Trickster Rogue Class Balance Suggestions

trgluestickz · May 2017

archangelzorak01 said:
@silktrocity
1. We already have a tool to remove stealth loss from incoming damage, its part of the SoD package. That being said I wouldn't mind seeing that aspect put somewhere where any spec can utilize it. A heroic feat perhaps? The removal of stealth loss from incoming damage being taken away from SoD would require something else b added. I think adding a removal of stealth loss from 'outgoing' damage would work well. As you said, and I also touched on in an earlier post, Stealth - when compared to other class tab-powers - is vastly under-performing.

2. I feel the cool-down on Lashing would be justified if it actually hit hard. I've done many tests on dummies and such to figure things out and I have a pretty good idea how much dmg a well executed Lashing can do, in my case 500-750k on average. The problem arises when in a group with all those extra buffs my Lashing's rarely break 1.5mil (more often than not doing less than 1mil for some reason), while other classes seem to get single target hits for 3-5 times more than Lashing. Occasionally Lashing will hit for more, 2-3mil; but it still falls short compared to other classes single target nukes. I've gone on record many times saying that something feels 'wrong' with Lashing, that the damage it does just falls completely flat. Especially when you consider that long cool-down and the high base damage.

3. I always came to the conclusion that the logical reason why TR didn't have an AOE at-will was because they were designed to be a single target focused class. A boss-killer. Most signs point to this except the fact that most of the other classes equal or out-perform TR in single target DPS while being much more efficient in AOE's as well. I see no reason to try to re-focus TR's into being a jack of all trades, I would much rather see TR have a significant advantage in single target DPS while being less effective in AOE DPS.

4. Any change to how SoD works can't have a cool-down built into it. With the correct rotation under ideal circumstances it is possible to maintain 90-100% uptime on SoD. Anything that adds a cool-down would result in a net-loss. I think removing the trigger would simplify everything. Rather than a debuff being applied then 50% of dmg done over 6 seconds being applied at the end one could simply turn it into a buff. When you deal damage from stealth, for the next 6 seconds you deal an extra 50% of damage dealt as piercing damage. This should in theory equal the same amount of damage we can currently get under ideal circumstances but is less punishing in practice. It would take away from the 'feel' of SoD, which I actually like, but would make it more viable in the current state of the game.

5. Indeed sir, indeed.

I agree with you on pretty much everything you put for points #1, #3, #4, and #5

For #2, I also mostly agree but would like to elaborate:
I agree that LB should get a cooldown reduction and that LB having its current cooldown could be more justified if it hit harder.
LB getting a cooldown reduction will be benificial and safe for both pve and pvp whether the damage stays the same or not.
As for lashing blade needing to hit harder, I agree it could use more juice in pve.
Lashing blade is underpreforming in pvp too but with the damage buffs to the TR class that will likely come with the rework, lashing blade has the potential to become the new SE if its not watched. This means LB may need to have its damage reduced in pvp some in order to allow for it to be safely buffed in pve. Right now, LB is a very weak hitting attack in pvp by itself and the amount of buffs you have to feed an LB to get a good hit out of it makes it impractical for pvp.

trgluestickz · May 2017

rustlord said:
Hey @trgluestickz! Yep, you got me here. It's not that I'm not advocating for it, just trying to be subtle I guess. It is in fact partly about being mid-ranged too. I had a lot of fun running with/and fighting against JEN -- she's pretty beast for a CW and melts every TR I know. For a WK without ITC I've held my ground quite well against CW but if I were to have as much damage as they can dish out I'd have a field day out of the rest of them.

Mainly, stealth is still a great tactical edge in PvP regardless of its flaws in PvE.

trgluestickz said:
I disagree that whisperknife should not be as deadly as an HR or CW, that would imply that a WK is weaker than CWs and HRs on damage despite it being a striker and would be about just as viable as it is right now.

Edit: I find it odd you would sugest that WK should be less deadly than HR and CW and am wondering if this might be a miswording on your part and not quite what you meant. By any chance, did you mean WK's ranged capabilities should not be as good as HR or CW? This on some level would make sense considering WK is not currently built to be long ranged. WKs are built to be mid-ranged whereas CWs and HRs are more long ranged.
I'm thinking WK should remain mostly mid-ranged post rework. Dagger threat as just one example could be made to have a much bigger range than it currently does but still be mid-ranged. I'm thinking the part where you have to be within 20 feet of your target should be changed to be 60 feet, maybe more.

Here's what I'd like to see for WK passives (But maybe for just the sake of saying them, no idea if we're ever getting a rework this thorough)

Dagger Threat: Your ranged at will and encounter powers deal 50% more damage and your melee powers deal X % less.
-- from my experience this is the boost needed to make WK a viable ranged dps, but I want this to be justified elsewhere by making it strictly ranged. I shouldn't bleed you for half of your HP and come in with a (post-buff) Lashing Blade

Razor Action Your ranged daily powers deal 50% of its damage as Bleed damage over 5 seconds.
-- strongest WK passive only because its bugged. this power IS NOT supposed to be piercing and it multiprocs like hell at its present state

Advantageous Position: For X seconds after leaving stealth you maintain combat advantage and have increased deflect chance
-- DR is meaningless for TR seeing we don't build for it, and everyone in PvP has that much arpen anyhow. DR is worse in PvE because you get one shot anyway. Make this 20% increased deflect chance instead. In some ways it will make up for the lack of ITC

Dagger Threat:
I like your idea, +1

Razor Action:
I'm a little confused on what you mean by "ranged daily powers", all TR dailies are ranged in some way so what's your distinction? CB and LA are basically teleports, BB is an oddball but it does activate from range so its not really melee, HK I remember being somewhat ranged, SE is a little bit ranged, and WOB is a ranged AOE.

Advantgeous Position:
For the damage reduction, if it works anything like feytouched, master infighter, or the valhalla set, it would be pretty good in pvp if it was changed to apply to all damage and not just damage from ranged attacks. In pve, the deflection might fair a little better but neither are bad. If the damage reduction works like the defense stat then it sucks balls and pretty much any defensive stat would be better.

trgluestickz · May 2017

blur#5900 said:
@archangelzorak01 Keep it coming man. Detailed explanation like this is needed to help people understand how useless most of TR abilities are and that there is no really a choice, which is the reason why most of the PvE TR's use the same things.

"This displays a fundamental disconnect between the people who play the game and the people who make the game."
"...choosing the best bad option?"

Well, you nailed it.

100% agreed,
On the bit on PVE TRs using mostly the same builds and powers, its the same situation for PVP TRs too. TRs have almost no build variaty, there's a very narrow meta and most things you try to do different from that meta are penalized. That's something we can all agree on.

rustlord · May 2017

trgluestickz said:

Dagger Threat:
I like your idea, +1

Razor Action:
I'm a little confused on what you mean by "ranged daily powers", all TR dailies are ranged in some way so what's your distinction? CB and LA are basically teleports, BB is an oddball but it does activate from range so its not really melee, HK I remember being somewhat ranged, SE is a little bit ranged, and WOB is a ranged AOE.

