Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[Thar]

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~

too many pre's are getting speed boosts to movement. While the zerg can be good, not everyone can keep up.

[Severlin]

too many pre's are getting speed boosts to movement. While the zerg can be good, not everyone can keep up.

I somewhat agree with you which is why we didn't add extra movement in the first pass. I don't mind if some builds arrive after the monks and deliver the finishing damage. But I can see the player's points on acrobats being quick and assassins needing to move quickly into position while stealthed in groups.

Sev~

[Ranidae]

... I can see the player's points on ... assassins needing to move quickly into position while stealthed in groups.

For Jimmeny Cricket's sake, an Assassin can splash 4 AP into Acrobat and get +50% sneak speed. It's not that hard.

Everything doesn't need to be in one tree.

People have a tendency to ask for the World, whether it makes sense or not.

[Blackheartox]

If you want mov speed, put it into cores, like 18 or something, otherwise it will be stronlgy abused by specific kiting ranged builds.
2nd of all, with new staffs for example thforged being base crit range 20 and only x2 i was wodering if there was a way to actually buff it?
I mean if you give similiar buff to what palies get via holy sword to staffs it wouldnt break the class.
Just bring it up, and even a extra 1 crit threat wouldnt matter that much in case you guys plan to make gsteel staffs 20/x2 as well.


So in short, is there a chance to buff staffs base range/nulti via named items/ep gsteels crafting?
Or are you guys planning entirely not to think about that?
Or can you think about a buff specifically to staff specialization?
I tested several builds on lama with staffs/palie splits rogue palie splits, rogue monk palie splits and to be perfectly honest they all severly underperformed brute dps wise.
I know rogues get sneak, that it scales with melle power n such but capstone you guys gave to babr and palie recently and what you gave swasch and warchanter are just to much.
I personally consider staff builds one of most fun in game, since you feel like a shaolin n such, but with current mechanic those weapons are just a poor choice imo.

[FlaviusMaximus]

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

I agree. I actually thought the +6 dex was the only way the enhancement was worth using. No, the enhancement wasn't working as intended, but it was working as it should have been intended. There are next to no decent sources of additional dex in the enhancement trees. Lowering the bonus to +3 just means eliminating some class combinations while shifting more builds towards being strength based.

[draven1]

Here is what we want to see in Epic Acrobat's "Showtime"

[davmuzl]

I somewhat agree with you which is why we didn't add extra movement in the first pass. I don't mind if some builds arrive after the monks and deliver the finishing damage. But I can see the player's points on acrobats being quick and assassins needing to move quickly into position while stealthed in groups.

Sev~

I used to see thief acrobats using splits with monk/barb anyway so most of them would have increased speed already. I also think that stuff like extra movement speed should not be given to everyone to make sure every class feels different. That said I hate playing characters that don't have anything to boost beyond the usual 30% striding item and in some quests it would be nice to have an option to get a speed boost especially when out of combat and maybe the thief acrobat could have a extra movement at higher lvl.

[btolson]

~ 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.
Sev~

Maybe consider a multi-selector here? Keep the current Staff Lunge for the (few?) people that like it currently, and add a choice for a "Staff Charge" using the Shield Charge animation for the rest of us.

~ 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 this is a good idea.

[Ayseifn]

If you want mov speed, put it into cores, like 18 or something, otherwise it will be stronlgy abused by specific kiting ranged builds.

Could just make it conditional on wearing light armour to kill off monk splashes or to staves if they're cool with it stacking with monk movement or the like. Or give the player the option like defenders get, so only need a staff equipped or be wearing light.

2nd of all, with new staffs for example thforged being base crit range 20 and only x2 i was wodering if there was a way to actually buff it?
I mean if you give similiar buff to what palies get via holy sword to staffs it wouldnt break the class.
Just bring it up, and even a extra 1 crit threat wouldnt matter that much in case you guys plan to make gsteel staffs 20/x2 as well.


So in short, is there a chance to buff staffs base range/nulti via named items/ep gsteels crafting?
Or are you guys planning entirely not to think about that?
Or can you think about a buff specifically to staff specialization?
I tested several builds on lama with staffs/palie splits rogue palie splits, rogue monk palie splits and to be perfectly honest they all severly underperformed brute dps wise.
I know rogues get sneak, that it scales with melle power n such but capstone you guys gave to babr and palie recently and what you gave swasch and warchanter are just to much.
I personally consider staff builds one of most fun in game, since you feel like a shaolin n such, but with current mechanic those weapons are just a poor choice imo.

Yeah. Sireth was created because using a staff sucked, then with the enhancement pass they got an extra 1 range and 1 multi to help keep up with the other class changes. They were very good then but TF came out making base crit profile the thing to balance against and they fell behind, then came paladins/bard/barbs passes and yeah, noticeably behind now.

