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A Responsible Discussion about how to Balance the Trickster Rogue
lemonknuckles
Member Posts: 62
I sometimes give other people flak for whining about OP TRs in the forum. But really my criticism is more about the way they express themselves then about the actual issue at hand. Truth is, I DO support a responsible effort to find ways to balance the TR in PvP.
Full disclosure. I play a TR exclusively. I've only played the XBOX version of the game, but have a lot of PvP experience from games like LoL. I play and enjoy both PvE and PvP. My decision to roll a TR was based entirely off of the opening movie of the game when I saw that female elf blinking around the battelfield like Nightcrawler from the X-Men. Thought that looked like an unbelievable amount of fun. I chose the WK paragon because VP seemed like it would bring me closer to experiencing gameplay like I saw in that opening movie. I didn't start to read any guides on NW until I was almost 60. I am currently theory-crafting a re-roll into the Sabo tree. We'll see.
Anyway, I'm hoping we can have some objective and honest discussion about how to balance the TR for PvP. Balancing is really a complex process with a lot of downstream consequences. I'm hoping that through well-intentioned conversation we can reach some level of consensus about constructive changes, and ultimatley communicate these to the Devs in a responsible and productive way. I have some opinions but definitely not any real answers, thus the thread. Let's get to it!
Full disclosure. I play a TR exclusively. I've only played the XBOX version of the game, but have a lot of PvP experience from games like LoL. I play and enjoy both PvE and PvP. My decision to roll a TR was based entirely off of the opening movie of the game when I saw that female elf blinking around the battelfield like Nightcrawler from the X-Men. Thought that looked like an unbelievable amount of fun. I chose the WK paragon because VP seemed like it would bring me closer to experiencing gameplay like I saw in that opening movie. I didn't start to read any guides on NW until I was almost 60. I am currently theory-crafting a re-roll into the Sabo tree. We'll see.
Anyway, I'm hoping we can have some objective and honest discussion about how to balance the TR for PvP. Balancing is really a complex process with a lot of downstream consequences. I'm hoping that through well-intentioned conversation we can reach some level of consensus about constructive changes, and ultimatley communicate these to the Devs in a responsible and productive way. I have some opinions but definitely not any real answers, thus the thread. Let's get to it!
- Lashing Blade (1-Shot Executioner)
The majority of the complaining I've seen about TRs comes from this power/skill tree combination. Personally, I don't feel like this is the most dangerous type of TR around, but I do understand that for many it is the most frustrating or humiliating way to die. Again, I personally feel like people can learn to play against 1-shots to the point where they are not nearly as OP as originally thought, but I'm also completely fine with finding ways to tone it down. I believe there's a chance that this kind of move might backfire as TRs migrate into other, more obnoxious build types, but whatever.
Ways to tone it down? Reduce the crit severity from stealth bonus or remove it altogether. Reduce the crit severity bonus from vorpal enchants. Buff base tenacity. Increase its already very long cd time. Change the encounter into something else entirely. None of these are great ideas, but if the majority of players are truely fixated on LB as being the #1 issue with TRs, I'm more than fine exploring a change. - Impossible to Catch
This power just seems crazy to me. I like the TR as a high risk/high reward type character, and this kind of big "get out of jail free" card really seems to mitigate the high-risk part of the equation. Controversial suggestion? Remove the break CC effect from the power. Keep everything else. That way, it can still be used to set up big plays, and if timed right could be used to prevent an opponent from making a big play, but it could no longer be used as insurance enabling totally reckless play. - Deflection
To my mind, the biggest advantage that TRs have is that they are good at just about everything. Damage and defense. It might be a simple and effective balancing change to create more of a choice between the two. Deflection is very strong in PvP, and TR at base 75% severity get away with a lot. Maybe keep base severity the same as other classes, and provide a class feat that increases severity to 75%. That way the extra defense has to be specced into rather than a given for all. - Smoke Bomb
Strong power that fits perfectly into the concept of a rogue. It has great utility, but I would have a very hard time being convinced that it is an OP, game-breaking power that needs to be nerfed. - Stealth
Oh boy is this one going to be a hard one. Rogues love stealth. Non-rogues hate stealth. A rogue without stealth is really not a rogue at all. Stealth pros: can't be seen (d'uh), attacks auto-crit and provide CA. Stealth cons: encounters break stealth, at-wills drain stealth very quickly, taking damage drains stealth or stops stealth regen, powers that help refill stealth don't really do anything else. It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this discussion, if anything. - Whisperknife
This path just needs to be rethought. It is very fun, but the synergy just seems really off. Disheatening Strike is actually fine, but as an at-will competing for one of two slots, it comes at the expense of either CoS or melee of some kind. If you opt to drop CoS, then you ranged options become much more limited, and Dagger Threat becomes much more irrelevant. If you drop melee, then you have pretty limited options once you gap-close with VP and are standing toe-to-toe with your opponent. It would be awesome to rework this path a bit more, and open up more variety to the TR builds. Having more viable TR builds running around might just help with some of the balancing issues.
