Why does TR Armor Suck?

mrmauveforum

So, in the hopes of making my TR more palatable, and realizing that the Drow armor must still be a ways off, I decided to buy some T2 armor to replace my lovely Master Duelist set.

As I was looking, I was struck once again with just how bad the T2 TR sets are.

When I was first outfitting my character, I looked into T2 sets but decided against buying into them or farming them. Why? Well, because none of the 4-piece set bonuses appealed to me. I came from a GF, and the GF armor (as well as the SW armor, which is the only other character that I have to 60) has this wonderful system where each T2 armor set is a direct upgrade to a T1 armor set, both in stats and in bonuses.

Let's see what the T1 armor goes into:

• Duelist into Sinister Shade: The amazing 4-piece bonus from Duelist becomes a super-terrible 15% chance at 1000 recovery if you crit the enemy while you have combat advantage. This is a complete, 100% downgrade from Duelist's set bonus. Why isn't the set "Every 3rd at-will you use reduces your encounter cooldowns by 1 second"? That seems like the logical upgrade to Duelist's 4-piece bonus.
• Shadewalker into Assassin: Stacking armor pen and lifesteal on-hit turn into a chunk of power on daily use? These two bonuses have absolutely NOTHING in common.
• Elusive into Swashbuckler: Swashbuckler takes on a worse version of Shadewalker's 4-piece set, with 25% chance at a stacking buff to power and recovery. This is the only set bonus that's actually better than it's T1 set (due to not having a 20 second cooldown like Elusive has), but I originally thought that Swashbuckler went with Shadewalker until I checked the 2-piece bonus.

What's more, looking at these, I realized something:
SWASHBUCKLER AND ASSASSIN HAVE IDENTICAL STATS! What is up with that? Why doesn't Swashbuckler or Assassin trade recovery for armor pen? I can't think of any other T2 sets with identical stats, and this just seems like an oversight.

And, of course, Dread and Fabled just don't seem worth it:
Dread gives a measly 30 damage per second DoT and restores (what I've been told is) an equally measly amount of stealth. Oh, wait, no it doesn't; it gives "a chance".
Fabled gives an okay 300 damage per second DoT, but it can only activate every 30 seconds. Regardless, TR's don't particularly need slow DoT, do they?

Why are TRs forced to get PvP equipment if they want a decent T2 set with a decent 4-piece bonus: or worse, run IWD until they die of exhaustion trying to get their Black Ice items to drop? Why doesn't TR T2 armor just follow the precedent created by other classes' armor progression?

mutantdemocracy

Get Draconic.

It's basically +10% damage while in stealth or +10% damage to every ally nearby who gets combat advantage. You can then slot dragon glyphs for PVP play(since they're expensive) or corrupt/purified black ice enchantments for PVE play(super cheap).

It's like having three set effects.

ikapamk

I'm currently running a 2/2 of swash and MA. Works pretty well for me

twilightwatchman

Must admit I looked at all the T2 armour sets when my TR hit 60 way back when, and immediately decided to just grind the Profound Scoundrel PvP set. Still works really well for me in PvE even with all the stealth changes in Mod 5, but then I basically developed a build and playstyle around it.

beckylunatic

My TRs are not fantastically geared. 3 of the 5 have been in Battlefield Scavenger since forever.

I gave a trial run to Master Duelist yesterday on my WK Scoundrel. I was already using this set on an MI Scoundrel that used to be built around Action Advantage, and it still works fairly well on her, but I came to realize how much her silly little Lesser Lifedrinker contributes to her survival.

The WK has a Greater Plaguefire. Not only did the switch from Scavenger to Duelist shave off a significant chunk of hitpoints, he lost most of his lifesteal. I added 200 points from kits to see how that went, but the increased offense from the Duelist set (more power as well as faster cooldowns) didn't seem to compensate for the reduced defense in Tiamat. I'm going to try a few other things. Duelist was fun for running around doing inconsequential dailies. It was even fine for soloing medium IWD heroics when I was mucking around on preview with it. But it didn't feel good in Tiamat, or at least felt inferior to the Scavenger set, and that's with a build that only uses stealth strategically.

I do have 2/2 Draconic and Purified Black Ice up my sleeve for the next experiment.

Black Ice enchants aren't looking so cheap right now, probably because nigh everyone is doing Well of Dragons stuff all the time at the moment. I bought a lot of lessers cheaply and have been using all my extra materials to make my own greaters.

mjytresz

Profound is BiS.

khimera906

I have been lucky enough to get the full black ice set. I don't know how the purified set is, but the corrupted set kicks ***. I think black ice sets have the best stats in the game atm, at least for me, anyways. I'm a bit on the casual side, so I might be wrong

demonkyuubi

kinda how i felt when i 1st started

every tier 1/2 set was utter <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> to me but at least there was the gg set. afterwards grim/profound came out, followed by black ice, then draconic, and the soon-to-come drow set (that is gonna have some ridiculous glory/seal cost probably).

personally, i was in a 2/2 set bonuses until i got my pvp set