M15: Trickster Rogue Class Changes

balanced#2849

Hey Trickster Rogues,

Hopefully this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for because this is the major re-balancing of the Trickster Rogue class! The main goals of this pass were to make sure that Trickster Rogues have more than 1 viable feat tree, powers were getting a more even distribution of usage, and troubling interactions were fixed.

To accomplish this, we have done a lot of work to all three feat trees, adjusted many encounter, at-will, class feature, and daily powers, and changed the way Stealth regenerates. While a lot of these changes are buffs and quality of life improvements, there are definitely some nerfs in there.

When tackling stealth, we realized that there were a couple of core problems with the mechanic. In most cases, you would enter a fight and use stealth once but then couldn’t really get away long enough to use it again without using powers like Shadowstrike or having access to the Shadow of Demise feat. To fix this, taking damage now reduces your stealth regeneration, instead of halting it, so that you have more consistent opportunities to use it.

In PvP there were also some frustrations with Stealth. Since Trickster Rogues could re-enter stealth so often, they were basically untargetable for a majority of a fight. Without hindering the mechanic as a whole, we came up with a solution that will only affect the rogue while they are in PvP. Attacking enemies while stealthed will reveal you to other players, but still allow you to gain the mechanical advantages of stealth (such as Shadow of Demise).

We also increased the time it takes to regain the stealth bar, this is mostly because we want Stealth Regeneration to feel more powerful and we wanted more room for it to grow without it becoming a problem. An example of this can be found in Master Infiltrator; Gloaming Cut now offers a Stealth Regeneration buff for a period of time.

As for the other changes you will see below, we really wanted to focus on getting lesser-used powers into a better state. We also took a pass at some powers that felt clunky to make them feel a bit more fluid, like Duelist’s Flurry and Gloaming Cut.

Baseline

• Stealth Changes
• Stealth: Now takes 12.5 seconds to build a full bar (up from 10 seconds)
• Stealth: Duration increased to 6 seconds (up from 5 seconds)
• Stealth: Taking damage no longer interrupts Stealth Regeneration
• Stealth: Taking damage now halves Stealth Regeneration for 2 seconds (instead of stopping it for 3 seconds)
• Stealth (PvP): Trickster Rogues will now be visible to opponents when they deal damage from stealth. Powers that do not remove stealth will not reveal the rogue and damage over time effects, such as smoke bomb and path of the blade, will not remove stealth. This only occurs while in a PvP mode.

Powers

At-will changes

• Duelist's Flurry (Revamped): Bleed Chance on each swing has been increased to 100%
• Duelist's Flurry: Final combo now lasts for 6 attacks, instead of 9
• Duelist's Flurry: Final combo's animation time has been halved (related to the above)
• Duelist's Flurry: The final combo of this power no longer reduces your stealth meter by a large amount
• Now reduces Stealth by 7.5% per swing (~70% for a full combo)
• Duelist's Flurry: Bleed damage lowered by ~40%
• Cloud of Steel: Maximum stack count increased to 10 (up from 8)
• Cloud of Steel: Base damage increased by 12%
• Sly Flourish: Broken Armor debuff reduced to 4% (Down from 10%)
• Sly Flourish: Broken Armor debuff now stacks up to 3 times (for a total of 12%)
• Gloaming Cut (Reworked): Damage increased by ~25%
• Gloaming Cut: Charge time reduced to 0.25s (down from 0.7s)
• This will make the power cast ~45% faster
• Gloaming Cut: Execution damage increased to 100% at rank 1 (up from 25%)
• Note: This is the same as the old rank 4 value
• Gloaming Cut: Execution damage no longer increases at each rank
• Gloaming Cut: Stealth gain on kill no longer increases at each rank (20% down from 35% at R4)
• Gloaming Cut: (NEW) Now increases stealth regeneration by 7.5% for 8 seconds
• Gloaming Cut: (NEW) Now increases the Stealth Regeneration amount by 2.5% per rank
• Disheartening Strike (Reworked): The damage debuff has been reduced to 6%
• Disheartening Strike: The damage debuff per rank has been reduced to 2%
• Disheartening Strike: Now increases damage you deal to the target by 6%
• Disheartening Strike: Now increases damage you deal to the target by 2% per rank
• Disheartening Strike: Duration reduced to 12 seconds (down from 15 seconds)
• Disheartening Strike: Now deals damage every 2 seconds (up from every 1.5 seconds)
• Disheartening Strike: (NEW) Now deals minor damage when first applied (About 1 ticks worth of the DoT)

