Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[Severlin]

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.

Faster Sneaking: Removed (bonus moved to the Assassin tree)

Fast Movement: You run 1% faster for each of your Rogue levels while in Light or Cloth armor.


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.

Sweeping Strikes: Cost reduced to 1/1/1 AP.


Tier Four

Staff Lunge: Cost reduced to 1/1/1 AP. Damage bonus increased to 2/4/6[W]. Staff Lunge now lets you lunge through enemies.


Tier Five

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

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.

Sev~

[Spoonwelder]

Presumably unmentioned stuff is left unchanged?

If so - I like it overall - TA was actually a pretty good tree in the first place.

The only thing I would potentially add to the capstone is a MDB+5/Dodge+5 - anyone who goes to cap as a TA should get this bonus to avoid the Nat Gann treatment

[Chette]

Some nice increases, but I do not think it will be enough to compete with the recently buffed classes. Increasing the crit range/multiplier as well on some of the special attacks would help, as would adding in a more powerful cleave attack at a higher tier.

Please also take a look at the DC for sweeping strikes and ensure that it has the potential to work in EE. I would also suggest making the DC based of the highest of either Dex or Str, instead of just Str based.

On that note, unless there is recently been a fix, I believe quarterstaves are still bugged such that they do no provide glancing blows while cleaving. This really must be fixed to allow thief-acrobat to work to it's greatest potential.

[Sn00gans]

Here is the first draft of potential changes to the Thief-Acrobat tree.[COLOR=#FFFFFF]

Just to clarify, since you didn't mention the T5 enhancement Staff Specialization (+1 Competence to Crit Multiplier and Threat Range with Qstaffs) it is being left as is? Or removed or changed or...?

[Severlin]

Just to clarify, since you didn't mention the T5 enhancement Staff Specialization (+1 Competence to Crit Multiplier and Threat Range with Qstaffs) it is being left as is? Or removed or changed or...?

This is meant to be a change list. Anything not mentioned is left as is.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Please also take a look at the DC for sweeping strikes and ensure that it has the potential to work in EE. I would also suggest making the DC based of the highest of either Dex or Str, instead of just Str based.

The DC calculations for Trip, Improved Trip and Sweeping Strikes are currently borked and need to be rebalanced before this tree goes live. I should have mentioned that intention in the OP.

On that note, unless there is recently been a fix, I believe quarterstaves are still bugged such that they do no provide glancing blows while cleaving. This really must be fixed to allow thief-acrobat to work to it's greatest potential.

Yes, it makes no sense to buff a glancing blow enhancement if that's not working with staves. I'll bring it up with Q/A so we can check it.

Sev~

[Sn00gans]

This is meant to be a change list. Anything not mentioned is left as is.

Sev~

Cool, thanks for the quick reply.

[Vellrad]

nothing for mechanic?

[Saekee]

I preferred the bugged older shadow dodge (+6 dex) since it really helped with dex flavor builds

How about a multiselector. Choose the old shadow dodge with a huge boost to dex at the cost of fortification, or the new one

[MadCookieQueen]

Awesome..wonderful that these show up just in time to distract from the mess of the mimic festival.


Well played good sir, I tip my hat to you.

[stoopid_cowboy]

nothing for mechanic?

Oh no, you missed it. Mechanic's were changed a couple years ago into Artificers.
Arty's are way better trappers than Rogues. /sarcasm

I hope they make Mechanics a viable build again. But please, no more pew pew pew repeaters.

[Severlin]

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~

[Grailhawk]

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.)

Don't really like this kind of think its not fun getting hit to get hit less sounds kind of counter productive, getting hit to take less damage is more interesting. Another way to think of this is this enhancement weakens itself as you get hit which makes it less worth having.

IMO change it to a passive +10/+10 or make it give +3 PRR per stack.

[Thar]

The DC calculations for Trip, Improved Trip and Sweeping Strikes are currently borked and need to be rebalanced before this tree goes live. I should have mentioned that intention in the OP.



Yes, it makes no sense to buff a glancing blow enhancement if that's not working with staves. I'll bring it up with Q/A so we can check it.

Sev~

if not allowed as dex based it's a problem for most rogues to hit any reasonable dc.

[Thar]

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

Sev~

Rangers?

[Ayseifn]

Was hoping for the pre enhancement pass movement speed passive bonus and some way to make use of the the helpless damage bonus they get.

As with Saekee I prefer the old shadow dodge(+6 dex).

[Saekee]

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.

Does this remove the bonus to critical threat range? Can this be done without staves?


Tier Two

Haste Boost: now costs 1/1/1 AP
This is very helpful


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.

see my earlier note in making this a dual toggle: one as you have it, one for the old bugged way with a big boost to dex at +6 and loss of fortification. Flavor builds using dex need these boosts

Tier Four

Staff Lunge: Damage bonus increased to 2/4/6[W]
Why not remove the staff requirement? Assassins can also use this tree


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~

Please also consider this:

Sweeping Strikes: Melee Quarterstaff Trip Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] damage to all nearby enemies and trips them. (Balance DC 10 + Half Rogue Level + Dexterity Modifier Negates trip). Cooldown: 30/25/20 seconds. Counts as Cleave for the purposes of resetting Momentum Swing (Legendary Dreadnought).

Why not have this also work without quarterstaves, like a leg sweep? Makes the tree appealing to assassins and others not using qstaves


I feel like the big beneficiaries to this will be rogue splashes since the low hanging fruit of haste boost, qstaff attack speed and sly flourish are very good

[Severlin]

Does this remove the bonus to critical threat range?

This attack still gets the bonus to critical threat range and the On Sneak Attack saving throw reduction.

Can this be done without staves?

The intention is that it will work like it does on live. (Sorry I've never tried it without a staff.)

see my earlier note in making this a dual toggle: one as you have it, one for the old bugged way with a big boost to dex at +6 and loss of fortification. Flavor builds using dex need these boosts

The Dex boost was a bug and it is too big for the cost and placement in the tree. If the tree underperforms on Lamannia and we felt it needed more Dexterity we'd likely add more Dex to a tier 5 or higher end core.

Why not remove the staff requirement? Assassins can also use this tree

It only has an animation for staff.

Why not have this also work without quarterstaves, like a leg sweep? Makes the tree appealing to assassins and others not using qstaves

I'd have to check if this is a custom animation or a cleave animation before considering a non-staff version.

Sev~

[Springstring]

I swear some time I think turbine is on drugs with the things they do and come up with. Must be losing money

[oradafu]

The DC calculations for Trip, Improved Trip and Sweeping Strikes are currently borked and need to be rebalanced before this tree goes live. I should have mentioned that intention in the OP.



Yes, it makes no sense to buff a glancing blow enhancement if that's not working with staves. I'll bring it up with Q/A so we can check it.

Sev~

When the tree system was first added, I suggested that the Acrobat's each Core Ability should provide a +1 or +2 to tactics. (In fact, I suggested Core Abilities for all trees should provide some small passive bonus such as that.) I still don't see why Acrobats can't use Dex for tactics now that the Harper tree utterly destroyed the argument used to hold back Dex, such as one Stat being a master for everything such as to-hit, damage, reflex save, etc.

Finally a Dev answers someone about the broken Glancing Blow for quarterstaves. I know I personally been asking about this for 3 or 4 years and every time I've been ignored. Hopefully this finally gets fixed.