Official Rogue Rework - Testers Required!

[Sheila]

I like the idea of the fancifully named poisons. My new-poisons just had fairly dull descriptive names, and tended to be 1 per element. So far they were:

Fire: Burning Hex-style effect
Cold: Chance to freeze, iceblock penetration
Darkness: Increased damage based on missing life, summoned a ghoul on kill
Temporal: Chance to inflict warp debuffs
Nature (antimagic): Spell failure %
Acid: Scouring (reduces powers)
Physical: Stacking debuff that stunned+dealt physical damage at the end

With each of them converting your poison to the element type, with only one 'elemental' poison being active at once.

Sorry but... a lot of those don't even make sense, it feels as if you're just trying to encompass everything just because.
You're a rogue, not a mage or even a shadowblade
A lot of those sound like they belong in Mystical Cunning and some others nowhere at all.

[Frumple]

You're a rogue in fantasy land, though. It makes pretty good sense to be able to find some fancy poisons that do weird and/or magical things. Some of 'em also fit in with the findable traps pretty well, which are fairly on the far side of rather odd themselves.

[bpat]

I like the idea of the fancifully named poisons. My new-poisons just had fairly dull descriptive names, and tended to be 1 per element. So far they were:

Fire: Burning Hex-style effect
Cold: Chance to freeze, iceblock penetration
Darkness: Increased damage based on missing life, summoned a ghoul on kill
Temporal: Chance to inflict warp debuffs
Nature (antimagic): Spell failure %
Acid: Scouring (reduces powers)
Physical: Stacking debuff that stunned+dealt physical damage at the end

With each of them converting your poison to the element type, with only one 'elemental' poison being active at once.

Sorry but... a lot of those don't even make sense, it feels as if you're just trying to encompass everything just because.
You're a rogue, not a mage or even a shadowblade
A lot of those sound like they belong in Mystical Cunning and some others nowhere at all.

I think the only ones that really make sense as poisons are Fire, Nature, and Acid. Nature is fine as an AM reward, and Fire could come from Mystical Cunning because Burning Hex is really strong. I don't see Acid ever being in a balanced state but if it does get implemented then it should probably be in Mystical Cunning too.

[Sheila]

You're a rogue in fantasy land, though. It makes pretty good sense to be able to find some fancy poisons that do weird and/or magical things. Some of 'em also fit in with the findable traps pretty well, which are fairly on the far side of rather odd themselves.

That doesn't mean "anything goes it's magic/fantasy, whatever!", there are still themes and lore that need to be respected this is also part of good design.
Arcane cunning is a good compromise, but you don't just find it wherever; it's a prodigy.

[Frumple]

Well sure there's themes and lore that should be respected, heh. S'just that there's room in that for some pretty weird stuff, especially in a setting like Maj'Eyal.

So far as finding it wherever goes, the game's already got precedent for that, yeah? The findable traps get pretty weird, and even beyond that, there's stuff like the sand queen heart. If we can have a trap that summons violent shadow rogues, we can totally have a poison that inflicts warp debuffs or whatev', I'd say. Though I'd rather see one that spawns tiny temporal spider swarms (like I enemies, but time spidery!) on death or reaching a threshold for something time themed. Something in that direction. It could still inflict warp debuffs when they chestburst!

... t'be honest, I mostly just want to see poisons get some love vis a vis interesting mechanics, heh. Traps got some of that, and poisons are at least as much rogue-y, t'me. Plus there's very few places better suited to neat names than fantasy world poisons, ehehe. Especially when you can lace them with lore references, which raz totally could. And that's pretty snazzy, y'dig?

E: Though if you're wondering how time spider incubation fits into a applicable poison, the fluff trick is that the poison itself isn't the eggs or whatever. It's a marker, that flags the target hit for time spiders to retroactively plant eggs into them! Faintly terrifying, fairly plausible within the setting -- it makes just enough sense, considering there actually are time traveling spiders in this setting -- and more interesting than just another DoT or debuff. It's the good stuff

[Sheila]

Well sure there's themes and lore that should be respected, heh. S'just that there's room in that for some pretty weird stuff, especially in a setting like Maj'Eyal.

