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Any thoughts on Whisperknife on Mod 18?
ericlatrelle
Member Posts: 10 Arc User
Thinking about changing over to it and wanted to know what people think of it so far?
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The changes WK got this mod are small and aren't enough to make it relevant in PVE.
These small changes will help it a little bit in PVP but its still not competitive with assassin and it still has more trouble vs tanky players than assassin does. It does preform reasonably well in duels and vs squishier players.
Whisperknife has a few small things going for it though.
Whisperknife has slightly better encounter powers for an AOE build than assassin does. This is mostly because of it having access to same good mob killing powers as assassin + its got shadowy disappearance, which is one of the hardest hitting mob killing powers.
A huge downside is its got much worse single target damage than assassin does in PVE.
Wk's encounters are still sufficiently strong in PVP, its single target damage is actually decent here but still weaker than assassin's.
WK also can remain in stealth for very long periods of time; it has access to many feats and powers that can be used to chain stealth, which is useful in PVP.
The utility effects on some of its exclusive powers, such as vengeance's pursuit, are useful in PVP.
Some of WK's exclusive passive powers are good.
Another major downside is that all of WK's at will powers are really weak, which significantly hinders this paragon in PVP and also hurts it a lot in PVE since so much of PVE rogue dps is coming from at wills. Both of the WK exclusive at wills feel slow and clunky to use too. Cloud of steel, which is a universal, is literally their best at will, though its not their highest damage at will.
WK's encounters are mostly the gimacky and/or ranged ones that need to be buffed/reworked or replaced to be competitive with assassin's single target in PVE. It does have access to the lashing blade universal power at least.
Whisperknife also doesn't have shocking execution, which is the best/hardest hitting single target daily for rogue.
Both of the whisperknife exclusive daily powers suck even for an AOE build.
It does have access to the universal daily hateful knives at least, this daily is good but isn't competitive with shocking execution in PVE. For PVP, hateful knives is best in many situations but there are also a lot of situations where having the option to switch to shocking execution is very valuable.
The toxic blades feat is also a major source of rogue damage in both PVE and PVP and Whisperknife doesn't have that either. Some of its feats do have better damage and cooldown bonuses but this can't offset this paragon's flaws by itself. Some of the feats, such as shadow of demise function best on a single target build, but WK's single target dps is bad in PVE and it has more difficulty powering up this feat as a result.
Shadow of demise theoretically would be good in PVP, but last I heard, it got a ninja nerf in PVP that isn't mentioned in the tooltip, its damage percentage is supposedly 10% in PVP instead of what it says in the tooltip. I need to test shadow of demise in PVP to be sure but that's what I heard.
Last mod, I took another look at whisperknife in the hopes of it being a significantly better cooldown reduction build in PVP than assassin. I wanted to do the same thing I do on one of my assassin PVP builds and use wyvern venom coated knives + artificer's persuasion + armored griffon mount passive power. WK does have slightly better cooldowns than assassin thanks to its feat that reduces cooldowns by 2 secs whenever you enter stealth. Unfortunately, I realized that impact shot also got ninja nerfed and no longer has 3 charges, its now a single charge attack. WK does have slightly better cooldown reduction than assassin, but its not better at this enough to make it competitive with an assassin cooldown build. If impact shot still had 3 charges, it would have meant this paragon could fire a lot more encounter powers in a short time time frame than assassin could, but oh well.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
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Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
Don't listen to this guy .... Whisperknife is more than fine and way more fun. However it does require some understanding that most people do not care to work at. For one who cares if you do not have shocking execution, Hateful Knives and Lurkers Assault are all you need from dailies. If used right (with SoD) they are much better than SE. If you know how to use your powers right you will be fine. I have played WK since the beginning and only recently did I truly understand the best mix of powers and how to get the best from them.
Most of what this guys says is just wrong or misinterpreted. It just comes from not playing the class. You want to improve you at will damage for example use the Gutterborn Touch, Advantageous Position and Dagger Threat mix. Use a ranged damage ring as most of your skills will be ranged. I use 1 ranged and 1 encounter ring myself (helps boost lashing blade as well as my ranged encounters)
The most important thing you need understand about WK is just how Shadow of Demise works. Only recently have I interpreted the tooltip correctly myself. Since the beginning I always interpreted it to mean the damage added to SoD comes from encounters only, however this is WRONG. You only need to trigger SoD using one encounter and then ANY damage you do in 5 secs its tallied towards SoD including dailies and at wills.
Best case scenario all your encounters are available and stealth is available ....
So enter stealth, pop a lashing blade (for crit sev bonuses and to target your SoD), use Shadow Strike to a) regen stealth b) add more projectile damage to target, then IF dailes can be used pop a Hateful Knives, then a Blitz and then spam whatever at wills you can in the remaining 5 sec window.
Now in practice best case wont always be available so just continue to enter/exit stealth much as you can and use whatever encounters/dailies/at wills are available when entering stealth. If your near your dailies triggering then hold out on stealth entry till you can trigger daily. Triggering Hateful Knives in SoD mode is a massive boost and worth the wait.
There is is much more to playing WK than what I mentioned but the most important thing is its not the bore of assassin.
Flecia
On a side note .... above I mention best case scenario .. and that is personal choice as there is another option to use Vengence Pursuit instead of Lashiing Blade if you a) just need range cause getting to close to boss is hard b) for whatever reason prefer VP. The benefits are range, range damage bonuses from Gutter and so on and you get the extra VP hit included in your shadow demise. The drawbacks are the lack of crit severity bonuses and VP is tacky and slow. In the end either way comes out to be comparable enough that its your choice.
Now I'm glad they made the assassin pretty much a shell since WK had 0 love in the community beforehand. I love the new encounters, feats and class features that we have and will never use assassin at all. The shuriken toss should be a tad stronger though which is my only complaint, but using that at-will with a lightning enchant makes killing much easier for me.
However, I do have complaints about imo the best encounter: Path of Blades. Why was the duration nerfed so hard?
> Yea. Whisperknife keeps you away from the fight at a distance but does little damage. The assassin does more but it still has been very weak compared to all other DPS classes.
> Rogues are in dire need of a buff to keep up with everything else. Mine has all stats capped, all the pets at leg, and r14/15 enchantments. On a good day I can do almost half the damage the other dps classes are doing. My CLERIC can out-DPS my Rogue with worse gear and enchantments. It's not fun at this point. If the game wasn't free I'd have switched to something else awhile ago. Get with it Devs! You want to release a new class but you won't fix the existing ones first lol.
I believe Rogue is quite competitive with other classes, both on aoe and single target they deal good damage. Cleric is the exception, which is clearly outperforming against any other class, if played correctly.
So if you think they need to buff Rogue because of Clerics, then they need to buff other classes as well to keep them balanced.