Trickster Rogue Class Balance Suggestions

talon1970 · April 2017

Yep, for me the scoundrel has actually "only" viable feats to buff the exe or sabo path.

Maybe it is good for lets say Beginner Rouges, if they need more surviveability while soloing dailys, or in dungeons.
And if the group is not well geared, build, expirienced or is low in buff/debuffing so they "need" more cc than better geared etcetc partys.

(shouldn't post in english while listening to music^^)

mafiadelperro · April 2017

I really want a stealth mechanism to be something else, like the idea of crit sev but dont know if will be OP cause pair with shadowborn will be recieving a large amount of AP

trgluestickz · April 2017

The Heroic feat tree for the TR could also use some improvements:

Battlewise:
You generate 2/4/6% less threat
This feat is 100% useless for a TR. We already generate the least threat out of all the classes and the other feats in that row are much more appealing. This feat should be replaced with a small utility or defensive feat of some kind.

Action Advantage:
You gain 2/4/6/8/10% additional action points when dealing combat advantage damage
I saw one post in this thread saying this feat was not working at all. I have not tested this feat so I do not know if this is true or not. The devs definitely need to take a look at this and fix it if its broken.

Scoundrel Training:
Your at wills deal 3/6/9% more damage to foes not targeting you
This feat should be changed to grant you 5% more at will damage whenever you have combat advantage, this change would be more solo play friendly and would be up more often in PVP than it currently is. While you are at it, go ahead and change all copies of this feat from the other classes to this, HR also has this feat if I remember right.

trgluestickz · April 2017

Here are a few more miscellaneous improvements that could be made to the TR:

Scoundrel Tree, Mocking Gesture Clarification:
I'd suggested moving Mocking Gesture to the Sabotuer tree as a replacement for Blood Soaked Blades and then making a new feat for the Scoundrel tree to fill the gap. I did not put forwards any suggestions on what general sort of feat would be a good thing to add to the Scoundrel tree so I'm doing that here:
A feat that is a mix of more damage and either more utility or more survivability would be a good thing to put here. We don't need another pure defensive feat in this spot since Survivor also needs a rework and would be a much better place to put a purely defensive feat.

Sabotuer Tree, Flashing Blades:
Your at will powers deal 1/2/3/4/5% more damage when your stealth meter isn't full
Raise the damage granted by this feat to 8%

Sabotuer Tree, Shadowy Opportunity:
When you deal damage from stealth, you deal an additional 15/30/45/60/75% of your weapon damage as peircing damage.
I propose raising the piercing damage granted by this feat. Perhaps raising it to 90% of weapon damage or even 100% of weapon damage.

Executioner Tree in General:
Add more DOTs to a feat or 2 in this tree in addition to the proposed changes in the main post of this thread. DOTs are essentially the target bleeding out and this fits the executioner theme extremely well.

trgluestickz · April 2017

mousebreaker85#4641 said:
Yeah with SoD like many have said it really is only useful in boss fights .on the 30-40 mob packs leading up to the boss I never get a chance for it to proc they are usually dead within the 6 sec mark by whirlwinding GWF or circling warlocks ,hey I get my little smoke bomb in at least lol.

But when I look at dps numbers we really fall behind on reg mobs then catch up in DPSwhen the boss fight comes.but as boss mechanics are changing with them moving around . It hurts as we have no moving attacks.

So if we get a buff I think it must come from at wills or an aoe power which off hand I rarely use anything besides smoke..maybe blade fury if I'm feeling salty about everyone else aoe'ing everything while I plink away at my single target lol.

Duelists flurry don't get me started..

The animation i would love to see gone I've gotten killed many times stuck in it and can't move or stop it.also when fighting a close pack of mobs I get ticks going around 70-90k and leave the mob to die focus on another only to have DF pull me back to the original mob ..

It's kinda a pain.I would love to see SOD changed to a Shorter duration maybe 25% every 3secs to 50% but not sure if we can build up decent damage in 3secs or not

I do not want DF's animation changed much if any. There is however one part of the animation I would support changing; durring a flurry, you cannot simply walk away and if you want to end it early, you need to dodge. DF's flurry lockdown should be modified to where you can end it by walking away but the rest of the animation should stay as is. If this change is made, the devs should take care not to accidentally remove the CC immunity you get durring the flurry or the cling effect. In PVP, the cling effect is vital for landing your flurrys against moving opponents. In PVE, the cling effect can be a double edged sword if you are fighting mobs near a cliff and a party member shoves the monsters off the edge, everywhere else, this is a helpful feature. In both PVE and PVP, the CC immunity effect is really nice and has no cons. Also, as part of the TR rework, these 2 features should officially be added to the tooltip discription for duelist's flurry, they have been there since forever and its high time the tooltip actually mentioned them.

trgluestickz · April 2017

stathisjoestar said:
Maybe we should separate your role-playing interpretation of skills and power from actual numbers and results ?

