Unfortunately I cant get a GPF to test - and from the above it looks like it isnt even a TR problem. I wish GWF's would stop posting about how they would "improve" the TR and stick to their own forums. I know people play multiple characters but it's obvious when one posts "here's how i would improve" and it's just full of troll nerfs that it's not someone who cares about the class or balance.
This topic thread is about preview. Not about TR's and what should be changed. If you havnt played the TR on preview and dont have feedback about the new encounters or class features, I dont think you should be posting here at all.
Overall The only things that should be changed that would make the TR MUCH more balanced:
1) Run speed in stealth dropped about 20% (on par with a GF blocking) There are tons of feats to increase run speed back well above 100%. It makes zero sense that while "sneaking" you actually GAIN movement speed.... Doing this would remove some of the resilience of the TR as they would be much easier to catch in stealth when trying to contest nodes. This forces them to use Stealth as an offensive tool OR an "escape" tool but not a way to avoid damage while contesting.
2) SoD needs to be flat out turned into a 50% damage boost that does NOT stack (meaning in and out of stealth wont stack this) when dealing damage from stealth. Damage bonus lasts 6 seconds. This still synergies amazingly well with 100% crit chance FROM stealth. AND combined with this the "In stealth" Bonus of Lashing blade should be a 50% REDUCED CD instead of 50% more crit severity" (50% reduced CD is overall a 25% reduction to the CD - based on how it works (see Recovery))
3) Knifes Edge needs to be adjusted with Blood Bath. It should only proc off the activation of the daily, not each hit - allowing TRs to reset their CDs.
Those 3 things would make TR a VERY balanced class with true strengths and weaknesses.
Fom my dps test TR dont need to town down or they will end with really low dmg , they just need to change piercing dmg to somthing else .
SOD - 50% damage boost for 6 seconds after attacking from stealth, ALSO Lashing blade now instead gets 50% reduced CD instead of 50% crit severity as its "in stealth bonus".
1) Run speed in stealth dropped about 20% (on par with a GF blocking) There are tons of feats to increase run speed back well above 100%. It makes zero sense that while "sneaking" you actually GAIN movement speed.... Doing this would remove some of the resilience of the TR as they would be much easier to catch in stealth when trying to contest nodes. This forces them to use Stealth as an offensive tool OR an "escape" tool but not a way to avoid damage while contesting.
If you dont like this suggestion than I would suggest:
Sneak Attack: Your stealth now lasts 5% longer. Additional Ranks:+5%
@ Rank 4 this would be 20% more stealth however you would no longer have 30% (soon to be 40%) movement speed boost.
Feedback: I agree with Ayroux. Movement Speed gives a huge contribution to the TR survival capabilities. Not much need to dodge when you can position yourself in a way that allows you to escape faster, without much need for dodges as you can just walk away with 70% - 80%+ Movement Speed. This is mostly apparent for Scoundrels due to their huge run speed bonuses.
Suggestion: I've always been against the current Sneak Attack bonus. One idea I have in mind is that the Sneak Attack bonus can be changed to "+20% increased damage when striking opponents from behind." Ranking this up would increase this by another 10%, with rank 4 providing a maximum of 50%. This would promote more careful attacks and positioning while in Stealth as we are now 30% slower with this change, and it can also be used by both Stealth-based or non-Stealth-based builds.
Bug: SoD still not proccing consistently. Does not proc on daily's, potb, smokebomb or deftstrike. Procs on 1 target of dazing strike, blitz and blade flurry (not necessarily the original target but always only one). Proc's normally on the rest.
Feedback: Shadowy Disappearance: range is still too short to be useable.
Feedback: Blade Flurry: still has the HR's (steel breeze?) animation. The AoE seems larger than last I tested but it could just be me. This might be solid AoE dmg for TR's who dont like dazing strike's cone.
Bug: Blade Flurry: I was able to cast 20 times b4 the cooldown by allowing combat to end (2 seconds?) I'm not sure if this will work anywhere but the combat dummy. Also the cooldown timer doesnt show up but the skill is greyed out during cooldown.
Edit: Well the thread finally got moderated. Not sure what the criteria was as my posts responding to the above posts got removed but I'll try and be more specific since it seems this subject isnt going away.
Feedback: 4th Tick (so basically the whole class from the powers perspective)
1. Class Features: I *can* agree that sneak attack paired with skillful infiltrator + movement enchants can be OP. I would actually be perfectly happy to see this class feature change from a movement bonus to a stealth bonus. However, I doubt that would happen. Most of TR's class features are gimped in some way or other. Since I'm assuming this discussion is being allowed due to the 4th point granted in mod 6; i'll run down what I think of the class features one-by-one in case the dev's decide to start changing things around.
