Powers interact inconsistently with OwtS, some exit stealth first, others don't. When stealth is not left and re-entered Shady Preparations does not proc.
Certain powers consistently break stealth before refilling the stealth bar:
Dazing Strike
Deft Strike
Vengence's Pursuit (* see note below)
Certain powers consistently don't break stealth before refilling the bar
Lashing Blade
Blitz
Wicked Reminder
Other inconsistently either break or do not break it
Impact Shot
Additionally it seems if you proc OwtS and take damage simultaneously the stealth bar will not completely refill.
Some consume OwtS when they really shouldn't
Shadow Strike
The remaining powers correctly do not consume OwtS (or proc it's effect) as they do no damage
Bait and Switch
Impossible to Catch
Smoke Bomb
There is one outlier I can't decide what should happen with as it doesn't do damage on activation.
Path of the Blade
Currently this does not proc OwtS and breaks stealth (as you'd expect) subsequent damage from the power does not proc OwtS either. What should it do?
Suggestion - leave it as is now.
N.B. When a power does not consume OwtS it is available for the next Encounter to proc it as expected.
Vengence's Pursuit
OK I've ran the same tests for WK now and VP seems to be another outlier.
The dagger throw 'mark' consumes and procs OwtS. I can understand why - it does damage after all, however, the mark of VP doesn't break stealth. Because of this it is very difficult to use the follow up to consume OwtS.
Suggestion - VP mark should not consume OwtS, the follow up should however.
I noticed this as well. We have 60+ pages on this thread and still no replies, updates or implementation of our feedbacks, where are the devs? We are testing everything for them and even one bug is not resolved yet.
Maybe it's just me but, I was able to consistently repeat this on one toon through repeated respecs.
If I have 5 pts in Shadowy Opportunity but 0 pts in Ambusher's Haste, ShadOpp always does 0 damage.
If I add 5 pts to AmbHaste I get damage from ShadOpp as expected
I noticed this as well. We have 60+ pages on this thread and still no replies, updates or implementation of our feedbacks, where are the devs? We are testing everything for them and even one bug is not resolved yet.
This is like the fifth time I've told people in this thread. Devs don't directly engage in any conversations in Feedbacks.
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.'
which is pathetic considering how much money they make from microtransactions
There's nothing pathetic about it.
It is simply a rule which is often observed -- sometimes even enforced by management -- amongs game developer companies. In many established game forums the developers will always be extremely careful with engaging in open discussion because due to how these forums work, whatever they say is more than likely to be misinterpreted, misquoted, warped, twisted, and cause nothing but trouble.
It's mostly small, independant developers, or amateuer groups you see where the developers dwell into conversations directly with the player groups, and the lord knows how many troubles and shi*storms have been caused by a slip of the tongue.
Believe it or not, all of them are under certain protocols they must abide. This may be all fun and games for us, but for them, its their job. Just because we don't really know, or understand about it, does not give us the right to be so disrespectful and degrading to them.
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.'
So I look at the Dev Tracker today. I see more DC changes enumerated by gentlemancrush in their thread. I see a bug responded to in the other balance changes thread. I see a couple of posts in the new SW PP thread responding to an issue with something there both yesterday and last Friday. I see... Absolutely nothing here. For over two weeks.
I have a motivation to test... Why? No changes last patch. Not even fixes to the well-documented bugs. Still not even acknowledgment of the bugs. I test anyway, at least what I can without being able to really get dungeon groups together on preview since I play at bad times when few people are on. I post when I actually have something to add. But it's depressing.
Anyway:
So, here's the thing for me that's not a specific thing on any one change, that really makes the changes meh for me: It's not fun for me. It removes the playstyle I enjoy from the game.
So, MI Executioner, at least, was actually in a somewhat decent place on live. It's the build I've been using since beta. The damage was lacking after all the nerfs, of course, but hey, that can be adjusted, right? Sab and Scoundrel can get some reworks and we'll be OK. Well, nope, that wasn't what we got. We got the existing paths thrown out and replaced.
So, the Duelist's Flurry obsession kweassa likes to question, while also noting the lack of MI DoT, is because of exactly that - Executioner had a very high synergy with DF, and it worked well because of exactly that. It was MI's DoT, and, despite its slow startup and rooting, worth the difficulty of using it effectively, worth the learning curve, and worth its issues because of all the synergy to it: MI Executioner's cornerstone, at least for PvE, was in fact the use of Duelist's Flurry.
So why was DF so good on Executioner before, and why are those who use it so upset now? Well, we'll have to look at live for a moment, at what we have now.
So, DF is a power that hits several times just on its own. A couple of slow windup strikes, and then a third with several hits that locks onto and follows a mob and provides a little tiny bit of protection while using it, but you can still easily be knocked out of it, or forced to dodge out of it. It's far from a brainless skill. It's best used from stealth for the sake of both stealth effects and for the sake of just plain not getting pounded out of it. Using it properly involves good positioning, good timing, knowing when you're about to eat an AoE, knowing how long your stealth meter is going to last and what you can do after you finish it.
So OK, that's nice and all, but why care, what's so good? Well, here's where we turn to the other part of the power and the DoT issue, and the specific vagaries of PvE.
So, TR cooldowns are long. They are obscenely, inexcusably long for the pitiful amount of damage most of our powers do in PvE. Whoopty, with enough buff/debuff going on I can slap out a 225k Lashing Blade with only 6585 base Power on live and with Improved Cunning Sneak instead of Disciple of Strength. OK, that's cute, but in a more normal party composition it's more like 40-50k. GWF can easily get bigger Indomitable Battle Strike more consistently with a much shorter cooldown and it can hit more than one target. So our encounter powers are often left to utility for PvE because, well, they're just not that damaging and it's not worth the huge cooldown overall. One of the better bar setups, certainly for bosses and even for dungeon clearing, is Shadow Strike/ItC/Wicked Reminder.
So we're sure as heck not getting consistent damage on live out of our encounters as a baseline. And most of it's all melee, which we can't maintain that well with large amounts of AoE or adds or whatever since stealth does absolutely nothing for AoE no matter how long you can successfully remain in it. If you don't want to get splatted or kill the GF through proccing KV constantly, you need to get the hell out of the red.