Advantgeous Position:
For the damage reduction, if it works anything like feytouched, master infighter, or the valhalla set, it would be pretty good in pvp if it was changed to apply to all damage and not just damage from ranged attacks. In pve, the deflection might fair a little better but neither are bad. If the damage reduction works like the defense stat then it sucks balls and pretty much any defensive stat would be better.

Razor Action
Good question. I ask this myself. Personally I like to judge them by the animation and the range.

* SE is exclusive to MI so it's off the table. It jumps up from a slight distance and plunges a jesus-where-did-that-big-knife-come-from attack, it feels melee.
* Lurkers isn't an attack, off the table too.
* CB basically just gropes target from a distance. Groping is melee, I don't know if some consider it harrassment

* Bloodbath, the range of which you jump between random targets is decent, but the jumping and stabbing implies melee as well.
* Whirlwind is the only truely ranged daily.
* Hateful Knives (my favorite airplane attack) is our longest range daily with both melee and ranged components. Covers a distance by flying dead on, somersault and throwing daggers.

So maybe to clarify it could specifically say Whirlwind and Hateful Knives? It'll be only two, but we get to slot only two dailies anyway and other classes have passives that also apply to just one power. It'll be nice to have for PvE WK for trash clearing and gap closing bosses respectively. In PvP, it bumps up the two most unused dailies of all time.

Advantageous Position
From our testing, unfortunately it's DR based. Whether it's DR on a separate layer like Negation or not is up for discussion, but it feels like it's on the normal DR layer that is piercecable by armor penetration. There's an offhand ability that makes it decrease melee attacks. This power only really needs a slight tune up, otherwise it's almost fine for its CA. That's why I think changing it from defense to deflect might be a good idea.. or if it was like valhalla set foes who attack you deal 20 % less damage for X seconds, even better.

rustlord · May 2017

trgluestickz said:
As for lashing blade needing to hit harder, I agree it could use more juice in pve.
Lashing blade is underpreforming in pvp too but with the damage buffs to the TR class that will likely come with the rework, lashing blade has the potential to become the new SE if its not watched. This means LB may need to have its damage reduced in pvp some in order to allow for it to be safely buffed in pve.

Just to add a little bit of insight on scaling; and know this is only from gameplay experience combined with testing, not a fixed equation on all circumstances!

The disparity between PvP damage after Tenacity, DR, common buffs; and PvE damage without party buffs, is around 60-80%. A typical Lashing Blade hitting 100K on a dummy, for instance would do 20K to a light-armored BiS PvPer. Consider shield reductions and it can hit for as low as 5K. Maybe it helps with the calculation of how much buff is needed, maybe not. Take it with a grain of salt I guess.

trgluestickz · May 2017

archangelzorak01 said:
Opinions concerning Class passive powers:

Sneak Attack - Stealth lasts for such a short period of time in PVE content this passive is never used. Its just a filler, not a real choice.

First Strike - Used most often in PVP or when doing dailies off by ones'self. Only group content where this passive has any real usefullness is PoM or maybe Demo.

Tenacious Concealment - Rank 4 of this passive does not work. Even if it did the stealth loss reduction from SoD is superior and I feel this passive needs more to be useful.

Tactics - One would think that considering the TR's reliance on Daily Powers to self-buff and deal damage that this passive would become extremely useful. I've tried playing with this passive and hardly notice the difference in AP gains.

Infiltrator's Action - The CA granted by this passive is decent, but in a group setting where we have CA 90% of the time from our group members it starts to fall short, where it shines is when combined with the off-hand artifact power.

Skillful Infiltrator - This passive has potential, to a point. Most TR's will use this passive until reaching close to BiS levels, at which time Inf. Action becomes superior.

Invisible Infiltrator - Arguably the strongest passive power available to TR's, one of the reasons why MI outperforms WK. Everything about this passive is spot-on except the duration, it could use a bump.

Talisman of Shadows - Ya ya, I know. 'Trickster' rogue.. blah blah blah. stuns, dazes, slows, etc. I am not a fan of this particular passive, maybe it has usefullness in PVP? I really couldn't say. From a PVE perspective, considering all the other tools we have at our disposal if we want to daze an enemy, there are much better options and this passive goes in the bin.

Oppressive Darkness - I don't know who designed this passive, but shame on them. An extra 700 damage? Really? Is it even that much? Its been awhile since I've tested this passive but booooy oh boy was I not impressed. I think it comes out to less than 1.5% overall damage. In order for this passive to become even remotely useful it needs to have its piercing damage done based on current power and scale dynamically with buffs/debuffs.

Dagger Threat - not informed enough to have an opinion
Razor Action - see above
Advantageous Position - what he said

Opinions concerning Artifact Off-hand Powers:

Sneak Attack - 5% extra move speed in and out of stealth. So So, but no one uses this passive so whatevs.

First Strike - 10% extra crit chance and crit sev for the 1st hit in combat. Not bad, would be worth swapping to for when this passive is slotted. Is it worth the cost to swap though? Most likely not.

Tenacious Concealment: 10% additional stealth loss reduction from damage taken. Firstly, as stated, rank 4 of this passive does not work, also SoD does it better. Just another never-used off-hand power.

Tactics: Increased dmg done by daily powers by 5%. Nope, nope, nope. This displays a fundamental disconnect between the people who play the game and the people who make the game. TR's DO NOT use their daily powers to deal damage, sure some of them do deal damage, but any TR worth their salt knows that its the BUFFS we get when we use our dailies that make them worth using, not the damage. The only exception to this would be SE, which is only applicable in PVP as SE does pitiful damage in PVE content.

Dagger Threat: increases ranged attack dmg by 5% when more than 20ft. from the target. If we did respectable damage from range this would probly be good.

Razor Action: Increases the dmg dealt by Razor Action by 25%. I am not informed enough to make any comment concerning this passive.

Advantageous Position: Reduces dmg taken from melee attacks as well. see above. (seems kinda dumpy though)

Infiltrator's Action: Increases dmg dealt by 5% for the duration. Considering the duration of Inf. Action is one of the longest buffs we have as TR's this seems pretty solid. 5% is by no means 'amazing' but its better than nothing. Thats the problem, many of us choose this passive and its off-hand power because its 'better than nothing'. Thats what so many of the other passives and their off-hand power counterparts are... nothing. So we're delegated to choosing the best bad option? I feel like ya'll can do better than that.

Skillful Infiltrator: Increases resistance to slow and immobilize by 50%. I guess? I mean sure its nice, but it really doesn't benefit us much. At least it makes sense so kudos for that.

Invisible Infiltrator: Grants CC immunity for 3 seconds after using a daily power. Pretty solid choice in pvp I would think, doesn't help PVE though.

