The (un)official rogue 1.8 anticipation/feedback thread

[Zyzyx]

While not the biggest problem at the moment, I did want to circle back around the debuff issue to make sure it did not get lost in the rest of the noise. While it is an improvement that Embers/Splinter are now AoE, we're still stuck in a situation where we have devote 6 GCD to apply a debuff. To put in perspective, if it was your job to maintain these then you would have to chew up 1/5 of the duration of each debuff to keep it up, all the while doing less damage (both from the base damage and from those charges not being affected by Residual). Looking at Piercing and Lighting Fury, Rangers and MM can apply a debuff in one GCD that is actually a DPS gain for them just from a pure dmg standpoint. Why should Sabs have to do significantly less damage with such a high "apply time" to apply debuffs that are in the same range as other Souls that can apply them faster?

Possible ways to address:

• Increase the debuff amount to make it worth the time investment (which means Sab would have to have the highest Armor Debuff and % Increase to non-Physical Dmg in game by a significant amount)
• Change the charges to apply 5 stacks of debuffs at once and then put them on CD
• Change these to Bombs that either do no damage and have no CD or have Annihilation range damage and have a CD. (This is my personal favorite of this set of options)

This goes back to the stated goal in 1.5 of "More utility without giving up the majority of their DPS to get it, bringing them closer in line to the flexibility that other callings have."

agreed debuffs need to be bombs

[DTM300]

While not the biggest problem at the moment, I did want to circle back around the debuff issue to make sure it did not get lost in the rest of the noise. While it is an improvement that Embers/Splinter are now AoE, we're still stuck in a situation where we have devote 6 GCD to apply a debuff. To put in perspective, if it was your job to maintain these then you would have to chew up 1/5 of the duration of each debuff to keep it up, all the while doing less damage (both from the base damage and from those charges not being affected by Residual). Looking at Piercing and Lighting Fury, Rangers and MM can apply a debuff in one GCD that is actually a DPS gain for them just from a pure dmg standpoint. Why should Sabs have to do significantly less damage with such a high "apply time" to apply debuffs that are in the same range as other Souls that can apply them faster?

Possible ways to address:

• Increase the debuff amount to make it worth the time investment (which means Sab would have to have the highest Armor Debuff and % Increase to non-Physical Dmg in game by a significant amount)
• Change the charges to apply 5 stacks of debuffs at once and then put them on CD
• Change these to Bombs that either do no damage and have no CD or have Annihilation range damage and have a CD. (This is my personal favorite of this set of options)

This goes back to the stated goal in 1.5 of "More utility without giving up the majority of their DPS to get it, bringing them closer in line to the flexibility that other callings have."

I'd be all for them being bombs. But there is no way they should do no damage. Bombs are on CDs and don't give cp. They need to do damage.

[Zyzyx]

Caltrops is def not working properly.

sab is doing like 2200 on the dummy.

[Enaki]

I'd be all for them being bombs. But there is no way they should do no damage. Bombs are on CDs and don't give cp. They need to do damage.

I agree, I think they should do damage.

What I was getting at was that if they did not have a CD then I could see them not doing damage. You would then effectively be able to apply them as mobs/adds popped which would have its advantages, but may not be the "ideal" solution.

Regardless, making them bombs under either scenario would make them more useful than they are today.

[DTM300]

I agree, I think they should do damage.

What I was getting at was that if they did not have a CD then I could see them not doing damage. You would then effectively be able to apply them as mobs/adds popped which would have its advantages, but may not be the "ideal" solution.

Regardless, making them bombs under either scenario would make them more useful than they are today.

Even with no cd, they should do damage. Not a lot like a damage oriented bomb like drag, but some damage none-the-less. Of course I guess that would depend on the duration of the debuff. If 60 seconds... Then maybe none. If 30, definitely some damage.

