As for survival out of stealth. I believe 90% deflection severity is not asking too much.
It's not deflect severity the problem.
the problem is that we have low deflect cause:
- STR > CHA always no matter what. They can tell otherwise but charisma is not working properly.
- INT > DEX so even less deflect. So many points to bring our cooldown to un-reasonable level from very-un-reasonable ones.
- CON > DEX too
- the total absence defensive class features: do you really think that an HR/GWF need to stack tons of deflect to reach 40%??? and yet with 1500 deflect i can only reach a laughable 25%.
Still think that we need at least 2 seconds bonus stealth, shadow strike not proccing saboteur cap stone. stealth refilling slowly when out of it. i cant have shadow strike slotted day and night. its a sign of bad design right?
Restealthing is an issue. Currently, my test builds have no problems at all in clearing any PvE content with reasonably satisfactory results -- but it always requires Shadow Strike to gain the proper initiative
IMO, "stealth refills with at-wills" are out of the question. So is "ignores attacks and auto-refill at same rate"s. Be it PvE or PvP, there needs to be a certain amount of demerit to being visible.
There also must be a way for the opponent -- again, be it PvE or PvP -- to keep pressure on the TR makes a mistake and comes out of stealth at the wrong timing.
Comparisons to other classes [TAB] functions are misleading and inelevant: the only thing that matters is if this function does the job for the class, and if its reasonably balanced for other classes or mobs that face it
Above things considered; the following would be necessary IMO:
List of Necessary Changes for stealth
■ Base stealth duration itself is increased by +2s to 8s
■ Feat: Improved Cunning Sneak value is increased to 8/12/16/20/25%
■ Skulker/Profound armor set stealth increase value lowered
※ This is necessary, because IMO, the current default stealth duration was set by the devs with the old system in mind, with constant and easy stealth refills, and sufficient number of at-wills attacks made during the base 6 second duration. Currently, without using the Profound sets, advanced gear like BIs or above only provide time enough for maybe 2~3 CoS throws and then the stealth is out. Even when no attacks are used, 6s is woefully low to be worthy of maneuvering or repositioning. This change seeks to increase the base stealth duration for all TRs to around 10s, with possible slight buffs from Skulker/Profound sets extending it to around 12~13 secs.
■ At-will attacks deplete stealth at lower value (my proposition is 10%)
※ 15% is a bit overly punishing.
■ Feat:Twilight Adept value increased to 3/6/9/12/15% of the stealth meter
■ Stealth meter no longer "halts" regeneration for a long time, when receiving an attack.
■ Stealth meter no longer "depletes" on received attack. it will only slow it down for the moment.
■ Attacks received while stealth meter recharges, will slow it down by 50%
■ Feat: Tenacious Concealment changed to a direct defensive feat -- 2/4/6% more deflect severity
※ These changes are crucial in that it offers a certain demerit when the TR is out of stealth, but not at the current punitive levels where it becomes effectively impossible to restealth without SS. The current problem has two parts:
(1) The long halt: Upon receiving damage, meter stops regenerating even when attack stops
(2) The depletion: upon receiving damage, meter actively depletes
In PvE, there are often multiple incoming mob-attacks. In PvP, a player attacks much faster and often than a mob. DoTs can also be applied. Both results are the same. Without SS a TR cannot restealth.
IMO:
(1) needs to be abandoned
(2) needs to be changed
10s worth of stealth meter should always take 10s to refill. Every attack received while meter is refilling, will not hack away the meter, but slow it down by 50%, so if constantly under attack, 10s worth of stealth will take 15s to recharge. This is actually around similar timing to SS -- 16s default recharge, 11~13s with high recharge builds. The increase in value of the stealth refilling feat:Twilight Adept will synergize much better once stealth meter cannot be actively depleted by enemy action.
2. Saboteuer
...is in a good place right now
3. Scoundrel
■ Roll with the Punches value increased by 1/2/3/4/5% more deflect chance
■ Bloody Brawler function changed and renamed to support a 10% further stamina increase rate and 9/12/15/18/20% lower stamina cost for dodges
■ Survivor threshold upped from 30% to 50%
■ Savage Blows function changed and renamed to support a 3/6/9/12/15% stamina bar refull on successful dodge
■ Skull Cracker movement speed changed to 40% increase
※ Scoundrel is currently at a good place with the dazes. That's one-half of the core function fulfilled. However the other half -- the brawling-survival related feats, are largely redundant and not working well.
The life-steal feats seems to suggest the devs have sort-of envisioned a pseudo-HR-ish, life-steal dependant defense, but the HRs survival and tankiness is not only OP as it is(IMO), but also depends on a variety of different defensive mechanics working together at the same time.
IMO, what we want to do, is simply accept the result of being damaged. A damage is a damage, and that shouldn't be so simplified nullifed by instantly replenishment of life through regen and LS (...and DR class features ...and auto-dodge buffs ...and Wilds Medicine ...and... etc etc..) -- the main complaints and frustrations while fighting a HR comes from the fact that all your efforts are simply nullified over a short time. No matter how well you've managed the game and initially hurt the HR more, once you lose the initiative all your results are just nullified, and its as if the fight is starting anew, with the HR with fresh pool of HP, but you remaining damaged. This is why people see it as OP, and I agree with it. A well managed game where you've hurt your opponent badly, should be an advantage good enough to press, or rememdy your own mistake -- not have it simply made null.
That's why I don't want the same regen/LS/deflect-HP mechanic with the TR. It's OP. I don't want it. Instead, IMO a TR's defense is reached through dodges, and it is also at the heart of its mobility. Any changes that seek to increase the survivability of the TR must come through dodge.
Hence, a deflect-based mechanic that synergizes with dodge/stamina IMO makes sense. The damage you receive is still there. No bullshi* infinitie life refills. However with more deflects, more dodges. If changes go into this direction, all TRs will have either a 5% higher deflect, or a 10% higher stamina regen with 20% reduction in dodge cost as an extra T1 feat to choose if they wish it.
Current dodge cost is 50 in Live -- two dodges. Preview is supposed to reduce that to 33 for 3 dodges, but its not working properly. With the changed T1 feat, the 33 cost will go down to 24.75 (20% reduction) -- giving an extra dodge for a total of 4. With the increased stamina regen, by the time you do 4 straight dodges the stamina will have refilled for an extra 5th. So that's a dodge mechanic on par with the HRs. Not as fast and responsive, but at least the TRs can match the numbers.
Further investment into Scoundrel will allow a 10% stamina refill on deflection. So the more attacks you deflect, the more stamina you get back, the more dodges you can make -- an acrobatic defense as a TR seems natural. It also synergizes with the Feat:Twilight Adept and the stealth changes. The more successful deflects you make, the more you will be dodging around, and the quicker your stealth meter will recharge -- perhaps, good enough to fight even without SS.
The Skull Cracker increase in movement speed is a good start, but some classes are still way too fast while dazed, even with that 25% increase. I would suggest a 40% increase -- a surge of movement speed during that 5~6 second time when you gain the initiative through Skull Cracker.