balanced#2849

Encounter Changes

• Bait and Switch (Reworked): The decoy will now force enemies to attack it when enemies are tricked (this does not work for Bosses)
• Bait and Switch: Trick range increased to 20' (up from 15')
• Bait and Switch: Cooldown decreased to 24 seconds (down from 25 seconds)
• Bait and Switch: Decoy duration reduced to 12 seconds (down from 21 seconds)
• Bait and Switch: AP gain per rank increased to 10% (up from 1%)
• Bait and Switch: The decoy will now trick enemies once a second (down from 4 times a second)
• Bait and Switch: Fixed an issue where the rank-up value (+10% decoy HP) would be gained at rank 1
• Bait and Switch: Fixed an issue where the decoy's Maximum Hit Points would not increase based off of the player's hit points
• Bait and Switch: AP gain from this power should now be on-par with other encounter powers (previously it generated no AP)
• Blitz (Revamped): New: Stealthed: Reduces all encounter cooldowns by 1 second
• Blitz: Cooldown reduction on power usage is increased by 0.5 seconds per rank
• Blitz: Stealthed: No longer slows targets hit
• Blitz: Stealthed: No longer has a longer activation time while in stealth
• Blitz: Cooldown increased to 14 seconds, up from 12 seconds
• Vengeance's Pursuit: AoE damage radius increased to 12', up from 8'
• Impact Shot: Charge refill time lowered to 8s (down from 11s)
• Smoke Bomb (Revamped): Damage reduced by 30%
• Smoke Bomb: Fixed an issue where Smoke Bomb wasn't correctly reading in a damage table (damage increased by ~8%)
• Smoke Bomb: Duration is now 5 seconds at all ranks (instead of 2-5 based on rank)
• Smoke Bomb: Stealth: No longer slows enemies
• Smoke Bomb: Base cooldown increased to 22 seconds (up from 18 seconds)
• Smoke Bomb: Stealth: Now grants Combat Advantage against all enemies in Smoke Bomb
• Smoke Bomb: Now reduces the cooldown by 2s per rank-up
• Smoke Bomb: Now triggers at the user's feet instead of being 5' in front of them
• Shadowy Disappearance (Revamped): This power no longer consumes stealth when used from stealth
• Shadowy Disappearance: Damage increased by ~28%
• Shadowy Disappearance: Damage per rank reduced to 10% (down from 20%)
• Shadowy Disappearance: No longer causes there to be no cooldown when used from stealth
• Shadowy Disappearance: Activation time reduced by 20% (0.1 seconds)
• Shadowy Disappearance: Cooldown reduced to 14 seconds (down from 18)
• Shadowy Disappearance: No longer removes you from stealth when used in stealth
• Impossible to Catch: Base duration increased to 4 seconds (up from 2)
• Impossible to Catch: Buff duration no longer increases at each rank
• Impossible to Catch: Each rank now reduces the cooldown by 2 seconds
• Impossible to Catch: Cooldown increased to 22 seconds (up from 18)
• Impossible to Catch: Stealthed: Now grants 25% Damage Resistance (down from 50%)
• Impossible to Catch: Stealthed: Now grants 25% Movement Speed
• Impossible to Catch: Now grants 100% deflect (down from 20,000%)
• Blade Flurry (Reworked): This power can be used up to 4 times before going on cooldown. If you haven't used the power in the last 20 seconds (affected by recharge speed) then the 4 times counter will automatically be reset.
• Blade Flurry: Damage increased by ~43%
• Blade Flurry: Recharge time increased to 20 seconds (up from 16)
• Blade Flurry: AP gain from this power should now be on-par with other encounter powers (it has been significantly increased)
• Blade Flurry: Fixed an issue where this power could be cast an additional 1-2 times.
• Deft Strike: Now teleports you to the target instantly
• Deft Strike: Now correctly trigger stealth-based procs
• Deft Strike: Should no longer be interrupted by other powers when used from stealth

