BOOOOOM and there it is. The writing on the wall. I have thrown in the towel... with a record of 73 wins and 77 losses. 15+ of those losses were from disconnects. I am a capping TR... not a seek and destroy TR.
THIS! says you are better than most TRs hahaha
I'll see your "THIS" and raise you a "DITTO".
Backcapping TRs get the same rage and hate as other TRs, but with a mediocre kill/death and score.
They are actually unselfish team players.
My pvp main is a healbot FaiDO DC.
Very few kills, "meh" score.
But alotta wins and happy teammates.
I feel your pain, drkbodhi..
[shudders in horror]
A DC in sympathetic solidarity with a TR?
Tempus! Forgive me!
Much love.
There were times where I would sit at 1 or even 2 and take on 3 to 4 players, understand I am NOT perma, knowing full well I would die. I did this so my teammates would be free to cap the other nodes. Once I even decided that if it would help my team I would take the fall. Meaning that I essentially kited around 3 members of the opposition for the entire match. I had the lowest score, lowest kills and most deaths... so my team would win. We ended up stomping the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of them.
I do not do premades...
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
CoS is great when your target is fighting/focused on someone else, I'd stealth, cos 2-3 times, shadow strike, repeat. Its fast crit damage, I'll usually throw in a DHS somewhere in there though.
Though my bread and butter is still smoke bomb and vengeance's pursuit. DHS is great against other rogues esp when you got them low in health, yeah they'll stealth and get away but more often than not you'll get a nice little message "so and so was killed by you" later.
I'm only 63 though, so probably does not apply to the 70 bracket...
Casamir 3K IL WK Sabo TR Trying to suck less @ pvp near you
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
I have used DHS to some great success in PvP... to experience exactly what you stated, "so and so was killed by X".
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
Massive DPS output? Maybe with BIS. TR is pretty gimped right now. And CoS depletes stealth.
ROFLMAO really? TR is GIMP? ROFLMAO dude what you smokin I could use some of that.....
The TR is currently among the weakest classes in PvP, only topped by most Warlocks as far as I'm concerned. They only really 'pay off' when you have BiS gear... if you don't have said gear, you can prepare to be spanked a lot.
If the Shocking Execution piercing nerf (which is really better solved by having First Strike not work on said skill) goes through as demanded, the TR will be a serious contender for the Warlock's position at the bottom of the food chain.
You have to connect Duelist's or Flourish to do any real damage with a TR as it stands now, assuming equal or inferior gear (as in, 90%+ of your PvP matches after hitting L70). In a world where Negations are king, you're lucky if that will even end up killing anything with any expediency. Shocking (which is a daily, as it bears reminding players like you) is the last real stand by for doing any substantial damage whatsoever, especially if your gear isn't on par.
So yes, the TR is gimped. Heavily so, after plenty of nerfs. There are at least a quarter to half dozen Encounter powers and passive 'Class Features' that are utterly useless, as it stands, and an entire Feat tree that needs a buff.
You have to connect Duelist's or Flourish to do any real damage with a TR as it stands now, assuming equal or inferior gear (as in, 90%+ of your PvP matches after hitting L70). In a world where Negations are king, you're lucky if that will even end up killing anything with any expediency. Shocking (which is a daily, as it bears reminding players like you) is the last real stand by for doing any substantial damage whatsoever, especially if your gear isn't on par.
So yes, the TR is gimped. Heavily so, after plenty of nerfs. There are at least a quarter to half dozen Encounter powers and passive 'Class Features' that are utterly useless, as it stands, and an entire Feat tree that needs a buff.
That's not 'gimped.' People of greater understanding in PvP usually call that skill.
Restricting your options to overpowered and imbalanced methods such as; (a) hitting like a truck with a ranged power from invisibility, (b) managing a near-perfect permanent stealth rotation, (c) relying on a daily power that knocks about half your HP on average -- this ain't skill. It's simply an open confession of how lazy and passive the particular TR player has become.
Ever notice how the "theorycrafting" of TR PvP options have just stopped and non-existent any more since mod5 Sabos? This keeps up, and the TRs simply go way of the dodo -- massively reliant on one~two overpowered features... which simply means destined to go extinct when those overpowered stuff are nerfed.
Don't draw your limitations on the stuff you've never tried. TRs have plenty of options to fight. It's just that none of those MI/Sabos ever bother to try something else.
