WTB desperate changes to Brigands/Rogues [Archive]

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Athei

07-02-2011, 02:38 AM

Completely overhaul the Stamina line in the Rogue tree. It's god awfully terrible.Remove the 'frontal position' from Gouge and Coule, especially if the mob parries from the back now.Change Cuss, Band of Thugs, and Shenanigans to actually be useful, please.Fix Change of Engagement so it can be cast while moving.

OutcastBlade

07-14-2011, 04:24 AM

You're desperate for them to make these changes.... why?Also cuss is far from useless. It's an interrupt, and a dispel. I feel dirty just telling you that, because I feel like I am being trolled here.

Surculus

07-18-2011, 02:51 AM

<cite>Atheism wrote:</cite><blockquote>Completely overhaul the Stamina line in the Rogue tree. It's god awfully terrible.Remove the 'frontal position' from Gouge and Coule, especially if the mob parries from the back now.Change Cuss, Band of Thugs, and Shenanigans to actually be useful, please.Fix Change of Engagement so it can be cast while moving.</blockquote>Really?

fxdurand888

08-01-2011, 01:20 AM

I am going to post this in a few places in hopes that it is seen. I will start with replying to your post of things that could be done to help/fix brigands some.EQ2 Brigands: Since it is game update time soon, I will go over the brigand’s CAs and AAs in hope that by some miracle the gods of gaming will have my post looked at, and any of it will be used to improve our class or fix broken things about our class. CAs or AAs with a * in front of them are in my opinion the ones that need to be addressed first. In some cases I give a commentary of the CA/AA before giving a suggestion to fix it… sometimes you can just look for Fix: and get details about how I think the skill can be improved without having to read any opinions I may have. I realize giving use everything asked for would make us OP, I am not asking for all of it, but some combination of the ideas below to help/fix brigands. Anyone with constructive feedback or other ideas they would like for the brigand class, feel free to post your thoughts. When coming up with suggestions, I tried to stay away from making changes to skills the could negatively effect a particular play style for the class. The changes I proposed should be beneficial to solo, group, raid, pvp, and tank play as a brigand. Try to keep this in mind when making additional suggestions or bashing mine. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Class specific CAs that need fixing-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Band of Thugs - This skill is disappointing because it has the potential to be a class defining skill and yet instead is in its current state. 33.6 seconds for the Thugs to do 20,633 damage in 54 total hits; combat arts and poisons included - or 614 damage per second and about 382 damage each hit. Woopee. Fix: A velious double vv Lv 90 = 396 per hit average. Now transforming this into a CA lets take into account potency since they are pets and should share mine. total from agi and pot = 289% average hit of 396 * 3.89 = 1540 per hit... now they should share my crit chance as well which means they will crit 100% of the time so critically hitting they should be doing 327% more damage for a total of about 6577 damage each hit(when it crits). Assuming they are out the whole duration and land all 54 hits, that would be 355,158 Damage from the CA instead of 20,633 and much more appropriate. The dps for the 33.6 duration would be 10570. Take that amount over a minute and it is only 5919 dps and if you take into account the reuse is 187 seconds, in that time it only does 1899 dps... far from overpowered so lets beef it up some... remember we are going for class defining here. Since we are revamping AA... lets go back in time and unask that they remove the band of thugs AA skill from the final line in the shadows tree. So the new skill has 2 ranks at 3 points each and grants: +1 Thug, +30% aoe avoid (for the thugs), and 15 second reuse reduction per rank. Get rid of the useless Noxious Toxin AA... how worthless can it get really? If the devs are unwilling to do this, there are still many cool things that could be done with this skill. I personally like the idea of them becoming a buff that is always active. Now to get away with this, they would need to do a good deal less damage, but also be on a 10-15 second refresh, where 1 Thug will come back every 10-15 seconds if you have lost any. There is a lot of potential and I hope they can make this skill class defining. Lets say for arguments sake they make them only able to do 75,000 in a 33.6 second time frame as a buff; in this case, my enhance thug aa from above should have 3 levels at the cost of 2 points each granting +1 thug, +25% aoe avoid(for the thugs), and +5% to their inflicted damage per rank. *Shenanigans - The skill is actually a great skill, it just can not be used in all phases of game play with the same effectiveness. What I am going to suggest for this skill is something that can be applied to more than just 1 of our skills, but in summary, would make the skill have 2 effects - one effect for when in Defense stance, and one effect for when in Offense stance. Fix: For starters make ability mod actually increase the damage of this skill. Why it does not now, I have no clue. Defense stance - Same effect as normal, but include: increased hate gain for 10 seconds, about 20% more damage output, and your enemy is unable to switch targets for 3 seconds. Offense stance - Same effect as normal, but remove requirement of being hit to do the damage, as an additional disadvantage for not having the being hit requirement, make the effect of lowering our defense and parry last 6 seconds. Note the 20% damage increase is only for the CA when used in defense stance. From offense stance, you should be able to double up this CA. Note: Use the skill in offense stance with care; it still increases your hate position. *Amazing Reflexes - This used to be a class defining ability, but now it would be more appropriate to call this skill Reflexes because a whole lot of other classes are much more amazing at getting around aoes than we are now. Do not worry, I am not asking for 100% aoe avoid again or any more aoe avoidance for that matter, but I do want to put the "Amazing" back in the skill. Fix: Add a passive buff to the skill that gives +10% Reuse, +10% Casting Speed, +10% Recovery. When Amazing reflexes triggers, have it give +15 Haste, and lower any CAs currently on a reuse by 1 second. Also, when Amazing Reflexes triggers, it should extend the effect to our Thugs. Alternatively, +10% proc chance passive, and when the skill triggers double proc rate for the duration it triggers. There are a lot of things that could be done with this skill. *Thieves Guild - First of all, thank you for making this skill worth something. The only thing this needs is to allow spells to trigger thieves guild for the brigand as well as CAs. Currently it is limiting as far as targets go, since we only get the benefit if a CA is used (confirm?). *Double up - This is truly a class defining skill. All it needs is to work with every and any CA from our class and from AAs. This needs to be remembered for all future AAs that are CAs. Currently it is missing this capability with: Shenanigans, Sunder, Change of Engagement, Dance of Metal (this would not be a good use for the skill in my opinion though), Band of Thugs (I should be able to have 6 thugs if I want), Beg for Mercy, Honor Among Thieves, and Pris de Fer. *Daring Advance - Let ability modifier add to the damage portion of the CA. Rob – Here is a case where the debuff effect of the CA lowers the targets offense instead of defense. Something as easy as the next hit after Rob does +10% damage would work, but something that makes the enemy die quicker in the end is more up the brigands ally. Puncture - Again with lowering the attack skill instead of defense skill. Now this one I personally happen to like, but to be consistent, it should help the target die faster in some way instead. Beg for Mercy - Great skill, but the reuse was increased by a bit too much. I'd like to see 20 seconds shaved off the reuse. To be continued... 20,480 character limit, why?

