Bluff / Improved Feint / Diplomacy

[TheBlueFox]

So I was muddling around with these three abilities and I would LIKE to have something to mitigate my damage and increase sneak attack potential.

Diplomacy has a pretty long cooldown, but I see it as quite effective. Its a reasonably distant aoe aggro drop which can be quite useful.

Bluff is a long distant debuff and buff, lowering your hate for a few seconds and making an enemy vulnerable to sneak attacks, its also has a reasonably small cooldown.

Improved feint is an aoe bluff, but the range is...pretty small, I've had a hard time hitting with it, AND you need a good bluff score. Still, it makes many enemies vulnerable to sneak attacks...but then again so does diplomacy...

What are your opinions on these 3 skills?

[DeafeningWhisper]

From DDO wiki: "A successful Bluff against an idle monster alerts it to your presence and draws aggro. The monster turns hostile on its own, though, without alerting its allies.

If you combine this fact with the fact that you can Bluff from behind total cover, Bluff can be a good ambush skill to pick enemies off one by one rather than taking them all on at once and being overwhelmed. However, bear in mind that enemies who attack primarily using ranged weapons or spells will attack in place, rather than being pulled away."

If you are a Rogue Assassin go with bluff since you get prestige bonuses, if you are an Acrobat... also go with bluff since both Bluff and Diplomacy last for 6 seconds but only bluff lets you get sneak damage on the monster for the full six seconds while Diplomacy will only last as long a the aggro is off of you.

Diplomacy is good, don't get me wrong, but you'll have to kill whatever you attack pretty quick or loose your sneak damage which is usually where a rogue get's his damage from anyway.

So pick from either: sure 1 monster kill with Bluff or relative safety in a group with some sneak damage in a mob or 2 thansk to Diplomacy.

[Therigar]

Regarding Bluff and Diplomacy, I'm not certain why a rogue with all its skill points cannot have both skills.

Biggest issue with sneak attacks is the willingness of the group to sit back and wait while they take place. This is especially true if you play in groups where the typical behavior is to run ahead alerting all that the group is coming.

In those groups diplomacy works best since you might accidentally end up with random aggro as all mobs head towards whatever is going on. A quick diplo and they lose interest in you -- usually enough for you to go around using SA from there on.

Of course, there is the issue of the group not doing good damage and the aggro ending up on the rogue again anyway.

There are some popular quests where bluff is handy in very specific places.

IMO you should just use both skills since you should have enough skill points for both.

[Xenostrata]

Bluff was changed, now it reduces aggro.

If you play in groups, go diplomacy, if only for the fun ability of sending monsters at your friends.

If you solo a lot, bluff, if you are swimming in feats then bluff + imp. feint. Feint can be a lot of fun in the earlier levels, and when your attack speed is up (haste boost+pot) then being able to feint and swing through entire groups of monsters all by yourself is great.

[brzytki]

I prefer having both diplomacy and bluff on my rogues as u never know which one will come in handy.

Both diplo and bluff have 15 sec cooldown and they share the timer, meaning if u use bluff u have to wait 15 sec to use either bluff again or diplo.

Bluff, apart from pulling mobs, enables you to SA a mob that is agro'd on you. For 6 seconds you have 25% threat reduction and can SA a mob that is on you. However, it doesn't put u on the bottom of the threat list so that mob will be still attacking you until someone else generates more threat than you.

Diplomacy puts you at the bottom of threat lists of multiple targets for 6 seconds, making it possible for you to SA those mobs until you work your way back up. In addition it removes certain percentage of generated threat depending on your skill. However, to successfully use diplo there should be at least one more party member on the mob's threat list and you have to be relatively close to your target to use diplo.

[NovaNZ]

A slight tangent on the topic ...

Any idea what a decent Dip score should be for late game Elite (not epic)? Never used it in a serious manner but am working on Dip as part of a new characters defence/survivability etc.

Tx