Daily Changes

• Courage Breaker: Now slows the target by 70% (down from 90%)
• Courage Breaker: Now places a 25% Damage Reduction Debuff on the target, +5% per rank
• Courage Breaker: Now places a 12.5% Damage Resistance Reduction Debuff on the target, +2.5% per rank
• Courage Breaker: No longer increases player power by 25%
• Courage Breaker: Duration is now 8 seconds (down from 10 for PvE, up from 5 for PvP)
• Whirlwind of Blades: Now grants +8% outgoing damage for each target hit (up to 5)
• Whirlwind of Blades: Buff duration reduced to 10 seconds (from 12 seconds)
• Bloodbath: This power now deals damage over 2 seconds (down from 2.7 seconds)
• Bloodbath: Now deals damage 9 times, down from 10 times.
• Hateful Knives: Combat Advantage time increased to 2 seconds per rank (up from 1 second)

Class Feature Changes

• Sneak Attack: Now also increases Recharge Speed by 10% while Stealthed
• Sneak Attack: Increases your Movement Speed and Recharge Speed by an additional 5% per rank (down from 10%)
• Talisman of Shadows: Daze duration now also increases by 0.33 seconds per rank
• Talisman of Shadows: Now has a base radius of 20' (up from 10)
• Talisman of Shadows: No longer increases radius per rank
• Talisman of Shadows: Now correctly states that it slows targets by 80% for its duration.
• Oppressive Darkness: Damage increased by ~39%
• Oppressive Darkness: Will now only proc on the first and last hits of Duelist's Flurry (instead of every hit)
• Advantageous Position: Now lasts for 5 seconds at rank 1
• Advantageous Position: Now reduces damage you take from AoE and Ranged powers by 15% (down from 20%)
• Advantageous Position: Now increases the damage reduction by 5% per rank (up from 0%)
• Advantageous Position: No longer increases duration at each rank-up
• Dagger Threat (Revamped): You deal up to 7.5% more damage with ranged attacks based on how close you are to your target. You will receive the maximum benefit from this power when within 20' of the target.
• Dagger Threat: You now gain up to 2.5% more damage per rank (down from 5%)
• Skillful Infiltrator: Base Run speed increased to 7.5% at rank 1 (from 5%)
• Skillful Infiltrator: Run speed per rank reduced to 2.5% (from 5%)
• Skillful Infiltrator: Deflection chance and Critical Chance increased to 2% at rank 1 (up from 1%)

balanced#2849

Feats

Saboteur

• Sneaky Stabber: Gloaming Cut no longer grants 2/4/6/8/10% Stealth on hit
• Sneaky Stabber: Stealth Regeneration granted by Gloaming cut is increased by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%
• Distracting Knife: Disheartening Strike now reduces the Damage Resistance and Damage of targets hit by an additional 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Grinning Steel: Critical Chance increased to 2/4/6/8/10% (up from 1/2/3/4/5%)
• Exposed Weakness (New): Moved from the Executioner tree to this tree
• Blood Soaked Blades: Moved to the Executioner tree
• Return to Shadows: While behind your target, you deal 5/10/15/20/25% more damage with Encounter Powers and they refill 5/10/15/20/25% of your Stealth meter. Stealth gain cannot be triggered while Stealthed.
• Gutterborn's Touch (Reworked): Dealing combat advantage damage to an enemy increases your Armor Penetration and Damage Dealt by 2/4/6/8/10%
• Shadowy Opportunity (Reworked): Now causes you to gain Shadowy Opportunity for 5 seconds after leaving stealth. While active, your attacks deal an additional 10/20/30/40/50% weapon damage as piercing damage.
• Shadowy Opportunity: No longer procs on every hit of Duelist's Flurry, now only procs on the first and last hits
• One with the Shadows: Every 15 seconds, you gain the "One with the Shadows" effect. This causes your next encounter power to refill your Stealth meter. For 15 seconds afterwards, your damage is increased by 30%
• One With the Shadows: Can no longer trigger while your stealth meter is full