Oppressive Darkness: Now also slows the target by 50% for a short time. Considering the pathetic amount of damage that OD deals no one uses this, ever. Even if OD were to be buffed I feel like this off-hand power would actually be a detriment in PVE content. Most of the time it is beneficial to group enemies up and AOE them down, if they are slowed they wouldn't reach the killing grounds as quickly as one would like, and anything that we might want to slow is almost certainly CC immune.*

Talisman of Shadows: Heals the rogue for a small amount for every target hit by the daze when entering stealth. I see no problem here, I mean... I'll almost certainly never use ToS so why spend time thinking about changing something that 99% of people will never use.

Keep in mind these are my opinions concerning these passive powers and artifact off-hand powers. I've come to these conclusion through testing, trial and error as well as conversations with other TR's. If you agree or disagree feel free to comment on why and where. Also if I'm digging too deep into critiquing the class let me know. I feel that as I continue to put down my thoughts on every aspect of the class I may be taking away from the core of what this thread is attempting to accomplish. If that is the case just give me a good slap and I'll stfu.

* Concerning CC immune mobs. Mobs fall into 2 categories in Neverwinter. Ones that die too quickly to ever require CC, and mobs that are immune to CC. You see the problem here right? I'll let you noodle that one for a bit.

I agree with pretty much everything in this post.

I wouldn't mind seeing tactics get some modifacations made to it to make it more appealing for pve players. In pvp, it doesn't need much if anything since its already a popular choice for pvp TRs.

I agree that oppressive darkness badly needs a piercing damage increase. When it was first released to preview, it granted more piercing damage than it does now and people testing it were saying it was really good. There was an outcry over it with some players claiming it was too strong. The devs overnerfed this passive in response and this completly killed it before it even hit live.

Talisman of shadows isn't very good for pvp either sadly. The daze is so short in pvp that its only up long enough to act as an interrupt. Interrupts can be useful in pvp but sadly, this passive's trigger of "whenever you enter stealth" neuters it. Its redundant to interrupt your opponent if you are already in stealth.
I have experimented with a freind before trying to find uses for talisman. We found a few niche ones but these were very unreliable and other passives easily outweigh these curiosities. This passive probably needs something else useful tacked onto it alongside its current effects too.

As for your section on the artifact offhand power for tactics, I agree with your rant on the makers of this game in general.
The offhand power for tactics is actually on point for current pvp builds but I would suport any move to make it so all of these powers have a use in both pvp and pve. The first step would need to be making the actual passives that go with these offhand powers useful in both pvp and pve, otherwise there would be little point in making each offhand power good in both settings.

The artifact offhand power for skillful infiltraitor is useless in pve but is good in pvp, particularly if you stack it with a transcendant elven battle enchantment. I used to use it all the time before I started using the offhand power for infiltraitor's action instead.

The artifact offhand power for oppressive darkness looks good for pvp on paper but I haven't used it so I can't be sure.
In pve, the slow would be benificial if you are a scoundrel because of the low blows feat. If scoundrel becomes more common again post rework, then this offhand power may not need anything done to it since it would have uses for some builds in both pvp and pve. It would not be a good choice for the other 2 TR trees in pve but that's where other offhand powers come in.

trgluestickz · May 2017

@archangelzorak01 , This is an extension of my above post, the character limit was too long so had to place this section into a seperate post:

Sneak attack I find fun to play with but its pretty worthless in pve. It is actually a decent passive in pvp though other passives still outweigh it. I used to use it for big maps like guantlgrym back when you could still get people to que for it.
Interestingly, neverwinter's version of sneak attack is one of the most far removed powers in the game from its d&d counterpart. The NW version gives you 40% more speed while stealthed. In comparison, the d&d version had nothing to do with speed at all and instead gave you extra damage when you had combat advantage against your target. The NW version is almost never used but the d&d version was a bread and butter power for rogues.
I would like to see sneak attack's current effects extracted and given to a different passive of ours. This would be in addition to whatever effects X passive selected for this has post rework.
Sneak attack's current effects should then be replaced with a new effect that gives you more damage when you have combat advantage. This would be much closer to how it worked in actual d&d and make it more appealing as well. It also helps fulfill a lot of TR's requests for more stuff working off of combat advantage.
Another viable trigger option is to make it so sneak attack gives you more damage while you are stealthed instead of when you have combat advantage.

pitshade · May 2017

I find Talisman of Shadows to be very useful when running dailies. A solo rogue doesn't need damage buff passives to compete with anyone and no matter how short the daze is, it is still an instant interrupt.

reign · May 2017

I don't agree about the SOD not registering correctly it actually does it's just some encounters do not trigger it. There's a guide for that by the way also not really sure what you're talking about regarding duelist flurry "timer" vs "damage" that's a little confusing. We know the bleed stacks max at 10 and as far as I know there's not a timer involved and stacks don't exceed it's limit so perhaps you could explain that one a little more?

mafiadelperro · May 2017

> @reign#6213 said:
> I don't agree about the SOD not registering correctly it actually does it's just some encounters do not trigger it. There's a guide for that by the way also not really sure what you're talking about regarding duelist flurry "timer" vs "damage" that's a little confusing. We know the bleed stacks max at 10 and as far as I know there's not a timer involved and stacks don't exceed it's limit so perhaps you could explain that one a little more?

Well about SoD not registering correctly is to the owner if you have another rogue on your team so maybe if the other rogue proc SoD is register the damage to me and about 10 stack of bleed i think the fabricant point out are actually 11 not 10 and about the DF is that if we keep applying stack or continious using the timer reset but the damage not for example a let say orcus have 50% of hp left when the timer reset but i will not benefits when he get to 40% it will not proc my deathknell or last moment feat or set orcus set on DF hits lol well atleast is what i undertand my english is bad so lol

micky1p00 · May 2017

reign#6213 said:
I don't agree about the SOD not registering correctly it actually does it's just some encounters do not trigger it. There's a guide for that by the way also not really sure what you're talking about regarding duelist flurry "timer" vs "damage" that's a little confusing. We know the bleed stacks max at 10 and as far as I know there's not a timer involved and stacks don't exceed it's limit so perhaps you could explain that one a little more?

I think it's a bit more prudent do get to level 70 and run few things, perhaps log it and ACT, before disagreeing with what people point out.
I don't see how at level 65 without a single dungeon anyone can encounter most of the problems mentioned.

Also about trigger, you need to have the damage from the encounter and to be stealthed at the same server tick, meaning for example for smoke, it's smoke->stealth, and not stealth->smoke, because smoke deal damage only on the following ticks.

mafiadelperro · May 2017

> @micky1p00 said:
> I don't agree about the SOD not registering correctly it actually does it's just some encounters do not trigger it. There's a guide for that by the way also not really sure what you're talking about regarding duelist flurry "timer" vs "damage" that's a little confusing. We know the bleed stacks max at 10 and as far as I know there's not a timer involved and stacks don't exceed it's limit so perhaps you could explain that one a little more?
>
> I think it's a bit more prudent do get to level 70 and run few things, perhaps log it and ACT, before disagreeing with what people point out.
> I don't see how at level 65 without a single dungeon anyone can encounter most of the problems mentioned.
>
> Also about trigger, you need to have the damage from the encounter and to be stealthed at the same server tick, meaning for example for smoke, it's smoke->stealth, and not stealth->smoke, because smoke deal damage only on the following ticks.