So it's a good thing there's a great, easy way to get a nice DoT going on those bosses, isn't there? The other part of Duelist's Flurry, the real part of it where most of its and your damage come in, the thing that makes the sustained DPS we need and have long relied on for bosses, the thing that keeps ticking away even when we're dodging away: The bleed effect. Slap up those bleed stacks. Keep them going. You can stop for a bit safely to let a particularly nice stack go without reapplying, or just because you have to do something else like dodge or throw Wicked Reminder. Actually, the cooldown of Wicked Reminder and the length of Duelist's Flurry mesh pretty much exactly, so you can keep WR stacks up pretty easily by just alternating DF and WR hits and re-stealthing with Shadow Strike.
So DF is an at-will, so it's always up and always ready. You can throw Cloud of Steel in during avoiding boss AoE, even as an MI, and I personally do, but most of the TRs I know keep Sly Flourish as their second at-will and can't figure out why I like CoS(Even as I can't figure out why they like SF, but hey). So they aren't doing that during dodge-outs... Nope, they're just leaving DF bleed running. The MI's DoT power. Yeah, WK gets it too, but it's what MI uses.
Parse a live MI Exe PvE TR and you'll generally get 30-40% of their damage coming from Duelist's Flurry bleeds. Yes, that much. It's THAT good. It's THAT important a part of the path. So why is it doing so well? Well, remember when I said there was synergy with the path? Yeah. Let's go into that.
So the first feat I've got there, and the first bit of synergy with DF, is Dazzling Blades, often dismissed as that meh feat you might as well take because you have to take something. It's not meh. Not at all. Do you think the T1 Sab cooldown feat in the changes is good? Dazzling Blades was better. Why? Because DF hits a lot, and you're almost always using it. So even with that 5% proc chance, it's proccing several times during your cooldowns. 3-5 times on average in my experience. Shorter cooldowns means that whatever encounters you're using other than Wicked Reminder, they're better now. Shadow Strike? You're re-stealthing faster. ItC? That's up faster. Lashing Blade because let's face it those giant numbers are awesome? Yep, that too. Whatever you were using anyway, you're using it more.
I'll admit that none of your potential choices to move to Tier 3 feats is exciting. I took Cruelty's Reward because I don't use SE, and in PvE on live you're not landing kills much anyway and I don't have that much trouble building AP so eh. It could go either way. When you get there though I've got both T3s.
Brutal Backstab means those crits you're getting in stealth are better. This helps DF be better and also helps your stealthed Lashing Blade be better if you're running that. 25% is a Normal Vorpal enchant's worth of crit sev in stealth. Critical Teamwork is less exciting, but you'll easy reach a 50% crit chance on live with it, and buff your teammates at the same time. "I wish I had a lower crit chance," said no one, ever.
Then we get to Deadly Momentum. This is the one feat that specifically calls up DF, but it's awesome. 15% crit severity in stealth is worth dipping Executioner in the changes. Deadly Momentum was 15% crit severity in or out of stealth. Overrun Critical is quite nice too with the 50% crit rate.
So the path as it is on live jives beautifully with Duelist's Flurry. Not seen in feats but also a good synergy is the most common PvE armor set, Swashbuckling Captain, which gives you a bit over 1k Power and Recovery each while the bonus is up. The bonus comes in stacks that don't last long and have a chance to apply. Guess what hits a lot and hits often. Right, DF. It builds those up fast and it keeps them up.
So Exe doesn't need to be constantly in stealth on live. It helps, it's really nice, but it's not required. I often run Dazing Strike/ItC/Lashing when I'm not doing eLOL and sometimes even then, which has no stealth refill, and it still works nicely. Enough aggro off you and you actually can regen stealth in combat. Depends on your party. But you're still getting a lot that doesn't rely on stealth out of the path, so you don't feel the need to be in it all the time or else.
So *this* is the source of the DF obsession. This is why I personally am grumpy about the changes, especially to Executioner.
All that nice synergy is gone. Now, GC is the only thing that really has synergy as an at-will for a MI. With the buff and the Sab feat it ends up being better in general than DF. It's still slow, and there's no DoT, but it also doesn't root you and nobody ever managed to die when a CW/GF/whatever threw a mob your were GCing, nor does it put you in the wall or the ceiling, which are all issues DF's had since closed beta.
So now DF is this slow cranky power with no synergy and our damage has been shifted to stealth GC and encounters. Executioner doesn't even remotely resemble what it used to be and needs serious, serious help when it honestly could and SHOULD have been mostly left alone - After all the nerfs it was still hurting, but needed merely adjustment, not being deleted. It worked. It worked well. There were obvious rotations and synergies and it was a nice sustained DPS path that was good at what it did. TRs with better gear than me are able to put it to fantastic use. Even with lower gear it's still very viable at what it's excellent at, which is sustained boss damage.
However, these changes gut that and remove it from the game. Saboteur is a workable path, yes. It's OK. There's synergy enough to it. But it's still cranky and iffy and I find myself getting very little out of the cooldown reduction running around with Blitz and Dazing - Neither of them are that long a cooldown to begin with, thankfully, and come out of cooldown before Shadow Strike does so it doesn't really come up much. Blitz to proc One With The Shadows into Dazing is great, sure. I've been told people have had luck with getting Wicked Reminder to proc Return To Shadows even from the front in solo play, so I'll have to try that out, but that almost smacks of exploit and certainly isn't WAI.
So here's the thing. I'm not enjoying it. None of things I've tried really gets me going. I'll learn it. I'll play it, probably. An endless ridiculous stream of nerfs didn't drive me away. I like to think this won't. But there's one thing the nerfs never really took away from me: The playstyle I've enjoyed and loved using the entire history of the game. You adjusted. You compensated. But you never had it completely destroyed.
The changes manage what a year and a half of nerfs didn't: My playstyle I enjoy no longer exists. I'm glad I didn't get a Dex belt now that DEX is HAMSTER. I'm glad I didn't bother to even get my DF artifact weapon to Purple. I am playing a different class now on preview. I am not playing what I've loved the entire time.
