Loving Rogue Marksman so far… just completed the available quests and started MoF. Most skills seems to work pretty decently - i.e. no matter which nodes you take, with a little obvious logic, you can build lots of viable skills. So yip… Rogue was well worth the wait…
One suggestion:
Dark Quiver… It is a beast of a buff only skill that is so good you almost cannot ignore it as a Marksman character… However… it has one really irritating flaw - perhaps done on purpose because it provides an almost OP set of buffs and needed something to offset the positive…
Problem: the arrows can spawn behind the player.
Now this is may not sound particularly bad, but it absolutely wrecks a certain playstyle as the player is forced to run back to fetch arrows instead of progressing forward. In my experience of a typical ranged build - you move into range, throw a decoy/flask/whatever, nuke the pack with your choice of skill, rinse and repeat till everything is dead and you have reached the end of the map path.
With Dark Quiver, this “forward” progress is seriously hobbled by forcing players to run in circles for the boosts. The only instance where I have found that Dark Quiver does not irritate the living hell out of me is kiting around Bosses where you are in a temporary arena of sorts and it makes sense to run around and pick up arrows while dodging attacks.
By contrast the passive Elemental Arrow that requires you to move around to collect generate arrows is perfect as you are always moving forward - this works very well.
Now I understand that some people might like a more kiting back and forth type bow build and for them Dark Quiver putting arrows behind is less of an issue…
My suggestion for the best of both situations and to keep it a choice for players.
Please can there be a node for Dark Quiver that:
drops arrows ahead of the player - randomnly in the direction the player is facing or even randomnly around the mouse pointer (which will usually be targetting ahead). it could even have a wider drop area so long as its ahead of the player.
add a negative (decrease the buff/increase cooldown/mana) as a sacrifice one has to make to do this.
(could even be an affix or idol or passive that does this)…
The only reason I am not hard against your change is because you propose it as an optional node. The way it currently works I can pick up arrows while doing a rather standard kiting pattern. With your changes the arrows will land where enemies are much more often. The reliable way it creates a field of arrows that let you dodge the way you need to while still getting to arrows is brilliant. I do not want to lose that.
I am always keen on multiple options / choice for skills as everyone has different playstyles and different needs for builds.
Yes, my suggestion does put the arrows randomnly where the mobs are but the way I play is that I am running towards the arrow pickups and have “usually” nuked the mobs by the time I reach the location - so I can then keep moving forward picking up the DQ buffs as I go nuking ahead of me… Right now, I only pick up arrows that are ahead of me so I lose out on a lot of DQ skill by not going back… This suggestion may actually make getting the buff too easy - hence the reason I suggested a negative as part of the node.
Also like it as it is as it makes “shifting into random-spawn-location-to-get-buff” rewarding and part of planning ahead in arena. You watch your health, enemy attacks, telegraphs and where the arrow is. Shift, nuke, big numbers. It just flows so good as so many other skill synergies with rogue.
I am sure that this is true - hence the reason I am not saying change it - just give an optional node/idol/affix etc.
Also… comparing Arena runs with normal quest/MoF is not appropriate in my opinion. Arena is an entirely different playstyle with totally different motivations, mobs spawn timings & build design philosophy. I am not sure that a skill should be designed with Arena use in mind as this could potentially skew things heavily against normal play which I expect is the majority of play for all except the dedicated theorycrafters and level pushers. I did see with the Rogue update that there was an Arena based affix (cant be sure what it was right now without looking it up) - this is, imho, would be great way to add Arena features to skills and builds.
this is probably in reference to an ability in the dancing strikes skill tree that creates an “arena” zone where you take less damage and deal more damage, not the endgame arena.