So what i write was wrong? Now im confuse too lol

archangelzorak01 · May 2017

TR Feats, part 1 of 4

Heroic Feats

Action Advantage - 2/4/6/8/10% additional AP for dealing CA damage: Either ranks 2-5 don’t work or the amounts we’re getting from this just aren’t noticeable. I’ve tried playing with 1/2/3/4/5 pts in this and I can’t say I feel any difference in the amount of AP I gain. Seeing as how we TR’s are so dependant on AP gains to self-buff this feat needs to actually do something and be noticeable. I propose it be double checked to see if it works and then have its values increased to 20 or 25% increased AP gain for dealing CA damage.

Weapon Mastery - 1/2/3% increased crit chance: No complaints here.

Toughness - 3/6/9% increased HP: No complaints here.

Swift Footwork - 2/4/6/8/10% increased Stam regen. No complaints here, rarely gets worked into any of my builds, if ever. Despite that, it’s not a flawed feat and some may find it useful.

Battlewise - 2/4/6% decreased threat generation: One of the most pointless feats in the game, particularly for TR. TR’s for some reason generate no threat 95% of the time, even without using stealth. This (for me) is particularly annoying when I’m doing dailies and no matter how much damage I do to enemies they focus my companion. The problem is that my companion is ranged, so in his efforts to remain at range he will kite enemies halfway across whatever zone I’m in, often-times aggro’ing extra enemies and/or causing my duelist flurry to hit empty air as the enemies run off to attack the companion which has done 1/100th of my damage. Some people may try to burn me at the stake for saying this, but TR’s need proper threat generation.

Cunning Ambusher - deal 2/4/6% more dmg for 6 seconds after leaving stealth. No complaints here.

Endless Assault - deal 2/4/6% more dmg with encounters. No complaints here.

Twilight Adept - Restore 2/4/6/8/10% stealth when dodging: No complaints here.

Lucky Skirmisher - 1/2/3% increased deflect: No complaints here.

Scoundrel Training - at-wills deal 3/6/9% more dmg to enemies not targeting you. No complaints here.

Disciple of Strength - 2/4/6% increased bonus dmg from STR. I’ve always wondered why TR’s got this feat and GWF’s got one that increases Critical Severity. Seems counter-intuitive to me.

Improved Cunning Sneak - stealth lasts 4/8/12/16/20% longer. Even when using this feat the stealth loss from dealing damage makes it pretty pointless. Its great in pvp but in pve it just doesn’t help us in any way.

archangelzorak01 · May 2017

Part 2 of 4

Saboteur

Saboteur focuses on maximizing Stealth gains, using Stealth more often and dealing more damage from Stealth. I feel it comes up short in the actual amounts of extra dmg dealt from stealth. Saboteur also focuses on cooldown reduction, increasing one’s ability to use Encounter Powers more often.

Saboteur Feats

Flashing Blades - At-wills deal 1/2/3/4/5% more dmg when stealth meter isn’t full: No complaints. Wish I could work this into an Exec build without losing Back Alley Tactics, maybe if BAT moved to the 2nd tier....

Shady Preparations - Entering Stealth reduces all cooldowns by 10%: No complaints.

Knife’s Edge - Activating a Daily Power reduces all cooldowns by 15%: No complaints.

Sneaky Stabber - Gloaming Cut restored 10% of Stealth Meter: No complaints about the feat, but since its tied to a mostly useless at-will power it’s usefullness is thusly lessened. Could be adjusted to also add reduction in stealth loss due to outgoing damage?

Grinning Steel - Attacks from Behind a target have a 5% increased crit chance. The ability of players to easily reach 100% crit chance renders this feat near-useless. Its also not always possible to be behind your target. You try getting behind the Turtle in FBI, go on, I dare you!

Blood Soaked Blades - When a target you’ve damaged dies you deal an extra 50% of weapon damage as bonus physical damage. As with many other feats to be mentioned later this feat falls short in any encounter where there is 1 target, as in a boss with no adds. This fact reduces this feats usefullness along with its similar counterparts to less than ideal compared to other feat choices we have.

Return to Shadows - Using an Encounter Power from behind a target restores 25% stealth. No complaints here except for the standard ‘behind the target’ complaints.

Gutterborn’s Touch - When behind an enemy ignore 10% of their armor and increase effective power by 10%. Not a bad feat in design, however is rendered useless in certain fights where being behind a target is impossible. Also, enemies in PVE don’t have enough DR for half of this feat to have any effect whatsoever, due to this fact it could use a boost in the power department.

Ambusher’s Haste - Deal up to 25% more dmg while in stealth, reduces as stealth meter drains. Due to the stealth reduction from dealing damage this feat has its effectiveness reduced significantly. Two ways to fix this, insert a means by which stealth loss from outgoing damage can be reduced/removed (preferable) or remove the buff reduction as stealth meter is drained.

Shadowy Opportunity - When dealing damage from Stealth deal an additional 75% of weapon damage as piercing damage. This feat was once the bread and butter of pvp builds but fell short in terms of PVE viability. The low weapon damage of TR combined with this feats low coefficient (cuz piercing) cause it to fall short compared to similar feats available to other classes. Also the damage proc from this feat does not proc weapon enchants, unlike similar feats available to other classes.

One with the Shadows - Grants OwtS every 15 seconds, triggers on next encounter use, when triggered refills stealth meter and increases Enc. Pwr dmg by 20% for 10 seconds. The defining Saboteur feat, it’s functionality is what allows the playstyle belonging to this tree. I have no complaints here.

archangelzorak01 · May 2017

Part 3 of 4

Scoundrel

Scoundrel focuses on Dazing enemies, increasing both Deflection and Lifesteal and deal extra damage to Dazed enemies. I feel Scoundrel falls short in any circumstance when facing enemies that are immune to CC. Scoundrel seems to focus more on dealing damage and CC’ing large groups of enemies.

Scoundrel Feats

Roll with the Punches - Increased Deflection by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5%. I feel this could be boosted to 1/2/3/4/5% without being too strong, the first tier offensive feats are all in the vicinity of 5% so why are defensive feats given half value?

Bloody Brawler - Increased Lifesteal by .5/1/1.5/2/2.5%. As above, I see no reason why these feats are as weak as they are.

Survivor - Gain 2/4/6/8/10% Deflection when below 30% Health. No complaints.

Press the Advantage - Imp. to Catch now also increases Power by 10%. No complaints, as long as you don’t go messing ItC again.