At-wills draining Stealth makes DF harder to use and not worth it. Whereas I can use GC half the day if I want. Even if DF didn't drain stealth(At least make the flurry part only count as one hit for stealth drain, if it can't go away in PvE like it should), the synergies it had in Executioner are gone.
You've successfully managed to perform the joke that's been made for a year and a half about nerfs leading towards 'just removing the class from the game'.
In the context of the path I've loved, you've done that. You have removed my class from the game. You haven't even really given us that much of a buff, since our sustained boss damage is way down. My live TR kills individual things way faster than my preview TR. Because of sustained damage. Which we don't have now. So... From my viewpoint, the class has gained nothing except to function as a semi-perma bad CW. The AoE is nice, sure. But I want my class back. I know I won't get it. But I want it.
If anything, at all, ever blasts me off TR, it will eventually be this. I like my class. I like my playstyle. I enjoy using my TR, even if he isn't up to par. But I enjoy him as he is. I do not enjoy the changes.
This is the biggest, gravest sin in the changes to me. If I want to be an AoE nuker, I have a CW. She's not on par with my TR, but that's because I haven't used her regularly since Mod 3 hit and I've been playing my TR pretty much exclusively. Until these changes. When I dusted her off, and started working on her again. It's amazing how fast you can get artifacts to purple. It's amazing how easy it is to mail around enchants. She's already done with ToD except for getting her artifact weapon and the last two boons. Almost done with IWD. She'll do her last three Sharandar boons next.
'Cause if I'm gonna have to 'adjust' by being an AoE class, sorry, but CW still does that way better than TR ever will, and it does it in a way that's a lot more fun and rewarding. And CW's three teleports at least actually work, unlike the three dodges TR is supposed to have.
The changes have a long, long way to go, devs. I pray to Corellon that you're actually listening, and you just haven't said anything or done anything because you're figuring out how to make it awesome.
So, here's the thing for me that's not a specific thing on any one change, that really makes the changes meh for me: It's not fun for me. It removes the playstyle I enjoy from the game.
You've successfully managed to perform the joke that's been made for a year and a half about nerfs leading towards 'just removing the class from the game'.
I really need to agree. Haven't tested extensively, true... but still I checked the changes and experimented a bit on preview. I am here to play the game not develop it. I have chosen TR as my very first toon and have played it through all the nerfs and hard times because I enjoyed the playstyle immensely. But now, it seems all this investment in time and gear can be thrown out because the class is totally changed. I'll just use the remaining time on live to have some fun. Will I still play after the changes hit live? I dunno, probably yes...but if the fun is gone what's the point?
Feedback
Spec: All paths
General observations on At Wills
At wills drain stealth too quickly.
I accept that they will be draining stealth when used but the amount should be scaled back
Animations are too long.
Now their usage from stealth is limited the animation speed (and vulnerability this creates) feels too long.
The non paragon at wills feel too weak
A couple of more specific comments
Cloud of Steel - CoS needs some love, it's DPS is terrible.
I imagine the 'dials' we have to play with would be: Stealth depletion rate, Number of charges, Recharge speed, Base damage, Stacking effect, Secondary effects
I would suggest that at least 2 of these dials need to be turned up. Turn up more of them and other dials will need to be turned down.
e.g. No longer depletes stealth, Base damage increased, Charges reduced to 4
or Infinite charges (buffs to charges and recharge rate), stacking effect removed
Gloaming Cut
The nerf to other at-wills has really made GC stand out and shine again. To the point where it far out-performs all other at-wills. Also, it seems to have retained the 'refill 20% of your stealth when you deal a killing blow' - intentional or not?
Disheartening Strike
After the aberration that was the first incarnation in preview, the current state of DisH is pretty good. It's a little too easy to cancel out of casting accidentally (it has a long animation) but the DPS is solid and it's utility good.
FEEDBACK: another possible solution to at will awfulness and survivability out of stealth
we are the only class without a "mechanic" (i m mean stacks for CW, roots for HR etc).
what about something like:
every time you strike with an at will *out of stealth* you gain 1% deflect 1% damage resistance, this effect stacks up to 5 times and last 10 seconds.
cloud of steel is no longer spammable in stealth, consider to overhaul it.
and please please give a dot to smoke bomb. It's a poison cloud after all.
the only dot the class have is d.strike and its not even avialable for MI....
topynokattivoMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12Arc User
edited October 2014
Feedback - MI Executioner
- Stealth: I totally agree with stealth depletion with at-wills, but now stealth should recharge more steadily (suggestion: faster recharge when in combat advantage)
- Shadow Strike: this encounter is now almost mandatory, dmg is very low and spending power points on it should give more benefits (suggestion: +50% dmg per rank, or a movement speed buff for 1-2 seconds)
- Duelist's Flurry: seems far less useful now, will be used mainly out of stealth for the bleed, would be good to have the speed of the first two strikes a bit increased
- Dodge: third dodge is great! Dodge distance should not be changed though. Dodging farther means worse PVE performance IMO.
- Shadow of the Demise: hard to manage when hitting multiple targets with the first attack. Might affect the farthest or the weakest enemy with no possible control. Someone earlier in the thread suggested to allow activation for multiple targets, account for damage to all targets affected and then divide cumulative damage by number of targets affected to determine SotD damage on each target. Seems to me a clever idea, would make this feat really consistent.
Hey all, we are making some pretty big changes to at wills to make them feel better overall since they are much more difficult to use from stealth. We wanted each of them to fill a unique role in your kit and we have differentiated them more strongly to reflect that.
Cloud of Steel: This power no longer has charges and activates slightly slower.
Cloud of Steel: This power now deals 10% more damage.
Duelist's Flurry: This power now activates faster.
Duelist's Flurry: The bleed from Duelist's flurry now deals 20% more damage.
Sly Flourish: The damage on this power now better reflects the activate time of each hit. The damage of the second, third, and final hits have all been increased.
