The Rogue and Barbarian Polishing Thread

[Blunderboss]

Nobody i asking for new abilities , what we need is current abilities tuned up and this is not too much to ask imo  , now those abilities suck and they suck the same on PoTD and on Easy . Lets hope for 3.03 Patch

[Blades of Vanatar]

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!

Yes, I agree expansions and level cap changed the we build create our builds. Not necessarily a bad thing either. I think it is safe to say that the entire community is hoping any changes made will allow you to create more builds! I do love your Drake build. I have tried to convert it to an Ice version but there just isn't enough items to be the equivilant of the Fire build. Edited March 22, 2016 by Blades of Vanatar

[Boeroer]

@Blades of Vanatar: Funny, I also tried that. The ice invocations are pretty good. But there are no good scrolls or spell binding items that support the ice theme.

[L4wlight]

Yeah and only two spellbind items The White Spire and Scâth Gwannek. And the lvl 2 frost trap phrase just sucks...

Edited March 23, 2016 by L4wlight

[Boeroer]

I used to be great. They nerfed it big time.

[Elric Galad]

I used to be great. They nerfed it big time.

You're still great Boeroer !

Obsidian doesn't have the power to nerf you, and you shouldn't refer to yourself as it

Edited March 23, 2016 by Elric Galad

[hilfazer]

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.

Builds, guys. Builds.

 

Allow me to introduce You to PoE. Not this PoE but Path of Exile.

This game has one of the best mechanics in video games, ever.

Let's see what abilities you can take at the same time:

 

Chaos Inoculation - sets your max Hp at 1.

Blood Magic - use HP instead of mana.

 

Now, what happens if you have them both and use an active ability? Yup, YASD happens.

Or:

 

Resolute Technique - can't crit, always hit.

A large number of passives granting bonuses to accuracy and crits.

 

What a horrible clash, right? Bad design, right?

Wrong.

 

 

Some abilities work great together, others ... not so much. But it's not a problem but rather an indicator of a complex system.

 

 

 

Oh BTW, if you guys want devs to notice this thread it has to be moved out of this subforum. Devs very rarely venture here.

[Elric Galad]

If you look at the initial thread, there is a lot of abilities that I tagged "maybe not so great but you can build around" so, yes, I took into account the build possibilities when I reviewed abilities.

 

The point is : there isn't exactly a huge number of abilities per class in PoE. It is an excellent game, but ability system is not utterly complex compared to Guild Wars 1 (I take this example because I actually played it a lot). This is even more noticeable with barbarian who has a lot of either crappy or circonstancial abilities. It is hard to make an efficient build with this.

 

Moving an ability from "very circonstancial and anti-synergetic" to "circonstancial" gives some fresh air without removing the necessity to think about your build.

 

 

By the way, now that the topic has been reviewed a bit, I'll be happy to have advices about how to make the devs read it.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Elric Galad

[MaxQuest]

^ My guess would be to aggregate all suggestions, pick the most important ones, structure them for readability and post as a new thread in the General Discussion forum, with a poll attached (of "do want / do not want" sort), link back to this thread and wait. Aarik and Sking do actually check the threads quite often. But you could also PM them.

Edited March 23, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

 

I used to be great. They nerfed it big time.

You're still great Boeroer !

Obsidian doesn't have the power to nerf you, and you shouldn't refer to yourself as it

 

ROFLMAO!

 

A good laugh (with whiping tears and all) before I go to sleep. 

[Elric Galad]

^ My guess would be to aggregate all suggestions, pick the most important ones, structure them for readability and post as a new thread in the General Discussion forum, with a poll attached (of "do want / do not want" sort), link back to this thread and wait. Aarik and Sking do actually check the threads quite often. But you could also PM them.

 

OK, I could try this. Probably this week-end.

 

Before trying a "request for balance", I would like to submit to the community another proposal.

 

 

It's a proposal about Race Balance

 

Being able to choose any Class/race combination without feeling gimped would be nice IMHO.

 

For me there's excatly 3 races I consider noticeably UP : Mountain Dwarf, Death Godlike and Nature Godlike, the latter 2 because of the unability to wear helmets.

I think this opinion is shared by many players. 

My proposal comes from the "Best Race" topic, so it's not really new.

But what would you think about the following :

Mountain Dwarf : resistance to poison and illness is a why not, but I find it much more circonstancial and less critical than Aumaua resistance to Prone and Stun. I would count it as an equivalent to one of Coastal Aumaua resistance.

For me, mountain dwarf should get +20 to poison, illness AND petrify. Dwarf resistant to petrify does sound good lore-wise

 

Death Godlike : Their ability is thematically nice but rather weak compared to the loss of a helmet.

I would add +15 Acc against Kiths. Now that would be a death emissary. Bane of their own kind. We would understand even better that they had troubles to make friends at school.

 

Nature Godlike : I would simply rise their bonus so it would become really significant.

