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I think stealth is too heavily emphasized.
anymras
Member Posts: 23 Arc User
Well, I do. I'll go ahead and start explaining my position.
Stealth and Stamina are our two survival tools, obviously.
I consider Stealth to be a Passive survival tool, and Stamina to be an Active one.
The difference is that Stamina requires you to read tells and pick the proper time to Dodge, while Stealth simply requires you to press Tab and maybe use some skills to keep the mode up if you really want to; most AI will not attack while you're stealthed, and it's honestly really easy to avoid even player attacks while Stealthed.
There is nothing wrong with having, or using, a Passive survival tool, or with having, or using, an Active one. I use both, though my current build is specifically designed to avoid potential permastealthing - and encourages switching in and out of stealth often.
Moving on.
The TR is heavily slanted toward use of Stealth - we have feats to make our Stealth last up to 20% longer, that recover it when we dodge, that allow a particular At-Will to recover up to 10% of our Stealth meter per strike.
We have PvP armor that gives 20% or 25% more Stealth duration, with the latter giving a 5% damage bonus while Stealthed. Higher numbers of both duration and damage might be on the way with further tiers of PvP gear.
A permastealth build is easy to accomplish.
Meanwhile, our Stamina usage is supported by...two feats, as far as I can tell. One gives us 10% faster Stamina Regen, one gives us 10% less Stamina consumption on dodge, 20% less if we dodge while in Stealth.
I think the maximum Stamina regen is about 36-40%, with a 10%/20% reduction in consumption, if you max out the Stone of Might, complete the Sharandar boonset with Elven Resolve, have maximum Strength, and feat accordingly. Blood Crystal Raven Skull also grants up to +400 additional Stamina/Guard gain at rank 100 (after starting to give the bonus at rank 60), but I'm not sure how much Stamina Regen that actually translates to, so I haven't included it in the numbers above.
This, I think, is where the problem lies: Permanent Stealth is so much easier to accomplish than being able to dodge more often that it makes non-permanent stealth builds less viable by comparison.
All questions of skill aside, most enemies simply do not attack a Stealthed character, and in PvP, it's a massive advantage to not just be able to avoid attacks, but to be able to prevent them by not being targetable.
And that's why I feel like stealth is too heavily emphasized. I'm not calling for nerfs to it - I'm calling for making dodging, and by extension the Whisperknife or any future Paragon Path that isn't Master Infiltrator, more useful.
To this end: Feats and armor that increase Stamina gain further would be great; there's a difference between having the Stamina to dodge every attack and having the skill to.
There might be issues regarding the Twilight Adept feat in conjunction with more dodging, but people also don't deal damage while dodging.
Stealth and Stamina are our two survival tools, obviously.
I consider Stealth to be a Passive survival tool, and Stamina to be an Active one.
The difference is that Stamina requires you to read tells and pick the proper time to Dodge, while Stealth simply requires you to press Tab and maybe use some skills to keep the mode up if you really want to; most AI will not attack while you're stealthed, and it's honestly really easy to avoid even player attacks while Stealthed.
There is nothing wrong with having, or using, a Passive survival tool, or with having, or using, an Active one. I use both, though my current build is specifically designed to avoid potential permastealthing - and encourages switching in and out of stealth often.
Moving on.
The TR is heavily slanted toward use of Stealth - we have feats to make our Stealth last up to 20% longer, that recover it when we dodge, that allow a particular At-Will to recover up to 10% of our Stealth meter per strike.
We have PvP armor that gives 20% or 25% more Stealth duration, with the latter giving a 5% damage bonus while Stealthed. Higher numbers of both duration and damage might be on the way with further tiers of PvP gear.
A permastealth build is easy to accomplish.
Meanwhile, our Stamina usage is supported by...two feats, as far as I can tell. One gives us 10% faster Stamina Regen, one gives us 10% less Stamina consumption on dodge, 20% less if we dodge while in Stealth.
