The Rogue and Barbarian Polishing Thread

[Elric Galad]

So, Patch 3.02 is here and we should not expect much evolution to current classes.

 

That is not a bad news, because according to this topic, people are pretty satisfied with current status :

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85366-class-balance/

Obsidian did a really nice job.

 

However, according to the same topic, 2 little complaints are risen :

- Casters (especially wizard and priest) seem to be a bit more powerful than the rest. Let's say that the limited ressource they have and consumables everybody can use tend to reduce the gap.

- Rogue and Barbarian are usually said to be a bit UP. Not that much by the way.

 

The reason behind these complaints about these 2 classes are usually :

- Barbarians tend to be a bit one trick poney

- Rogues have a short head for single target DPS, but no big gap that will justify their lack of other abilities.

- Their high level abilities are not so great. They didn't get uber skill from WM I like Twin Arrows, Immolation, etc...

 

I'm going to propose here some changes. I've tried to make them reflect not only my own opinion, but also other people views. (but yeah, that's subjective).

These modifications take into account that Obsidian is currently very unlikey to make big changes to the classes. So I'm not invoking major rework.

Furthermore, I used to write a previous Topic called "The Great ( ) Rogue Polishing Thread" and most of the Rogue content below is exctracted from this topic.

My views were usually approved (not always... ) on this topic so I'm not too reluctant to re-use them again.

Here we go !

 

 

Rogue :

 

Rogue is supposed to be the best Single Target DPS.

That is quite good because there is nothing less circonstancial than Single Target DPS.

 

The problem is that Ranger 2.0 came and is now a serious threat for Rogue's Reign.

Twin Arrow almost double their DPS and the new pet does a ton of damages.

I think that currently, both ranger and pet does about 50% of Rogue's damages. And bring a lot more other utility, from secondary target damage to off-tanking.

 

Rogue needs a speciality. My opinion is that Backstab + Invisibility should be able to provide peak damage that ranger would never be able to do.

Currently, Backstable does a sheer +150% damage. On a single attack. My opinion is that high level ability should open the way for more backstabs. I'll speak about this below, especially when reviewing Shadow Step and Feign Death.

 

 

 

So here are my Proposal to give Rogue’s abilities a bit more of “Wow” :

(As most of this content is a copy of my previous thread, I pointed the changes in red.)

 

 

Blinding Strike : good as it is (for a level 1 ability)

 

Crippling Strike : good as it is (for a level 1 ability)

 

Reckless Assault : good as it is

 

Escape : Mobility skills are not bad, but I think 1/encounter mobility skill does not worth spending one of your few ability point.

We’re speaking about something that should be more or less comparable to an entire (low) spell level.

Escape would be okay as a talent (By the way shadowing beyond would almost deserve to be an ability as it is almost the ultimate Panic Button skill, with some offensive potential…).

My suggestion is simple : Escape could be refreshed on kill. There’s a lot of “on kill” effect since 3.0. I believe the “kill and run concept” would be cool, not OP. It is a bit circonstancial for the refresh part, but still better than 1/encounter. Overall, it would be enough for a level 3 ability.

 

Dirty Fighting : not so powerful. 10% hit to crit sounds great only if you played too much Diablo 3. But this and related talent are interesting for some builds or weapons, like Tall Grass, Hour of St Rumbalt, various axes, etc… I don’t think a change is necessary.

 

Riposte : 20% only on miss is basically too low, especially with Rogue’s poor deflection. You need a shield to make it work, which cripples full attack riposte and overall DPS.

In my opinion, Riposte should work also on Graze (to keep the feint/counterattack feeling : “you scratched me but it was a trick”). 20% of graze or miss would lead around 10% Riposte with a few deflection buff (double hatchet hipster rogue, anyone ?). I believe it would be enough to make it valuable. It also means that the riposte rate would be still capped at 20% in the very best case, which prevents some abuse.

Note : I think Boeroer loves this one

 

Finishing Blow : I don’t like per rest abilities but I see the point of this one. I think it is ok as it is.

