Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[General_Gronker]

Not terrible changes except for one basic concept: increasing the damage on anything.

Stop increasing the damage. Across the board. Fix mob hit points instead of propagating power creep.

[Ironforge_Clan]

Title

It is being worked on and as pointed out in the Assassin post it is forthcoming.

[Robai]

nothing for mechanic?

It's coming, don't worry. It will be it's own thread. The player's council is still discussing it.

Sev~

Any chance there will be auto-disable traps thing?

[HatsuharuZ]

Title

I have a theory.... mechanic is a ranged tree, and they are going to do changes to it and other ranged trees whenever they do a pass for ranged combat and adding ranged power to enhancements/feats/etc.

Of course, it's also possible that there is some debate about the mechanic tree in the player's council, possibly concerning crossbows vs. repeating crossbows, and benefits given to them.

[Annyee]

Here is the first draft of potential changes to the Thief-Acrobat tree.

Core Abilities:

Tumbler: You also gain +2 to maximum Dodge.

Kip Up: You also gain +2 to maximum Dodge.

Cartwheel Charge: Passive: You also gain +2 to maximum Dodge.

Cartwheel Charge: Passive: You also gain 5% double strike while using staves.


Tier One

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.


Tier Two

Haste Boost: now costs 1/1/1 AP


Tier Three

Improved Glancing Blows: Chance increased to 4/8/12%.

Shadow Dodge: (2/2/2 AP) No longer a toggle. It no longer reduces Fortification. Shadow Dodge now adds 1/2/3 to Dodge, Maximum Dexterity Bonus for light armor, and Dexterity.


Tier Four

Staff Lunge: Damage bonus increased to 2/4/6[W]


Tier Five

Acrobatic Staff Training: You gain +3 to hit and +3 damage with quarterstaves.

Momentum Defense: Each time you are struck with an attack you gain +1 to your Dodge and Maximum Dodge for 12 seconds. This stacks up to ten times. (Each hit refreshes all stacks, stacks fall off all at once.)

Sev~

Here are some suggestions and ideas. I'm not saying these are the best but I do think it is helping to go into the right direction. Ignore at your own peril.

Tumbler: Good.

Kip Up: good

Cartwheel Charge: 12 sec cool downs are short. really, anything less than 15 sec is almost unusable. 20 would be nice but 15 is not terrible.

Sly Flourish: Good.

Haste Boost: Standard Good.

Improved Glancing Blows: I would to see base damage increased as well.

Shadow Dodge: Good. (For the love of MIKE, DON'T listen to all the whiners that will throw a fit because their shuriken builds work off the BUGGED shadow dodge. If you ignore anyone ignore those people)

Staff Lunge: good but could it have some kind of knockdown ability too? I mean if you want Acrobat to be the best at knockdown then make them the best.

Acrobatic Staff Training: Good

Momentum Defense: As long as their is not any kind of cool down then I like it. If it will only charge 1 per sec or something like that then its kinda not good.

[Caprice]

The tree wasn't bad before this and improving it in a few ways is nice. It's still underpowered compared to Swashbuckler and all things Paladin, but will remain as my preferred Rogue tree.

I like the capstone change because that seems to be on par with Vanguard, for instance, and I think you've done a decent job of making pure class builds look better recently. However I'm not that excited by the intermediate changes, as a few extra % Dodge is not impressive compared to a Monk 6 splash for the +25% incorporeal mitigation (Shadow Veil) or Fighter/Paladin for +20%+ flat mitigation (Heavy Armor, Defensive Stance, and either Feats or Saves).

I also still feel that a Paladin 15/Rogue 5 will do comparable damage (less SA, but DM + KotC cores + Smites + HS + Zeal; also much better DPS w/aggro) and yet be vastly more survivable (both in mitigation and self-healing), and can still do traps adequately. The Paladin version can even get the +10% runspeed that was removed from Thief-Acrobat, although the APs are tight. One thing I was hoping to see with the Rogue pass was that imbalance redressed and I don't see it here. Can anyone convince me otherwise?

The new tier 5 defensive ability might be worthwhile if it were based not on hits but on any attack made against us, whether it is a hit or miss. Many of the newer "Guard"-like effects do this now. Adding +1% Dodge on a hit and then dying anyway is not much of a defense, but if it added Dodge for the other 3 attacks I avoided via Dodge/Blur/Incorporeality, then at least it is slightly noticeable. For that I think a shorter buff duration would be fine, and a higher AP cost.