I think the maximum Stamina regen is about 36-40%, with a 10%/20% reduction in consumption, if you max out the Stone of Might, complete the Sharandar boonset with Elven Resolve, have maximum Strength, and feat accordingly. Blood Crystal Raven Skull also grants up to +400 additional Stamina/Guard gain at rank 100 (after starting to give the bonus at rank 60), but I'm not sure how much Stamina Regen that actually translates to, so I haven't included it in the numbers above.
This, I think, is where the problem lies: Permanent Stealth is so much easier to accomplish than being able to dodge more often that it makes non-permanent stealth builds less viable by comparison.
All questions of skill aside, most enemies simply do not attack a Stealthed character, and in PvP, it's a massive advantage to not just be able to avoid attacks, but to be able to prevent them by not being targetable.
And that's why I feel like stealth is too heavily emphasized. I'm not calling for nerfs to it - I'm calling for making dodging, and by extension the Whisperknife or any future Paragon Path that isn't Master Infiltrator, more useful.
To this end: Feats and armor that increase Stamina gain further would be great; there's a difference between having the Stamina to dodge every attack and having the skill to.
There might be issues regarding the Twilight Adept feat in conjunction with more dodging, but people also don't deal damage while dodging.
Post edited by anymras on
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Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
If the dependency on stealth is to change, that means the entire TR character needs to be changed. This is because (not withstanding the existence of perma-stealth builds) while NW TRs have many of the common traits of
If we compare the difference between NW's TRs and stealth-based characters in other games:
The implications are clear: No matter what kind of build you are, essentially for NW TRs, stealth is by itself the main mitigation tool and defense.
Although generally all forms of stealth in all types of games have some strong defensive qualities due to its invisibility, it can be said that in most games (that have toggle-based permanent stealth, and classes that break stealth with attacks) stealth is more of an offensive tool. The way you remain permanently in stealth allows you to choose fights, the way stealth provides huge attack bonuses and breaks upon executing your attack.. it's pretty obvious.
In case of NW, the limited duration also limits the use of stealth (you can't just 'default' at stealth), and the TR class itself is pretty weak and squishy. Despite powerful attacks TRs often face progressively worsening situations once out of stealth since it can't compete with other classes in the CC-oriented combat system.
So, to sum it up, for other games' stealthed-classes, stealth is more of an offensive tool that helps you set up attacks and at the same time works as a huge damage buff. When they lose stealth, the classes still have a lot of tools at hand to utilize to help the class fight as a competent 1-vs-1 melee character. However, for NW TRs, stealth is the main mode of defense and mitigation tool, and once that goes down, the TRs don't have means of defense that adequately help it function as a combatant.
From the design level a TR is structured to be dependent on stealth.
.....................................
Now, this brings us to the problem of permastealth (as well as ITC).
The above factors are the main reasons why I believe that permastealth builds were never intended by the developers in the first place. I am pretty much sure that the developers didn't give it much of a thought, nor actually carefully experimented with the results of linking INT with recharge speed increase.
From all of the factors mentioned above, from a designing standpoint, it is pretty clear that the developers intended the TR class to be "wildly powerful in defense, yet very unstable in defense".
A character that relies on a mode of defense that has nothing to do with real defensive stats such as pure damage reduction or defense. Even the deflection stats are too low to think that the developers had imagined this class to be able to function as a main-combatant out of stealth. Stealth is a defense-mechanism that is very drastic in results. It is literally "all or nothing" in its nature. When you're in stealth, you are simply not attacked. It's 100% mitigation. But while out of stealth, you only have very weak basic defenses --- "All or nothing".
Hence, it is only logical to deduce that the original vision of TRs the developers had was a character that would sheathe itself with 100% mitigation defense, and put up certain amount of damage, and then has to fall back, or be hard pressed into a situation as all of its weaknesses are exposed -- and therefore, the main point of this character would be about how well you can manage the fluctuations between the "invincible-attack" phase and the "unstealthed-oh HAMSTER" phase of the character.