 

Deep Wounds : good as it is

 

Adept Evasion : Sure, Rogue has usually high Per and Dex, but this ability is still very very circonstancial. It works against 17,5% of a specific type attacks (Reflex itself is valued around 1/6 of “all defense”), wouhouh !

D&D equivalent is basically 100% graze to miss. The point is : with 100%, you can build around it, and that’s the most important thing about an ability, even if it’s not crazily powerful. With maxed Dex and Per and 100% adept evasion (and maybe +10 reflex talent), you may throw fireballs and slicken where your rogue stands. Rogue could even be used as decoy with shield (Devil of Caroc decoy, anyone ?). It also makes flanking less constraining for your damage dealing casters.

100% looks big ? Seriously, would a character be really so much tougher with 100% graze to miss reflex ?

With only 50% you can’t really build anything around.

So my suggestion : change it to 100% !

 

Coordinated Positioning : Nice ability. Apparently, it was recently buffed to 4m, so I think it's pretty OK as it is now.

 

Persistant Distraction : good as it is. I like this one, fine debuff, and excellent synergy with deathblows.

 

Withering Strike : Not crazily bad, but Weakness is a weaker status than blind overall, and just a bit better than hobbled. This is too weak for a level 9 ability, especially when compared to level 1 ones.

2/Encounter would be ok.

 

Fearsome Strike : Wouhouhouh ! 2 rather weak status ! Once per rest ! as a level 9 ability !

1/Encounter would be acceptable, and balanced compared to withering strike. This would be a mix of half of level 1 ability and half of level 9 ability, without the same DPS potential due to more limited full attack number. Still not that great. 15s duration would be my suggestion, in order to distinguish it a bit from withering and crippling strike. It won’t make it OP.

 

Deathblows : Crazy enough as it is.

 

Smoke Cloud : Distraction is a nice small effect, crazy accuracy +20 is nice. But duration and range are just bad, especially when combined.

My solution : make it the “Rogue Immolation”, a debuffing cloud moving with the rogue, helping him evading blows. I can imagine that.

3s tick, tick during 15s, 5s debuff duration.

No need to change AoE. Keep accuracy bonus as it is.

Other solution : a big increase in range and duration. Less fun, but less development cost for Obsidian

 

Shadow Step :

Currently, You Shadowstep for a cryptic duration (around 8s), and suddenly come back to your initial position.

Barbarian and Fighters do have teleport stuff too (charge and dragon leap) at this level that brings additional utility (AoE damage and/or debuff) to the table.

Shadowstep is basically harder to control and less rewarding (no additional effect).

My idea is that Shadow Step should offer something like 5s invisibility (increased by INT) NOT CANCELLED by attacking.

Immunity and peak damages with backstab. It should be a real "Shadow Step" this way.

Furthrmore, currently, backstabing from invisibility works only with 1st attack. By giving it a duration, you make it more compatible with rogue favorite styles : Dual Wielding and Tall Grass poking. I don't like the idea of backstabing with a blunderbuss

 

Sap : good as it is. Not awesome for a level 13, but still nice as CC and debuff.

 

Feign Death : Not bad, but 10s of incapacitation on you damage dealer as its ultimate ability, seriously ?

5s duration for the “prone” part would be OK, I think.

Then, it should give 6s invisibility (increased by INT) NOT CANCELLED by attacking. Then it would really be an ultimate ability !

 

Note : Shadowing Beyond should still be cancelled by attacking. Attacking and staying invisible should be only linked to endgame abilities.

 

 

 

Barbarian :

 

Barbarians draw equal complaints as Rogue.

About them, it is said :

- They have many not very good abilities.

- They are a bit One Trick Pony, and some capital battles don't involve so much opportunities for them.

- Carnage is (almost) universally praised as a very good starting ability.

 

My idea is just that their abilities could be a little more polished. It would heal them from their One-Trick-Poneyness.

 

Some of my ideas are basically copied from "theBaltazar" post. I totally support them so I wrote them down in my own synthesis.

However, I can't say I have the "copyright" for them

 

 

Here is my review :

 

 

Carnage : Awesome as it is.

