After making some improvements to my 94F clear rotation, I was able to squeeze out another floor and clear 95F. This is probably my highest floor until Dreamer (unless anniversary patch buffs are really strong), so I'll write some thoughts about my run.
Shade has no short cd skills but has two 1 minute "half bursts", so it's important to spread those out up until 85F or so as it would be wasteful to stack them. One of the skills (Spiritgate) is a summon, so I swap to a cdr hat to cast it and then immediately swap back to my damage hat before the boss spawns. The other skill (SMP) is an attack, so only on the early floors do I cast it with the cdr hat to line things up.
Since Shade can use the 2 minute spin burst any time within a 90 second window, it's important to time it efficiently. It's best to use on floors with fewest other resources available or to burst a tankier floor (e.g. 80F, 85F). If it can one shot a floor within the 5 seconds of uptime, then there's no need to expend any other resources on that floor.
Finding the optimal timing to use origin is difficult. Since Shade's origin is a 40 second "buff", it can carry across floors, and I use it to power through 76F through 79F since those bosses have annoying mechanics. This allows for one more cast afterwards, which I do on 90F to utilize the bind. However, I only have three total casts in a run with this rotation, and I'm not sure if changing the timings to get four total casts is potentially better.
AB link and split are reset by Spirit Flow every 2 minutes, so there is some flexibility on when to cast them (similar to spin burst). For example, split can be cast once every 2 minutes at any point and it won’t push back the cd for the next cast. I spread out these resources on early floors and gradually combine them with other resources as the run progresses.
As for oz rings - the Continuous Ring is good for dojo, and I use it up until I have two rotations of the other rings left in the run (which starts with RoR on 85F). I think that using Continuous Ring is slightly better than optimal ring swapping on early floors and slightly worse than optimal ring swapping on later floors.
Lastly, I'll post what I consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of Shade in dojo. This is strictly looking at Shade's kit and not how strong of a class it is. Overall, I would say that Shade has a slightly above average kit for dojo.
Significant Positive (++)
- Flexible burst timing (can use anytime within a 90s window every 120s)
Positive (+)
- Good origin structure (40s duration)
- CD reset skill allows for flexibility
- Has a class bind
Negative (-)
- Condensed burst class
Significant Negative (--)
- No short cd skills (shortest is 60s)
- Liver upkeep