So far as finding it wherever goes, the game's already got precedent for that, yeah? The findable traps get pretty weird, and even beyond that, there's stuff like the sand queen heart. If we can have a trap that summons violent shadow rogues, we can totally have a poison that inflicts warp debuffs or whatev', I'd say. Though I'd rather see one that spawns tiny temporal spider swarms (like I enemies, but time spidery!) on death or reaching a threshold for something time themed. Something in that direction. It could still inflict warp debuffs when they chestburst!

... t'be honest, I mostly just want to see poisons get some love vis a vis interesting mechanics, heh. Traps got some of that, and poisons are at least as much rogue-y, t'me. Plus there's very few places better suited to neat names than fantasy world poisons, ehehe. Especially when you can lace them with lore references, which raz totally could. And that's pretty snazzy, y'dig?

Not everything has to be "weird stuff", there's plenty of non-weird stuff which are usually warriors like bulwark/berserker/skirmisher/archer/etc. Rogues are fairly mundane as far as any setting goes.
Sure, there's room for weird stuff, but not in Rogues. Rogues aren't Chronomancers, chemists, or mages, so I don't agree with you there. They're just crafty thugs/assassins that utilize stealth, debilitating poisons, tools and traps. You could give them laser guns, but there's little reason to do that other than to do "crazy stuff" which I would give up any day for the sake of coherence and consistency. If everything had elemental attacks corresponding to everything, then all classes would feel the same, poisons are already quite unique and interesting on their own and any improvements are welcome, but I don't think it's necessary to overdo that. Again, mystical cunning is a thing so I think it's a good compromise, but I see no need to make it stretch beyond that since it's a prodigy that could use a bump to begin with.

[Frumple]

Sure, there's room for weird stuff, but not in Rogues. Rogues aren't Chronomancers, chemists, or mages, so I don't agree with you there. They're just crafty thugs/assassins that utilize stealth, debilitating poisons, tools and traps.

Then you'd be advocating to get rid of the findable traps already implemented Which, to be fair, is a position you could totally take. S'just one that if implemented would make me, at least, sad, hehe.

Rogues totally have thematic precedent for utilizing stuff that's ostensibly the realm of other archetypes, though. The venerable D&D rogue has UMD as a class skill, after all, heh, and the poisons they can use in that setting get bugnuts. Even 1st edition thieves end up with class access to stuff normally only magic users can play with, yeah. It's also quite common as a literary thing in general and in higher fantasy works in particular (which Maj'Eyal definitely is, and then some a bit) -- rogues and whatnot very regularly utilize various non-mundane resources as part of their shtick if they're available. They usually can't utilize it internally (i.e. as you say, they're not shadowblades), but that's why I'm basically suggesting looting this stuff off corpses, heh.

Though I'd kinda' disagree the poisons are interesting. They're certainly fairly unique and use a mechanic that's not seen much in other classes (though it is seen -- TWs use basically the same mechanic for weapon manifold, ferex, if less deliberate), but they still mostly (bar stoning and vulnerability) boil down to straightforward nature damage and either extra damage or a (not usually particularly fancy, if undeniably effective) debuff. Which... we have items that do that. They're green egos. Poisons are definitely nice as is, but there's a reason I'm advocating for more intricate and interesting mechanics for advanced ones

... mind, also advocating for advanced ones at all, so they no longer feel jealous of traps. Vulnerability and stoning are all that exist, and traps get a fair few more than that.

[fateriddle]

Truth be told, I don't like the rework. It looks all good and fancy, but only at first glance.
1. Rogue is know for one point charm, but after rework, way too many(if not all) skills need investment to be actually useful: throwing knives, traps, duelist, stealth...
2. Duellist for instance, you need to invest heavily into Parry to make Tempo worthy. And Lunge needs 5 tempo stacks...
3. Stealth: I've got no problem with Shadow Dance, but removing unseen action is just unacceptable.
4. Blade Flurry: Drains 9 stamina, nuff said.
5. poison is not useful because it is straight out bad damage-wise.
6. Artifice is trash. Assassination only good with stealth. Dirty Fighting, again heavy investing to be just ok.

[Frumple]

Any recommendations you'd make to improve things, if the general shape of the remake remains the same? Though some commentary on your commentary, to hopefully shed some light on things until raz comments...

1: I think that was half the point of the remake, heh. Make it so they weren't quite so one-note. And investment into talents is always kinda' desirable design, though if there's stuff that's tuned too low at the start, it'd probably be good to note it. Haven't really noticed anything too egregious, myself (that I haven't mentioned, anyway), but more opinions and observations are almost always a good thing. Also rogues kinda' always needed heavy investment to make certain trees particularly good -- traps, poison, and stealth are all particularly notable for that in the current vanilla version. They can still put their 2-3 points in flurry and do flurry things, heh, there's just more options with the remake and a few more moving parts.