Scoundrel

• Survivor (Reworked): While below 50% hit points, gain 5% Lifesteal Chance and Deflect Chance.
• Press the Advantage (Reworked): Now causes Impossible to Catch to increase your Combat Advantage damage by 2/4/6/8/10% for its duration.
• Master Infighter (Reworked): Deflecting an attack grants you the "Reversal" buff for 6 seconds. "Reversal" - Causes you to deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage and take 2/4/6/8/10% less damage from the target whose attack you deflected
• Savage Blows (Reworked): Dealing damage to foes increases the Damage of your Powers by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1% for 4 seconds.
• Savage Blows: Now stacks up to 10 times (up from 5)
• Savage Blows: When at maximum stacks, you gain an additional 5% damage
• Concussive Strikes (Revamped): Daze duration lowered to 0.4/0.8/1.2/1.6/2 seconds (down from 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5)
• Concussive Strikes: No longer half as effective against players
• Concussive Strikes: When you Daze a foe with this power, you gain 1/2/3/4/5% Deflect Chance for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
• Mocking Gesture (Reworked): Every second your Deflection Chance increases by 1/2/3/4/5%, stacking up to 20 times. Deflecting an attack resets this bonus and causes you to riposte the attacker, dealing 40/80/120/160/200% of your weapon damage as physical damage.
• Low Blows: Damage per rank has been reduced to 4/8/12/16/20% (down from 5/10/15/20/25%)
• Skullcracker (Reworked): Every 15 secon ds you gain "Skullcracker" which causes your next At-will or encounter power to Daze an enemy for 3 seconds and apply a mark to them for 6 seconds. The duration of this mark is increased by 0.5 seconds each time you deal damage, up to a maximum of 4 bonus seconds. While marked, enemies take 25% more damage from your attacks and your powers deal damage to them as if they were controlled.

Executioner

• Deathknell: You deal 20% more damage to foes below 10/20/30/40/50% HP.
• Last Moments: You deal 4/8/12/16/20% more damage to foes as their health decreases, this bonus is doubled while in Stealth.
• Twisted Grin (Reworked): When a foe within 30' of you dies, you gain the Twisted Grin effect for 10 seconds. Twisted Grin: Your at-will attacks deal 5/10/15/20/25% more damage and you are healed for 100% of the additional damage dealt.
• Blood Soaked Blades (New): Moved from the Saboteur tree to this tree
• Blood Soaked Blades: Damage dealt from this feat now correctly scales with power / buffs
• Blood Soaked Blades: Damage lowered to 8/16/24/32/40% (down from 10/20/30/40/50%)
• Blood Soaked Blades: Now triggers if a foe dies within 5 seconds of being damaged. (Up from 1.5 seconds)
• Exposed Weakness: Moved to the Saboteur tree where Blood Soaked Blades previously was
• Shadowborn: After entering Stealth, your next Encounter Power deals 15/30/45/60/75% of its damage over the next 4.5 seconds.
• Shadow of Demise (Revamped): While in Stealth, your encounter powers add the "Shadow of Demise" effect to the target for 6 seconds. 50% of the damage you deal to this target is dealt again, as piercing damage, when Shadow of Demise expires. Additionally, your Stealth Regeneration is no longer slowed when taking damage and your Stealth regeneration is increased by 20%.

