Rogue - Mechanic (and Traps) Proposed Changes

[Magil]

Aren't you getting pb and sneak attack from max range? I am. I don't have object draw set to max but one less so as not to strain my ancient graphic card.

From what I can tell? No. Not as a Mechanic, anyway. You get something like 70-75 feet. Granted, that's a fairly long distance, and you'll likely hit most things unless you're in a fairly large map. Something like Gwland's Stand, for example. In standard group play, you should be getting it most of the time.

Fortunately, Mechanic has a lot of really useful things to stretch out the distance. Tanglefoot, Leg Shot, and the Web Spell Trap should work wonders. I like to start shooting from as far as possible, and I doubt I'm hitting PBS every time.

[Jetrule]

TRAPMAKING:

It's a great idea, but suffers too many technical and resource problems to be a viable addition to any playstyle right now. I've been testing them on my Rogue2/Wizzy18 Drow PaleTrapper, and I have found the following:

*My Crafted Trap DCs are very high, but this is meaningless if the traps never trigger or land properly. Mobs have a habit of slightly skirting the trap, even if they are chasing you with full aggro multiple times across the trapped area. And I don't mean 5-10 feet away, they go right up to the trap, do a little sidestep jig and run by, not triggering them at all. Very frustrating. I am an excellent kiter, but it is ridiculous how close I have to drag a group to a trap before it will do anything. I would suggest increasing the trap activation radius by quite a bit, unless mob AIs can be adjusted to not basically make a "running evasion maneuver" that they should really NOT be able to do while chasing a jumping, hasted, tumbling target at top speeds. They also have a tendency to run *around* a freshly-burst Web or Grease Crafted Trap area, more than their AI should allow.

*MAGICAL trap parts are currently too rare to cost as much as the other trapbuilding recipes. They don't drop often enough from a reliable source of Spellwards to be farmable. So a user's supply of Web, Grease, Ottos and other traps becomes an always-shrinking stockpile taking much scrounging to keep up on. In fact, the elemental trapmaking costs are also a bit high, especially if you are going to make Crafted Traps a part of your routine. Melle do not need to make and consume any doohickeys to do Sword DPS, and the Ranged and Spell Attack components (arrows and spell components) are obtained inexpensively from a variety of sources. I would suggest cutting the costs of the first component in each trap recipe (Magical or Elemental trap parts) at least in half, =P

For these two points I have a insight and a suggestion.

Monsters A.I. know traps are there in many quests and will skirt them. The A.I. must be working simmilar for player set traps.

As to the rarity of magical trap parts. Relic of a sovereign past is my go to quest for them. Can be boring I know but alot can be salvaged on the long downward spiral passage on elite.

[HastyPudding]

For these two points I have a insight and a suggestion.

Monsters A.I. know traps are there in many quests and will skirt them. The A.I. must be working simmilar for player set traps.

As to the rarity of magical trap parts. Relic of a sovereign past is my go to quest for them. Can be boring I know but alot can be salvaged on the long downward spiral passage on elite.

That brings up an interesting question: if the AI knows a trap is there, it moves around it, but what if the AI does not see a player set down a trap? Do they know where said trap is?

[Jetrule]

That brings up an interesting question: if the AI knows a trap is there, it moves around it, but what if the AI does not see a player set down a trap? Do they know where said trap is?

The specific example I am thinking of is the quest Thorn and Paw. This quest has large pit traps and in one case some pod zombies spawn across the trap from players. If you range attack them they will skirt the edge of the cave to reach you. The only safe way around the pit. It makes me wonder if the Player set traps are perfectly visable zones for them?

[slarden]

How is this effecting the Mechanic?

The post I responded to was in this thread so that is where I responded. Since rogues often take things from the other 2 rogue trees there are some overlapping topics.

[Grace_ana]

Sev, can you talk about why throwers aren't getting the additional SA dice? I mean, they aren't exactly OP. I was really hoping that mechanic thrower builds would be viable once you guys added them to the tree, but with the changes that have been made, they are going to be just way behind anything. I want to throw something other than shuriken and have it work. It makes no sense to add them into the tree, but then not give them the damage they need to play well.

[VinoeWhines]

The post I responded to was in this thread so that is where I responded. Since rogues often take things from the other 2 rogue trees there are some overlapping topics.

Ya, synergies, Sev we need more synergistic branches in our trees please.
The Rogues have spoken.
Thank you for your time spent hearing our plea.
We were always on your side, even if you don't ever see us.