2: Lunge has already been removed (or at least moved to some other tree... kinda' forget at the mo'), and the duelist tree reworked -- it's in the current version in the OP. Does still kinda' need investment in parry, in particular, but considering parry is more or less the keystone talent for the tree, and rather good to boot, I... think that's alright?

3: See, m'not sure on that, though definitely still on the fence. Unseen actions has had a lot of what it did kinda' farmed out to other talents, and raz seems to be (trying to) make it so rogues no longer find constantly being under stealth to be such a necessity -- see the lingering effects after breaking stealth, for an example.

4: Eeeehhh, it's about in line with similar talents (shattering impact (-8), ferex, or the momentum (-6) it's mostly replacing), though it could perhaps use a reduction to the stam drain. Haven't played with it enough yet to see if the speed boost is worth the stamina drain, or whether it's worth building to mitigate it (stam regen kit, etc.). Code seems to suggest the speed boost is quite substantial, though -- on par with the mentioned momentum, and the extra 2 stam drain would be explained by the extra effect. Could say those other talents are junk, too, but I'd disagree a fair bit -- they're usually quite good if you build around them, and still pretty alright if you don't and just use sparingly.

5: Poisons have always been more for the debuffs than the damage, and the damage (especially once the forth tier talent comes online and the 1st/3rd pumped) isn't what I'd call particularly bad for what it is. S'actually one of the better effects of its type, damage wise, near as I can recall -- compare to the similar melee proc stuff for arcane/shadow blades, TWs, sunpas, reavers, etc. Though you may say those are crappy vis a vis the damage too, which is fair, heh. The poison debuffs in the current version are definitely quite good, though -- they alone make the tree pretty useful, especially in conjunction with throwing knives.

6: Raz has already started retuning artifice a bit, I think, though more input would almost certainly be appreciated. Any of the base or advanced tool effects you find particularly weak? Assassination is only supposed to be good with stealth, near as I can tell -- it's sorta' like doomed's advanced shadow tree or whatev', just for stealth. Haven't messed with dirty fighting yet enough to comment on, though, and I don't think anyone else has mentioned it, so anything you can point at as a particular problem would be especially good feedback.

[Razakai]

You can safely ignore those poisons for now, as they're just random ideas. Although on that note, I did talk to DG about it before this. Generally he's of the opinion that Rogue kinda does the old D&D 'use magic item' thing - while they don't have any innate spells or the like, they're crafty enough to make use of weird poisons and traps and items. So the dividing line seems to be that as long as they don't learn these 'magical' things from their base skills and instead have an explanation like prodigy, lore, it's ok. Rogue having a cyrotoxin poison derived from those ice spiders that freezes people? Fine. Rogue firing ice bolts at people? Not fine. But yeah, kinda a moot point as I won't be adding anything like that.
Although on a semi-related note, Mystical Cunning is a lot better now. It now applies automatically rather than taking up a space for a vile poison. It also shreds poison resistance, so poisons become viable lategame even against areas filled with undead and the like. Though I did lower the damage bonus effect of it to balance it a bit, so I'd be interested in seeing feedback on it.

