General

@iStalkPeople: Kanna has two 20 second binds. Then another class to be the final bind.

I don't think lines matter UNTIL you cap, and how many players can realistically cap? Is it really enough to worry about?
They may have less lines but their attacks have way higher percentages, so UNTIL YOU CAP, you could still be stronger or as strong as other classes, because you hit harder, just slower.

[quote=Klytta]Shadowers are the first among the thiefs to cap damage on 4th job skills. Making them lower in dps once the others exceed a point of damage. This is due to the difference in # of lines of damage other classes hit. They don't hit slow, but the other thiefs hit faster as well. As for this video of a shadower killing hmag in 60 seconds. In my experience as a DB that caps on hmag. If I had 60 seconds of binds I would be really interested to see how much damage I could pull off. It would be significant, I've had the antihacker system activate on me before due to doing too much damage too quickly... In the end the funding to make a shadower like that wouldn't be worth the cost. Especially when a cap DB or NW could do a slightly lower time with far less funding.[/quote]

Hm, mind telling me which binds I have to use or how to make a bind(s) last 60 sec in total? Im gonna test out if my DB can take hard mag down in 60sec with PB whilst capping. This is gonna be with FC, since without FC Im stuck at 40-45mils atm, so Im gonna time it twice, once from casting PB & 2nd from landing 1st PB ^_^

[quote=Endurance]all those stats and 8 fame? im sure anybody with those stats wouldnt need pots at all[/quote]

Nah I have 9999 defence/avoid etc as well, and I would still need hp pots if I didn't have the drain from bats. I'd say NW's actually have more survivability than Shads because of the bats.

@Endurance: Fame is pretty irrelevant now...
People just don't bother faming each other anymore after love letters

[quote=healer55]with 2X the survivability........ i died 3 times at SH cause 9k damage to 14k hp nl = ded

@lecarde is assassinate even considered slow anymore? with all it's revamps and QOL buffs ._.[/quote]
We needa switch
Since i try to keep my character at 200, i gotta constantly die when I reach around 90% exp so I dont just accidently level.
Takes a good 5-10minutes of me being constantly hit for me to die since i have 9999 avoid and 20k hp along with our skill which is pretty much a 50% avoid

[quote=iEatNoobz]http://i.imgur.com/zfAWq52.jpg
That, 35k hp, and 1000 ginger ales keep me quite healthy at SH <3
Though NWs kinda cheat by having infinite drain

Edit: Found the NL version from way back when
http://i.imgur.com/JECd9vV.jpg[/quote]

all those stats and 8 fame? im sure anybody with those stats wouldnt need pots at all

@Klytta that would be nice
though for the binded magnus case, we could just calculate the time needed to kill (amounts of phantomblows/quadthrows/assassinates per minute)

but videos to show these things would be great of course

~edit~
iirc, it's 66 assassinates per minute, so 66 * 816m = 53.856b dmg per minute
118 quad star per minute, 50.150b dmg per min

Hard magnus has 120b hp?, so both would take a little more than 2 minutes, attacking without interruptions of course

don't know the numbers for phantom blow, so if anyone knows,

@ChickenS0up I'll try to make a video on hmag to compare with the shadower one. I agree that seeing that video is impressive however there's nothing to compare it to. So as for how impressive it really is I'm interested to find out.

something that i have been wanting to see is a comparison between a capping dual blade, a capping night lord and a capping (with assassinate) shadower at bosses (CRA, Hell Gollux, binded Hard Magnus?), all at max attack speed

seems like everytime the video of the capping midnight carnival gets posted and we all know that this takes a load of funding

i'd love to test this, but i don't cap with assassinate, and neither can i cap as a nl or as a db

i know there are videos of capping nl's and db's, think i just haven't seen capping shads to make a comparison

[quote=healer55]with 2X the survivability........ i died 3 times at SH cause 9k damage to 14k hp nl = ded

@lecarde is assassinate even considered slow anymore? with all it's revamps and QOL buffs ._.[/quote]

http://i.imgur.com/zfAWq52.jpg
That, 35k hp, and 1000 ginger ales keep me quite healthy at SH <3
Though NWs kinda cheat by having infinite drain

Edit: Found the NL version from way back when
http://i.imgur.com/JECd9vV.jpg

Even if Shads do the most dmg when funded and are tankier I don't think it's worth it unless you just love the class. Which is probably why you barley see any of them lol. It's all NW/NL

I don't know much about skills on a night lord or db, but I know that shads are considered to be tankier because they get the same evasion bonuses as the other classes while having the 50% dmg reduction from meso guard, so attacks (especially 1:1s) don't 2hko you.

@healer55 As has been said, capping on assassinate is easier than capping for other thief classes because it hits less lines and slower. And it's not that shadowers are the strongest thief class, they just have the most potential due to being able to cap at 100m per line with carnival. But reaching that point would require pretty much perfect potential lines on everything. Far beyond where the other classes would be at 50m per line. For normal circumstances, shads are average. Not bad, but not the best either. That's the short and sweet version.

