Wardancer is, according to surveys, the least played class in Lost Ark. So naturally I am attracted to the class as an alt to my Bard. After playing many hours leveling up a wardancer to Lutera Castle and then using Powerpass on her I have formed an opinion about what the class needs to be attractive to play.
First of all let me say my opinion about where a Wardancer or striker can fit into Lost Ark. They can be the stagger kings, putting out more single target damage than other classes while struggling in the multiple AOE field vs other classes. I have no real problem with their AOE right now. In fact a couple of the esoteric skills should be changed to be more single target focused as almost all esoterics are AOE.
Second, Most of her attacks are back attacks and she has low HP but she lacks the mobility to get to that back attack. Unless you take Phoenix Advent your mobility is actually quite low. This is in contrast to the deathblade that has stills to jump over guardians to reposition herself to be most effective. Combo’s “excellent mobility” is not very excellent, giving a 1 meter jump.
Third, she needs more stagger and counter skills. Only Combo can counter and it does low damage, not often in builds because of that. Its a very mediocre skill but unless you want to go without a counter, thats all you have.
Finally, the class needs a slight reduction in her cooldowns. Maybe just a 1 second reduction across the board. You ofcten have to fill in auto attacks or pick your nose with a wardancer and that isnt a recipie for fun or effectiveness.
At what level are you playing Wardancer? She is pretty much the most wanted class for endgame content (besides supports/gunlancer) as her skills are insanely good lategame. But what you need are the skill level ups from gear and gems. Before that she feels underwhelming.
This is not a problem of the class but a problem of where most players are right now and thus also why most players drop the class early. It simply feels bad early but gets way way better late with the proper gear.
So you deny she needs more mobility? I am lost at then how to get the right positioning. Deathblade can move like a champ. All wardancer moves are underwhelming.
I’ve tried explaining this to somebody else before with no success, but “mobility” is not simply skills with dashes in their base description, some classes have the option of adding dashing effect with tripods, while others like wardancer rely on having low commitment for “mobility.”
If you play her following canon playstyles, you are at such a tempo advantage relative to the boss, needing the dash should only be a rare occasion.
Hm, im not sure how you found it condescending, because i definitely did not intend such tone of delivery lol.
As for the applicability part, press P to open the character screen, and then on the bottom right side in the combat stats section, hover the cursor over the “swiftness” stat. You will see that having more swiftness gives your faster movement speed, as well as more cool down reduction and “attack speed,” which in this game means animation speed.
I hope that provides more context for my claim of wardancer having low commitment as a source of advantage against Bosses. Faster movement speed allows for easier time positioning, and faster animation speed means you will be able to fit your attacks into smaller windows of opportunity, as well as out-pacing the Boss to dodge their attacks.
If you need a good source of canon builds for wardancer, try googling “maxroll lost ark wardaner raid guide.” From there, you can choose from one of two branches, each corresponding to one of her playstyle defining class engravings.
Wardancer is in a great spot in KR and will probably see nerfs even as she is super strong. But she needs alot of ressources before she starts to shine. I think also its very hard to get an opinion about classes if you havent played them for longer and have access to decent eqp + tripods and such. Its seems like you havent invested enough in your wardancer or its just not the class for you to play.