 

Frenzy : Ok as it is.

 

Barbaric Yell : basically a rather weak status with good range and ok duration. Barbarian should not try to be be weak casters.

However, there is one thing where Martial Class are usually better than caster : action economy. I think Barbaric shouts should emphasize this.

I would simply give Barbaric Yell fast cast and no recovery. That would be great.

Note that it would be in line with other skills with close concept : Exhortations. Exhortations are supposed to be shouts too after all

 

Savage Defiance : OK as it is.

 

Blooded : OK as it is. Not ooverly powerful, but you can build around it (fire godlike, Revenge, there are good interactions).

 

Wild Sprint : Mobility stuff but not the best.

A nice +20% damage for something like 5s would make them more applealing, especially for high level build.

 

Bloodlust : May not be great but at least it should work for Solo game I don't think it requires a change.

 

Brute Force : A bit circonstancial due to usual ennemies high Fortitude but you can build around it. I don't think it requires a change.

 

One Stand Alone : Not so bad, but has an incredible number of bad interactions.

Paralyze monster and you loose it.

Pick up Eye of the Storm and you loose it.

Have a Rogue with distraction you loose it.

I'll choose theBaltazar suggetsion : "Should work WITHOUT red arrow (engagement). Active at 1 metter max for exemple. 3 ennemies detected = activate"

That would be perfect. Note that it would require 1 more ennemy around so it's not even a hard buff.

 

Thick-Skinned : not useless but rather weak.

Armored Grace basically enables 4 more DR with low requirement (wear an armore).

Thick-Skinned should be 3 DR against Slash, Pierce and Crush. Still worse than armored grace, but after all, resisting damage is Fighter's special.

 

Threatening Presence : OK as it is.

 

Blood Thirst : Not extremely strong. But you can build around with weapons without Speed Mod (Grey Sleeper, Abydon's Hammer) so I don't think it requires changes.

 

Vengeful Defeat : OK as it is. You can build around it.

 

Barbaric Shout : as for Barbaric Yell : Fast cast, no recovery. For the same reasons. That would be nice.

 

Heart of Fury : Very powerful skills, but damn annoying to have it 1 per rest.

Obsidian should not be affraid to provide barbarian high level barbarian a couple of fun tools. This one should simply be 1/encounter.

(even 2 per rest would be potentially too strong, and less fun.)

 

Eye of the Strom : OK as it is for some builds, provided One Stand Alone is modified to not take into account only engagement.

Currently, this is too much anti-synergetic.

 

Dragon Leap : Not so bad, but dazing is rather weak.

Something like 5s prone (not from ground, from air !) would be nice, powerful, and still not OP and will avoid overlap with echoing Shout.

Not much more than 5s to avoid becoming more efficient CCer than fighter by the way.

 

Barbaric Retaliation : Not that great but raw damages are very reliable. I think it is ok as it is.

 

Echoing Shout : Not bad, but far too hard to use to be an ultimate skill.

As theBaltazar suggested, it would be ok if it avoided friendly fire. Could be nice and fun to use.

Furthermore, it would be the only Ennermy AoE wall-bouncing ability of the game. It would be Unique and that's what player expect from high-level content !

 

 

So that's all.

Anyway class balance is pretty correct as it is.

But I cannot resist the appeal of praying Obsidian for even more awesomeness !

Edited March 22, 2016 by Elric Galad

[JerekKruger]

I agree with your changes to the two shouts. It doesn't make sense to me that the Barbarian has to take a break from attacking to shout and it would make them a lot more useful. I'd actually prefer it if Barbaric Shout was a talent upgrade for Barbaric Yell because, at the moment, the former makes the latter much less appealing, but that's probably beyond what Obsidian will change now.

 

Your One Stands Alone change also makes a lot of sense. I was looking at building a Barbarian recently and immediately spotted the fact that it and Eye of the Storm clash horribly.

 

Your change to Thick Skinned could work, or an alternative would be to make it +2 DR across the board perhaps.

