Quote Originally Posted by Ogornomus View Post
Ok, I must comment on this. I find stamina drain on shadows stupidly powerful. Seriously, shadows are loaded with total damage mitigation skills like Uncany Dodge and Riposte, all the while they only have to Spectral Touch you two times. I feel that anything not a full offensive rage has no chance against them. Because it looks like percentage based stamina drain to me, nothing realy matters agains them (like health or how much stamina you stacked).

Maybe I just see the differnece between a well equipped HoL shadow gladiator and my non HoL slaves with ok equipment. Most of my gladiators struggle to hit them while they get their stamina drained.

I know this thread is about shadow skill and strenght, but what is the counter to them (the stamina drain ones)?
First off, you are correct. Most of the Shadows are HOL glads, so they will be a tough nut to crack with a run of the mill slave anyway. However, from the 4 Shadows I run and the Shadows I go up against the best bet to take them out is to do it early and hard.

2H Wars and Rages can do well against certain Shadow builds but those with both Uncanny Dodge and Riposte are difficult for them as the can and will avoid getting hit with the big DFA or Rampage while landing multiple hits and draining endurance each round. So a Shadow that utilizes Uncanny Dodge and Riposte well are a bad match up for 2H.

Shadows vs tanks will all but drain them out, however with a good strategy and going tank/active on opposing rounds can lead to neutralizing Spectral Touch at times. Sometimes a Spectral Touch will not drain on a Tank everytime and that can be the bout changer if the tank go active at the right time.

Shadows are very different from all the other specialties so there is no 1 specific way to beat them. But getting to them fast and early seems to work best, but then again that works against most.