Rogue - Thief-Acrobat Changes

[Thar]

[QUOTE=Failedlegend;5557422]

Well to be fair boosting BAB to char level isn't exactly a rare ability even in heroic (see below) but honestly I prefer the hit faster and smarter style of Acrobat as opposed to the harder and well harder of other classes.

The first half of your statement is a good start that's the opinion, but the second half is where your reason for said opinion SHOULD be but all you say is "It's Core" thats not a reason. Just because that's how something works in PnP or In the core book does not automatically make it better.


/QUOTE]

Realistically if your missing in this game consistently, you have other issues with your character than BAB. the way the to hit formula is calculated you rarely miss, and mobs rarely miss us. Another handful of bab isn't going to make much of a difference. if it does, slap on an accuracy item. As a rogue you are probably dex to hit anyway and should have a decent to hit.

If you want more bab for prr, this is a flaw in the prr formula where it rewards those classes with heavier armor more for bab than light armor classes for bab which isn't fair and causes the vast problem of slap on heavy armor and go. Light armor is almost useless. That being said there are other ways to get prr too and 100 ish at endgame isn't unreachable with twists and items. Should it be more... yes because dodge only works 2 to 3 hits out of 10. what is this supposed to represent for prr? as you get more skilled you get better at defense? if so then a fighter at level 6 and a rogue at level 9 have the same bab and should have the same additional bonus to prr not matter what armor you use.

otherwise no need for full bab on a rogue, they get extra class benefits to compensate. PNP rules are the foundation of the game and in this case are fine.

[BigErkyKid]

At the moment Damage Mitigation (PRR/MRR) is far superior to Damage Avoidance (dodge, displacement, etc.) because it completely prevents death and there is no way to bypass it. High Fortification is one of the key protections that damage-avoidance builds rely on to prevent huge amounts of crit damage and there is now a way to completely bypass it. There is no enemy buffs to bypass PRR/MRR.

Because there is system overlap. Mobs where only supposed to threaten you with 2 shot - 1 shot situations with criticals, not with regular hits. But go into a full scaled EE GH Tor and let the giants whack at you without PRR and just fort and tell me what's their raw damage and how long you can last.

People keep saying that dodge is a valid alternative to PRR but it clearly isn't. See the code Forzah wrote in my signature for simulations on how much you can rely on expectation on dodge vs PRR. If before the introduction of champions it was better to go PRR than the traditional layered defense (how many 14 paladin / 6 monk you see with shadow veil?), with champions it is the nail in the coffin of dodge builds. I even gave up on swashbuckling on my pure bard for eTRs to get med armor (yes I am aware 3 fighter / 2 rogue cookie cuter is the solution).

The fact that Sev revamped rogues giving more dodge and only situational PRR makes me think that Turbine DOES NOT feel there is a problem right now in terms of the balance between classes. This scares me, because having a quick look at the power gamer builds and the people IG tells you that the majority are moving towards PRR. This must be for a reason.

And to clarify - I am not complaining, but the PRR divide is a very valid point to raise in my opinion which is why I mentioned it a few times. Rogues are squishy period. They are going to be more squishy at level 30 if the devs increase melee damage output to challenge the high PRR high hp builds.

I don't think it should be addressed by giving rogues an easy button PRR option. It should be addressed through enemy buffs so PRR/MRR doesn't always work and huge damage #s aren't the only option to challenge high PRR builds.

Allowing for everyone to be 2 shot is not the solution, perhaps mobs should not have been hitting that hard anyway.

[brzytki]

Realistically if your missing in this game consistently, you have other issues with your character than BAB. the way the to hit formula is calculated you rarely miss, and mobs rarely miss us. Another handful of bab isn't going to make much of a difference. if it does, slap on an accuracy item. As a rogue you are probably dex to hit anyway and should have a decent to hit.

If you want more bab for prr, this is a flaw in the prr formula where it rewards those classes with heavier armor more for bab than light armor classes for bab which isn't fair and causes the vast problem of slap on heavy armor and go. Light armor is almost useless. That being said there are other ways to get prr too and 100 ish at endgame isn't unreachable with twists and items. Should it be more... yes because dodge only works 2 to 3 hits out of 10. what is this supposed to represent for prr? as you get more skilled you get better at defense? if so then a fighter at level 6 and a rogue at level 9 have the same bab and should have the same additional bonus to prr not matter what armor you use.

The comment about full BAB wasn't to get more to-hit but to get more hits. BAB is tied to attack speed and, while it made sense in the early stages of the game, with the additions of abilities that give full BAB to almost all other classes it makes no sense to cover this request with such a lame rebuff. (the "lame rebuff" part is directed at Sev, not you)

As for PRR, wasn't there a dev post before announcing rogue drafts about lowering PRR from armor types? Oh, i found it:

An update:

We are discussing some balance changes with the player's council, and one of them is to change the base for heavy armor from 45/30/15 to 30/20/10. The higher values were set before the PRR formula changed and when we changed other values to 2/3 to compensate we didn't change these values.