Maybe you should put suggestions that respect the actual DnD background ?
My suggestion was just a simple idea, not the whole Scoundrel rework. Scoundrel tree relies on survivability via deflection/life steal/back alley insight and fighting an enemy via dazing him/gaining advantage over him.
What you turn the Scoundrel path to is.. the path that does 30% damage (so that he can catch up to the fresh buffs put on Executioner). You can still make Scoundrel strong by respecting his role maybe, that's my actual suggestion when I referred to Skullcracker. Examples is having him deal extra damage on controlled enemies, having him do piercing damage on immune targets, or gain combat advantage over immune targets etc. These are mere ideas I personally had, that potentially could fit on Scoundrel, the damage of course would be adjusted. Ignoring a whole class tree though and replacing it with "Scoundrel is the path that.. em does 30% damage lol" is forced buffing and lack of imagination.

"Executioner: Uses stealth to try and deal as much damage as possible in a single strike. "
"Scoundrel: A brawler who debuffs foes and can take a lot of damage. "

Glad you quoted this. Scoundrel could be more debuff and control oriented with more survivability and bonus damage on dazed targets. Maybe after a rebalance, Scoundrel's damage should be a little less than an Executioner's when comparing raw damage, as Scoundrel will have some tactic assets.
As for Executioner, my thesis remains. He should do great damage on a single hit, or when finishing off an enemy. Having him deal 10% damage [that will have reached 50% already when enemy gets on half health] from the start-up and on every single hit when enemy is 100% HP is absurb, or having him deal the Shadow of Demise in smaller hits, is what I'm saying. "Deal as much damage as possible in a single strike", remember ? You slip out of stealth to strike your enemy down with one silent hit, and him surviving only gives him time till he suddenly feels the killing pain from the shadow of death over him. A sudden single.. executioning hit. Not another constant buff or DoT damage.

Shocking Execution is absolutely necessary in PVP for TRs to stay competitive, so removing it isn't an option.

Indeed that was the case always, and when we say "TR" now we basically talk about an MI Executioner, and that should change.
You focus on keeping MI as he is (which is the only option, and that because of the Infiltrator features and since you wouldn't touch precious SE and ItC) and over-buffing Executioner (who is again the only option, and actually very competitive).
Whisperknife should be on par with Master Infiltrator, an alternative build with pros and cons. Scoundrel should have some nice changes (maybe include something for Immune targets?) in order to be a unique, strong path for TRs.
My opinion is that Shocking Execution (and Courage Breaker) are the things that should be toned down. Executioner should remain as he is (he is trully competitive both PvP.. and PvE!), no need to put more and more buffs on him. With your suggestions Whisperknife and Scoundrel are still lackluster... what if you put some (not-well-thought) buffs on Scoundrel, when you put over-buffs at the already successful Executioner.
And you didn't suggest much on TR Powers, besides buffing greatly his strongest, again, asset - Duelist's Flurry.

It doesn't work on stealth, and for limited time [...]

About Shadowborn, you're implying that a TR can't re-enter Stealth with Shadow Strike or Invisible Infiltrator and have double Power for 5 seconds on top of the stealth bonuses and feat/feature buffs.

But don't say poorly thought over buffs when your main suggestion leaves a dead path dead for the sake of "suffering from the direct hits to their skull"

hey, at least I'm not the one that suggested giving a 5 second buff of DOUBLE Power every 6 seconds.

That's pretty much all the points I wanted to make. As the players expect developers to make the most of their feedback when going through a class balance, I hope your team as well will take any positive or negative, constructive or non-constructive feedback and make your suggestions more fitting.

Edit: corrected my mistake on Shadowborn and re-stealth

While I appreciate the attempt to make the TR more accurate to its d&d roots, I disagree that the suggestions you tried to debunk from other players would negatively effect our roles in any way. I also did not like the alternative suggestions you offered in your posts. Even if the changes the main post in this thread proposed did not make perfect sense from a roleplaying perspective, there is a laundry list of things about all classes in this game that do not make sense when you really think about them and NW already differs from its d&d roots considerably. Its not worth replacing a more useful improvement with a less useful one just based on roleplaying alone.

