Rogue buff ideas

[Strongpoint]

Some may like rogue as challenge class and everything but I believe that it deserves to not be a worse shadowblade... Yes this thread comes from a frustration after playing few rogues and failing miserably....

Idea #1
Give rogue unique class ability: second tool slot.
Pros: It fits the theme. It makes rogue more unique. It gives a way to have more escape\mobility\status removal\etc options. It interacts with a charm mastery in a good way. Interface allows to insert second tool slot just below
Cons: Unlike mindslayer rogue has no unique class skills making this ability unavailable to adventurers and adventures only. Fake edit: they do have scoundrel but it's theme isn't related to tool use and second tool slot will be available to just every character via the prodigy...

Idea #2
Change how lethality works. Instead of replacing strength for cunning for daggers add +X% cunning damage to all weapons. Or make it both replace strength for cunning and add+X% cunning damage
Pros: Will make non 2*dagger rogues more tempting choice.
Cons: May be too strong. Also buffs shadowblades that need no such buff. (On other hand shadowblades may get 1.0 lethality mastery to compensate it somewhat)

Idea #3
Give them locked 1.0(0.9,1.1) technique\unarmed combat tree. Possibly further reduce effectiveness of heightened reflexes and reflex defence if character is armed
Pros: Interesting way to spend a category point. Interacts with flexible combat prodigy. Way to give some con\str to rogue. Two great defensive skills too boost survivability
Cons: Dubious fit thematically. May be to strong

[astralInferno]

I'm not sure about 2 and 3, but 1 is promising. You could probably make an entire extra tree focused around tool use and give that to rogues as a unique tree just for them.

[Strongpoint]

Hm, misc slot focused talents....

Let me thing about possible talents...

- Talent that gives straight+% to numerical effects of torques, wands, totems (like conjuration wands damage)
- Instant Talent that gives free use of the tool (Not causing cooldown. Doesn't work on items of higher tier than talent level)
- Talent that resets cooldown of charms use


Any other ideas?

[Razakai]

I agree about Rogue needing something a little extra. Have a pretty large scale Rogue addon that may have parts added to the base game in the works, just the Traps and Artifice trees to go. Hopefully that'll bring them up to par a little.

[Nagyhal]

1#

I like the idea - I actually considered it before for a different class - but I can see scope for including it in a rogue-only talent tree rather than as a class trait. Rogues already feel like they have a few too many talents (or too many talents that aren't worth investing in), and a class-wide reorganisation wouldn't go amiss. If something can be done with this idea to make levelling Charm Mastery more of an exciting prospect, then all the better!

2#

Lethality could do less to make a mainhand build feel worthless (I know that if you build intelligently then they're not worthless, but the message put out to the player is quite a forceful one!). Unconventional build options are widely perceived by the players as "fun", and when handing over that fun doesn't cost us any new talents or design space, why deny it to them?

How about something like Lethality converting Strength weapons into a Strength / Cunning split, i.e. 50% of the Strength damage factor becomes Cunning? Or even a Strength / Cunning / Dexterity split, if there's a balance issue with the first idea?

3#

It kind of fits, but I can see rogues having a style where they supplement their weapon attacks with a few choice unarmed manoeuvres. They could have their very own roguish unarmed combat tree - kind of a "Dirty Tricks"-type category, kick up a cloud of dust with your feet, jab an enemy in the eyes, knock 'em to the ground with a deft leg sweep, that sort of thing.

Allowing them to combo Unarmed Training with Flexible Strikes might be a mite too strong, you say? Flexible combat is too strong anyway, I say! Get it sorted, people!

[Doctornull]

IMHO what Rogues need is to have some of their basic talents wrapped up into the core game.

Like, they're forced to take Lethality instead of just having the game automatically scale daggers using max(Str,Cun). They're forced to pay for off-hand scaling instead of just having the game automatically scale off-hand damage with Dex. They have to pay talent points for Stamina regen even though it can't ever keep up with their expenditures.

