Fort + Rogue

[brzytki]

For everyone that hasn't seen it yet, quoted from this thread

Before anyone says Shield of Condemnation (which can lower fort by 50%) or Improved Sunder, Shield of Condemnation, I'm told, lasts 20 seconds. In order to get the enemy fortification lowered by 50% percent (and the math is not well known. Does a 50% fortified mob get lowered to 0%, or 25%?), a supposedly 5% proc chance must proc five times within 20 seconds, before the timer resets. The only boss with enough attacks per second for this to be reliable is Queen Lailat, who doesn't have very high fort after the update, anyway.

This is incorrect. Every time Condemnation procs, the stack increases and the 20 second timer will restart. It's a 10% proc chance on taking damage.

A 50% fortified monster with a -50% fortification effect will be at 0% fortification.

Improved Sunder is more consistent, but elite devils have seriously high fort saves.

It has stacking fort save reduction attached to it, even on successful saves. If you're still having trouble landing it after working that stack up to -15, there are several ways to increase the save DC. (Shatter weapons, higher strength, Kensei, various Tactics enhancements.)

Shintao monks can also use Jade Strike on devil bosses to lower their fortification by 25% as well, on a failed Will save. That's a bit tougher to land though. Against non-devil bosses, the dark monks have Touch of Despair available for 25% (and Improved Sunder makes it more likely to land). Opportunist also reduces opponent fortification by 10%, but that's personal only.

50% fort was fine and didn't marginalize any particular class to the point of uselessness.

Every Pit Fiend and Horned Devil raid boss' fortification is currently 50% on normal, 65% on hard, and 80% on elite. Epic Velah's fortification is 50%. Epic Lailat's fortification is 80%. Even the Lord of Blades left his heavy fort item at home, and is sitting at 80% (even though he really should have the Improved Fort feat).

If people are working together to reduce fortification, those numbers are able to be significantly lowered or even reduced all the way to zero, and all of the physical DPS goes up.

The idea is to make sword-and-board tanking viable, or even required. That's why they raised the boss damage to 120-150 a tick, also.

There is a strong desire for tanking characters to be welcome in more difficult raids. The Lord of Blades and Master Artificer encounters were built with this in mind.

We also like things like Improved Sunder and the other active fort reducing attacks having value. Currently Condemnation is the biggest single source of potential fort reduction, but it's less reliable than the active attacks.

We want to encourage teamwork for these high end encounters when possible. It's a sacrifice for me to take Improved Sunder and use it, but it helps everyone. (Even the guy casting Disintegrate.)

Fortification affects classes differently, that's the real crux of the problem.

The increase in fight length is the part that casters have a tougher time dealing with than melee, since melee characters don't run out of gas in the same way.

The whole increased fort issue is really sad for rogues, considering we don't have ANY way to decrease it (i still believe opportunist doesn't affect SA, only crits).

Opportunist should improve sneak attack percentages on creatures that are not inherently immune to them. (Undead, elementals, etc.) At this time it does not permit sneak attacks on sneak attack immune opponents.

Edit: After doing some investigation, I can confirm that there is indeed a bug with sneak attack and opportunist. It's not always being applied correctly.

Confirmed info about fort of elite/epic bosses, fort reducers stacking and a note that devs finally found out that opportunist is bugged. Enjoy.

[DragonTroy]

For everyone that hasn't seen it yet, quoted from this thread


Confirmed info about fort of elite/epic bosses, fort reducers stacking and a note that devs finally found out that opportunist is bugged. Enjoy.

very very good to know, thanks a bunch

[Roguewiz]

Thank you, brzytki. Since I only check certain forums, I tend to miss the good stuff.

+1

[Lord_Thanatos]

Don't celebrate just yet, eldarin also just confirmed that rogue dps on epic raid bosses is balanced around the assumption that all melee take improved sunder and that you have a least one dark monk and one fvs. Add a light monk for bosses that are affected by jade strike. Stack fvs untill shield of condemnation stacks to max and enjoy!

[karl_k0ch]

/subscribing

at least eVelah sounds reasonable.

[brzytki]

Don't celebrate just yet, (...)

Hehe, i am not. My "enjoy" wasn't meant to be "oh i am so happy that they will finally fix it", tho maybe a little , it was rather "enjoy reading".

When it comes to Turbine and rogues i am a real sceptic and a pesimist, sadly

[WirelessJoe]

...after update 11 and before any future "fix" to the class, I guess I'm going to LR or TR into a Helf Rogue with Artificer dilettantes and wand and scroll mastery, and try to pass myself off as a janitor (cleaning trash pre-boss) and backup buff-bot/healer for the boss fights. Or not...I'm just grasping at straws at this point.

[HidalgoXaran]

That thread is a must. Red it today and anyone preoccupied by the "rogue hate" they get should read it. Tks for posting it here.

