Pleading for Rogue buff once more

[rheingold]

Mmmm, as someone who is biased towards rogues I think the main issue with them is that they obviously get less useful as the game progresses, particularly with all the goodies the other classes get, I'm looking at you 1/encounter Hof. But at low to mid level they are very good. I'd say, subjectively, of course that the easiest early play throughs I've had have been with rogues as a main. Up until at least late defiance bay, early WM1 they are very useful members of the party. Do bucket loads of damage, scroll use is awesome and the mechanics bonus is nice. I'd even go as far to say that they could be my MVP early on.

 

But their damage output doesn't keep up at mid to late game. Lacking any rudimentary mathematics, I'm not sure if it's damage reduction, increase in health /endurance or just too many mobs or a combination of them all that's the problem.

The one thing that could fix them and most importantly is easy to do at this stage is to increase sneak attack damage every couple of levels, much like it used to be in pnp. Not sure where the sweet spot is though or how much is too much, but it makes sense from a power and rp pov. Why should a 1st level rogue deal the same amount of damage as a 15th level rogue?

 

So maybe an extra 5% every couple of levels would help? Can't see having a base 75% sneak attack at level 15 would be overpowered. Specially as a cipher gets a rather large bonus to damage through soul whip already.

A couple of other fixes, all easy: up their base deflection and health/endurance a tad. They are a melee class after all.

A speed and disengagement bonus through abilities like barbs and monks get would also help. Either that or increase the uses allowed of the invisibility they get.

 

Btw, I don't think implementing all of the above changes would make them overpowered, they have some way before they can compete with say a cipher, but it would bring them right up. And keep them as burst damage specialists.

[Kaylon]

They should fix their lv13 ability because it's useless both solo and in group. In group you almost never benefit from the unbreakable invisibility because the fight is almost over when you get back and when you solo the fight ends making it even more useless. You should be able to interrupt Feign Death at will and be able to backstab left and right for a few seconds each fight. And when you solo the fight should not end unless you're out of monsters range. Also Shadowing Beyond could be at least 1/encounter.

[Boeroer]

Absolutely right.

 

That would also make Backstab more useful.

 

Although I still think that Backstab should add a fixed amount of damage and not +x%.

Since the number of attacks you can do with Backstab is very limited (usually one or two) atm it's best to use heavy hitting weapons - which contradicts with my idea of a sneaky "back"-stab.

With a fixed amount of damage it wouldn't matter if the weapon is light or heavy. Things like Envenomed Strike and Avenging Storm already do it this way. A fixed dmg wounding DoT effect would be nice (profits from MIG).

 

And with feign death and unbreakable invisibility the fast weapons would be even better than the slow ones because you could do more fixed damage backstabs in a given time - and that's how it should be in my opinion.

[the streaker]

Is the weapon switch bug (to eliminate the recovery penalty) truly still a thing in this game? I thought this would have been fixed ages ago. Right now with Devil of Caroc using quick switch + coil of resourcefulness, switching between two pikes yields zero recovery time or any kind of pause between attacks. Between that and deathblows on scrolls/item spells, she's my MVP and I have to hold myself back from abusing it to make the game interesting. Definitely nice to have a monk or barb to cull the masses of enemies in some encounters, admittedly.

Edited February 1, 2017 by the streaker

[Boeroer]

With Quick Switch + the Coil you can still skip recovery, yes. Also the reloading phase of crossbows, guns etc. can be skipped with that trick or bug. So you could fire two arquebuses all the time without recovery & reloading. But the superhigh micro you need to do that doesn't make it interesting in my opinion. You'd have to micro that char so excessively that it's no fun at all. That and the feeling that you cheat makes this bug a very minor issue for me.

[MaxQuest]

Is the weapon switch bug (to eliminate the recovery penalty) truly still a thing in this game?

Last time I checked, it was still there.

 

I'd like to make a comparison of the same character with 4 arquebuses (unbuffed, 10 Dex), and see how big is the gain:

- v1: 4 consecutive shots with the same arquebus:

total duration = 4 x (5 + 45 + 75 + 204) = 4 x 329 = 1316 frames = 43.866 seconds

- v2: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before reloading start: (reloading is substituted by weapon switch duration: 2s)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 45 + 75 + 60) = 4 x 185 = 740 frames = 24.666 seconds

- v3: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before reloading start:: (with Quick Switch talent -1.5s)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 45 + 75 + 15) = 4 x 140 = 560 frames = 18.666 seconds

- v4: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before reloading start:: (with Quick Switch talent and Coil of Resourcefulness)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 45 + 75 + 0) = 4 x 125 = 500 frames = 16.666 seconds

And now the same, but with switching before recovery start, which currently leads to skipping it entirely.

Note: you can switch right after the bullet hit it's target, which happens at 22-28 frame depending on distance. So:

 

- v2.2: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before recovery start: (reloading is substituted by weapon switch duration: 2s)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 28 + 0 + 60) = 4 x 93 = 372 frames = 12.4 seconds

- v3.2: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before recovery start: (with Quick Switch talent -1.5s)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 28 + 0 + 15) = 4 x 48 = 192 frames = 6.4 seconds

- v4.2: 4 shots; one with each arquebus, switching before recovery start: (with Quick Switch talent and Coil of Resourcefulness)

total duration = 4 x (5 + 28 + 0 + 0) = 4 x 33 = 132 frames = 4.4 seconds

That's one of the reasons why I was advocating for a plate-encased ranger frontliner with powder burns. As (with enough and precise micro) he doesn't care of recovery penalties by just skipping them entirely and being able to open each fight with 4 per-encounter analogs of fan of flames. Edited February 1, 2017 by MaxQuest

[the streaker]

Yeah, no doubt it pays to be able to skip recovery entirely, but I think it's an exploit (one that likely won't be fixed at this point, since it's been known for literally years), so probably not a good idea to consider for class balance purposes.