 

Blood Thirst seems to be nearly useless to my mind, since it's not too hard to get low recovery on a Barbarian. Better would be something like "-X% recovery for Ys after a kill".

 

I'd love to see Heart of Fury become 1/encounter and, whilst it's certainly a big improvement to the ability, I don't think it would be overpowered.

 

Prone or even stun on Dragon Leap would be a nice improvement, as would perhaps a higher amount of damage (maybe make it a full attack rather than a fixed amount).

 

I agree that Barbaric Retaliation is okay as is, but I feel like it should be a lower level ability.

 

 

One thing you didn't touch on but that I'd like to see is for Barbaric Blow to become 2/encounter. To my mind that would make it a lot more appealing.

[DreamWayfarer]

The text is borderline unreadable on the mobile site. I will comment something about it later, but I thought you would like to know.

[Elric Galad]

The text is borderline unreadable on the mobile site. I will comment something about it later, but I thought you would like to know.

 

Thank you. I think I got lost on format coming from previous quotation.

I think it is purged now, please tell me if you still have troubles to read it.

[DreamWayfarer]

Better now.

 

And I agree with all suggestions.

[KDubya]

Its PONY not PONEY

 

I like the suggestions, if Obsidian can't implement maybe it can be modded?

[Elric Galad]

Its PONY not PONEY

 

I like the suggestions, if Obsidian can't implement maybe it can be modded?

Sorry, it's poney in french and I thought it was the same in english...

 

Yup, a mod would be a good solution if Obsidian doesn't listen to my desperate call

 

I suppose moding would become far more easy now that the game is stable.

[KDubya]

Sorry, I didn't realize that about French.

 

Jokes are hard to pull off sometimes.

[Boeroer]

I think rogues are quite underwhelming at the moment. The first thing I would do is to make Deep Wounds stackable. I mean it's DEEP WOUNDS, not a slap on the butt. If I cause more than one Deep Wound they should all bleed. That would be a serious buff.

 

Now that you talked about on-kill-reset of abilities I have the idea that the whole rogue concpet could be build around it - like monks are build around getting wounds and ciphers are build around getting focus. Because the only thing a rogue has that could bring him back to lead in term of single target dps are his special full attacks that also cause afflictions. But not if you limit them to 1 or 2/encounter.

The rogue could start with a certain amount of points (or simply uses) which he can use for his special attacks - and gain additional points (or simply uses) if he kills a foe. Wouldn't that be nice? And quite simple, too.

 

I'm testing a Barb build atm where he would steal spells with that unique morning star and then combine that with Frenzy & Bloodlust & Bloodthirst (= *1.33 casting speed, *1.2 casting speed after two kills for some time, even zero recovery after a kill). Since you can chain cast those stolen spells without limit in a given time it could be devastating powerful to combine those two things. You just need to steal a powerful DMG spell.

By the way on high DEX rogues, fighters and monks who like to pick off casters that morning star is already wow.

 

Besides that special idea (and some other weird things with carnage and the idea of an all-retaliation barb as fire godlike with potion of shielding flames, Supper Plate & another ret. item plus Barbaric Ret.) I think the barb is slowly falling behind. Rangers are really good atm - monks always were. Fighters I don't like too much, but you can't deny they are a really powerful combination of sturdyness, ACC and good weapon damage.

I think most of the higher level powers of barbs are just - let's face it - cr@p atm. Just compare Sacred Immolation to Eye of the Storm. The one is just aweseome (no nerf please!), the other just... "WTF? How weak is that?". Would be a good ability for a ranged squishy who wants to escape melee foes.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

I personally don't like that much on-kill effect. I find it a bit too circonstancial as a core class mechanic. Not a problem to have a couple of effects based on it by the way.

 

Wasn't infinite cast spell steal from morningstar modified in the change list of 3.02 ?

Edited March 22, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Morning Star modified? Maybe - that would be really sad though. And make the barb even worse - I mean if he can't even abuse that, what should he do (besides the things that he can always do: being good at abusing carnage with unique weapons).