...then enter Permastealth, IMO an unexpected, unintended result of extreme character building.
It broke that vision. It effectively removed the "unstealthed-oh HAMSTER" phase of the character.
Not only that, the timing of power rotations have been shortened enough, that the recharge time of Shadow Strike now almost perfectly matches the duration of the stealth, as well as the recharge time of ITC being almost perfectly aligned with the total duration of [5 second ITC duration + stealth duration]. Permabuilds simply removed all inherent and intended weaknesses from the TR.
I know how much TRs love perma builds. I know how they are proud of it. I know how so many people are so used to being able to totally disorient enemy players so much, that most average level players are nothing more than putty in their hands. It's a very powerful build, and whomever thought of it first, it is a genius of a build. A masterpiece.
But it is also a gamebreaking build. Currently most people have their attention set on the only one build that is even worse in terms of breaking the game -- the IV sents.. but as some people mention, perma builds are not too far behind. If they ever balance the GWF class, I am 100% sure that the TRs immediately going to take the place of GWFs. It's too powerful, and yes, it does call for a nerf.
Not a nerf in stealth, but rather nerf with the effects of INT on certain powers, or an increase to default recharge time of certain powers. (IMO ITC default recharge time should be pushed upto at least 30 seconds. How a meager power like Path of Blades has such a long recharge time, and yet such a powerful tool like ITC only has 18 default, is frankly, beyond me).
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
To be honest, I think the way stealth for TR in NWO is implemented is all wrong. It's really universal and powerful tool for both offense (combat advantage, various features/gear improving damage from stealth) and defense (not beeing ratget in PvE 90% of times, free time for regeneration/life steal, a few free hits in PvP). If you refuse to utilize stealth in NWO, TR is quite weak class. For me it's clear that I have to utilize stealth to the max, thus I went semi-perma stealth path for my TR.
Our stealth in NWO is equivalent of persistent improved invisibility spell of a mage class, and I don't agree with its concept. I much more prefer the 2nd/3rd D&D edition where roague had backstab ability giving huge bonus for a strike from stealth, but just for one hit which obviously broke stealth. And you could not hide in the plain sight of the enemy, ffs!
But if the stealth is to be as in classic D&D (permanent unless detected or unitl attack performed), then rogues in NWO should gain much more utilities and toys, much more CC and debuffs. So, skills like throwing dirt in enemy eyes (enemies miss x% attacks against you for n seconds), placing traps (causing damage or stunning them), posioning daggers for a short time (attacks are causing DoT), skill distracting enemies (throw a stone so that enemies in PvE leave their post to investigate noise), etc. Possibly one more dodge too.
To keep balance in PvP (peram stealth until attack) Cleric/Mages should get a spell to see invisibility and detect TRs easily (to keep rock-paper-scissors scheme).
I agree with the OP and with this passage here. Yes, rogues should be able to use it as a defensive/offensive mode. But to get knifespammed from range by someone which you can not target nor see and therefore just have to take the damage (which is also not low) with no counter at hand (apart from randomly wasting dodge to get away) is a very stupid mechanic.
I have years of PVP experience in WoW. In WoW - and also in classic DnD - stealth is only used as an opener for rogues to get in meele range and have the opener of a fight, which is their advantage if you take their CCs and high single damage output into consideration. I really wish that one day we will have a change here as well, so maybe give rogues more single target CC instead, remove stealth as soon as damage is dealt (lower aggro for pve as compensation) and therefore make these lame builds impossible. We would see more interesting fights like in WoW.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
These things being said, apart from a very few select TRs who are indeed extremely good, rest of them don't impress me as they used to. Probably the rise of IV GWF has something to do with that. I'd even consider buffing the class a bit in places (I'm a CW...), because I'm not sure TRs like to run around pillars throwing decoys and replenishing stealth while sometimes not even having the courage to use DF because of the high risk involved when exposed&CCed to death. I have a feeling many in the class would rather play a high burst build, which is sadly no longer viable for them.