That said, everything else I mention after this pertains to the scoundrel rogue:

I have played d&d every Wednesday for years and to be honest, a lot of your suggestions line up more with the NW version of the scoundrel than they do with the d&d version. While NW kept the bold dirty fighting tavern brawler sort of theme, keep in mind that the NW version is more hybridized and even tankyer than its pin and paper counter part.
The scoundrel was a more damage focused rogue in d&d and did more damage than most other kinds of rogue. They favored powers with control effects as that was a good way to gain combat advantage and combat advantage was the bread and butter of all types of d&d rogue. Their utility abilities mostly consisted of positioning aids to help them gain combat advantage and they often made use of their high charisma to antagonize foes or smooth talk NPCs.

You sugested that the scoundrel's damage should be less than executioner's. Doing slightly less damage would not hurt us but it should be almost equal. The difference should mostly be in what ways these 2 trees deal their damage, not in how much total damage they dish out by the end of the fight.

About your line saying scoundrel is supposed to debuff foes, I hear this a lot but they don't have any debuffs that other TRs don't have access to. They aren't a debuffer in pin and paper d&d any more than they currently are in NW and I don't consider debuffing a part of the scoundrel theme at all.

You seem to have misunderstood their sugestion for the scoundrel capstone as well, the main thing they did with it was sugest seperating the damage buff from the daze effect so it works on control immune targets. They did not ask to remove the daze effect that goes with it so enemies would still "suffer from direct hits to their sculls" under their sugestion.

I agree with you that TRs need more things working off of combat advantage but since combat advantage was the bread and butter of all d&d rogues, not just the scoundrel, it would be better to add more things working off of combat advantage to TR powers instead of putting them into any feat trees like you suggested doing with scullcracker. Though I'm tempted to give scoundrel another positional aid, I think just reworking some of the TR's powers will cover that. NW did at least give us a speed increase like the d&d version but that's about it on utility.

As for your suggestion of adding piercing damage to the scoundrel, I am hesitant to recommend this since scoundrel has a lot of straight damage buffs and will likely have even more after the rework. It may be fine but it could easily become overpowered in pvp if we are given too much piercing damage. I also already suggested a buff to the passive power oppressive darkness and am trying to avoid recommending too many sources of piercing damage.

One final note,
You did get me thinking of a small change that would give scullcracker a little more d&d flavor than either my or the main post's suggestion. Rogues in d&d had powers with prones and its common for people playing rogues to make called shots to do things like hamstring a foe. With that in mind, here is my updated suggestion for how to improve scullscracker:

Rename scullcracker to something else having to do with an attack to the legs/knocking the person over.
Increase the speed bonus to 20% and make it permanent.
Change scullcracker to a 30% damage buff that lasts 6 seconds.
The control effect would still occur but the damage bonus would be a separate effect.
Remove the part where you can extend the control effect by 2 seconds with your attacks
Upgrade the daze to a prone that is shorter than the current daze (3 to 4 secs maybe?).
Both the prone and the damage bonus are only usable once every 15 seconds and are triggered when you hit with an encounter power.
The prone from this feat is shorter in pvp (2 or 2.5 seconds in pvp would be good).
Everything else from this feat (the damage bonus and speed increase) should be the same in pvp as it is in pve.

rjc9000 · April 2017

a

trgluestickz said:

Rename scullcracker to something else having to do with an attack to the legs/knocking the person over.
Increase the speed bonus to 20% and make it permanent.

If this gets renamed to Low Blow or Below the Belt, and the TR gets an ability to kick/knee/punch/etc. people in the nads, then this one change would make the Scoundrel an instant top-tier for this ability alone.

Bonus points if it stunned/disabled/slowed CC immune foes for a couple of seconds.

trgluestickz · April 2017

morenthar said:
Some of you have brought up some great stuff.

Here are some of the glaring issues and improvements I believe need to be addressed. There are glaring issues with other classes that need attention, but this thread is about the TR.

Smoke Bomb: This power is contributing to the muck and mire of node combat in PvP. The first reaction is typically to change something about the power. I say, it's time to enlarge nodes. This would address the overproducing powers of some other classes as well. Let's face it, we've outgrown the nodes.

Shocking Execution: The easy fix for this power is make it useless against a target with more than 50% hit points. I'd like to go one step further and have it do more damage as the targets HPs get lower. I'd say it's range needs to be reduced, but like Smoke and other powers, it's more of an issue of our powers outgrowing node size. Easy fix again is to enlarge the nodes.

First Strike: Remove the power. It's stupid and only used to enhance an already problematic power, SE. It also works one time after you swap the power out. So any TR willing to abuse it can get one free FS every match or more if they want to put more effort into abusing it. I think there is a lot of creative power swapping going on in PvP these days (across many classes) and that's an issue that needs to be addressed as well. You should only be able to swap powers out in the spawn area.

ItC: I'm currently using it and still don't like it, but considering the cheese powers of other classes, there is no reason to remove it at this time. That is, unless the near immortality of other classes is addressed. As a TR that refuses to use SE, I can tell you that ItC is considerably lower on the cheese scale when not used as a tool to survive until your next cheeseball SE.