4. Executioner
■ Class feature: First Strike now resets after 6 seconds of non-combat action, regardless of combat status. It also has a visible queue to show that it is in works
■ Vicious Pursuit should add a slight slow -- 15% speed reduction -- during the duration
■ Exposed Weakness is a bit redundant, and should be changed to feat that increases damage of at-wills -- maybe something like, "for 6s after coming out of stealth, the damage of all at-wills are increased by the value of the crit stat"
■ Shadow of Demise should once again apply to all targets hit by the encounter proccing it
※ Executioners have a big one-shot attack. Except that only works when there are actually targets that can be one-shotted... and in PvE, anything harder than 1~2 man content with elite grade mobs no single Lashing Blade, however powerful it is, will ever one-shot a mob. The problem begins when you hit one big attack, but to the mob that receives that deals only like 10~15% damage. Now you're out of stealth, have 3~4 of those on you, how is the Executioner going to fight?
While not Executioner related, it is true First Strike is often most used by Executioner builds. Having a visual queue as to its activeness, as well as forced reset regardless of combat status should help them. Particularly if the Executioners try make use of AoEs for stealthed-first strike material, that now correctly proc SoD on all targets, combined with forced resetting after 6 seconds of non-combat action (no DoTs dealt or received, no artifacts or debuffs on hostile target, etc..) that should considerably help them in PvE as well as PvP.
Also, another problem the Executioners face, is that not only they are devoid of any functional defense, but they are quite poor in terms of sustained damage. When they fail to finish off the targets with initial attacks, they are out of stealth, and they must have something to press that first strike advantage -- so IMO the motto of the Executioner would probably be "kill before be killed.
An at-will damage increase in direct correlation with crit stat, so if someone has a 30% crit chance that value will directly transfer to all at-wills with 30% damage increase, after leaving stealth for 6 seconds, should be at least good enough to superbly empower any at-will so it becomes almost as powerful as an encounter, for 6 seconds.
I agree with almost everything you said. However IMO if First Strike resets I feel that it would need to be longer than 6 seconds because it is a large damage buff and could be bad in PvP but having it reset still sounds like a good idea to me. The only other problem is that currently we need to do most damage by being close so that means the time we spend dodging is time spent not damaging however with stealth being our main survival mechanic, with lifesteal as a secondary, those extra dodges could prove very useful.
Currently I still have issues with the usefulness of the scoundrel build, the main one being that the daze isn't going to affect many targets or any bosses thus completely nullifying many of their feats against those targets and crippling their offensive power. The other being that the survival based feats are quite small and don't really seem worth it.
The Executioner isn't terrible if you have a rather large lifesteal and still want to use DF, that is assuming you aren't soloing and only have a small amount of aggro because there's only so much you can heal as a lifestealing TR.
The Saboteur almost feels clunky but I think I just haven't mastered it yet. You can stay in stealth but so far it seems that a portion of that time is just sitting there in stealth waiting for either One with Shadows or SS to come off cooldown and making sure that you don't waste One with Shadows with SS.
It's not deflect severity the problem.
the problem is that we have low deflect cause:
- STR > CHA always no matter what. They can tell otherwise but charisma is not working properly.
- INT > DEX so even less deflect. So many points to bring our cooldown to un-reasonable level from very-un-reasonable ones.
- CON > DEX too
- the total absence defensive class features: do you really think that an HR/GWF need to stack tons of deflect to reach 40%??? and yet with 1500 deflect i can only reach a laughable 25%.
Still think that we need at least 2 seconds bonus stealth, shadow strike not proccing saboteur cap stone. stealth refilling slowly when out of it. i cant have shadow strike slotted day and night. its a sign of bad design right?
It's not our deflect is low, rayrdan. It's that those classes, GWF/HRs achieve it too easily.
A tough, strong class the GWF is, and its main component of defense is damage resistance. If that be the case deflect should only be provided at supplementary amounts to act as a small increase in overall defense capability, and yet some players go high easily.
Same with DCs or GFs as well. Hence you put those 3 classes together, all of them have quite strong damage resistance, and then receive a secondary layer of defense that's almost as strong as ours. Same with HRs -- they don't take as much investment required for us to reach high deflect, hence quite easily reach a well balanced, high-standard stat that is strong everywhere.. power.. defense.. HP pool... and on top of all that, deflect.
IMO we should have around 10% higher deflect on average, than what we currently have now. Build's that don't really invest into deflect have usually around 20~25%. Builds that do can reach 40~45% in extreme cases, but sacrifices a lot of other stats. IMO for us, this should be around 30~35% for the former, and 50~55% for latter. But more importantly, our deflect should be noted as a primary mode of defense. Therefore a well-defended TR should have around 50~55% deflect chance as the main mode of defense, and current Damage Reduction of around 25~30% as a secondary.
And more importantly, other classes should NOT have a secondary mode of defense -- the deflect -- as high as ours. IMO at best a GF should have maybe around 20~30% max, but a non-shield GWF? 10~20% at most. Same with HRs -- they should go as high as upto current levels, but only when making a lot of sacrifices.
It's not our deflect too low -- it's others way too high. I've not mentioned this because this would inadvertantly trigger a fight between the players of other classes who enjoy the benefits of a way too lenient deflect for them.. the DCs, the GFs, GWFs, HRs... etc.
To speak of this is to trigger a nerf request against 3 other classes, and you can imagine the amount of angry whines.
Stop making excuses. Be a man. If you know something to be broken, stop using it. Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
-Skullcracker sometimes activates on caster when using powers like path of the blades or smoke bomb (would probably activate on ITC as well if it wasn't granting CC immunity)
-Seems like scoundrel stuns sometimes block GWFs from entering unstoppable (probably issue with skullcracker feat stunning no matter what)
Also:
I really feel that stealth regeneration should not be interrupted by anything (maybe slowed a bit but should definetly not deplete) because its base recovery takes ~15 seconds and with current depletion with at-wills stealth becomes more or less one timer in battle (aside from shadow strike that can help). I would suggest either:
-removing stealth depletion while recovering stealth (+change Tenacious Concealment to something like 25/50/75% additional deflect while stealthed or 2.5/5/7.5% less stealth depletion while using at-wills)
-reducing base cooldown for shadow strike by 2-4 seconds
Also scoundrel is not quite a "brawler who can take a lot of damage" (though debuff part seems accurate) because:
T1
2.5% of deflect and lifesteal won't help much (10% would be something but 2.5% seems like laugh in my face)
T2
30% usually means 7-13k hp left and additional 10% will not help staying alive for long (usually in PvP if you won't act quick TR gonna be toast in seconds anyway and in new mod4+ PvE it won't matter much since you either try to hold your HP above 50% or you get 1 hit KO). I would suggest increasing that value or changing this to 30% of max hp as temporary hit points (internal cooldown 30 sec)
T3
Savage Blows; (did not test them properly so I'm not exactly sure if it increase life steal ammount by 5% max or life stolen by 5% because 1st one is again quite laughable number considering you have less than 3k LS)
Concussive Strikes; seems great or awesome or actually greatest thing that happened since I won pseudodragon from lockbox but I would increase stun duration in PvE to 2-3 seconds (also something would need to be done with hard locking in PvP because that makes it almost imposibble to take that "from behind" attack, though activation on crit seems to work pretty well)
T4
Low blows; only thing I have problem with is I am still unsure which are control effects in this game (does dazes count toward it?)