I also agree stealth in WoW was a MUCH better concept. But it would require a full rework of the class, and we cannot trust the devs I think with such an undertaking.
Stealth is our class feature, and Dodge is our evasive maneuver; not active or passive survival tools. Let's not color them with our own definitions. The reason why TR's are "heavily-slanted" towards the use of Stealth is mainly because it is our class mechanic. It is what defines our class, a power unique to us; similar to how GWF's have Unstoppable or how CW's have their Mastery. Class mechanics are there to be utilized. Whether you are a Whisperknife or Master Infiltrator, you will have to use your class mechanic to a degree that it'll meld well with your build; simply because you decided to play as a Trickster Rogue which is the Stealth class. This is not World of Warcraft, or Aion, or Guild Wars, or whatever game out there that has a different variation of Stealth. Those early notions of what stealth "should be" is the root of this issue right now.
Do people have a choice of playing without Stealth? Yes they do. But they'll end up gimping themselves unless they build their characters in a way that would be effective without it; and this includes putting PS TR's, IV GWF's or whatever OP build people can think of into consideration. Player skill contributes to winning matches, but skill will not do much with badly-structured foundations which is basically the player build. It is the element in battle that supports what the pro PVP-ers call "skill."
We are a squishy class and Stealth is there to make up for that squishiness. It also doesn't help that the current meta for PVP is to perma-CC your opponent until they die. We TR's do not have the luxury of being able to perma-CC our opponents unlike GWF's, GF's and CW's, even HR's who are heavy on the CC. For a "Trickster" class, we have a smaller bag of tricks compared to those aforementioned CC-heavy classes. Which is why we build our class to one that does their best to counter CC; this is via the use of Stealth. No longer do we have to kiss the pavement for prolonged periods of time, unable to react because the opponent has 3 or more CC skills and has better Ping. But this should change with the upcoming Tenacity system. CC duration will be reduced across the board. We should be seeing more burst builds around.
Is permastealth OP? That's something I cannot comment on because I am technically using a similar build. But pit me up against a permastealth, and I'm confident I'll be able to find and unmask him before he finds me without using PoB or AoE's. I'm not saying I am a good player, but if a casual like me can do it, it's not that hard to see the hardcore PVP-ers doing it.
There is no way to counter that other than to run away or waste your dodge. It does comparable damage than I get from other CWs and HR's which is also 'weird' (to say it politely) since I consider rogues primarily a meele class. Without stacks of high level regeneration/lifesteal enchants I depend on counters, cc or dodge to avoid damage. And while TR are squishy, CW's are even squishier, so it is very important for us to be able to target your opponent to counter/cc them for a while or to outdamage someone.
So what I would see is a small change to make these builds not possible. Plain and simple.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
i do agree that perma-stealth needs to be nerfed, but leave our only defensive skill alone. it's current duration perfectly matches when i need to use it to guarantee a deflect on a boss' aoe and avoid the stuns/prone that may follow it. nerfing it's duration to be on par with path of blades or worse will just destroy it's usage as a tanking skill.
i rather changes like this be made:
1. stealthed ITC: doubles the duration of 100% deflect and cc immunity
2. attacking in stealth will reveal your location only to your target for a few seconds. if the rogue stops attacking, then his location will be hidden again after a few seconds.
Meanwhile here rouges can be invisible all they want no matter if that attack or got attacked
SENT IV GWF - PVP
....at the price of almost total vulnerability once stealth runs out -- so, no, there's nothing "ridiculous" about it.
It only starts becoming "ridiculous" when it starts approaching perma, when that "total vulnerability" is eradicated from the combat sequence... and when ITC rotations return so soon as to totally cover up whatever "vulnerable" timing remains where the TR waits for ShadowStrike recharge.