[hejtmane]

There are many threads popping up about things. We are all anxious to see the plans for 1.8. There were many issues in the rogue calling that 1.7 left untouched. I understand there is only so much time in the work week and we might be expecting too much. Here are some issues on our mind some of which aillion has already commended on:

1) In regards to the Sab soul:






Personally, I'm very anxious to see how aillion/trion will fix this soul and bring it back to its former glory.

a) Bombs are not worth using. Synergy crystal and greater give dmg bonuses to these ,but they still aren't worth using because of High explosives.

b) Traps are not worth using. Traps are casted and do too little damage to be even worth using in pvp.

c) Many of the charges are not worth using. At this point I might as well say it. The best rotation is 5 spike > 5 blast > 5 blast. This fails to incorporate the myriad of other charges that simply go unused. The old charge booster encouraged us to use one of each charge. In today's raiding environment that simply isn't possible because raid leaders won't want to lose their debuffs.

d) Synergy crystal puts sab soul behind others. Sab is a competitive dps soul until synergy crystals from tier 1 and 2 raids are used. The synergy crystal for the sab soul is one of the worst in the game and is a big hinderance toward seeing more sabs "in the wild."

e) Will it possible that the sab soul can get some love in the solo specs that many of us use in EI to grind mobs? I like many others find it very frustrating that Warriors and Clerics can chain pull endless amounts of mobs, whereas Mages and Rogues get penalized in the Exp/hour that we can grind by ourselves. Maybe Sab can be integrated here. Currently sab is not viable in soloing because our heals are based off of rift scavenger and leeching poison, both of which do not synergize with the saboteur soul.

2) In regards to planar attunement allowing warriors to receive TWICE the benefit of rogues:



To expand further on that previous statement. Warriors can dip in both their two handed and their weapon specific(sword/axe/polearm) weapon dps hexes. This means that they receive twice the dps bonus from planar attunement. Atrius has stated that we might possibly be supposed to get weapon dps bonus from planar attunement of our offhand weapon and that this is currently not functioning as intended. I can't wait to see how aillion and atrius solve this issue and the ap scaling for warriors.


3) Energy concerns.

1.7 changed the fundamentals of the warrior calling's energy regeneration and their power consumption in many abilities. At this time in 1.7 rogues are energy starved in many of the popular "top builds." such as assassin/rs and nightblade. Yes, even when using a bard in the raid for the "ferver" energy cost reduction buff and a tablet for increased energy regeneration. Warriors received the change to solve their energy concerns in 1.7. I am sure many rogues like myself are feeling a little left out and hoping for a similar change to solve our energy management issues.

EDIT: Also with the combat culmination change in 1.7 I'm energy starved when solo/farming. This is really really super annoying. Either put energy return in rift scavenger or give us a blanket energy regeneration increase or energy cost decrease similar to warriors.

*4) Tank/bard

I am not an avid tank, or "tank guru", but I am sure there are many rogues in the community that would be interested if there are any changes planned for ID's release. As it has already been stated by Zinbik that Justicars are getting looked at.

I would love to add something from muffin911 on this issue. My understanding is that the main difference between rogues and the top tanks (warriors) is the gap in block/deflect ratings. From reports on the forums I think we are 20% behind in this area. Noting that future itemization will include +deflect for rogue tanking gear this may solve this issue entirely.

In respect to the bard soul not much has been done to this soul since release. Most people want motifs to last longer and a cleanse/battle rez added to the soul. I would also guess that in following with aillion's previous changes we can expect to see more synergy in the bard soul. We are probably going to see some more tanking or dps points available in the bottom of the tree eventually.

I know in the past I suggested it before I would love scavenger to be a finisher that gives back health or make it like deadly dance where it scavenges Hp back to you off a finisher. It would help rogue soloing and tanking. I am not sure what the % need to be some of the math gurus may have a good number to not make it OP but i think that would be a nice buff.

On Bard Motif of Renewal suppose to help solo and add some heals heck even if in tank form the issue is the power is totally and utterly useless. The return on the heal is too low you get 5 heals in 15s at around 109 from my testing and you have to spend an attack cycle to cast it. If I went 14 sin I was getting 190 per tick and I got more than 3 off in 15 seconds, so I get greater healing lose no attack cycle get a damage buff and a heal that is better than the motif. So home come 14sin is a better heal than Motif of Renewal.

