Class Balance: Rogues

[Atarlost]

SageAcrin: Personally, I'd just like to see Knife and Combat Mastery combined.

I have to agree here, I think getting to effectively use the sword/knife combo without sinking ten generic points could be a huge boon to some classes, like Temporal Warden and Marauder, that seem like they are intended for this type of play (and are both a little tougher to get off the ground). Right now, however, the big generic point investment to get to 5 in both one-handers and knives is prohibitive. I'd like to see it be a viable option, and it feels like it isn't, at the moment.

In another thread, someone suggested making the combined Weapon Mastery skill dependent on character level, like Combat Accuracy is now, instead of on strength, to avoid penalizing dex-based classes.

Why not both? There's at least one class tree that uses the max of strength and dex as its stat restriction.

[Jeoshua]

That's not bad actually. There is more than the sneaky type of rogue, even in-game. There are cutpurses, highwaymen, burglars, briggands, ruffians, and all manner of ne'er-do-wells that could fall under the description of "rogue". Having some lee-way as to whether you're focusing on strength or dexterity would be a much improved boost to being able to pick ones own path more effectively.

[SageAcrin]

And Marauders, who do to some degree represent that kind of ruffian, have a decent strength focus and optimally prefer a onehander/dagger combo.

Which currently costs ten Generic to get rolling.

[Doctornull]

In another thread, someone suggested making the combined Weapon Mastery skill dependent on character level, like Combat Accuracy is now, instead of on strength, to avoid penalizing dex-based classes.

Why not both? There's at least one class tree that uses the max of strength and dex as its stat restriction.

That'd be ideal.

Taking this one step further, how about Daggers not require a talent to switch between Dex+Str and Dex+Cun? Just use Dex + max(Str, Cun). That would allow Lethality to remain Rogue-specific yet also allow Dex+Cun builds in non-Rogue classes.

[SageAcrin]

Sounds reasonable to me.

The main class that would care is Mindslayers(Not a lot, but they would.), and physical Mindslayers probably need a buff anyways. And I can't say it's unfitting for them to be leveraging Cunning based daggers...

[Gatewalker]

Yeah, rolling dagger mastery into combat mastery sounds like a great idea to me.

Having rogues start with a cloak also sounds good. Thematic, small 1st zone defensive bonus, no reason not to give them one really.

[Jeoshua]

Basically, if dagger mastery is different enough from sword/mace/club mastery, then one would expect there to be some difference in what they really are, or what they can do. I liked the idea of thrown daggers, and a dagger mastery tree. It would add the much needed range, is something very common in fiction to throw daggers... Basically if daggers are so cool then we should be able to do cool things with them. Right now they are just really weak weapons that need an extra talent to master above all other weapons, and won't be really good in the end-game unless you get two paired and special artifacts.

I like the idea of being able to stick with daggers because of theme, and not just specializing on whatever the RNG decides to drop in my lap. And the buff to various melee classes of making the Combat Mastery skill apply to daggers, too seems to be a good improvement, in general. Melee classes are already far outstripped by the ranged magic throwers... Sure mages are a bit "squishy", but who gets to find that out when you can't get close enough to them before their bolts of death and destruction nuke you on the way in?

[morganp]

I've seen a number of folks request more distinction between different weapon types; like, axes do one thing, swords another. I'm sort of ok with this, as long as the use of each isn't exclusive. Like, if I've chosen to invest a ton in "sword-only" talents, and nothing but clubs drop. We've all had the experience of running a mage and finding all the awesome bows, and then you run an archer and find all the good mindstars. Right now on a bulwark I'll use the best of whatever sword/waraxe/club drops, and I've got options, but if my build was optimized just for one-handed swords, well, good luck finding the good one. Right now I think there's only a single artifact one-handed sword for AM-specific builds.

I think different builds should come from different skill choices and not as much from which gear drops for a given run. If we make skills more weapon-exclusive, the chances of finding the right gear gets much narrower. At the moment I like the distinction in weapons, that they work best with different stats, but combining the masteries allows more side-grade build options. A straight-up rogue benefits from knives because their bonus power build with dex, but if you wanted to build a strength based shadowblade, you could go two-hander. Or something.

Or, maybe the solution is to make some classes less gear-dependent? I never choose AM on a rogue, because I rely way too much on using Spellblaze Shard, Umbral Razor, or Unerring Scalpel for the early game, or Moon and Star for the mid-game. It's almost guaranteed that at least two of these five will drop. The other artifact option is Silent Blade, which is underwhelming right now, and I don't tend to find it anyway. Hm, maybe I'll roll an AM rogue right now... although you can't auto-use regen and run stealth... Maybe if I choose a rogue, and all the good mindstars drop, I'll take that as a sign to go AM...

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I wouldn't want sword/mace/dagger/etc specific talents. Just a greater differentiation between the way they fight. One doesn't fight the same way with a dinky little knife that one would with a twohanded greatmaul. Nothing even close to it. While one is going to focus on big massive damaging hits, the other is going to focus on very specific damaging special hits in special spots/times. Similarly, one wouldn't fight in either of these methods with a one-handed axe in hand. Again, different style. More differentiation between how one would fight with a mace/sword/axe/dagger/etc would add variety to it, but shouldn't require any new mastery skills. That's the issue with rogue. Most characters can use one of several weapon types, rogue's can't. They absolutely end up forced to a single type. (Similar issues exist for mindstars, but this doesn't impact the early game, because there is no mindstar bump class, that lacks other attack methods. Ditto mages needing staves, but still not being impacted by this since they don't bump with them.) This is as it should be, but finding the daggers one needs is a greater challenge. Giving them a reason to stick with those dual daggers instead of trying to offhand one and just use a more common onehander (of the many that drop) would be the change to make here.