Sneak attack: Movement is a tactic that needs to stay. TR's use that ability in PvE and PvP to great effect. In PvE the idea is to move ahead of the party as in "scout" mode. In PvP the idea is to get to nodes quickly. The problem for TR is that they have 3 strong, synergistic abilities. Good movement, plus high burst damage (one-shot), plus a solid escape plan. Generally in balanced games I would expect one of these to be missing, and it's usually the damage. A good utility class doesnt usually have good damage and TR has a great variety of ways to apply damage. Not as much sustained damage as other classes but in PvP when u can one shot for 50k .. u dont need sustained damage. Thankfully, TR still has 20% movement bonus from Skillful Infilitrator so Sneak Attack can be sacrificed to the blood craze the other classes have to nerf TR. Because first strike already performs the "backstab" mechanic I would like to see Sneak Attack give a bonus to stealth duration. We already have perma-stealth rogues with the current mechanics - and going perma-stealth usually is a trade off of damage so having more stealth isnt going to change that much.
First Strike: providing the traditional "back stab" damage. It isnt a multiplier like it's been in other games but it does the job. A good class feature that gives TR's options for tactics/strategy. I wouldnt change it.
Tenacious Concealment: Important class feature for non-exec TR's who rely on stealth. Balanced and a good utility feature if you need it.
Tactics: AP gain. This feature is often the fall-back feature for anyone who doesnt have a class feature they favor more. AP gain is never a bad thing for any class. For TR's though, because of the bonus to Whirlwind and the devestation of SE (less so than in previous mods) I think changing this class feature may go a long way in "toning" down TR's as others have expressed a desire for. Slower build-up of Whirlwind reduces overall damage and reduces the # of times the average TR can "one-shot" with lashing blade.
Infiltrators Action: Every class has a useless feature, this seems to be ours. If you want CA, stealth. CA doesnt add *that* much damage so wasting a feature on it seems pointless to me.
Skillful infiltrator: Great feature, especially if you're not max'ing stealth. Since deflection is one of those "i'll take it if i have to" stats - this feature adds to the unavoidable points we sometimes have and makes them a little more valuable. Crit chance and run speed are always welcome as well.
Invisible Infiltrator: Another feature in the problem child "one-shot" cycle. The stealth refill is an awesome benefit, maybe not enough for a whole feature but the added damage % really piles up when combined with Whirlwind or lurkers assault. This is another feature I would throw under the bus to balance TR's. Change the damage % to a stealth duration increase. +3-5% per tick. It synergizes with the stealth refill and lowers burst damage.
the two new features: one adds damage, one adds daze *on entering stealth*... maybe they would be more valuable if they were "on exit stealth" but as is, I doubt they get much use and certainly dont belong on a "post-60" level.
Bedlam: Creating chaos as a MI Exec TR Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
Back Alley Tactics - A much needed boost to the scoundrel who seemed to be lacking overall compared to the other TR paths and other strikers.
Even with the boost from Back Ally Tactics, I find that from my testing the scoundrel is still about 18% behind a comparably geared Damage DC in overall damage and even further against bosses/cc Immune targets. It seems the scoundrel is the lowest single target damage class against CC immune targets and their capstone is rendered completely useless against them other than the run speed bonus (which by the way is not indicated in the captsone tooltip). I do not feel as if the scoundrel is effective enough against control immune targets and that they should not be behind a primary leader class in damage in general.
Feedback: Talisman of Shadows
Although I am not sure exactly how useful this will be in the long haul as I have not been able to test it in every situation that I would want. It seems that it is most useful for saboteurs and somewhat for executioners but the value for the scoundrel is very limited in comparison because of how they utilize stealth. The saboteur is already a better precision dazer than the scoundrel -- even though that is the scoundrels focus and this would allow the saboteur to easily extend their daze/stun capabilities far beyond anything a scoundrel could come close to and this is mostly because of the saboteurs ability to easily enter stealth frequently.
I think this power needs to be scrapped and replaced entirely with something else.
sod - 50% damage boost for 6 seconds after attacking from stealth, also lashing blade now instead gets 50% reduced cd instead of 50% crit severity as its "in stealth bonus".
Grinning Steel - Attacks from behind your target have 1/2/3/4/5% more chance to crit. I find this useless and attacking from behind is no easy task why not make this a 10% increase in damage or a bleed when a successful attack from behind is made.
Module 5 was my first time playing a Whisperknife over a long period of time and I have played it exclusively since mod 5 (except when testing). While fun to play in general, it has no advantage over a Master Infiltrator (I don't include ranged damage even though it is better at ranged damage it is not very good at ranged damage when you factor in other classes with ranged attacks and with the way the PvP nerf to disheartening strike was implemented it made it useless on the scoundrel and only viable on the MI (the path responsible for the nerf) and maybe the saboteur to some degree). In PvP the WK fares very poorly compared to the MI, but I would say the WK was more balanced with the other classes except for the currently OP DC variations. The class features pale compared to the MI and there is an extensive discussion/comparison of this in the Rogue forums but one obvious poor one is Razor Action that even when you factor in using the artifact offhand bonus and the 5 points into a teir 2 scoundrel feat (10 points into the scoundrel being required) it still contributes so little that one would be pressed to ever formulate a single situation of it providing a decisive advantage of the other choices available (and that isn't saying much about the other choices). The only escape the class has does not even work against many control effects (ranger roots, CW freezes, and others) and generally tends to fail when it is needed in addition to being somewhat tricky to utilize overall.