Mocking Gesture; very good and very solid tbh, 10% more deflect chance for 10 seconds for scoundrel seem appropriate (enter stealth, deal your damage and continue to attack your target out of stealth)
T5 solid capstone for both PvE and PvP giving proper control for brawler and increased damage at the same time, may cause stunlocks on some classes but that would be rare occurance.
PS I might be a bit greedy but I would add slow effect for skullcracker or add "jump block" on enemy in PvP (not sure but it seems like jumping is somehow helping people avoid damage sometimes though it may be diffrences in ping that make them further than I actually see)
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
edited October 2014
feedback:
If we save our stealth bar and run right at the enemy in pve, we can execute a big finisher.
In pvp if we save our stealth bar and run at the enemy in pvp we get rolled
(this means start combat out of stealth closing distance out of stealth and presing tab right as flurry begins blender mode...)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
I have to agree witht all of the Duelist Flurry comments in this post. Removal of the Deadly Momentum has gutted the build I was using for my TR. But I'd like to talk a specifically about the implementation of Stealth Dragin in Duelist Flurry. I don't understand exactly how the Stealth Drain is inmplmentated in the Power engine. But I seems to be part put in as part of the "damage" effects of the power. This I believe guts Duelist's Flurry use during Stealth too severely. As all other have said the Stealth meter is exhausted before completing a full cycle of Flurry.
The monkey wrench is the drain per hit during the flurry phase of the cycle. Draining so much Stealth plus the natural reduction of Stealth and the TR is locked during this phase of the attack is the sin. Duelist Flurry's implementation of Stealth Drain should be 1 tick of drain at the initiation of each attack of the cycle. If this implementation in variation of this Duelist Flurry is going to be retired and replaced by plain and boring Sly Flourish on my power bar
Edit:
And on speaking of motivation for the devs, the TR was the character class that I feel in love with during the beta of Neverwinter. It was the class I decided on rolling of my first character when the game soft launched. I splurged on the character as it was my main. But all of the changed from Mod 1 onward, I left my TR as to gather dust. But with the gutting of the character's build by removal all vestiges of Duelist Flurry from Feats and the excessive Stealth Drain, I'm may just delete wind up deleting the character. The character wasn't built around DF, but it was a part of the build which I loved.
It would be very interesting if stealth drain had an internal cooldown of something like once per second. As in stealth drain can only proc once per second. This would be a way to deal with powers that have many rapid hits while still having substantial drain for powers that deal lots of damage from one "at-will usage", such as Disheartening strike.
Speaking of things that need an internal cooldown, Shadowy opportunity needs one implemented as well. Powers such as bloodbath or courage breaker can rapidly rack up a lot of unmitigated damage. Shadowy opportunity would seem to be the major obstacle in allowing rapidly hitting powers such as flurry to be used from stealth.
huh, i just realize my frost enchant is proccing my damage bonus on cc'ed mobs. nice! now that makes me wonder if there is a form of a cc that can be placed on a cc immune mob for this. will test that later.
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
edited October 2014
feedback
i am satisfied with the changes, but how will i revive my team in pve when they are inside a burning boss aoe that lasts longer than the revive timer?
Immunity from stealth with impossible to catch allowed tricksters the ability to rush in and react in critical moments where other classes couldnt.
please for the last time let us keep immunity in pve. with itc
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
I played long hours testing every single build I can come up with I used my 14K GS TR wearing Profound and Purified BIS with Vorpal. I used different stat builds with the different paths.
Feedback: Stealth (in relation to STATS)
INT/DEX: I was able to survive with low cooldowns and little luck from low deflect chance but it took me forever to finish the job.
STR/DEX/CHA: The start was great I was able to dish big chunks of damage (Exe and Sabo having the best dps) but as the fight progress lil by lil I was overwhelmed because I do not have the "necessary" tools to survive.
INT/VIT: Feels like my office!
The new TR to my observation and testing is still "incomplete and dull" because of the following reasons:
*Heavily stealth reliant to the extent of being crippled without its TAB not to mention how fragile it is.
*Long cooldowns without pumping INT and recovery causing noticeable decrease in damage output and survivabilty.
*Redundant deflect in DEX and Charisma. We have low deflect chance and our feats doesnt give benefit from landing successful deflect.
*Less desirable synergies for example Disciple of Strength in correlation to our main stat which is dex and with the current changes we get lower crit chance out of stealth,
*Every path is bound to something like Saboteur to stealth without stealth you will not benefit from the feats which makes the play style dull same goes to passives like sneak attack.
Im "TR only" gamer to my experience the biggest defeat lies in stealth because TR gets "average benefit" at the cost of high risk and punishing conditions of stealth. If you want the changes to be successful think of "stealth as a backpack" not the TR himself, build the TR not the stealth.
■ daze inducing powers cause daze to the TR himself as well. Seems to happen with Scoundrel only, seems to be Skull Cracker related issue, very high chance of happening with AoE encounters of PotB, Smokebomb. Never seen it happening with other AoE, Blitz. On one occasion it happened with VP(mark) as well, the only instance I've seen happening to a single-target power.
■ VP(throw) portion of the power sometimes "lags" along in its animation and power activation, causing the TR to either rapidly jump in throw motion multiple times, or suspended in mid air briefly.
■ Stamina bar and 'extra dodge' not seem to working properly. Either that, or the changes were so profound nobody really understood how it works.
■ Skull Cracker daze on multiple targets through AoEs, do not seem to be proccing reliably. By using Blitz and PotB I've clearly confirmed against one of those "group of three" mobs in IWD -- such as the wolves, which 3 of them are tied in as a group. I've counted the seconds and all three of them were properly dazed for 6s. However, in some cases it does not work. Sometimes the daze ends prematurely, other times targets are not dazed at all.
■ dodge while in stealth costs no stamina at all
■ the boon, Fey Thistle does not inflict any damage
■ the deflection severity boon, Illusion Shimmer, does not apply correctly.
■ Scoundrel feat, Bloody Brawler, its 2.5% effect does not show up in character screen
■ When your Life bar setting in the HUD option is set to "Always", the life bar does not properly refresh. Any damage taken will be marked as a white HP bar and will not disappear. Currently, leaving it to "recently damaged" seems to be the only way to refresh and update.
■ After multipke activations, Sissyfor.. er.. I mean, Soulforge 'black smoke' effect remains permanent even while stealthed. Only visible to you.