These days, its so hard to enter a PUG for a raid, (when there is one...). Better turn it into something funny. Each time I tell the leader that I am really good! Hehe, never made a difference though.. :P

[destiny4405]

if opportunist gets fixed, that's gonna be nice. anyone know what's fort on epic conjoined abi?

[brzytki]

if opportunist gets fixed, that's gonna be nice. anyone know what's fort on epic conjoined abi?

I don't know for sure, but i guess it's 50% as he didn't have any previously - just like Velah.

[Mercureal]

Eladrin's post prompted me to go out and test Wrack Construct, and much to my surprise I found that using it reduces Fort against sneak attacks! Colour me shocked.

[Rauven]

I wonder if this will finally put an end to all of those "all raid bosses have 100% fort and it's the DOOM of rogues" threads...

Probably not.

[Dirichlet]

What sort of Fortitude figures do you see on raid bosses? I'm wondering if Improved Sunder is worth a go now. Granted this is from the perspective of a Rogue/Monk Acrobat that has a few feats to spare. I'm currently using Hamstring so that would be an easy swap.

I'm thinking so long as I can get a reasonable chance of success after the 5 debuff applications then it's going to be worth it. Barring that at least I'm adding to the total debuffs whenever there's a real sunderer in the group.

I realise figures are going to vary wildly, but some idea of an acceptable level would be handy.

[Kinerd]

Hehe, i am not. My "enjoy" wasn't meant to be "oh i am so happy that they will finally fix it", tho maybe a little , it was rather "enjoy reading".

When it comes to Turbine and rogues i am a real sceptic and a pesimist, sadly

Why would you be? When responding to fortification affecting classes differently, Eladrin talked about casters vs. melee and made no mention whatsoever of rogues. Why wouldn't that reassure any rogue player?

[Mercureal]

What sort of Fortitude figures do you see on raid bosses? I'm wondering if Improved Sunder is worth a go now. Granted this is from the perspective of a Rogue/Monk Acrobat that has a few feats to spare. I'm currently using Hamstring so that would be an easy swap.

I'm thinking so long as I can get a reasonable chance of success after the 5 debuff applications then it's going to be worth it. Barring that at least I'm adding to the total debuffs whenever there's a real sunderer in the group.

I realise figures are going to vary wildly, but some idea of an acceptable level would be handy.

There's a lot of good information in the thread the OP references and it's worth a review, but it's also a lot to slog through. Generally speaking, Raid bosses have very high Fort saves, so you're going to want a DC in the mid 30s minimum, and that'd be for the lower level raids (Shroud, DQ) on Normal. Obviously, that will scale up a lot with quest level and difficulty, but I'd just be guessing if I tried to quote a meaningful number.

[Dirichlet]

There's a lot of good information in the thread the OP references and it's worth a review, but it's also a lot to slog through. Generally speaking, Raid bosses have very high Fort saves, so you're going to want a DC in the mid 30s minimum, and that'd be for the lower level raids (Shroud, DQ) on Normal. Obviously, that will scale up a lot with quest level and difficulty, but I'd just be guessing if I tried to quote a meaningful number.

I'll have to give it a good look when I get back from college. I'm thinking with 40 Str I'd have a +15 modifier, or 29 DC with the 14 base from Improved Sunder. After 5 debuffs, that's the equivalent of having a 44 DC. That could get higher with a Shatter weapon, but I wouldn't want to have to equip one of those (unless there's a way to get a Shatter bonus elsewhere?). I don't think any more than 40 Str is realistic on my toon.

[Meat-Head]

Glad you reposted that dev response here. I saw it in the other thread, but it was buried. Good call bringing it to light for others. +1

[.Revenga.]

That's some good info.
thanks

[fabhpk]

I don't know for sure, but i guess it's 50% as he didn't have any previously - just like Velah.

Been on the Conjoined three times on my rogue after the U11. While I didn't took detailed accountancy, my guess it is that his fort is now around 80%. Again it's just a guess. The AC of the 3 chrono bosses is higher, about that I'm sure.

Edit: On the original forum, Eladrin said that the Opportunist feat is bugged. It allows critical hits but no sneak attack. /sarcasm on They're probably fixing it by the time of the U33 tho /sarcasm off

[brzytki]

Been on the Conjoined three times on my rogue after the U11. While I didn't took detailed accountancy, my guess it is that his fort is now around 80%. Again it's just a guess. The AC of the 3 chrono bosses is higher, about that I'm sure.

Well, i was in only one eChrono since u11 so my sample wasn't that great and i now realise that i missed the part when Lailat's fortification went up from 0% to 80% so... it was just a guess.

Also, do Razor Arm and Bloodplate have increased fort? Cause i think they were 0%, but can't check now due to ddowiki trojan and whatnot.