--
1) That's the point. The old Rogue had an abundance of class skill points because skills scaled poorly or were just bad. It's not good if you can just 1-2 point every skill in a class as there's no build diversity. The point of this is so you actually have to decide what sort of Rogue you want to be - semi-ranged with traps, knives and poisons, a marauder-like build that goes heavy on duelist/DF, a stealthy stabber going all in on stealth+assassination. Old Rogue your only real choice was whether you wanted to get Traps/Poisons or not. And even then you could quite easily 1 point most other skills and still have room to spare.
2) Well, Duelist is totally different now. Tempo scales off any sort of avoidance like dodging/parrying/damage cancel, and the cripple effect no longer needs stacks, it just has a long cooldown if you don't invest in dodging stuff.
3) Why exactly is removing UA unacceptable?
4) Like Frumple said, -8 stamina a turn is on par with Shattering Impact and Momentum. It's an outright improved version of Momentum so it seems fair. Might drop it back to 6 though as 8 was the cost when Soothing Darkness gave a far higher rate of regen.
5) At low levels, poison damage is fairly significant. At high levels, the damage isn't the point (although it's still a free 140ish DPT). You get a passive 30% talent fail+30% damage debuff, or 9% lifesteal, plus access to Vulnerability Poison which is a passive 100 damage per turn + 10% all damage taken (as well as letting you poison immune stuff). Venomous Strike is also the hardest hitting ability Rogue has outside of Flurry.
6) I'm not sure how you can say Artifice is trash. Hidden Blades with decent gloves is +10-30% damage increase plus utility from procs, that's quite a large boost for 1 talent slot. Rogue's Brew is an even better phys wild (albeit with a longer cooldown). Smokescreen effectively removes ranged mobs from the fight for 6 turns, as they can't target or see you. Dart Launcher... could probably do with a slightly shorter cd/longer duration. The old one was 5/8 and was incredibly overpowered with mastery, as you could just hit a mob, sleep it for 5 turns while you waited for cds/heal, repeat. So I nerfed it a bit too far maybe.
Assassination is supposed to be used with Stealth. And even with just 1 point in Stealth it's still perfectly usable.
DF... doesn't really need super heavy investment? You can hit most of the breakpoints for all the skills with 2/3/3/3. And that's only if you want to go that deep, it's perfectly viable to just grab 2 in DF and Backstab for the free damage boosts and debuffs, the latter 2 talents are only if you really want to go out on debuffs.

[Mordy]

Will Zigur hunt rogues that learn obviously arcane poison talents?

[stinkstink]

Although on a semi-related note, Mystical Cunning is a lot better now. It now applies automatically rather than taking up a space for a vile poison. It also shreds poison resistance, so poisons become viable lategame even against areas filled with undead and the like. Though I did lower the damage bonus effect of it to balance it a bit, so I'd be interested in seeing feedback on it.

The issue with bypassing poison resistance being tied to a prodigy is that poison/nature resistance is mainly a problem in Daikara and Dreadfell, before most players hit 30 - in the east the issue turns into 70% of mobs having a status cure racial on top of a chance to spawn with Wild infusions, rather than being outright immune.

[astralInferno]

Will Zigur hunt rogues that learn obviously arcane poison talents?

If it's marked as is_spell, Zigur patrols will try to stab you.

(However, if you don't have an arcane resource, you can still go to Zigur and take their test. Doing so would be silly if you spent all the effort to get a magic poison, of course.)

[Razakai]

Yes, if you had an arcane flagged poison/trap equip it'd set off zigur hostility as they're flagged as is_spell. Wouldn't block you from entering Zigur though as astral said, as no resource bar.

I think I'll give lower level Rogues a way to slightly bypass poison resistance via one of the Venomous Strike effects. A few of those aren't terribly exciting at the moment so it's a good location.

Shadow Dance/Stealth might be getting some tweaks once I work it out. Effectively SD would be a 2 part ability - the active just returns you to stealth without fail. The passive would allow stealth to 'persist' for a few turns after triggering it to break. Not sure yet though.

[pfhyyhtsche]

Bug report for newest version: Get the following lua error attempting to leave the Derth arena or open inventory (preventing either action from completing,) having just used the arena generics to put 1/5 in talents 2&3 of Scoundrel.

Lua Error: /mod/class/interface/Combat.lua attempt to perform arithmetic on a nil value
At [C]:-1 __div
At /mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:1195 combatDefenseBase
At /mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:1202 getval
At /engine/Entity.lua:1079 getAttrChange
At /mod/class/Object.lua:679 outformat
At /mod/class/Object.lua:629 compare_scaled
At /mod/class/Object.lua:1130 desc_wielder
At /mod/class/Object.lua:1697 getTextualDesc
At /mod/class/Object.lua:1962 getDesc
At /mod/dialogs/ShowEquipInven.lua:54 on_select
At /mod/dialogs/ShowEquipInven.lua:234 select
At /mod/dialogs/ShowEquipInven.lua:93 on_select
At /engine/ui/ListColumns.lua:437 onSelect
At /engine/ui/ListColumns.lua:658 display
At /engine/ui/Inventory.lua:291 display
At /engine/ui/Inventory.lua:281 generateList
At /engine/ui/Inventory.lua:133 generate
At /engine/ui/Base.lua:105 init
At /engine/ui/Inventory.lua:57 init