Disheartening Strike: The DoT needs a damage increase and the debuff should reduce the targets damage to allies as well. Also, it should increase the damage from your allies to the target.

Vengeance's Pursuit: This should break all control effects upon INITIAL use and greatly increase damage (4/6/8/10%) to the marked target from ALL attackers. It should also knockdown and prone the target when you release the mark and teleport to the target. So you can play it two ways, leave the mark on so your allies can benefit from it or teleport to your target and knockdown and prone them for a short time.

This can get overpowered without a trade off. So I propose this. You can leave the mark on and still use at-wills, however the use of any other encounter power or daily power would break the mark. The mark can never last for more than 10 seconds. The TR can still use it in a fluid manner and benefit via at-wills, but already heavy damage doing powers wouldn't be able to piggy back on the mark.

Advantageous Position: When entering stealth your movement is increased by 5/10/15/20% until stealth ends. For 4/6/8/10 seconds after leaving stealth you maintain Combat Advantage and take 20% reduced damage from ranged attacks.

Dagger Threat: Your ranged dagger attacks within 25ft deal 5/10/15/20% more damage.

This is not a comprehensive list of changes. Just top-of-head stuff. Whisperknives could use another passive or two that could improve their PvE damage and MIs need some more attention as well.

Shocking Execution:
I don't think the range needs to be reduced, its already pretty slow and easy to dodge. The only problem with it is how much it can hit for in pvp.
The cleanest proposal I've heard was one of the drafts proposed by the people who started this thread but it did not make it to the final forum draft.
It was to make it so SE cannot hit for more than 90% of a target's max HP. This would make it so the devs don't have to go through all of our big damage buffs and program each one to not apply to shocking execution. It also would solve the problem with SE one shotting people since TRs could then stack as many damage buffs as they like without overpowering SE. It also would open the door to SE getting buffed to where it was actually good in PVE.
The reason this idea didn't make it through was conserns that clerics and other debuffers in pvp would water down SE damage so much that it would not be worth using in most matches. This consern may or may not turn out to be a problem but its something to consider before implementing the above sugestion.

First Strike:
I would prefer a new passive to this one personally but I am ok with this passive staying as long as other adjustments are made to keep it from being an issue in pvp. At any rate, I don't think it has to be taken out or directly nerfed.

Impossible to Catch:
I do not support a nerf to this power or it being removed and I'm happy to see you are less adamant about doing something to it than you used to be. However, it should not be the undisputed BIS power to keep on your bar in pvp that it is right now. Instead of nerfing ITC, I say its time to buff and rework our other encounters so at least some of them end up as good as ITC for some TRs. I want to see more than one BIS power setup for pvp again.

Smokebomb:
I dearly hope not very many people are asking for this power to be nerfed. I agree that it does not need a nerf though there should be some more competition from other powers instead of this being the undisputed go to for all TRs.

Nodes:
I know this has little to do with the TR class but +1 for sugesting that the PVP nodes be enlarged, thats an excellent idea! While the devs are at it, they should also make the domination map a little bigger. Honestly, we have outgrown the map too now that i think about it.

I have no input on the whisperknife powers since the total amount of time I have ever spent as a whisperknife is probably an hour or 2.

trgluestickz · April 2017

morenthar said:
Scoundrel should revert back to Mod 5 performance.

The nerfing that occurred was the result of whining players that didn't learn how to counter Scoundrel builds. A lot of self-described "pros" were getting owned until they figured it out.

The build I used was a WK Scoundrel brand and it was the ultimate bum-slayer. I could go into a match and go 30-0 against lesser geared players. That's simply because control was involved. Against good players that figured it out, it was always a good fight.

Once TRs started laying Smoke down at increasing rates and CWs figured out Repel (took them long enough) Scoundrels balanced out.

The Devs really caved on Scoundrels and out of it you were left with Sabs still stunning the hell out of people, raking with piercing damage and Execs double proccing SoD for quite awhile. The people playing Sabs, were dead silent about their own issues leaving a handful of people trying to plead with Devs to take a closer look. The Scoundrel tree got screwed.

+1 spot on.

trgluestickz · April 2017

rjc9000 said:
a
trgluestickz said:

Rename scullcracker to something else having to do with an attack to the legs/knocking the person over.
Increase the speed bonus to 20% and make it permanent.
If this gets renamed to Low Blow or Below the Belt, and the TR gets an ability to kick/knee/punch/etc. people in the nads, then this one change would make the Scoundrel an instant top-tier for this ability alone.

Bonus points if it stunned/disabled/slowed CC immune foes for a couple of seconds.