Back Alley Tactics - When AP is empty deal 5/10/15/20/25% additional damage, decreases as AP fills. There is a reason just about all PVE TR’s take this feat, it synergizes extremely well with how we buff ourselves, the caveat being its counter-intuitive nature. Using dailies is how we buff ourselves, so we want AP, but as we gain AP we lose the bonus damage from this feat. There are a few possibilities to make it less of a give and take, the first being to ‘increase dmg dealt by 5/10/15/20/25% when a daily power is active’, the second being to retain the max buff for a period of time before the reduction from AP gains is itroduced, the third would be to add a large AP gain buff to the feat, it would reduce the length of time by which we get bonus damage but allow us to use our dailies more often. Feel free to add any other ideas you may have concerning this feat.

Master Infighter - You take 2/4/6/8/10% less dmg from attacks. This tooltip for this feat is rather ambiguous, does it mean only direct damage? Does it apply to Dots or AoE’s? I’ve never tested it to find out, but it would be nice to know. Other than its ambiguous description I have no complaints, it’s potentially a straight up 10% reduction in incoming damage, which is pretty solid. However due to the layout of the feat trees and the nature of other available feats this one has rarely ever made it into any of my builds.

Savage Blows - Dealing damage increases Lifesteal by .2/.4/.5/.8/1%, stacks up to 5 times. Seems legit, but I’ve never actually taken this feat, it is extremely easy to get Lifesteal up to about 30% without sacrificing anything offensive in PVE and 30% is more than enough to make LS reliable. Sure its possible to go full-bore into LS and get upwards of 60-65% or more but its not efficient, not from a PVE perspective anyway. From a PVP perspective I feel that there are already so many sources of self-healing that stacking increasingly higher Lifesteal would as well suffer from a similar effect.

Concussive Strikes - Crits and attacks from behind a target daze them for .5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds, internal cooldown of 5 seconds. No complaints, fits well into the Scoundrel playstyle.

Low Blows - Deal 5/10/15/20/25% more dmg to foes under the effect of Crowd Control. Fits well into the Scoundrel playstyle but is less effective on CC immune enemies, the only CC that can affect these enemies is Courage Breaker which is a single target CC. If Daze could be changed to apply a debuff to all enemies that allowed for this feat’s function to apply I feel Scoundrel could be better represented, the actual Daze effect would not apply to the CC immune enemy, but the debuff would allow this feat to be utilized.

Mocking Gesture - Entering Stealth increases Deflection by 10% for 10 seconds. Doesn’t seem quite strong enough for a tier 5 feat, other than that no complaints.

Skullcracker - Every 15 seconds gain SkC effect, on encounter use apply a Daze to the target for 4 seconds, additional attacks to the target extend this Daze by .5 seconds to a max of 2 (total 6). You deal 25% more damage to target affected by this Daze. Fits well with the Scoundrel playstyle but suffers from some shortcomings. First of all this is rendered mostly useless against CC immune enemies (unless using CB), second the debuff should last longer; 6 seconds and 1 sec. Per extra attack up to 4 more (total of 10)

archangelzorak01 · May 2017

Part 4 or 4

Executioner

Executioner focuses on dealing damage and dealing increasing damage as enemies lose health. I feel Executioner falls short in dealing damage to enemies with low health pools. Executioner seems to focus heavily on dealing damage to single targets.

Executioner Feats

Arterial Cut - 15% additional Critical Severity when dealing damage from Stealth. This feat suffers from 2 sources of setbacks. Firstly the short duration of Stealth reduces its effectiveness as does the level of diminishing returns associated with Critical Severity.

Grim Pleasure - Dealing a Critical increases Power by 5% for 4 seconds, cannot stack. For all intents and purposes this may as well be a constant buff. We all have high crit chances so this buff has a solid 95+% uptime. I don’t know if this is dynamic as Power increases from buffs or if it is calculated on base Power.

Vicious Pursuit - When you deal damage to a target, that target takes 1/2/3/4/5% more damage from you for 6 seconds. Another one that is pretty much always active, I have no complaints other than, as with Grim Pleasure it feels somewhat boring. Good feat, but boring.

Devastating Shroud - Using Shocking Execution increases Crit Chance and Crit. Severity by 2/4/6/810% for 6 seconds. I never much liked this feat, first of all SE is garbage in PVE, second SE is supposed to be a finisher you use on high health targets (which we don’t cuz it’s garbage) so where is the logic in getting a short duration buff when chances are the target you’re hitting with SE is about to die anyway?

Dying Breath - When a nearby enemy dies you gain 5/10/15/20/25% Run Speed and Critical Severity. Couple things, first of all its useless is any boss fight that does not have adds, second it suffers from the continued trend of Crit. Sev. diminishing returns. Its nice for trash clears though, but trash isn’t important and since TR’s ‘feel’ like they’ve been designed for high single target damage and Executioner is certainly designed for single target damage I feel like this feat wants to go into the Scoundrel Tree but has found its way here in Exec for some reason.

Deathknell - Deal 5/10/15/20/25% more damage to targets below 30% health. Solid executioner style feat.

Twisted Grin - When a foe within 30’ of you dies your next attack deals 2.5/5/7.5/10/12.5% more damage, doubles for attacks from stealth. Here is yet another one that is useless in any boss fight that does not have adds, on top of that it’s nearly impossible to predict what attack is going to get the buff, will it be a bleed tick?, a flurry hit?, or your next Dazing? Who knows. This feat never finds its way into any of my builds for the above reasons. Even if it was in any way predictable the actual numbers on it feel weak for tier 5 feat.

Last Moments - Deal 5/10/15/20/25% more damage to targets below 40% health, increased threshold when dealing damage from Stealth to 70%. Basically this is Deathknell but stronger, the problem being the limited attack time from Stealth. Note: Both this and Deathknell need to apply dynamically to Dots in real time.

Exposed Weakness - While in Stealth ignore 5/10/15/20/25% of your target’s armor. For a tier 5 feat this one really dropped the ball. If Neverwinter didn’t have an Armor Penetration stat this feat would be solid, but as I have stated before all NPC enemies in Neverwinter have an effective DR of 0% due to player ability to reach high amounts of Armor Penetration. This feat would also become useful if enemies had more DR. Well we have ArPen and enemies only have so much DR, so this feat is 100% useless in a PVE environment. Not only that but it once again it is ‘from stealth’, I mean… a PVE TR spends such a short amount of combat in Stealth that ALL of these ‘from stealth, while in stealth, etc.’ feats are reduced in effectiveness by at least 75%. The only thing that could save this feat, other than a complete change, would be to remove the ‘from stealth’ factor, then at least we could stack less ArPen and get more of other stats.

Shadowborn - Entering Stealth increases the Pwr Rating of your next attack by 100%. This feat is always under contention and is constantly being discussed. The problem with it is its unpredictability and unreliability. In some circumstances it works wonderfully, solo’ing our dailies or the first attack during an encounter. Once combat has been initiated and we’ve started using Duelist Flurry however that goes right out the window. We can try to enter Stealth at specific time in an attempt to utilize the buff from Shadowborn in certain ways but we never be 100% sure it is going to be applied to the damage we want. Will it be applied to a flurry?, a bleed proc?, a smoke bomb tick?, or an encounter power? Depending on where that extra damage falls it can very easily range from immensely significant (a lashing or bleed tick) or completely insignificant (a flurry hit). The problem is we can never truly know, all we can do is hope. So what can be done to rectify this? Well it could be made a short duration buff or be made to apply to next ability to use.