+5 to Mig, +3 Con, + 3 Dex when under 50%.  

Edited March 24, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Blunderboss]

Race discussion has another thread , it would be much better if this one stayed about Rogues and Barbarians because this is actually important meanwhile Race balance is least of our troubles imo

 

also best fix for godlike races would be to : make some of the headwear available for them - hoods and hats basically , looking that best headwear is helmets this would be somewhat balanced and satisfy the community

Edited March 24, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Elric Galad]

You're probably right. I should avoid mixing topics.

[Elric Galad]

Rogue :

 

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 !

 

 

The funny thing is that I just discovered that Feign Death ACTUALLY REALLY WORK like this.

The 6s invisibility isn't currently cancelled by anything so you can chain backstab for... well... 6s.

 

Given that the prone part is 10s, it is still quite bad, but the change to make it decent seems a bit slimer.

 

 

Don't blame me, blame the tooltip.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Just pull enemies with another char and drop prone right at the start on encounter.

 

Now all we need is 0 recovery and max DEX in order to fit as many backstabs as possible into 6 seconds.

 

Or we take an Island Aumaua with four arquebuses, Arms Bearer and Quickswitch plus Coil of Resourcefulness to skip recovery after shooting and do four arquebus shots with afflictions and backstab bonus - ouch!

Edited March 26, 2016 by Boeroer

[Blunderboss]

Feign death at encounter start might work very well if rogue is MC and gets brought up infront of enemy in scripted interactions before the fight happens

Edited March 27, 2016 by Blunderboss

[JerekKruger]

Feign death at encounter start might work very well if rogue is MC and gets brought up infront of enemy in scripted interactions before the fight happens

 

Thankfully this happens fairly rarely in PoE. I remember being very annoyed by it happening all the time in DAO.

[Blunderboss]

Also its worth noting that escape ( it was buffed right ? Or it always been decent skill ? ) can Save u from such situation , and has so many more uses and u dont even need to spend points for it , u can get it from cape of the cheat from stronghold quest , and its 1 per encounter so u can use it on easier fights to teleport ur rogue into back line to couse mayhem

Edited March 27, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Schepel]

The thing that bothers me the most about the barbarian class is the lack of staying power. That would be somewhat less of a big deal if barbarians could deal a lot of damage, but that is not really the case, either. I have tried barbarians with all kinds of approaches and they are just flat out inferior to fighters since the damage output is very similar, but the staying power on fighters is better - not to mention they get to knock down characters a few times.

[Boeroer]

Oh, I didn't see that cape yet, sounds nice. Thanks for the info.

[Boeroer]

The thing that bothers me the most about the barbarian class is the lack of staying power. That would be somewhat less of a big deal if barbarians could deal a lot of damage, but that is not really the case, either. I have tried barbarians with all kinds of approaches and they are just flat out inferior to fighters since the damage output is very similar, but the staying power on fighters is better - not to mention they get to knock down characters a few times.

I would say you have to try harder.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Early game Barbs seem so-so but since this game has SO many build options Barbs easily become dealers if destruction as the game moves along. Don't give up on them after the 1st few levels. By level 9 they kick arse.

[Blunderboss]

Early game Barbs seem so-so but since this game has SO many build options Barbs easily become dealers if destruction as the game moves along. Don't give up on them after the 1st few levels. By level 9 they kick arse.

Same stands for rogue imo , but still some of their skills should be changed

[KDubya]

The thing that bothers me the most about the barbarian class is the lack of staying power. That would be somewhat less of a big deal if barbarians could deal a lot of damage, but that is not really the case, either. I have tried barbarians with all kinds of approaches and they are just flat out inferior to fighters since the damage output is very similar, but the staying power on fighters is better - not to mention they get to knock down characters a few times.

 

You need to take Carnage into account. Against a single target a Fighter is much better, more damage, way more tanky. That is what a Fighter is great at.  With his weapon mastery and freed up stat points from not needing to pump Intellect a Fighter probably has like +40% damage per hit and with +5 base accuracy

 

 

Compare your Fighter with a Carnage Barbarian against a big mob of enemies. Your fighter hits one guy for 1.4 unit damage, the Barbarian hit one guy for 1 unit damage and hits each guy nearby for 0.67 damage. With only one guy in Carnage range the Barbarian will be getting like 1.67 damage compared to a Fighters 1.4. If you get to where you can affect four or more guys at a time the Barbarian really starts to shine.

[Elric Galad]

^ My guess would be to aggregate all suggestions, pick the most important ones, structure them for readability and post as a new thread in the General Discussion forum, with a poll attached (of "do want / do not want" sort), link back to this thread and wait. Aarik and Sking do actually check the threads quite often. But you could also PM them.

 

OK, I've created a Poll in the General Discussion forum.

 

We'll see what happen.

 

Eventually, if it fails, it might be suitable for a Mod. But Modding will be better when Obsidian will declare there will be no more Patch.