Edited March 22, 2016 by Boeroer

[Blunderboss]

What rogue needs is buffing its UP abilities :

Riposte - Needs buff from 20% to some much higher percentage

Shadowing Beyond - Per encounter

Deep Wounds - Stacking like Boeroer mentioned

Escape , Coordinated Positioning , Adept Evasion Feign Death etc needs some tuning , these escape abilities arent worth it

All Strike Skills should be made into 2 Per Encounter , except the one that gives 2 afflictions it should be one per encounter

Edited March 22, 2016 by Blunderboss

[JerekKruger]

I think most of the higher level powers of barbs are just - let's face it - cr@p atm. Just compare Sacred Immolation to Eye of the Storm. The one is just aweseome (no nerf please!), the other just... "WTF? How weak is that?". Would be a good ability for a ranged squishy who wants to escape melee foes.

 

Yeah, that's very much the feeling I get with both the Barbarian and the Rogue's high level skills. Sap is both unexciting (it's a skill that involves hitting one enemy on the head to knock them out) it's also not that much better than the Monk's level 5 Stunning Blow. If the rogue had, say, a per encounter ability that allowed him to apply paralysing poison to his next attack then that would be more like it. Similarly Feign Death as a max level ability just seems weird: a vanish ability without the need to lie down would be much better, perhaps with a bonus to the first attack you make out of it.

 

The top couple of level abilities should be something exciting and powerful, like Sacred Immolation or Dichotomous Soul, not dull like Sap. The Barbarian at least has fairly flashy abilities in Dragon Leap and Echoing Shout, but neither really compare to what other martial classes get.

 

EDIT: also with Shadowstep, why not make it so it doesn't teleport you back. It simply teleports you to a location and leaves you invisible for a few seconds. Then the Rogue can really excel at the job I always used them for in BG2: killing mages.

Edited March 22, 2016 by JerekKruger

[Elric Galad]

The problem with Dragon Leap and Echoing shout is that they are not that much better than Barbarian basic attack with a good weapon

[MaxQuest]

Wasn't infinite cast spell steal from morningstar modified in the change list of 3.02 ?

Morning Star modified? Maybe - that would be really sad though. And make the barb even worse - I mean if he can't even abuse that, what should he do (besides the things that he can always do: being good at abusing carnage with unique weapons).

This is from 3.02 update notes: "Acuan Giamas Spells/Abilities no longer stolen indefinitely.". It puzzled me a bit, since we both remember that the stealing was done for a finite amount of time. (iirc 30-40s on hit, with 10 int)

---------------------

On topic: Hey Elric, tbh I like most of the proposed suggestions.

Especially:

- Escape refresh on kill

- Riposte on graze as well

- Fearsome Strike made either per-encounter (or make it hit all adjacent enemies)

- Shadow Step (although 4s of uncancellable invisibility instead of 5)

 

- Wild Sprint (+20% dmg during duration, or immune to Stuck)

- Barbaric Shout (fast-cast, no-recovery)

- Dragon Leap (prone instead of dazed)

- Heart of Fury (1 per-encounter or.. leave it at 1 per-rest but passively increase Barbaric Blow to 2 per-encounter)

Edited March 22, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

It's kind of sad that the monk can cause weakness on crit and the rogue has a 1/encounter ability for that. Rogues and on-crit-effects feel like a really good team. Especially with Dirty & Vicious Fighting and Reckless Assault.

Edit: Riposte on Graze is a must. It would be even better if the graze would be turned into a miss at the same time. That shield Aila Braccia does that: It reflects ALL grazes from ranged attacks (shots & spells) while turning them into misses. When there's such a good shield out there - why is riposte so bad?
Even the monk gets 50% reflection on misses with his soul mirror.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Boeroer

[Blades of Vanatar]

One thing to keep in mind is that abilities are meant to be somewhat balanced for all difficulty settings. Though I now prefer PotD that was not the case last August. I'm sure there are still many players who avoid PotD like the plague. This is a RPG as well as a power gamers slugfest. What some of you call UP is OP on the lower difficulty settings. If the devs keep turning up the power dial on each class the lower difficulties become obsolete.