In this coming module I will definitely abandon the WK and respec to MI (even though I loved the challenge of the WK I am clearly handicapping myself taking it over the MI).
I would suggest you revisit the WK and especially the class features or some of the few others that play it will also abandon their stubbornness and the dead paragon.
Feedback: 4th Tick (moving along from my other post with my opinions on MI's encounterS)
Dazing strike: After testing all of the encounters, it's my opinion that this will still be the #2 encounter for most MI Exec TR's. It gets a +10% dmg boost with it's 4th tick and has the 2nd highest overall damage (for encounters) depending on mob size. (mob size 4 or smaller it's going to outperform smokebomb). It's going to compete with the new skill Blade Flurry and will probably come down to preference.
Deftstrike:Gets a damage boost but it's usefulness was always the mechanic to teleport to target. (also called the parkour encounter) It doesnt change much with a 4th tick.
Lashing Blade:4th tick increases it's already massive damage with another 10%. I would like to see the dev's do some balancing and change the 4th tick to something else. Obviously, this encounter is incredibly important to all TR's both in PvP and PvE but it's *already* got enough damage to still be the king of single target damage for TR. For all the damage I can do in AoE with Dazing strike, I can also do that to a single target with Lashing blade. I would give it a +5% ArP bonus or even an AP gain bonus based on damage done.
Bait and Switch: I personally like this encounter. Many others dont because the decoy has very low health and the AP gain is actually very small. I wouldnt make this my first priority to put a point in - but it'll be 6th or 7th on my list. I guess what I'm saying is, the 4th tick improves the skill but still doesnt make it competitive enough for most people to replace Shadow Strike with.
Blitz: Not my skill, but alot of people use this instead of Dazing strike. It gets a damage increase so nothing really changes.
Impossible to Catch: Duration increase.. this would have to be tested amongst other classes with alot of extra points to really determine whether the duration increase makes it any more or less OP. Alot of non-TR's have a problem with this skill since it seems to be the only CC breaking skill in the game - and making it longer duration only adds to that frustration.
Path of the Blade: Still a gimicky encounter. Since mod 5 the duration has been nice but still contributes a very low amount of actual damage. Gets a +10% damage increase, but this wont make it competitive amongst the other better options (mainly, smokebomb). I would have been tempted to give it a +15% increase on the last tick.
Impact Shot: This encounter has all the things to make it competitive on the toolbar except it's incredibly long cooldown (recharge) and it's abhorrently slow animation. It *can* hit hard when it crits but in the long run it's going to underperform some of the other options (Dazing strike, Wicked Reminder).
Shadow Strike: +10% damage. This skill becomes more balanced as it's damage is already pitifully low and it's real utility is the stealth increase and ability to apply daze from stealth. It will remain competitive with Bait and Switch as the third encounter for most stealth based TR's.
Wicked Reminder: This is another reason that Impact Shot doesnt get any love. Wicked reminder is everything impact shot used to be. It refills twice as fast, has good damage and the bonus of lowering DR and has a much quicker animation. It gets a 10% damage increase with it's 4th tick and remains a superior skill to impact shot.
Smokebomb: The king of TR AoE damage encounters, because it has no target limit. It gets a *duration* bonus with it's 4th tick which will make it even more useful for large high-health mobs (5+, basically any appropriate level dungeon except eLoL) and slightly less useful for smaller mobs. The duration tick may become a problem in PvP as this skill isnt used for damage, but used for it's AoE daze and slow effect. Longer duration may = more OP. I would have been tempted to raise the damage instead.
Shadowy Disappearance: I've posted my disdain for this encounter previously. My opinion hasnt changed even after using the skill more. It's difficult to setup to actually GET damage and even when you do apply damage the amount is very small. This skill is incredibly under powered. The range is too short and/or damage is too small to make it even remotely competitive on the TR encounter bar. (and I stress remotely.. we're talking different continents not just ballparks) Suggestion: Borrow from Shadow Dancer. Make this skill a "walk the shadowfell" skill and make it's mechanics like "Ethereal". No attacking, no being attacked for a short duration (and especially no movement bonus during it's activation) 4-5 (but not more than 6) seconds should be long enough to make it useable without being a distraction imo. As long as you dont do something crazy like give it the ability to break CC ... it should be less OP than ITC.
Blade Flurry: In my opinion I think this skill will be adopted by at least a few TR's. It's AoE damage is acceptable and easier to apply than Dazing Strike. In my opinion, this skill in it's intended form will compete for the #2 slot on the exec TR bar. It's currently broken and allows you to activate beyond it's 4 charge per cooldown (at least, against a combat dummy, though I've tested and can do 20 iterations with no pausing between animations so... ) I still dont "like" that it's borrowed it's animation from the HR skill but mechanically, it's a good addtition. (I'll cross my fingers that if Shadowy Disappearance stays, they will both get a beautiful re-do of their animations at some point in the future)
Bedlam: Creating chaos as a MI Exec TR Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
Shadowy Disappearance: this encounter is really really bad and feel laggy like a dc in tiamat hitting for low low damage. I would rather remove the damage, leave the smoke as it is and let it work like: you become immune to damage and control for x seconds (you have to stay in the smoke) while steadily gaining back stealth and stamina or hp . i dont know i just like the idea.
or give it just a gapcloser with low cooldown. everything in the tr set have unbelievable high cooldown.