I kind of like the idea of bringing back Showtime, but I would rather see it as the level 18 core than as tier 5. Give us more incentives for deep Rogue!

Personally I'm fine with the Shadow Dodge fix/adjustment, and perhaps even happy for it.

[Ayseifn]

Shadow Dodge: Good. (For the love of MIKE, DON'T listen to all the whiners that will throw a fit because their shuriken builds work off the BUGGED shadow dodge. If you ignore anyone ignore those people)

I liked it for defensive roll melee builds, it helped make dex based pretty decent.

The tree wasn't bad before this and improving it in a few ways is nice. It's still underpowered compared to Swashbuckler and all things Paladin, but will remain as my preferred Rogue tree.

I like the capstone change because that seems to be on par with Vanguard, for instance, and I think you've done a decent job of making pure class builds look better recently. However I'm not that excited by the intermediate changes, as a few extra % Dodge is not impressive compared to a Monk 6 splash for the +25% incorporeal mitigation (Shadow Veil) or Fighter/Paladin for +20%+ flat mitigation (Heavy Armor, Defensive Stance, and either Feats or Saves).

I also still feel that a Paladin 15/Rogue 5 will do comparable damage (less SA, but DM + KotC cores + Smites + HS + Zeal; also much better DPS w/aggro) and yet be vastly more survivable (both in mitigation and self-healing), and can still do traps adequately. The Paladin version can even get the +10% runspeed that was removed from Thief-Acrobat, although the APs are tight. One thing I was hoping to see with the Rogue pass was that imbalance redressed and I don't see it here. Can anyone convince me otherwise?

The new tier 5 defensive ability might be worthwhile if it were based not on hits but on any attack made against us, whether it is a hit or miss. Many of the newer "Guard"-like effects do this now. Adding +1% Dodge on a hit and then dying anyway is not much of a defense, but if it added Dodge for the other 3 attacks I avoided via Dodge/Blur/Incorporeality, then at least it is slightly noticeable. For that I think a shorter buff duration would be fine, and a higher AP cost.

I kind of like the idea of bringing back Showtime, but I would rather see it as the level 18 core than as tier 5. Give us more incentives for deep Rogue!

Personally I'm fine with the Shadow Dodge fix/adjustment, and perhaps even happy for it.

Yeah, going to stick with 15 paladin/4 rog/1 fighter for my stick user if this is the change. Viable stun so I can make use of the No Mercy, more HP/PRR/MRR and yeah that run speed.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Tier One

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.


Tier Two

Haste Boost: now costs 1/1/1 AP


Tier Three

Shadow Dodge: (2/2/2 AP) No longer a toggle. It no longer reduces Fortification. Shadow Dodge now adds 1/2/3 to Dodge, Maximum Dexterity Bonus for light armor, and Dexterity.

sly flourish - stacking questions on the passive effect.

haste boost - reduced cost, good.

shadow dodge - you just doubled the cost of this. thats really not cool, especially since you just reduced the cost of haste boost...so the more things change the more they stay the same? what was the point... removing fort debuff is good. if the increased cost is not a typo increase max dodge cap as well or max dex bonus +1/1/2 for +4 total.

[Caprice]

sly flourish - stacking questions on the passive effect.

haste boost - reduced cost, good.

shadow dodge - you just doubled the cost of this. thats really not cool, especially since you just reduced the cost of haste boost...so the more things change the more they stay the same? what was the point... removing fort debuff is good. if the increased cost is not a typo increase max dodge cap as well or max dex bonus +1/1/2 for +4 total.

+1 DEX usually = 2 AP. +1% Dodge usually = 1 AP. +1 MDB is usually bundled into something else so I can't give it a exact cost, but let's say 0.5 AP. So this is more or less 3.5 AP value for 2 AP cost, which is a bargain as long as DEX matters to your build. If it doesn't then you can skip it.

[Saekee]

Shadow Dodge: Good. (For the love of MIKE, DON'T listen to all the whiners that will throw a fit because their shuriken builds work off the BUGGED shadow dodge. If you ignore anyone ignore those .

