Rogue changes! YAAAAAAAAAAY

[Syntex]

General gameplay goals for the Rogue update:

* Competitive PvE Alternatives to Sabodancer, both melee and ranged.
* Competitive PvP DPS. You should fear seeing a Rogue the same way you see a Warrior. Of equal Prestige Rank, the two should be capable of providing a similar amount of PvP threat.
* Survivability improvements. Some self heal improvements and vampiric-type Healing Siphons - Abilities that reduce the healing intake capacity of one's target, with a portion of the stolen amount going to the rogue.
* Better synergies between souls
* 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.
* Large pack tanking improvements - Improvement to threat on multiple mobs
* Running capacity remains -- BUT, Double-teleport-invulnerable runner (the "bugged" one) goes away.
* Reduction in required reliance on "unfair" tactics (invuls, slips, etc) via adding true competitive power

Themes used to arrive at the goals:

* Marksman: No longer suffers an identity crisis around being the mobile-soul-that-requires-mostly-stationary-play. Pedestals are gone. Sniping remains. They get enchanted Ammo buffs (via their new "Munitions" line), and can bring one more ability into an AE rotation. New survivability as well. Better synergy.
* Ranger: Synergizes with other souls better. No longer overly dependent on Shadow Fire.
* Riftstalker: Offensively synergizes through +AP and reflect shields. Some new multi-target threat coolness here too. You should be able to take some RS without flooring your DPS, as melee souls' ability to close all currently lives in this tree.
* Saboteur: Use of bombs should not be a DPS downgrade.
* Bladedancer: Should be a viable in-your-face combat rogue.
* Nightblade: Some more survivability, without having to rely on pure immunities.
* Assassin: More up front damage, less reliance on super-long, annoying DoTs. Better poisons. Less "waste a finisher to apply a short buff." Slip away should not be a requirement to compete. Slip away will be receiving changes in a future update as well.
* Bard: A little more low level survivability - More of a reason to take this as a 3rd solo soul if you're inclined to get some more survivability back.

Specific soul details. Long...

Spoiler: show

Twilight Transcendence:

Removes curable effects, 50% less damage taken, 50% Maximum Health healed over 4 seconds.

Fell Blades:

Same as before on the -50% healing part, extra thing added:

The rogues gets healed for 20% of any heal the cursed enemy receives.

Shadow Fire:

Increases damage with Ranged Weapons by 13% for 25 seconds, increases by 1% for every point spent above 51.

Basically 50% increase on Ranged Weapon Damage.


Baneful Touch became a buff:

No longer a finisher, no cost, instant, increases all damage of weapon enchantments by 20%.

Enduring Brew:

No longer a dot, heals for 442, scales with attack power.

Poison Mastery:

Increases the attack power bonus of your poison-coated by 10% (At 0/5 so guessing 50% at 5/5)

Magnify Pain:

Increases your critical by 20% as before, with increasing healing bonus by 20% also.

Contra Tempo:

Quick Strike and Precision 50% chance at 2/2 for extra combo.

Primal Death:

Increases damage of your primal strike by 5/10/15%

Annihilate:

Increases attack power by 20% for 1 minute at 5 combo + some damage obviously

Planar Vortex (new, in the place of the improved Rift Barrier)

Whenever you plane shift 50% weapon damage on surrounding enemies for 4 seconds, generates a lot of threat, requires Guardian Stance.

Rift Barrier:

Absorbs bla bla of Physical damage in addition the damage absorbed is reflected to the enemy, does not stack with Rift Guard

Master Archer:

Whenever you are standing still +20% extra damage.

New 3 Weapon Enchants on MM:

14 points :Electrified Munitions : Old Master Archer it seems.

18 points:Invigorating Munitions: The ranged attacks give back 2 energy.
36 points:Vampiric Munitions: Says the same as Electrified munitions, obviously some leech effect thought, wrong tooltip

51 point: Rending Munitions, Ignores 25% of the targets armor.