 

I still agree with most of the above comments as I have moved on from the RPG side of things.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Blades of Vanatar

[Boeroer]

Maybe - but then they should spread those not-so-good abilities over all classes. Atm barb and rogue suffer the most from a lot of underwhelming abilities at high levels compared to the other classes.

[Blades of Vanatar]

I thought they did have a spread over most classes. But admittedly not all. That has changed with all of the lobbying done for class improvements. Is the game balanced? Hell no. It just shifted in a different direction, mainly to suit power gamers. Which partially makes sense since most of the regular posters fall into that category. But once you give that community something God help the devs if they take some of it back trying to rebalance.

 

Just saying...

[Elric Galad]

That's not fair.

 

In 1.0 paladins were useless, rangers were inferior to ranged rogues and had useless pets, chanters scaled poorly, fighters were immortal dudes relying solely on defender, spiritshift was useless and ciphers had a lot of crappy powers and spent their life spamming amplified waves.

 

Now, all we have are 2 martial classes that lack a bit of woooh!! at high level. This thread is called polishing, not reworking

Edited March 22, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Blades of Vanatar]

We're people complaining about Barbs and Rogues being UP at 1.0? No. (Not saying you're complaining right now...) But when they did make improvements it put those Classes ahead of the others. I'm saying watch what you wish for as the fixes seem to be/ can be drastic and can/has unbalanced other aspects of the game. The reason I will never go back to Normal or Hard difficulty is because of the patches to the classes makes those difficulty settings to easy to play. For example there is a World of difference between the original Fighter and the current state Fighter and those differences aren't just classed base.

This game has really evolved since release... That is not necessarily a good thing.

[Blunderboss]

Why would u want to go back to easier difficulty when you are replaying the game , its not the patches that made hard and normal easier to play, but the fact that you already played trough it before , your whole argument is invalid , rogues and barbarians need some healthy tuning to get on the level of other classes . 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Replayability should not solely be judged by difficulty level. Using other classes, trying different ability/skill/weapon/spell combos gives a game repayabity. Going solo instead of using a party wouldn't drive me to up the difficulty. It would be the reverse.

 

They did create the lowest difficulty setting after how many patches? Why would they do that if all players only up the difficulty after playing the game?

 

The whole point is we should consider the ramifications to the game before throwing out suggested changes. I'm not arguing that Barbs n Rogues are now UP. They are UP. The OP is correct. But they weren't in the beginning....

Edited March 22, 2016 by Blades of Vanatar

[Boeroer]

It also has something to do with the level cap and the expansions. Lvl cap got raised from 12 to 16. And some of the most awesome abilities (that buffed some classes big time) were introduced with WMI & II. The thing is that the rogue and the barb just got the crappy new abilities while other classes got fancy ones - and rightfully so. It would be fair if rogue and barb's new toys would get some polishing in order tobe able to keep up with the rest. 

 

Well, rogue got the flanked/distraction thing, which is really nice - and Backstab got buffed to 150% - but they also were given some really useless oder underwhelming things.

And Barbs only got nonsense besides Barbaric Retaliation.

 

I wouldn't mind if new abilities opened up whole new build ideas but didn't fit into the usual build paths. Like the Long Pain for monks for example. It's pretty useless of you want to build the typical monk - but it's so unique (and good) that you can invent a whole new build around that - love it! 

[rheingold]

I dont think that there are going to be any new abilities added at this stage, but that is fine, there is nothing wrong with the concept of the current barb/rogue ones. Some of them are quite cool actually. They should just be buffed up somewhat. ie dragons leap , one of the coolest abilities in the game. The barbarian should come down on the opposition like a hammer. Instead its more like the pillow of god at the moment. Should be more damage and stun as opposed to daze which is useless.

Good news though about carnage and bash.

The devs have shown a lot of willingness to listen and adapt. Hopefully they will make a few tweaks to rogues and barbs. They dont need a major overhaul. Just some small changes would make a large difference. Plenty of good ideas on the thread, if they are listening....