fxdurand888

08-01-2011, 01:23 AM

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AA improvements (since you are revamping AA anyways)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************Rogue Tree*************** *Opportunistic Cover - I read notes that you plan to change this to no longer require a shield and give +2.5(or was it 2 I cant remember) DPS per rank. This is almost the good fix for this skill, just one thing however, do not eliminate a potential play-style for the class. Fix: Add +2.5 DPS per rank when not using a shield.Add +7.5 DPS per rank when using a shield. This will allow those brigands who play there character in every single way to still gain the benefit from using a shield and increased dps when brig tanking. Since you usually always add at least 2-3 of our aas to enhance our tanking ability, it would not make sense to go and take some of that away now. I personally like the added functionality and feel like it adds a unique roll to my character. Please do not do anything further to diminish or take that away.(more on this later) Make my proposed fix and more like this in the future to make all brigands of all play styles happy. *Swear - Keep the effect and turn it into a combat art that does decent AOE damage, or add a small amount of AOE auto attack per rank. *Formation - With the massive increase to auto attack damage, using a shield in formation no longer provides a comparable increase in survival as it does a loss in DPS. Fix: Increase any combination of these things to a suitable amount for the dps loss: Increase mitigation of Formation 495 is laughable at this point (this bonus has not scaled well over the levels), increase block chance of Formation, it takes a lot to really see an increase in block chance since round shields have a low shield factor, increase health amount of Formation, or my favorite idea, but I think way to over powered; Formation additionally grants the use of Kite/Tower shields. On the topic of our defense tree - When you revamped the wisdom tree you took away something very useful that I want back. We used to get as one of the skills: Caster will Parry 10% of incoming attacks, attacks from all quadrants have the same chance of being parried. This needs to find its way back into our AAs, and I think it should be split across AAs in the stamina line, since it IS for tanking after all. Again I say: Since you usually always add at least 2-3 of our aas to enhance our tanking ability, it would not make sense to go and take some of that away now. I personally like the added functionality and feel like it adds a unique roll to my character. Please do not do anything further to diminish or take that away. *Traumatic Swipe - For an end line AA skill... this move needs to hit harder. At my +289% total potency I think a fair amount is: 5000-8000. Also, if you could make it a point to not forget we have this skill and make it useful for all monsters; that would be a bonus. *Avast Ye - Let ability modifier add to the damage portion of the CA. Lunge Reversal - Refresh the effect every 5 seconds instead of 15. If it does not work with block, it should. *Remarkable Mobility - This seems like a very low return on MA per rank, correct me if I am wrong. I would like to see it give 20 MA at rank 10. Coule - This attack needs to deal more damage considering the long reuse. At my +289% potency given the reuse, and other AA CAs of ours I think it should do: 7500-9000 *Thief's Prowess - If someone cared about hate enough to go down this line and they are getting attacked, it is already too late. This AA needs a complete rework. The only way I would say this AA should stay is if it causes a drop of target in PVP. I have never speced this so I am not sure how it works in PVP… I do however seem to remember an update note saying that passive deaggro skills no longer work in PVP. PVP is not my main play function on my brigand, but I would not ask that any change be made for those that do enjoy PVP as their main function and use this skill. However, if I am correct that this has no value in PVP, then this skill needs to go. Fix: The int line doesn’t really have anything that awesome going for it, so lets try to change that. Maybe make the AA give +1% trigger chance per rank. Another option could be combat arts deal +0.5% damage per rank when used from behind. More to be continued...

fxdurand888

08-01-2011, 01:29 AM

