Last edited by SableShadow; 02-11-2009 at 06:15 PM.
Brenna, Tzanna, and Tzinna Wavekin
The Dancing Rogues of Argonnessen
Ascent
Agreed on the hyperbole part, but neither of these are the discussion he is trying to have.
The issue is not that rogue are too gear dependent, but rather that with equal gear, the rogue will be lacking behind in construct or undead-heavy quests and story lines. That is problematic in many ways for quest designers, and it has repercussions on us players. Either such quests are reduced to a minimum (and story lines resting too much on undeads or constructs are avoided) or rogue players pay the high price when these are released.
When I say high price, I talk about loss of effectiveness and/or fun.
You suggest that rogues can overcome that through high gear, but that's not true. The only thing that better gear allows is to cope better with the problems. Oh, sure, a stunningly good Greater Undead Bane will make up for some of the difference compared to the rest of the group, but, let's face it, you're still behind and that weapon would be better on a non-rogue character.
Maybe you are saying rogues comparatively gains more out of a better weapon, but there I don't get what your point is...
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Sure. "Gear dependency"...you need more and better gear. If you want to keep up with that barb with the holy great axe on skellies, you *need*, not want, a holy blunt...depending on DR.
Nonsense. A rogue with 8 str with w/p's will knife-through-butter things that a barb takes an hour to dps. (hah! phear mah hyperbole!) Gear matters a *lot* in this game. Just look at all the threads on Greensteel.
I pull agro off PUG barbs all the time in Sor'jek....because they're swinging a slashing non-transmuter and I'm dualling anarchic light maces of greater undead bane. Equivaletly equipped characters, it's another matter.
"Sufficiently advanced coping is indistiguishable from solving." - With apologies to Clarke
Nope, depends on what we're fighting and how they're geared compared to how I'm geared.
True! So? What do you want, parity between the classes on all mobs and mob types? Not likely to happen ever, given the current state of the game.
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Look, I've heard all these arguments before, from the recieving end; "Who would bring a rogue into Invaders?" threads and such. You *can* overcome them, but it is difficult and takes a lot of dedication to the class.
I'm for a blanket % of sneak damage bypassing undead/construct/fort; it's class specific, less likely to see issues of balance across all the possible character/weapon/class combinations and permutations, etc.
Last edited by SableShadow; 02-11-2009 at 06:35 PM.
Brenna, Tzanna, and Tzinna Wavekin
The Dancing Rogues of Argonnessen
Ascent
The vast majority of raid LFMs that I see disagree with you. Rangers and barbarians are boss killers. Rogues, not so much.
Situationally, rogues can do a lot of sneak attack damage. But they also have the lowest HP of any melee DPS class, and their AC's not stellar either. So for fights like Shroud 5 and VoD, rogues are a liability. A dead character does zero damage. A character with stacked death penalties doesn't do much more.
Add fortification on top of that, and, well, yeah.
Also, and I may be burned at the stake for this, but why is it rogues should be equal to or better than rangers, barbarians, and fighters at DPS?
Khyber Server -- New Aundair
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to derail the conversation. I am trying to define the direction a bit so devs can understand it and make the class easier to play.
Early threads were full of "Rogue's can't do damage!" so...the devs gave us damage enhancements....which didn't actually help.
Later threads came along requesting "agro management" tools...which the devs then gave us...and which made a difference.
Using a "make rogues less gear dependent; here's the hard to come by gear we're using now to deal" will give us different results from the devs than "rogues need to be able to crit on crit immune targets". We already see some of this understanding on the part of devs, though I can't say I find the currently proposed capstone to be all that good a response to rogue's low base hp.
Brenna, Tzanna, and Tzinna Wavekin
The Dancing Rogues of Argonnessen
Ascent
Fine point, but that is not how player psychology works.
You've got enough experience, Brenna, to know that no matter how good your weapons are they will never be good enough to convince a group leader that does not want of a rogue in an undead quest because they will be "freeloading". So, while better gear lesser performance issues, the problem is not limited to that. It does not address the grouping part nor the frustration of the lower effectiveness of the rogue in undead or construct-heavy quests.
Saying that rogues are more gear dependent is true, in a way, but that is not a description of the problem; it's a symptom.
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Mainly because that is what rangers, barbs, and fighters DO. Rogues, on the other hand, also have trapfinding, open locks, UMD, stealth, a tremendous skill-set, etc. I am not saying that rogues should be ineffective in combat (far from it), I am just trying to point out that DPS is the primary focus of those other classes and one of many foci for rogues.
Khyber Server -- New Aundair
I really don't think this should turn into a "rogues need to become less gear-dependent" thread, and should remain a "rogues need something to do when faced with a quest, or mod, full of undead, constructs and elementals" thread.
Rogues are not really more gear dependent than anyone else. A tank needs far better defensive equipment, which is much harder to obtain (+5 mithral fp, +5 mithral tower shield, Chaosgarde, Chattering Ring, +5 protection item, bark pots), while paladins and monks tend to require +stat items for everything but Int, and likely need some tomes to access some of their abilities. Rogues need some good weapons (something everyone is gunning for most of the time anyway), and could use, but do not need, a Str, Dex, Con and maybe Wis and/or Int and/or Cha item, though they are far from necessary.
Sure, rogues tend to require the best Spot, Search and Disable items available, but these aren't all that difficult to come across on the AH, and a rogue has enough ways to get by without the top of the line item here (Action boost, skill enhancements, etc...).
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Brenna, Tzanna, and Tzinna Wavekin
The Dancing Rogues of Argonnessen
Ascent
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