When I heard that there was a possibility in the future for subclass supers to be reworked, I was ecstatic. I love playing a Nightstalker for shooting a bow made from void energy is one of my more favored power fantasies in Destiny, hell it's even why I main up to three bows at a time in my kit. However, for a while now I've always felt the Shadowshot paths would always fail in many of my engagements, be it the enemy being so fast that the tether tries to latch on but then gives up halfway, or the tether, planted many seconds in advance, taking way too long to proc suppression. With the latest sandbox changes only touching Way Of The Wraith, which has always been the most powerful and most used of the three in my opinion, I'm left with the feeling that shadowshot isn't something on bungie's radar. Hopefully they address this in the part 2 patch notes when the next season comes around. With that intro out of the way I wanted to give my thoughts on a Way Of The Pathfinder super rework. Since the general feeling of the Way Of The Trapper is to plant a singular trap and lay in wait, I see Way Of The Pathfinder as the more "going Rambo with a bow" with rapid fire arrows. However, in many engagements, due to the projectile nature of and poor tracking capabilities of the Nightstalker's arrows just in general, many of the arrows would flat out miss whereas a TTDB's projectiles would clean up shop any day.
My propose changes are this:
- Change bottom tree nightstalker super activation animation to that of casting a golden gun in the air
- Way of the Pathfinder becomes a 3rd person roaming super with the void light bow physically in your hands at the ready with 7 arrows in a thigh quiver for 13 seconds. The super ends after all 13 seconds are up or all 7 arrows are fired.
- Pressing right trigger will play the 1 second shadowshot charge and fire animation. Remember, one you start the shadowshot animation, you can't cancel it. To any onlookers, a bright void light sniper lens flare with a halo around it will be seen emanating from the arrow's tip.
- Shadowshot arrows become Starfall arrows that are hit-scan and display a bright purple streak of void light like a shooting star when fired akin to that of the trail left behind by the lazulite shuriken from Sekiro. This is to act as the lingering visual effect from the super like the trail of embers left behind by the travel path of a golden gun bullet.
- Starfall arrows do not spawn void anchors but instead over-penetrate targets..
- Only those hit by the arrows themselves are immediately suppressed for 7 seconds. Requires two shots to suppress and then kill a roaming super.
- Updated Mobius Quiver: For every arrow that hit a target, they receive a stacking debuff that causes the next arrow to deals bonus damage to that target."
- Super armor during the entirety of the super, not just when firing the bow. 54 or 56% like dawnblade should be good to keep it somewhat tanky but not too tanky since retaliation takes at least 1 second due to target acquisition and animation firing times.
- Substantially Increased movement and sprint speed.
Pros: Single Target DPS role remains intact, Instant Suppression, Hitscan, Overpenetration
Cons: No AOE, Fires slower than most projectile supers, Aiming, Must commit to firing arrows, Arrow glare when firing alerts people to your location.
What are your thoughts on my super rework? Any suggestions? Any ideas for a melee replacement instead of the useless smokebomb?
Appended changes I thought of later after making this post:
- Footsteps leave behind burning footsteps that persist until super ends.
- Dodging changes into a void dash that travels slightly longer than a regular dodge that obscures your character model (Not as crazy as bakris) and leaves a void flame trail in your wake that persists until the super ends. Trail is HIGHLY visible trail as to indicate where you dodged to avoid enemy player confusion and assist in super tracking.
If arcstrider, glacioclasm, dawnblade, voidwalker, and arcstrider can use their movement abilities constantly in a 3rd person super, why not try this out?
- Make the arrow behave like sleeper and bounce off hard surfaces?
- Orpheus rig gives 3 more arrows and extends super duration by 3 seconds. Allows for Precision shots with Voidlight Arrows.