Now on a quality of life A cleanse would be nice and 1 minute motifs

[Zyzyx]

I think rift scavenger is bad and needs to be changed too.

If you look at the other 3 callings:

salvation
pboe
radiant spores

all do heals based on damage done by % and scale

Rift scavenger is the only self heal ability that does heals based on total health. Maybe it isn't a problem now ,but it definitely presents a scaling obstacle.

EDIT: Crossposting sab stuff:

I hope they fix caltrops charge, make debuff charges bombs, increase HE damage, and make traps usefull either by increasing damage or number of traps laid.

[DTM300]

I think rift scavenger is bad and needs to be changed too.

If you look at the other 3 callings:

salvation
pboe
radiant spores

all do heals based on damage done by % and scale

Rift scavenger is the only self heal ability that does heals based on total health. Maybe it isn't a problem now ,but it definitely presents a scaling obstacle.

EDIT: Crossposting sab stuff:

I hope they fix caltrops charge, make debuff charges bombs, increase HE damage, and make traps usefull either by increasing damage or number of traps laid.

Not exactly sure what the issue is with caltrops charge. Just raise spike charge damage a bit so it pulls ahead of caltrops? Spike isn't that far behind short of the whole AE thing, right?

Would still love for 1 charge to refresh the stack though, but I'm not sure what other changes Ailion has lined up so it might be OP if he has some other damage increases lined up.

[Juxtaposed]

In addition to the Cadence/CoR change (5 party members -> 10 party members), it would be great if the Anthems didn't aggro mobs. I mean, really, they're not heals, they're buffs, and for some reason it aggros things.

[Zyzyx]

I REALLY like that idea, right now "Combined Arms" is pretty bad.
My suggestion would be a new 0/2 talent called "Dead Man's Switch" that does what you suggested.
50%/100% chance.

A small addition that I think would make Sab PvP a lot more interesting:
Traps can now be set in stealth.
At 3/3 silent setup, your charges have no travel time, and don't make the target you're tagging auto-target you until you detonate.

Best stuff from the other thread.

[Vyxagallanxchi]

Best stuff from the other thread.

Might wanna add in the thing that Qan is replying to :P

[Raynald]

Don't extend Motif duration for crap sake... Raid Bard play is boring as it is...

^ please don't listen to this guy.

[Bard for life]

I have been a bard since day 1 , in recent months i felt further and further behind as i did not scale at all , only solution so far have been gimmick specs to keep up.

It all boils down to a fundamental problem with the Bard, while others feel their power grow with every stat increase the sole drive behind most MMO players.

I as a bard had no scaling in most my fields and very little in others

so far

No Scaling in :
Motifs ( fair with a huge amount of crit your motif of Regen does more, but its not really scalling imho )
Anthems
Dps (unless you chose to run random gimmick spec of the week ) without 51 Bard

And little scaling in :
Overall healing
Overall usefulness

I simply can not see why you cant implement a formula to increase the over all " support " of this support class its mind boggling.

If your reasoning behind is this will make the bard to powerful overall then tone down the freshly dinged lvl 50 bard, so that he actually also feels he gain power with gear.!

A suggestion i been thinking about is 100 Atk = % motif / Anthem boost.

That is an easy fix which off cause will need tweaking, but why is it that i could moreorless run naked in HK and do the same as a fully tricked out HK relic bard?

I solely play bard if i can and i wanna continue doing so but falling further and further behind does bother me.

So that is my wishlist for 1.8 Bard scaling of some sort

P.S this might be to powerful for pvp, disable the boosts in pvp if so i solely pve and have no knowledge of pvp bard powers at current time.

Brutie

[Qan]

Might wanna add in the thing that Qan is replying to :P

:P probably should have included it in my post.

I suggested that all current charges go off when the target dies to prevent the loss of dps due to sab being delayed damage.

I REALLY like that idea, right now "Combined Arms" is pretty bad.
My suggestion would be a new 0/2 talent called "Dead Man's Switch" that does what you suggested.
50%/100% chance.

[Zyzyx]

Not really much more to be said. A bunch of good ideas out there in these threads about sab. Still need to see the final caltrops changes. Now we play the waiting game again.