Use for Maxwell's Shadow Duelist?

[ZeRoboButler 140]

I recently had a fascination with Maxwell and his abilities, I kinda liked the idea of playing as a previous "puppet master" or "king of shadows", but im... not feeling that as much? 

Now for the most part, I like the shadows, its nice to have the loggers and the diggers for production of logs, and if you do it long enough the acquisition of living logs, and infinite mining is pretty useful. My only issue with that is the fact that for a puppet master, he does not exert that much "control" over his puppets, if feels like wendy is better at being a puppet master then him at times purely because of the methods of control she can exert. 

Ghost sister getting overwhelmed? Vacuum her back into the flower. Need your ghost sister to help you out in a more pro active manor, Rile her up.

Now with the shadows, I kinda got used to it, because there isn't really another option, but the duelist... good lord I can't find a actual use for them.

Is there anyone who has actually been able to use them for anything combat related? I had used them to get rid of cookie cutters in the past but that is about it, they have pig AI it feels like but not pig health so they are not even good distractions at times, they feel like a waste of 2 nightmare fuel and a spear at the moment.

If anyone has any use for the duelist I would love to know, I am patiently waiting for the rework, especially considering the fact that wicker would be more likely to show before max, what with the state of the books and what not.   

[Keller Max 412]

They are trash! Don't use them. Wait for his rework.

[przemo435 3]

Either try some mods or dont use them at all.

EVENTUALLY, they can help you achieve insanity faster.

[ZeRoboButler 140]

Yeah I was aware of the sanity locking so I could farm for fuel better but I just wish that there was something actually... combat related for the combat shadow y'know?

 

[Mr.Tarunio 3566]

you can kill cave tentacles and kill ewicus aswell easily with boomerang and them.

[Guille6785 2713]

short answer: no

long answer: there are cool tricks you can pull off with duelists but the problem is pretty much all of them are impractical in the grand scheme of things because they require you to unsummon most of your worker shadows (since duelists use up more sanity than them for some dumb reason, I guess klei thought they were too powerful lmfao), they save a trivial amount of time in fights even if you use them perfectly and you still have to pay for them with nightmare fuel and spears (which clutter your inventory and may force you to carry things that you'd otherwise just leave at base)

some uses for them:
-soak up hits from bishops (flashy, but with a football helm and a torch you're only really avoiding 16 damage for a pair of bishops in the ruins)
-you can have them alive during the dragonfly fight (they save like a minute if you bother to prevent them from dying at the stomp but at least they let you do a cool no walls fight)
-cool phase 1 bee queen if you kite (I forgot what happens in the other phases and I don't care enough to go check)
and probably other minor fights I'm forgetting

anything that requires a boomerang is trying too hard to make them useful

btw contrary to popular belief duelists aren't immune to antlion sand spikes and 2 of them can't solo unpearled crab king (but abigail can do both of those things)

 

I definitely would like to see the ability to summon more duelists and for them to just be invincible, it's very clear by this point that even that wouldn't be particularly powerful

Edited May 11 by Guille6785

[Cheggf 8620]

They can help you fight spiders since mobs aggro as a group initially but reaggro individually. If the duelist gets the first hit they'll all chase him as he runs away so you can hold f on those that follow him and if you get the first hit they can hit some that are following you. 

If Maxwell's shadows just took 2 nmf to make duelists would be good, requiring creativity and thought instead of brainless spectating, but as it is right now with the spear requirement they're pretty annoying to work with. 

Edited May 11 by Cheggf

[ZeRoboButler 140]

Most of the time, if I want to farm spiders, using the duelist seems to more a detrimental than helpful. They tend to attack on sight like pigs do, although when they do it, it is only if they aggro onto max first. Ironic that it is actually easier to take out spiders with out the shadows rather than with them.

The more I look at, come to think of it, I feels like wicker and max are in similar spots, they do function and have value when it comes to a team (funny that both of them also collect basic resources in mass) but beyond that it kinda leaves you wanting more from them huh? 

Im sure some people like simple gameplay but at the moment, its a bit too simple, get fuel, remove forest and rocks. At least wicker has the utility of sleepy time and silviculture for the long term. 

[maradyne 6110]

Some niches where they're nice to have, but...generally more of a risk to themselves than anything else.

Won't do combat better than other followers, except on water; solely because you can have one to help with Cookie Cutters while also having a miner waterwalk to smash the salt pillars for driveby-gathering.

Edited May 11 by maradyne

[loopuleasa 1992]

They're good extra damage, but you have to have a box of nm fuel to use them.

I like to use duelists with celestial crown for two extra sources of DPS.

 

The secret is to expect them to die.

 

Imagine if shadow duellists were able to target shadow creatures in the rework (drooling)

Edited May 12 by loopuleasa

[ArubaroBeefalo 18172]

3 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

I like to use duelists with celestial crown for two extra sources of DPS.

how?

[Brubs 4167]

I use them as friends, they are pretty good at that. Right @ShadowDuelist ?

[DajeKotlyar 733]

Giant tantacle. Smaller tantacles just don't attack them

[Dragonboooorn 718]

I hate to say that, but with all his  shadow potential he can only summon some usefull labor workers and a  crappy bodyguards that are never worth summoning. 

In PvP they quite useful. They deal solid damage and also stuns your opponent 

[ShadowDuelist 10479]

They are alright to keep aggro off you and kill some birds during Wagstaff's quest. They  can also work to take the attention of the hounds while you chase mactusk.

Other than that and the aforementioned locking maxwell in insanity, they have no practical use IMO.

[Guille6785 2713]

8 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

I like to use duelists with celestial crown for two extra sources of DPS.

bruh you can't

[NoodlemanNed 188]

8 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

I like to use duelists with celestial crown for two extra sources of DPS.

and i like to use big bernie for the celestial champion fight

[loopuleasa 1992]

5 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

bruh you can't

wait, you're right, i actually never used duelists since the cc update

forgot it's based on max sanity, not reserved max

man, max can't even catch a break, I was trying to be his lawyer for once and I failed

Edited May 12 by loopuleasa

[Cloakingsumo198 2036]

I've used them to help me kill slurtles faster.