Sly Flourish: The final hit of this combo now applies Broken Armor for 6 seconds. Broken Armor causes targets to take 5% more damage from all sources.
Gloaming Cut: Base damage of this power has been reduced by roughly 15%.
Additionally we have made a couple bug fixes and QoL changes as well.
Concussive Strikes: This feat will no longer daze the rogue in rare cases.
One with the Shadows: Can no longer be wasted by triggering from Shadow Strike.
Dodge: Dodging now correctly costs 30 stamina. It also is no longer unlimited while Stealthed.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
That would be a nerf. Shadow strike is supposed to refill already while vp not.
VPs mark does not break stealth though. It will make the interplay between VP and OwtS very odd otherwise compared to other powers.
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2014
While I think Cloud of Steel no longer having charges is nice for PvE, making it deal more damage is something I personally feel would fit better as part of a Whisperknife feat/feature, to make that Paragon more attractive compared to Master Infiltrator.
It would also fit with its design.
What is the %damage increase on Sly Flourish?
I also feel that Whisperknife's Disheartening Strike applies a bit too slowly. At the very least, could you make the dagger fly faster after being released so we don't have to stand still/not use any other powers after releasing the dagger but before it hitting the target?
Currently, if you use a power after releasing the dagger but before it hits its target, the dagger is cancelled
Hey all, we are making some pretty big changes to at wills to make them feel better overall since they are much more difficult to use from stealth. We wanted each of them to fill a unique role in your kit and we have differentiated them more strongly to reflect that.
Cloud of Steel: This power no longer has charges and activates slightly slower.
Cloud of Steel: This power now deals 10% more damage.
Duelist's Flurry: This power now activates faster.
Duelist's Flurry: The bleed from Duelist's flurry now deals 20% more damage.
Sly Flourish: The damage on this power now better reflects the activate time of each hit. The damage of the second, third, and final hits have all been increased.
Sly Flourish: The final hit of this combo now applies Broken Armor for 6 seconds. Broken Armor causes targets to take 5% more damage from all sources.
Gloaming Cut: Base damage of this power has been reduced by roughly 15%.
Additionally we have made a couple bug fixes and QoL changes as well.
Concussive Strikes: This feat will no longer daze the rogue in rare cases.
One with the Shadows: Can no longer be wasted by triggering from Shadow Strike.
Dodge: Dodging now correctly costs 30 stamina. It also is no longer unlimited while Stealthed.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Absolutely superb. Really looking forward to testing these changes.
That CoS change might be OP on a WK Scoundrel, mind.
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited October 2014
It should be interesting to see how these feel in play. That might address a lot of concerns.
I'm not sure how the increased damage-per-hit from stacking CoS interacts with infinite supply, but I suppose standing and throwing knives forever without breaking off for another action is a rare circumstance. Not running out of charges and standing around like a git waiting for cooldowns will be a nice change for 100% ranged WKs.
Really like the look of the change to Sly Flourish. It needed *something*. (Clarify: all sources from the TR or allies too? Everyone loves party debuffs.)
On the subject of Flurry, will have to try the changes. One suggestion that has been proposed is to make the actual flurry of attacks portion count as one hit rather than 10 for purposes of stealth drain, but I suspect there would be under-the-hood problems with that. With an attack like Disheartening Strike, if the initial strike crits, all the DoT crits, because it counts as a single attack. If DF counted as a single attack, you'd probably likewise be locked into an all-or-nothing crit, with every blow and every bleed. This would mean that activated from stealth it would be too strong because every bit of damage applied would be a crit, but outside of stealth the total damage would be entirely dependent on a single roll to crit rather than a series of them. So I don't think it works as a solution, and I'm also frustrated by not being able to get in a full DF rotation from stealth and follow up with an encounter, on builds where I was using that. Without some form of stealth-extension, it always was tricky to get in the full rotation because you couldn't waste so much as a microsecond on positioning or stealth would run out before you got the encounter off. It's not that I don't view it as problematic, just that I don't think this idea could be implemented well.
Feedback: at-wills I had some but it was rendered largely moot before I got it typed up. We'll see.
Feedback: stealth depletion TRs are always fighting the meter. I used to try to explain that at-will attacks didn't instantly break stealth like in other games because other games have stealth as a mode entered until an action breaks it entirely, or a detection check is made. Neverwinter doesn't have AI making detection checks (and makes detection somewhat hard on other players too), and stealth starts ticking down as soon as it's activated. Time spent getting into position is stealth wasted. Time spent chasing a target that moved away from you for any reason is stealth wasted. If you're a melee TR and you end up grouped with anyone who likes to throws mobs, you might as well give up if you can't get the message across that they should stop doing that.
You're fighting the meter a second time once stealth ends, to allow it to refill naturally. Ok, running Tenacious Concealment with the complementary artifact gear will address that, but people don't like being locked into no-choice powers. They don't like having to slot Shadow Strike to guarantee being able to return to stealth (or play Sab?). It's one thing to not be able to hang out in stealth all the time, but it's entirely another to have your tab skill essentially disabled unless you consent to lock into a very specific set of actions. So consider keeping stealth depletion from damage taken while it's active: AoE, bosses that see through stealth - which is an awful lot of them in newer content btw (what other class has bosses immune to their tab? so you get the damage buffs but your primary defense mechanism is nullified - it's like overcompensation based on people complaining that TRs can solo too easily), players who are able to accurately gauge where the TR is and act accordingly. But consider scaling back the mechanic where the TR loses stealth meter refills from taking damage while caught out of stealth, without Tenacious Concealment - to me, Tenacious Concealment describes a person already hidden being able to stay that way. If you're trying to get your meter refilled in combat, you are the opposite of concealed, and certainly not tenaciously.
Tiny ticks of DoT don't eat the GF's block anymore, and that's fair enough, right?