Oppressive Darkness: I like it, I definitely do, but I also think it might be a little OP. I'm currently at 3 of 4 ranks on it, and almost every minion I've fought (and a couple non!) go right to almost half their HP as soon as I stealth. I'm a happy little damage dealer, but that seems a bit much.
Blade Flurry: It more than has promise, but it could stand both a more precise explanation of what the damage is and how it works. I had it slotted for a good week, and it was very hit and miss. One fight it would do massive damage and go into cooldown after three uses, and others it would do very little and/or not go off at all/go into cooldown.
Thanks!! The feature is way more awesome than it was. I would slot it immediately.
Edit: I edited this post pretty heavily. I at first didnt realize that Oppresive Darkness and SoD were pretty much acting the same - damage after mitigation getting a "piercing" ability so it's not mitigated twice.. The term "piercing" is probably not going to be recieved well by non-TR players tho..
Bug: I noticed the 4th tick is now only available at level 70 but several (all) of the previous powers show it available at 65.. I'm fairly sure you're intention is a level progression - which I can understand and have no opinion either way.
BUG: Just to be consistent, SoD is still broken. :mad:
BUG: Oppresive darkness does damage to the player when using the encounter Bait and Switch.
Bug: The reward chest at the end of "hard to reach places" needs to be looked at - it appears that an "open" chest got overlayed on top of a "closed chest".
Bedlam: Creating chaos as a MI Exec TR Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
BUG: Feat Trees.
- Not sure if this is a bug or not but TRs need to spend 25 points in one tree to be able to unlock the 6th tier Paragon Feats. I tested with other characters and it seems they only need to spend 20 points in order to unlock their capstones.
Saboteur feats are really meh. We are already plenty of "only from behind" which is impossible to achieve in solo playing, trash mob clearing. Those particular feats (3 with the new one) are only activable consistently vs bosses.
Feedback on the stun class ability. A 1 sec stun going into stealth (.5 on players) with no ability to increase seems kinda meh. Increasing teh stun area with ranks seems weird as well. It already stunned anything next to you anyway.
Would prefer to see it 2 sec stun (1 on player). can leave the increase distance when you rank i tup
the idea of giving additional damage when in combat advantage with oppressive darkness is nice and give tr a reliable damaging class feature which is something the class really lacks of. I personally didnt test the damage we are talking about however consider to buff hard the damage value but make it physical damage or at least deflectable.
and...for the love of god, fix shadow demise multiproccing on dot enchants.
said so, lets talk about saboteur.
the new feats and the t4 feats really feels underpowered and of no use.
consider to change something and let them work in less situational conditions.
You need to reowrk opressive darkness before it goes live. As it stands right now on ptr it can deal 20K+ dmg from just that class feature.
And its piercing so no way to fight it, TR are already almost only using CoS cus of the stupid piercing dmg in SAB. Now it takes a TR 4-7 ish daggers to kill a BiS GWF. This is dumb and very nonskilled. We are heading to more and more proc dmg in this game, no need for encounters or skills, just procs and atwills, its pretty sad.
SoD mutilproc is not an issue compared to OD, just sayin
1. SoD is 50% for 6 seconds.
2. OD is 40% with a very high possible uptime.
Other than that they are very similar. Multi-proccing SoD is much more of an issue to me (because Plague fire enchant is broken) but I can understand where you're coming from. SoD is a capstone. It *should* be uber. OD is available to ALL TR's + their capstone + has the possibility of being procc'd ALOT.
I dont think it would be unfair to reduce the per rank % for this. 6-8% would still be pretty awesome.
Bedlam: Creating chaos as a MI Exec TR Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
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onegaki101Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 327Arc User
edited March 2015
Would be nice if they also fix SoD not procing on at-wills while in stealth as the tool tip says any power in stealth :T
Feedback : Whirlwind of Blades
I'll be honest here, the amount of bonus power this gives is ridiculous. It pretty much doubles (or more) your power. Using it, then stealth LB you can pretty much one-shot anything that wasnt killed by the WoB (which is usually everything anyway).
Other than that they are very similar. Multi-proccing SoD is much more of an issue to me (because Plague fire enchant is broken) but I can understand where you're coming from. SoD is a capstone. It *should* be uber. OD is available to ALL TR's + their capstone + has the possibility of being procc'd ALOT.
I dont think it would be unfair to reduce the per rank % for this. 6-8% would still be pretty awesome.
Yea, this is getting adjusted in todays Preview update:
Trickster Rogue: Oppressive Darkness: Damage reduced by roughly 80% to better reflect its new design.
That said... I think its time to remove "Shadow of Demise" and just give TRs a **** 50% increase damage for 6 seconds after attacking from stealth. Does not stack.
Then you can remove this "piercing damage" HAMSTER that we have now- its a BAD system.