Lazy.
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.'
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
That's not 'gimped.' People of greater understanding in PvP usually call that skill.
Restricting your options to overpowered and imbalanced methods such as; (a) hitting like a truck with a ranged power from invisibility, (b) managing a near-perfect permanent stealth rotation, (c) relying on a daily power that knocks about half your HP on average -- this ain't skill. It's simply an open confession of how lazy and passive the particular TR player has become.
Ever notice how the "theorycrafting" of TR PvP options have just stopped and non-existent any more since mod5 Sabos? This keeps up, and the TRs simply go way of the dodo -- massively reliant on one~two overpowered features... which simply means destined to go extinct when those overpowered stuff are nerfed.
Don't draw your limitations on the stuff you've never tried. TRs have plenty of options to fight. It's just that none of those MI/Sabos ever bother to try something else.
Lazy.
I can tell one thing from your post... you do not really pay attention to the TRs around you. Right now, about 1 out of every 4 TRs is a perma-stealth TR, your cookie cutter CoS, SE users. Your A, B and C ALL come from that build. The reason that so many TRs in PvP choose to use the perma path... it is easy... and many of the non-perma TRs dislike that people choose this... and then call themselves a "skilled TR".
There are 3 other viable builds for TRs. Theory-crafting is not dead, it was killed by the nerfs we got in exchange for the whinging. Many of us theory-crafted out asses off at the beginning of M6... because what we did in M5 was no longer working. Trust me... in search for another viable build, some of us went back to Scoundrel for a bit. Scoundrel has been broken, from what I have heard, for quite some time.
My question is this... why offer a path when that path is broken?
We are still not sure if SoD got a ninja nerf or it is bugged... because no one at Cryptic will say anything about it.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
You have to connect Duelist's or Flourish to do any real damage with a TR as it stands now, assuming equal or inferior gear (as in, 90%+ of your PvP matches after hitting L70). In a world where Negations are king, you're lucky if that will even end up killing anything with any expediency. Shocking (which is a daily, as it bears reminding players like you) is the last real stand by for doing any substantial damage whatsoever, especially if your gear isn't on par.
So yes, the TR is gimped. Heavily so, after plenty of nerfs. There are at least a quarter to half dozen Encounter powers and passive 'Class Features' that are utterly useless, as it stands, and an entire Feat tree that needs a buff.
That's not 'gimped.' People of greater understanding in PvP usually call that skill.
Restricting your options to overpowered and imbalanced methods such as; (a) hitting like a truck with a ranged power from invisibility, (b) managing a near-perfect permanent stealth rotation, (c) relying on a daily power that knocks about half your HP on average -- this ain't skill. It's simply an open confession of how lazy and passive the particular TR player has become.
Ever notice how the "theorycrafting" of TR PvP options have just stopped and non-existent any more since mod5 Sabos? This keeps up, and the TRs simply go way of the dodo -- massively reliant on one~two overpowered features... which simply means destined to go extinct when those overpowered stuff are nerfed.
Don't draw your limitations on the stuff you've never tried. TRs have plenty of options to fight. It's just that none of those MI/Sabos ever bother to try something else.
Lazy.
To clarify: I've played each feat tree for the TR repeatedly in the most recent mod -- in every which way feats can be sensibly allocated -- and it's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Whisperknife. I don't just play MI/Sabo, as people who have fought with me in PvP can attest to. For a while, I was even messing around with a Scoundrel build.
So when you speak of limiting oneself, I can only assume that you aren't talking to me. (I feel I should mention the irony of how I've been denigrated on the forums and in game, as one of the few TR 'theory crafters' left.)
You lament the lack of theory crafting, failing to understand that nerfing options like Scoundrel into the ground is what has caused this situation to occur. Every nerf has subtracted viable choices, and now we arrive at our current situation: delusional people continue to think the TR is still 'imbalanced' or 'overpowered', when the class has finally been nerfed to its breaking point in terms of viability. When you speak of 'hitting like a truck' from stealth or 'permanent stealth' builds, it makes you seem far out of touch with reality. Half the time, you're lucky if Shocking even lands a hit.
Tanks (and Negation enchantments, by proxy) are king in the current meta. I have been match made with toons that cannot be killed by entire opposing teams, and you think a solitary rogue can get the job done?