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Comments
Lashing Blade
Impossible to catch.
Deflection
Smoke Bomb.
Not game breaking you say? If I can push any button on my controller and the game tells me that I can't do that, that is the very definition of game breaking. They last too long, lock you out of too many of your abilities, and the cool down is too short.
Since the only thing you can do is move, we should also be allowed to use our dodge shift at the very least. You still get to lock down a portion of the battlefield, but at least we have a chance to fight back. I agree that smoke bombs are a roguish kind of power, but they do need to be toned down a bit.
Stealth.
My opinion is that the mechanic needs to be implemented better. There needs to be a better balance of uptime and downtime. Maybe a small cooldown when you leave based on how long you were in stealth before you can reenter? That would make it more like the rogue in the opening scene.
perhaps more like the cleric's divinty only any power gives stealth meter? Basically, you would have to use a power to gain stealth, could go into stealth to avoid the hits that would follow, use another ability from stealth (getting the same benefits, auto crit, CA, etc.) but have to do something while not in stealth in order to go back into stealth.
I don't know, like I said, the mechanic is alright, its just the builds that abuse the mechanic that need to be brought into check.
Build diversity.
From where I stand, it just seems like there isn't quite a "con" to playing a rogue. Or at least, the other classes have a perceived negative to them. GFs don't do damage, SWs and CWs can't take a hit, DCs need teammates or are useless, GWFs are just plain useless. HRs seem to be jack of all trades in PVP, kind of like TRs but just not as good.
High deflect, stealth, CC reduction/immunity, prevent other players from using powers = little damage taken; high crit damage, combat advantage, stacking DoTs, stacking Crit severity = lots of damage dealt. Furthering the issue is seems like this is the ONLY thing TRs do (which, lets face it with that build they'd be silly to do anything else - let the powers recharge while in stealth and hit em again, dont stand and fight that's not the rogue way) so it easily targeted as something to complain about.
Personally I think there are some balance issues, but I think there are with HRs and CWs as well, nevermind what happens at 2 if two DCs are on same team. I have also been getting two shotted by a few SWs lately so something is happening there too now. Whatever, that's PVP I guess.
Executioner captstone (Shadow of Demise - SoD for short) applies when you deal damage from stealth, and all the damage you deal for the next 6 seconds is dealt again (at end of said 6 seconds) at 50% piercing damage (ignores armor, etc.) for simplicity's sake you can think of it as half the damage you deal in those 6 seconds.
Currently if you are wearing a DoT enchant (i.e. Plaguefire etc.) The SoD actually procs the 50% twice at the end of those 6 seconds.
Essentially making you be able to deal Double your damage and then some in those 6 seconds.
This is a known bug from the PC version, yet they still released Mod 5 on Xbox with the issue still intact (It was fixed on PC version)
So once this is fixed, it will tone down a lot of the crying.
In organized premade vs premade with proper communication and gear, TR is not able to do anything near what he can do against randoms in pub matches. He is decent at contesting a node and not dying, yet, he still isn't the best at doing that either.
In pub matches with randoms, (I have 16k gear score) i'll be going up against players with 8k-10k gear score with very little to no Tenacity. (Which equals *Amazing Burst Damage, Making 1 shot a very viable build*)
Matchmaking shouldn't pair players with such high gear scores and full pvp set and dedicated pvp builds against PvE players with PvE gear just simply trying to finish their daily for Rhix.
Rogue and CW are great at being PubStars, they excel at making the most out of a disorganized team, especially against players with no HP, No tenacity, and a lot lower gearscores.
Take a premade where both teams have BiS gear, with really high stacked HP and Tenacity, and put a proper GF on mid point with a cleric and you literally cannot kill them even with 2 players. You have to have organized focus and burst all at once after CCing the Cleric, in order to get the GF to be able to drop.
Rogue 1v1 vs Cleric, the cleric is unkillable 9/10 times depending on Rogues build. Cleric continues to contest the node and rogue becomes useless for his team.
I feel that the game is actually balanced for premade vs premade with proper gear and communication.
The only real problem with Rogue at the moment is the SoD bug which is known and will be fixed with next mod release.
In pub matches Rogues and CW seem OP because they get the greatest benefit going up against ungeared players.
Start stacking tenacity and HP really high and rogues will be like flies hitting you in the back
Rather than call for class nerfs, I'd like to the devs to throw some love to GWF and Warlock. Bringing those two classes up would add some well-needed balance. Other classes have their CC, DPS, Defense and Burst already.
