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Fairwell, sweet Scoundrel
mrmauveforum
Member Posts: 127 Arc User
So, my Scoundrel TR has been respeced to Executioner. I'd been managing to have fun in PvP mostly with her, but now with Tiamat, Scoundrel just doesn't work. I complained before about low Scoundrel damage and viability versus control-immune targets, but Tiamat was even worse than that; there's unavoidable damage that prevents the Scoundrel from ever generating enough stealth naturally to reenter stealth and get the extra crit/severity on Lashing Blade.
So I've respeced to Executioner, and I must say, it works well. I don't find that I have any less control: perhaps it's because I rolled with Dazing Strike and Smokebomb before, and that gave me the majority of my dazes. I do find that my damage is much higher, and that I'm able to get into stealth SO OFTEN. That 20% regen increase combined with the fact that damage doesn't prevent you from regening is just so nice!
With so much extra stealth, I was able to unslot Tenacious Concealment for Skillful Infiltrator for the 15% runspeed to get me closer to my Scoundrel's speed. I'm super happy to be able to have that slotted, because I know that the Offhand improvement for it is quite nice, as well. I feel kinda funny that my executioner has higher passive defenses than my Scoundrel did.
And in PvP, things are slightly different, but I guess that I mostly played my Scoundrel as an Executioner, anyway. Dazing Strike, Shadow Strike, Lashing Blade deals a whole ton of damage, and seeing SoD finish someone off is just quite satisfying.
My suggestion for those who want a combat TR; MI Executioner is the path to take. I tried to love Scoundrel, but it just doesn't have enough of a benefit to counter its horrible boss performance.
So I've respeced to Executioner, and I must say, it works well. I don't find that I have any less control: perhaps it's because I rolled with Dazing Strike and Smokebomb before, and that gave me the majority of my dazes. I do find that my damage is much higher, and that I'm able to get into stealth SO OFTEN. That 20% regen increase combined with the fact that damage doesn't prevent you from regening is just so nice!
With so much extra stealth, I was able to unslot Tenacious Concealment for Skillful Infiltrator for the 15% runspeed to get me closer to my Scoundrel's speed. I'm super happy to be able to have that slotted, because I know that the Offhand improvement for it is quite nice, as well. I feel kinda funny that my executioner has higher passive defenses than my Scoundrel did.
And in PvP, things are slightly different, but I guess that I mostly played my Scoundrel as an Executioner, anyway. Dazing Strike, Shadow Strike, Lashing Blade deals a whole ton of damage, and seeing SoD finish someone off is just quite satisfying.
My suggestion for those who want a combat TR; MI Executioner is the path to take. I tried to love Scoundrel, but it just doesn't have enough of a benefit to counter its horrible boss performance.
Post edited by mrmauveforum on
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Anyway with 2 good TR-s we could save Sehanine cleric with just 2 well placed smoke Bombs.
scoundrell no contest
Currently, with the artifact off-hand not proliferated to the players, the oh-so-important power augment on Tenacious Concealment is not available yet, hence re-stealthing without SS becomes a problem when there are so many mobs around.
Besides, a Scoundrel is primarily centered on 1vs1 scenarios even in PvE. Keeping tabs against particularly troublesome mobs is what I mostly do in stuff like eLoL or eSoT. Most AoE control/damage the TRs now provide come from Smoke Bomb and Dazing Strike, and all TRs can do this -- in no way does this capability remain exclusive to the Scoundrel.
So in that sense, the Exec does have better PvE potential, but both Sco and Execs fall far behind the massive Op Sabs.
Scoundrels are all about 1vs1, be it in PvP or PvE.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
They should be, certainly, but in those cases where you really need to survive for a while in a 1v1 situation in PvE, the enemies are control-immune, meaning that your control is wasted and your damage isn't augmented.
Well usually the reality being that PvE is generally so easy in NW sort of makes it a moot point since I don't have much problems in facing down CC-immune mobs. Although, technically, you're right that Scoundrel does have certain amounts of disadvantage when it comes to PvP. But like I've mentioned in the past, I just take it as a 'inherent strengths&weaknesses' situation.