New rogues are lucky if they can *damage* anything when they get to L70 PvP, let alone do enough to faze someone. Stealth drops fast nowadays when you attack, so actual 'permanent stealth' builds have become exceedingly rare.
That's what has made for the popularity of doing damage in a hit or two from attacks like Shocking. Those complaining about Shocking are ironically the same sorts of people who made many rogues so reliant on attacks like it.
...but it isn't the Shocking Execution nerf that truly bothers me (I would honestly be glad to see the class rid of its one-trick ponies and wallet warriors as a result), so much as other nerfs that have been proposed on these forums.
Should Cryptic decide to nerf the few remaining sources of decent damage tomorrow, for example, the rogue would become irrelevant as a class in this meta... useful only as a 'stealth monkey' who stands on points and little else.
I can tell one thing from your post... you do not really pay attention to the TRs around you. Right now, about 1 out of every 4 TRs is a perma-stealth TR...
That's even being generous. I would say it's more like 1 in 10 to 20. Anyone who speaks of 'permanent stealth' builds as if they're still popular these days is either ignorant about the TR or doesn't PvP in the current mod much at all.
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
I can tell one thing from your post... you do not really pay attention to the TRs around you. Right now, about 1 out of every 4 TRs is a perma-stealth TR...
That's even being generous. I would say it's more like 1 in 10 to 20. Anyone who speaks of 'permanent stealth' builds as if they're still popular these days is either ignorant about the TR or doesn't PvP in the current mod much at all.
I was being generous... for a reason. Most people won't believe a reality that is far and away different from their own perceptions of reality.
BTW... for those thinking that "Perception is Reality", contact me so I can school you on how wrong you actually are.
@threnodic
Your above statement is EXACTLY ON POINT.
- People whinged about perma-dazing... and the Scoundrel build being too OP. BOOM Scoundrel is off the table for builds
- People whinged about SoD doing too much damage... grats... It is now very difficult to play an Exec build.
- People are now whinging about SE needing to be nerfed... awesome.
Ultimately you reap what you sow... and guess what... you all created this monster.
TRs have exclusively been limited to doing 90% of their damage from DF, DHS, CoS, SF or GC... that's IT. Our at-wills do more damage and are more reliable than our Encounters and Dailies... except for SE. What I mean by that is, SoD at times, like other Encounters, does not hit... despite the animation connecting. I have seen stealthed SB ignored by an entire node full of enemies, how do I now this? A stealthed SB is supposed to Slow the enemy for X seconds.
The ONLY Encounter that always hits is Path of Blades, but I have yet to see it do double damage when dropped from Stealth. It is only truly safe to drop it from stealth... since it takes about 3 to 5 seconds to flow through the animation.
So... my suggestion is this... know what you are talking about before you start commenting. Another suggestion is... find another class to destroy... unless you want a D&D based game to exist without Rogues. That is essentially the next step.
One more nerf without thought and an attention rebalancing the rest of the trees... the TR will become extinct.
Yes, you may see a lot of them in the top 100 of the NCL... check their iL before you say the class is OP.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
To clarify: I've played each feat tree for the TR repeatedly in the most recent mod -- in every which way feats can be sensibly allocated -- and it's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Whisperknife. I don't just play MI/Sabo, as people who have fought with me in PvP can attest to. For a while, I was even messing around with a Scoundrel build.
So when you speak of limiting oneself, I can only assume that you aren't talking to me. (I feel I should mention the irony of how I've been denigrated on the forums and in game, as one of the few TR 'theory crafters' left.)
I spoke of "limiting yourself" because that's exactly what posts like yours, and every single other post from TR players who burst into tears and wimper, "..but ...but we need those broken sheet to be able to fight!" are doing. Whatever the situation we TRs are in, broken is broken. I don't compromise with balance-busting, broken stuff and I never have.
Everything else comes from experience. Unless you are a constant part of the top 5% of the PvP community with every match you fight with and against people stoned through the wazoo with 4.8k IL and all high and hallucinating from taking all those steroid potions, where every match you go last 90 minutes with your nerves burning out from the stress, then there are alternatives to TRs, and it works on a practical level, well enough to satisfy anyone.