I couldn't agree with you more. The TR is appealing (and appalling) because you can literally luck your way into a high-damage build -- especially against people with no tenacity and average gear. Pick any paragon path, any feats, and just about any powers and you will do high damage and be difficult to hit/damage on the battlefield. The thing is...
That's all the TR has to offer.
With the exception of the GWF, a class for which I can't really identify definite benefits, all the other classes offer a lot more to teams than TRs. People complain about TRs because they do lots of damage, but if they didn't... what would they do? They don't have any party support features whatsoever. What role could they fill?
I don't think TRs are OP; that's not the problem. I think the real problem is that too many people are going into Domination PvP -- a TEAM game type -- with a deathmatch mentality. It's the result of players used to CoD and BF coming into an MMO that also includes a competitive multiplayer game mode and expecting the same kind of "balance" they saw in FPS games. I think dreamyy's comments about how balanced PvP actually is with premade teams -- that play as TEAMS -- is totally spot on and proves my point. What the loudest voices in the "nerf TRs" crowd really want is damage parity and identical kill potential while also having their fancy support powers. That's not what NW PvP is about, however, and they end up frustrated because -- whether their team wins or not -- they don't have a high K/D ratio.
That said, I don't disagree that there are still balance issues. There will always be balance issues. I mean, things like the poor matchmaking actually create balance issues! I'm not a fan of nerfing though. Rather than nerfing a class, I'd rather the devs boost other classes to address balance issues. This is especially important when you consider that nerfs to "fix" PvP directly impact the PvE game as well. What's better, nerfing a class that's a bit OP in PvP but well-balanced in PvE, possibly breaking the PvE experience that a majority of players enjoy, or boosting the other classes to address PvP issues? I say boosting is better. No one will complain if a class in your PvE party is doing a bit more damage or surviving a little longer.
Great post, and I completely agree with every point you make.
So it seems like a good approach to take to PvP might be to:
Find ways to create a more even playing field in terms of skill, gear-score and class composition. Maybe tiered play (Bronze, Silver, Gold) based on a VISIBLE ELO rating, with opportunities to move up/down tiers based on trended play. Or maybe just a sub-division of the 60s level queue based on gear-score, with some sort of system in place to prevent gear manipulation once the game starts. I'm not sure. But I am pretty confident that a lot of the complaints about PvP stem from very imbalanced matches and not very imbalanced classes.
Domination is not Deathmatch. I've been involved in a ton of games where a team getting crushed in terms of KDA still pulls out the win through smart objective management. But since KDA is the most visible metrics coming out of PvP (e.g. I can't find anywhere that tracks actual win%, etc.) people naturally tend to gravitate to it as an indication of their level of play. What gets measured, gets managed.
Sure, you get the most "points" for capturing a node, but again, there's no visible points-per-game metric available. And since different classes play different roles in the game, it would be nice if other kinds of contributions aside from Kills and Assists got measured and recognized. Like maybe healing, or node defending. Not sure what those would be though.
Edit: but then you'll make the rogues that dumped money in for the very reason of God mode raging. It was poorly implemented to start, making it much harder to fix.
nice see someone that plays a tr making a post like this.
anyway. I agree with most of the stuff.
some of the stuff you mentioned is nerfed on PC to be honest. Impossible to catch on PC does not give 100% deflection or cc immunity anymore. Instead it breaks CC and for the duration gives 50% damage resistance bonus.
stealth is somewhat nerfed too. but dodges and other stuff are buffed.
I agree lashing blade has too much DAMAGE. but that is not so bad as most dps executioners 1-shot trs can be countered on pvp by non-fighter classes, so I guess that is not so bad.
to be honest the biggest problem are trs shadow opportunity and shadow of demise. those feats have piercing damage (ignores pvp resistance/tenacity, damage resistance, deflection chance, and in the case of gwfs, even unstoppable). Those two feats that make the game broken, and both were fixed on PC also.
Also the dazing durations are too long, and they are also nerfed on PC for 50%. even after those feats are nerfed TRs are still strong. but right now they break the game.
I think nerfing shadow of demise/shadow opportunity/and daze duration should make tr a balanced class already.
trs are much more balanced on PC after they reworked armor piercing of these feats. The only thing the PC community is still complaining is shocking execution. Lets remember shocking execution also have piercing damage, and for example, it ignores even the unstoppable of a GWF (which is a class special skill like trs stealth). it was not much of a problem before, but now with the new cloaks giving free AP, it is a problem when trs can basically spam their shocking executions every 15, 20 seconds.
Since you support the balance of trs, i would ask you to comment and support this thread on feedback forum: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#/discussion/562294/pvp-feedback-trickster-rogues-doing-too-much-damage-video-inside/p2
DENIAL
If they fixed the whole issues with the PvP ignoring tenacity and things then everything might just balance out.