Stop making excuses. Be a man. If you know something to be broken, stop using it. Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Bug: Wicked Reminder Performs 2-3x attacks in succession
Bug: Vengeance Pursuit Time frame of activation varies from slow to fast
Feedback: Saboteur After further testing in IWD with 14k GS Puri BiS + Vorpal PVE for this path is ok the only problem I found is that Stealth:15% stealth meter drain is too much. Without stealth this path is dead with no damage and tools to survive, the solution I know is to a At-will and passives that will provide the lifeline TR badly needs when out of stealth which is we do not have atm, now I know you will think of SS as a life saver but again think of its poor damage that will leave us 1 less encounter, again if you will think of smoke bomb,BnS and ITC we are killing the damage potential of TR over and over again. That is why allowing the stealth meter to regenerate without penalties is very important.
shocking execution needs to be looked at. very low and unreliable damage.
Another big TR problem I already talk once about is stat allocation:
we need str, dex, cha, int and some points in cos are desirable too.
You assure us that charisma is working properly so spending points there is one of the best choices now. What about moving recharge speed in charisma (with combat advantage and deflect) while adding to INT some resisted ignored?
This way one can work on his offense while adding 3-4% deflect point and 3-4% recharge speed, nothing game breaking.
This way you would finally leave the player to not choose to invest points in one of these stats.
To say it differently, less points spent in INT.
This being told, i still feel that our cooldowns are way too high even with different sacrificies being made.
Example of this: i m a TR with 20 str - 19 INT - 3000 Recovery.
My recharge speed is about 30% and still shadow strike cooldown (needed to play, otherwise i m just dead regardless pvp/pve) is over 11 sec.
Lashing blade? the "main" skill that should be used ?
16 sec!
On the other hand we have Fatalities like Icy rays ( dmg > lashing blade + root ) , IBS ( 12 sec without investing points in INT or without stacking recovery ) , Fox shift (16 seconds playing with 13 INT and 500 recovery. Better damage + immunity ) and the list can easily go on.
We have to invest in tertiary stats sacrificing way too much defense and raw offense.
1)Long story short consider to move recharge speed from INT to DEX/CHA.
2)Consider to give a general look at Cooldowns.
3)Consider to increase deflect bonus in CHA to 2%.
Something like:
Recharge speed is now moved to DEX to compensate the less need of critical chance, bonus deflect in charisma up to 2% from 1%.
General attention to high cooldowns.
Would probably make happy 99.9% of the people here.
"At-will outside of stealth and with combat advantage (flanking enemies) refills stealth meter by 2.5% per hit"
With this change, It won't be as useful in a 1 on 1 scenario but will be helpful on team fights when other players are not focusing the TR.
I think it is also a good change for PVE to speed up stealth refilling of scoundrels and executioners without rendering the saboteurs useless.
So in a boss scenario, while a tank is grabbing aggro the TR just dumps encounters, restealths within seconds, dumps again, restealths. For saboteuers, it's even faster. Stealth. Attack. OTWS restealth. Spam more at-wills. Spam charged encounters from behind. Restealth. Spam at-wills. Hit with more encounters to the back side. Restealth. Spam at-wills...
...
OTOH, it'd be a worthy compromise if they tied-in the mob heading issue with stealth depletion, so an attack made from the rear side will deplete only 5% stealth per attack. Although I think its still too much.
Stop making excuses. Be a man. If you know something to be broken, stop using it. Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I prefer to have the stealth bar to refill when outside of stealth steadily, no matter if you're being attacked or not. (maybe slow it down a bit, but never stop refilling and really REALLY not deplete when outside of stealth when attacked.
I had a suggestion: Give an Executioneer TR the oppurtunity to go back in stealth without using shadow strike.
Give Tenacious Concealmemt on rank 3 a 100% reduce of stealth while hitted (instead of 90%) and give the VT-Set a better 4. Set-Bonus. At the current rate it is really hard to tell a difference in the stealth regeneration by VT-SET.
Just do one paragon path WITHOUT focus on stealth - say assassin/executioner path that gives
1- Damage bonus
2- Quick movement / attack speed
3- increase number of dodges
4- deflect chance/severity
5- Defense
We need more acrobatic / erratic / unpredictable rogue - FAST, AGILE, DEADILY DPS especially against ranged/AoE enemies. Not a twit who stays one place and dies before doing anything. New TR is useless in high danger situations like Garakas, CN, Malabog, PvP, etc. TR will never be able to get BI gloves in IwD. So many unfair BS you programmed. If you cant design a class well then I suggest you retire it and not waste people's time. All that BS about TR on forums from 2013 need to be updated to reflect what a sorry as class TR is now. I will take 2 months off just to capture what you did with TR class over Youtube especially how 21k GS TRs get wiped out, kicked from parties, etc.
39 days more to go lol Do a good job on TR or Dont Either way me WIN
Sounds like a WK scoundrel with more damage, faster cast times, and better dodge rolls. I'm game
players are able to +hardtargetlock or ++hardtargetlock onto invisible targets if they see them for a short duration.
Players are able to bind +hardtargetlock or ++hardtargetlock to any key by using /bind command. Players are able to repeatly press the bound key until they are locked on the invisible target by using scripts.
Players are able to use autoit with imagemapping to +hardtargetlock or ++hardtargetlock as soon as their crosshair turns from green into red.
Players are able to combine different commands with the alias command to provide faster reactions or multiple actions at the same time by pressing one button. For example:
Alias tank "target nameofplayer"
alias healtank "hardtargetlock {} $$ tank"
In the game i played before all those things were treated with same rigour as hacking other players or using bots. But in this game it is even supported! You don't even have to download and install adds to use unfair things as you just said.
Tairev-TR(All kind of killing tools) Asha-DC(Faithful-Anointed Champion) Vilgefortz-CW(Thaumaturge-balance)
I've spent some amount of time play testing testing the various feat trees with both MI and WK. My GS is around the 16k mark and I've tried the different paths with Profound, Black Ice and Draconic gear. With this I've run a mixture of HE's, dungeons and 1v1 OPvP. As a caveat though, I do need to play test more dungeon content with these changes.
On the whole, I like the direction that its headed but have a few concerns. Notably sustained single target DPS for boss encounters.
With the At-Wills, I feel that there is again a disparity between them. I want to feel that each and every At-Will is a valuable choice, not just a few exceptions depending on whether you're MI or WK. Currently I don't don't feel that way
Gloaming Cut and Disheartening Strike: Please leave these as they are and don't adjust any further.
Sly Flourish: Why would I take this. I can't find anything redeeming about it (certainly not damage wise). Because of this, I feel that the associated Artifact Weapon is just trash.
Cloud of Steel: With At-Wills eroding stealth now and the loss of associated dmg boosting feats, this should have an increase in charges and/or damage per hit. The number of charges were reduced because of it's use in stealth and with LA. Well, with stealth getting ripped away with it's use, that's no longer a problem.
Duellist's Flurry: As with CoS, stealth erosion and the loss of associated feats mean that this is a lesser option for me. Please revisit the dmg component as i don't think it's enough.
Encounters
Dazing Strike: Love the changes!
Smoke Bomb: I really think that this could do with a DoT, but I know that's unlikely.
Shadow Strike: Seems to be pretty ubiquitous, but why would I put more than one skill point into a low damaging utility encounter? There's just no benefit for me to do this. 10% of peanuts is still peanuts, so I'd say either increase the base dmg or make what is essentially a utilility skill, all utility. I'd do this by swapping the 10% dmg increase per point and adding an increased duration of the daze effect whilst under stealth.
