Changes to Riftstalker.

[Elric-merren]

You could make defer death into more of a passive death escape in a way, which would teleport the riftstalker out of the way of a incoming death blow saving his life. This ability could have a internal cool down of anywhere between 1 to 4 mins based on how over powered it seems, or you could make it activated with a flat 2 min cool down and which lasts for 10 to 20 seconds after activating it. THis would give us away to evade death in a situation where we are either low on our needed buffs or where we are going to get pummeled hard. Most people do not think defer death is that great an ability to start with that i have noticed atleast, and this would make sense with the style of play that is used with rftstalker.

[Widoe]

As a main tank, I agree with the introduction of HK, something needs to be done to bring us up to par. Please open your ears and listen Trion.

[Nightwish]

You could make defer death into more of a passive death escape in a way, which would teleport the riftstalker out of the way of a incoming death blow saving his life. This ability could have a internal cool down of anywhere between 1 to 4 mins based on how over powered it seems, or you could make it activated with a flat 2 min cool down and which lasts for 10 to 20 seconds after activating it. THis would give us away to evade death in a situation where we are either low on our needed buffs or where we are going to get pummeled hard. Most people do not think defer death is that great an ability to start with that i have noticed atleast, and this would make sense with the style of play that is used with rftstalker.

This change would be extremely OP: see Riftstalker + Whitefall Steppes.

Edit: The only thing I'd do to Defer Death is to increase it's duration. Since you already can't tag or pick up stones with the buff on and, hopefully, you drop them when the buff is active(as Nightblades do), this wouldn't be game breaking at all.

- Vybz

[Elric-merren]

This change would be extremely OP: see Riftstalker + Whitefall Steppes.

Edit: The only thing I'd do to Defer Death is to increase it's duration. Since you already can't tag or pick up stones with the buff on and, hopefully, you drop them when the buff is active(as Nightblades do), this wouldn't be game breaking at all.

- Vybz

PLease do explain since it would be basically a free death once ever 2 mins at best, which would only be able to be triggered in a somewhat short windown of time. I will admit 10 to 20 seconds is pretty big window but honestly i could see it as a flat 10 ten second duration that you could have it triggered within after yuou activated the ability. I will say that it would have to be changed or adjusted for pvp since a death overting ability is prettty powerful in pvp no matter what, since you would have to kill them twice.

[Nightwish]

PLease do explain since it would be basically a free death once ever 2 mins at best, which would only be able to be triggered in a somewhat short windown of time. I will admit 10 to 20 seconds is pretty big window but honestly i could see it as a flat 10 ten second duration that you could have it triggered within after yuou activated the ability. I will say that it would have to be changed or adjusted for pvp since a death overting ability is prettty powerful in pvp no matter what, since you would have to kill them twice.

Imagine chasing down that Rogue carrying your teams stone, he knows he's going to die, he pops defer death and as that killing blow is about to land he instantly ports forwards carrying that stone. Now all his shifting cool downs are up again + on the double and he's capping your stone.

From a PvE stand point when he ports away, no matter which way he ports on that Defer Death activation, if he's main tanking that pack of mobs or the raid boss he's taking them with him. That's a bad situation no matter how you look at it. The boss/mobs will be chasing him down cleaving/aoeing everything in their paths; everything being your entire raid. Or you can end up aggroing adds depending on the port.

- Vybz

[Elric-merren]

Imagine chasing down that Rogue carrying your teams stone, he knows he's going to die, he pops defer death and as that killing blow is about to land he instantly ports forwards carrying that stone. Now all his shifting cool downs are up again + on the double and he's capping your stone.

From a PvE stand point when he ports away, no matter which way he ports on that Defer Death activation, if he's main tanking that pack of mobs or the raid boss he's taking them with him. That's a bad situation no matter how you look at it. The boss/mobs will be chasing him down cleaving/aoeing everything in their paths; everything being your entire raid. Or you can end up aggroing adds depending on the port.

- Vybz

Oh no no i did not mean port as in in any direction at all. THat was my fault and poor wording, so let me explain better. Defer death would not port you forward or in anyone direction just blick yoy out for the seond of the blow as it would land to let you evade the death. THat was my bad for not making that more clear, and i am sorry for that. I was thinking of a more stationary blinking the characeter out of the plane, before they blink back no movement forwards or what not at all, but merely a defensive measure. So whe in pvp that rogue would use it and it activated he would still be right where he was but the animation of him diappearing and reappearing where he was standing would be seen. Same for a boss you are still standing and tanking the boss as always save for the momentary blinking out of the plance to evade the death blow. I hope that is better explained then Before. The boss would still be standing as you postitioned him and looking at you.

