In Depth Comparison Between Whisperknife and Master Infiltrator

rustlord

WHISPERKNIFE, touchy subject for TRs these days. Are you playing a bad path, therefore making yourself weaker, or are you a bad player because you can't play anything other than a basic Master Infiltrator? Told you, touchy. Not the place for weak stomachs. I'm here to clear things up because there is a lot of bad air between WK and MI players. Players of both paths typically hate on each other for no better reason than to argue the two ends of a stick, or two sides of a coin, or whatever. You get the point.

Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Take it from someone who is in a unique position with no bias between the two, and who knows both paths by heart. A little bit of background, (skip the me-part if you're uninterested, it doesn't matter) or click the dot dot dot

I played the TR class since open Beta up to present, and the WK since it first came out in module 2. I've since switched from WK to MI and back (cause reasons) written builds (good and bad) all while learning all there is about the class. I'm just very technical TBH, I know more things than I can use, I justified a lot of not buying this upgrade or that by outsmarting the more privileged, which doesn't mean to say I should be compared to the best TR players (don't), maybe the best WKs (maybe, cause there are so few). But OK. Enough of me.

BUSINESS;

MASTER INFILTRATOR is overall better than WHISPERKNIFE -> TRUE

If we are comparing overall performance on two above average geared and above averagely skill players, it serves true that WK is far inferior to the MI path. The reason being is Whisperknife has a bigger learning curve. It is unexplored waters for most of you, and if you are just going to try it because a seasoned WK player here on the forum told you that he's doing great being a WK, then you are making a big mistake. You do not have the list of knowledge that player has learned through out his time enduring to play a relatively HARDER more HANDICAPPED path.

Edited for @thecrowley and the grammar HAMSTER (4/18/16) - Since when was n@t-zi a censored word! :<

MASTER INFILTRATOR is easier to play -> TRUE

You can just watch a YouTube video and play PvP for a week and you are good to go. If the saying "There is honor among thieves," happen to mean anything to you (no matter interpretations), you may not be happy to be the receiving end of all complaints and rage of players. I have been called all kinds of names for being a "lame a**" TR. If you are competitive first, and a responsible player second, you wouldn't mind. If it's the other way around, it gets to you after a while and you get bored and depressed because you are playing a "skilless class" which is not true at all but... you know, people talk.

Once past a certain skill bracket, MASTER INFILTRATOR is more gear dependent than WHISPERKNIFE -> TRUE

OFC, first of all you must establish a baseline of gear. Right around 3K is about sufficient for a comparison. Since we have covered that MI is an easy path, you will familiarize yourself with it pretty quickly. But what happens next is, there is nothing much left to learn. You will fight against other MI TR who are now just as "experienced" as you with the path, regardless if they played one month or one year. From that point, gear decides it. Who has more recovery, who has more power. The build is pretty much copy paste, so whoever can afford better enchantments or has better guild boons take it all home. If you and your opponent are absolutely equal in all things above, lag and luck will decide the outcome of a 1v1.

In contrast, a WK has more versatility in that a 3K WK may outmaneuver another 4K TR if he manages to (1) dodge all SE (2) dodge bloodbath (3) bloodbath a courage breaker - which just means to tap your own BB when u get hit with a CB (4) avoid CoS (5) track the MI in stealth... etc. You will still eventually lose because (doh) A: you are doing keyboard acrobatics, you will get tired and you will muck up sooner or later, B: you were 3K vs 4K to begin with.

WHISPERKNIFE has better DPS in PvE -> FALSE

While PvE is more about having the right active companion bonuses, stats and power rotation, WK does slightly less damage output compared to MI to be honest. Reason is that, you will often have Sigil of Devoted and Snail bonuses on you, if not an AP gain cleric, so you would be spamming dailies. Given that, the class feature Invisible Infiltrator will make a huge difference in your total DPS. In addition, on certain dungeons with very high CC zones, slotting ITC is better than dodging because you can continue to attack with ITC, whereas with if you dodge as a WK, you stop the attack.

Disheartening Strike, a WHISPERKNIFE at will, does not compensate the kind of damage you are losing out on if you are not playing PvE with a MASTER INFILTRATOR. In theory, Disheartening Strike is a beauty, because you can stack a high bleed on an unlimited number of foes, it lasts very long and autocrits from stealth. In practice, you will be gouging your eyes out trying to mark individual targets in hoards of 5 to 10 mobs during a frenzy, where they are all casting spells, moving and attacking you at the same time.

Therefore, PvE-wise, MASTER INFILTRATOR still wins.

So, what is a WK good for?

WHISPERKNIFE is great for solo play -> TRUE

Even maybe for leveling a new character through the story line. In one Stealth, you can mark all targets (who are more lightly packed by the way) with Disheartening Strike, and they will deal less damage to you as you finish them off. With the trash out of the way, you can Flurry the biggest one. Finally, you are free to use 3 damage encounters instead of 2 - why 2 - because MI doesn't have all these debuffs and at low levels, they can get zerged and die from packs of trash. MI is forced to play with ITC and two offense encounters for the quest line, unless geared to the teeth (always an exception.)