Shadow of Demise - When damaging a target with a power, from stealth, applies the SoD debuff for 6 seconds. When the debuff ends 50% of dmg done to the target by the rogue is done as additional piercing damage. The damage can also be applied early if a new SoD is applied before the old one wears off, this will deal 50% of dmg done while the first SoD was active. Ok, so we finally get to SoD, probably the most unique feat we have and one of the most hotly debated in terms of needing to be adjusted. The reason so many of us want this to be adjusted is because in the current meta of the game so many enemies die before SoD has a chance to proc, and as most of us know, during a boss fight its not even the first SoD that does heavy damage, its the 2nd or third. We’re not just talking about trash mobs either, we’re talking about bosses in ‘Master’ dungeons. There have been enumerable times in CN or eDemo where my SoD doesn’t even get a chance to proc once, let alone twice, on either Orcus or Demogorgon itself. Most of the time I will get the first proc, but as I said, the first one is the weak one as it takes time for buffs to build to maximum efficiency, it is 2nd and then the 5th SoD that have the potential to hit hard. When I follow what I consider to be the most efficient dps rotation on a test dummy I will get 1 SoD for 700-800k then one for 1-1.2m then back to 700-800k a couple times then 1-1.2m again. This is the wave pattern created because of our design, the way our self buffs work.

This is a failure on how the changing meta of the game has failed to coincide with the way classes/powers/features are designed. The player characters in this game have increased in power so substantially that the game environment simply can’t compete. Powers/feats/abilities either scale appropriately, scale too little, or scale too well as player power increases. When too many things scale too well we end up with people accidentally one-shotting dragons in Dragonflight and the majority of bosses dying before SoD can proc its damage.

Just to put it in here I’ll say something I’ve said many times before, “The removal of stat curves from this game was one of the worst possible design decisions that could have ever been made”. The excuse at the time was that it would become easier to balance things in the future, well it’s been a couple of years now and all I see is evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, the easiest and most balanced way to adjust Shadow of Demise would be to turn it into a 6 second buff that deals 50% of damage dealt as piercing damage in real time. It is effectively identical in damage dealt but is more forgiving in the current meta of the game. I would like to see the buff on the Rogue and not the target as it would increase our AoE damage a bit, but that’s something I’d be willing to concede if testing showed it to be too strong. The sad thing is doing this will remove the ‘feel’ of Shadow of Demise, which I personally really like, I think it makes playing an Executioner TR unique and interesting, but if we can’t compete in the current meta then something needs to change.

pitshade · May 2017

"The removal of stat curves from this game was one of the worst possible design decisions that could have ever been made”.

A thousand times this.

rustlord · May 2017

@sirjimbofrancis @trgluestickz @blur @micky1p00

So reading a lot of good stuff here lately. But I'm wondering if anyone is going to come up with a shortlist? I don't dare hope that by "balancing in layers" the devs meant to go through every single feat, power and passive. If there is even a rework, in which they are being extremely dodgy!

I was just looking at my DC again and honestly, from somebody who didn't keep track of what changed I couldn't tell apart the new feats tooltips from the old ones.

ug2bk · May 2017

lordseth1985 said:

rustlord said:

Dagger Threat: Your ranged at will and encounter powers deal 50% more damage and your melee powers deal X % less.

>>> If you choose WK, your ranged at wills and encounter powers will do 50% more damage, have 100% increased range, and your melee ones will deal 30% less;
>>> If you choose MI, whenever you have combat advantage, all your melee at wills and encounters will ake your target bleed for x% of weapon damage, and this can have X stacks, also your ranged at wills and encounter will do 30% less damage.

IMO, this can solve a lot of things and open space for erally usefull feats.

Sure, no wk = no problem.
Lordseth, what d'you propose exactly.
DhS and CoS radius from 60 to 120'. Just - why? That's x1.5 from max of CW/HR/SW at-will distance and i don't think those play at 60-80', always closer.
It'd be same problem as every archery HR has:
- oh, i'm gonna shoot to kill all i see and nothing would live long enough to touch me
- hey real world
- wt...
AA, ItF, BtS, FF - most of buffs you'dnt want to miss - have 30-40'. If you stand further - you miss them. And that's where it's tough - your own buffs won't cover that difference - so, your dps is screwed from the very start just because you've decided to go ranged-only. If - you'd propose 10x damage from current - perhaps it'd work, but surely not with 0.5x .

While from other hand, what kind of ranged skill MI's use? CoS? 1/3 of that "damage" for more damage to DF, DS, SB? Another one please, i'll lose nothing.

archangelzorak01.

Sneak Attack - 5% extra move speed in and out of stealth. So So, but no one uses this passive so whatevs.

I'm wk, AdvPos is always on, and second passive depends on situation. PoM, for example - plenty of 2-3 mob groups who ain't going to live long. The faster i get there - the better. Lurker is a teleport, yes, but no AP gain and not smth you'd like in 4+ mobs situation. After all current law of pve - the first runner is a DPSer. So, sneak attack has it's uses, but off-hand feature is too small.
Current problem of mine is - with off-hand feature AdvPos becomes 20% DR = 8000 defense. I've tried many times switch to MI and that 20% is matters, i can tell you. What is problem - no other off-hand feature gives smth like 8000 stat and similar up-time. Shame, really.

Tenacious Concealment: 10% additional stealth loss reduction from damage taken. Firstly, as stated, rank 4 of this passive does not work, also SoD does it better. Just another never-used off-hand power.

Rank 4 IS working. Also, used it many times while played scoundrel - it has it's uses. It become never-used when switched to exe.

As i recall, stealth loss was connected somehow to TR's HP. I'd like to be wrong here, but seems to me, when it was designed, average damage you receive wasn't that high. At current state, average damage (pve-wise) you receive went to stage where you or at full hp or dead. Not much time in between - not much use of TC in the first place.
Also - i believe there's a combo of LA + TC + SoD + (?) soulforged that causes stealth refill stops. No SoD - nothing happens. No TC - nothing happens. I doubt soul involved, 'cause couple of times i managed freeze refill without dying. Anyway - i've decided to keep off that passive.

Tactics + action advantage.

AA:
1) it's noticeable.
2) Trying to understand what 5/5 feat gives exactly, the only explanation to myself i managed to provide - If i attack while CA, damage of every skill counts as 1 lvl higher = like if i hit with Dazing, rank 2, it'd count as rank 3 -> AP calculated as of r3 damage.
Thinking about tactics - it's also smth you could see. Still, i've got same thought about that one - either it's not pure AP gain, rather 'counts as more damage dealt' - or i wouldn't be surprised if there's like 50% of tooltip actually.
If it's really damage calculation here, i also suspect that core ap gain/damage dealt is low or you must buff your damage to *unnatural lvl* (like 3.5 il+ for t2) for AA and tactics become really important.