Enkhindle:

Increases the attack power bonus of your Fire based attacks by 10/20/30%

Single Minded Focus:

Increases the damage of all single target attacks by 5%

Expose Weakness:

59 Physical damage on attacks/bleeds, scales with Attack Power now.

Primal Strike:

Death Damage instead of Physical

Saboteur Bombs Changes:

Fragmentation Bomb: Same damage range, +50% damage bonus from Attack Power
Chemical Bomb: Same damage range, +50% damage bonus from Attack Power
Time Bomb: Damage appears to have been doubled
Annihilation Bomb: Damage appears to have been doubled, +50% damage bonus from Attack Power

Marksman Changes:
Singled Minded Focus: Changed from "Increases damage of Swift Shot, Hasted Shot, Empowered Shot, Deadeye Shot and Rapid Fire Shot by 3% per rank" to "Increases the damage of all single target attacks by 5%" - Probably a loss on this one for pure MM, but allows for great synergy with other souls.
Penetrating Shots: Now effects both melee as well as ranged weapons. - Again probably a synergy change
Master Archer: Instead of the 25% Air Damage proc it now "Increases damage with Ranged Weapons by 4% per rank when standing still"
Strafe: Removed the portion about Pedestals and instead now gets "An additional 100% damage bonus from Attack Power is applied to this attack"
Electrified Munitions: The Rogue's Ranged weapon attack abilities deal additional air damage. Damage is increased with more points spent in the Marksman Soul above 14. Lasts 1 hour, only 2 Weapon Enhancements can be applied at a time". - Replaces "Hit and Run", looks to be the replacement for the old Master Archer, but now has a 100% proc rate.
Invigorating Munitions: The Rouge's ranged weapon attack abilities give back 2 Energy. Lasts 1 Hour, Only 2 WE can be applied at once - Replaces Marksman Pedestal
Vampiric Munitions: The description in the Soul Tree and Abilities window is the same as Electrified Munitions but once cast the buff shows: "Ranged weapon attacks apply a curse on the enemy, reducing healing by 50%. The Rogue also heals for 20% of any healing the cursed enemy receives."
Hit and Run: Same spot as Improved Hit and Run and is the exact same as Improved Hit and Run.
Rending Munitions: The Rogue's ranged weapon ability attacks ignores 25% of the enemy's armor. Lasts 1 hour. Only 2 WE can be applied at once Takes the place of Sniper's Pedestal.

BD:
Compound Attack - No longer has reduced damage to 2/3 extra targets.
Turn the Tide - Deal 5% more damage (down from 10%) and take 5% less damage.
Contra Tempo - QS and PS have a 25/50 chance to adding an extra combo point.

NB:
Primal Strike - Weapon plus death damage.
Felstrike - added effect Rogue is healed for 20% of any healing done to cursed enemy.
Twilight Transcendence - *Changed* Removes curable harmful effects, reduces damage taken by 50% and heals the rogue for 50% of maximum health over 4 seconds.
Living Flame - added 50% damage bonus from Attack power is applied to this attack.
Primal Death - 5/10/15 damage increase to Primal Strike.
Enkindle - Increase the Attack Power bonus of your Fire based attacks by 10%.

Sin:
Assassinate - added ignores 50% of the enemy's armor
Expose Weakness - added additional damage is increased by Attack Power
Leeching Poison - Now a 14 point ability
Baneful Touch - Now a 20 point ability, The rogue's fingers are smeared with toxic subtances, increasing the damage of all weapon enchantments by 20%
Backstab - 150% damage bonus from Attack Power (up from 100%)
Poison Mastery - Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Poison-coated weapons by 10% and
the chances to apply Poison to your enemy by 4/8/12/16/20 (up from 2/4/6/8/10)
Enduring Brew - The rogue drinks a concoction of substances which heals for 442 hit points. The amount
healed is increased with Attack Power.
Physical Trauma - Increases damage of your Puncture, Jagged Strike, and Impale by 15/30. Your Impale causes targets to take an additional 15/30 damage from your Final Blow.