[Nightwish]

Oh no no i did not mean port as in in any direction at all. THat was my fault and poor wording, so let me explain better. Defer death would not port you forward or in anyone direction just blick yoy out for the seond of the blow as it would land to let you evade the death. THat was my bad for not making that more clear, and i am sorry for that. I was thinking of a more stationary blinking the characeter out of the plane, before they blink back no movement forwards or what not at all, but merely a defensive measure. So whe in pvp that rogue would use it and it activated he would still be right where he was but the animation of him diappearing and reappearing where he was standing would be seen. Same for a boss you are still standing and tanking the boss as always save for the momentary blinking out of the plance to evade the death blow. I hope that is better explained then Before. The boss would still be standing as you postitioned him and looking at you.

That's still only one hit; what about the next? If you're visually going to vanish and reappear, does that mean for the time you vanish til you reappear you're not really there? If so, will you still be able to be targeted for direct healing?

I'd still go with a longer duration on defer death.

We should keep our conversation here and ignore the Rogue PTS thread we were posting on.

- Vybz

[Elric-merren]

That's still only one hit; what about the next? If you're visually going to vanish and reappear, does that mean for the time you vanish til you reappear you're not really there? If so, will you still be able to be targeted for direct healing?

I'd still go with a longer duration on defer death.

We should keep our conversation here and ignore the Rogue PTS thread we were posting on.

- Vybz

I would agree. With either a change of up or down in duration would be good. If it went to being a free death like i said make it maybe be a shorter duration so that you can still watch for the buff and purge it off or what not. If it remained as is then you could up the duratioin, though really the ideas are the same it is merely making time for heals or somethign else to get us a saving hand.

Now the blinking out that would be an issue since it would be a momentary blink. Sso i would say no you should not be able to get hit or healed for the second that you are blinked out at all, and also it would not be a bad idea to link out plane shift to it that way we give u mobility to stay alive. Also if a heal were to go off while you are blinked it should fail sicne you are really not there to get it, but this would be an issue in pve.

[Gery]

I would mostly want to see the following changes.

1. Increase the armor bonus from guardian phase from 50% to 100%
2. Have guardian phase's -30% damage apply to non-RS abilities only
3. Make improved guardian phase and improved rift guard give their current maximum bonus at 40 points spent in the tree and limit the bonus there.

Those changes would at least somewhat fix the much higher physical damage we take, increase our damage which will help us with threat generation, and finally gives us more build options instead of just 51 RS and a couple of default extras.

Also I really miss a Sergeant's Order type ranged singletarget pull ability which would fit RS tank so well, planar attraction just doesn't have the range and the aoe component makes it often unusable.

[Elric-merren]

I would mostly want to see the following changes.

1. Increase the armor bonus from guardian phase from 50% to 100%
2. Have guardian phase's -30% damage apply to non-RS abilities only
3. Make improved guardian phase and improved rift guard give their current maximum bonus at 40 points spent in the tree and limit the bonus there.

Those changes would at least somewhat fix the much higher physical damage we take, increase our damage which will help us with threat generation, and finally gives us more build options instead of just 51 RS and a couple of default extras.

Also I really miss a Sergeant's Order type ranged singletarget pull ability which would fit RS tank so well, planar attraction just doesn't have the range and the aoe component makes it often unusable.

the first one would help but i am not really sure how much that would keep us unique, mostly since we are a rogue not a warrior which is what changes to our armor controbutions would do. THough i will admit this kind of change is one of the easier ones to make to bring us into line.

THis is an issue sicne out of the three tanks rogue is one of the lowest, so making our attacks from our main tanking soul (only for the mastter, would love to see bladedancer made into a supportive tanking as well as dpsing soul.) deal more would also help our damage plus threat.

Having a single target teleport that would basically pull the target to you thru a planar tear would be interesting as a single target pullng idea (kinda like dk's deathgrip, but more you see the target blink to you not being grabbed.), although this could be problemmatic in pvp.

[Nightwish]

I would mostly want to see the following changes.

1. Increase the armor bonus from guardian phase from 50% to 100%
2. Have guardian phase's -30% damage apply to non-RS abilities only
3. Make improved guardian phase and improved rift guard give their current maximum bonus at 40 points spent in the tree and limit the bonus there.

Those changes would at least somewhat fix the much higher physical damage we take, increase our damage which will help us with threat generation, and finally gives us more build options instead of just 51 RS and a couple of default extras.

Also I really miss a Sergeant's Order type ranged singletarget pull ability which would fit RS tank so well, planar attraction just doesn't have the range and the aoe component makes it often unusable.