If there is anything the Scoundrels need to ask for, IMO, is for the survivability feats to have some meaning, as it is quite lackluster.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Scoundrels don't have extra dazes (unnecessary power which people complain about all the time in PvP)
Scoundrels GAIN stealth by taking damage, instead of losing it (gives them a different way to enter stealth than Sab [enter stealth through encounter use] and Executioner [enter stealth via passive regen])
Scoundrels have meaningful defensive capabilities high in their tree so that they can stay alive while building stealth
Scoundrels get extra damage through reduced encounter cooldowns. All TRs should have damage in some way, IMO, and TRs have super-long default cooldowns. A paragon path that would reduce those as a method of dealing more damage could be interesting
My image is a bit different. When I hear of the term "Scoundrel", it reminds me of an extremely proficient fighter, but not cold and calculated as a result of training, but rather more like a thug, self-taught through experience, so his ways are practical and effective, "down to the street level", underhanded and outright dirty-fighting.
I see the 'dirty' part with the dazes, but I don't see the proficient, thuggish style yet. So my contention is the Scoundrel would be of course quite a bit weaker in terms of pure damage -- just as it is right now, especially in PvE, but a lot more tougher than other TRs in terms of brutish survival and brawling. Should be much more 'tankier' I'd guess.
...and I don't see that part with the other feats in the tree. The Lifesteal feats are meh. Deflection feats are also kinda meh. If anything, this game has deflection set up so easy for other classes, and yet so difficult for the ONE class that should be best at it.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Come to that, you can do pretty good area suppression just spamming CoS into groups of mobs.
Sab is flexible depending on your loadout and tactics.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
The lack of DPS against bosses and control-immune mobs is an issue, but not that much of one. A bit of creative use of stealth and the right At-Wills works OK and IMO Scoundrels should not be winning a DPS race in these situations anyway.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
I see your point about Scoundrel builds not being able to do the same kind of damage as other builds vs CC immune enemies like bosses, but tbh don't other classes also rely on extra damage to controlled classes too? For example CWs not being able to freeze targets or GWF/GF with Trample the Fallen. As it is I feel that too much is controllable already anyway, which is how classes like CWs can have such an easy time when enemies can't even fight back.
thnx so much :cool: and for runes i put azure for crit right ?
Quite a lot, but I move around tons to get into better position, and my dodges refill my stealth. Takes a little longer what with not having the off-hand yet, but it's still fairly reliable. Wooo, concussive strikes for everyone.
My biggest problem comes from attempting to AoE mobs while other people are scattering them to the winds... not actually pushing them over the sides, mind you, just throwing them away from Linu, with no regard for where they land. Just lack of coordination overall.
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Oh. That's a different problem totally. Like you said, it's a coordination problem. Once they've heard its OK to use repel/bounce type effects, the not-so-bright people just dump mobs away in random directions instead of a coordinated, singular heading. So even when there are plenty of TRs around Linu to keep mob groups CCd 24/7 (which would make it easier to dispatch of them en masse through AoEs), mobs scatter everywhere, and melee classes have their DPS shrinking down.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I have to agree that was what disappointed me about the Scoundrel path with the feats that r focused on survival i.e. far too much based on deflect as well as life steal. So it seems the devs wanted the path to play as a kind of brawler that could "tank" enemies much like certain HR builds can, which personally is not what TRs should be about. The best part is indeed the added damage on controlled enemies and the added control thru daze they bring to groups (possibly too much?), which means they can take place of a CW for control to some extent.
I'm exec and even though scoundrel was a lot of fun, CC inmune targets were much harder than now.
It can do reasonably well in non-boss fights -- but it does require more concentration and effort to keep up the damage when compared with Sabs or Execs. As a matter of fact, Scoundrels are actually much more "technical" than it looks, and often it requires much higher understanding of how its mechanics works, as compared to Execs or Sabs which are actually more straight forward.