The only reason TR players nowadays don't see that is because they're all too lazy to try. Honestly, anyone who's tasted just how easymode the MI/Sabo is, they're all hooked and drooling as their brain goes dead. That's how I view abut 80% of the buffoons of TRs I meet in PvP. Some of them are still great players, but others are simply a joke.
You lament the lack of theory crafting, failing to understand that nerfing options like Scoundrel into the ground is what has caused this situation to occur. Every nerf has subtracted viable choices, and now we arrive at our current situation: delusional people continue to think the TR is still 'imbalanced' or 'overpowered', when the class has finally been nerfed to its breaking point in terms of viability. When you speak of 'hitting like a truck' from stealth or 'permanent stealth' builds, it makes you seem far out of touch with reality. Half the time, you're lucky if Shocking even lands a hit.
I've theorycrafted myself out of all those nerfs. All of them work at the practical level. Of course, you don't know this. I don't come off big with new discoveries like I used to. I just don't care about the TR players that much anymore, because most of my "brothers in arms" have simply gone the way of the sell-outs.
Ever wonder why I, the largest, big-mouth, wailing proponent of the Scoundrel path in mod5, stopped whining about the nerfs to it after around 2~3 weeks? Because I thought I liked being a Scoundrel. I thought I hated joining the hordes of Sabo wannabes and their easy mode. So I tried searching for answers for a new way to fight as a Scoundrel, and thought to myself if there isn't such a thing I'll still use Scoundrels even it means gimped -- because I don't play the class because of its OPness, I play a class because I like the concept and lore, and making that concept and lore work in actual PvP combat.
Thankfully, my work paid off. At which point I ask the question to any of the TRs who think there aren't any alternatives -- how much did you really try and practice? A couple of days?
Tanks (and Negation enchantments, by proxy) are king in the current meta. I have been match made with toons that cannot be killed by entire opposing teams, and you think a solitary rogue can get the job done?
I hit the tank until it cracks. It's a helluva longer process than relying on broken sheet of a one-button solution the TR players nowadays are hooked upon, but if it needs to be done then I do it. Or, conversely, if that's an impossible task then I go elsewhere to do some other job I'm required to do as a TR.
I don't see your point. Is that not what every other class does everyday?
New rogues are lucky if they can *damage* anything when they get to L70 PvP, let alone do enough to faze someone. Stealth drops fast nowadays when you attack, so actual 'permanent stealth' builds have become exceedingly rare.
That's what has made for the popularity of doing damage in a hit or two from attacks like Shocking. Those complaining about Shocking are ironically the same sorts of people who made many rogues so reliant on attacks like it.
"New rogues" are hardly of any relevance since its entirely their own fault they've "entered the ring" without adequate level of preparation. If a featherweight doesn't want to contend with a super heavyweight, then don't enter the ring. Or, if you've stepped into the ring with krap gear, knowingly, fully aware of the fact that there's a high chance of meeting a lot of people with better gear, then why the h3ll are you complaining?
The overall price and cost of getting PvP-ready, is of course, almost punitive in NW, this is true. But this is another discussion, irrelvant to the current one. So again, the only thing I'm seeing here is just a long line of excuses of how you don't want to spend a long time fighting with methods that take risks, which may result in your win, or if that risk blows up in your face, then with a loss.
I've met most of -- for example -- BiS-geared GWFs you can see in PuG queued GG. I lost a lot of fights.
Then I won a few, drove off the rest (which I couldn't follow to land the killing blow), and sometimes ended in a miserable stalemate. This, around 1k gear level lower than they have.
Is this me bragging?
No. Like I said, when compared to some of the TR players at their best I'm nothing. The only thing this means is I've found a way to cope with the situation, and since I'm an average grade joe any TR player can do this more or less to similar levels. Your concept, heck, EVERYONE(TR)'s concept of "fight" is so totally biased towards this clean, pristine, one-sided 'assassination' style these days that TR players just don't realize that TRs still can get downright dirty, hurting, mud-and-dung slinging levels of fighting. 5
How long, how hard have you seriously tried?
...but it isn't the Shocking Execution nerf that truly bothers me (I would honestly be glad to see the class rid of its one-trick ponies and wallet warriors as a result), so much as other nerfs that have been proposed on these forums.
Should Cryptic decide to nerf the few remaining sources of decent damage tomorrow, for example, the rogue would become irrelevant as a class in this meta... useful only as a 'stealth monkey' who stands on points and little else.