Then players will realize that Lashing Blade is way too strong (they dont right now because the initial crit is fine by itself, however with SoD its just STUPID OP) - So INSTEAD of giving this ability (LB) a free 50% crit severity in stealth, It should have a 50% REDUCED CD when used in stealth.
This would fix TR alot.
Only fear actually now is Shadowy Opportunity - I have heard very disturbing things about this at lvl 70. I would EITHER remove the piercing aspect of this damage so it JUST does 75% weapon damage - affected by DR.
You fixed the double proc. Thanks. Now it is bugged where it doesn't always activate. Path of blades, deft strike, at-wills, and dailies. Also, it only applies to one enemy, with encounters such as blitz. For executioners this severely impacts dps
Bug: Oppressive Darkness.
Maybe I am using this wrong but I am getting 1 proc at 207 damage at lvl 70. Not sure if working as intended or even useful? Interested to hear other testers thoughts
The daze duration of this power needs to be significantly reduced in order to retain more balance among the trees. Even before the change to the scoundrel concussive strike and the scoundrel capstone, saboteurs were capable of performing superior precision dazing over the scoundrel (partly due to the bug with knifes edge feat but also because of how the classes are built and how they utilize their powers). With these changes to the scoundrel feats it is not even close and the saboteur is easily the better precision dazer, with much higher damage and far superior stealth. The scoundrel would still retain an advantage in random short duration dazes but not enough to warrant justification over a saboteur if one wanted superior control.
Suggestion: Lower the base daze of a stealthed shadow strike to 1 second with a .5 second increase per level and make it half as effective against players.
Comments
Overall The only things that should be changed that would make the TR MUCH more balanced:
1) Run speed in stealth dropped about 20% (on par with a GF blocking) There are tons of feats to increase run speed back well above 100%. It makes zero sense that while "sneaking" you actually GAIN movement speed.... Doing this would remove some of the resilience of the TR as they would be much easier to catch in stealth when trying to contest nodes. This forces them to use Stealth as an offensive tool OR an "escape" tool but not a way to avoid damage while contesting.
2) SoD needs to be flat out turned into a 50% damage boost that does NOT stack (meaning in and out of stealth wont stack this) when dealing damage from stealth. Damage bonus lasts 6 seconds. This still synergies amazingly well with 100% crit chance FROM stealth. AND combined with this the "In stealth" Bonus of Lashing blade should be a 50% REDUCED CD instead of 50% more crit severity" (50% reduced CD is overall a 25% reduction to the CD - based on how it works (see Recovery))
3) Knifes Edge needs to be adjusted with Blood Bath. It should only proc off the activation of the daily, not each hit - allowing TRs to reset their CDs.
Those 3 things would make TR a VERY balanced class with true strengths and weaknesses.
SOD - 50% damage boost for 6 seconds after attacking from stealth, ALSO Lashing blade now instead gets 50% reduced CD instead of 50% crit severity as its "in stealth bonus".
If you dont like this suggestion than I would suggest:
Sneak Attack: Your stealth now lasts 5% longer. Additional Ranks:+5%
@ Rank 4 this would be 20% more stealth however you would no longer have 30% (soon to be 40%) movement speed boost.
Suggestion: I've always been against the current Sneak Attack bonus. One idea I have in mind is that the Sneak Attack bonus can be changed to "+20% increased damage when striking opponents from behind." Ranking this up would increase this by another 10%, with rank 4 providing a maximum of 50%. This would promote more careful attacks and positioning while in Stealth as we are now 30% slower with this change, and it can also be used by both Stealth-based or non-Stealth-based builds.
Feedback: Shadowy Disappearance: range is still too short to be useable.
Feedback: Blade Flurry: still has the HR's (steel breeze?) animation. The AoE seems larger than last I tested but it could just be me. This might be solid AoE dmg for TR's who dont like dazing strike's cone.
Bug: Blade Flurry: I was able to cast 20 times b4 the cooldown by allowing combat to end (2 seconds?) I'm not sure if this will work anywhere but the combat dummy. Also the cooldown timer doesnt show up but the skill is greyed out during cooldown.
Edit: Well the thread finally got moderated. Not sure what the criteria was as my posts responding to the above posts got removed but I'll try and be more specific since it seems this subject isnt going away.
Feedback: 4th Tick (so basically the whole class from the powers perspective)
1. Class Features: I *can* agree that sneak attack paired with skillful infiltrator + movement enchants can be OP. I would actually be perfectly happy to see this class feature change from a movement bonus to a stealth bonus. However, I doubt that would happen. Most of TR's class features are gimped in some way or other. Since I'm assuming this discussion is being allowed due to the 4th point granted in mod 6; i'll run down what I think of the class features one-by-one in case the dev's decide to start changing things around.