Bard:
Motif of Renewal*New 6 Point* - Plays a Motif that heals the rogue for x health every 3 seconds. Lasts 15 seconds. Does not stack with Motif of Regenaration.
Motif of Encouragement - still here.
Triumphant Spirit - Motif of Renewal added

Riftstalker:
Annhilate - increases Attack Power by 20% (no longer a fixed amount)
Stalker Phase - Buff is now applied after plane shifting (no longer requires Shadow Stalk or Shadow Assault)
Guardian Phase - Threat gain increased to 200% (up from 100)
Shadow Blitz - ADDED an additional 50% damage bonus from Attack Power is applied to this attack.
Rift Barrier - Adds an absorption shield that lasts 15 seconds after Plane Shifting. This shield absorbs 5/10/15 of all incoming Physical damage for up to 20/40/60 of your maximum Health. In addition, the damage absorbed is reflected back to the enemy. This shield does not stack with Rift Guard and will not be applied with Rift Guard active.
Hasted Time - Increases your movement speed by 25/50 for 4 seconds after Plane Shifting. This can only be triggered once every 10 seconds.
Planar Vortex - Whenever you Plane Shift, you again Planar Vortex that lasts 4 seconds. This effect deals 50% of your weapon's damage every second to surrounding enemies and generates a large amount of threat. This effect can only be triggered when you are in Guardian Phase.
Freedom of movement - ADDED This effect can only be triggered once every 10 seconds.

Love a lot of the changes and it looks like this is going to mix up the soul combinations a lot. Just reading about it people are looking at stuff like 44mm/22nb and some other builds that haven't been used which is a change I welcome. Some people testing on the PTS are also saying there is now like 3-4 builds outparsing sabdancer for pve which is a nice change.

They also said a lot more changes are expected over the next few days so this seems like only the tip of the iceberg. FINALLY SOME LOVE! :D

[Alderaan]

About fucking time.

It's amazing how horrible rogues really are when compared to equally geared and skilled warriors, mages, and clerics. Especially at rank 8.

So tired of Sabdancer for pve. I'm dying to get back to a viable NB spec since i love that class so much.

[Syntex]

About fucking time.

It's amazing how horrible rogues really are when compared to equally geared and skilled warriors, mages, and clerics. Especially at rank 8.

So tired of Sabdancer for pve. I'm dying to get back to a viable NB spec since i love that class so much.

I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ZOMG

I now need to power grind my rogue to R8 and watch the warrior QQ when we killed them. DEAR GOD A ROGUE KILLING PEOPLE? STOP THE PRESSES.

[Crizto]

Way to distract my entire raid from Inwar progression last night! I was about to DL the PTS to test things out but I don't want to go over my internet usage ; ;.
I want to try out MM/Ranger/Sin just without the pet. Seems ranged builds are going to be pretty sweet for PvE. The self healing abilities we're FINALLY getting are so great. Relative to other classes they aren't OP, but compared to the almost no healing capabilities we had, it's amazing. Opens a lot of doors in PvP.

[Meko]

Hell yes! This is awesome. I finally got to 40 last night - rolling Sab (for most things - pve/pvp/leveling). It's the most fun I've had in any game with a class/job sans Red Mage from FFXI (where I felt like I could rule the world).

[Raen Ryong]

Only thing that worries me is I don't see any buffs to Riftstalker's physical mitigation...

[Gokulo]

So when is the patch supposed to roll in? :>

[Syntex]

Only thing that worries me is I don't see any buffs to Riftstalker's physical mitigation...

Full details and patch notes coming in the following days. I'm sure they are aware of it and are going to address it.

So when is the patch supposed to roll in? :>

Anyones guess at this point but I wouldn't expect next week, probably the following week at the soonest.

[Gokulo]

Oh, that's still actually faster than I thought, nice.

[AidenCarby]

Idk what brackets you guys are in but rogues do top damage in mine quite frequently. I will however say, that it's awesome that we're not stuck with just sabodancer anymore, been using that spec since 1.2 :/

[Raen Ryong]

Which spec? Marksman does good damage but simply cannot kill (Riftblade) Warriors and is SOOOO squishy. Also fuck chlorolocks.

[Senji]

Impression I got somewhere for 1.5 was in a month.

All this looks like it leaves wars in a bad spot pvp wise. That cant really be the case so with all of rogues tricks, the sheer dmg output has to be lower.

My mage still says nom nom nom :D

[Senji]

doubled

[shepardG]

can someone explain to the FNG what Chlorolocks are?

[Alderaan]

Annoying mages that takes 3-4 people to kill while they single handedly hold control points and laugh at you as you kill yourself trying to kill them.

[Senji]

can someone explain to the FNG what Chlorolocks are?