skatopsixos7

You guys kidding me right now?

krysnyte

>:(

skatopsixos7

This is totaly destroying Tr's, don't know what you devs think you are doing, constantly making changes, better, then worse, now destroyed..

rip Tr's

Galactic Underwear

krysnyte

I try to always be open minded when you guys do an update, a change, a 'balance' but this time I really want to curse.

skatopsixos7

lol they destroyed us, and gave gwf's a faster way to gain determination, like they had any issues with determination.

jesus

zenny#4498

they are doing everything to put the GWF in first DPS, limited class

sjza80

"This is not the rework we were looking for"

moltenperezoso

Tr's were fine as they were for PVE. Doesnt make sense to ruin the class for the majority of players for the small percentage that complain.

snotty

sweet, now my TR will suck in PvE because it supposedly was too good in PvP, a part of the game I never play.

drunkenatheist#5914

Press F to pay respect.

lazaroth666

The GWF didn't get a buff for determination gain. It's exactly the same as it is in the live server. The part where is mentioned "Destroyer's Purpose: Now doubles the rate at which you earn Determination when dealing damage." comes when it is being compared to the determination gained by Sentinel and Instigator because these will get half of the current determination instead. All the other buffs were for Instigator, not for Destroyer.

hugienwn

Can someone smart confirm for... my friend... that the grumpy reactions are because of the nerfs to Power-looping via Courage Breaker, Whirlwind of Blades, and Press the Advantage? Cuz apart from those, which are obviously sizable, seems like some nice buffs to DPS in the feats (and Blade Flurry). I'd guess that for the average TR, this will make the learning curve easier, avg DPS higher... and for endgame 1-shotter power-looping TRs, it'll be a show-stopper?

mafiadelperro#8853

The buff are little for the thing thier taking off i mean we trs dont have the base damage or feat damage like other classes and we sont bring any really good support to our allies and without power looping is less and less if they take off oir power they should buff feat or encounter base damage or something idk

mafiadelperro#8853

People will test and will have a report on this so lets give a few days until ideas and feedback are done

c3rb3r3

skatopsixos7 said:

lol they destroyed us, and gave gwf's a faster way to gain determination, like they had any issues with determination.

jesus

? destroyer always gave determination from dealing damage, the change made it so half the value can be gained without the capstone so that sentinel/instigator could be looked at, and destroyer capstone allows to reach the determination value from before. That's exactly the same thing than before for a destroyer.

don't overreact and please read the threads fully.

someonedies

Impossible to Catch: Now grants 100% deflect (down from 20,000%)

200 times neft? o_O

strathkin

I mean I once recently heard a friend in the game claim TR's were even far greater at DPS than even the GWF and oh my goodness there a self buffing master that needed a small nerf. Though there the last class and I haven't reviewed what changes will be coming to them but most seem upset about the Cleric & Rogue so far most others have largely been well recieved.

Still I agreed with one comment above, I don't think this is as bad as what some are claiming, yet if people are honest it entirely true they may stop playing... ...still if it were me I'd FOCUS the efforts and perhaps trying to find a few a compromises that could perhaps be made instead suggesting them to reconsider a few of the changes they've made especially to the bigger items everyone is concerned about.

Complaining doesn't HELP identify where the issue is, but if people TRY to be constructive and say:

Possibly consider revising A, B, C in this feat path; or A, B in this one; or perhaps A, B, C, D in this one. Then provide some reasons for it. I'd also like to HOPE that everyone has downloaded PREVIEW so they at least try out the class with all the changes and BUFFs with NERFs included and perhaps it might change a few opinions. But if NOT then at least you have more support for suggesting why B or C in the first paragon path is too harsh or doesn't X or Y doesn't BUFF enough.

icexnine

snotty said:

sweet, now my TR will suck in PvE because it supposedly was too good in PvP, a part of the game I never play.