Bug: Bait and Switch dummy and threat I swear monsters used to aggro to the dummy. This gave the thing a slight danger factor because it would trigger casting of AoEs you might have otherwise avoided altogether, but also made it a useful tool for getting monsters to stay put, and for refilling AP as they beat on it. You can now mostly only refill your AP using B&S by dropping it into the line of major attacks that are already happening. It was also a safety net even cast out of stealth because monsters actually would attack it instead of you, with that little push back that it does. At some point this changed and monsters just ignore the dummy, and I have no clue if it was an intentional nerf or a bug whereby the thing used to generate threat of its own and lost that. But it became really limited in what you could do with it where I remember it once being a much more useful tool with some risk attached to it.
I like the at wills change, I think it's veyr nice, BUT I still see the most mentioned bugs/weaknesses haven't been adressed.
-stealth bar refill is completely dependant on not getting hurt at all, this needs to change already.
-bait and switch dummy doesn't aggro most powerful enemies, what's the use of a decoy if it doesn't do it's job?
I hope to see some changes conscerning that.
Gloaming Cut hits for around 15k, on "squishy" classes.
I write "squishy" like this because a CW/SW im not really squishy with 3k defense, 50k HP and 2k Regen.
Dazing insta stun from stealth, go out of stealth, shadow strike, dodge and right back to stealth. Then ofc back to gloamig cut rotation. + They have an extra encounter JUST in case it would be to hard, like impossible to catch.
It is absolutely impossible to kill rogues now. They are lashing out much much more damage now, from stealth, then they did earlier.
I thought the whole point with this change was that you wanted rogues to get out of stealth to do any harm/damage. Well its even worse now.
Dr. Phil
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
Hey all, we are making some pretty big changes to at wills to make them feel better overall since they are much more difficult to use from stealth. We wanted each of them to fill a unique role in your kit and we have differentiated them more strongly to reflect that.
Cloud of Steel: This power no longer has charges and activates slightly slower.
Cloud of Steel: This power now deals 10% more damage.
Duelist's Flurry: This power now activates faster.
Duelist's Flurry: The bleed from Duelist's flurry now deals 20% more damage.
Sly Flourish: The damage on this power now better reflects the activate time of each hit. The damage of the second, third, and final hits have all been increased.
Sly Flourish: The final hit of this combo now applies Broken Armor for 6 seconds. Broken Armor causes targets to take 5% more damage from all sources.
Gloaming Cut: Base damage of this power has been reduced by roughly 15%.
Additionally we have made a couple bug fixes and QoL changes as well.
Concussive Strikes: This feat will no longer daze the rogue in rare cases.
One with the Shadows: Can no longer be wasted by triggering from Shadow Strike. What about bait and switch? Can you give us immunity as we roll away when we drop our bait please?
Dodge: Dodging now correctly costs 30 stamina. It also is no longer unlimited while Stealthed.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Testing now!
Thanks Chris!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
Comments
I noticed this as well. We have 60+ pages on this thread and still no replies, updates or implementation of our feedbacks, where are the devs? We are testing everything for them and even one bug is not resolved yet.
Spec - WK Saboteur
Feat - Shadowy Opportunity
Maybe it's just me but, I was able to consistently repeat this on one toon through repeated respecs.
If I have 5 pts in Shadowy Opportunity but 0 pts in Ambusher's Haste, ShadOpp always does 0 damage.
If I add 5 pts to AmbHaste I get damage from ShadOpp as expected
This is like the fifth time I've told people in this thread. Devs don't directly engage in any conversations in Feedbacks.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
which is pathetic considering how much money they make from microtransactions
There's nothing pathetic about it.
It is simply a rule which is often observed -- sometimes even enforced by management -- amongs game developer companies. In many established game forums the developers will always be extremely careful with engaging in open discussion because due to how these forums work, whatever they say is more than likely to be misinterpreted, misquoted, warped, twisted, and cause nothing but trouble.
It's mostly small, independant developers, or amateuer groups you see where the developers dwell into conversations directly with the player groups, and the lord knows how many troubles and shi*storms have been caused by a slip of the tongue.
Believe it or not, all of them are under certain protocols they must abide. This may be all fun and games for us, but for them, its their job. Just because we don't really know, or understand about it, does not give us the right to be so disrespectful and degrading to them.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
theres pages upon pages of testing, feedback and ideas listed here that they can use so hopefully we see some of it go through
I have a motivation to test... Why?
Anyway:
So, here's the thing for me that's not a specific thing on any one change, that really makes the changes meh for me: It's not fun for me. It removes the playstyle I enjoy from the game.
So, MI Executioner, at least, was actually in a somewhat decent place on live. It's the build I've been using since beta. The damage was lacking after all the nerfs, of course, but hey, that can be adjusted, right? Sab and Scoundrel can get some reworks and we'll be OK. Well, nope, that wasn't what we got. We got the existing paths thrown out and replaced.
So, the Duelist's Flurry obsession kweassa likes to question, while also noting the lack of MI DoT, is because of exactly that - Executioner had a very high synergy with DF, and it worked well because of exactly that. It was MI's DoT, and, despite its slow startup and rooting, worth the difficulty of using it effectively, worth the learning curve, and worth its issues because of all the synergy to it: MI Executioner's cornerstone, at least for PvE, was in fact the use of Duelist's Flurry.
So why was DF so good on Executioner before, and why are those who use it so upset now? Well, we'll have to look at live for a moment, at what we have now.
So, DF is a power that hits several times just on its own. A couple of slow windup strikes, and then a third with several hits that locks onto and follows a mob and provides a little tiny bit of protection while using it, but you can still easily be knocked out of it, or forced to dodge out of it. It's far from a brainless skill. It's best used from stealth for the sake of both stealth effects and for the sake of just plain not getting pounded out of it. Using it properly involves good positioning, good timing, knowing when you're about to eat an AoE, knowing how long your stealth meter is going to last and what you can do after you finish it.
So OK, that's nice and all, but why care, what's so good? Well, here's where we turn to the other part of the power and the DoT issue, and the specific vagaries of PvE.