Vengeance Pursuit: I feel that the activation speed between the mark and activation should be reduced. It just feels too long atm.
Others
Shocking Execution: Just does't live up to it's name at all. When I use it, I feel like I'm just slapping my opponent around the face. I can't even remember the last time I saw another player using this. Also, the Executioner feat "devastating shroud" doesn't provide enough of a lure to consider it.
Sneak attack: I can't for the life of me understand why a Class Feature that's available pretty much straight away, is unusable for a full ten levels! Is this a hangover from a previous "power adjustment"? I've played TR since Beta and can't remember it being different (that could just be my aging memory).
I'd swap it with First strike. This would give a usable power to levelling TRs who we shouldn't be forgetting!
Rolling/Dodge: I'm hoping that these changes are testable in the next patch!
Augment Visibility in OPvP: Whilst I know it's not really a part of these proposed change's, with what's planned I think this still needs to be looked at. This patch is all about balance, and this amongst all the rest that the TR has had to endure maintains inequality in the OPvP arena. Please consider relooking at it!
Speed: The class needs an increase in the base run speed. Either all encompassing or tied to ability scores somehow. It seems ludicrous that a class renowned for this one thing, should be out run by most other classes.
Stealth depletion by At-Wills: Whilst it's probably a necessary evil to introduce the change, I strongly feel that 15% per strike is just Too much. I think 10% is probably closer to the mark
As a refreshing change, I'm in a position now where I'm torn between which paragon and feat tree i take for my TRs. Some of this is thanks to Kweassa's videos that made me rethink my approach to a WK Scoundrel.
Feedback
The TR still feels very slow and sluggy to play, attacks are slow (Dazing strike is much faster, but the rest are still the same) it has few dodges, and overall still needs more tools to survive outside of stealth. According to the official NW wiki " It is a damage-dealing class specializing in stealth, speed, precision with a pair of two sharp blades and a store of daggers which can be thrown to distract the enemy. Rogues usually wear leather armor."
I don't see no speed in TR's attacks or battle tactics, I think the current TR situation (even with the changes in preview) doesn't reflect what a TR should be, fast and nimble.
Suggestions:
-Make Sinister strike have a use to put more than 1 point into it, maybe decrease CD with more points? or make it so at lv 1 it recovers less stealth?
-Make Smoke bomb more useful, currently it takes too long for it to really activate, players can exit it before getting dazed and enemies still manage to hit a few times before the effect too. Also consider making it a dot or something more useful.
BUG
Dodges aren't working, it doesn't use 33% it uses 50% in most cases.
Unlimited dodges while stealthed probably isn't WAI.
Some skills still daze ourselves if we activate them while stealthed.
Powers interact inconsistently with OwtS, some exit stealth first, others don't. When stealth is not left and re-entered Shady Preparations does not proc.
Certain powers consistently break stealth before refilling the stealth bar:
Dazing Strike
Deft Strike
Vengence's Pursuit (* see note below)
Certain powers consistently don't break stealth before refilling the bar
Lashing Blade
Blitz
Wicked Reminder
Other inconsistently either break or do not break it
Impact Shot
Additionally it seems if you proc OwtS and take damage simultaneously the stealth bar will not completely refill.
Some consume OwtS when they really shouldn't
Shadow Strike
The remaining powers correctly do not consume OwtS (or proc it's effect) as they do no damage
Bait and Switch
Impossible to Catch
Smoke Bomb
There is one outlier I can't decide what should happen with as it doesn't do damage on activation.
Path of the Blade
Currently this does not proc OwtS and breaks stealth (as you'd expect) subsequent damage from the power does not proc OwtS either. What should it do?
Suggestion - leave it as is now.
N.B. When a power does not consume OwtS it is available for the next Encounter to proc it as expected.
Vengence's Pursuit
OK I've ran the same tests for WK now and VP seems to be another outlier.
The dagger throw 'mark' consumes and procs OwtS. I can understand why - it does damage after all, however, the mark of VP doesn't break stealth. Because of this it is very difficult to use the follow up to consume OwtS.
Suggestion - VP mark should not consume OwtS, the follow up should however.
We Need more damages from Dailys. It's strange that an encounter ( lashing blade ( or others withs first attack ) damages is very very more important that a Daily damages, it's different for other classes.
We need a control break mechanism. A class feature or a power in replacement of the old itc, maybe deflection would be converted in control resist ?
Combat advantage bonus from Charisma, pets and artifacts is bugged, no ? I don't see significantly différence without pets and artifacts ( green Intellect Devourer + green Blink Dog + epic Lantern of Revelation) or no.
Ok so mod coming live 17-th november and half skills are not working.
You really should for once focus on TR which needs help more than any other class after 1,5 years of nerfs and fix at least things you announced to work, which are not working:
Last moments-not working at all
Dazes in scoundrel are dazing caster as well
Various serious problems with One with the shadow already mentioned by lihin23nihil
Dodge still consuming 50% dodge not 30% as you promised. Why making patch notes about things which you didn't even touch?
These are feats not working known to me.
While it comes to powers:
impact shot still not usable with laughable damage after each recharge is used
smoke bomb still it wonders me how is that possible that each CW aoe(control class) has dmg and TR aoe has no dmg when it's dps class?
shocking execution damage is still beyond boundaries of ridiculousness
cloud of steel with charges when you can't use it from stealth? CW has unlimited charges of at wills then why TR has limited?
These are most important powers and feats to fix until server goes live.
Tairev-TR(All kind of killing tools) Asha-DC(Faithful-Anointed Champion) Vilgefortz-CW(Thaumaturge-balance)
[*]smoke bomb still it wonders me how is that possible that each CW aoe(control class) has dmg and TR aoe has no dmg when it's dps class?
[*]shocking execution damage is still beyond boundaries of ridiculousness
I would be happy if smokebomb had the cast time/application time of a CW. As an example a CW can charge into a group of enemy and cast an AE control + damage spell which takes effect immediately before any of the enemy can hit them (I am not actually certain that is even working as intended since it always seemed strange to me that the first to rush into a pack of enemy would be the cloth wearing caster whilst those wearing armor would hang back). The TR tries this with smoke bomb and they will quickly follow it up with a call for 'help' to be revived.
As a daily, shocking execution should be impressive (code it different for PvP/PvE if need be). It should be much more powerful than any TR at will or encounter. Heck it should hit harder than any classes at will/encounter and probably daily too. At the moment it is a joke of a power (GWF have a better version of this that is both an encounter and an AE and this was given to them the same time they nerfed this power previously for the TR).
Comments
It's not deflect severity the problem.
the problem is that we have low deflect cause:
- STR > CHA always no matter what. They can tell otherwise but charisma is not working properly.
- INT > DEX so even less deflect. So many points to bring our cooldown to un-reasonable level from very-un-reasonable ones.
- CON > DEX too
- the total absence defensive class features: do you really think that an HR/GWF need to stack tons of deflect to reach 40%??? and yet with 1500 deflect i can only reach a laughable 25%.