I understand how PvEers might feel, but in PvP, ITC is just way too powerful a power to have such a short recharge. It's 100% deflect by default, and 100% invulnerability if activated in stealth...and the recharge is only 18 secs. Most other games have CC breakers on 1m~2m recharge, and it only breaks CC once and doesn't offer any immunity at all. Compared to that, ITC is unbelievably powerful and just as unbelievably frequently activated in combat.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
But the point is that it never runs out. Doesnt matter if they are vulnerable. And I bet CWs are still more squishier.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
the problem is that there is so much aoe spam in melee, that we have no choice but to use it in order to even do dungeons reliably and longer cooldown would hurt every melee rogue out there. we need a frequent cc immunity since we get focused by 5 people frequently just for being in the frontlines and not being a gwf.
as for most other mmos, they tend to have poorly done abilities like "blindness" that they give to archers. blindness blacks out the screen and is easily countered by locking onto people when they could have just turned that person's attacks into 100% miss. most mmo's just don't compare.
if u fight any rogue that is not perma, all u gotta do is survive 4 seconds and then repel/double-repel or cc them to oblivion. many wizards can and will kill me as soon as my immunity is over if i fail to kill them in 4 seconds.
not exactly. any non-perma rogue gets 1 free stealth-boost for most fights but they have to give up on the free stun from impact shot, auto-critical + bonus stealth damage on lashing, and our other less-used skills.
I used to dislike fighting wizards in PVP, simply because there's no effective way to fight experienced ones without ITC, more so when they have other CC classes around them. There's only permastun and the graveyard waiting. Back then I only slotted ITC when I was in PVE, because I was one of the believers that DPS is the way to help in PVP as a rogue. But as I played more matches, I just accepted the fact that in this CC heavy environment, if I really want to contribute to my team, staying alive, contesting nodes, and forgoing personal damage is the best and most logical choice as a TR with zero effective CC's. Dying brings too much ill consequences. The game offers us Stealth and ITC, 2 very effective tools against this CC meta. When we have no effective CC's, and two effective tools against them, the only possible conclusion one can draw from that would be playing a build that counteracts CC. This is where high Stealth builds come into play. In a way, we are forced to change our preferred encounter load out because of this current meta. Why aren't burst builds viable in PVP as TR's? Because we'd die sooner before we kill. When the CC of another class can dish out tremendous DPS and control them for prolonged periods of time, where exactly is the logic in playing a high burst build. We adapted to the meta, and this is what we have now.
If you guys want to get rid of complete permastealth, I suggest you guys ask to change the effects of Bait and Switch, our most decent AP generation encounter, and let Shadow Strike be our only Stealth refill encounter. This way we'll only have Shadow Strike as a Stealth refill encounter. But I'm pretty sure people will still find something to complain about after which, simply because things are still not easy enough for them.
In exchange, I ask Deft Strike to be changed back into an At-Will again, and scrap Cloud of Steel in place of another Encounter since Deft Strike is back to being an At-Will. And yes, it was an At-Will.
Kweassa, you drive me completely crazy. Really. How about you stop complaining about each and every aspect of this game that puts your WK build in a bad position? It was your choice to go down this route after all. Given that you appear to be quite literate with this game it upsets me even more that you went this path and now complain about everything else (GWFs, MI TRs, you name it). Again - I'm not saying that no balance is need to be done but your constant demand for nerfing wears me out.
Phew. I fell better now
Edit: Todes, are you German by any chance?
In this game are at the moment (and for quite some time now) two builds that are more advantageous than any other: high HP, Regen, IV Sentinel GWFs (which I'm quite sure kweassa refers to as simply "GWF" (though it should be stated clearly, since only this one special build is the problematic one)) and high INT, high Recovery, ITC and SS TRs. They have no real counter (besides a similar build against them).
I play a non-ITC MI-permastealth (based on BnS and SS alone; consciously not using ITC) TR. This build is for some classes harder to kill / deal with than others. CWs i.e. mainly have powers they need a target for. So they have a bigger problem against permastealths than, say, GWFs who can swing without a target. But nevertheless such TRs can be countered. You can hit such a TR by pure luck or the art of prediction. Hitting the permastealth TR most of the time messes up their rotation, they become sooner or later visible and therefore vulnerable and can be killed.
