Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[Failedlegend]

Shame about the Dex-only DC.

I'm sorry but I REALLY don't get the requests for Str-Based it doesn't make ANY sense...Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk, my only assumption is that it's because Str can be made higher than Dex which is not a good reason.

If anything the tree should be MORE Dex-based and include some abilities reliant on you actively moving.

Here's a Google image search: https://www.google.ca/search?q=acrob...vid=1366926590

Note the lack of hulks...not a single person could be considered more than "fit"

Sidenote: Searching "Thief-Acrobat" mostly just gets generic rogue pictures...bummer.

[RD2play]

I'm sorry but I REALLY don't get the requests for Str-Based it doesn't make ANY sense...Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk, my only assumption is that it's because Str can be made higher than Dex which is not a good reason.

If anything the tree should be MORE Dex-based and include some abilities reliant on you actively moving.

I think you should have both options, same holds for the trip feat I think it should use dex if its higher

[oradafu]

I'm sorry but I REALLY don't get the requests for Str-Based it doesn't make ANY sense...Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk, my only assumption is that it's because Str can be made higher than Dex which is not a good reason.

If anything the tree should be MORE Dex-based and include some abilities reliant on you actively moving.

Here's a Google image search: https://www.google.ca/search?q=acrob...vid=1366926590

Note the lack of hulks...not a single person could be considered more than "fit"

I'm pretty sure Burt Lancaster was a STR build.

[Mryal]

We are probably done with Thief-Acrobat design until we see how it plays on Lamannia. The only two things we will be watching at this point is comments on Spinning Staff Wall since we just changed that, and feedback on trip DCs.

Sev~

Use the formula used on Spinning Ice, replacing charisma with DEX or STR - wichever is highest, or multiselector.That formula seems to scale well, can land easily on lower content but requires investment to work on high end content, while still working.

Off Topic : If changes are to be made to coup (and low blow i assume) DC, then by all means do so( remember i play as bard).But if you change the DC then you must also change both enhancements to work as tactical attacks, and not as fascinate like they do now.People overlook how many types of mobs are immune to them, i can tell you, its a lot.A lot more than any other form of CC by a great lenght.

[EllisDee37]

Sly Flourish: Bonus weapon damage increased to 1/2/3[W]. Rather than having the attack reduce threat, the enhancement comes with a passive ability that reduces the threat of all attacks by 5/10/15%. Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds.

Out of curiosity, and only because I just added the Half-Elf tree to my character builder, is the Half-Elf Dilettante Special Ability: Sly Flourish getting any changes?

I personally don't care as I don't even own Half-Elf. Just wondering.

[Failedlegend]

I think you should have both options, same holds for the trip feat I think it should use dex if its higher

I know you think that as well as a few others but I don't get WHY. I repeat Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk

[Mryal]

same holds for the trip feat I think it should use dex if its higher

Best idea ive heard today.

[HatsuharuZ]

I know you think that as well as a few others but I don't get WHY. I repeat Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk

There have been strength-based stick builds in the past. IIRC, there was the Big Effin' Stick build. I don't see why strength-based acrobats should be discouraged.

[CThruTheEgo]

I'm sorry but I REALLY don't get the requests for Str-Based it doesn't make ANY sense...Acrobats should be lithe and agile not the Hulk, my only assumption is that it's because Str can be made higher than Dex which is not a good reason.

If anything the tree should be MORE Dex-based and include some abilities reliant on you actively moving.

Here's a Google image search: https://www.google.ca/search?q=acrob...vid=1366926590

Note the lack of hulks...not a single person could be considered more than "fit"

Sidenote: Searching "Thief-Acrobat" mostly just gets generic rogue pictures...bummer.

Strength does not necessarily mean "bulk." Look at what those people are doing in the pictures you linked. It is not mere agility that allows them to do that, it is also great physical strength. In many cultures, a certain appearance (i.e. large muscles) is associated with being strong, but that appearance is not a requirement, or result, of being physically strong. Real world acrobats are an excellent example of this. They possess both great strength and agility, but it is necessary to keep their bulk down in order to keep their dexterity up. Someone with great agility but no strength cannot hold themselves up horizontally by a single arm. Likewise, someone with a lot of bulky muscles body builder style is going to have a hard time bending over backwards or doing cartwheels.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

While using a skill total as a DC was an interesting experiment for Swashbuckler's Coup de Grace, I don't think we will be doing that again. The scale at which typical DCs and skills advance is to far apart to use it as a common mechanic.

Sev~

so are you going to nerf coup de grace and make it not stupid then? or leave it as a ridiculous anomaly?

Is it also by design that bards and paladins were given absolutely no weaknesses? Because they don't have any. I certainly don't want rogues to become another easy button class, but this is a weak argument when you've set no precedent with it in the previous revamps and game balance is completely out of whack if you expect to accommodate classes with no weaknesses and classes with inherently large weaknesses. And having low damage mitigation coupled with weak self healing is a huge weakness given the amount of damage done by mobs in upper level EE content. More damage avoidance does not solve that problem and damage avoidance on rogues does not in any way compare to the damage mitigation plus self healing on a paladin or bard.

