Focus Discussion - Additional Proposed Changes to Rogues

[Vinci]

Marksman

• Silver Tip Munitions: Is no longer considered a curse, now stacks to 20
• Fan Out, Crossfire, Lightning Fury: Now hits additional targets
• Collateral Damage: Now increases all AOE damage for Ranged Weapons, no longer applies its old bonus

TBH, Silver Tip Munition is perfect if it is considered a physical debuff on a PvP perspective.
How many targets are you talking here when you mean by Additional targets? All targets in a cone up to 35m?
How much damage increase to Fan Out, Crossfire, Lightning Fury with this new change to Collateral Damage?
Will it make it or break it for AoE damage/be on par with Sab, AoE damage wise?

[Adnoz]

It seems to me that with both fiery chains and weapon flare generating CPs for nightblade, there is nothing to spend those combo points on, other than scourge. I'd suggest perhaps making fiery chains into a finisher as some others have also mentioned, but without being able to actually test these changes it's hard to say if it would really be required.

I guess I'll try out a chronicle to aoe some mobs down with NB.
If these changes bring non-sabo AOE into line with sabo aoe I guess I'll have gotten pretty much what I wanted from this patch and I guess I could drop my anti-sabo campaign ))

[Vinci]

Also what % is silver tipped ammo in this change, currently its 2% x 10 so 2% x 20 now? which would put 51MM hands down the dominant spec for ST and Aoe

actually its 1%x15....so its probably gonna be 1%x20

[Raizoken]

TBH, Silver Tip Munition is perfect if it is considered a physical debuff on a PvP perspective.
How many targets are you talking here when you mean by Additional targets? All targets in a cone up to 35m?
How much damage increase to Fan Out, Crossfire, Lightning Fury with this new change to Collateral Damage?
Will it make it or break it for AoE damage/be on par with Sab, AoE damage wise?

If the % STA gives remains the same with 20 stacking charges, I think its going to cause the same issue sabdancer causes right now - we play sabdancer because there is no other comparable dps spec. wont the upcomming STA change cause most of us to play MM to get as much dps as possible? - the numbers currently prechange put MM on par slightly higher then sabdancer ( parse backed)

[Vindicit]

Yes, our souls as a whole need more hard hitting AoE finnishers. Concussive Blast from Ranger is a good one but its cooldown is way too long.

[Vinci]

If the % STA gives remains the same with 20 stacking charges, I think its going to cause the same issue sabdancer causes right now - we play sabdancer because there is no other comparable dps spec. wont the upcomming STA change cause most of us to play MM to get as much dps as possible? - the numbers currently prechange put MM on par slightly higher then sabdancer ( parse backed)

so 5% increase in damage is pretty big?

[Zyzyx]

Changes to Nightstalker:
Your Blazing Strike, Flame Thrust, Dusk Strike and Twilight Force deal 5/10/15% more damage and an additional 10/20/30% more damage if the enemy's health is below 30%.

So if your target's health is below 30%, the damage bonus is 15/30/45%.

Whats the residual shrapnel change?

Can it be shrapnel changed to 50% blast changed to 35-50%

Also you should probably increace fiery spike duration to 10 or 11 seconds. That would solve several of problems with the soul. Due to the fact that fiery spike is such a large portion of a nightblades damage output having the stacks of fiery spike drop from the target is a very large impairment.

EDIT: right now I have to use a 4cp finisher every time I SoD.

[jeffadkins51]

It seems like this could well bring the other dps souls in line with saboteur which would be great, but I ask why nerf saboteur? It already falls 350-500 damage between equally geared warrior players, so while it may currently be our strongest soul, it's still behind where it ought to be in all honesty. Nerfing may cause players to lean away from the sabdancer build but if you buff the other classes that will have the same effect, but without making the sab soul useless again. As mentioned, It's far from OP, and therefor it doesn't need nerfed. Now if it were doing warrior style DPS I could see you raising an eyebrow, but as it is it's so far warrior dps that it certainly doesn't deserve a nerf

Edit: Also for once I agree with that guy above me, raising Fiery Spike's duration to 10 or 11 seconds would solve a lot of NB's very odd rotation requirements.

[Vindicit]

Whats the residual shrapnel change?

Can it be shrapnel changed to 50% blast changed to 35-50%

Also you should probably increace fiery spike duration to 10 or 11 seconds. That would solve several of problems with the soul. Due to the fact that fiery spike is such a large portion of a nightblades damage output having the stacks of fiery spike drop from the target is a very large impairment.

EDIT: right now I have to use a 4cp finisher every time I SoD.

Naw just increase its damage. Right now it crits for like 350 which is pitiful. It needs a baseline attack power bonus like everything else does so that Enkindle can give it a further boost.

[Raizoken]

so 5% increase in damage is pretty big?

when comparing that mere 5% to the builds lacking in dps - yes IIRC the rogue changes in dps were to even the playing field and give us rogues more specs to play in a raid setting then sabdancer or sabo. The MM change brought MM to being better then sabo and sab dancer.

With the just recent change, marks gets a fairly hefty buff ST and AOE. Sab takes a hit. and sabdancer loses part of its aoe.