So, TR cooldowns are long. They are obscenely, inexcusably long for the pitiful amount of damage most of our powers do in PvE. Whoopty, with enough buff/debuff going on I can slap out a 225k Lashing Blade with only 6585 base Power on live and with Improved Cunning Sneak instead of Disciple of Strength. OK, that's cute, but in a more normal party composition it's more like 40-50k. GWF can easily get bigger Indomitable Battle Strike more consistently with a much shorter cooldown and it can hit more than one target. So our encounter powers are often left to utility for PvE because, well, they're just not that damaging and it's not worth the huge cooldown overall. One of the better bar setups, certainly for bosses and even for dungeon clearing, is Shadow Strike/ItC/Wicked Reminder.
So we're sure as heck not getting consistent damage on live out of our encounters as a baseline. And most of it's all melee, which we can't maintain that well with large amounts of AoE or adds or whatever since stealth does absolutely nothing for AoE no matter how long you can successfully remain in it. If you don't want to get splatted or kill the GF through proccing KV constantly, you need to get the hell out of the red.
So it's a good thing there's a great, easy way to get a nice DoT going on those bosses, isn't there? The other part of Duelist's Flurry, the real part of it where most of its and your damage come in, the thing that makes the sustained DPS we need and have long relied on for bosses, the thing that keeps ticking away even when we're dodging away: The bleed effect. Slap up those bleed stacks. Keep them going. You can stop for a bit safely to let a particularly nice stack go without reapplying, or just because you have to do something else like dodge or throw Wicked Reminder. Actually, the cooldown of Wicked Reminder and the length of Duelist's Flurry mesh pretty much exactly, so you can keep WR stacks up pretty easily by just alternating DF and WR hits and re-stealthing with Shadow Strike.
So DF is an at-will, so it's always up and always ready. You can throw Cloud of Steel in during avoiding boss AoE, even as an MI, and I personally do, but most of the TRs I know keep Sly Flourish as their second at-will and can't figure out why I like CoS(Even as I can't figure out why they like SF, but hey). So they aren't doing that during dodge-outs... Nope, they're just leaving DF bleed running. The MI's DoT power. Yeah, WK gets it too, but it's what MI uses.
Parse a live MI Exe PvE TR and you'll generally get 30-40% of their damage coming from Duelist's Flurry bleeds. Yes, that much. It's THAT good. It's THAT important a part of the path. So why is it doing so well? Well, remember when I said there was synergy with the path? Yeah. Let's go into that.
So, let's look at my current live build for the heck of it. I don't claim mine is perfect, I know it's not, but it works well enough and I enjoy it: http://nwcalc.com/tr?b=ofv:27ftps:1y1pu4,1li3i05:100000:150000:1uu5z1&h=0&p=min
So the first feat I've got there, and the first bit of synergy with DF, is Dazzling Blades, often dismissed as that meh feat you might as well take because you have to take something. It's not meh. Not at all. Do you think the T1 Sab cooldown feat in the changes is good? Dazzling Blades was better. Why? Because DF hits a lot, and you're almost always using it. So even with that 5% proc chance, it's proccing several times during your cooldowns. 3-5 times on average in my experience. Shorter cooldowns means that whatever encounters you're using other than Wicked Reminder, they're better now. Shadow Strike? You're re-stealthing faster. ItC? That's up faster. Lashing Blade because let's face it those giant numbers are awesome? Yep, that too. Whatever you were using anyway, you're using it more.
I'll admit that none of your potential choices to move to Tier 3 feats is exciting. I took Cruelty's Reward because I don't use SE, and in PvE on live you're not landing kills much anyway and I don't have that much trouble building AP so eh. It could go either way. When you get there though I've got both T3s.
Brutal Backstab means those crits you're getting in stealth are better. This helps DF be better and also helps your stealthed Lashing Blade be better if you're running that. 25% is a Normal Vorpal enchant's worth of crit sev in stealth. Critical Teamwork is less exciting, but you'll easy reach a 50% crit chance on live with it, and buff your teammates at the same time. "I wish I had a lower crit chance," said no one, ever.
Then we get to Deadly Momentum. This is the one feat that specifically calls up DF, but it's awesome. 15% crit severity in stealth is worth dipping Executioner in the changes. Deadly Momentum was 15% crit severity in or out of stealth. Overrun Critical is quite nice too with the 50% crit rate.
So the path as it is on live jives beautifully with Duelist's Flurry. Not seen in feats but also a good synergy is the most common PvE armor set, Swashbuckling Captain, which gives you a bit over 1k Power and Recovery each while the bonus is up. The bonus comes in stacks that don't last long and have a chance to apply. Guess what hits a lot and hits often. Right, DF. It builds those up fast and it keeps them up.
So Exe doesn't need to be constantly in stealth on live. It helps, it's really nice, but it's not required. I often run Dazing Strike/ItC/Lashing when I'm not doing eLOL and sometimes even then, which has no stealth refill, and it still works nicely. Enough aggro off you and you actually can regen stealth in combat. Depends on your party. But you're still getting a lot that doesn't rely on stealth out of the path, so you don't feel the need to be in it all the time or else.
So *this* is the source of the DF obsession. This is why I personally am grumpy about the changes, especially to Executioner.
All that nice synergy is gone. Now, GC is the only thing that really has synergy as an at-will for a MI. With the buff and the Sab feat it ends up being better in general than DF. It's still slow, and there's no DoT, but it also doesn't root you and nobody ever managed to die when a CW/GF/whatever threw a mob your were GCing, nor does it put you in the wall or the ceiling, which are all issues DF's had since closed beta.
So now DF is this slow cranky power with no synergy and our damage has been shifted to stealth GC and encounters. Executioner doesn't even remotely resemble what it used to be and needs serious, serious help when it honestly could and SHOULD have been mostly left alone - After all the nerfs it was still hurting, but needed merely adjustment, not being deleted. It worked. It worked well. There were obvious rotations and synergies and it was a nice sustained DPS path that was good at what it did. TRs with better gear than me are able to put it to fantastic use. Even with lower gear it's still very viable at what it's excellent at, which is sustained boss damage.