My Rogue fix would be:
- Make boring stuff free.
- Give choices about what stuff the character pays for, which is all exciting in different ways.

[Atarlost]

The consequences of all that for other classes could be severe.

At a guess making off-hand weapons do full damage and daggers use the greater of strength and cunning is about a 10-15% boost to conventional dual wielding and almost a 25% damage boost to Reavers and dual dagger AB builds.

Increasing stamina regen across the board is a substantial boost to all archer and fighter subclasses as well as the wyrmic and sun paladin. Decreasing their stamina costs instead is still a substantial boost to shadowblades, marauders, and some AB builds.

That's a lot of power creep to spread around just to fix the rogue.

[Doctornull]

The consequences of all that for other classes could be severe.

How many core classes are dual-dagger users?

At a guess making off-hand weapons do full damage and daggers use the greater of strength and cunning is about a 10-15% boost to conventional dual wielding and almost a 25% damage boost to Reavers and dual dagger AB builds.

Having another AB build that can compete with shield would be neat.

Reavers don't benefit -- they don't use daggers. Reavers have a talent which is already strictly better than what Rogues get, since it gives the +% offhand damage and free attacks when they cast spells. I don't see any reason to buff that talent, do you?

Increasing stamina regen across the board is a substantial boost to all archer and fighter subclasses as well as the wyrmic and sun paladin. Decreasing their stamina costs instead is still a substantial boost to shadowblades, marauders, and some AB builds.

Getting rid of Combat Veteran is good for all of those classes.

Removing a boring talent tax is certainly a boost, but it's not really unbalanced.

[Razakai]

Combat Veteran in general could do with some sort of rework. Either make it an interesting passive tree, put more class specific stamina regen boosts in, or just make con/wil or something regen stamina.
Berserker is a good example, they effectively get infinite stamina from Bloodthirst+Relentless Fury. Maybe nothing quite as extreme but it's a good start. This kinda goes with Rogue not having any unique class trees whatsoever though.

[Canderel]

I'm working on an addon now that will essentially reduce stamina based classes to cooldown management, and no more stamina management. (I know this is a buff to X and Y, but it's the intended result).

I think increased stamina regen by x10 or x100 is probably the way to go. (I was thinking of either giving +1000 stamina, or increasing the regen by much)

[Atarlost]

The consequences of all that for other classes could be severe.

How many core classes are dual-dagger users?

Shadowblades use dual daggers and I haven't heard any calls to buff them. Dual dagger Marauder is often recommended to save generics. AB that dual wield probably do the same and with the stat switched to cunning it would be a no brainer. Doomed don't run dual daggers now, but with off-hand damage increased and cunning replacing strength they probably would.

Increasing stamina regen across the board is a substantial boost to all archer and fighter subclasses as well as the wyrmic and sun paladin. Decreasing their stamina costs instead is still a substantial boost to shadowblades, marauders, and some AB builds.

Getting rid of Combat Veteran is good for all of those classes.

Removing a boring talent tax is certainly a boost, but it's not really unbalanced.

It's going to be unbalanced for any class that wasn't investing in it before. At least all the hybrids have better things to do with their class points.

[Doctornull]

Combat Veteran in general could do with some sort of rework. Either make it an interesting passive tree, put more class specific stamina regen boosts in, or just make con/wil or something regen stamina.
Berserker is a good example, they effectively get infinite stamina from Bloodthirst+Relentless Fury. Maybe nothing quite as extreme but it's a good start. This kinda goes with Rogue not having any unique class trees whatsoever though.

Berserker was better at that previously -- now Bloodthirst doesn't start until level 14.

However, it's pretty easy to get through a tough early fight with nothing more than infusions and Stunning Blow... which is very conservative on Stamina.

I'm working on an addon now that will essentially reduce stamina based classes to cooldown management, and no more stamina management. (I know this is a buff to X and Y, but it's the intended result).