So whilst we cannot test - we can speculate that MM then becomes the highest rogue build and the games shift from the current sabdancer > all to MM > all with the other specs falling into line on par with the current other specs on live. Minus the promising Nightblade spec

[Vindicit]

With the current patch, Nightblade is doing like 30% less dps then anything Ive tried.

[Zyzyx]

It seems like this could well bring the other dps souls in line with saboteur which would be great, but I ask why nerf saboteur? It already falls 350-500 damage between equally geared warrior players, so while it may currently be our strongest soul, it's still behind where it ought to be in all honesty. Nerfing may cause players to lean away from the sabdancer build but if you buff the other classes that will have the same effect, but without making the sab soul useless again. As mentioned, It's far from OP, and therefor it doesn't need nerfed. Now if it were doing warrior style DPS I could see you raising an eyebrow, but as it is it's so far warrior dps that it certainly doesn't deserve a nerf

Edit: Also for once I agree with that guy above me, raising Fiery Spike's duration to 10 or 11 seconds would solve a lot of NB's very odd rotation requirements.

Please pay attention to this post allion.

EDIT: more like 100-400 behind warriors**

[Deathmaster35]

Riftstalker

• Rift Disturbance: Now requires a target, now awards a combo point

As long as it doesnt have a range limitation it is a very good start so riftstalkers can at least get riftguard up ahead of time and then build a point or two for guarded steel... It doesnt fix the issue of still taking too much damage throughout the rest of the fight, but it helps a ton at the start so is a good start.

Almost makes me want to renew.. almost

[TonyDanza]

I'm curious the numbers on the High Explosive nerf, can we get more details there?

[Korvan]

Hey everyone,

Saboteur
With the updates to all souls in 1.5, Rogues should no longer feel dependent on Saboteur for AOE damage. Changes to High Explosives and Residual Shrapnel have been discussed previously but we feel now is the time to make them in tandem with the following buffs to other souls. Saboteurs should now achieve competitive single target and AOE damage without using the same rotation for both.

• High Explosive: Lowered the critical strike damage bonus
• Residual Shrapnel: Lowered the benefit to Shrapnel Charge. The bonus to Blast Charge has not been changed

Nightblade

• Nightstalker: Now gives bonuses for targets above 30% health (These will not be the same bonus as targets below 30% health)
• Weapon Flare: Now requires a target selected, awards a combo point
• Fiery Chains: Increased the number of targets hit, now has a chance to award a combo point for each target hit

Assassin

• Impale: Damage slightly increased, should now be more comfortable in a Final Blow/Impale rotation
• Physical Trauma: Increased the bonus to Final Blow

Bladedancer

• Double Coup: Increased the effectiveness
• Blade and Soul Parity: Now grants critical strike bonus damage
• Twin Strike: Now hits additional targets
• Compound Attack: Now hits additional targets

Marksman

• Silver Tip Munitions: Is no longer considered a curse, now stacks to 20
• Fan Out, Crossfire, Lightning Fury: Now hits additional targets
• Collateral Damage: Now increases all AOE damage for Ranged Weapons, no longer applies its old bonus

Ranger

• Master Huntsman: Blood Raptor now receives more of a bonus from Master Huntsman
• Rain of Arrows: Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds

Riftstalker

• Rift Disturbance: Now requires a target, now awards a combo point

My views on each of these changes:

Sab:
High exposives less reliant on crit and upping its damage generally would balance out this dps and make it more dependable, however if it is just a nerf to its crit dmg it would fall slightly behind in dps.
Currently blast and shrapnel on PTS are pretty interrchangeable with little dps difference between the two in regards to single target dps. AOE dps sab is high but only in comparison to the low aoe dps of other specs so I do not feel there is a reason to change this dmg in any way.

NB:
Nightstalker change will help improve single target dps from this tree but my only concern is the number of +% dmg skills and their stacking (nightstalker, dusk to dawn buff, synergy crystal, ap bonus).
Aoe skills awarding combo points is a decent way to help keep up fiery spieke and make use of scourge of darkness with your aoe without having to stop aoeing. Additional targts would also assist with improving its dps with other aoe skills though its dps might need a bit of an increase to keep up with other aoe's still.

Sin:
This will be an increase in dps for sin builds but how much is yet to be determined.

BD:
AOE changes will be a helpfull buff for its aoe depending on the number of targets and on its dps in comparison to other aoes.
The other changes should increase dps for high BD trees but one particular drawback I would still see with BD is that without the t2 raid synergy crystal it is hard to justify wasting so many points on non dps skills.

MM:
Silvertip munitions - is this 2% per stack or 1% per stack for a max of 20% again. If it is one percent per stack then this is actually a nerf causing much longer to get initial stacks up and would make it rather limited when used in situations where there is the need to switch targets (ie zilas, matron, garau, etc).
Collateral dmg change would buff mm aoe to sufficient levels depending upon the bonus and if used with ranger skills could be quite nice.

Ranger:
Rain of arrows is a good skill but it does require over 6 targets to make full use of it.
Trick shot is another really nice aoe skill and allows use of Concussive blast which is a finisher aoe and is supposed to be used primarily as an aoe interrupt but as we have seen with interrupts they need to be able to be cast at any time rather than needing to build up to make use of the skill.

Rift:
With the addition of vortex there is no longer a high need to save this skill for when you need to get aoe threat so you can use it in your CP macro so a buff of gaining the combo point is only a good thing.