2 cents on Blade flurry.
Or - Clear the Ground.

Honestly, at-will was reworked to encounter, given "charges" - and it's worse! Charges + CD + stealth drain - seriously, can we have "extra damage to enemies closer they are" part as well?

P.s. pve-wise mark for everything above.

blur · May 2017

@rustlord A new thread will be made as a summary of all helpful ideas and to help the devs to easier find what they need.
A lot of discussion is going on here which for them is not useful and its hard to navigate through 10+ pages of comments and spot things which would help.

Please do continue to discuss here in this thread and lets try to keep the new thread clean (when it is posted).

demonmonger · May 2017

I use sneak attack and it's artifact offhand bonus.

Same with oppressive darkness

rustlord · May 2017

ug2bk said:
Sure, no wk = no problem. [...]
Lordseth, what d'you propose exactly.
DhS and CoS radius from 60 to 120'. Just - why? [...]
AA, ItF, BtS, FF - most of buffs you'dnt want to miss - have 30-40'. If - you'd propose 10x damage from current - perhaps it'd work, but surely not with 0.5x . [...]

While from other hand, what kind of ranged skill MI's use? CoS? 1/3 of that "damage" for more damage to DF, DS, SB? Another one please, i'll lose nothing.

1. What does this line mean "Sure, no wk = no problem"?
2. TR powers need to stay mid-ranged. Makes no sense to throw a knife farther than you'd shoot an arrow, and definitely not something that works toward good balance.
3. 10X more damage is excessive... And given point 2 should stay as is, staying in the buff zone is not a problem.
4. Dagger Threat is a WK passive, if it increases ranged damage at the cost of melee, it doesn't mean MI needs the opposite. More importantly, there are already better suggestions in improving PvE damage. Only Whisperknife needs a more blanket solution because of (a) the lack of player experience and (b) lack of suggestions because of A.

trgluestickz · May 2017

archangelzorak01 said:

Deft Strike - Teleport behind the target, medium damage, short term slow. From stealth increased range and allows teleportation to friendlies. I only use this ability to teleport to friendlies when they’ve climbed to places I want to get to. I don't think I’ve ever used it combat. The teleport function isn’t as useful as it sounds and in some cases can get you killed. There are other single target abilities that do more damage and those are always chosen over Deft Strike. This ability never made much sense to me, you just teleported to melee range with a target… and slowed them. Would it not make more sense to have an ability that strikes from melee range, teleports you away while applying a slow? I mean, if you want to slow them it means you want to get away, or kite or… something? Like I said before, this ability is used to troll people who think they’re cool cuz they climbed on top of a fountain, or mighty leaped onto a roof.

I agree with almost everything in the post the above quote is from.^ I did not quote the rest of the post because I hit the character limit responding and only have one section from it to elaborate on.

However, I do disagree with your sugestion of making deft strike teleport you away from your target. We have differing perspectives on deft strike and the purpose of slows in general:

The only part of the teleporting-to-your-target function I don't like is the stealthed version that allows you to teleport to your allies. In combat, this feature messes you up more often than it helps you.
The un-stealthed version of the teleport I find to be an extremely useful mobility enhancer and it alone makes this the #1 power that I wish I could afford to slot. If deft strike was updated to be more competitive with our other good encounter powers, it would never leave my bar.
In pve, the teleport is great for repositioning yourself behind your enemy where you won't take as many hits and is a great life hack for catching up to a moving or distant enemy instantly.
In pvp, the teleport is a gap closer that helps you chase moving enemies, makes it much easier to get within range with your melee attacks, and allows you to teleport to enemies on pillars and walls.

You don't need a slow when you are kiting and most slows don't last long enough to use them to flee. They seem to be good primarily for offensive purposes and one of their most common uses is for restraining your target so you have an easier time hitting them with your melee attacks.The exception is CB which has a wider range of potential uses than other slows because of its long duration.

ug2bk · May 2017

@rustlord, you've forgot one quote -

lordseth1985 said:

>>> If you choose WK, your ranged at wills and encounter powers will do 50% more damage, have 100% increased range, and your melee ones will deal 30% less;
>>> If you choose MI, whenever you have combat advantage, all your melee at wills and encounters will ake your target bleed for x% of weapon damage, and this can have X stacks, also your ranged at wills and encounter will do 30% less damage.

IMO, this can solve a lot of things and open space for erally usefull feats.

I just gave example that CoS and DhS would be 120' instead of 60', and yes -

2. TR powers need to stay mid-ranged. Makes no sense to throw a knife farther than you'd shoot an arrow, and definitely not something that works toward good balance.

Lordseth's suggestion on it's own is a nerf to WK, that's why to

this can solve a lot of things

i answer with - no wk =no problem, because non would choose that paragon after that.

Still, your proposal was -

Dagger Threat: Your ranged at will and encounter powers deal 50% more damage and your melee powers deal X % less.

Could you give an example or two there any WK would use that? 'Cause i can't think of any - maybe pvp, but +50% buff is too petty to allow WK kill anything that way.

Also, other your suggestion was to replace 20% DR from AdvPos to 20% deflect.
So - current state - CA+20% DR to ranged. Offhand - 20% DR to everything. (there's always feeling that without off-hand. AdvPoS is just some demo-version of what it supposed to be.)
Your suggest - CA+20% deflect chance. Offhand - ? 20% DR to melee? to everything? I miss that one, could you explain?

Also, both low-geared and mid (i'm at ex-3.6k IL) i prefer something constant (20% DR) to a chance. I can feel it, i can see it, i see difference straight. At low-geared lvl chance is not smth you can rely on, imo, cause it's low. At mid-high that'd lead to 100% chance more easily that it supposed to be, i suspect - could be a lot of whine on that account.
Anyway - i can't see alternative to that off-hand feature, which left me with defence, not damage. I suppose 8sec duration should be split to ranks 1-3, and 4th one - +20DR melee. Offhand then - you also deflect +5(3?)% more often.
Then i'd be able to focus with smth else - damage/mobility/control.

ravenskya · May 2017

Ug2bk - I'll be completely honest, I've read your last two posts and wanted to say something, but I have no idea what you are actually saying - so I don't know if we are agreeing or disagreeing on what should happen to the WK.

I've thrown out some WK ideas before but I can't remember which ones so I'll throw out a few more.
-I would like to see a feat or passive that transfers a % of deflected damage returned to the attacker.
-An increase in at-will damage for the ranged at-wills
-A decrease in casting time for Disheartening Strike
-A some sort of thrown poison blob AOE that is sticky (slow) poisonous (dot) possibly corrosive (Damage and damage resistance reduction) and ranged for us WKs to heave at bad guys

blur · May 2017

I already suggested for new thread to be split in 2 categories. One category to contain most important issues - a Whisperknife fix, Saboteur fix, Scoundrel fix, Executioner fix, Stealth and Duelist's flurry. Other category would contain a would-be-nice-to-have things which are not a must if devs dont plan to invest too much time into TR rework.