****************Brigand Tree**************** This is the most terrible tree we have and I am sure anyone who is a real brigand would agree. It comes as no surprise that I took a 3 year break from the game shortly after the devs crapped this pile of stink onto our class. Well while you are doing changes to AAs, this is your chance to make right with brigands, don’t mess it up. We don’t get anything all that great from our end lines in EOF either. Tenure is cool, but not great. Enhance Murderous Rake – Add +1% base and critical damage per rank. Enhance Sneak – Each rank should additionally grant stealth for more monsters that could normally see stealth. Enhance Puncture – This further increases offensive debuffing and is not in line with our class role. As such, add +2% to base and critical damage per rank. *Enhance Defensive Poisons – The benefit from this AA is nominal and part of the crapping on brigands tree that is EOF. Fix: Change to Poisonous Strikes – Add +1 to poison trigger chance per rank. Alternatively, make it a self buff that adds poison damage to every attack, melee and CAs included. Kind of like the legendary weapon from Mistmoore Castle, I think it was called The Maestro’s Flame or something like that. It was a legendary weapon that added like 62 damage to all melee hits (weapon and CA). Now it would need to do a lot more damage than that obviously. It should also be effected by potency, crit bonus, ability mod, agi, and able to crit. *Enhance Desperate Thrust - +50% to hit is worthless, exchange for +3% critical damage per rank. Enhance Cheap Shot – At rank 5 it should have the added effect of getting a full duration vs. heroic mobs. Additionally, each rank should give it damage and turn it into a damage/stun attack. At +289% potency, it should do 869-1258 per rank. *Enhance Evade – This skill should be swapped out to enhance a different skill. A true pile of stink this AA is. *Enhance Barroom Negotiations – Again with hit chance on a CA, it is awesome that I need to list almost every AA in the Brigand tree as a candidate for improvement. Exchange + hit chance for +1% base and critical damage per rank. Enhance Shenanigans – Also increase + critical damage by 3% per rank *Enhance Rob – Another pile of steaming crap in its current state. This is another candidate for choosing another skill to enhance entirely. If however we have to take this Ca as one of the AAs… add +3% critical and base damage per rank or remove the stealth requirement at rank 5. Enhance Mug – Currently, I guess ok for PVP when fighting a brawler but very crappy otherwise, does anyone smell that? Turn it into a damaging CA with points in the AA. 700-1000 damage per rank at 289% potency. Also, at rank 5 it should always steal from the target; just because. *Enhance Vitality Poisons – I actually like this ability, but it has not aged well with the change of game mechanics and needs to be more powerful. Instead of 5% damage and healing per rank, make it 25% per rank. Enhance Debilitate – Add 1% base and critical damage per rank. Enhance Dispatch - Add 1% base and critical damage per rank. Enhance Cuss – I would like to see the dispelling become more powerful per rank. Either in level of dispel or preferably in additional types of buffs effected by the dispel. *Enhance Beg for Mercy – This effect was better when the recast was shorter and the effect different. Now however, it is pretty terrible. Change this to give a 15 second reuse reduction per rank. Enhance Gouge – At rank 5 allow this CA to be used from any position. Tenure – 12% is such an odd number. Make it 15% =p Honor Among Thieves (HAT) – I like this ability a lot; it just needs 1 small tweak. When a tank’s ward eats the damage of an attack that is intercepted with HAT, no power is healed. Now that I think about it, it might be if I am warded, but I am not sure what stops the power heal. Make this come before a ward, or allow us to get power in this scenario. I love the utility this adds to the class and that I can take part of a hit for the main tank in a pinch. Safehouse – Can non-pvp servers get the unlimited range back please? =p *Enhance Battery and Assault – Again with debuffing a mobs offensive capabilities, and as an end line AA? This is the biggest piece of rotting dung I have ever seen. This is more the role of a swash not a brig and should never have found its way to our tree. Mind you I would not wish this as an end line on anyone, not even a swash. Fix: Get rid of Enhance Battery and assault. Replace with Triple Cross: adds 1.5 seconds to double up duration for registering CAs. - enough said. More to be continued... whitespace counting against character limit = /fail