Mob damage should not have been inflated so much in the first place, nor their hp. We'd have no need for mechanics such as PRR or melee power right now if that hadn't been the case. So arguing for improving what is already a strength of the rogue class, damage avoidance, completely ignores the central problem with the class, damage mitigation. Rogues do not need more damage avoidance, this is fine as is. They need to be able to cope with the inflated mob damage. I'm not asking for them to reach invincible amounts of PRR, but currently it's a stretch for a pure rogue to reach even 70 PRR.

70 prr is not a stretch at all for a pure rogue.

just past lives is up to +36

augment/item is +16/30

plus whatever the base is

and if you really need it you can wear the planar conflux set which is another +15.

my rogue is at 76 prr before tensers and with no prr past lives.

full bab+6 would be a good start and see how that works. you don't get hit with a 30% dodge... 30% of the time, then you are and your done if it's a dual or multiple sequence attack that some mobs have (ie drow blademasters)

everyone has full bab. its called tensers and if you dont need to tenser yourself then you dont need full bab.

youre right about the multiple attacks being dangerous, but thats why you can move while fighting in this game. also if you actually look at your screen while playing, you can often see that there are tells for when enemies use special attacks and you need to respond accordingly. velahs snout flares when shes about to use dragon breath, ogres and trolls stop attacking and "wind up" before their 3 hit combo, giants move a certain way when they are about to stomp, driders shoot a web at you which procs floaty text over your characters head. all of this can be avoided by either moving out of the way or blocking to negate the harmful effect they cause. and yes there is more than enough time to do them.

outside of those situations though, yea avoidance based defense at the rate rogues have it is not preferable to the heavy armor option. that isnt really a problem with the actual game mechanics of light vs heavy armor themselves though (at least concerning physical damage) but more about the fact that most/many people pretty much expect to be able to face tank multiple mobs without outside healing or even anyone else in the party. so really the fact that rogues are squishy is wai but an issue because of deeper issues.

[CThruTheEgo]

70 prr is not a stretch at all for a pure rogue.

The assassin in my sig gets 15 from light armor, 11 from BAB 19 at level 28, and 30 from an item. That's a total of 56 PRR. Could drop Epic Litany for Planar Focus of Prowess for another 15 for a total of 71, but that's an inferior item for that slot. Aside from past lives and improving BAB through Tenser's or divine crusader, how else can a pure rogue boost this?

just past lives is up to +36

12 past lives should not be a requirement for a rogue to reach effective levels of PRR.

my rogue is at 76 prr before tensers and with no prr past lives.

How long does a Tenser's scroll last again?

[IronClan]

Well, when it comes to Acrobat, you can kiss that GS stave goodbye after a few encounters in the upper epics because it wears out faster than any other weapon. Named quaterstaves until quite recently weren't designed to take punishment like other weapons.

Adamantine ritual neatly makes any staff in the game last just as long as any other weapon. In other words you can go back to forgetting to repair for multiple quests and still make it through the one you're in when you realize you forgot to repair.

This is such a complete non issue with staffs, I don't know why anyone brings it up.

[Myrddinman]

Adamantine ritual neatly makes any staff in the game last just as long as any other weapon. In other words you can go back to forgetting to repair for multiple quests and still make it through the one you're in when you realize you forgot to repair.

This is such a complete non issue with staffs, I don't know why anyone brings it up.

You're right.

However, for me it is a quality of life issue. Sure I can go and complete an Adamantine Ritual on all of my staves (I've actually done it on quite a few). It doesn't change the fact that it is a huge pain. No character build has to worry about this, other than an Acrobat/Stick, which seems a bit silly. I have no issue repairing after every quest, as I pretty much do that now; but when staves break during the quest...that's a different story.

I suggested that Item Defense be added to the cores of the TA tree to help mitigate this. At the very least, add it to the tree so that I can spend 3 AP's on it.

[Ayseifn]

I think you should have both options, same holds for the trip feat I think it should use dex if its higher

How would you balance this though? It's not hard to get strength way higher than dex so all that'd end up happening is it'll be balanced so that dex based struggle to land trips while strength based toons land it for free without trip gear or strength struggles and dex is worthless.

Also at the moment there really isn't much incentive to go dex based on a TA, strength is just too good so there needs to be some benefits for it. Now if you add helpless to sweeping strikes or just trips in general for TAs then dex would be looking a lot more useful.

[Sebastrd]

We are probably done with Thief-Acrobat design until we see how it plays on Lamannia. The only two things we will be watching at this point is comments on Spinning Staff Wall since we just changed that, and feedback on trip DCs.

Sev~

I'm wracking my brain, but I can't think of a good way to give it a Rogueish flavor.

