Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[Iriale]

Assassins take Insightful Reflexes just fine, if they get a bit more reflex saves they might be able to skip it entirely though. In any case Turbine could just make them Rogue Bonus feats instead of trying to squeeze them into the trees or as general feats, the bonus feats should be anything they qualify for anyway.

assasins dont need cleave and great cleave... TAs are very tight in feats. Very very tight (one of several reasons that explains why are more abundant multiclass TAs than pure TAs)

[Severlin]

~ Fast Movement now adds 1% per Rogue level. It stacks with everything. Since it scales based on Rogue levels, we don't think this allows for a character who can obtain speeds that they get get now, except a Monk 18/Rogue 2 will be 2% faster and we don't that option is problematic enough to implement a complicated anti-req or stacking system.

If players can see some build we missed that can actually achieve speeds greater that what is currently possible drop us a line because that is not our intent.

~ Modified Staff Lunge so you can sweep through enemies while it is activating. This allows players to lunge into the center of a group and deliver the AoE at the end of the lunge. Note that since the AoE attack occurs at the end of the lunge players will need to not lunge past enemies or the AoE portion will fire off after you are past the enemies.

In testing it was easy to deliver this if you weren't pressing the forward key, and harder if you were pressing the forward key since the initial part of the attack carries you further.

~ We aren't currently plan on giving out free feats as they eats into the Fighter advantage.

Sev~

[BigErkyKid]

~ We aren't currently plan on giving out free feats as they eats into the Fighter advantage.

Sev~

So I gather from your proposal that you think that acrobats are not so behind the current power frontier that they deserve major changes? Paladins and barbarians got game changing (some say game breaking) upgrades.

All I see from the rogues' proposal is a few dodge points and some DBs. This is not a big upgrade, I think it might be easy to show that a paladin 15 / rogue 4 could outperform any more rogue you throw in, which sort of tells us that your upgrade isn't much.

Maybe I am not seeing it right but it does seem there is inconsistency in what you are doing in the class upgrades. Take for instance the paladin changes, VG and KOTC and the class upgrade was very powerful. However, the defender tree remains a pile of...not useful stuff.

Why don't upgrade ALL classes according to new standards (melee power, multipliers), including racial abilities, bard songs and long forgotten class abilities? At this point the game is full of gimp options.

[IronClan]

So I gather from your proposal that you think that acrobats are not so behind the current power frontier that they deserve major changes? Paladins and barbarians got game changing (some say game breaking) upgrades.

All I see from the rogues' proposal is a few dodge points and some DBs. This is not a big upgrade, I think it might be easy to show that a paladin 15 / rogue 4 could outperform any more rogue you throw in, which sort of tells us that your upgrade isn't much.

Maybe I am not seeing it right but it does seem there is inconsistency in what you are doing in the class upgrades. Take for instance the paladin changes, VG and KOTC and the class upgrade was very powerful. However, the defender tree remains a pile of...not useful stuff.

Why don't upgrade ALL classes according to new standards (melee power, multipliers), including racial abilities, bard songs and long forgotten class abilities? At this point the game is full of gimp options.

Staff builds on live are already among the top DPS in the game* and have layered defenses that put them close to armored DPS oriented builds for PRR, give them better miss chance, and give them evasion which is better than MRR.

*disclaimer: weaponized, non broken, melee etc.

The one area that hurts them is they must have 6 monk for Shadow veil or else be stuck with a poor Destiny.

For this reason I would like to see very high Rogue acrobat investment (15+) get increasing amounts of dodge+cap that helps compensate for not having 25% incorporeal from monk levels.

I believe they are doing exactly what you're asking for in your last sentence. it's just that they are now into the less weak classes (and indeed in the case of Staff builds already very good): for example Acrobat ALREADY HAS +1 range and X1 multiplier and has tremendous Monk synergies. Including some of the highest possible base damage in the game, along with some named weapons that unlike almost all other named weapons are actually still better than a TF version. I'm frankly surprised they are improving it.

[Severlin]

So I gather from your proposal that you think that acrobats are not so behind the current power frontier that they deserve major changes?

Correct.

Sev~

[BigErkyKid]

Staff builds on live are already among the top DPS in the game* and have layered defenses that put them close to armored DPS oriented builds for PRR, give them better miss chance, and give them evasion which is better than MRR.

Define staff build? Read below.

Correct.

Sev~

So maybe I am missing something, but how isn't something along the lines of paladin 15 / rogue 3 add whatever base more powerful than any build that includes more rogue for a staff build?