However, these changes gut that and remove it from the game. Saboteur is a workable path, yes. It's OK. There's synergy enough to it. But it's still cranky and iffy and I find myself getting very little out of the cooldown reduction running around with Blitz and Dazing - Neither of them are that long a cooldown to begin with, thankfully, and come out of cooldown before Shadow Strike does so it doesn't really come up much. Blitz to proc One With The Shadows into Dazing is great, sure. I've been told people have had luck with getting Wicked Reminder to proc Return To Shadows even from the front in solo play, so I'll have to try that out, but that almost smacks of exploit and certainly isn't WAI.
So here's the thing. I'm not enjoying it. None of things I've tried really gets me going. I'll learn it. I'll play it, probably. An endless ridiculous stream of nerfs didn't drive me away. I like to think this won't. But there's one thing the nerfs never really took away from me: The playstyle I've enjoyed and loved using the entire history of the game. You adjusted. You compensated. But you never had it completely destroyed.
The changes manage what a year and a half of nerfs didn't: My playstyle I enjoy no longer exists. I'm glad I didn't get a Dex belt now that DEX is HAMSTER. I'm glad I didn't bother to even get my DF artifact weapon to Purple. I am playing a different class now on preview. I am not playing what I've loved the entire time.
At-wills draining Stealth makes DF harder to use and not worth it. Whereas I can use GC half the day if I want. Even if DF didn't drain stealth(At least make the flurry part only count as one hit for stealth drain, if it can't go away in PvE like it should), the synergies it had in Executioner are gone.
You've successfully managed to perform the joke that's been made for a year and a half about nerfs leading towards 'just removing the class from the game'.
In the context of the path I've loved, you've done that. You have removed my class from the game. You haven't even really given us that much of a buff, since our sustained boss damage is way down. My live TR kills individual things way faster than my preview TR. Because of sustained damage. Which we don't have now. So... From my viewpoint, the class has gained nothing except to function as a semi-perma bad CW. The AoE is nice, sure. But I want my class back. I know I won't get it. But I want it.
If anything, at all, ever blasts me off TR, it will eventually be this. I like my class. I like my playstyle. I enjoy using my TR, even if he isn't up to par. But I enjoy him as he is. I do not enjoy the changes.
This is the biggest, gravest sin in the changes to me. If I want to be an AoE nuker, I have a CW. She's not on par with my TR, but that's because I haven't used her regularly since Mod 3 hit and I've been playing my TR pretty much exclusively. Until these changes. When I dusted her off, and started working on her again. It's amazing how fast you can get artifacts to purple. It's amazing how easy it is to mail around enchants. She's already done with ToD except for getting her artifact weapon and the last two boons. Almost done with IWD. She'll do her last three Sharandar boons next.
'Cause if I'm gonna have to 'adjust' by being an AoE class, sorry, but CW still does that way better than TR ever will, and it does it in a way that's a lot more fun and rewarding. And CW's three teleports at least actually work, unlike the three dodges TR is supposed to have.
The changes have a long, long way to go, devs. I pray to Corellon that you're actually listening, and you just haven't said anything or done anything because you're figuring out how to make it awesome.
I really need to agree. Haven't tested extensively, true... but still I checked the changes and experimented a bit on preview. I am here to play the game not develop it. I have chosen TR as my very first toon and have played it through all the nerfs and hard times because I enjoyed the playstyle immensely. But now, it seems all this investment in time and gear can be thrown out because the class is totally changed. I'll just use the remaining time on live to have some fun. Will I still play after the changes hit live? I dunno, probably yes...but if the fun is gone what's the point?
Now, this is where Kweassa jumps in and tells you about all the reasons he likes the changes.
*sigh*
Spec: All paths
General observations on At Wills
I accept that they will be draining stealth when used but the amount should be scaled back
Now their usage from stealth is limited the animation speed (and vulnerability this creates) feels too long.
A couple of more specific comments
I imagine the 'dials' we have to play with would be: Stealth depletion rate, Number of charges, Recharge speed, Base damage, Stacking effect, Secondary effects
I would suggest that at least 2 of these dials need to be turned up. Turn up more of them and other dials will need to be turned down.
e.g. No longer depletes stealth, Base damage increased, Charges reduced to 4
or Infinite charges (buffs to charges and recharge rate), stacking effect removed
The nerf to other at-wills has really made GC stand out and shine again. To the point where it far out-performs all other at-wills. Also, it seems to have retained the 'refill 20% of your stealth when you deal a killing blow' - intentional or not?
After the aberration that was the first incarnation in preview, the current state of DisH is pretty good. It's a little too easy to cancel out of casting accidentally (it has a long animation) but the DPS is solid and it's utility good.
Less than 3 weeks left and TR class is still bugged and weak outside pvp.
Can we have patch in which you will include some of our feedback?
It will be great to summarise all our feedback in one place, any1?
I'm assuming the class rep will do it, so just make clear concise feedback and comments to make it easier for them to do so
we are the only class without a "mechanic" (i m mean stacks for CW, roots for HR etc).
what about something like:
every time you strike with an at will *out of stealth* you gain 1% deflect 1% damage resistance, this effect stacks up to 5 times and last 10 seconds.
cloud of steel is no longer spammable in stealth, consider to overhaul it.
and please please give a dot to smoke bomb. It's a poison cloud after all.
the only dot the class have is d.strike and its not even avialable for MI....
It seems that scoundrel is almost finished, then (just need to do something with the extraneous deflect feats)
It also looks like it's fairly balanced across the paragons, which is rare.
Sharra Del'Armgo - SW Trapper Hybrid HR
Ogghra Bar'Ghuzumn - MI Scoundrel TR
Vænna Thrymskjöldr - IV Protector GF
- Stealth: I totally agree with stealth depletion with at-wills, but now stealth should recharge more steadily (suggestion: faster recharge when in combat advantage)
- Shadow Strike: this encounter is now almost mandatory, dmg is very low and spending power points on it should give more benefits (suggestion: +50% dmg per rank, or a movement speed buff for 1-2 seconds)
- Duelist's Flurry: seems far less useful now, will be used mainly out of stealth for the bleed, would be good to have the speed of the first two strikes a bit increased
- Dodge: third dodge is great! Dodge distance should not be changed though. Dodging farther means worse PVE performance IMO.