Us TRs were already stealth monkeys. That stealth monkeying around is what's best in domination rules. Any kills earned in that state is purely a bonus.
Then, at some point, us stealth monkeys realized that this futzed-up system allowed us to engage people while in stealth, with no way of them fighting back, and that's when us monkeys started becoming arrogant to think that the "state of normalcy" in terms of our performance is "node-contesting vs. 3~4 people".
Who does this? Aside from stuff like overgeared players trolling undergeared lowbies on a node, the only class that survives mutliple enemies of same calibre are us TRs, Palys, and DCs. Even the mighty GWF or GFs go down relatively easily if it doesn't have healer support.
What right do we have to bash any of those disgusting Palys or DCs when some of us TR players are defending broken stuff that allows us to do similar ridiculous things?
Balance goes both ways.
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.'
Kweassa - very well said! I can say you are dead on with this last post, it never ceases to amaze and disgust me how some players will fervently defend broken class skills/mechanics.
Can someone tell me how Scoundrel is broken? I'm playing my level 62 MI Scoundrel with Class Features based solely around debuffing and getting massive damage boosts after I use a daily (Infiltrators Action+Invisible Infiltrator). I'm constantly dazing people (I wish it was a stun tbh) and they're getting slowed every now and then from Deft Strike/Courage Breaker. I've been running around in greens from the EE zones with no tenacity. And I've been facing people with Negations/Vorpals/Feytouched and all that other <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
The only things I haven't been able to tackle easily are Paladins abusing the Binding Oath bug (Sometimes I can ruin their day with my dazes that proc every few seconds, but its a toss up), Hunter Rangers that do 10k damage with Thorned Roots (What in the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> is that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!? Thats' nowhere near 200% of their Weapon Damage. No amount of Power explains that. They'd need like 400-500% bonus damage from Power to do that...) And <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> insane Control Wizards that slot Icy Rays/Oppressive Force. God I hate that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> encounter.
I can take on people that obviously have PvP gear and Greater Enchantments just fine. And, to be honest, Its WAY easier for me to take on a Guardian Fighter or an Oathbound Paladin than a Scourge Warlock/Great Weapon Fighter. The latter two aren't hard to fight once I slow them, but if I <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up in anyway I'm gonna get chipped down quickly. My only saving grace is my 50% Deflection Chance, partly because 27% of it comes from maxing Charisma and Dexterity...
So my question is, how is Scoundrel useless?
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
If you enjoy playing it then don't worry about what is said.
I discovered a way to fight a GF, OP and GWF last night. Honestly, the writing was on the wall all this time. Pay attention the what tips are given by the power tool tips.
I was the only one who was able to kill this GF during a match last night, I did so using Sly Flourish from stealth. Which makes me wonder how well Wicked Reminder would do against a GF or an OP. In M5 I used Wicked a lot, especially during a boss fight.
But sometimes... theory-crafting may get in the way of playing the way that we want to play.
@kweassa
We can only play the way that we desire to play. My goal as a TR is to be that constant annoyance 'the mosquito in your ear' so to speak. That is the way I have always played a rogue. I love the build that I use, the rotation is always adapting to facilitate my continuing to be just what I want to be. So much so that I have dropped any ranged at-will usage. Incidentally I never used CoS, but became too reliant on the delayed kills that come with DHS.
Your points are very valid and are things that I know, but seemed to have forgotten, thank you for reminding me. I think it is the endless cycle of grinditude that we have endured that had chewed me up.
We all know that the perma TR is broken and many of us TRs want it gone as much as the rest of the H8ers.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
Comments
Much love.
There were times where I would sit at 1 or even 2 and take on 3 to 4 players, understand I am NOT perma, knowing full well I would die. I did this so my teammates would be free to cap the other nodes. Once I even decided that if it would help my team I would take the fall. Meaning that I essentially kited around 3 members of the opposition for the entire match. I had the lowest score, lowest kills and most deaths... so my team would win. We ended up stomping the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of them.
I do not do premades...
Though my bread and butter is still smoke bomb and vengeance's pursuit. DHS is great against other rogues esp when you got them low in health, yeah they'll stealth and get away but more often than not you'll get a nice little message "so and so was killed by you" later.
I'm only 63 though, so probably does not apply to the 70 bracket...