Sneak attack: Movement is a tactic that needs to stay. TR's use that ability in PvE and PvP to great effect. In PvE the idea is to move ahead of the party as in "scout" mode. In PvP the idea is to get to nodes quickly. The problem for TR is that they have 3 strong, synergistic abilities. Good movement, plus high burst damage (one-shot), plus a solid escape plan. Generally in balanced games I would expect one of these to be missing, and it's usually the damage. A good utility class doesnt usually have good damage and TR has a great variety of ways to apply damage. Not as much sustained damage as other classes but in PvP when u can one shot for 50k .. u dont need sustained damage. Thankfully, TR still has 20% movement bonus from Skillful Infilitrator so Sneak Attack can be sacrificed to the blood craze the other classes have to nerf TR. Because first strike already performs the "backstab" mechanic I would like to see Sneak Attack give a bonus to stealth duration. We already have perma-stealth rogues with the current mechanics - and going perma-stealth usually is a trade off of damage so having more stealth isnt going to change that much.
First Strike: providing the traditional "back stab" damage. It isnt a multiplier like it's been in other games but it does the job. A good class feature that gives TR's options for tactics/strategy. I wouldnt change it.
Tenacious Concealment: Important class feature for non-exec TR's who rely on stealth. Balanced and a good utility feature if you need it.
Tactics: AP gain. This feature is often the fall-back feature for anyone who doesnt have a class feature they favor more. AP gain is never a bad thing for any class. For TR's though, because of the bonus to Whirlwind and the devestation of SE (less so than in previous mods) I think changing this class feature may go a long way in "toning" down TR's as others have expressed a desire for. Slower build-up of Whirlwind reduces overall damage and reduces the # of times the average TR can "one-shot" with lashing blade.
Infiltrators Action: Every class has a useless feature, this seems to be ours. If you want CA, stealth. CA doesnt add *that* much damage so wasting a feature on it seems pointless to me.
Skillful infiltrator: Great feature, especially if you're not max'ing stealth. Since deflection is one of those "i'll take it if i have to" stats - this feature adds to the unavoidable points we sometimes have and makes them a little more valuable. Crit chance and run speed are always welcome as well.
Invisible Infiltrator: Another feature in the problem child "one-shot" cycle. The stealth refill is an awesome benefit, maybe not enough for a whole feature but the added damage % really piles up when combined with Whirlwind or lurkers assault. This is another feature I would throw under the bus to balance TR's. Change the damage % to a stealth duration increase. +3-5% per tick. It synergizes with the stealth refill and lowers burst damage.
the two new features: one adds damage, one adds daze *on entering stealth*... maybe they would be more valuable if they were "on exit stealth" but as is, I doubt they get much use and certainly dont belong on a "post-60" level.
Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene
Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice
Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee
Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
Back Alley Tactics - A much needed boost to the scoundrel who seemed to be lacking overall compared to the other TR paths and other strikers.
Even with the boost from Back Ally Tactics, I find that from my testing the scoundrel is still about 18% behind a comparably geared Damage DC in overall damage and even further against bosses/cc Immune targets. It seems the scoundrel is the lowest single target damage class against CC immune targets and their capstone is rendered completely useless against them other than the run speed bonus (which by the way is not indicated in the captsone tooltip). I do not feel as if the scoundrel is effective enough against control immune targets and that they should not be behind a primary leader class in damage in general.
Feedback: Talisman of Shadows
Although I am not sure exactly how useful this will be in the long haul as I have not been able to test it in every situation that I would want. It seems that it is most useful for saboteurs and somewhat for executioners but the value for the scoundrel is very limited in comparison because of how they utilize stealth. The saboteur is already a better precision dazer than the scoundrel -- even though that is the scoundrels focus and this would allow the saboteur to easily extend their daze/stun capabilities far beyond anything a scoundrel could come close to and this is mostly because of the saboteurs ability to easily enter stealth frequently.
I think this power needs to be scrapped and replaced entirely with something else.
I find this useless and attacking from behind is no easy task why not make this a 10% increase in damage or a bleed when a successful attack from behind is made.
Module 5 was my first time playing a Whisperknife over a long period of time and I have played it exclusively since mod 5 (except when testing). While fun to play in general, it has no advantage over a Master Infiltrator (I don't include ranged damage even though it is better at ranged damage it is not very good at ranged damage when you factor in other classes with ranged attacks and with the way the PvP nerf to disheartening strike was implemented it made it useless on the scoundrel and only viable on the MI (the path responsible for the nerf) and maybe the saboteur to some degree). In PvP the WK fares very poorly compared to the MI, but I would say the WK was more balanced with the other classes except for the currently OP DC variations. The class features pale compared to the MI and there is an extensive discussion/comparison of this in the Rogue forums but one obvious poor one is Razor Action that even when you factor in using the artifact offhand bonus and the 5 points into a teir 2 scoundrel feat (10 points into the scoundrel being required) it still contributes so little that one would be pressed to ever formulate a single situation of it providing a decisive advantage of the other choices available (and that isn't saying much about the other choices). The only escape the class has does not even work against many control effects (ranger roots, CW freezes, and others) and generally tends to fail when it is needed in addition to being somewhat tricky to utilize overall.
In this coming module I will definitely abandon the WK and respec to MI (even though I loved the challenge of the WK I am clearly handicapping myself taking it over the MI).
I would suggest you revisit the WK and especially the class features or some of the few others that play it will also abandon their stubbornness and the dead paragon.