My understanding is that staff builds excel in:

- Attack speed (but it is very low hanging fruit)
- Double strike (again low hanging and AFAIK stacking with zeal)

So why should I go more rogue instead of getting awesomeness from the KOTC tree? Why not grab some defender while I am at it?

When you upgraded paladin and barbarian you made it very hard not to go pure. I don't see this happening at all for rogue staff builds. But maybe I am missing something? Care to illuminate me?

[Saekee]

Define staff build? Read below.



So maybe I am missing something, but how isn't something along the lines of paladin 15 / rogue 3 add whatever base more powerful than any build that includes more rogue for a staff build?

My understanding is that staff builds excel in:

- Attack speed (but it is very low hanging fruit)
- Double strike (again low hanging and AFAIK stacking with zeal)

So why should I go more rogue instead of getting awesomeness from the KOTC tree? Why not grab some defender while I am at it?

When you upgraded paladin and barbarian you made it very hard not to go pure. I don't see this happening at all for rogue staff builds. But maybe I am missing something? Care to illuminate me?

I raised this question some posts back--ultimately, the enhancements must be weighed against the split you mention. Faster speed, boosts to dodge etc. are so far the tradeoffs. I don't think the sneak attack damage will be vastly more than the pally bonuses. I do like the cheaper haste and damage boosts. Anyway my plans for sig's dex build will be affected by these changes and am curious how it will play out.

[BigErkyKid]

I raised this question some posts back--ultimately, the enhancements must be weighed against the split you mention. Faster speed, boosts to dodge etc. are so far the tradeoffs. I don't think the sneak attack damage will be vastly more than the pally bonuses. I do like the cheaper haste and damage boosts. Anyway my plans for sig's dex build will be affected by these changes and am curious how it will play out.

Right. Sorry, I didn't see it. But I think this is the first that comes to anyone's mind. And unless I am doing something wrong (and I am completely willing to admit that), I fail to see how it holds a candle against the paladin build.

[Severlin]

So why should I go more rogue instead of getting awesomeness from the KOTC tree? Why not grab some defender while I am at it?

When you upgraded paladin and barbarian you made it very hard not to go pure. I don't see this happening at all for rogue staff builds. But maybe I am missing something? Care to illuminate me?

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

[Mryal]

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

Just found out you can give + rep to devs.Btw i saw the other post...wait, no i didnt say anything.

[BigErkyKid]

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

So maybe I am doing it wrong, but to me attack speed and DBs are equivalent. The reason being that they both result in more attacks per second, but they don't benefit cleave attacks. A 5% chance of double striking is equivalent to attacking 5% faster.

So I see (paladin left, rogue right)

Zeal (10% DBs) VS 5% DBs and 5% attack speed: so its a wash.
Evasion + saves from paladin VS improved evasion and slipper mind: unclear, since you could splash paladin to get the saves, in any case it favors the rogue. However since armor up a lot of people will say evasion is not a great deal.
Paladin cleaves, smites and light damage vs rogue SA: Half the sneak attack is covered by the light damage, which does not require sneak attack conditions.

And then you have all the healing brought by the paladin vs the general problem of rogues (cocoon and scrolls for fleshies not measuring against paladin heals). If you go paladin, probably you'll grab KOTC healing amp to make it even more obvious that it is more survivable. Finally, paladin frees up a lot of enhancement points by giving the crit profile for free, allowing you to take sneak attack and other bonus stuff from other trees if that's what you want.

To sum it up, I don't see a big gain in DPS even going "very rogue" and I see a very substantial decrease in survivability through much lessened heals. I don't even know if it is not possible to get more DPS on the paladin through a good combination of trees, to be honest, since the rogue has little to offer besides the SA.

It doesn't seem like a fair trade off to me. Maybe others think otherwise?

[Basic_Uncaring]

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

Improved evasion is useless anyway since a pally can use charisma mod to saves and evade everything anyway
Running speed is a non advantage since can be easily covered with gears and sacred defense (and haste pots)
+3 damage with staves is way outclassed by holy sword
attack speed can be covered by gear and haste pots

that leaves sneak damage (useless when soloing unless your improved deception item procs like 100% of the time wich is impossible)
Knockdown immunity.

Seems fair?

[IronClan]

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

Far better off just dumping the paladin all together, for 6 Monk

19-20X1 from mountain stance
+6 damage line from Henshin
Added dodge and max dodge from Ninja Spy
Sneak Dice in Ninja spy.
25% incorporeal without needing to be in SD.

The Paladin Staff build is not terrible, but it is clunky and is bucking too many non-synergies and losing too many easy ones that you mentioned and I added to. But whatever to each their own.