what's worse is that I think it'll still be too good in pvp even with the stealth change (only for the really high end trs with 30k, 40k+ recovery). itc duration doubled, bloodbath only hitting one less time, piercing damage is back in sod, and courage breaker duration increased to 8 seconds (lolwut, it was chainable at 5 secs u HAMSTER) .... woohoo

leonidrex

lol in pvp trs will still 1shot people, if i get overkilled by 400k from 3 button press combo, small nerf wont matter.
as for pve, trs were the best dps class, now with the changes they might drop too far, we will see

nooneatza

So pve tr is gutted, and my do dc is gonna be useless too. Guess who is leaving the game if this hits live

minotaur2857

TRs were already sub par in PvE, now they're unplayably sub par, another retired character I've spent real money on to go with 2 others. Take into account people play some playstyles because they enjoy them, and don't enjoy the alternatives for that class so have nowhere to go when you nerf those playstyles out of existence.

This is exactly why I don't have a single main, because I know you are likely to nerf it out of existence.

haruna742

First of all, im not plaything the tr, but i came here to write my opinion. I don't understand why you lowered tr's damage so much, he was the only dps who could have outdmg gwf, now that he is nerfed, everyone will say "sorry, no tr" and will look for gwf only as dps. I understand to lower the dmg for some abilites here and here, but why so much? it's a big difference, and i think a dc do will outdmg the tr in the next patch.
What i understand from what i've seen so far in the forums, you guys wanted to nerf a bit every class to make the dungeons last longer, or to be harder as intented. What about dc do about 12k itmlv? no one is gonna take them now as ac. Whatever, it's not about dc, it's about tr. I understand the dmg nerfs, but the numbers are absurd and you exaggerated with them. Flurry and sod are way too low now, you can't even use them. I can solo valindra with my 15k sw and my friend can't solo (in a reasonable amount of time) with 16.5 tr now(on preview without boons), and btw valindra is bugged and she just disappears with your puppet/companion after you deal some dmg to her. Reconsider those numbers please, you will lose a lot of players because of this, because after a full combo of tr he deals less than me when i use only hellish rebuke.

venoxempire

Seriously ? We have basically been the laughing stock of the dps meta for years, you finally buff us so we can compete and that only lasts 1 MOD? Do you guys actually hate TR's? Because it sure feels like it.

At this point you might as well just remove the class from the game, because after this MOD everyone will either of quit or move onto a GWF, as that will be the only end game DPS people will want.

omnior

Please consider an approach in which you buff up alternatives when you see one power being used by 99.5% of all TR's (I'm looking at you Smoke Bomb), instead of nerfing the power getting overused into oblivion. Smoke Bomb really feels Rogue-ish, and I'm going to miss using it.

alambicus#5985

A lot of people spent a lot of time to be able to have a thief as it is now, and you are saying in the new module "hey guys, time lost for nothing....."
HAHAHAHAHAHA the crypt are funny, guys this is a April fools day.....
Thank you.

tremeliques#2035

Well hopefully this gets heard, the way it used to be it was possible for trs to multiply their power for 3.6 times just from 1 itc 1 cb and 1 wob, and u might say that's around an 300% dmg buff,and that's correct but that's my point we NEEDED them to be competitive, we had to be able to use 1 daily every 5 seconds or so, instead of fixing the bugs that exist with the Tr b4 nerfing something but no, u literally took away more then 250% worth of self buff from the class, even with the all the other stuff that got buffed on an optimal setting I doubt u would even be able to compensate just what we lost from the power we lost, the thing is, thats only half of the things we lost, next time try to fix the fact that aura of courage ticks on stun ticks from sb accounting for almost half our dmg and the fact that on the sod dot part it was still double dipping on debuffs and a few other things. Pls listen to when people report bugs, this because I'm pretty sure this bugs will get fixed eventually damaging the class even more because they weren't taken into account while nerfing stuff.