Annyee I am one of those whiners that liked it--not for shuri builds but for dex builds that are considered 'flavor.' The toggle was costly in its own way because it killed your fortification. I want it to remain as an option--have a selector when choosing AP (like the Arti one where it is bastard sword or repeater) in which one can take the old or the new one proposed.
No one will do a dex based staff since they can do 15 pally and be better than a pure rogue acrobat, even with these changes. Assassins are INT based as are repeater rogues. So all that remains for Dex builds are underpowered flavor builds or unkillable throwers. The latter are still unkillable, just going to miss the buff to the former.
Let's see how people whine when the twf/swf feats are corrected for druid wolf forms--that is OP; shadow dodge was a nice bone for dex builds that on the contrary has its price.

Rangers should not be DEX based btw but that has been endlessly pummeled in the forums already.

[WanderingGrump]

The DC calculations for Trip, Improved Trip and Sweeping Strikes are currently borked and need to be rebalanced before this tree goes live.

A suggestion since you are rebalancing the DCs for tactics and tactics feats is that making the DC bonus not always focused on Strength. I can understand that say Stunning Blow being Strength based but how about letting someone use their Dex mod for the DC. Perhaps if the Acrobat tree added Dex to Hit and damage with a staff you could change the DC to use Dex mod as well if it's higher than Strength mod.

Frankly I look forward to a tactics rebalance since they really are quite worthless in the game now.

As a matter of fact I would love it if taking Sap or Hamstring would actually be worth a feat choice.

In that light consider the requirements on Improved Trip requiring Combat Expertise. I am not sure if that is the way to go but I know on a stick build I generally won't take CE.

One of my favorite toons is the Stick build and I really look forward to seeing what changes you folks have planned.

[Severlin]

Please don't change Sly Flourish.

I tap it when I want to dump aggro of mobs around me.

This will completely disallow dumping aggro once you have it. Just reduce the cooldown to 8 seconds, as planned.

Thanks!

The reason we are changing it is from our testing activated threat reductions aren't working reliably. Are you seeing good use from it?

Sev~

[Severlin]

Some comments on player feedback:

~ On the threat reduction abilities stack: If they don't specify a bonus type they *should* all stack.

~ Staff Lunge animation is something we will look at. The problem is that it's an ability that is hard to get used to but can really work well once you master it. We are wary of changing it for players that get good use from it.

~ I will bring up extra damage to glancing blows with the team.

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

Sev~

[Qhualor]

Some comments on player feedback:

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

Sev~

I think rogues in general should have a increased stealth movement boost all the time regardless, but it does make a lot more sense for a stealth speed boost in Assassin tree.

[Ayseifn]

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

Sev~

Works for me, don't really need to sneak on an acrobat and if I want to as a part of my play style can go pick it up from assassin.

[dunklezhan]

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

Sev~

That would be welcome - would the intention be that these abilities should stack when stealthed (he drooled)? Either way I think the acrobat should have the potential for more non-stealthed speed than 10%. I see no reason an acrobat shouldn't be as manoevrable as a monk when not stealthed. I also have no idea how to spell maneoverable.

[bbqzor]

How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

With the caveat that tree placement/replacement and cost would obviously heavily factor in... Yes please. That would be a great thing for both classes. Assassin is kind of "forced" to multitree, and TA should get a normal runspeed boost. This hits both those targets. As long as the costs are fair, and nothing is replaced/displaced too poorly in the assassin tree, this would be excellent. Please make the stacking functionality of the TA runspeed clear (like, Id assume youd want to make it exclusive with the swash one, for example, but would work WITH the assassin one, so a multitree assassin could go more faster, etc).

[FuzzyDuck81]

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

Sev~

I think that'd be nicely in keeping with the themes of the trees

[Caprice]

~ How would people feel about replacing the stealth movement boost with a 10% boost that works all the time, and adding a stealth speed boost to assassin instead?

I like that a lot. It fits both the "mood" of each prestige name and gives us multiple choices to mix and match as fits our style.

[dualscissors]

The reason we are changing it is from our testing activated threat reductions aren't working reliably. Are you seeing good use from it?

Sev~

I have observed many times in game when I use it to dump agro and nothing seems to happen. I always attributed the fail to me having so much agro that shedding X% wasn't enough. Now I wonder if I was just seeing buggy workings of it.