That would make the base for armor as follows:

Heavy Armor
- PRR: 30 + BAB + 6
- MRR: 30
Medium Armor
- PRR: 20 + (BAB * 2/3) +4
- MRR: 20
Light Armor
- PRR: 10 + (BAB/2) + 2
- MRR: 10

This change is specifically to cut down on the "slap some armor on" power and remove a bit of front loaded mitigation.

Right now we have mixed feedback from the players council. Many agree with the change. Others think making these changes will really upset the player base and isn't worth the small change in mitigation it provides. Others are worried about anything that will swing the pendulum back towards armor being useless.

Sev~

That means rogues will have 5 less PRR from light armor than on live. While it's no big deal if you have farmed 12 past lives and have around 100 PRR, it is really something if you haven't. And here we are with Devs not wanting to put PRR in the rogue trees.

[Qhualor]

That's utter nonsense, do you even play a rogue in EE? Do you only fight 1vs1?

Your response is utter nonsense with nothing to back it up. I wouldn't be commenting in this thread if I didn't have actual experience with rogues and in EE content. Why are people making excuses?

[Qhualor]

Saying this buff is build-neutral is mythology.

If I take 1200 from a hezrou champ in Servants of the Overlord and have 60 PRR I take 750 hp damage. On my 200 PRR build I take 400 damage.

The fortification bypass buff makes PRR more important since it's the only protection you have against that big crit. It used to be my main protection was fortification (crit avoidance), but since that can be completely bypassed PRR is the only way to protect against crits. There is no buff to completely bypass PRR/MRR. At the moment it's the biggest easy-button we have in this game.

If fortification was your biggest defense than you have a lot more issues than that.

[Qhualor]

You can never avoid 100% of hits and are still subject to that one big melee hit. PRR is the ONLY way to mitigate that melee damage since you can't avoid getting hit 100% of the time. I don't think you've played a rogue in high level EE content if you think deception is going to help you dump agro.

You keep mentioning displacement like it's something rogues get by default and is unique. Displacement is something that all builds have access to through shroud clickies. The duration on scrolls is too short for me to consider. Sev indicated he is not such a big fan of clickies and while he didn't specifically mention displacement - I am skeptical we will have good options for those outside heroic Shroud. He also said he was leaning towards not balancing content around clickies.

I'm not claiming you can never avoid getting hit. I'm claiming there are a multitude of options for a rogue to mitigate and dump agro. Its up to the player to utilize them and I'm seeing quite a few posts in here who make excuses for why can't or shouldn't. That's not a class problem. That's a player problem.

[brzytki]

Your response is utter nonsense with nothing to back it up. I wouldn't be commenting in this thread if I didn't have actual experience with rogues and in EE content. Why are people making excuses?

I'm sorry i have to make sure you know what you are talking about given your history of misconceptions and lack of knowledge in some areas displayed on this forum.

If fortification was your biggest defense than you have a lot more issues than that.

You are purposely not getting it. What is your defense against damage taken? Not against getting hit. Against damage taken! It's HP (which obviously rogues won't get high as a d6 class with no benefits to HP), fortification (to prevent huge damage spikes from crits) and PRR (to shave off some percentage of incoming damage). Since rogues have practically no PRR apart from light armor and BAB combo, they NEED a sheltering item to survive even two hits in EE. No one is saying to give them free 50 PRR. We are saying to give them some. Because when lvl cap raises to 30 all those 200 PRR pallies will need a new challange and we all know how Devs introduce challange - by adding mobs that hit harder. And when the new mobs are challenging for high PRR classes, they'll utterly destroy low PRR classes.

Basic rogue in SD with 25% dodge and perma blur has 45% chance of not being hit. The same rogue has 27 PRR from light armor, BAB, plus up to 30 PRR from a raid item. That's max of 57 PRR w/o any past lives. That's around 35% damage reduction. Add in champions and their buffs like TS, fort bypass, double damage and it's not only hard to survive a few hits, you don't stand a chance.

You are just like second Snootch. "Rogues don't need CON because they are not meant to get hit", only in your example it's PRR, which basically means the same.

I'm not claiming you can never avoid getting hit. I'm claiming there are a multitude of options for a rogue to mitigate and dump agro. Its up to the player to utilize them and I'm seeing quite a few posts in here who make excuses for why can't or shouldn't. That's not a class problem. That's a player problem.

That is a class problem and if it goes on like this it's gonna be a game problem because as the power of the mobs will be rising, inevitably they will be doing more damage and rogues will be dead with 1 or 2 hits when their miss chance doesn't kick it. It's simple as that. Mitigating and dumping agro is all well and good but it doesn't really work when you are fighting 5+ melee mobs, mobs with random agro, mobs with cleave attacks, mobs with huge melee range like bosses and so on.

[BigErkyKid]

I'm not claiming you can never avoid getting hit. I'm claiming there are a multitude of options for a rogue to mitigate and dump agro. Its up to the player to utilize them and I'm seeing quite a few posts in here who make excuses for why can't or shouldn't. That's not a class problem. That's a player problem.

So everyone else can put on a harmor and take the hits, but the rogue has to be more clever about it?