Dazing strike: After testing all of the encounters, it's my opinion that this will still be the #2 encounter for most MI Exec TR's. It gets a +10% dmg boost with it's 4th tick and has the 2nd highest overall damage (for encounters) depending on mob size. (mob size 4 or smaller it's going to outperform smokebomb). It's going to compete with the new skill Blade Flurry and will probably come down to preference.
Deftstrike: Gets a damage boost but it's usefulness was always the mechanic to teleport to target. (also called the parkour encounter) It doesnt change much with a 4th tick.
Lashing Blade: 4th tick increases it's already massive damage with another 10%. I would like to see the dev's do some balancing and change the 4th tick to something else. Obviously, this encounter is incredibly important to all TR's both in PvP and PvE but it's *already* got enough damage to still be the king of single target damage for TR. For all the damage I can do in AoE with Dazing strike, I can also do that to a single target with Lashing blade. I would give it a +5% ArP bonus or even an AP gain bonus based on damage done.
Bait and Switch: I personally like this encounter. Many others dont because the decoy has very low health and the AP gain is actually very small. I wouldnt make this my first priority to put a point in - but it'll be 6th or 7th on my list. I guess what I'm saying is, the 4th tick improves the skill but still doesnt make it competitive enough for most people to replace Shadow Strike with.
Blitz: Not my skill, but alot of people use this instead of Dazing strike. It gets a damage increase so nothing really changes.
Impossible to Catch: Duration increase.. this would have to be tested amongst other classes with alot of extra points to really determine whether the duration increase makes it any more or less OP. Alot of non-TR's have a problem with this skill since it seems to be the only CC breaking skill in the game - and making it longer duration only adds to that frustration.
Path of the Blade: Still a gimicky encounter. Since mod 5 the duration has been nice but still contributes a very low amount of actual damage. Gets a +10% damage increase, but this wont make it competitive amongst the other better options (mainly, smokebomb). I would have been tempted to give it a +15% increase on the last tick.
Impact Shot: This encounter has all the things to make it competitive on the toolbar except it's incredibly long cooldown (recharge) and it's abhorrently slow animation. It *can* hit hard when it crits but in the long run it's going to underperform some of the other options (Dazing strike, Wicked Reminder).
Shadow Strike: +10% damage. This skill becomes more balanced as it's damage is already pitifully low and it's real utility is the stealth increase and ability to apply daze from stealth. It will remain competitive with Bait and Switch as the third encounter for most stealth based TR's.
Wicked Reminder: This is another reason that Impact Shot doesnt get any love. Wicked reminder is everything impact shot used to be. It refills twice as fast, has good damage and the bonus of lowering DR and has a much quicker animation. It gets a 10% damage increase with it's 4th tick and remains a superior skill to impact shot.
Smokebomb: The king of TR AoE damage encounters, because it has no target limit. It gets a *duration* bonus with it's 4th tick which will make it even more useful for large high-health mobs (5+, basically any appropriate level dungeon except eLoL) and slightly less useful for smaller mobs. The duration tick may become a problem in PvP as this skill isnt used for damage, but used for it's AoE daze and slow effect. Longer duration may = more OP. I would have been tempted to raise the damage instead.
Shadowy Disappearance: I've posted my disdain for this encounter previously. My opinion hasnt changed even after using the skill more. It's difficult to setup to actually GET damage and even when you do apply damage the amount is very small. This skill is incredibly under powered. The range is too short and/or damage is too small to make it even remotely competitive on the TR encounter bar. (and I stress remotely.. we're talking different continents not just ballparks) Suggestion: Borrow from Shadow Dancer. Make this skill a "walk the shadowfell" skill and make it's mechanics like "Ethereal". No attacking, no being attacked for a short duration (and especially no movement bonus during it's activation) 4-5 (but not more than 6) seconds should be long enough to make it useable without being a distraction imo. As long as you dont do something crazy like give it the ability to break CC ... it should be less OP than ITC.
Blade Flurry: In my opinion I think this skill will be adopted by at least a few TR's. It's AoE damage is acceptable and easier to apply than Dazing Strike. In my opinion, this skill in it's intended form will compete for the #2 slot on the exec TR bar. It's currently broken and allows you to activate beyond it's 4 charge per cooldown (at least, against a combat dummy, though I've tested and can do 20 iterations with no pausing between animations so... ) I still dont "like" that it's borrowed it's animation from the HR skill but mechanically, it's a good addtition. (I'll cross my fingers that if Shadowy Disappearance stays, they will both get a beautiful re-do of their animations at some point in the future)
Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene
Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice
Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee
Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
or give it just a gapcloser with low cooldown. everything in the tr set have unbelievable high cooldown.
I am PvE only, if that makes a difference.
Oppressive Darkness: I like it, I definitely do, but I also think it might be a little OP. I'm currently at 3 of 4 ranks on it, and almost every minion I've fought (and a couple non!) go right to almost half their HP as soon as I stealth. I'm a happy little damage dealer, but that seems a bit much.