I like the name "Below the Belt" as a potential rename for Scullcracker. Your second name sugestion is already in use.

I may come back later and edit this post with some of my own rename sugestions, names are fun to propose.

lordseth1985 · April 2017

trgluestickz said:

The scoundrel was a more damage focused rogue in d&d and did more damage than most other kinds of rogue. They favored powers with control effects as that was a good way to gain combat advantage and combat advantage was the bread and butter of all types of d&d rogue. Their utility abilities mostly consisted of positioning aids to help them gain combat advantage and they often made use of their high charisma to antagonize foes or smooth talk NPCs.

I agree with you that TRs need more things working off of combat advantage but since combat advantage was the bread and butter of all d&d rogues, not just the scoundrel, it would be better to add more things working off of combat advantage to TR powers instead of putting them into any feat trees like you suggested doing with scullcracker. Though I'm tempted to give scoundrel another positional aid, I think just reworking some of the TR's powers will cover that. NW did at least give us a speed increase like the d&d version but that's about it on utility.

Totally agree. CA should bem improved, or at least give to us some really usefull feats that work with CA. Opressive darkness seemed really nice, but turned to be a waste of points and never slotted. As you said, CA should be our friend and lover, not our enemy.

micky1p00 · April 2017

CA can be functional if it's separated from crit severity on crit. That's it's main issue with it now, it's like a fundamental flaw carried over since beta. It is not supposed to be connected to severity at all, afaik.

whitespicyrice · April 2017

I will make this as simple as possible.

Many other will agree.

I'm sure Devs will agree.

Cooldown on Courage Breaker. Done

Unknown · April 2017

This content has been removed.

coldbeer · April 2017

Only one imput = raise stealth duration and give us 4 slots for encounters.

whitespicyrice · April 2017

itsthexypat#1952 said:
Quit changinge PVE elements because the PVP people complain about something, I play all classes and am sick of that HAMSTER. Keep all classes stronger for PVE. Tired of the 1% (pvp) players bitchin and the dumb developers changing stuff based on what they want.

Bro, you serious? Ever since the game launched PvP players gave cryptic the most money lmao.
Any other PvPer will agree with me as well. Do you know how many times we have to change builds because of the devs always class balancing? As a PvE player you don't have to touch HAMSTER but respec. Brutals/Azures never changed in the PvE aspect, while we changed from a variation of Enchantments, Mounts, Set bonuses, etc. You have no idea what you are talking about.

guille23mx · April 2017

We need more Stealth Thx

arcanjo86 · April 2017

has any thought on when activating stealth it would give missing crit chance to get player to 100% crit chance, and if player has 100% crit chance give+10% party damge buff(could also be a Party CA damage buff) or +5%/+10% Crit severity intead?

trgluestickz · April 2017

@whitespicyrice

@deathdealersera

I would like to request you two to ask any good TRs be it PVE or PVP you know to come to this thread. I'd do it myself but I have a 24 hour chat ban for advertising the link to this thread in game, it said I had been flagged so I'm guessing someone got cranky with me. You two also probably have more connections than I do.

trgluestickz · April 2017

itsthexypat#1952 said:
Quit changinge PVE elements because the PVP people complain about something, I play all classes and am sick of that HAMSTER. Keep all classes stronger for PVE. Tired of the 1% (pvp) players bitchin and the dumb developers changing stuff based on what they want.

whitespicyrice said:

itsthexypat#1952 said:
Quit changinge PVE elements because the PVP people complain about something, I play all classes and am sick of that HAMSTER. Keep all classes stronger for PVE. Tired of the 1% (pvp) players bitchin and the dumb developers changing stuff based on what they want.
Bro, you serious? Ever since the game launched PvP players gave cryptic the most money lmao.
Any other PvPer will agree with me as well. Do you know how many times we have to change builds because of the devs always class balancing? As a PvE player you don't have to touch HAMSTER but respec. Brutals/Azures never changed in the PvE aspect, while we changed from a variation of Enchantments, Mounts, Set bonuses, etc. You have no idea what you are talking about.

There are grains of truth in both of your points though neither of these are the whole picture.

Neither of you are doing yourselves any favors here by pointing fingers regardless of how true your points are. I don't want to see this thread turn into a fight and get shut down and stuff like this adds to the already tense relations between PVE and PVP players.

