Shadow Trickster is an interesting concept. A massive increase in critical coupled with a decrease in block, as well as the ability to steal pips from your target. The problem is that this transformation is outclassed by Shrike in every way. Shadow Shrike: 50% pierce, 10% damage bonus, -25% incoming health, gives a 10% pierce charm after casting a hit. Shadow Trickster: 60% critical, -30% block, steals a pip from the target if you cast certain spells. PvP: If you're facing a wizard with 50% resist, Shadow Shrike is basically a 100% blade, and an additional 10% buff to damage. Even if critical damage hadn't been nerfed to 25-30% bonus, Trickster's firepower boost isn't nearly as high. He just gives a 60% greater chance to get what was once double damage, with still a chance to be blocked. With critical damage much lower this boost is laughable. Furthermore, the loss of block is probably a bigger weakness than a loss of incoming healing. You can manage Shrike's downside by not healing, you can't manage when your opponent is hitting criticals. PvE: The only good use I can think of for Trickster is for Death wizards to spam juju and keep up pips. Why bother with extra critical when most builds can already critical consistently and it can still be blocked? If you're dealing with something that has high resists, better just to shrike.
Therefore I put forth the following suggestion: Make Shadow Trickster boost critical damage. I was thinking along the lines of returning to double critical damage in PvP and triple damage for criticals in PvE, but those are just numbers I threw out there and I'd be willing to discuss them. I don't think this will be terribly broken for PvP since someone in Trickster form won't be able to access the massive pierce of Shrike.