It's actually not as easy to cap on it with the first strike without dark sight and without the 3 stacks as you would think. You still need well over 2m-2m, and maybe by then db would out damage them in terms of average dps. Capping on the second strike when you're 3 stacks + ds is like 1m range, but that's still kind of hard to get to. Yeah you can always just sit in dark sight and I think you only need 2m-2m then to do it on bosses but the time to cast dark sight isn't worth it.

Shadowers aren't as good as people on basil make them out to be. To be realistic they are on the bottom end of the actual bossing tier list. They are kind of like the pre-bigbang mages. They hit hard early and then taper off. I'm talking about this from a standpoint from the average godly player. There's the insanely godly that may hit over 80m with midnight carnival, but they are maybe the top 10 thieves in the entire server. These players should play a shadower since then they have reached the turning point between them and dual blades. The average godly player may be barely or a bit over 2m range. They might see a 25% increase in damage just from spamming phantom blow instead of assassinate.

It's way easier to kill bosses with night lords. You have crazy damage if you are a night walker, but they are in a class of their own. The second misconception here is that shadowers are tanky and have high survivability. When you get to the part when damage actually matters in the endgame bosses, everyone has max defense making it irrelevant. Night lords also have the evasion bonus. DBs have the avoid bonus as well.

For mobbing and training, night lords are the best. Shadowers may beat dual bladers in this slightly. Their phase dash is faster so they can cover more ground in a shorter amount of time. Blade fury is ok compared with boomerang stab. Night lords just win out in mobbing though. After a certain point night walkers may be contesters if they can one shot with bats. Xenons would beat shadowers in mobbing. They attack faster and kill more. Their spin move can be used to move and kill.

Lastly, many people also think it takes a crazy amount of money (like $100k) to reach the 105m cap. It probably only takes 12-15k to do this if you buy godly equipment off people. This is spending on average of like $600 per equip. The downfall is that people try to cube their own things. This may exceed $600 to get something over 40%.

edit: for reference, I capped 100m with bstep on mobs, but did not always cap 100% on hellux with assassinate first strike.

@healer55: Capping on assassinate is extremely easy. Its base damage is 6xx%, plus modifiers if you are in DS when you attack, and even more multipliers from body count. In all, if you have 5 body count and are in DS, you are doing (627+150)*1.5 = 1165.5% damage on the first three lines and (1320+150)*1.5 = 2205% damage on the fourth attack. Its insanely strong, insanely easy to cap with, even if the cap is 120mil

Shadowers are the first among the thiefs to cap damage on 4th job skills. Making them lower in dps once the others exceed a point of damage. This is due to the difference in # of lines of damage other classes hit. They don't hit slow, but the other thiefs hit faster as well. As for this video of a shadower killing hmag in 60 seconds. In my experience as a DB that caps on hmag. If I had 60 seconds of binds I would be really interested to see how much damage I could pull off. It would be significant, I've had the antihacker system activate on me before due to doing too much damage too quickly... In the end the funding to make a shadower like that wouldn't be worth the cost. Especially when a cap DB or NW could do a slightly lower time with far less funding.

i'm going to ask my friend if he can SS his equips. He was definitely killing faster than me but he might have been more funded.

@hydraxide is that on assassinate or carnival? i was under the assumption capping assassinate is very easy.

@healer55: Lol Need those set effects and link skills, will never have a problem with dying again! ^^

And yes, Nate is really fast now ^^ and hits up to 120mil! and gives 100% stance while attacking!

[quote=healer55]with 2X the survivability........ i died 3 times at SH cause 9k damage to 14k hp nl = ded

@lecarde is assassinate even considered slow anymore? with all it's revamps and QOL buffs ._.[/quote]

Wow I never got the little popup in the "quoted" icon at the top of the page

Anyway, assassinate is still slower than a NL can attack. But yes I agree, it has gotten considerably faster over the years. However, for most players, this means balance. It isn't until you spend enough money to buy a house can you deal damage like that KMS shad, and if you aren't dealing damage like that then you are a fairly balanced class overall

[quote=healer55]with 2X the survivability........ i died 3 times at SH cause 9k damage to 14k hp nl = ded

@lecarde is assassinate even considered slow anymore? with all it's revamps and QOL buffs ._.[/quote]

I hope you realize you're looking at over 15 mil range to do that kind of damage on a shad. It is probably the least cost efficient thing to do in the game, you'd be saving money doing similar damage on a Kaiser, which is saying something considering Kaisers are notorious for being extremely expensive.

[quote=AntiSenpai]We have less lines! >.>

But we do 2x more damage... <3[/quote]

with 2X the survivability........ i died 3 times at SH cause 9k damage to 14k hp nl = ded

@lecarde is assassinate even considered slow anymore? with all it's revamps and QOL buffs ._.

They attack slower. Yes, that extremely funded kms shad can kill hard magnus in 60 seconds. But almost no one can fund a character to that level. Plus we don't have additional options so....

We have less lines! >.>

But we do 2x more damage... <3

Bosses started to deal %hp dmg.
Easier to cap in damage thus lines per sec> single hard hit.
Access to link mules and char cards.