45 réponses à ce sujet

[FuriousFelicia]

Yeah hi people. So the thing I noticed playing around with the Shadow is that when it comes to phantoms it's way safer and I could say efficient to deal with them using electric slash.
With this setup a gold phantom is dead from 2 - 3 strikes (if you're not hosting), and considering it's low CD, 2-3 shots doesn't take long.

One thing that's great here is that phantoms won't bubble up if they don't see you when you "strike". Sometimes they don't bubble even if they see you, and as for SS, everything is great and it's one of the best and satisfying ways of dealing with phantoms but if she happens to see you initiating SS on her ass, you might eat her sword just as you appear for the blow. Plus you can take out 3 phantoms at once in 3 slashes.

Tl;dr - electric slash is great vs phantoms

[Excella Gionne]

To SS, or not to SS, that is the question---

[Pheabus2009]

True, but it works best on maps with lots of corridors/walls, for open maps I still prefer the SS build.

[FuriousFelicia]

To SS, or not to SS, that is the question---

With bonus power, SS definitely but with phantoms specifically it's better to attack from out of sight. Those that play her often must know what happens when you shamelessly cloak and try to SS a phantom that saw what you're doing.

[Excella Gionne]

With bonus power, SS definitely but with phantoms specifically it's better to attack from out of sight. Those that play her often must know what happens when you shamelessly cloak and try to SS a phantom that saw what you're doing.

That has only happened to me once where she insta-FUUU me as I was about to strike her. It doesn't happen to me often where she would do her little sword dance that goes 360 degrees and staggers you out of SS.

[FuriousFelicia]

True, but it works best on maps with lots of corridors/walls, for open maps I still prefer the SS build.

Yes of course, because it doesn't climb or descend, it travels in a straight line which is its main flaw IMO. Should have been like ME2 shockwave just as BS and present shockwave - hits everything in its path regardless of target's altitude.

[Excella Gionne]

Yes of course, because it doesn't climb or descend, it travels in a straight line which is its main flaw IMO. Should have been like ME2 shockwave just as BS and present shockwave - hits everything in its path regardless of target's altitude.

What sucks is its hit cap. If it hits 3 enemies at the start, the rest is all purely for show. They should have let us increase the hit cap on a higher rank at the most.

[FuriousFelicia]

That has only happened to me once where she insta-FUUU me as I was about to strike her. It doesn't happen to me often where she would do her little sword dance that goes 360 degrees and staggers you out of SS.

If she saw you cloak, she will most likely great you with a flurry once you're there, staggering you out of SS, and if she already meleed something before that she just might shank you. It's less likely if she had another target before you SS her.
If you cloak out of sight and SS, this almost never hapens.

[Quarian Master Race]

I still don't even have this kit after 250+ hours somehow. Only one I am missing.

Probably wouldn't use her anyway because not  quarian

[Excella Gionne]

I still don't even have this kit after 250+ hours somehow. Only one I am missing.

Probably wouldn't use her anyway because not  quarian

You serious? I got her first when I was in that phase where I wanted the Slayer so badly, but when I got him, I didn't really play him... :S

[FuriousFelicia]

What sucks is its hit cap. If it hits 3 enemies at the start, the rest is all purely for show. They should have let us increase the hit cap on a higher rank at the most.

That is con #1 but still better than petty shockwave which hits 2 and it's radius is like 2 cm. ES hits quite nicely though, you certainly don't have to hit exactly between the nuts for a hit.

[FuriousFelicia]

Shadow is a much better character than slayer for me, and also better at the sword.

Though in slayer's defense I think BS is just a little bit better than ES.

[12323432543]

I play the shadow quite often. I don't think that is true. The key is to drop agro and then take the phantoms out. ES is certainly good for CC but going against phantoms, I'd just rather SS her. Goons can eat my heavy melee blade to the face. 

[Quarian Master Race]

You serious? I got her first when I was in that phase where I wanted the Slayer so badly, but when I got him, I didn't really play him... :S

I just don't get it. I had everyone else and even maxed the 3 UR characters within my first 150 hours or so.

Black Widow and Talon are being similarly annoying.

[Pheabus2009]

Yes of course, because it doesn't climb or descend, it travels in a straight line which is its main flaw IMO. Should have been like ME2 shockwave just as BS and present shockwave - hits everything in its path regardless of target's altitude.

 

Yeah, that's the main reason I always bring Jack with me in ME2: "I will destroy you!" -> Enemies flying everywhere, it's glorious.

 

[FuriousFelicia]

I play the shadow quite often. I don't think that is true. The key is to drop agro and then take the phantoms out. SS is certainly good for CC but going against phantoms, I'd just rather SS her. Goons can eat my heavy melee blade to the face.

By the time you SS one, ES can take out 3. All I'm saying is that ES is efficient tool against them and possibly safer than SS, and the fact that phantoms won't bubble means a lot.

[FuriousFelicia]

Yeah, that's the main reason I always bring Jack with me in ME2: "I will destroy you!" -> Enemies flying everywhere, it's glorious.

Never left Normandy without Jack for the same reason

[Quarian Master Race]

Only experience I have with ES is that 99% of the bad pugs that I encounter using the shadow are spamming it through walls while running away from the enemy

[Homey C-Dawg]

I'll stick with SS. Nothing is more satisfying with Shadow than SS'ing a Phantom. Especially when she lives just long enough to turn around and see it was me. 