For instance there are some combos I've named "Triple Tap" and "Killer". The first one is about the maximum damage a Scoundrel put out in PvE, the second one is a single-chain combo that is unavoidable(as in, if the combo successfully initiates, then all attacks follow through). Both of these make use of the Scoundrel mechanic to the 100%.
Triple Tap
full AP / Concussive Strikes ready / Skull Cracker ready / first strike ready
against a group of mobs, engage stealthed WoB (= 30~35k to all targets)
WoB procs CS, WoB doubles power rating (= in my case power increases upto 11.5k)
against CS-dazed mobs, engage stealthed Dazing Stike (= benefits from double power, benefits from +25% damage from Low Blows that procced through CS-daze.. deals around 30k damage to all targets hit)
Dazing Strike causes SC-daze, use Blitz (= +25% from low blows, +25% SC, boost from double power still on, deals around 15k per target even when not in stealth)
3 attacks, AoE damage output of 70~80k, max5 targets, 350~400k real damage in under 5 secs.
Killer
full AP / Concussive Strikes ready / Skull Cracker ready
when in stealth, against target, throw CoS shot to proc CS
against CS-dazed target, throw VP, VP procs SC
against SC-dazed target, activate Hateful Knives, HK prones target (HK hits with +50% damage from low blows and SC)
against HK-proned target, activate Lashing Blades (LB also hits with +50%)
finish up with VP teleport
Single shot of CoS hits for around 1k with first throw, procs CS at which point the VP shot lands for about 5k damage. VP lands and procs SC, and then the next HK hits for around 30k damage with a 50% boost from SC and low blows. The target is proned by HK, and still under the effects of SC -- at which point a stealthed LB lands for another 30k attack, and then the 'finisher' with a VP teleport which adds another small sum of around 4k damage with 3 hits.
I've named it simply 'Killer', because unless all the major attacks are deflected through sheer luck, nothing short of a GF with around 60k HP, or a 50k+ HP GWF that's already in Unstoppable mode, survives the full combo. Actually most opponents die out with the LB, squishier guys don't survive the HK.
The combo itself is initiated from range, and unless powers like Unstoppable, ITC, Oghma's Token is used in the middle to break away from the CC, ALL attacks hit as a single-chain combo... and those have to be used during the CoS-VP phase, which goes on for like 2 seconds. Once the main damage - HK - fires up, the LB is unavoidable since you're proned.
The above two are amongst one of my proudest creations, and the 2nd one, "Killer" is currently absolutely the strongest single-chain combo any TR can use. But of course, even I can't use them everytime, because ultimately all of the above require precise set-ups and conditions, certain requirements in the situation, etc etc.. That's why I find the Scoundrel challenging and technical to play. Compared to the Scoundrels, Sabs and Execs are much more direct and 'brute-force' type approach.
Yes, brutal and direct, is actually more effective. It's simple to pull off. The only thing that's going for the Scoundrel, is the fun factor. But I think that's what's important
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
Those are my findings from when Scoundrel first came out, though, and I've only recently rechecked with Blitz to proc SC. I'll recheck using DS on preview
It's actually possible it might have changed, because my understanding of dealing Skull Cracker as AoE comes from preview. I've first tested it out by using an AoE Dazing Strike to daze 3 wolves while the changed PotB(3 targets) was running, and then proceeded to count when the daze queue (the "halo") wore off. All three of them wore off at the same time after 6 seconds.
It's quite many weeks since then, so its entirely possible they might have changed it some time around release.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
And actually, on live I know that it doesn't work that way. If I open with Blitz out of stealth, with SC up, it only applies a daze to those that Blitz crits and the one that SC procs on; if SC were working on all of them, then they would all get dazed regardless of crits.
I just went and checked it on Preview (as well as looking at the bug to the lifesteal feat on Scoundrel, which is actually super interesting), and Dazing Strike only applies to one of the enemies hit.