Rogues vs. Shadowblades Balance

[SerPounce]

I noticed early on that Rogues appear to get the short end of the stick compared to shadowblades. Rogues get +.1 Mastery in the dual wielding catagories and combat training while Shadowblades get access to Shadow magic, conveyance, Divination, Temporal, and Phatasm.

I recently got a shadowblade to level 40, in the process of which I got to experiment with a lot of the rogue skills/talents while intentionally keeping in mind ways of improving the rogue/shadowblade distinction. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Stealth: over the last 10 levels or so I’ve dumped a bunch of points into stealth despite already having a nice ring of invisibility/amulet of greater telepathy setup. While part of the reason why stealth skills seem a bit lackluster is probably that (rings of) invisibility are probably overpowered, I’m convinced that’s not the extent of the issue.

a. Rogues should have a higher mastery level in stealth. IMO hide in plain sight should probably max out to nearly 100% for a pure rogue, and Unseen actions max to over 80%.

b. The cooldown timers for stealth and HiPS ought to either be reduced outright, or (my preference) decrease with skill level). I would aim for a final timer of 3-4 for stealth and 4-10 for HiPS.

c. Rings of invisibility either need to be toned down or removed entirely. The Phantasm spell invisibility costs 200 mana upkeep and drains mana, while that’s probably a bit high, there’s no other piece of equipment that compare to an ability that expensive (imagine a ring of momentum that doubles attack speed!).

2. I haven’t invested any points into Dirty fighting or lethality with my current shadow blade (although I maxed lethality with an earlier shadowblade that died to The Master in his low 20s), but I would consider taking them away from shadowblades. First because rogues need something unique and those categories seem the most thematically “rogue,” and second because shadowblades have so many options right now it’s a bit overwhelming.


Sometime relatively soon I’ll trying paying a regular rogue and investing in Dirty fighting and Lethality to get a better understanding of how a non-magical rogue plays. I should try a new race, but it’s going to be really hard to give up grace of the elders…

[darkgod]

Thanks for those comments I'll try to adjust things here and there

[SerPounce]

Thanks for those comments I'll try to adjust things here and there

No problem. I realize you probably have a lot of things on the to do list before getting to balance concerns like this, but I figured it would be best write my thoughts down while the character experience was still fresh in my head.