Still think that we need at least 2 seconds bonus stealth, shadow strike not proccing saboteur cap stone. stealth refilling slowly when out of it. i cant have shadow strike slotted day and night. its a sign of bad design right?
I agree with almost everything you said. However IMO if First Strike resets I feel that it would need to be longer than 6 seconds because it is a large damage buff and could be bad in PvP but having it reset still sounds like a good idea to me. The only other problem is that currently we need to do most damage by being close so that means the time we spend dodging is time spent not damaging however with stealth being our main survival mechanic, with lifesteal as a secondary, those extra dodges could prove very useful.
Currently I still have issues with the usefulness of the scoundrel build, the main one being that the daze isn't going to affect many targets or any bosses thus completely nullifying many of their feats against those targets and crippling their offensive power. The other being that the survival based feats are quite small and don't really seem worth it.
The Executioner isn't terrible if you have a rather large lifesteal and still want to use DF, that is assuming you aren't soloing and only have a small amount of aggro because there's only so much you can heal as a lifestealing TR.
The Saboteur almost feels clunky but I think I just haven't mastered it yet. You can stay in stealth but so far it seems that a portion of that time is just sitting there in stealth waiting for either One with Shadows or SS to come off cooldown and making sure that you don't waste One with Shadows with SS.
It's not our deflect is low, rayrdan. It's that those classes, GWF/HRs achieve it too easily.
A tough, strong class the GWF is, and its main component of defense is damage resistance. If that be the case deflect should only be provided at supplementary amounts to act as a small increase in overall defense capability, and yet some players go high easily.
Same with DCs or GFs as well. Hence you put those 3 classes together, all of them have quite strong damage resistance, and then receive a secondary layer of defense that's almost as strong as ours. Same with HRs -- they don't take as much investment required for us to reach high deflect, hence quite easily reach a well balanced, high-standard stat that is strong everywhere.. power.. defense.. HP pool... and on top of all that, deflect.
IMO we should have around 10% higher deflect on average, than what we currently have now. Build's that don't really invest into deflect have usually around 20~25%. Builds that do can reach 40~45% in extreme cases, but sacrifices a lot of other stats. IMO for us, this should be around 30~35% for the former, and 50~55% for latter. But more importantly, our deflect should be noted as a primary mode of defense. Therefore a well-defended TR should have around 50~55% deflect chance as the main mode of defense, and current Damage Reduction of around 25~30% as a secondary.
And more importantly, other classes should NOT have a secondary mode of defense -- the deflect -- as high as ours. IMO at best a GF should have maybe around 20~30% max, but a non-shield GWF? 10~20% at most. Same with HRs -- they should go as high as upto current levels, but only when making a lot of sacrifices.
It's not our deflect too low -- it's others way too high. I've not mentioned this because this would inadvertantly trigger a fight between the players of other classes who enjoy the benefits of a way too lenient deflect for them.. the DCs, the GFs, GWFs, HRs... etc.
To speak of this is to trigger a nerf request against 3 other classes, and you can imagine the amount of angry whines.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
A good post kwe, i agree with you on your suggestions.
-Skullcracker sometimes activates on caster when using powers like path of the blades or smoke bomb (would probably activate on ITC as well if it wasn't granting CC immunity)
-Seems like scoundrel stuns sometimes block GWFs from entering unstoppable (probably issue with skullcracker feat stunning no matter what)
Also:
I really feel that stealth regeneration should not be interrupted by anything (maybe slowed a bit but should definetly not deplete) because its base recovery takes ~15 seconds and with current depletion with at-wills stealth becomes more or less one timer in battle (aside from shadow strike that can help). I would suggest either:
-removing stealth depletion while recovering stealth (+change Tenacious Concealment to something like 25/50/75% additional deflect while stealthed or 2.5/5/7.5% less stealth depletion while using at-wills)
-reducing base cooldown for shadow strike by 2-4 seconds
Also scoundrel is not quite a "brawler who can take a lot of damage" (though debuff part seems accurate) because:
T1
2.5% of deflect and lifesteal won't help much (10% would be something but 2.5% seems like laugh in my face)
T2
30% usually means 7-13k hp left and additional 10% will not help staying alive for long (usually in PvP if you won't act quick TR gonna be toast in seconds anyway and in new mod4+ PvE it won't matter much since you either try to hold your HP above 50% or you get 1 hit KO). I would suggest increasing that value or changing this to 30% of max hp as temporary hit points (internal cooldown 30 sec)
T3
Savage Blows; (did not test them properly so I'm not exactly sure if it increase life steal ammount by 5% max or life stolen by 5% because 1st one is again quite laughable number considering you have less than 3k LS)
Concussive Strikes; seems great or awesome or actually greatest thing that happened since I won pseudodragon from lockbox but I would increase stun duration in PvE to 2-3 seconds (also something would need to be done with hard locking in PvP because that makes it almost imposibble to take that "from behind" attack, though activation on crit seems to work pretty well)
T4
Low blows; only thing I have problem with is I am still unsure which are control effects in this game (does dazes count toward it?)
Mocking Gesture; very good and very solid tbh, 10% more deflect chance for 10 seconds for scoundrel seem appropriate (enter stealth, deal your damage and continue to attack your target out of stealth)
T5 solid capstone for both PvE and PvP giving proper control for brawler and increased damage at the same time, may cause stunlocks on some classes but that would be rare occurance.
PS I might be a bit greedy but I would add slow effect for skullcracker or add "jump block" on enemy in PvP (not sure but it seems like jumping is somehow helping people avoid damage sometimes though it may be diffrences in ping that make them further than I actually see)
If we save our stealth bar and run right at the enemy in pve, we can execute a big finisher.
In pvp if we save our stealth bar and run at the enemy in pvp we get rolled
(this means start combat out of stealth closing distance out of stealth and presing tab right as flurry begins blender mode...)
It would be very interesting if stealth drain had an internal cooldown of something like once per second. As in stealth drain can only proc once per second. This would be a way to deal with powers that have many rapid hits while still having substantial drain for powers that deal lots of damage from one "at-will usage", such as Disheartening strike.
Speaking of things that need an internal cooldown, Shadowy opportunity needs one implemented as well. Powers such as bloodbath or courage breaker can rapidly rack up a lot of unmitigated damage. Shadowy opportunity would seem to be the major obstacle in allowing rapidly hitting powers such as flurry to be used from stealth.
huh, i just realize my frost enchant is proccing my damage bonus on cc'ed mobs. nice! now that makes me wonder if there is a form of a cc that can be placed on a cc immune mob for this. will test that later.
i am satisfied with the changes, but how will i revive my team in pve when they are inside a burning boss aoe that lasts longer than the revive timer?
Immunity from stealth with impossible to catch allowed tricksters the ability to rush in and react in critical moments where other classes couldnt.
please for the last time let us keep immunity in pve. with itc
Feedback: Stealth (in relation to STATS)
INT/DEX: I was able to survive with low cooldowns and little luck from low deflect chance but it took me forever to finish the job.
