Swashbuckler Set Gear Feedback

[Runaf]

The purpose of this post is to give and hopefully get some feedback from raiding swashbucklers about the Reckless Plunder armor set from Veeshan's Peak. A lot of constructive posts were made in beta with ideas to improve the set bonuses, individual effects, stat distribution and related concerns that were "lost" when the game went live. Like many other swashies, I have a few concerns with the current state of our set gear, and will outline of of the changes that I personally would recommend. Ideally we will be getting a lot feedback from other players on how they feel about the new set as well.The biggest problem I have with the Reckless Plunder armor is the set bonuses. Here is the current setup: (3) Applies Focus: Insight - Increases damage of Insight by 65This is probably the best effect on the current set, even though it leaves something to be desired. An insight boost is decent because it directly effects our DPS, and while +65 effects every proc of inspiration, it still seems like the boost should be higher considering the "tier" of raid needed to obtain it. By wearing only the breastplate from our EoF set, we get a 40 damage boost to the same CA, so if we're giving up three different slots to get this effect it should be a more significant boost than 25 damage in my opinion.(5) Applies Focus: Swathe - Reduces recast time of Swathe by 12 secondsThis effect is pretty objectionable. Like the Insight boost, this is a recycled effect that was available on the last tier of swash set gear, but this time we actually need to equip two more pieces of the set in order to get a bonus that is less beneficial than the EoF one. The Daring set reduces the Swathe CA line recast by 20 seconds, whereas this new "high-end" set only reduces it by 12. The Swathe CA line is not even one of the more ideal DPS / debuff CAs available to swashbucklers, so between increasing the difficulty to obtain it and lowering the bonus, this effect is not worth trying to obtain at all. (7) Applies focus: Slight of Hand - Reduces immunity timer of Slight of Hand by 30 seconds.This full set bonus, unfortunately, takes the cake when it comes to useless effects. In order to even get this bonus, we need to loot 7 pieces of set gear from Veeshan's Peak, which on it's own could take months and is completely based on luck of the draw. Assuming we can actually gather the full set, we sacrifice countless critical hit, doubleattack, and CA damage boosts available on other armor. Personally, if I raided VP that long and spent that much DKP, I would hope for an effect take makes it worth the effort. Sleight of Hand does not even work properly (at least according to the spell description) at this time, and even it did, the immunity timer reduction would be of marginal utility.Perfect Finesse, Lung Bleed, On Guard, and Sack are all potentially useful CAs that could be boosted or have their recast lowered. Additional critical hit or doubleattack chances, increased poison procs or damage boosts, or even a damage proc would all be set effects that I think many swashbucklers would rather have. The individual set effects, on their own, are not too bad. Some of them serve a pretty marginal purpose but at least they bring something to each individual piece.1. 7 Melee Crit Chance- Good.2. 7 Doubleattack Chance- Good.3. 75 CA Damage- Good.4. 5 Attack Speed- Decent, seems low, especially with diminishing returns.5. 5 DPS Mod- Decent, seems low, especially with diminishing returns.6. 20 In-Combat Power Regen- Decent, personally I don't have power issues, though others might.7. 20 In-Combat Health Regen- Weak, health regen is of marginal use and has a low cap.As for the stats, it's a combination of STR, AGI, STA and INT, and I don't think anyone has any major objections with that. As with most sets, some pieces only have stats like STA and AGI, which on their own do not make an ideal piece of loot, but on the full set seems to balance out a good amount of each. Power and health, as well as resists, are all pretty solid.Anyways, now that my rant is over, I hope we can get some other active raiding swashbucklers to post their 2 cents on how they feel about our set armor. There seems to be a lot of disappointed players that will be avoiding most of the set altogether in it's current state, so hopefully we can post some suggestions to improve the set's appeal.

[HamishZA]

I personally think you're being a bit too kind in saying sleight of hand focus is of marginal utility, the skill or combat art is practically useless as is, adding a focus to our set gear just makes me think that the people who design these set bonus have no clue what a swashbuckler actually does, but then the +10 to ranged skill on the old set proved that in the last expansion too.

[m0ya]

I understand the fact that almost every 7 set piece boost the new ROK spell but, first of all, our rok spell BLOWS AND IS STILL NO FIXED FFS IT'S BEEN 3 MONTHS.... so change the spell and change the boost .

Seriously tho, let's start at the base of the problem... Sleight of Hand. Tyvm for looking into this and trying to offer the players a real skill that match their class.

[Sanamien]

I agree 100% on what is said here (even though it will probably never mean anything to me )

Just a minor correction: AFAIK will the bonus to a certain spell only work for that spell. IE. Focus: Inspiration will only affect Inspiration and not Insight, and the same for Dashing Swathe and Swathe. I'm not 100% sure on this, but that is the case for Conjuror relic BP with focus and Blazing Avatar/Manifestation.