Chloro and warlock combo. Heals, defensive cooldowns, +% dmg and +HP points, skipping any fancy spells. Good for solo wf play with pugs when you're feeling lazy. If you think they are bad then you don't want to run into chrolodom or pyrodom when said experienced mage really feels like ripping some new ones.

[Pyree]

Glad the rogues are happy, but I think 1.5 is going to piss off most of the clerics unless they revert the changes they have planned for us.

[Syntex]

Glad the rogues are happy, but I think 1.5 is going to piss off most of the clerics unless they revert the changes they have planned for us.

Fine by me.

Clerics should not be tanks. Too many clerics ignore a warrior on them or whatnot and just run into the middle of the AoE fest and just heal through it, sometimes with LW on them and they are still fine. That's something that needs to change. Healers should not be able to tank a DPS as easily as they do now.

Exception is if they spec to tank but at the cost of some healing.

[Pyree]

Fine by me.

Clerics should not be tanks. Too many clerics ignore a warrior on them or whatnot and just run into the middle of the AoE fest and just heal through it, sometimes with LW on them and they are still fine. That's something that needs to change. Healers should not be able to tank a DPS as easily as they do now.

Exception is if they spec to tank but at the cost of some healing.

I don't PVP. While I'm sure those concerns are very valid in PVP, they mean nothing to me. Also, PVP was not at all part of Trion's reason for making the cleric changes, so those points are really irrelevant anyway. The nerfs are significant PVE-wise.

And the changes should concern anyone, really. If you've looked at them you'd understand. They're making hybrid builds suck. Clerics will have to go 51 points into a tree or else they're screwing themselves over. It would certainly suck if they continue this trend to all callings and souls. Defeats the entire point of their "build-a-class" soul system if you are required to go 51 points to be worth anything.

And you know why they even made the cleric changes? This is their "solution" to clerics wearing cloth gear. So rather than just fix either the way stats work (hint: they could just make wisdom affect spell crit for clerics instead of int!), or fix the itemization so that chain is actually the best stat-wise, they change cleric souls so that crit isn't important anymore. And every single change is a nerf even if we go 51pt in 1.5 compared to live right now with hybrid specs. Completely screws over the clerics that have spent the last several months gearing for spell crit, which is a majority of the clerics out there. I mean, I'm not even a cloth cleric, I wear 100% chain gear right now, but their changes are still going to screw me.

I don't understand what the devs are thinking at all.

[Syntex]

I don't PVP. While I'm sure those concerns are very valid in PVP, they mean nothing to me. Also, PVP was not at all part of Trion's reason for making the cleric changes, so those points are really irrelevant anyway. The nerfs are significant PVE-wise.

And the changes should concern anyone, really. If you've looked at them you'd understand. They're making hybrid builds suck. Clerics will have to go 51 points into a tree or else they're screwing themselves over. It would certainly suck if they continue this trend to all callings and souls. Defeats the entire point of their "build-a-class" soul system if you are required to go 51 points to be worth anything.

And you know why they even made the cleric changes? This is their "solution" to clerics wearing cloth gear. So rather than just fix either the way stats work (hint: they could just make wisdom affect spell crit for clerics instead of int!), or fix the itemization so that chain is actually the best stat-wise, they change cleric souls so that crit isn't important anymore. And every single change is a nerf even if we go 51pt in 1.5 compared to live right now with hybrid specs. Completely screws over the clerics that have spent the last several months gearing for spell crit, which is a majority of the clerics out there. I mean, I'm not even a cloth cleric, I wear 100% chain gear right now, but their changes are still going to screw me.

I don't understand what the devs are thinking at all.

I strictly pvp and have ran 2 instances since hitting 50 on both characters.

I could give 2 shits about PvE I played it in wow and got bored then played this for the pvp. I find if you want serious PvE thats challenging then wow is something people might want to look into. They got a lot going for their PvE and it's hard but balanced.

I know this sounds like a flame and comes across that way but isn't ment to be. I don't know anything on the pve side other then warriors do better damage then everyone and rogues use sabdancer/bard or don't go along with RS being inferior to warrior tanks.

I know some people are from wow and want a change but I think at this point in the MMO line its going to be hard pressed to find any MMO with good PvE without having balance issues that most MMO's need 2-3 years to work out but its getting quicker with the companies that learn from others mistakes.