ITC in conjunction with its by INT and Recovery lowered cooldown is what makes this problematic. As kweassa said, it makes the window, in which such a TR is vulnerable, nearly non-existent; eliminating its weakness. And this is something that should be looked into.
One suggestion to balance this is to increase ITC's cooldown in PvP (-> nerf). Another suggestion would be to give all classes the ability to deal with this build (-> buff others). For example by giving them consciously one ability to hit CC-immune targets to mess up the rotation between ITC, SS and Stealth. The easier (which doesn't make it necessary the best) solution is to increase ITC's cooldown.
With Deft Strike as an At-will, what would be the point of having a whisperknife :eek:
Butters TR PVP
I really loved that setup. Stealth -> fast run to the target (sneak attack slotted) -> Dazing Strike -> some Sly Flourish -> target runs/dodges/blinks -> Deft Strike -> Lashing Blade. Or used Deft Strike to reach HR/CW nuking from above -> immediate stealth after I'm begind -> Lashing Blade. Two encounter landed on a foe who did not expected to be reached resulted usually in panic -> errors in rotation. Fights were reall cool.
Sadly, L60 PvP completely forced me to change strategy, no more being offensive. Currently all of encounters I slot in PvP are in fact used defensively. In hard matches it's - ITC, Smoke Bomb, Shadow strike. Yeah, I even unslot lashing blade and if it's slotted I don't use it as an opener from stealth but rather wait when my foe is weakend, so I my have a chance to surprise him with sudden lasing blade + shocking execution.
And good players in PvP don't have a problem with stealthy TRs. Maybe ranged WK with Bilethorn, but melee? Smart use of AoE attacks and they easily knock me out of stealth even with tenacious concelment slotted.
I'm not a fun of perma-stealth as a mechanics, but for PvP it's hard to go other way. And building perma-stealth means loads of silverys instead of buffing cirt/ArPen/Power. If the stealth is to be nerfed our based damage must be buffed and we must get nasty CC/debuff skills (Courage Breaker as encounter?).
And if no perma-stealth for TRs, then no perma-CC for wizards, no perma-healing for DCs, no perma-knockdown/perma-stun for GWF/GF, etc.
Hey, man. Lol this is the 4th time someone asked me this.
Well, technically the Whisperknife encounter, Vengeance's Pursuit is broken as well. So you can't really claim that it's the defining feature of WK. It used to have an 17 ~ 18 second cooldown associated with it in Preview. If VP gets fixed you guys still have Dish Strike. Not that it'll happen anytime soon since Cryptic is so preoccupied with releasing the new content. I'd rather have it stay as it is, since I don't want other people to lose their fun toys.
But having Deft Strike as an At-Will again would make the TR feel a lot more tricky.
Otherwise your would be dead dead dead.
Right now almost all competitive cw run a high HP build 30-33k. Thanks to the ridiculous GWF burst and Stupid HR root.
So if your TR doesn't stay stealth you would be kiiled before you kill anything.
I am a hipster (no skulker and SS durrr) rogue but I still agree that stealth+sustain>everything else for pvp rogue
WTB Class Reroll please
Yes. Hearing the truth is known to have such effect.
If you actually have anything to point out about why the high-INT perma/ITC rotation builds that people so much boast about being able to handle 3~4 people at the same time is NOT simply OP, you let me know.
As it is.. typical reaction to uncomfortable truth :rolleyes:
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Meaningless; I'm afraid. It's the CC-immunity that's the main problem, not the deflect/total immunity.
As it stands, with certain amount of investment into recharge, ITC comes back fast enough to be used everytime your stealth-refreshing tool (usually Shadow Strike) is on CD. SS usually ticks in around 12 seconds or less with high recharge, whereas stealth lasts 10 seconds or more with proper feats + Skulker set armor. Theoretically, even if you are not a true-perma and only semi-perma, you only expose around 5 second window vulnerability where you are not stealthed and need to wait for SS to recharge.