[liveja]

Runaf wrote:

6. 20 In-Combat Power Regen- Decent, personally I don't have power issues, though others might.7. 20 In-Combat Health Regen- Weak, health regen is of marginal use and has a low cap.

I'm not a "raider", but I have to say that seeing either of these on Swashy gear is quite disappointing  especially the health regen, which in EQ2 seems to be largely pointless.

As for the set bonuses ... I think I would far rather have my raiding armor boosting my backstab, than my AOE attack.

I definitely like the Insight buff, & have a feeling that +65 is going to end up being more significant than it appears.

I have no opinion on the SoH buff, since I'm not yet even high enough level to have it & don't know exactly what it does. What little I've heard about it doesn't sound like it's something I would want for my level 80 "class defining" CA, but I could be totally ignorant about it.

[rogleete]

I completely agree. Not only is the RoK set bonus saddening but it is harder to acuire then EoF and like posted, NO one would find the 7 piece bonus useful. It needs to be changed. I am in favor of +crit/ +DA / or +poison proc. Please change it. 

[Awlis]

I agree.. its a shame that the complete RoK set has an effect that most of us will never use. Sleight of hand is at best good for a tanking swashy, at worse a broken and useless ability.. certainly not something I would be desperate to get the full set for.

 I also agree with whats Runaf says abotu the effects.. some seem a little too tame for the risk and hardship involved in gaining these items

[Laereneth]

I raid regularly and have to agree with every other poster here.  The thing you have to consider when evaluating this gear is that it is obtain from the top end raiding and should be design around assisting the raider.  Not a soloer, or even a group centric Swash.  That is what dungeon/instance gear is for.  Each of the stats and bonuses should be focused on making a raiding Swash more effective at what they do the majority of their gaming time, raiding.  So, with that in mind, on to the individual points.

• The power regen is of marginal usefulness in raids, though I personally don't have power issues.
• The health regen is completely useless in raid situations.  If you obtain agro or eat a large AoE, a 20 point regen is going to do nothing to make a difference in your survival.
• Swath is not anywhere near our most useful skills in raids.  It's nice to use from time to time, but our single target CAs seem much much more use.
• SoH, this skill is absolutely completely useless in raids.  And is extremely lack luster in any situation outside of raids.  To require 7 pieces of top end raid gear to obtain a bonus to one of our most uselss skills is extremely disheartening.  As the orignial poster stated, this one takes the cake.  This is what stood out the most to me when evaluating out raid set gear.

All in all, the gear should focus more on the DA, Crit, CA dmg, etc.  That is what we do on raids, in addition to our hate transfer, debuffs and periodic AoE immunity, dps.

[Delow]

I agree with this, this armor's set bonus' really don't make it highly desirable right now in the least. The armor's stats and individual effects are nice but as the end game set for Swashbucklers it's set bonus' should really stand out and be useful. The set bonus' really need to help offset the lose of any +Crit,+DA or +CA Damage we might get from equiping another non set piece of armor. Here are some things I wouldn't mind seeing for the bonus' myself:(3) Applied Focus: Insight - Increase duration by 4 seconds(5) Applies Focus: Sack - Reduces recast time of Sack by 10 seconds(7) Applies Focus: On Guard - Increases Combat Art trigger chance by 7% , +10% Poison trigger count increaseI think this would still be in line with what is currently setup on the set pieces. We keep the Insight bonus on the 3 (changed a little), still reduce the recast time on one of our CA's at 5 and still enhance a class defining useful ability at 7. I would personally like to not have any +DA or +Crit for set bonus' with the fact that pieces of the set already give those bonus' (we could maybe see an increase to the amount of +DA and +Crit, get it to an even 10 each maybe). I could see a +10 to Hurricane maybe on the final bonus (instead of my suggested 10% poison trigger count increase). I believe the bonus' would be better spent enhancing useful CA's we have. I encourage other swashbucklers to post your opinions about this armor, give ideas about what you want to see. Perhaps if we come up with something that everyone agrees on and is balanced we can get it changed. It might not be until after the epic quests are released but a community consensus about a balanced change might make it happen.

[1dollarMox]

I also agree that there needs to be some changes made.

 The 3 and 5 set bonus are not the greatest thing but i could live with them. The 7 set is truly worthless. At no point during a raid will i ever be wasting time to cast slight of hand.  I think the 7 piece bonus should make the set stand out. I would like to see either a bonus that made bravado a full time buff as opposed to a proc. or like what was stated in a previous post make on guard more effective.

To be honest i would rather have just about anything on it other than a soh focus.

As for the health regen i think it should be turned into 7% hurricane. kk thanks 

[Luk]

I can only see myself ever wearing 3 pieces, but then, by the time I look at those I will probably have better fro quests and instance zones, pretty sad when you look at raid dropped armor as second class gear.

[Ookami-san]

I was told that we are too ubber and had to be toned down... hence the useless Sleight of Hand skill and even more useless armor ability of enhancing it... after all... zero times any number is still zero.