You basically want to be a Warrior tank. You're playing the wrong class. Please don't take offense to my comment as from what I'm seeing most Rogue tanks want to be Warriors by their suggestions but just don't want to reroll.

- Vybz

[Elric-merren]

Well the whole issue is that we are a rogue sol that is built to emulate the tanking ideas of a warrior but in a rogueish way. OUr teleports, finsihers basically up our armor closer to a warriors armor while our shields from ports and finsihers absorb damage for us like a warrior's shield. THese machanics make it that our ways of improving our tanking abilities are quite finite honestly.

One idea to llessen our incoming damage would be to have a ability that blasts a target with unstable planar energy, which would destablize their body for a period of time reducing the amount of damage they deal during this timeframe. IT could be either a long cd that severely reduces damage say as a oh **** button, or as a mid range cd that is more of a smothener of the spike damage we take.

second more of a slight adjustment on the first would be a planar destablization of yourself, where you're body is not completely on the place of telara but spread out on the other planes as well, which could make you take less damage while it is up till your body restablized. This i could see as a finisher that determines the amount of damage as well as duration from the number of cp you used. Also though i would place it on a mid cd it is powerful but is not just somethign you can pop for full effect it has to be charged basically.

[Elric-merren]

I have also wanted to see our stalker phase get a slight buff thru the improved guardian phase talent since i liked the idea of a teleporting rogue, but right now the buff we get while in stalker phase is alittle weak. If they made it so that you gained a low end about 5% or so constant damage buff and also possibly increasing the duration that you gain the damage and threat reduction by 5 secs would help to make a riftstalker dps specc alittle more viable and fun to play. JUst somethign i always wanted to play but with the tree being so defensive it was always somethign i really couldn't. I don't think it would ever be done i know.

[Nightwish]

Well the whole issue is that we are a rogue sol that is built to emulate the tanking ideas of a warrior but in a rogueish way. OUr teleports, finsihers basically up our armor closer to a warriors armor while our shields from ports and finsihers absorb damage for us like a warrior's shield. THese machanics make it that our ways of improving our tanking abilities are quite finite honestly.

One idea to llessen our incoming damage would be to have a ability that blasts a target with unstable planar energy, which would destablize their body for a period of time reducing the amount of damage they deal during this timeframe. IT could be either a long cd that severely reduces damage say as a oh **** button, or as a mid range cd that is more of a smothener of the spike damage we take.

second more of a slight adjustment on the first would be a planar destablization of yourself, where you're body is not completely on the place of telara but spread out on the other planes as well, which could make you take less damage while it is up till your body restablized. This i could see as a finisher that determines the amount of damage as well as duration from the number of cp you used. Also though i would place it on a mid cd it is powerful but is not just somethign you can pop for full effect it has to be charged basically.

The reason why Rogue tanks seem like Warrior tanks is because we never had Dodge and Parry as Avoidance/Mitigation in the first place. You're not really missing what you were never given. Now as things are starting to scale upwards in damage from bosses and gear for other classes, we start to see what we lack.

If you were never given something in the first place, how would you know if it's something you're missing out on or not?

- Vybz

[Elric-merren]

The reason why Rogue tanks seem like Warrior tanks is because we never had Dodge and Parry as Avoidance/Mitigation in the first place. You're not really missing what you were never given. Now as things are starting to scale upwards in damage from bosses and gear for other classes, we start to see what we lack.

If you were never given something in the first place, how would you know if it's something you're missing out on or not?

- Vybz

IT is not that we were not given the other forms of avoidance, but that our specc was not built to utilize them at all. Alll tanks from warriors to clerics have parry and dodge as a form of avoidance, now the issue is that as you said we never had to rely on our pure mitigation stats that much. As such we are seeing hwo far behind we are siucne we have no block to smoth out the heavy dits that get thru dodge as well as parry. We were built to bring up our physical, as well as magiacal mitigation thru finishers as well as abities that we can use to fullfil our short coming as a leather wearing tank. Right now we are behind warriors in physical mitigation which is right we should not be the too far behind or above them in that respect. For the most part i am trying to stay with the style of tanking and soul we are. Which is a teleporting and planar energy using tank, as such we should use these to our advantage.

As i said above the ability to partially shift a target so that it's body is not completely on this plane furing a period of combat would help to give us a damage smothenerr, and now this ability could be a long duration heavy damage reduction type of ability or a light short duration one which you could try to keepp up constantly like phantom blow but backwards. Also the second idea of scatering your being accross the planes to reduce the damage you take would also make sense as well as working as a nother damage smothener.