Would rather they get better Melee Power scaling out of SA to be honest though, so much power creep came from crit profiles for other classes so something different would be refreshing. A pure paladin does more damage with their 7d6 light damage when full specced out than a full specced out rogue with 21SA dice.

[Synthetic]

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.

Do these Maximum dodge apply to the dodge cap or do they increase Max dex bonus in armor or do both - so 31% dodge cap assuming no armor restriction? If they increase MDB is it for light armor only?

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]

All nice changes especially the Shadow dodge change.

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~

Could momentum defense be changed to on hit or miss? Getting hit in epic elite is not good, and rogues don't get any increase in base hit points unlike barbs, pallies and fighters so they could easily be killed before this really gets rolling. Also will it bypass dodge cap due to armor max dex bonus?

[FuryFlash]

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 personally believe that the acrobat should have more movement and other acrobatic abilities than the other rogue prestige enhancements, and especially more than other classes. It's also very important for assassins to be able to move quickly, particularly in groups. This change would definitely benefit both trees since an acrobat could simply take the lowest tier of assassin to get faster sneaking if they wanted to, like what the assassins have to do now with TA.

I notice that you don't specifically say you would be switching the current 20%/35%/50% to sneaking speed in TA over to assassin. I suggest adding this to the lowest tier of assassin, then add a 5% bonus to sneaking speed to each core of assassin except the first, and finally add a 10% to the capstone. This would give a total of 80% sneaking speed to pure rogue assassins.


Otherwise, good changes so far on Thief Acrobat. Like some other forum members I believe that these rogues should be improved in the melee DPS department by improving crits by more. Since, at least in my experience of playing one, acrobats generally just charge in and use cleaves, there should be less focus on SA and more on survivability, mobility and melee damage. Thanks for reading, hope to see more soon!

[Ayseifn]

I agree. I actually thought the +6 dex was the only way the enhancement was worth using. No, the enhancement wasn't working as intended, but it was working as it should have been intended. There are next to no decent sources of additional dex in the enhancement trees. Lowering the bonus to +3 just means eliminating some class combinations while shifting more builds towards being strength based.

It's also pretty expensive at 2/2/2.

Eldritch Knights get perma 4 str/dex/con for 1 AP, yes it's tier 5 and lowers casting cooldowns but works fine for certain builds.
Clerics/FvS get +cha mod to str for a piddly amount of SP, 1-3 AP and a bit of upkeep, not hard to get this to +11 str(factoring in +4 insight item).
Paladins similarly get +cha mod to str, more AP but zero SP and unlikely to run out of Divine Mights. Also a bit of upkeep.
Barbs get str/con up the wazoo as well as frenzy(+2 str, 1 AP) an death frenzy(+4 str, also 1 AP). And again, upkeep.

If anything just bring back Showtime, +5 or so stacking dex and some other fluff but only 1-2 mins uptime. The old version used haste boost as its resource but that's probably too expensive in the modern game, since there's no resource I can think of that'd work maybe just throw the -fortification here.

[Thrudh]

6) "Vault": Very expensive for something that deals no damage. Could the prerequisites be removed, perhaps?

I'd like to see the pre-reqs removed from this one as well.

[Qhualor]

Some comments on player feedback:

~ 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.


Sev~

just a thought that I thought would be cool, how about instead of diving through enemies you do a flying spin move whirling your staff? like the monk spin but with jumping distance. reminds me off bowling.

[Joinaxx]

Yeah. Sireth was created because using a staff sucked, then with the enhancement pass they got an extra 1 range and 1 multi to help keep up with the other class changes. They were very good then but TF came out making base crit profile the thing to balance against and they fell behind, then came paladins/bard/barbs passes and yeah, noticeably behind now.

Would rather they get better Melee Power scaling out of SA to be honest though, so much power creep came from crit profiles for other classes so something different would be refreshing. A pure paladin does more damage with their 7d6 light damage when full specced out than a full specced out rogue with 21SA dice.

This. I'm not really seeing anything from the proposed changes that will make rogues catch up to bards/pallys/barbs. The game now is all about dps, the hardest content are being solo'd at record times by barbarians (just look at the achievements youtube thread). I'm not saying that rogues should have the same dps as barbarians today, but at least before rogues have comparable dps when they don't have aggro. Right now sneak attack can't catch up to the massive numbers being produced by superior crit profiles of pallys and bards, and the ridiculous amount of melee power of berserkers (and that awesome capstone).

Maybe have an enhancement that will give scaling melee power to sneak attack? maybe 200% scaling? I think this is fair since sneak attacks can't crit anyway. Or maybe have an enhancement for thief-acrobats that will make glancing blows have sneak attack also. This will make rogues have decent dps with the condition that they don't have aggro.