[bbqzor]

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage --(made up for by kotc light damage, which doesnt quit vs undead/eles/oozes etc)
Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind --(paladin saves tend to cover this)
16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed) --(ok so 6% runspeed, meh)
+3 damage with staves --(made up by holy sword)
5% attack speed --(also kind of made up by zeal, ballparking)
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal) --(see above, zeal is 10%)
Knockdown immunity --(except it doesnt block any of the knockdowns that matter like dragons, etc)

Above, plus Paladin gets more base hp (d10 vs d6), so you gain 4+ hp/lvl (other enhancements/destinies pending, can be 50-100 hp difference which is worth a lot of relative AP). And self healing spells. Etc.

Look Im not saying its not close-ish, though obviously Rogue is behind. And to be honest, to really compare, you have to get into comparative total AP costs and stuff, so its tough to just make a list. Thats not really a fair way to line things up.

But you need to be realistic too. A lot of the TA (and assassin, and presumably mechanic once that goes up) stuff is marginalized by the realities of modern ddo. In Epic, you fight mobs that can kill you in 2 or 3 hits on a regular basis, and dodge isnt 100% so without PRR/Etc youre number will come up. With the smaller portion of epic content, there is a very high number of sneak immune mobs. Raiding, almost every raid is an issue... from the adrenaline effect in fire peaks (rogues tend to be the one-shot kind in there), to Deathwyrm (all undead/constructs all the time, except the handful of cultists), to Mark of Death (a rogue can clear the archers out okay I guess, but they are uphill against anything which actually moves the event foward... clearing trash the whole time is kind of lame as the only choice).

There is a reason people would rather do a few d6 less damage, but then not have to sweat every second about getting hit by something, or worry their main class ability might straight up not function. Yea, I know you can get sneaks off with fort bypass or shadowdancer blah blah. Ive got an EE rogue I get it. And I know this rather goes beyond the scope of the enhancement pass. But seriously, we need to know that you know. And sometimes when I see lists like that, as if everything is 1:1 even, I get disheartened. I like most of the enhancement changes, yes. But things like killer wholly fading instead of peeling 1 at a time, or Momentum Defense only working when being hit... those are red flags.

A TA cant sustain getting hit 10 times for it to ramp up, generally speaking. It ought to go up on hit or miss. So like if youre under attack, and surviving, you build up momentum to keep surviving. That would be Momentum Defense. How is it momentum defense when you only get better at dodging after youve been hit a half dozen times and are likely going to die. You mentioned using heal scrolls, like thats a good substitute for self healing...Im supposed to back out, heal scroll up, and charge back in to get hit again within 12 seconds to keep building this? Not so appealing. Its basically a bonus of 1 or 2 or 3% dodge to stop the killshot from landing on you if youve already been hit once or twice. Thats... pretty tiny. And doesnt sound like T5 worthy to me.

Anyhow, hopefully momentum defense, killer, and other similar "all or nothing" buffs which you seem to assume will be up often/always, but which are very hard to maintain given the short windows and conditions for triggering, can be adjusted to be more readily playable. Rogue ought to have more draws relative to anything else (like paladin) instead of a somewhat similar list of features that kind of doesnt seem to have a real edge. Like look at that list above, you could go rogue, it might have some things it does a bit better, but why. Paladin (in this case) is really close, but can self heal, has more margin for error, and is less stringent on the demands the human playing them has to meet. Assassin tree is a good example of where the additional demand (sneaking) offers some tangible benefits (assassinate, measure the foe). TA has additional demands (requires staff and only staff, has to tumble, paradox of best near lots of guys but low defense)... the extra bonus for meeting those demands isnt quite there yet.

Anyhow enough ramblings. Hopefully helpful. The changes are good, but overall, I dont see this as the tree people will gravitate to in a relative power sense. People will do it for fun, but not because its "good". I hope it can get a little more action still. Id like to see the "tumble" stuff get the "measure" treatment, so you tumble to gain ac/ref, or dodge, or more atk etc.. but it persists after you tumble for awhile. So you can tumble in and fight, treating tumble like an action boost opener. That will make the class play different in a purposeful way. 2 cents, etc. Cheers.

[Impaqt]

You mean what do you give up in 15 levels of rogue to make a Paladin based Thief Acrobat? You are giving up:

10 dice worth of sneak attack damage

which is negated by many things. not to mention paladin light damage makes up for much of it as well.

Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind

IE is rarely useful for a rogue, and with the horrible will saves rogues get, slippery mind often just fails again. Maybe modify Slipery mind to add a bonus on that second save attempt?