- Shadow of the Demise: hard to manage when hitting multiple targets with the first attack. Might affect the farthest or the weakest enemy with no possible control. Someone earlier in the thread suggested to allow activation for multiple targets, account for damage to all targets affected and then divide cumulative damage by number of targets affected to determine SotD damage on each target. Seems to me a clever idea, would make this feat really consistent.
Additionally we have made a couple bug fixes and QoL changes as well.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Very controversial decision. Depends on how much slower it activates, but it could be a bit too much. Will make ranged WK TR more viable tho.
What's your thoughts on OwtS and VP's mark consuming it? Seems like it should be treated as per Shadow Strike?
Cheers
That would be a nerf. Shadow strike is supposed to refill already while vp not.
VPs mark does not break stealth though. It will make the interplay between VP and OwtS very odd otherwise compared to other powers.
It would also fit with its design.
What is the %damage increase on Sly Flourish?
I also feel that Whisperknife's Disheartening Strike applies a bit too slowly. At the very least, could you make the dagger fly faster after being released so we don't have to stand still/not use any other powers after releasing the dagger but before it hitting the target?
Currently, if you use a power after releasing the dagger but before it hits its target, the dagger is cancelled
That CoS change might be OP on a WK Scoundrel, mind.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
I'm not sure how the increased damage-per-hit from stacking CoS interacts with infinite supply, but I suppose standing and throwing knives forever without breaking off for another action is a rare circumstance. Not running out of charges and standing around like a git waiting for cooldowns will be a nice change for 100% ranged WKs.
Really like the look of the change to Sly Flourish. It needed *something*. (Clarify: all sources from the TR or allies too? Everyone loves party debuffs.)
On the subject of Flurry, will have to try the changes. One suggestion that has been proposed is to make the actual flurry of attacks portion count as one hit rather than 10 for purposes of stealth drain, but I suspect there would be under-the-hood problems with that. With an attack like Disheartening Strike, if the initial strike crits, all the DoT crits, because it counts as a single attack. If DF counted as a single attack, you'd probably likewise be locked into an all-or-nothing crit, with every blow and every bleed. This would mean that activated from stealth it would be too strong because every bit of damage applied would be a crit, but outside of stealth the total damage would be entirely dependent on a single roll to crit rather than a series of them. So I don't think it works as a solution, and I'm also frustrated by not being able to get in a full DF rotation from stealth and follow up with an encounter, on builds where I was using that. Without some form of stealth-extension, it always was tricky to get in the full rotation because you couldn't waste so much as a microsecond on positioning or stealth would run out before you got the encounter off. It's not that I don't view it as problematic, just that I don't think this idea could be implemented well.
Feedback: at-wills
I had some but it was rendered largely moot before I got it typed up. We'll see.
Feedback: stealth depletion
TRs are always fighting the meter. I used to try to explain that at-will attacks didn't instantly break stealth like in other games because other games have stealth as a mode entered until an action breaks it entirely, or a detection check is made. Neverwinter doesn't have AI making detection checks (and makes detection somewhat hard on other players too), and stealth starts ticking down as soon as it's activated. Time spent getting into position is stealth wasted. Time spent chasing a target that moved away from you for any reason is stealth wasted. If you're a melee TR and you end up grouped with anyone who likes to throws mobs, you might as well give up if you can't get the message across that they should stop doing that.
You're fighting the meter a second time once stealth ends, to allow it to refill naturally. Ok, running Tenacious Concealment with the complementary artifact gear will address that, but people don't like being locked into no-choice powers. They don't like having to slot Shadow Strike to guarantee being able to return to stealth (or play Sab?). It's one thing to not be able to hang out in stealth all the time, but it's entirely another to have your tab skill essentially disabled unless you consent to lock into a very specific set of actions. So consider keeping stealth depletion from damage taken while it's active: AoE, bosses that see through stealth - which is an awful lot of them in newer content btw (what other class has bosses immune to their tab? so you get the damage buffs but your primary defense mechanism is nullified - it's like overcompensation based on people complaining that TRs can solo too easily), players who are able to accurately gauge where the TR is and act accordingly. But consider scaling back the mechanic where the TR loses stealth meter refills from taking damage while caught out of stealth, without Tenacious Concealment - to me, Tenacious Concealment describes a person already hidden being able to stay that way. If you're trying to get your meter refilled in combat, you are the opposite of concealed, and certainly not tenaciously.
Tiny ticks of DoT don't eat the GF's block anymore, and that's fair enough, right?
Bug: Bait and Switch dummy and threat
I swear monsters used to aggro to the dummy. This gave the thing a slight danger factor because it would trigger casting of AoEs you might have otherwise avoided altogether, but also made it a useful tool for getting monsters to stay put, and for refilling AP as they beat on it. You can now mostly only refill your AP using B&S by dropping it into the line of major attacks that are already happening. It was also a safety net even cast out of stealth because monsters actually would attack it instead of you, with that little push back that it does. At some point this changed and monsters just ignore the dummy, and I have no clue if it was an intentional nerf or a bug whereby the thing used to generate threat of its own and lost that. But it became really limited in what you could do with it where I remember it once being a much more useful tool with some risk attached to it.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
-stealth bar refill is completely dependant on not getting hurt at all, this needs to change already.
-bait and switch dummy doesn't aggro most powerful enemies, what's the use of a decoy if it doesn't do it's job?
I hope to see some changes conscerning that.
Gloaming Cut hits for around 15k, on "squishy" classes.
I write "squishy" like this because a CW/SW im not really squishy with 3k defense, 50k HP and 2k Regen.
Dazing insta stun from stealth, go out of stealth, shadow strike, dodge and right back to stealth. Then ofc back to gloamig cut rotation. + They have an extra encounter JUST in case it would be to hard, like impossible to catch.
It is absolutely impossible to kill rogues now. They are lashing out much much more damage now, from stealth, then they did earlier.
I thought the whole point with this change was that you wanted rogues to get out of stealth to do any harm/damage. Well its even worse now.
Testing now!
Thanks Chris!