No one is going to do that, outside of flavor reasons, if the DPS does not make up for it somehow. TA did not get much more coming that way, so this upgrade feels like the devs listened to the complaints by the players and stopped power buffing classes. Pity that some have already been buffed to uberness.

[Thrudh]

The cooldown is not the issue imo it could be 5 minutes or 3 hours the ability imo is useless with such a short duration

20 seconds is plenty of time to get yourself out of the "oh ****" moment, either by killing the bad guys, or getting the heck out of dodge...

I'd say something like this:

Momentum Defense (or w/e name)

Add 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

Req: Must be Wearing Light, Cloth or no armor and wielding a Q-Staff

This is a TERRIBLE idea...

(1) Probably will cause lag with all the constant calculations to tell if a character is moving Edit: I was wrong about this... I forgot this is already always calculated for the -4 to hit when moving
(2) Forces a certain style of game-play

Nothing wrong with a good boost... If you can't take care of a problem in 20 seconds, you shouldn't have been there in the first place.

[LightBear]

snip

Sev~

Make a line where a rogue auto-bluffs and auto improved feints without needing the feat. Make it that it targets all foes within range just like intimidate does.
Give their weapons deception and improve deception as the line progresses. Drop their agro each step of the way.

[slarden]

If fortification was your biggest defense than you have a lot more issues than that.

Uh, fortification reduces a 4x crit to 1x for 75% damage reduciton. What is it you are using that mitigates crits more than that on your rogue? You keep confusing damage avoidance with damage mitigation. Fortification is the best defense against big damage crits a rogue is going to get in light armor. That is completely removed by the champion buff while there is no champion buff to remove PRR.

No avoidance technique will work 100% of the time. Previously fortification and PRR were reliable if the character was built correctly.

[nibel]

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~

Any chances to make Trip and Sunder* always work, without a DC? The DC is there for recovery time (for trip) or secondary effects (for Sunder), but not for the actual effect. Sure, the cooldown on those abilities might be tweaked for that, with the Improved feats reducing the cooldown.

Sure, this would make a 6-str wizard able to trip a giant, but he would get up after a single second. Raising trip DC would make the ability amazing for CC, and no-save trips turns them in a situational tactical option for all melee characters. .

*Change Sunder to be always -3 Fortitude on hit, and -4 AC/-5% fortification on failed save (all three stacks 5 times); while Improved Sunder gives a cooldown low enough to allow you to add stacks on your own, and +4 DC, like Improved Trip.

[Severlin]

Any chances to make Trip and Sunder* always work, without a DC? The DC is there for recovery time (for trip) or secondary effects (for Sunder), but not for the actual effect. Sure, the cooldown on those abilities might be tweaked for that, with the Improved feats reducing the cooldown.

Sure, this would make a 6-str wizard able to trip a giant, but he would get up after a single second. Raising trip DC would make the ability amazing for CC, and no-save trips turns them in a situational tactical option for all melee characters. .

*Change Sunder to be always -3 Fortitude on hit, and -4 AC/-5% fortification on failed save (all three stacks 5 times); while Improved Sunder gives a cooldown low enough to allow you to add stacks on your own, and +4 DC, like Improved Trip.

We in fact have data on what would happen if trip was automatic because of the tactical DC bug! Long story short it was too much.

Sev~

[Thar]

We in fact have data on what would happen if trip was automatic because of the tactical DC bug! Long story short it was too much.

Sev~

but never working (for any other non tactical class) is ok? i end up removing it from my bar about level 5 as it stops being useful on a character that isn't spec'd for tactics.

[Impaqt]

We in fact have data on what would happen if trip was automatic because of the tactical DC bug! Long story short it was too much.

Sev~

and yet its worked that way for Mobs for years.....

Seriously though... I can see why auto trip would be bad.. but how about a way to use an alternative Ability for Trip, Sap, and Sunder? Most rogues dont go STR based anymore, so these abilities become useless when your using Dex or Int to hit.

[nibel]

We in fact have data on what would happen if trip was automatic because of the tactical DC bug! Long story short it was too much.

Sev~

The tactical DC bug also raised the time it took for the mobs to get back on their feet. Make the balance check immediately after the trip hits, and if the mobs pass, it just "slips" and get back on their feet in a swift animation. That would make them pause for a second or two, mostly.

[ddorimble]

(1) Probably will cause lag with all the constant calculations to tell if a character is moving

This is already constantly calculated, which is how your attack bonus drops by 4 every time you're moving, and why Spring Attack is there.

[Severlin]

We are still working on what we will do with the DCs to Trip, Improved Trip, and Sweeping Strikes. The time sink is doing our due diligence on monster stats. We need to get the value ranges for both Balance skills and straight Strength bonuses for all the creatures in the game before we finish our work.

Sev~

[Thrudh]

This is already constantly calculated, which is how your attack bonus drops by 4 every time you're moving, and why Spring Attack is there.

Good point... I stand corrected.

[Thrudh]

Any chances to make Trip and Sunder* always work, without a DC?

This is insane...

Can we make UMD always work too?

And hold spells?

Come on guys... Are we seriously at that point? Where we're asking for abilities to always work, with no investment?