I wish the developers would just create 2 versions of every power in the game, one for pvp and one for pve. Then whenever something needs to be adjusted, they could just adjust one version without negativly impacting the other one. Would make the dev's jobs much easier going fowards and make all their players happy too.

mousebreaker85 · April 2017

Pvp players spending more money? Yeah I kinda doubt that ..
maybe once upon a time but really pvp is dead now ..
I love pvp and in wow the 3500+ bracket rocked .DCUowas fun too
But pvp here is just way too much of a hassle to switch gears and remove and place enchants,switch mount powers and respect feats,boons and skills.
As far as powers there is no need to have 2 types they just really need to adjust damage scaling in pvp and PVE
They need either a rework on tenacity in which a 400k hit in PVE would be 40k in pvp they started out good with the tenacity then fell short or never finished ,or they need to compensate for the increased damage by adjusting hitpoints in pvp gear.
Where things went astray was when they gave mobs 1 billion hit points and scaled damage for it but left players hit points the same it threw pvp all out of whack.i think loadouts will help a lot of players so they can keep the max PVE build and have a decent pvp build also .
But don't wanna get into pvp as that's a whole nother can of worms .
But as far as SE I don't see why they can't be readjusted as no decent TR would ever use it in PVE anyway.

But seeing some great ideas here keep em coming and help us rogues out.

demonmonger · April 2017

1 smoke bomb doesn't cover the entire node. Smoke bomb does not need a nerf.

Most of pvp revolves around control and massive power strikes or control prevention deflection and lifesteal then movement speed.

Most of pve revolves around not being hit by cc or massive one shot aoe hits, and controlling when you can, plus tank aggro in the right place with proper support. Other than that it's all dps dps dps.

I would agree that many people invested much in their pvp and pve characters.
The main reason I bought enchantments was for pvp, but the same ones also help much in pve. (Radiant and darks)

trgluestickz · April 2017

mousebreaker85#4641 said:
Pvp players spending more money? Yeah I kinda doubt that ..

maybe once upon a time but really pvp is dead now ..

I love pvp and in wow the 3500+ bracket rocked .DCUowas fun too

But pvp here is just way too much of a hassle to switch gears and remove and place enchants,switch mount powers and respect feats,boons and skills.

As far as powers there is no need to have 2 types they just really need to adjust damage scaling in pvp and PVE

They need either a rework on tenacity in which a 400k hit in PVE would be 40k in pvp they started out good with the tenacity then fell short or never finished ,or they need to compensate for the increased damage by adjusting hitpoints in pvp gear.

Where things went astray was when they gave mobs 1 billion hit points and scaled damage for it but left players hit points the same it threw pvp all out of whack.i think loadouts will help a lot of players so they can keep the max PVE build and have a decent pvp build also .

But don't wanna get into pvp as that's a whole nother can of worms .

But as far as SE I don't see why they can't be readjusted as no decent TR would ever use it in PVE anyway.

But seeing some great ideas here keep em coming and help us rogues out.

Adjusting the damage scaling for PVP vs PVE would not be enough by itself though it might be one way to help. Many powers have other effects besides damage and need to have their effects adjusted in one gameplay type but not the other. For example, CB in PVE is perfectly fine as is but in PVP, its too strong. Some of the TR's other control powers already work differently in PVP than they do in PVE. The best case scenario would be the devs expanding this seperation to all powers in the game. That does not mean every single power needs to have different effects in PVP but there should still be a seperate copy of all powers in existance as a percaution. Many of them are currently fine but could become a problem in the future if they are ever buffed/reworked or if a new build is invented that finds a way to make a power too strong.

I have never seen a statistical breakdown of which players in this game pay the most and have often wondered if the rumor that PVPers give cryptic the most money is even true. It may very well be that was the case in the past but that may not be true anymore. Even if PVPers do individually pay more on average than PVE players, there is so few of them now that the combined amount of money raised from all PVEers probably dwarfs the total amount of money raised from all PVPers.

Another thing for everyone to consider is that if PVPers really do have a bigger voice than PVEers do, why is it that most modules release only PVE content and PVP is almost never updated? When PVP is thrown a bone it is always more of a side dish rather than being the primary content released in an expansion. It kinda makes you wonder about these assumed truths so many players spout.

That said, lets try to steer this thread back to primarily stuff that has to do with just the TR, this thread is starting to get off topic as we are getting too much into gamewide problems.

ravenskya · April 2017

PS4 WK here... So I don't have the experience that some of the others on here have. I do have a guild full of people with alts of all types and most of them have TR's. We have me on the WK, several MI Exec, one pure PvP, and at least two MI Sabo (perma-stealth) builds. Our alliance is also packed with TR's though only a handful get to participate in end game.

I haven't even bothered going into FBI on my WK... It's unlocked, I have everything - I just don't see the point.

WK needs help - a lot of it. I'm not a computer person so I don't get into percentages. I came from the DnD world, I was a DM and a player for years (2ed is still my fav) and I was always a rogue. It took me a long time in this game to realize that this isn't a DnD rogue. I'm not sure what it is, but it's not a DnD rogue - the HR is closer to the rogue than the TR is.