It is usually that "window of vulnerability" your opponents try to take advantage of, and that's when usually ITC comes in. When ITC is about to finish, your SS is back up, you go back to stealth, spend another 10 seconds or more in stealth, when stealth finishes you typically have around 2~5 seconds to wait until both SS and/or ITC is back up for use again -- which is easily covered by two dodges and well-timed DF spamming... then SS or ITC comes back up, you're now invisible again.
Unless the developers nerf the stealth duration (which probably will never happen), frankly there is no real 'counter' to stealth. It's a 100% mitigation defense which your chances of breaking (by throwing away attacks blindly) is extremely low (except the frickin GWFreaks who throw around AoEs like nothing). The only window of opportunity against a TR is when he is exposed, and at the same time, does not have ITC ready, and it will not likely be recharging within the next 10 seconds.
...and this is with semi-permas. This isn't even an issue with true-permas, as they can just save ITC and have it ready whenever it is actually required. The only times a real perma-build would be in trouble is when they've lost stealth, their stealth-refreshers are on a long cooldown, and ITC is also in cooldown -- which, is not likely, since the whole point of "perma" is to be invisible for unlimited length of time to avoid that kind of risk in the first place.
So no, unless ITC is simply made less frequenly available, nothing's gonna change.
(ps) The trick would be finding a "sweet spot" where perma/semi-perma builds show enough/frequent openings to be taken down easily (just as any other class (except the GWFreaks) is vulnerable) by multiple people, and yet still be a good match for any in 1vs1 situations.
(ps2) A much simple alternative? Make perma/semi-permas impossible in the first place by lengthening the recharge duration of SS and/or BnS. In that case no reason to touch ITC, since being more frequently visible is already enough to end the "OP" debate about TRs.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
ROTFL! Please, find me a video of Mod2 TR where he "handles" 4 people. For now I consider what you wirte pulp fantasy. Unless you talk about 16+GS PVP veteran vs four 6K people who are first time in PVP. I have seen some insanely good TRs in action but winning 1v4? LOL, would like to see such "handling" of 4 opponents with comparable GS/PvP experience done by ANY class.
I do such contesting myself, but it's viable strategy for 1 or 2 enemies, not versous 4 players ffs! And contesting vs 2 players while dealing minimal damage is not OP.
Yesterday enemy team in a match I was taking part had strong GF, and he could indeed contest our home base vs. 3 players for over 30s. He was playing smart and defnesively (back to the wall - can't get behind him, blocking, knock everyone approaching from the front, using pots/PvP artifact). But that was only possible because of specific terrain on a specifc node on a specific map and it was the case that none of our 3 players at the node had CC capabilities.
And I wouldn't say that those good geared TRs do "minimal" damage. Squishies go down quite fast against P. Vorp or P. Bile. And over time even more tankier players get drained more and more.
I understand where you're coming from (as a newer player, I suppose), but when one specific build of a class has way more advantages than other ones, there has to be a discussion about this.
Because otherwise a new player would think "hmm, if this build has so much advantages, why should I even go with another one?". And this kills individuality. Which is never good in my book.
Perfect balance will never be achieved, but at least try to come close - so it comes down to player preferences. And not automatically choose one build simply because it's better than other ones.
So your saying basically if I busted my HAMSTER to make a bad *** build and others choose to use it it would need to be nerfed because it's better then another build? What's wrong with wanting to use better? I mean if it comes right down to it we all want better if everything was the same there wouldn't be any flavor to the game. If I had the choice between a rusted out junker of a car and a better newer car dang right I would want the better. Why not pool everyone's resources to create a better build I mean that's what we are all here for to enjoy and help each other or am I wrong in this assumption?
So you rather have every single rogue use the same build than having diversity? Well, we have different views then.