[btolson]

Just a thought on rogue/sneak attack dps:

Perhaps we can borrow from newer editions of D&D and allow sneak attacks that occur on crits to always deal maximum damage instead of rolling dice (e.g., 15d6 will do 90 damage on every crit).

[SealedInSong]

Yes re-examine staff lunge!
Yes please add movement speed bonus to acrobat cores, and give assassins faster sneaking.

Some comments on player feedback:

~ 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 get the sense that most people find the animation not good.
Objectively, I really don't see a good reason for anyone to interrupt their attack chain to do it.
It does less DPS than just autoattacking or cleaving, and the animation locks you into a movement that is harder to control and slower than just running.

~ 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 would feel good about this ONLY if the movement speed were in Lvl12+ core of acrobat. I do not think that acrobat splashes or <12 rogue characters should get the benefit of increased movement speed, only deeply-invested acrobats.

Thanks for asking!

Sev~

[SealedInSong]

How about adding it as a passive boost associated with spending points in each tree? ("For each point spent in tree, stealth movement speed increases by 1%"). It just seems like something so ingrained to the character concepts that it should "come with the territory", not be something actively chosen. Put a cap on it (and say what the cap is in the description) if you're worried it'll get too high.

+1 to this. I'd say make the cap 20%, so it's comparable to a pure swashbuckler (one that did not take T5 warchanter enhanced movement speed)

[SealedInSong]

More comments in green.

Heya,

Staff Lunge: Damage bonus increased to 2/4/6[W]
I use this, I love this... I use it only because it looks cool, as an ability it is terrible. Reduce cost to 1 point.
Yes, reduce cost. For something that just locks you into a movement that could get you killed and does less DPS but looks neat, it ne

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.)
Never going to use this. To get hit 10 times on EE to get the dodge bonus means dead rogue since hp is not their strong suit. Maybe permanent dodge and max dodge boost? It is tier 5, and the TA tier 5 is empty except for the staff boost. Vault is a fluff ability that the tree it requires is far too expensive (14 points to max it out), that you can get to tier 3 in assassin or mechanic for those points. Much better use.

Sweeping strikes needs cost changed to 1 per tier or changed to 2 tiers for 2 each, same with Lunge.

Vault should cost 1 point.
Agreed in all points, except I think Vault can cost 2 points just like Wind Dance. HOWEVER staff lunge and sweeping strikes MUST be reduced to 1 point per tier, as they are extremely costly for their benefit.

Staff lunge has very little benefit, and I argue that frequently.

Sweeping strikes has a good benefit but requires a lot of investment, so it shouldn't be so expensive in AP. It's already expensive in: stat investment, gear, tactics, feats if you want it to actually work.

Then I would never take the stealth movement boost. The 10% movement boost should be where staff lunge is for 1 point, and have lunge besideit for another tier 4 ability for 1 point of 6W dmg version only.

Lunge... it is slower than normal attack speed, it is much slower than cleaves, it is a fluff ability but I do not want it removed.
Agreed.

Sweeping strikes needs its cool down cut in half. It is essentially a terrible free cleave, that trips zombies for STR toons, but who really complains about free.
Correct; sweeping strikes, as I said above, requires a lot of investment to work modestly. It should be a lot cheaper, and the formula should make it usable in EE if you properly invest in it. As it stands, even when I went gangbusters on a tripping build, most other characters killed the monster before I could properly debuff it to trip it.

Dex staff, I tried one for a life, it was terrible... really really need the dex from from shadow dodge and about 15 more from somewhere else. The dex boost should be in tier 5 to avoid the shuriken abusage. Even a tier 5 ability that gives +2 dex per point and have 5 tiers of it, would not be overpowering for the poor dex stick builds.
Agreed. Show me a dex build on a server that actually competes and I'll be astonished. I was a dex build for exactly half a week before LRing back to what actually works.

[SealedInSong]

I somewhat agree with you which is why we didn't add extra movement in the first pass. I don't mind if some builds arrive after the monks and deliver the finishing damage. But I can see the player's points on acrobats being quick and assassins needing to move quickly into position while stealthed in groups.

I do not agree.

*Movement speed is part of the identity of acrobats
If anything, I think an acrobat should be FASTER than a swashbuckler, and FASTER than a T5 expeditious chanting warchanter with the swashbuckler speed enhancement. (I am not calling for nerfs, just parity.)

*Tumbling and lunging
I also think that they should have some kind of tumbling alacrity. Really, most acrobats will rarely tumble because the graphic is too slow for the benefit. Same goes for staff lunge.

Finding ways to incentivize tumbles and staff lunges will greatly benefit the flavor, profile, fun, and identity of acrobats.