STR/DEX/CHA: The start was great I was able to dish big chunks of damage (Exe and Sabo having the best dps) but as the fight progress lil by lil I was overwhelmed because I do not have the "necessary" tools to survive.
INT/VIT: Feels like my office!
The new TR to my observation and testing is still "incomplete and dull" because of the following reasons:
*Heavily stealth reliant to the extent of being crippled without its TAB not to mention how fragile it is.
*Long cooldowns without pumping INT and recovery causing noticeable decrease in damage output and survivabilty.
*Redundant deflect in DEX and Charisma. We have low deflect chance and our feats doesnt give benefit from landing successful deflect.
*Less desirable synergies for example Disciple of Strength in correlation to our main stat which is dex and with the current changes we get lower crit chance out of stealth,
*Every path is bound to something like Saboteur to stealth without stealth you will not benefit from the feats which makes the play style dull same goes to passives like sneak attack.
Im "TR only" gamer to my experience the biggest defeat lies in stealth because TR gets "average benefit" at the cost of high risk and punishing conditions of stealth. If you want the changes to be successful think of "stealth as a backpack" not the TR himself, build the TR not the stealth.
■ daze inducing powers cause daze to the TR himself as well. Seems to happen with Scoundrel only, seems to be Skull Cracker related issue, very high chance of happening with AoE encounters of PotB, Smokebomb. Never seen it happening with other AoE, Blitz. On one occasion it happened with VP(mark) as well, the only instance I've seen happening to a single-target power.
■ VP(throw) portion of the power sometimes "lags" along in its animation and power activation, causing the TR to either rapidly jump in throw motion multiple times, or suspended in mid air briefly.
■ Stamina bar and 'extra dodge' not seem to working properly. Either that, or the changes were so profound nobody really understood how it works.
■ Skull Cracker daze on multiple targets through AoEs, do not seem to be proccing reliably. By using Blitz and PotB I've clearly confirmed against one of those "group of three" mobs in IWD -- such as the wolves, which 3 of them are tied in as a group. I've counted the seconds and all three of them were properly dazed for 6s. However, in some cases it does not work. Sometimes the daze ends prematurely, other times targets are not dazed at all.
■ dodge while in stealth costs no stamina at all
■ the boon, Fey Thistle does not inflict any damage
■ the deflection severity boon, Illusion Shimmer, does not apply correctly.
■ Scoundrel feat, Bloody Brawler, its 2.5% effect does not show up in character screen
■ When your Life bar setting in the HUD option is set to "Always", the life bar does not properly refresh. Any damage taken will be marked as a white HP bar and will not disappear. Currently, leaving it to "recently damaged" seems to be the only way to refresh and update.
■ After multipke activations, Sissyfor.. er.. I mean, Soulforge 'black smoke' effect remains permanent even while stealthed. Only visible to you.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Performs 2-3x attacks in succession
Bug: Vengeance Pursuit
Time frame of activation varies from slow to fast
Feedback: Saboteur
After further testing in IWD with 14k GS Puri BiS + Vorpal PVE for this path is ok the only problem I found is that Stealth:15% stealth meter drain is too much. Without stealth this path is dead with no damage and tools to survive, the solution I know is to a At-will and passives that will provide the lifeline TR badly needs when out of stealth which is we do not have atm, now I know you will think of SS as a life saver but again think of its poor damage that will leave us 1 less encounter, again if you will think of smoke bomb,BnS and ITC we are killing the damage potential of TR over and over again. That is why allowing the stealth meter to regenerate without penalties is very important.
Another big TR problem I already talk once about is stat allocation:
we need str, dex, cha, int and some points in cos are desirable too.
You assure us that charisma is working properly so spending points there is one of the best choices now. What about moving recharge speed in charisma (with combat advantage and deflect) while adding to INT some resisted ignored?
This way one can work on his offense while adding 3-4% deflect point and 3-4% recharge speed, nothing game breaking.
This way you would finally leave the player to not choose to invest points in one of these stats.
To say it differently, less points spent in INT.
This being told, i still feel that our cooldowns are way too high even with different sacrificies being made.
Example of this:
i m a TR with 20 str - 19 INT - 3000 Recovery.
My recharge speed is about 30% and still shadow strike cooldown (needed to play, otherwise i m just dead regardless pvp/pve) is over 11 sec.
Lashing blade? the "main" skill that should be used ?
16 sec!
On the other hand we have Fatalities like Icy rays ( dmg > lashing blade + root ) , IBS ( 12 sec without investing points in INT or without stacking recovery ) , Fox shift (16 seconds playing with 13 INT and 500 recovery. Better damage + immunity ) and the list can easily go on.
We have to invest in tertiary stats sacrificing way too much defense and raw offense.
1)Long story short consider to move recharge speed from INT to DEX/CHA.
2)Consider to give a general look at Cooldowns.
3)Consider to increase deflect bonus in CHA to 2%.
Something like:
Recharge speed is now moved to DEX to compensate the less need of critical chance, bonus deflect in charisma up to 2% from 1%.
General attention to high cooldowns.
Would probably make happy 99.9% of the people here.
"At-will outside of stealth and with combat advantage (flanking enemies) refills stealth meter by 2.5% per hit"
With this change, It won't be as useful in a 1 on 1 scenario but will be helpful on team fights when other players are not focusing the TR.
I think it is also a good change for PVE to speed up stealth refilling of scoundrels and executioners without rendering the saboteurs useless.
So in a boss scenario, while a tank is grabbing aggro the TR just dumps encounters, restealths within seconds, dumps again, restealths. For saboteuers, it's even faster. Stealth. Attack. OTWS restealth. Spam more at-wills. Spam charged encounters from behind. Restealth. Spam at-wills. Hit with more encounters to the back side. Restealth. Spam at-wills...
...
OTOH, it'd be a worthy compromise if they tied-in the mob heading issue with stealth depletion, so an attack made from the rear side will deplete only 5% stealth per attack. Although I think its still too much.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Give Tenacious Concealmemt on rank 3 a 100% reduce of stealth while hitted (instead of 90%) and give the VT-Set a better 4. Set-Bonus. At the current rate it is really hard to tell a difference in the stealth regeneration by VT-SET.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaaHpmDr03A
Sounds like a WK scoundrel with more damage, faster cast times, and better dodge rolls. I'm game
Sharra Del'Armgo - SW Trapper Hybrid HR
Ogghra Bar'Ghuzumn - MI Scoundrel TR
Vænna Thrymskjöldr - IV Protector GF
In the game i played before all those things were treated with same rigour as hacking other players or using bots. But in this game it is even supported! You don't even have to download and install adds to use unfair things as you just said.
Asha-DC(Faithful-Anointed Champion)
Vilgefortz-CW(Thaumaturge-balance)
On the whole, I like the direction that its headed but have a few concerns. Notably sustained single target DPS for boss encounters.
With the At-Wills, I feel that there is again a disparity between them. I want to feel that each and every At-Will is a valuable choice, not just a few exceptions depending on whether you're MI or WK. Currently I don't don't feel that way
Gloaming Cut and Disheartening Strike: Please leave these as they are and don't adjust any further.
