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What needs to happen for PVE rogue to be fun / diverse
solsol1337
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 241 Bounty Hunter
The backbone for having 2 PVE rogue specs that do comparable damage is there, just a few balance changes have to be made. Duelist's Flurry is still way too strong compared to Sly Flourish. IE Duelist's Flurry is still so good that even with the 10% buff from the feat in the scoundrel tree, Sly Flourish is vastly inferior in terms of damage. With the recent "fix" to Deadly Momentum's crit severity bonus the rest of the tree backing up Duelist's Flurry in the executioner tree is now roughly equal, or at least comparable to, the scoundrel tree. But Sly Flourish is still too weak to be useful.
So there are 4 basic approaches that could be taken to fix this disparity. I will list them then list what possible problems/benefits I can forsee with actually implementing these changes.
1. Just do a flat buff to Sly Flourish damage so that it is on par with Duelist's Flurry.
Problems: If this happens chances are that it would be favorable to just drop Flurry from executioner builds altogether in favor of the more user friendly and less suicidal Flurry. Yes, we lose 15% CS, but gaining more mobility and a smaller warm-up would probably be worth the loss. Also Sly flourish is less RNG as it is not depending on the bleed being a crit. A way to bypass this problem is to redesign flourish in the following manner: Similar to how Flurry works, have the last 2 hits of Flourish hit much harder than the previous 2. This forces it to behave similarly in terms of damage to flurry, while still maintaining its feeling of freedom of movement. This is probably my favorite solution to the whole issue.
Benefits: This is by far the most simple way to fix the problem.
2. Further nerf the Duelist's Flurry Bleed.
Problems: Mostly the same as option 1. A possible solution would be to make deadly momentum also lengthen the time left on the bleed (while reducing the base duration from what it currently is). This would discourage other specs from using flurry, while leaving it unchanged for executioners.
Benefits: Flurry would be undesirable to non-executioner specs without having to apply any buffs to other specs.
3. Buff Scoundrel feats in such a was as to discourage use of Flurry.
Further Explanation: Currently the only encouragement to use Sly Flourish as a scoundrel rogue is that it has a 10% damage buff. This is no where near enough to make it better than flurry though. A buff to using flourish instead of flurry would possibly solve this. My suggestion (which fits with the idea of the scoundrel build) is to either have every 4th hit of flourish regenerate some amount of AP, or to have every 4th hit of flourish take x seconds off the CD of encounters. Scoundrel is fun because when stacking recovery you can use lots of dailies.
Benefits: Making flourish fit with the scoundrel build better would not only make the spec more fun, but also more competitive with executioner without having to rely on Flurry.
Problems: Potential difficulty of implementing this?
4. Fix the bug that locks Duelist's Flurry bleeds to crits.
Problems: Potentially difficult to implement.
Benefits: Will make Flurry less desirable to Scoundrels. Will make executioner spec more fun and less about maintaining that one good bleed at all costs. Executioner damage with this change should remain basically unchanged overall, and fix the fact that it has the potiential to be vastly higher than other specs. This is by far the best solution. No balance changes necessary, just fix a bug that has been here since day 1.
I hope that a dev sees this and takes it into mind. I think the community can vouch for the amount of time I've put into testing these things. I barely even actually play the game any more since there isn't really any content to do. I just test things.
So there are 4 basic approaches that could be taken to fix this disparity. I will list them then list what possible problems/benefits I can forsee with actually implementing these changes.
1. Just do a flat buff to Sly Flourish damage so that it is on par with Duelist's Flurry.
Problems: If this happens chances are that it would be favorable to just drop Flurry from executioner builds altogether in favor of the more user friendly and less suicidal Flurry. Yes, we lose 15% CS, but gaining more mobility and a smaller warm-up would probably be worth the loss. Also Sly flourish is less RNG as it is not depending on the bleed being a crit. A way to bypass this problem is to redesign flourish in the following manner: Similar to how Flurry works, have the last 2 hits of Flourish hit much harder than the previous 2. This forces it to behave similarly in terms of damage to flurry, while still maintaining its feeling of freedom of movement. This is probably my favorite solution to the whole issue.
Benefits: This is by far the most simple way to fix the problem.
2. Further nerf the Duelist's Flurry Bleed.
Problems: Mostly the same as option 1. A possible solution would be to make deadly momentum also lengthen the time left on the bleed (while reducing the base duration from what it currently is). This would discourage other specs from using flurry, while leaving it unchanged for executioners.
Benefits: Flurry would be undesirable to non-executioner specs without having to apply any buffs to other specs.
3. Buff Scoundrel feats in such a was as to discourage use of Flurry.
Further Explanation: Currently the only encouragement to use Sly Flourish as a scoundrel rogue is that it has a 10% damage buff. This is no where near enough to make it better than flurry though. A buff to using flourish instead of flurry would possibly solve this. My suggestion (which fits with the idea of the scoundrel build) is to either have every 4th hit of flourish regenerate some amount of AP, or to have every 4th hit of flourish take x seconds off the CD of encounters. Scoundrel is fun because when stacking recovery you can use lots of dailies.
Benefits: Making flourish fit with the scoundrel build better would not only make the spec more fun, but also more competitive with executioner without having to rely on Flurry.
Problems: Potential difficulty of implementing this?