[ArkoHighStar]

Sev, can you talk about why throwers aren't getting the additional SA dice? I mean, they aren't exactly OP. I was really hoping that mechanic thrower builds would be viable once you guys added them to the tree, but with the changes that have been made, they are going to be just way behind anything. I want to throw something other than shuriken and have it work. It makes no sense to add them into the tree, but then not give them the damage they need to play well.

The simple fact is the devs see mechanic as a crossbow centric PRE. With these last set of changes I am not even sure why they added bows and throwing weapons at this point. the problem is mechanic is a turbine creation, so its whatever they want it to be, and has no correlation to what rogues can be. The rogue PRE's are the most cookie cutter of the PRE's in my opinion. Acrobat is Qstaff or nothing, assasin is pretty much daggers or nothing, and mechanic you get a choice between repeaters or non repeating crossbows.
It makes for boring build choices.

[VinoeWhines]

The simple fact is the devs see mechanic as a crossbow centric PRE. With these last set of changes I am not even sure why they added bows and throwing weapons at this point. the problem is mechanic is a turbine creation, so its whatever they want it to be, and has no correlation to what rogues can be. The rogue PRE's are the most cookie cutter of the PRE's in my opinion. Acrobat is Qstaff or nothing, assasin is pretty much daggers or nothing, and mechanic you get a choice between repeaters or non repeating crossbows.
It makes for boring build choices.

The reason according to Sev, I believe was that it went with the theme of Rogues in general, they wanted to add those other range options such as shortbows and throwing daggers.

[VinoeWhines]

"Acrobat is Qstaff or nothing, assasin is pretty much daggers or nothing, and mechanic you get a choice between repeaters or non repeating crossbows.
It makes for boring build choices."

This right here, is the limiting thing, Rogues are made for utility, weapon choice should be part of that utility.

THAT! Right there is the theme of my Rogue. being flexible able to use different tools for different situations, and right now my build choice for me, is almost where I want it to be.

I hopefully will put up a video to show the flexibility of the Rogue, I melee when in close quarters and must fight, I range when I must fight a mob and there's no way around it so that when in melee range they are softened up quite a bit, and traps of course cause them to stumble towards me when they spot me. Crowd Control some of them to manage the onslaught, Assassinate them at every opportunity. We just need better defenses. I understand as a first lifer it's harder. I haven't TR'd at all to stay and show what a non TR'd Rogue can do as a first lifer. I have nothing against TR'ing which I probably will do just to unlock the 4th twist, which I would like to have.

[ArkoHighStar]

The reason according to Sev, I believe was that it went with the theme of Rogues in general, they wanted to add those other range options such as shortbows and throwing daggers.

then don't do it halfway, because they are not really options when crossbows are so much better than bows.

Its sad when I do testing and a +1 great xbow literally does double the damage as my lit 2 bow and has a faster sustained rate of fire.

[ArkoHighStar]

"Acrobat is Qstaff or nothing, assasin is pretty much daggers or nothing, and mechanic you get a choice between repeaters or non repeating crossbows.
It makes for boring build choices."

This right here, is the limiting thing, Rogues are made for utility, weapon choice should be part of that utility.

THAT! Right there is the theme of my Rogue. being flexible able to use different tools for different situations, and right now my build choice for me, is almost where I want it to be.

I hopefully will put up a video to show the flexibility of the Rogue, I melee when in close quarters and must fight, I range when I must fight a mob and there's no way around it so that when in melee range they are softened up quite a bit, and traps of course cause them to stumble towards me when they spot me. Crowd Control some of them to manage the onslaught, Assassinate them at every opportunity. We just need better defenses. I understand as a first lifer it's harder. I haven't TR'd at all to stay and show what a non TR'd Rogue can do as a first lifer. I have nothing against TR'ing which I probably will do just to unlock the 4th twist, which I would like to have.

to be honest I am perfectly ok with theming a PRE

Mechanic=ranged
assassin=twf
acrobat=THF or bludgeoning

but limitng them to specific weapons just makes it hard to build something different. I was actually excited about taking my original char out of mothballs and building a 14 rogue/6 ranger bow wielding elf, and I got him to lvl 18, before seeing the changes and then testing xbow damage vs my bow, and the results made me use my +20 heart and switch to all rogue xbow user last night. At least I found a use for storm, which has been sitting in the bank since 2006, but I regret wasting all those ingredients on a useless dual shard weapon.