What does the WK need? HELP. I'm currently running a DOT/Bleed build that I've kind of made up on my own after learning that the Exec doesn't work as well on the WK as it does on the MI. I'm going to respec again to move a few feat points to continue my attempt at building a ranged DOT character. My issue is that a DOT build doesn't help if you run with ANY OTHER DPS because everything is dead before your bleed does anything.

In DnD the rogue is the boss killer, the one who gimps the big guy to prevent them from unleashing unholy hell on your group. The TR goes in FIRST in stealth to gimp the scariest thing in the room then the tank and your crew run in and start the battle. That doesn't work in this game because none of my stuns, dazes, slows, work on bosses. The only thing I have is bleeds. So we are essentially a glass cannon without gunpowder.

Off the Top of my head - and these might be completely insane since I don't know computers. But what I would like to see
WK
-Disheartening strike shouldn't take you out of stealth and could use a damage buff
-Increase the % on Distracting Knife to 2/4/6/8/10
-Cloud of Steel - increase to base damage and make it a cone or AOE (idea I heard from a friend)
-increase the buff on Dagger Threat
-Hateful Knives - since most bosses won't go prone, make it a "hold" boss can still attack but can't move for X sec, OR make it a debuff, decrease outgoing damage by X%
-Swap out First Strike on WK for something that on a successful deflect does % damage back to an NPC attacker.

Those are off the top of my head and probably need more thinking through

trgluestickz · April 2017

ravenskya said:
PS4 WK here... So I don't have the experience that some of the others on here have. I do have a guild full of people with alts of all types and most of them have TR's. We have me on the WK, several MI Exec, one pure PvP, and at least two MI Sabo (perma-stealth) builds. Our alliance is also packed with TR's though only a handful get to participate in end game.

I haven't even bothered going into FBI on my WK... It's unlocked, I have everything - I just don't see the point.

WK needs help - a lot of it. I'm not a computer person so I don't get into percentages. I came from the DnD world, I was a DM and a player for years (2ed is still my fav) and I was always a rogue. It took me a long time in this game to realize that this isn't a DnD rogue. I'm not sure what it is, but it's not a DnD rogue - the HR is closer to the rogue than the TR is.

What does the WK need? HELP. I'm currently running a DOT/Bleed build that I've kind of made up on my own after learning that the Exec doesn't work as well on the WK as it does on the MI. I'm going to respec again to move a few feat points to continue my attempt at building a ranged DOT character. My issue is that a DOT build doesn't help if you run with ANY OTHER DPS because everything is dead before your bleed does anything.

In DnD the rogue is the boss killer, the one who gimps the big guy to prevent them from unleashing unholy hell on your group. The TR goes in FIRST in stealth to gimp the scariest thing in the room then the tank and your crew run in and start the battle. That doesn't work in this game because none of my stuns, dazes, slows, work on bosses. The only thing I have is bleeds. So we are essentially a glass cannon without gunpowder.

Off the Top of my head - and these might be completely insane since I don't know computers. But what I would like to see
WK
-Disheartening strike shouldn't take you out of stealth and could use a damage buff
-Increase the % on Distracting Knife to 2/4/6/8/10
-Cloud of Steel - increase to base damage and make it a cone or AOE (idea I heard from a friend)
-increase the buff on Dagger Threat
-Hateful Knives - since most bosses won't go prone, make it a "hold" boss can still attack but can't move for X sec, OR make it a debuff, decrease outgoing damage by X%
-Swap out First Strike on WK for something that on a successful deflect does % damage back to an NPC attacker.

Those are off the top of my head and probably need more thinking through

Your cloud of steel sugestion is intriguing. I don't want cloud of steel to be made AOE but making it a narrow cone is a great idea. It should still require a target to use and the main target should take the most damage, enemies standing in range of the cone should take less damage. If this is done, its range and fireing speed should stay the same.

At the time I wrote my post on power sugestions, I had refrained from sugesting a buff to cloud of steel damage thinking that other buffs to TR damage would end up making it so cloud of steel wouldn't need its damage directly increased. After giving it a second thought, it may still end up needing a damage increase of some kind, I'm not sure exactly how much it should get. Currently in both PVE and PVP, cloud of steel is a little watered down. Its used in PVE primarily by people who want at least some kind of ranged attack to fall back on or who want to finish off weak monsters when soloing. In PVP, its used durring moments when it is unsafe to approach your target, to heal yourself some if you have lifesteal, or for finishing off squishy targets at low health. Against most BIS targets, cloud of steel is more like cloud of toothpicks and only really good for making yourself feel better when you are too far away to hit them with something stronger.