Blade Flurry: It more than has promise, but it could stand both a more precise explanation of what the damage is and how it works. I had it slotted for a good week, and it was very hit and miss. One fight it would do massive damage and go into cooldown after three uses, and others it would do very little and/or not go off at all/go into cooldown.
Thanks!! The feature is way more awesome than it was. I would slot it immediately.
Edit: I edited this post pretty heavily. I at first didnt realize that Oppresive Darkness and SoD were pretty much acting the same - damage after mitigation getting a "piercing" ability so it's not mitigated twice.. The term "piercing" is probably not going to be recieved well by non-TR players tho..
Bug: I noticed the 4th tick is now only available at level 70 but several (all) of the previous powers show it available at 65.. I'm fairly sure you're intention is a level progression - which I can understand and have no opinion either way.
BUG: Just to be consistent, SoD is still broken. :mad:
BUG: Oppresive darkness does damage to the player when using the encounter Bait and Switch.
Bug: The reward chest at the end of "hard to reach places" needs to be looked at - it appears that an "open" chest got overlayed on top of a "closed chest".
Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene
Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice
Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee
Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
When using Smoke Bomb from stealth, Opressive Darkness does damage to the player.
- Not sure if this is a bug or not but TRs need to spend 25 points in one tree to be able to unlock the 6th tier Paragon Feats. I tested with other characters and it seems they only need to spend 20 points in order to unlock their capstones.
I totally agree with this...
Would prefer to see it 2 sec stun (1 on player). can leave the increase distance when you rank i tup
and...for the love of god, fix shadow demise multiproccing on dot enchants.
said so, lets talk about saboteur.
the new feats and the t4 feats really feels underpowered and of no use.
consider to change something and let them work in less situational conditions.
And its piercing so no way to fight it, TR are already almost only using CoS cus of the stupid piercing dmg in SAB. Now it takes a TR 4-7 ish daggers to kill a BiS GWF. This is dumb and very nonskilled. We are heading to more and more proc dmg in this game, no need for encounters or skills, just procs and atwills, its pretty sad.
SoD mutilproc is not an issue compared to OD, just sayin
1. SoD is 50% for 6 seconds.
2. OD is 40% with a very high possible uptime.
Other than that they are very similar. Multi-proccing SoD is much more of an issue to me (because Plague fire enchant is broken) but I can understand where you're coming from. SoD is a capstone. It *should* be uber. OD is available to ALL TR's + their capstone + has the possibility of being procc'd ALOT.
I dont think it would be unfair to reduce the per rank % for this. 6-8% would still be pretty awesome.
Avariel Merilwen: Burn baby, MoF/Rene
Aejun The Silver: Devoted to Healing, DevOP/Justice
Mina Rosepetal: Super Natural, Pathfinder/Melee
Frost: Benchwarmer, Soulbinder/Fury
I'll be honest here, the amount of bonus power this gives is ridiculous. It pretty much doubles (or more) your power. Using it, then stealth LB you can pretty much one-shot anything that wasnt killed by the WoB (which is usually everything anyway).
Drunken Goose of MidNight Express. - 3.3k Paladin , 3.6k GWF , 3.1k GF,
Well it seems they are doing something to OD:
That said... I think its time to remove "Shadow of Demise" and just give TRs a **** 50% increase damage for 6 seconds after attacking from stealth. Does not stack.
Then you can remove this "piercing damage" HAMSTER that we have now- its a BAD system.
Then players will realize that Lashing Blade is way too strong (they dont right now because the initial crit is fine by itself, however with SoD its just STUPID OP) - So INSTEAD of giving this ability (LB) a free 50% crit severity in stealth, It should have a 50% REDUCED CD when used in stealth.
This would fix TR alot.
Only fear actually now is Shadowy Opportunity - I have heard very disturbing things about this at lvl 70. I would EITHER remove the piercing aspect of this damage so it JUST does 75% weapon damage - affected by DR.
OR
Reduce the % of weapon damage down to like ~30%.
You fixed the double proc. Thanks. Now it is bugged where it doesn't always activate. Path of blades, deft strike, at-wills, and dailies. Also, it only applies to one enemy, with encounters such as blitz. For executioners this severely impacts dps
Bug: Oppressive Darkness.
Maybe I am using this wrong but I am getting 1 proc at 207 damage at lvl 70. Not sure if working as intended or even useful? Interested to hear other testers thoughts
The daze duration of this power needs to be significantly reduced in order to retain more balance among the trees. Even before the change to the scoundrel concussive strike and the scoundrel capstone, saboteurs were capable of performing superior precision dazing over the scoundrel (partly due to the bug with knifes edge feat but also because of how the classes are built and how they utilize their powers). With these changes to the scoundrel feats it is not even close and the saboteur is easily the better precision dazer, with much higher damage and far superior stealth. The scoundrel would still retain an advantage in random short duration dazes but not enough to warrant justification over a saboteur if one wanted superior control.
Suggestion: Lower the base daze of a stealthed shadow strike to 1 second with a .5 second increase per level and make it half as effective against players.
PLEASE fix that because my GWF is having a hard time?
Please blah blah blah blah bleh bleh?
Not tired yet?