3K IL WK Sabo TR
Trying to suck less @ pvp near you
The TR is currently among the weakest classes in PvP, only topped by most Warlocks as far as I'm concerned. They only really 'pay off' when you have BiS gear... if you don't have said gear, you can prepare to be spanked a lot.
If the Shocking Execution piercing nerf (which is really better solved by having First Strike not work on said skill) goes through as demanded, the TR will be a serious contender for the Warlock's position at the bottom of the food chain.
You have to connect Duelist's or Flourish to do any real damage with a TR as it stands now, assuming equal or inferior gear (as in, 90%+ of your PvP matches after hitting L70). In a world where Negations are king, you're lucky if that will even end up killing anything with any expediency. Shocking (which is a daily, as it bears reminding players like you) is the last real stand by for doing any substantial damage whatsoever, especially if your gear isn't on par.
So yes, the TR is gimped. Heavily so, after plenty of nerfs. There are at least a quarter to half dozen Encounter powers and passive 'Class Features' that are utterly useless, as it stands, and an entire Feat tree that needs a buff.
That's not 'gimped.' People of greater understanding in PvP usually call that skill.
Restricting your options to overpowered and imbalanced methods such as; (a) hitting like a truck with a ranged power from invisibility, (b) managing a near-perfect permanent stealth rotation, (c) relying on a daily power that knocks about half your HP on average -- this ain't skill. It's simply an open confession of how lazy and passive the particular TR player has become.
Ever notice how the "theorycrafting" of TR PvP options have just stopped and non-existent any more since mod5 Sabos? This keeps up, and the TRs simply go way of the dodo -- massively reliant on one~two overpowered features... which simply means destined to go extinct when those overpowered stuff are nerfed.
Don't draw your limitations on the stuff you've never tried. TRs have plenty of options to fight. It's just that none of those MI/Sabos ever bother to try something else.
Lazy.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I can tell one thing from your post... you do not really pay attention to the TRs around you. Right now, about 1 out of every 4 TRs is a perma-stealth TR, your cookie cutter CoS, SE users. Your A, B and C ALL come from that build. The reason that so many TRs in PvP choose to use the perma path... it is easy... and many of the non-perma TRs dislike that people choose this... and then call themselves a "skilled TR".
There are 3 other viable builds for TRs. Theory-crafting is not dead, it was killed by the nerfs we got in exchange for the whinging. Many of us theory-crafted out asses off at the beginning of M6... because what we did in M5 was no longer working. Trust me... in search for another viable build, some of us went back to Scoundrel for a bit. Scoundrel has been broken, from what I have heard, for quite some time.
My question is this... why offer a path when that path is broken?
We are still not sure if SoD got a ninja nerf or it is bugged... because no one at Cryptic will say anything about it.
To clarify: I've played each feat tree for the TR repeatedly in the most recent mod -- in every which way feats can be sensibly allocated -- and it's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Whisperknife. I don't just play MI/Sabo, as people who have fought with me in PvP can attest to. For a while, I was even messing around with a Scoundrel build.
So when you speak of limiting oneself, I can only assume that you aren't talking to me. (I feel I should mention the irony of how I've been denigrated on the forums and in game, as one of the few TR 'theory crafters' left.)
You lament the lack of theory crafting, failing to understand that nerfing options like Scoundrel into the ground is what has caused this situation to occur. Every nerf has subtracted viable choices, and now we arrive at our current situation: delusional people continue to think the TR is still 'imbalanced' or 'overpowered', when the class has finally been nerfed to its breaking point in terms of viability. When you speak of 'hitting like a truck' from stealth or 'permanent stealth' builds, it makes you seem far out of touch with reality. Half the time, you're lucky if Shocking even lands a hit.
Tanks (and Negation enchantments, by proxy) are king in the current meta. I have been match made with toons that cannot be killed by entire opposing teams, and you think a solitary rogue can get the job done?
New rogues are lucky if they can *damage* anything when they get to L70 PvP, let alone do enough to faze someone. Stealth drops fast nowadays when you attack, so actual 'permanent stealth' builds have become exceedingly rare.
That's what has made for the popularity of doing damage in a hit or two from attacks like Shocking. Those complaining about Shocking are ironically the same sorts of people who made many rogues so reliant on attacks like it.