I could totally guarantee it's fun for a new player to learn the TR class from a Whisperknife standpoint. It's like learning stick shift. Some think it's cooler, but really, it's just a little more challenging. You will have enough time to learn Master Infiltrator in PvP at level cap.

WHISPERKNIFE excels at the mid-range to near-BiS brackets in PvP -> FACT

Best path for puglife PvP is all I say. If you do not participate or enjoy premades near as much, then WK is for you. On matches with at least 1 or 2 opposing BiS + you, you can 2v1 them or wreck the less fortunate members of enemy team. You can in fact control a pug match if you want to. A win is more satisfying if you were handicapped at the start (I think).

WHISPERKNIFE looks at pugs, and they die -> TRUE

People would say that if you are decked with gear, you kill pugs in one breath anyway. Well, that's most true with WK, if you fancy masochism, you might be thrilled to know that a decent WK can dispatch 5x 2K opponents with one right click each... HAX! You may remember the WK TR who posted a video racking up 40-0 KDR on PvP in this forum late last year. That's against pugs. Therefore, it's not really a fair baseline of how a WK performs on the high end. Be warned.

WHISPERKNIFE cannot kill another BiS character, if even slightly less geared -> TRUE

Especially not a near BiS DC or OP. Best you can do is use Fire wheel + Lurkers and pray to put all of God's wrath in your knives. You don't have a one-shot attack, so you will be a bad choice for premades. Period. Good HRs, GWF and CW may outheal your damage. And without about a 130K HP, you won't live to see a second rotation from a GF or a GWF if you were ever caught.

However, if you are at least happy to play a support role, you can play defense and fight any class to a draw. Courage Breaker comes to mind.

PS; My post is meant to be a informative rather than to be a discussion thread. Opinions are welcome still, but please make them to add and expand than to argue.

rustlord

Then, this is my opinion. What I said above were facts and information.

I play WK by choice. It's fun, it's still competitive and I'm pretty confident that my 3 years of knowledge is good enough to cover the space of disadvantage it has. I die from time to time cause I play a striker and strikers die. When playing as an MI I can win more battles but it's not what I can call fun in good conscience. At the end of the day, people remember, this is just a game. It's okay to want a win, but you came here to play because play equals fun.

If you are repulsed by what you're doing to other players' fun to have fun yourself, well that defeats the purpose doesnt it?

So yeah, have a lot of fun. And I rest my case

~Snöwman@rustlord *O.O*

drkbodhi

Beautiful and in-depth. I believe this is 100% true. Well worth the wait. I have found every part of this to be true.

I run PvE often with my mentor who is about the same iL as I am currently. He is a different version of an MI/Sab and he only does about 1 to 2 mil more than me. That is negligible, in my eyes.​​

bitt3rnightmar3

Thank you for this. This is extremely helpful.

hammbo1969

Thankyou Rustlord, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post.

I've played only MI with what I think is my own fairly unique build since hitting 70 and it's served me well as a purely solo player who concentrates on PVE only. I know my own build inside out, and find it fairly destructive in solo play if not a bit boring.

Your post has inspired me to have a play around with WK on the test realm, as it seems to be more challenging (and after months of DF spamming it would be welcome).

Any tips on build for best performance as a WK?

rustlord

@hammbo1969

I'm happy to share some tips with, stuff I've known for some time; This applies to solo play including dailies, campaigns and also leveling. Only averagely geared.. maxed out characters always an exception.

* Like I highlighted before, MI players who have a need to slot ITC for solo content can use only 2 offense encounters. For a Whisperknife I've learned that 2 AoE powers + burst power works best. Smoke Bomb, Blade Flurry and Dazing Strike are good -- Dazing Strike being my burst attack for the baddies. Or Lashing Blade, if that fits your style more. Lashing Blade does more damage with longer cooldown, definitely more bursty, whereas Dazing has a small potential to be an AoE if enemies happen to be on top of each other. Blitz is alternative for Blade Flurry in lower levels --

-- little trivia when using Blitz, if you have good latency, fire Blitz and within a half second into the animation (that's a moment before the knives hit the target) enter stealth. This will make your Blitz autocrit, and not deplete stealth. So that's Blitz first > Stealth quickly > another encounter power. All crits.

* As an opening attack, most MI would unload their 2 encounter powers on groups, and exit out of stealth to begin a Duelist Flurry on every remaining target. Usually, none of the targets would die right off, so you will have to Flurry every last one of them. Flurry has a long windup. Whisperknife can clear faster, Stealth > Disheartening on all trash then Smoke Bomb, then DF the biggest. Dazing or Lashing to finish it off. Then Blade Flurry to also finish off the stragglers (trash who didn't die from Smoke and Disheartening Strike). With the difference in power load outs, WK could clear groups up to twice as fast. This works in solo quests, just not group dungeons and skirmishes where enemy has bigger hp pools.