fxdurand888

08-01-2011, 01:30 AM

fxdurand888

08-01-2011, 01:46 AM

Unfortunately out of order because of character restrictions and whitespace. ****************Shadows Tree**************** *Hidden Adversary – This is redundant and is painfully obvious that the creative mind behind brig/rogue just couldn’t think of any good ideas for us. Fix: This could be a candidate for a whole different skill to be upgraded. However, lets just say we have to have this skill upgraded, instead of hate reduction increase, make it add 1 hate position reduction per rank at 2 points a rank up to 2 ranks. *Poison Mastery – Was this ever a good AA? Either add 20% poison damage per rank, or drop this entirely for something else. *Noxious Toxin – Can you require the person making brigand AAs to actually play one so they would realize how useless this is? This is the most useless skill of all, hands down. Improving the duration of food and drink by 2.5% per rank in the 1st line of shadows owns this AA. Whoever, decided this is what brigs should get as an AA in this tree should retire and never make skills for any game ever again. Replace this with an AA that gives our character a 20% bonus to all stats and damage every time people like the idiot behind this skill give us a crappy AA. j/k about the skill real fix is just below: Fix: See my above idea talking about Band of Thugs and replace this crap with that. *Rugged Shielding - I enjoy the tanking capabilities my brigand can have and as such find all the tanking AA options useful and can see their appeal for other brigands that like the versatility. I feel that way about all the AAs geared towards tanking except this one. For being in the final row of the shadows tree, this sucks badly. The one in the scout shadow line is better. The one in the rogue shadow line is better. Either replace this with something all play-styles can benefit from, or make this a much better option for the tanking brigand. As it stands, when I go to my mirror and bust out the tank spec, not one point goes into this terrible skill. Fix: To make this viable for tanking make it add 20% mitigation increase to Rugged per rank and add a small amount of shield block per rank. *Dispatch Defense – This is terribly redundant. We had enough mitigation decrease with the skill without any AA. Luckily we had a creative person trying really hard to come up with good skills for us… pfft. Fix: Take away the mitigation reduction increase (or not it really doesn’t matter) and replace it with this effect: The brigands party will benefit from increased potency while dispatch is in effect: +1% potency per rank for the group and +1.5% potency per rank for the brigand against a monster with dispatch on it. This effect is only group wide and does not effect the whole raid. Will to Survive – I always felt this CA should have done 10-20% more damage then it does.