Melee Shadow what's the appeal

I rolled a shadow to play as a "rogue" archtype. Sadly, it doesn't appear to be anything like any other game.

I'm now lvl 11, and it just seems like it's never gonna get any funner.
There no "rogue"-ish aoe. Cleave doesn't seem to fit the bill,and you can't use it with daggers. And whirling blades is a joke. Oh and etherial knives? it scales with spell power. And a caster has better things to do than use that..so seriously. Why does that look like a awesome rogue skill...but it's not? Then there's the fact that you have to swallow mana pots like they're going out of style cuz you have next to no mana pool, and you go squish like you're wearing paper.
and you hit like a wet noodle ( but hey at least you'll never miss right?)

Where's the appeal?

I shouldn't have to use a bow to make it fun or viable. And if I wanted to cast magic I'd start a Witch.

Rogue styles in multiplayer games are very difficult to do... typically they are either super OP or OP your teammates... or they are super weak.

I'd call them 'incomplete' at this point... and you'll have to wait for new skills and perhaps a passive overhaul.

I dunno about you, but I have a lot of fun with dual-wielding shadows - the single-target damage on Dual Strike is good enough (and for cheap enough) that I don't really care that it's not AoE.

Arguably the "rogue" archetype isn't known for AoE to begin with, but in the event I'm looking for such I tend to go with fire traps and freezing pulses, the former of which at least is plenty "roguelike".

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zeto wrote:

Rogue styles in multiplayer games

Come again? I don't even play co-op. And this is an ARPG not an MMO.

I just took the mana leech passive and spam Flicker Strike, with some Life Leech or LoH if might as well be aoe

Ya, this is dumb. Level 14 now, in the ship graveyard going squish like I'm wearing paper. hitting one-at-a-time with Dual strike and throwing my pitiful trap, wishing Etherial Knives didn't suck ass.
Melee Shadow is boring, broken, underpowered and just plain not fun. I'm done.
Back to my 55 Templar who actually mitigates, dodges, and wrecks the joint.

The appeal is you look totally badass.

Whirling Blades is NOT a joke -- it's one of the best skills in the game. Easily.

Viper Strike+Whirling Blades+Double strike+Flicker Strike. A melee shadow needs nothing else, attack-wise. Charan's 39 and uses those *minus* flicker strike (not quite ready for Blood Rage yet). The Shadow gets excellent IAS early on, and access to some good crit boosts as well. I ignore the ES side of the Shadow, however: it's of no use to me in melee. He gets ES and Evasion because he's Dex/Int, a hybrid. As I see it, hybrids can be built as hybrids OR they can be built with a focus either way. I think of the Dex Shadow as totally different to an Int one. Totally.

That said, you do feel very weak at first as a melee shadow. Very. It takes me about ten levels to hit stride: I get some good evasion armour (strapped leather, scrapped and orbed up), some okay damage-add rings, a good whalebone rapier (preferably that unique one some silly person made). I find it best to race for Diamond Skin+Troll's Blood, but I made a complete evasion Ranger who did nothing but focus on evasion nodes and arrow dodging who had no trouble in Cruel Act 1 at level 33 acting pretty much as a Melee Shadow would, minus the flicker strike (such cheese). Her evasion was a stupid 5,400, with 73% chance to evade. Yes, some hits would get through, but she could weather them.

Whirling Blades, however, is probably why I'd pick Shadow for melee. Once you can stash it, fine -- stick it on another class. But he receives it very early as a quest reward (right after Brutus) and your entire play style will change based on it.

Keep in mind the Shadow is a Dex/Int hybrid. Choose the Dex path and you must keep moving. It's essential.

Playing a Melee shadow feels no different to any other rogue-type to me. You're relatively frail but you're terribly agile, you hit quickly and you hit reliably, and you rely on DoTs as much as direct damage.

I have many characters, but the Melee shadow is easily my favourite.

EDIT: Ethereal Knives is a spell. A very particular spell. You have to build toward it and around it. Support gems such as faster projectiles, items and nodes that grant casting speed, projectile damage and mana per kill. A melee Shadow shouldn't bother with EK, but it's a beautiful spell done right.

EDIT 2: The graveyard at level 14 isn't that easy at all. Look at your defences, your resists. Your HP. All these things. I recently built a Melee shadow from scratch, no stashed items, and he stopped being that hard just after the Prison. By then I had my staples: Viper Strike, Whirling Blades. By then I know what I'm doing.

I have all those skills you list. And it feels lacking, and boring.
And my survivability is almost non exist ant. Constantly quafing a pot is just stupid.

I've already figured out what Etherial Knives is about ( it's a spell, benefits from spell damage yada yada) but if you're gonna take spell dmg nodes and cast speed you may as well be doing/using something altogether superior.
It's a fundamentally boring and flawed "class" atm, IMO.

Thanks for your feedback.

You are not the only person with survivability issues with the Shadow, and it is something we are trying to work on.

The Shadow does explicitly have a magic possibility to them, and is presented somewhat as a mage/assassin kind of character.

Ethereal Knives does has some issues we want to resolve.

I don't know about melee Shadow but I play I spellcasting one and I also don't know why would I ever bother with ethereal knives when I can use Cold spells like I do. It needs to be way, way better for its almost melee range effect to ever be used as a main spell or even a first support spell.