16% Bonus run speed (Paladin's need to dip into Sacred Defender for run speed)
+3 damage with staves
5% attack speed
5% double strike (made up for by Zeal)
Knockdown immunity

Since you are already getting your improved critical profile from Acrobat the large incentive to go 14 Paladin is largely based on Zeal and the Light Damage.

That looks like an even trade off to me. I think you could make an argument for going 16 Rogue and 4 Paladin honestly.

Sev~

I really do like the proposed changes, but I feel they are falling short in getting rogues up to speed still.

There is also the fact that heavy armor trumps evasion nowadays as well. dodge should be more prevalent for rogues. the fact that momentum defense only works if your getting your butt kicked seems pretty bad... if your getting hit that often, your probably gong to be dead.

[Iriale]

Correct.

Sev~

Would you want at least consider the idea of tactical trapsmith? TAs are not only acrobats, are thieves too... and as rogues, is frustrating that is hard to get a good DC in disable / search. It's ok that for a small splash of rogue, but for a rogue o mostly rogue build? Dex-based build is a hard hit to your trapping performance. And hey this is not a fighter thing, certainly.

And sorry, but I think that better defensive and healing options are needed... your changes mean that the multiclass will remain almost mandatory.

[Chaimberland]

So I gather from your proposal that you think that acrobats are not so behind the current power frontier that they deserve major changes? Paladins and barbarians got game changing (some say game breaking) upgrades.

I'm sorry but acrobat rogues shouldn't be comparable to paladins and barbarians in melee prowess. Acrobat rogues are a specialist class and paladins and barbarians are melee classes. Don't try to make everything the same or the game gets real boring real fast.

[BigErkyKid]

I'm sorry but acrobat rogues shouldn't be comparable to paladins and barbarians in melee prowess. Acrobat rogues are a specialist class and paladins and barbarians are melee classes. Don't try to make everything the same or the game gets real boring real fast.

I am all in for giving specialists something "special". See my signature. However, the question one needs to answer is:

Why is it better to go "more rogue than paladin"? What do I gain by choosing not to get 15 levels of paladin?

And the answer needs to be something substantial that makes up for the many advantages of the paladin, but I cannot see a reason.

[Iriale]

~ Fast Movement now adds 1% per Rogue level. It stacks with everything. Since it scales based on Rogue levels, we don't think this allows for a character who can obtain speeds that they get get now, except a Monk 18/Rogue 2 will be 2% faster and we don't that option is problematic enough to implement a complicated anti-req or stacking system.

If players can see some build we missed that can actually achieve speeds greater that what is currently possible drop us a line because that is not our intent.

~ Modified Staff Lunge so you can sweep through enemies while it is activating. This allows players to lunge into the center of a group and deliver the AoE at the end of the lunge. Note that since the AoE attack occurs at the end of the lunge players will need to not lunge past enemies or the AoE portion will fire off after you are past the enemies.

In testing it was easy to deliver this if you weren't pressing the forward key, and harder if you were pressing the forward key since the initial part of the attack carries you further.

~ We aren't currently plan on giving out free feats as they eats into the Fighter advantage.

Sev~

Tactical trapsmith (skill performance!!! rogue thing--- not fighter thing) or the movement part of spring attack (hey, movement: acrobat thing, not fighter thing) are not feats per se, are things that a thief acrobat should have… nobody ask for cleaves or THF feats for free. You give to pallies feats that are fighter feats, but Tactical trapsmith or movement while attacking are not fighter features.

and please, TAs need more better defensive and healing options...

[Saekee]

~ Fast Movement now adds 1% per Rogue level. It stacks with everything. Since it scales based on Rogue levels, we don't think this allows for a character who can obtain speeds that they get get now, except a Monk 18/Rogue 2 will be 2% faster and we don't that option is problematic enough to implement a complicated anti-req or stacking system.

If players can see some build we missed that can actually achieve speeds greater that what is currently possible drop us a line because that is not our intent.

~ Modified Staff Lunge so you can sweep through enemies while it is activating. This allows players to lunge into the center of a group and deliver the AoE at the end of the lunge. Note that since the AoE attack occurs at the end of the lunge players will need to not lunge past enemies or the AoE portion will fire off after you are past the enemies.

In testing it was easy to deliver this if you weren't pressing the forward key, and harder if you were pressing the forward key since the initial part of the attack carries you further.

~ We aren't currently plan on giving out free feats as they eats into the Fighter advantage.

Sev~

Thx Sev--this is exciting and gives an incentive to not simply be 14 Pally/ then rogue for those of us that love a little speed