...but it isn't the Shocking Execution nerf that truly bothers me (I would honestly be glad to see the class rid of its one-trick ponies and wallet warriors as a result), so much as other nerfs that have been proposed on these forums.
Should Cryptic decide to nerf the few remaining sources of decent damage tomorrow, for example, the rogue would become irrelevant as a class in this meta... useful only as a 'stealth monkey' who stands on points and little else.
That's even being generous. I would say it's more like 1 in 10 to 20. Anyone who speaks of 'permanent stealth' builds as if they're still popular these days is either ignorant about the TR or doesn't PvP in the current mod much at all.
I was being generous... for a reason. Most people won't believe a reality that is far and away different from their own perceptions of reality.
BTW... for those thinking that "Perception is Reality", contact me so I can school you on how wrong you actually are.
@threnodic
Your above statement is EXACTLY ON POINT.
- People whinged about perma-dazing... and the Scoundrel build being too OP. BOOM Scoundrel is off the table for builds
- People whinged about SoD doing too much damage... grats... It is now very difficult to play an Exec build.
- People are now whinging about SE needing to be nerfed... awesome.
Ultimately you reap what you sow... and guess what... you all created this monster.
TRs have exclusively been limited to doing 90% of their damage from DF, DHS, CoS, SF or GC... that's IT. Our at-wills do more damage and are more reliable than our Encounters and Dailies... except for SE. What I mean by that is, SoD at times, like other Encounters, does not hit... despite the animation connecting. I have seen stealthed SB ignored by an entire node full of enemies, how do I now this? A stealthed SB is supposed to Slow the enemy for X seconds.
The ONLY Encounter that always hits is Path of Blades, but I have yet to see it do double damage when dropped from Stealth. It is only truly safe to drop it from stealth... since it takes about 3 to 5 seconds to flow through the animation.
So... my suggestion is this... know what you are talking about before you start commenting. Another suggestion is... find another class to destroy... unless you want a D&D based game to exist without Rogues. That is essentially the next step.
One more nerf without thought and an attention rebalancing the rest of the trees... the TR will become extinct.
Yes, you may see a lot of them in the top 100 of the NCL... check their iL before you say the class is OP.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I spoke of "limiting yourself" because that's exactly what posts like yours, and every single other post from TR players who burst into tears and wimper, "..but ...but we need those broken sheet to be able to fight!" are doing. Whatever the situation we TRs are in, broken is broken. I don't compromise with balance-busting, broken stuff and I never have.
Everything else comes from experience. Unless you are a constant part of the top 5% of the PvP community with every match you fight with and against people stoned through the wazoo with 4.8k IL and all high and hallucinating from taking all those steroid potions, where every match you go last 90 minutes with your nerves burning out from the stress, then there are alternatives to TRs, and it works on a practical level, well enough to satisfy anyone.
The only reason TR players nowadays don't see that is because they're all too lazy to try. Honestly, anyone who's tasted just how easymode the MI/Sabo is, they're all hooked and drooling as their brain goes dead. That's how I view abut 80% of the buffoons of TRs I meet in PvP. Some of them are still great players, but others are simply a joke.
I've theorycrafted myself out of all those nerfs. All of them work at the practical level. Of course, you don't know this. I don't come off big with new discoveries like I used to. I just don't care about the TR players that much anymore, because most of my "brothers in arms" have simply gone the way of the sell-outs.
Ever wonder why I, the largest, big-mouth, wailing proponent of the Scoundrel path in mod5, stopped whining about the nerfs to it after around 2~3 weeks? Because I thought I liked being a Scoundrel. I thought I hated joining the hordes of Sabo wannabes and their easy mode. So I tried searching for answers for a new way to fight as a Scoundrel, and thought to myself if there isn't such a thing I'll still use Scoundrels even it means gimped -- because I don't play the class because of its OPness, I play a class because I like the concept and lore, and making that concept and lore work in actual PvP combat.
Thankfully, my work paid off. At which point I ask the question to any of the TRs who think there aren't any alternatives -- how much did you really try and practice? A couple of days?
I hit the tank until it cracks. It's a helluva longer process than relying on broken sheet of a one-button solution the TR players nowadays are hooked upon, but if it needs to be done then I do it. Or, conversely, if that's an impossible task then I go elsewhere to do some other job I'm required to do as a TR.
I don't see your point. Is that not what every other class does everyday?