* Advantageous Position gives you combat advantage after leaving stealth, buffs DF.

hammbo1969

Thanks @Rustlord that's useful. As an MI I generally slot SB, BF and DS as my encounters, and for general solo play fire off a single stealthed BF - which as far as I know doesn't consume any charges. If anything is still alive, I'll drop SB and DF everything to the end - using DS on any large mobs likely to come out of SB.

Will be interesting to apply your advice to a WK build. Looking forward to it.

Chreers Hammbo

drkbodhi

As you know my rotation is different than that of the one you shared. Being a Scoundrel, I focus more on stunning and killing the masses all at once... so I dig my BF.​​

rustlord

@hammbo1969 For straight up dps I do something similar to that (WK or MI whichever build I'm using at the time); I would start with Lurkers, drop Smoke (a certain interaction with Lurkers Assault and some class features allow you to stay in stealth even if you use encounters) and then I can spam up to 10x Blade Flurry depending on my latency, somewhere in there I would fire off a Dazing Strike. On dungeons, I rarely have to use Disheartening or DF, only on biggies/bosses. But that's generally my trash cleaning rotation. Lurkers+Smoke+10xBF, all critted. Disheartening Strike is useful for solo quests in general

lemonchill

damn rust you still play this game?

rustlord

looks like it. its like magnet, keeps pulling you back in, and then pushing you away. you can also compare it to marriage, not that i would know xD

sabre10

@Rustlord, many thanks for posting this insightful breakdown. A comprehensive and refreshingly non-biased perspective

lemonchill

rustlord said:

looks like it. its like magnet, keeps pulling you back in, and then pushing you away. you can also compare it to marriage, not that i would know xD

yeah man i know what you mean but im pulling away from this "heroine-mmo" recently discovered skyforge and im loving every min of it.

chestnut13

Can't dispute any of this and have played WK since one could ... It's a challenge. MI is easier (and more devastating on all fronts) ... although one thing not mentioned is that the speed adavantage an MI has is considerable and is an overlooked asset. My one dispute would be that when a good WK understands his support role, he can make a good team devastating ... but the issue is that the other's have to understand the role as well ... and pugs rarely do. Spot on post.

rayrdan

wk is not bad played as executioner.
considering you can abuse the vengeance pursuit glitch you can pretty much one shot most squishy classes.
with this trick yesterday a bis wk tr was able to deal to me more than 55k each time.
i would play it but class features sucks too hard and its too slow.

kweassa

Good read. Highly recommended.

:thumbs up:

blade

I think WK is great for people who want to be challenged...but if you are interested in completing your pve tasks and lvl your char. with no stress on using too much potions, and infiltrating any pug premade base with no fear, then MI is good for you. People will always get <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> at you for being the hardest to kill, like clerics and trapper hrs or op tanks, but you on the other hand will be having fun (thats y you play a game smile: ). If u choose MI complete it with perma stealth and you will be a cool troll.

thecrowley

Interesting read though I strongly disagree with the notion of one being more "difficult" than the other - they're just different. I've never encountered a class in any MMO that is actually hard to play, and especially in a game like Neverwinter you only have a set number of skills to use so it all comes down to rotations and situation awareness/reaction. Knowing what your tools are and how to use them. I wouldn't consider that difficult, maybe just an experience issue but even so, class difficulty is just a term used by people that want to feel superior for whatever reasons.

rustlord

More interesting is the fact that this thread is still being read long after I left the game, along perhaps with 90% of the game's smarter population. Not to take anything away from the 10% who stayed. Kudos to all of you, and here's to hoping! Some of us (that's me!) still silently stalk the corners in case there was a massive overhaul in the broken aspects of Neverwinter.

thecrowley said:

~

I edited the original post in response to you my nitpicky friend. Two things; if you are among the Superior WE as I think you are, then I have no doubt in my mind you're OK no matter the class and path you play especially in a game like Neverwinter. You won't feel the difference. On the other hand, you betray your own lack of information. Whisperknife is hard not by design, but because several of the core powers that represent it are not WAI, with next to hope of ever getting fixed. There are guys here who can better enlighten you. Let me compromise by saying WK is not hard, it's handicapped. Clearly MI is a stronger choice for all intents and purposes, so by any chance anyone who's got the "superiority gene" is currently playing Master Infiltrator.

romotheone

Just the usual. People mixing PvP and PVE arguments to come out on-top. Nothing to see here.

demonmonger

My two favorite tr's hehe (sharpens blades)
See you soon

ghoulz66

Got a love hate relationship going on with both paths. The burst from MI is amazing. Drop a SB then pop lurkers and BF. WoB and a SB is crazy too, but WK can do the same thing. But when I have no daily to pop the path isn't providing much of an advantage in which I wish I had my DC sigil at mythic.

I dunno, WK felt a lot more simple and easy to use for all occasions. I rarely slotted first strike with WK. Felt like I made the most out of executioner marking the big guy with VP in stealth THEN dropping the SB and cleaning everything up faster I felt due to the awesomeness of advantageous position and having CA at all times.

Yeah, there's skillful infiltrator, but does it make that big of a difference in the end?