[FuriousFelicia]

^There'snothing more satisfying than walking up to her and get it done without wasting a CD, just give her the monomolecular through her neck

[Loufi]

But killing Phantoms instantly with SS is a lot more satisfying, so I will let ES at 4 ranks and continue to spam it occasionally.

[Sailears]

I play the shadow quite often. I don't think that is true. The key is to drop agro and then take the phantoms out. SS is certainly good for CC but going against phantoms, I'd just rather SS her. Goons can eat my heavy melee blade to the face.

By the time you SS one, ES can take out 3. All I'm saying is that ES is efficient tool against them and possibly safer than SS, and the fact that phantoms won't bubble means a lot.

Not necessarily - take the situation of three phantoms (or two phantoms and a dragoon or whatever) - as soon as you've plotted your kill route (needs to be in less than a second), taking into account cover positions and blind spots to LOS enemies, you can cloak -> move/dodge -> initiate SS on first target - > just before SS cools down first shoot then initiate second SS -> follow up with a shooting and heavy melee the third target. That should all be possible in less than 5 or 6 seconds, depending on how grouped up the targets are.

Nevermind that SS/shooting/melee allows you to drop things like scions, praetorians, banshees, brutes, ravagers, dragoons, geth prime and so on very quickly by dealing massive damage. If they are close together you can also kill two or three in one heavy melee stroke (most I've managed is two brutes and a banshee, but it was a bit lucky tbh).

ES is safer if course, more effective especially when combined with fire explosions from incendiary ammo and much easier to spam, but my god does it get boring as hell if you build around spamming it.
3 ranks is enough in the situation that two or three enemies are near to each other - easy to follow up with heavy melee for double/triple kill.

Oh and as for phantoms seeing you cloak - it's good practice to move after cloaking, either with a dodge or two, leave a short delay/pause/hesitation. If there is at least one more person on the team you only need leave a second or so for the phantom to drop you was a target. If solo or clutching - watch her animations and get a feel for how long to pause before initiating SS. You should pretty much never be caught or cause a bubble to come up. Teammates are usually the cause of that, in which case I shoot/dodge back and come in for the heavy melee as she drops the bubble. Only if your suffering lag and clutching/soloing, with the bug of enemies seeing your body arrive before you do will anything bad happen. In practice this has only happened very rarely to me - most of the time it works without a hitch.

Yes you have to play damn well to keep up with an ES spammer or other destructive classes, but it all comes down to fast, efficient kill route planning and optimisation - minimising number of moves, dodges, weapon shots and power use, as well as time to kill - all these things need to be considered and adjusted on the fly every moment as the situation changes.

This is the reason melee shadow is my favourite character - flawless efficiency sets an incredibly high bar and this really challenges you to refine decision making/route planning, execution of skills and situational awareness to get as clos to that bar as possible.

Edit: one of the hardest score competing matches I remember in the past was me as a SS melee shadow vs an ES shadow using BPP and acolyte. I had to play my socks off to keep up, but that was a long time ago and I hadn't learnt nearly enough or have the experience I have now - granted I have just come back to this game recently and lost a lot of rhythm with the shadow - for a melee build it is one of those classes that demands regular play/practice to maintain skill/peak efficieny because it drops off very fast.

Edit2: If you see or hear phantom initiate her melee, it goes without saying - DO NOT SS - pause for a second for her attack to reset so as not to get the sync. If two or three phantoms are very close together such that SSing one will cause you to be meleed by another, this is a situation where you want to ES and shoot (or try a triple melee decapitation) to soften them up.

[Ashevajak]

I find myself agreeing more with Curunen.

 

While the ES Shadow is definitely a safer way to engage Phantoms if you've been spotted, under the ideal conditions for its use the SS using Shadow will drop Phantoms just as easily and with a similar amount of speed.

 

Of course obtaining those ideal conditions isn't always easy...but that's part of the fun of playing the Shadow.  While you can play her like most of the other infiltrators, she's also the one who works best as an actual stealthy character, staying out of sight and attacking enemies from unseen positions.  As someone who is disappointed with the fact infiltrators do not infiltrate, just briefly turn invisible for massive damage bonuses, I have to say that aspect of her gameplay really appeals to me.

[Sailears]

The most difficult thing as a melee shadow in a team game, aside from striving for peak efficiency, is wise use of cloak - very difficult on a character that benefits from maintaining cloak to make use of bonus power.

However I find it disrespectful to the rest of the team if I stay in cloak unnecessarily - so timing when not to cloak and draw enemy fire away from teammates, and when to maintain cloak for that extra second to finish another enemy is a very fine balance.

I will try to stay out of cloak as much as is reasonable, often cancelling it depending on the situation. When I am in cloak I will strive to make wise use of the time I am causing enemies to focus the rest of the team - either through neutralising key targets for them or simply killing enough enemies to make up for putting extra pressure on the team.

Edit: melee shadow is not much of a team player and benefits more from being on the other side of the map from teammates, which I struggle with a lot - it can be quite an antisocial character so you've got to put in more effort in helping the team by relieving pressure from dangerous enemies, rezzing, and so on. ES shadow is more of a team player if you've got some engineers or something, but of course if there are any accurate weapon users or biotics on the they could get annoyed at the screen shake and electric effects.

[FuriousFelicia]

I suppose I'm just surprised to see ES doesn't trigger the bubble. I've been messing around stuff I never really liked before and noticed how you can turn this cowardly tactics into an effective strategy. I do agree that SS is overall better and more fun power though. I really like the melee Shadow for her play style, especially if using all abilities to chain them tactically and of course being a phantom for the enemy