Anyway its highly unlikely Turbine is even going to bother doingthe testing to show just how much great xbows oiut damage bows on a mechanic so I have joined the flock and gone crossbow.

[elcagador]

to be honest I am perfectly ok with theming a PRE

Mechanic=ranged
assassin=twf
acrobat=THF or bludgeoning

but limitng them to specific weapons just makes it hard to build something different. I was actually excited about taking my original char out of mothballs and building a 14 rogue/6 ranger bow wielding elf, and I got him to lvl 18, before seeing the changes and then testing xbow damage vs my bow, and the results made me use my +20 heart and switch to all rogue xbow user last night. At least I found a use for storm, which has been sitting in the bank since 2006, but I regret wasting all those ingredients on a useless dual shard weapon.

Anyway its highly unlikely Turbine is even going to bother doingthe testing to show just how much great xbows oiut damage bows on a mechanic so I have joined the flock and gone crossbow.

Well, you can still use your bow for manyshot using the harper tree for int to hit and dmg (once you get enough bab for 4 arrows), while using a Crossbow for sustained dmg while manyshot is on cooldown. If you level Fury destiny you can try the AA tree for burst dmg with manyshot+adrenaline+slayer arrow/sniper shot while keeping the crossbow for sustained dmg. or using manyshot for building master blitz stacks in Ld if using a great crossbow instead a repeater.

Also shuriken is another viable weapon option with mechanic tree.

Edit: Ah, you used a +20 heart, then the bow is not useful if you went all rogue, you leave some burst dmg but gain better sustained dmg.

[Severlin]

Sev, can you talk about why throwers aren't getting the additional SA dice? I mean, they aren't exactly OP. I was really hoping that mechanic thrower builds would be viable once you guys added them to the tree, but with the changes that have been made, they are going to be just way behind anything. I want to throw something other than shuriken and have it work. It makes no sense to add them into the tree, but then not give them the damage they need to play well.

Some throwing weapons are improperly built and don't carry along all properties when they are launched. What weapon are you using? Have you tried alternate throwing weapons?

Sev~

[Unsmitten]

Sev, could we get some info on mechanic getting a bluff shot?

Assassins get shiv, which is melee only, without a multi-selector for ranged.

Maybe you could add bluff to Wracking shot.

[flagged]

Some throwing weapons are improperly built and don't carry along all properties when they are launched. What weapon are you using? Have you tried alternate throwing weapons?

Sev~

The poster is referring to the absence of a sneak attack die being added to thrown weapons on tier 1-5 sharpshooter by design, not a bug.

Similar to the way bows can't use the targeting sites, some confusing choices have been made for the tree as a whole. I am using GxB myself, so it is working fine, but there is little to no way you can use the Bow, throwing weapons, with any kind of effectiveness.

[Vanhooger]

I tried again timebomb after latestpatch, and is getting worse. Can you please make that t5 worth something? Maybe make it cost sp & put a much bigger cooldown for a decent damage & real chance to knockdown as it is now is useles, 1,5k damage on a 15k trash mob, knockdown never ever work on EE. Basically a useless t5.

[VinoeWhines]

I for now don't plan on Tiering Mechanic tree up to 5, but really time bomb should really be a trapped version of Mortal Fear AOE, based on Disable Device and Rogue level. (five to ten foot radius 95% DD score effective AOE, 15 to 20 feet radius 50% DD score effective AOE).

Any one can tier a weapon with that effect, mechanics should and have a way of tinkering with it to make it more affective in a timed bomb.

[rmi]

The tier5 mechanical reloader does NOT show up in character window. And i'm pretty sure it doesn't give any alacrity either when shooting.

Can this be confirmed and fixed?

[flagged]

The tier5 mechanical reloader does NOT show up in character window. And i'm pretty sure it doesn't give any alacrity either when shooting.

Can this be confirmed and fixed?

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer.

Disclaimer: I'm a Mechanic nut.

That said, I have been doing testing since the lamma previews and yes the reloader speed boost is DEFINITELY working. It's not listed on the character sheet, and it does not have a UI icon, but it is indeed working.

As is fletching.

Now sneak attack range boosts per core? nope.
Ongoing sneak attack on blinded mobs? nope.

But reload is working, so rejoice.

P.S. it would be nice to have a Dev confirm this.... but don't hold your breath.