Sly Flourish: Why would I take this. I can't find anything redeeming about it (certainly not damage wise). Because of this, I feel that the associated Artifact Weapon is just trash.
Cloud of Steel: With At-Wills eroding stealth now and the loss of associated dmg boosting feats, this should have an increase in charges and/or damage per hit. The number of charges were reduced because of it's use in stealth and with LA. Well, with stealth getting ripped away with it's use, that's no longer a problem.
Duellist's Flurry: As with CoS, stealth erosion and the loss of associated feats mean that this is a lesser option for me. Please revisit the dmg component as i don't think it's enough.
Encounters
Dazing Strike: Love the changes!
Smoke Bomb: I really think that this could do with a DoT, but I know that's unlikely.
Shadow Strike: Seems to be pretty ubiquitous, but why would I put more than one skill point into a low damaging utility encounter? There's just no benefit for me to do this. 10% of peanuts is still peanuts, so I'd say either increase the base dmg or make what is essentially a utilility skill, all utility. I'd do this by swapping the 10% dmg increase per point and adding an increased duration of the daze effect whilst under stealth.
Vengeance Pursuit: I feel that the activation speed between the mark and activation should be reduced. It just feels too long atm.
Others
Shocking Execution: Just does't live up to it's name at all. When I use it, I feel like I'm just slapping my opponent around the face. I can't even remember the last time I saw another player using this. Also, the Executioner feat "devastating shroud" doesn't provide enough of a lure to consider it.
Sneak attack: I can't for the life of me understand why a Class Feature that's available pretty much straight away, is unusable for a full ten levels! Is this a hangover from a previous "power adjustment"? I've played TR since Beta and can't remember it being different (that could just be my aging memory).
I'd swap it with First strike. This would give a usable power to levelling TRs who we shouldn't be forgetting!
Rolling/Dodge: I'm hoping that these changes are testable in the next patch!
Augment Visibility in OPvP: Whilst I know it's not really a part of these proposed change's, with what's planned I think this still needs to be looked at. This patch is all about balance, and this amongst all the rest that the TR has had to endure maintains inequality in the OPvP arena. Please consider relooking at it!
Speed: The class needs an increase in the base run speed. Either all encompassing or tied to ability scores somehow. It seems ludicrous that a class renowned for this one thing, should be out run by most other classes.
Stealth depletion by At-Wills: Whilst it's probably a necessary evil to introduce the change, I strongly feel that 15% per strike is just Too much. I think 10% is probably closer to the mark
As a refreshing change, I'm in a position now where I'm torn between which paragon and feat tree i take for my TRs. Some of this is thanks to Kweassa's videos that made me rethink my approach to a WK Scoundrel.
The TR still feels very slow and sluggy to play, attacks are slow (Dazing strike is much faster, but the rest are still the same) it has few dodges, and overall still needs more tools to survive outside of stealth. According to the official NW wiki " It is a damage-dealing class specializing in stealth, speed, precision with a pair of two sharp blades and a store of daggers which can be thrown to distract the enemy. Rogues usually wear leather armor."
I don't see no speed in TR's attacks or battle tactics, I think the current TR situation (even with the changes in preview) doesn't reflect what a TR should be, fast and nimble.
Suggestions:
-Make Sinister strike have a use to put more than 1 point into it, maybe decrease CD with more points? or make it so at lv 1 it recovers less stealth?
-Make Smoke bomb more useful, currently it takes too long for it to really activate, players can exit it before getting dazed and enemies still manage to hit a few times before the effect too. Also consider making it a dot or something more useful.
BUG
Dodges aren't working, it doesn't use 33% it uses 50% in most cases.
Unlimited dodges while stealthed probably isn't WAI.
Some skills still daze ourselves if we activate them while stealthed.
Spec: MI Saboteur
Feat: One with the Shadows
Powers interact inconsistently with OwtS, some exit stealth first, others don't. When stealth is not left and re-entered Shady Preparations does not proc.
Certain powers consistently break stealth before refilling the stealth bar:
Certain powers consistently don't break stealth before refilling the bar
Other inconsistently either break or do not break it
Some consume OwtS when they really shouldn't
The remaining powers correctly do not consume OwtS (or proc it's effect) as they do no damage
There is one outlier I can't decide what should happen with as it doesn't do damage on activation.
- Path of the Blade
Currently this does not proc OwtS and breaks stealth (as you'd expect) subsequent damage from the power does not proc OwtS either. What should it do?Suggestion - leave it as is now.
N.B. When a power does not consume OwtS it is available for the next Encounter to proc it as expected.
OK I've ran the same tests for WK now and VP seems to be another outlier.
The dagger throw 'mark' consumes and procs OwtS. I can understand why - it does damage after all, however, the mark of VP doesn't break stealth. Because of this it is very difficult to use the follow up to consume OwtS.
Suggestion - VP mark should not consume OwtS, the follow up should however.
We Need more damages from Dailys. It's strange that an encounter ( lashing blade ( or others withs first attack ) damages is very very more important that a Daily damages, it's different for other classes.
We need a control break mechanism. A class feature or a power in replacement of the old itc, maybe deflection would be converted in control resist ?
Combat advantage bonus from Charisma, pets and artifacts is bugged, no ? I don't see significantly différence without pets and artifacts ( green Intellect Devourer + green Blink Dog + epic Lantern of Revelation) or no.
You really should for once focus on TR which needs help more than any other class after 1,5 years of nerfs and fix at least things you announced to work, which are not working:
These are feats not working known to me.
While it comes to powers:
These are most important powers and feats to fix until server goes live.
Asha-DC(Faithful-Anointed Champion)
Vilgefortz-CW(Thaumaturge-balance)
I would be happy if smokebomb had the cast time/application time of a CW. As an example a CW can charge into a group of enemy and cast an AE control + damage spell which takes effect immediately before any of the enemy can hit them (I am not actually certain that is even working as intended since it always seemed strange to me that the first to rush into a pack of enemy would be the cloth wearing caster whilst those wearing armor would hang back). The TR tries this with smoke bomb and they will quickly follow it up with a call for 'help' to be revived.
As a daily, shocking execution should be impressive (code it different for PvP/PvE if need be). It should be much more powerful than any TR at will or encounter. Heck it should hit harder than any classes at will/encounter and probably daily too. At the moment it is a joke of a power (GWF have a better version of this that is both an encounter and an AE and this was given to them the same time they nerfed this power previously for the TR).
Here are some interesting videos that I made for you guys, Master Infiltrator Scoundrel VS WhisperKnife Scoundrel 1v1.
We were both at the same GS
MI (My foe) -> 16.5K, Perfect Vorpal, Perfect Soulforged, Legendary Waters
WK (myself) -> 16.5K, Normal Vorpal, Lesser Soulforged, Epic Blood Crystal.
It was very interesting and fun, enjoy !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ60dZPT-ww
Vengeace's Pursuit VS Impossible to Catch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k3ORJIgM1I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3r-bA9RA2I&feature=youtu.be
Self-Daze:
Powers such as Smoke Bomb and Vengeace's Pursuit Daze the caster when launched. (As seen in the videos in the above post.