I think increased stamina regen by x10 or x100 is probably the way to go. (I was thinking of either giving +1000 stamina, or increasing the regen by much)

Stamina could be a fine resource, but IMHO it's got to be a thing you can more actively manage.

The old Temporal Warden could actively manage Stamina via Invigorate, and the current Archer has Relaxed Shot (which is a silly concept but a solid management tool in purely mechanical terms).

I'd like to see some sort of mechanical interaction for other classes: maybe Bulwarks get some Stamina when they use Block, for example, so it's not just a turn-trade and delay tactic.

I can't think of a perfect mechanic for Rogues off the top of my head, but maybe something like...
- If you have the Mobility tree, you can regain a chunk of Stamina when you use a Movement Infusion or any teleportation Rune (including both Phase Door types).
- If you have the Stealth tree, then you can regen Stamina quickly while Invisible (e.g. from a Rune); also going Invisible causes your Stealth talent to cooldown twice as fast.
- For the Antimagic side, maybe Ancestral Life grants Stamina regen alongside Equilibrium regen.

[Atarlost]

I'd like to see some sort of mechanical interaction for other classes: maybe Bulwarks get some Stamina when they use Block, for example, so it's not just a turn-trade and delay tactic.

I can't think of a perfect mechanic for Rogues off the top of my head, but maybe something like...
- If you have the Mobility tree, you can regain a chunk of Stamina when you use a Movement Infusion or any teleportation Rune (including both Phase Door types).
- If you have the Stealth tree, then you can regen Stamina quickly while Invisible (e.g. from a Rune); also going Invisible causes your Stealth talent to cooldown twice as fast.
- For the Antimagic side, maybe Ancestral Life grants Stamina regen alongside Equilibrium regen.

The bulwark is kind of off topic.

For the rogue, why not just regenerate stamina faster while stealthed full stop? Interacting with stealth runes makes them not completely useless, but it runs into another problem. Namely, that wyrmics are one of the classes that least needs free stamina regeneration and you'll give antimagic builds of all the other classes more stamina regen than normal builds as well unless you give all of them special rune interactions, which will tie up their inscription slots.

My preference for rogue fix is to give Archery Training or Archery Prowess. That will give them a very good first strike from stealth at range. The former would let them hit hard and repeatedly if they could return to stealth and the latter would offer some debuffs. Either would be something the Shadowblade can't duplicate and obviously neither can any of the ranged classes that don't have stealth.

[Doctornull]

It's going to be unbalanced for any class that wasn't investing in it before.

The bulwark is kind of off topic.

Are you seriously trying to topic-bitch at me for responding to your own post?

No, it would not necessarily be unbalanced for any class that wasn't investing in it before.

- - -

Giving the Rogue a whole new tree would be spiffy, if they weren't over-extended across so many trees already.

So yeah, give them some nice actives, and remove the boring dull talent-tax which takes up so many of their points now.

Archery would be one fine way to go. Not the only way, of course, but it's a fine idea.

[Atarlost]

It's going to be unbalanced for any class that wasn't investing in it before.

The bulwark is kind of off topic.

Are you seriously trying to topic-bitch at me for responding to your own post?

No, it would not necessarily be unbalanced for any class that wasn't investing in it before.

- - -

Giving the Rogue a whole new tree would be spiffy, if they weren't over-extended across so many trees already.

So yeah, give them some nice actives, and remove the boring dull talent-tax which takes up so many of their points now.

Archery would be one fine way to go. Not the only way, of course, but it's a fine idea.

Opposing a global change because it effects classes other than the one in the thread topic is related to the discussion. Proposing a specific change to a class not in the thread topic is not related.

Are you sure that combat veteran is really a tax for rogues rather than a luxury? Of the four rogue wins in the last two weeks half have no investment in combat veteran. The level 100 superhuman doesn't count. It's more common but still not universal on recent nightmare wins and I don't see any wins above that difficulty in the first two pages.