a good group even boss fights are not going to be lasting 10 rounds except for the very hard ones.
3. The two pip shadow spells are even worse. Waiting 10-24 rounds to get 2 shadow pips is outrageous. I will never use another one.
The shadow pip gain needs to be constant in every area. Shadow spells need to be useful enough to be worth the wait. Players need to be able to use the shadow spells more often for them to be exciting to get.
I completely agree with you. Even with a good shadow rating, on bosses I've taken much longer than 5 rounds to get them at times. I thought they said it was nearly guaranteed for us to have it by 5 rounds? I still think even that is too much. It needs to be pushed back a round. An average of 3-4 with 2 being uncommon, but not impossible. Bosses also need to be nerfed in terms of their shadow rating because it seems like they're always quite higher.
1. Leave the shadow gain constant through out all areas.The rate that we get in Wizard city should be the same rate we get in Empyrea.
2. Have 75% of the shadow gain carry over from each battle. So if you end a battle and are almost at a full bar the next battle you are only a round or two away instead of having to start over each fight.
I too am disappointed that this was put into live already. I thought shadow changes were still “in the works” for a later update. Pip gain was commented on many many times in test, even on the last day test was open.
And still no explanations for why the shadow jewels are rated lower than gear with the same percent value pre-update.
This was something that IMO required a lot more time to test and work out the actual in-game mechanics for before it was ever put into live.
I think what KI should do is put this shadow bar into PvP only, not into PvE. Make it the same as it was in PvE because I can barely even use lulu now. Hopefully someone see's this
The shadow meter for Shadow Pips fills up too slowly, and you can't get a shadow spell cast fast enough in PVE to defeat the mobs and bosses in Khrysalis, Polaris, Mirage, and Empyrea before they lower your wizard's HP.
Start relying on your 8 - 10 pip hits again. Shadow pip spells, I think, are going to be viewed as a random bonus instead of a reliable spell. (Sort of how critical/bonus is a random bonus.)
Fighting Shane in Graveyard as a newly achieved level 100 wizard, he can get his full three shadow pips, use a shadow spell, and gain that shadow pip back all before anyone in the group even got one shadow pip.
Forget the changes to how much damage and utility these spells do, the hardest nerf of all is that we can’t even cast them reliably anymore or within a reasonable time frame.
Agreed. This thread needs more attention. I main and decided to test out the combat since the update hit live and for the first time since I unlocked Lulu, I discarded it out of my deck and later removed it entirely. Lulu does a very marginal 80 damage more than Crow now and I found that I can use two Crows with blades before I even get my first shadow pip!
So why bother with the shadow spell at all?
And to ice the cake: The boss I fought was popping shadow pips almost every other round! Happy to see SOMEONE can use Lulu, but it's useless and impractical for players now.
Is it possible to get some kind of acknowledgment about this thread? The way shadow pips are acquired now is a real problem. We get them to slow and bosses way to fast. You can use 2 scarecrows before you can use 1 lulu. You can tempest for 1120 base with max pips before you can bugs for 960. Why use shadow spells at all?
I would like to know just in general, why they added shadow rating as it doesn't remove the rng from shadow? It was easier before as it's still broken for some schools like ice. In my opinion it just annoys the players.
and decided to test out the combat since the update hit live and for the first time since I unlocked Lulu, I discarded it out of my deck and later removed it entirely.
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