I don't know a ton about whisperknife's specific issues so I have little to say about what needs to be done to improve it. I agree that it is dragging behind master infiltrator by quite a bit and needs to be caught up.

lordseth1985 · April 2017

The biggest issue is: both WK and MI can do a lot of damage, but in different ways. While MI do direct damage, Wk do it by debuffing and weakening enemies and using dots. But now, the difference in dmg is so enormous that we rarely see any WK. I myself played it a lot when they release the path and played until the so called "class rework", when WK was rendered useless compared to MI.

The change on Cloud of Steel should be "reverted" to what it was before the class rework: high dmg, but it was a "charge" att will, and if I remember, it has 10 charges, with 5 sec recharge. This should solve [or at least minimize] our lack of dmg and make WK builds more ranged.

trgluestickz · April 2017

lordseth1985 said:
The biggest issue is: both WK and MI can do a lot of damage, but in different ways. While MI do direct damage, Wk do it by debuffing and weakening enemies and using dots. But now, the difference in dmg is so enormous that we rarely see any WK. I myself played it a lot when they release the path and played until the so called "class rework", when WK was rendered useless compared to MI.

The change on Cloud of Steel should be "reverted" to what it was before the class rework: high dmg, but it was a "charge" att will, and if I remember, it has 10 charges, with 5 sec recharge. This should solve [or at least minimize] our lack of dmg and make WK builds more ranged.

Is there a resource that lists all of the old ways TR powers and feats used to work? I was still running around in green gear and rank 4's pre mod 6 and did not read my tooltips thoroughly back then. I'd like to read through it and see what else would be a good idea to bring back or take inspiration from.

I remember a lot of people on the forums in the past saying they wanted Cloud of Steel reverted back to the way it was, good thinking. Even better, what if we combined both ideas from this thread:
Toss a barrage of blades at your target. This attack is a narrow cone with a range of 60 feet. The primary target takes full damage from this power and other foes caught in the cone take half damage. This power has 10 charges and goes on cooldown for 5 secs after all 10 charges are consumed.

ravenskya · April 2017

I'm not sure if I like the idea of an at-will having a cool down since that goes against the idea of an "at will" but perhaps to keep it from being OP slow it down a bit. The key is the WK needs to be primarily ranged- so we have DS but we need at will that works equally as well as DF so that we can take DF off of our bar and still have that damage. Currently most of a TR's damage comes from at wills, and all of the damaging encounters are up close and personal. Which is why the WK suffers- we are meant to be ranged but have to play up close to do damage and we don't have the up close bonuses that the MI's have.

trgluestickz · April 2017

ravenskya said:
I'm not sure if I like the idea of an at-will having a cool down since that goes against the idea of an "at will" but perhaps to keep it from being OP slow it down a bit. The key is the WK needs to be primarily ranged- so we have DS but we need at will that works equally as well as DF so that we can take DF off of our bar and still have that damage. Currently most of a TR's damage comes from at wills, and all of the damaging encounters are up close and personal. Which is why the WK suffers- we are meant to be ranged but have to play up close to do damage and we don't have the up close bonuses that the MI's have.

I am vehemently against slowing down cloud of steel, the speed makes it easy to use and is a huge part of what makes it good. Its also a nice contrast to our other ranged attacks as every other ranged attack we have is slower. In the case of WKs, they are more ranged focused, if they don't have any fast attacks that are ranged that puts them at a disadvantage compared to the MI. This is especially true in PVE where TRs already have problems with attacks being too slow because everything tends to die before their best damage kicks in. MIs also use cloud of steel and it would not be benificial to make it slower for them either though they would be hit less hard.

You say WK needs a ranged at will that is as good as DF. WKs aren't required to go pure ranged but they do need to be given the option to be ranged for both at wills and not lose out. Disheartening strike needs some work done on it to fill this role.

It is atypical for an at will attack to have a cooldown but if anything, its even weirder to be able to fire unlimited throwing daggers at a target like you can right now with COS. Another option would be to make it so cloud of steel both gets a significant increase to damage and continues to have no cooldown though this is treading dangerous ground as it could become OP. I find myself more in favor of giving it a cooldown after you consume all 10 charges since its a fair con for giving it the damage that it needs and it worked well in the past.

lordseth1985 · April 2017

Other solution to Cloud of Steel: make it create a dot or smth like that, with 10 stacks. With each new stack, the dmg is increased by, idk... maybe 2,5%? So it makes a good at will for both MI and WK, and when reach the 10 stacks, it refreshes, dealing X dmg to target and anything nearby it in 10'? or debuff the target, reducing armor resistance and speed.

Trickster Rogue Class Balance Suggestions

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