[Atarlost]

I wouldn't want sword/mace/dagger/etc specific talents. Just a greater differentiation between the way they fight. One doesn't fight the same way with a dinky little knife that one would with a twohanded greatmaul. Nothing even close to it. While one is going to focus on big massive damaging hits, the other is going to focus on very specific damaging special hits in special spots/times. Similarly, one wouldn't fight in either of these methods with a one-handed axe in hand. Again, different style. More differentiation between how one would fight with a mace/sword/axe/dagger/etc would add variety to it, but shouldn't require any new mastery skills. That's the issue with rogue. Most characters can use one of several weapon types, rogue's can't. They absolutely end up forced to a single type. (Similar issues exist for mindstars, but this doesn't impact the early game, because there is no mindstar bump class, that lacks other attack methods. Ditto mages needing staves, but still not being impacted by this since they don't bump with them.) This is as it should be, but finding the daggers one needs is a greater challenge. Giving them a reason to stick with those dual daggers instead of trying to offhand one and just use a more common onehander (of the many that drop) would be the change to make here.

I don't see how making weapons substantially different wouldn't make some classes overly specific. If they differ by stats used classes that already use those stats will need to use the corresponding weapon. If they differ much more in crit rate crit seeking builds will consider everything but the critiest junk. If they differ in attack speed anyone with on-hit procs will pretty much need to use those weapons. And so forth.

[HousePet]

Ideally each class would be interested in more than one stat and have multiple options for what to focus in.

[SageAcrin]

Hmmm.

Hey, I have an idea that is relevant to this, and to another problem that has somewhat come up.

There used to be an Accuracy cross-tier effect, but it was removed due to not really doing much, mostly doing it for enemies, and generally being a lot of HUD clutter.

So that was removed, which was a fine decision, but now Accuracy has no effect in very high amounts, which is a shame.

So, here's a thought; Give each weapon type unique Accuracy impacts.

Maces: +0.1% damage per Accuracy over target's Defense, caps at 5%.
Axes: +0.2% critical chance per Accuracy over target's Defense, caps at 10%.
Swords: +0.3% Defense for each point of Accuracy you have over attacking target's defense, caps at +15%; Parrying bonus, basically.
Daggers: +0.5% APR for each point of accuracy over target defense, caps at +25%.
Staves: +4% damage bonus for any on-hit effects, caps at 100%. Or they could just use Swords.
Mindstars: Could use Dagger effects, but a more fitting effect might be to have them pierce 0.5% of elemental resistance per Accuracy over Defense, capped at 25%.
Bows/Slings could use Axes/Maces effects respectively, Whips could use Swords, Tridents could use Maces.

Any thoughts? It could make them more distinctive without really massively changing them, and the worst impact I can see is that Skeleton Archers are now even bigger jerks. I am personally okay with that.

[HousePet]

Interesting.
A little bit complex, but I like it.
Could we go with a fix larger bonus and require your accuracy to be at least 10 above the target's defense?
Cross tier effects seem to be more about totally overpowering your opponent, not just matching their stats.

[Impy]

I think that one of the best way to "fix" rogues would be to rework their traps into something a little more useful. Traps and stealth are the two trees that really define the rogue class, with traps being the one that's actually unique to them. Unfortunately, at the moment there really isn't a reason to invest into that tree at all. With a requisite of about 10 points to get going, your class points are probably better spent elsewhere. Which is unfortunate, since traps have always been one of my favorite class features of RPG rogues. As they are, there's absolutely no way that rogues can ever hope to be better at doing direct damage than Shadowblades or Marauders, so I think that they could really benefit from having traps made into their defining theme. With that in mind, here's a few ideas for reworking that tree:

1: Make trap casting instant but disallow choice of direction, always placing them under the player; start rogues off with field control or mobility. This change would make explosive traps useful and give rogues some much needed maneuverability, which would be great both thematically and as a slight buff to slings. Using traps by not sticking them directly under your enemies should also be a nice change in improving their flavor, as right now they feel more like melee attacks than anything.

2: The most useful traps skills that I've encountered in any RPG would have to be from the assassin's skill tree in Diablo 2, where they functioned a bit like automatic turrets that could be deployed at a distance. Doing something similar in ToME would improve trap performance dramatically. To compensate, there will probably need to be a hard limit to the number of active traps at a time and fewer trap inflicted status effects. For obvious reasons, the player would have to be made immune to trap damage.

3: Right now there is only one skill that corresponds to all available traps, giving very little choice as to what to invest in. Splitting the tree into two separate ones, offensive and utility for example, would give a lot more choice in regards to how you may want to develop your trap talents.

[morganp]

3: Right now there is only one skill that corresponds to all available traps, giving very little choice as to what to invest in. Splitting the tree into two separate ones, offensive and utility for example, would give a lot more choice in regards to how you may want to develop your trap talents.

Or, roll trap launcher into one of the other skills and separate offensive and utility traps into two different skills (and adding some new kinds of traps to each). Seems a pain to wait until level 12 or 13 to invest in trap launcher, so you can place your explosion trap such that you're not in the AOE. I think that's a big deterrent for investing in them early, that your level one trap will blow you up most of the time, and you have to got to the level 12 skill before this isn't the case. Yes, at level two you can lure enemies over a bear trap, place an explosion trap next to them, and run further away, but it's situational, a big setup, and you gotta hope none of their buddies are around, since bear trap is only one tile. For that much work, I might as well find a bottleneck and bash 'em with stuns.