• Dexterity score to PRR (65-75 at lvl 28) seems high.
• Dexterity mod (32-37 at lvl 28) seems way too low.
• Attack bonus might work and definitely fits, but it might be too complicated to program.

Either way, the cooldown is too long. Reduce that to 60 seconds at most.

[Qhualor]

You're right.

However, for me it is a quality of life issue. Sure I can go and complete an Adamantine Ritual on all of my staves (I've actually done it on quite a few). It doesn't change the fact that it is a huge pain. No character build has to worry about this, other than an Acrobat/Stick, which seems a bit silly. I have no issue repairing after every quest, as I pretty much do that now; but when staves break during the quest...that's a different story.

I suggested that Item Defense be added to the cores of the TA tree to help mitigate this. At the very least, add it to the tree so that I can spend 3 AP's on it.

i think staffs breaking during a quest is a problem with the hardness and durability. wood or otherwise, weapons shouldn't be breaking so easily during normal questing. i don't agree with adding item defense to the tree to be a way to solve the problem. i think the devs should look into the problem and see if there is a way to boost the hardness and/or durability. i did a failed staff life once using all the heroic named staffs in the game that a Acrobat would use while leveling to 20 and it was a huge pain having to always have a back up weapon for when my main weapon would break halfway through a quest.

[Thrudh]

Improved Uncanny Dodge 120 second cooldown and available to level 8 rogue

This feat grants you a 1% passive bonus to Dodge at levels 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, and 20.

Also, you can activate this ability to gain a temporary 50% dodge bonus and a +6 reflex save bonus.

Spinning Staff Wall: (2 AP) Active: Activate to gain 50 Physical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds. Passive: While wearing light or cloth armor gain 5% Dodge, 5% Maximum Dodge, and 5 Maximum Dexterity Bonus for Light Armor.

im terrible with DDO math, but if you alternate between the two, that is 50 seconds of waiting for a cooldown. in 40 seconds while you alternate both mobs should already have been dead long ago. this appears to make rogues almost untouchable if it stacks. that's 2 dodge defenses plus high PRR that will negate a lot of damage depending how much PRR you already have invested too. add on other defenses like evasion/improved evasion, blur, displacement, invisibility, etc and it looks like rogues have one of the better defenses. i bet a min/max player could make good use of these defenses without having to go pure.

This... Rogues are very defensible with these two abilities, especially for those of us who don't run full speed through a dungeon... since we can use the abilities in a big fight, take on the next smaller fight while on cool-down, and then have them back just in time for the next big fight.... Those who zoom through the dungeons at breakneck speed will probably proclaim these abilities much too weak... but my rogue will do very well with Improved Uncanny Dodge and this new Spinning Staff Wall.

[Thrudh]

the one terrible thing about trip dc is the fact that Vertigo (or any other prime mod for tactical) mostly can only be found on weapon, and currently none of the named weapons(ram's might, souleater, epic souleater, oak staff, dreamspitter, or the citw staff) have them. combat mastery alone does not make them epic viable, sure there is +11 dex item now. but compare with +5 heroic item it only give 3 extra dc.

if you plan to make this epic viable, perhaps 1) when visiting cannith crafting make sure Vertigo(and other prime tactical mod) can be craft onto other slot(also for random loot). 2) maybe add epic level to the formula. say full rogue level + epic level + trip modifier + dex mod. that would make it truly epic viable. otherwise it might be doable for tiny few amount of player, but for the majority it is next to useless in epic.

Dun Robar ring at 21... And then at 27, the Necro belt that gives +12 vertigo

[Ayseifn]

While using a skill total as a DC was an interesting experiment for Swashbuckler's Coup de Grace, I don't think we will be doing that again. The scale at which typical DCs and skills advance is to far apart to use it as a common mechanic.

Sev~

Only problem I had with Coup de Grace was how easy it is to land the CC, if the CC was tied to stat based DC's it'd be perfect.

Ideally Assassins need good hide/move silent(skill DC) to reliably set up their Assassinates(stat DC) while Coup is the reverse with a stat DC setup(stun, Hold monster, Frozen Fury, etc.) but a skill based kill.

As for Spinning Staff Wall not really digging it, 20 seconds up and 90 down is too long on a defensive clicky. What about Expert Dodger: Any melee attack that would have killed you is instead dodged(can only trigger once every 3 minutes).

As for the trip stuff you're looking into, any chance of changing Improved Trip to a straight +4 to trip DCs?

[Failedlegend]

I'm wracking my brain, but I can't think of a good way to give it a Rogueish flavor.

• Dexterity score to PRR (65-75 at lvl 28) seems high.
• Dexterity mod (32-37 at lvl 28) seems way too low.
• Attack bonus might work and definitely fits, but it might be too complicated to program.

Either way, the cooldown is too long. Reduce that to 60 seconds at most.

What about Dex mod to PRR whilst moving (Not tumbling just moving) passive instead of an action boost...probably has a short duration (like 1 or 2 seconds) after you stop moving to reduce glitchyness