We all have already expressed our ideas about how Duelist's Flurry should be fixed and that is more or less clear.
Stealth suggestion received a positive critique and even tho the benefit is, overall, small it is still useful compared to current uselessness of the overflow stat.
Saboteur fix includes small damage % increases and small crit % increase (which would allow a bit less investment into crit stat and focus on other stats) but combined with Stealth rework it seems fine since Saboteur can be more often in Stealth.
Scoundrel fix includes damage % increases to 3 top tier feats and separating Skullcracker damage increase from Dazes. Total damage increase is highest among the trees but with Low Blows still being tied to controlled targets it is balanced.
Executioner fix is mainly about SoD adjustment. Shadowborn, Deathknell and Last Moments are the ones which need attention as well.
Whisperknife fix includes adding damage buffs which WK lacks compared to MI because of the Invisible infiltrator and Infiltrators Action and the ITC feat buff, as well as providing a bit more deflect and damage resistance which MI has thanks to Impossible to Catch. There is also a balancing matter when it comes to high damage dealing ability which MI has thanks to Shocking Execution (PvP).
I'll try to make it as simple as possible. Dagger Threat - increases your ranged damage by 20%(at rank 4). Advantageous position - After activating a Daily ability you get Combat Advantage and your deflect is increased by 20%, also your damage resistance is increased by 30%, effect lasts 8 seconds. Razor action is currently bugged and this could be a nice option to get a small damage boost. Razor Action - After activating Daily ability increase your damage by 10% for 10 seconds. Cooldown of this ability is 20 seconds. Rank 2, 3 and 4 reduce the cooldown by 2 seconds.
Now same as ITC is slotted for almost every MI, Vengeance's Pursuit should be good enough so almost every WK slots it. I'll try to work in a buff to its current ability (should be fixed so its not spammable like it currently is). Vengeance's Pursuit - Marking the target for Vengeance now also increases your damage by 10% for 5 seconds. Rest is the same.

Another thing about ITC. When activated it adds 20.000% to our deflect %, however stealthed version of ITC is not adding the promised 50% damage resistance (or it is not shown in the char sheet like Vorpal's severity). If someone has more info about missing damage resistance please share.

That's about it when it comes to first category which contains most important issues. Second category would contain all useful suggestions we discussed here but first of all should be the increase in speed for many ability's animations.

rustlord · May 2017

@ug2bk Thank you for responding!

Yes I've replied as well to @lordseth1985 that I think forcing this on every WK and MI is a hard line to cross, more for reducing the variability of builds, but I do see the motivation behind it.

* At least with Dagger Threat, we're already following the original vision to make WK ranged attacks more powerful, something devs didn't quite get right. And then my proposal to rework Razor Action was only a move on balance - this passive is either very weak or very unbalanced if you knew how to glitch it. Better it became an accompaniment passive to Dagger Threat than work up an entirely new power.

ug2bk said:
Could you give an example or two there any WK would use that? 'Cause i can't think of any - maybe pvp, but +50% buff is too petty to allow WK kill anything that way.

* Expecting other proposed changes in the thread come through like overflow crit severity and SoD:

» In PvP +50% is just about right to build a pretty deadly sniper TR
» power stacked whirlwind +50% ought to clear a lot of trash
» DHS bleed +50% that autocrits and doesn't need stacks and casts faster can quickly measure up to DF bleed, while you throw +50% CoS from a safe distance, maybe always standing 5ft of your buffers, where you don't have to dodge or get interrupted with attacks, while fire&forget +50% PotB ticks in the background
» Smoke Bomb +50% following the idea that AoE IS RANGED.. well, or not, that depends
» I guess you'd activate SoD with vengeance pursuit mark, or deft strike to get close, drop a smoke and get out of dodge, back to throwing knives?

* Advantageous Position. WK is full of little annoying quirks isn't it? I actually forgot about that offhand power. Whether it's defense or deflect, it should just flat out reduce all kinds of damage: ranged, melee, and AoE resist (and do we even know if AoE is a third classification of range or does it subclassify ranged and melee?!). I hardly use this AdPos anymore just after I invented that thing with Razor Action. By itself, AdPos is pretty decent because of that free CA after leaving stealth.

Pair it with TenCon and Exe, you can blink in and out of Stealth for a permanent CA buff. Pair it with Oppressive in PvP, you get piercing damage, no matter how little in PvP, piercing is better than nothing.

On your point about being mid-IL versus being high-IL, yes defense works on one better than the other. On about capping your deflect rate, there's something most people don't quite get:

The only TRs who really build for that are PvP TRs. In PvE, you don't stand to gain anything by sacrificing offensive stats from insignia, artifacts and other knickknacks just to reach the 100% cap. That being said, all PvP TRs who build this way are MI TRs. Why?

99% of PvPers are MI. They all use ITC, which accounts for half of their deflection uptime, of half the time that they are visible. So then in the very extreme cases, it's my conclusion that stacking recovery to have ITC up every time you exit out of stealth is better than stacking deflect. I have never seen a WK TR actually try and succeed with 100% deflect. Either it doesn't work with our setup, or it's just not that effective without ITC.

This leads me to re-evaluate my point on it changing it from defense to deflect. @trgluestickz actually presented a better option that makes AdPos work as a debuff like Valhalla set or Feytouched.

rustlord · May 2017

@blur

Thread one could be a poll (if they still allow polls) so it summarizes updated feedbacks on page 1, and everybody gets to vote up what they agree are more pressing issues, while then revamping suggestions on this thread. Means that when somebody important finally gets to look at it, they'd see a majority voice on the changes rather than one person's point of view, eliminating likely possibility it will be what the thread creator picks for himself as most desirable.

blur · May 2017

@rustlord I dont know if voting is a good idea. Everyone would get to vote, even those who dont play or dont understand TR class, also PvP and PvE will probably consider different things as most important so the end results may be bad.
It would be best if PvP TR's make a list of most important issues (and their suggestions) if the ideas are not the same as presented by PvE TR's. Also PvE TR's agree about most issues and threat creator never adds something alone without checking with few others, at least it was like that so far. Doing it alone is dangerous because there is a possibility to overlook something which would make the ability overpowered, thats why we always check it among ourselves and still things slip by but there is everyone else to correct the mistakes.

rustlord · May 2017

@blur hmm yeah, the thought of whose vote should count more, who has more insight into what sort of things, far outweighs the margin of bias from the players who get to make that pick. so if it's getting checked thoroughly by more than two people it should be all good

so i guess lets just make sure we hit a consensus on all of those things from all perspectives instead of having separate ops per item on the list. it sounds as though the pve side of things have been covered well, for pvp, im not sure is there enough pvpers here? are there enough who are still even in the game? i know there are a lot of good TRs playing the meta, but the variety is too narrow in PvP that it leaves our thinking (we pvpers) extremely suspect

Trickster Rogue Class Balance Suggestions

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Saboteur

Scoundrel

Executioner