I feel like DS is clunky, hard to aim, and easy to get stunned into standing like an idiot wondering why you aren’t moving. It is difficult to hit with (and with the horrifically tiny and easily lost mouse cursor, it’s harder to aim, too) because so much of the movement lacks a hit box. I am jumping or dashing over enemies and completely whiffing consistently which is especially annoying against standard human sized and smaller single targets. The lack of hitbox on movement really hurts this compared to something like Warpath which has a consistent hit box. Also, it doesn’t seem to “re-queue” as an attack when holding it down if you are stunned, so you’re stuck standing like an idiot (perhaps somehow related to the cooldown? Not sure if anything else has felt this way?). The entire movement needs to be a hitbox. Perhaps it could have “sweet spots” on the actual weapon strikes? Balanced out, average player still achieves current DPS but good players can maximize more. And, it needs to remember that if I am holding down that skill it needs to queue up another use if I get stunned or somehow try re-using it under cooldown and it fails to go off.
Rogue also generally feels lacking (only have melee experience so far, though). Part of that I think comes from Rogue having the smallest kit of any class. It could seriously do with an additional movement skill that is also an attack, something like a mine or caltrop field dropped in a line, as part of the movement. Could even go in mouse direction while melee and reverse mouse direction while using a bow (which can be changed by a quickly accessed spec node). Ideally, no cooldown at base (but comparably smaller distance than Shift, though not much slower). Smoke Bomb also confuses me, I can’t tell if it is working or not. Unless I am missing something, enemies within it are blinded which is described as making them attack indirectly, yet every time I’ve tried it the enemies seem to “home” their attacks right into me without fail (I’ve watched then literally spin around mid swing and still hit me). IDK if I am misunderstanding it or Blind is bugged, but that really feels bad. If working as intended, it seriously needs more at base, or Blind needs to be reworked (maybe guaranteed Glancing Blow hits when blinded). A lot of enemy attacks are basically cleaves, so even if they aren’t aiming perfectly, it’s frustratingly easy for them to still hit you.
If you check the in-game game guide (or any other node that adds blind) you’ll see that it reduces the affected mob’s crit chance by 50% and makes ranged attacks “inaccurate”. It has no effect on melee hits. Smoke Bomb can be spec’d for a lot of different uses such as giving you more dodge and glancing blow, generating shadows, shadow dagger stacks, leech, silver shroud stacks to name but a few.
I also disagree that the Rogue has a “small kit”, she already has 2 movement skills (Shift and Dancing Strikes) as well as high movement speed and good control of the field (Decoy), though a skill that dropped Caltrops sounds good.
Regarding DS, have you tried going for cooldown recovery speed?
You can reduce the cooldown of DS by up to 0,2 seconds, which makes it waaaaaaaaaay smoother.
The “getting stunned” is a known issue.
I have not played DS in a looooong while but I think they did not fix this. Because I encountered and extensively reported an issue, where getting stunned during DS leaves you unable to move or activate skills for longer than the actual stun duration
Here is the thread, where I extensively reported:
Regarding Rogue:
Rogue has the least amount of skills, but the best designed skill tries with interesting synergies between skills.
Sometimes skills have synergies with multiple other skills or mechanics.
If Rogue will receive another movement skill it needs to have a shared cooldown with shift.
I personally don’t think Rogue needs another movement skill, but a new skill that has a similar node than Smoke Bomb, where you backflip when using that skill could work.
Smoke Bomb is pretty poor, then, unless you can spec it. The cooldown alone makes it unusable consistently, nevermind that blind doesn’t do much for melee (and it’s not like it “stealths” you for ranged enemies while in it) especially if you’re playing Masochism where everything hits you like it crit, anyway. If smoke bomb didn’t blind and instead confused enemies at base (so they aim randomly) it would have more value, though who knows what nightmare of balance that would cause for its spec tree.
Nothing wrong with Rogue getting more movement based combat skills, very thematic I’d say. Caltrops or mines (mines should prob be a spec option) with an innate slow and are forward moving with a melee weapon backward moving with a bow would be a great ability.
Dancing Strikes feels a bit better now that I can equip its unique sword and I specced it for heal on 3rd hit (on masochism, it feels like every new skill sucks without speccing it by time you’ve reached the Imperial Era), but there is still some definite clunk to it. Messing up the aim (which is very easy, especially because of the easily lost cursor) and whiffing an attack because you launched past your target feels bad. The random moments usually post stun that leave you standing like an idiot are also bad, haven’t encountered that kind of thing in other classes I have tried so far. Fortunately, other skill use seems quick, a ring of 100% pierce shuriken sure feels good to mix in there with DS hah.
My personal experience with Rogue is almost the perfect opposite of this person’s. She is the best designed character in the game and her abilities work well for me. Dancing Strikes feels good.
Not really, since you then still have a chance to be crit for double damage, so it’s still very spikey, even more so on a Dodge-based character. If you want to go with blind on a HC character instead of crit strike avoidance, be my guest, but sooner or later you’ll be slapped hard by RNGesus.
Which brings back to an old topic: is 99% crit avoidance the same as 0% crit avoidance? Some say yes, because as long as there is a chance for you to receive a crit hit, you’re in danger.
He mentioned Machoism Mode two times Ina single post, when talking about the performance of specific skills or nodes.
Bringing Machoism even up for examples like this doesn’t make any of his arguments stronger.
You don’t need to have crit immunity, it is very strong and useful, but not mandatory.
And getting blind as a secondary effect on some skills or gear requires alot less investment than getting CSA.
So I still say: Blind is very usefull
If you go for 100% CSA or less damage taken from crits anyway it definitely becomes less useful.