4. Fix the bug that locks Duelist's Flurry bleeds to crits.
Problems: Potentially difficult to implement.
Benefits: Will make Flurry less desirable to Scoundrels. Will make executioner spec more fun and less about maintaining that one good bleed at all costs. Executioner damage with this change should remain basically unchanged overall, and fix the fact that it has the potiential to be vastly higher than other specs. This is by far the best solution. No balance changes necessary, just fix a bug that has been here since day 1.
I hope that a dev sees this and takes it into mind. I think the community can vouch for the amount of time I've put into testing these things. I barely even actually play the game any more since there isn't really any content to do. I just test things.
Check out my guide to Trickster rogue DPS, the most in depth and up to date guide currently available.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
Post edited by solsol1337 on
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You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
Yes, but in this case the difference between "rewarding" and just being straight up better has been crossed. There is no reason whatsoever to use flourish over flurry in pve, no matter what spec you are playing or what situation you are in. Flurry will do more damage, all day every day.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
I also agree that there is something fundamentally wrong in a class, if a skill that is kind of a passive does like 40% of all the damage the character does. What makes bleed even worse is, it doesn't seem to scale with power at all, or if it does it is very small. Also to add into this, having second rogue brings almost nothing to the table because of the bleed. It shouldn't be a case where two rogues = 1.5 damage compared to one.
A small note though, sly flourish 3rd and 4th hit do more damage than 1st and 2nd. Only the 4th one though does noticeably more damage than the previous ones, can't remember actual figures but I think it was something like 10-20%.
I remember trying to do comparsion with flourish vs flurry damage in previous patch, and I honestly didn't see that big difference in damage even when the deadly gave 15% cs per stack. Maybe the OC is the reason for the biggest damage difference between comparing the builds. I could try doing similar test at some point now that the patch has come out with execution build, the flourish might actually do more damage if bleed is counted out. If you think about it, OC activates in almost 50% of hits with 50% crit rate, and multiplying the damage with 30% of cs, it gives like 30% extra damage on those hits. So on average you can count that feat alone roughly doing 15% more dps.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
Literally nothing they did changes pvp including the SE nerf, only the bad rogues used it as an opener or crutch.
Nerfing a tree that was on par considering class, to make a tree that isn't more viable is just ignorant.
THIS times about eleven millionty.
And it pretty much happens everwhere.
Separate the PVP and PVE balances and let the PVP team demand nerfs and buffs until the end of time - because they will, forever.
Both skills do way to little damage as it is right now. If you make SF the highest hitting skill, DF could be a skill you weave in for the dot. It could even be lowered a bit in damage, but it needs longer duration
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
That was hardly any better. 7 abilities that cast "damage" is hardly diverse, it just gave you more buttons to press. Ho boy, I can't wait to cast Fireballs 1 through 8.
The big thing WoW refugees (welcome to real games by the way) need to cope with is that not all games have "rotations", because rotations are really just mindless button smashing in a sequence from one to whatever. Action Games (which WoW isn't) instead have priorities. Dodging a monsters big club is a priority. Healing that guy who is about to die is a priority. Using daze to stop the big whatever is a priority. Your priorities change based on what is happening, where as rotations just ask you to be competent enough to count to fifteen.
Right now you either use SF or you use DF. The point is that you want to make them compliment each other so that each one has a viable moment to use it without one completely invalidating the other. If DF had a strategy of just applying it for the dots, and then SF did more damage than it once that was done you'd have two abilities that worked together rather than one ability that is just better period.
So maybe you never did competitive PVP or end game raiding in WoW, but you actually have to do all those same priorities, and then some, on top of knowing how to perfectly maintain this rotation. That's why the game was fun. Yes casual players can learn the rotation, spam it and do mostly ok, but the good players are the ones who can maintain the rotation, dodge ****, heal things, use CC and still be better at the rotation than the casual player. The only thing that makes games like NW more "action" than games like EQ and WoW is that NW has a targeting reticule and a stamina meter instead of buttons with cooldowns to dodge mechanics.
If you're playing NW correctly you still have a rotation. Just at this point most of that rotation is to get a good bleed rolling. A rotation is just an optimal way to do dps. That still exists perfectly well in NW.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
1. Dont try to belittle me, ive played more mmos then you ever will all way back to Meridian (not that its something to brag about)
2. Real games? dodging is just a HAMSTER mechanic as proven in both GW2 and now Neverwinter. Even TR and CW can "tank" becouse your only have to dodge out of the stupid circles and avoid all damage.
There area of effects where there before aswell, it just required more effort avoiding it then pressing one button and randomdodge out of all damage. And you couldnt CC/Interupt an enemy before? or heal? healing was much more priority in older system, now you just fling some healing over times, the rest your teammates have to dodge out of.
Heck you dont really have to dodge OUT of the circles, just dodging is enough.
This system is so dumbed down, even a 5 year old can play it pressing 2-5 buttons. (I dont want 40 keybinds either)
Its easy to become decent in this new system, but its much harder to become great in the older system utilizing all of your skills at the right time and getting a good rotation.
This system caters to casuals, easymode. But it doesnt work in bigger fight with many people. Raids doesnt work well with it.
Look at GW2, any bigger events like dragon fights turn into chaos, everyone runs around like headless chicken, noone heals and everyone desperatly tries to dodge out of all the AoE, its quite laughable watching at.