"New rogues" are hardly of any relevance since its entirely their own fault they've "entered the ring" without adequate level of preparation. If a featherweight doesn't want to contend with a super heavyweight, then don't enter the ring. Or, if you've stepped into the ring with krap gear, knowingly, fully aware of the fact that there's a high chance of meeting a lot of people with better gear, then why the h3ll are you complaining?
The overall price and cost of getting PvP-ready, is of course, almost punitive in NW, this is true. But this is another discussion, irrelvant to the current one. So again, the only thing I'm seeing here is just a long line of excuses of how you don't want to spend a long time fighting with methods that take risks, which may result in your win, or if that risk blows up in your face, then with a loss.
I've met most of -- for example -- BiS-geared GWFs you can see in PuG queued GG. I lost a lot of fights.
Then I won a few, drove off the rest (which I couldn't follow to land the killing blow), and sometimes ended in a miserable stalemate. This, around 1k gear level lower than they have.
Is this me bragging?
No. Like I said, when compared to some of the TR players at their best I'm nothing. The only thing this means is I've found a way to cope with the situation, and since I'm an average grade joe any TR player can do this more or less to similar levels. Your concept, heck, EVERYONE(TR)'s concept of "fight" is so totally biased towards this clean, pristine, one-sided 'assassination' style these days that TR players just don't realize that TRs still can get downright dirty, hurting, mud-and-dung slinging levels of fighting. 5
How long, how hard have you seriously tried?
Us TRs were already stealth monkeys. That stealth monkeying around is what's best in domination rules. Any kills earned in that state is purely a bonus.
Then, at some point, us stealth monkeys realized that this futzed-up system allowed us to engage people while in stealth, with no way of them fighting back, and that's when us monkeys started becoming arrogant to think that the "state of normalcy" in terms of our performance is "node-contesting vs. 3~4 people".
Who does this? Aside from stuff like overgeared players trolling undergeared lowbies on a node, the only class that survives mutliple enemies of same calibre are us TRs, Palys, and DCs. Even the mighty GWF or GFs go down relatively easily if it doesn't have healer support.
What right do we have to bash any of those disgusting Palys or DCs when some of us TR players are defending broken stuff that allows us to do similar ridiculous things?
Balance goes both ways.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
The only things I haven't been able to tackle easily are Paladins abusing the Binding Oath bug (Sometimes I can ruin their day with my dazes that proc every few seconds, but its a toss up), Hunter Rangers that do 10k damage with Thorned Roots (What in the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> is that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>!? Thats' nowhere near 200% of their Weapon Damage. No amount of Power explains that. They'd need like 400-500% bonus damage from Power to do that...) And <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> insane Control Wizards that slot Icy Rays/Oppressive Force. God I hate that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> encounter.
I can take on people that obviously have PvP gear and Greater Enchantments just fine. And, to be honest, Its WAY easier for me to take on a Guardian Fighter or an Oathbound Paladin than a Scourge Warlock/Great Weapon Fighter. The latter two aren't hard to fight once I slow them, but if I <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up in anyway I'm gonna get chipped down quickly. My only saving grace is my 50% Deflection Chance, partly because 27% of it comes from maxing Charisma and Dexterity...
So my question is, how is Scoundrel useless?
I discovered a way to fight a GF, OP and GWF last night. Honestly, the writing was on the wall all this time. Pay attention the what tips are given by the power tool tips.
I was the only one who was able to kill this GF during a match last night, I did so using Sly Flourish from stealth. Which makes me wonder how well Wicked Reminder would do against a GF or an OP. In M5 I used Wicked a lot, especially during a boss fight.
But sometimes... theory-crafting may get in the way of playing the way that we want to play.
@kweassa
We can only play the way that we desire to play. My goal as a TR is to be that constant annoyance 'the mosquito in your ear' so to speak. That is the way I have always played a rogue. I love the build that I use, the rotation is always adapting to facilitate my continuing to be just what I want to be. So much so that I have dropped any ranged at-will usage. Incidentally I never used CoS, but became too reliant on the delayed kills that come with DHS.
Your points are very valid and are things that I know, but seemed to have forgotten, thank you for reminding me. I think it is the endless cycle of grinditude that we have endured that had chewed me up.
We all know that the perma TR is broken and many of us TRs want it gone as much as the rest of the H8ers.
Nice writing!