Having a blast playing melee Rogue, but I feel like Blade Dancer pretty much assumes that you are playing dual-wield. I definitely think that some minor tweaks in the passives could make more builds viable.
For 2hand variants especially, I think nodes should follow the Sentinel wording where flat damage bonuses are doubled for two handers.
Not overfocused but the devs want some classes to be played a certain way. No Staff bonuses for Sentinels for example. No offhand DW for other classes. Casters bound to Staff and Scepter pretty much. Swordmage as the special snowflake of the casters that can dualwield but Lich canāt for whatever reason.
Itās a case of āIt is what it isā¦ā sadly because it takes away a lot of freedom but then again itās a class bound system that brings advantages and disatvantages.
Maybe theyāll add a single-wield spec down the line. It does go with the rapier-wielding duelist archetype. Or maybe something more stealthy like Lost Ark does with their single-wield assassin.
Itās a bit of a shame itās so dual-wield focused because I actually liked their single-wield animations a lot when I happened to be sword and board at level 2ish.
Yeah but thatās their class fantasy :). More on a serious noteā¦ if you go more into detail like in your last post about what you dislike and what you want to see more and put some effort and work into it about how that should work Iām sure the devs will read it with great intrest.
Dual wielding, crits, dots and speed/maneuverability are the main themes for the Rogue, like shields are for the Sentinel or undead minions for the Acolyte.
And thatās totally fine!
Itās more like a wishlist thing, so Iām just waiting to see what archetype the falconer caters to besides traps and pets.
That said, unless thereās a programming limitation, I think itās easy enough to set up a single-wield option similar to what theyāve done with the blade dancer passive that grants different benefits based on what weapon combinations are being wielded.
A possible baseline would be some kind of buff that brings a single-wielded weapon to be numerically equal to a two-hander when used with no off-hand or provide a defensive benefit similar to a shield, possibly going with the glancing blow or dodge angle instead to add some variety.
If weāre talking rogue fantasy, I do feel like the stealth element is a bit missing. Weāve got shadows, but those are more like a resource or attack multiplier. Theyāre not really decoys or a way to drop aggro. Weāve got mirage, but that oneās kind of a non-mechanic currently.
Would also like to see positionals (aka backstab or flanking), but that oneās probably be a bit hard to pull off outside of boss fights, and will eat up a lot more CPU power than the game already does.
Anyway, thatās my short wishlist for a new mastery while dicking around in the falconer waiting room lol
After the patch I dropped a set Shield with a bonus for a Bladedancer. I guess dual wielding has its limitsā¦ 
This thread makes me feel like trying out double-handed rouge build.
Itās unlikely to end well (been there, done that, killed the Dragon Emperor, still get mocked by the other CTās for it).
Haha, how about new unique and new 2 hander implicit? Do they help?
Also, I do feel LE need throwing weapon type. Melee weapon only give melee damage implicit. Adaptive spell damage helps but rogue using wand feels wrong.
Maybe, give it a punt!
Might give it a try if one drop. I donāt know any unique old or new, and new implicit that hasnt dropped for me yet. Prefer the game to give me inspiration
I completely understand if a min-max build is going to be dual-wielding, but there are passive nodes for generic swords alongside dual-wielding nodes, which made me assume that there would be something for 2h builds for a little variety. Even the fact that dual-wielding is a passive point you need to spec into made me think that perhaps it wouldnāt be so heavily favored. It really just is a fantasy of mine to play a female character swinging around a big sword, being a fan of the manga Claymore and all. I do hope the devs give something to that sort of playstyle in future patches.
I donāt think thereās anything stopping you from using sword/board or 2H, the problem is that the currently available master classes are for bow use or dual wield so youāre basically stuck using only base rogue skills. When falconer comes along, Iām sure it will allow for non-bow/dual wield rogue viability with at least one more bow-or-melee hybrid attack skill.
I looked into Leviathan Carver due to the the patch note in case I missed it from mono boss. It made me recall this thread. Full crit, Sync strike, lethal mirage buildā¦ hmmā¦ hope it drops for me.
You are right that there isnāt anything hard stopping players from choosing different options, but they donāt seem particularly viable given how supported dual-wielding is. You lose access to a lot of what blade master provides by doing anything other than dual-wielding. I think choice is important in ARPGs, and having different and still viable options is apart of that.
There really isnāt THAT much that is specific to dual wielding, plenty of room to make a good non-dual build. You have a bit less skill choice, but the passive tree still has plenty of room.
Most (but not all) of the damage passives are for dual wielding, Weapon of Choice doesnāt have any options for non-DW though there are only 2 melee skills that require dual wielding (Shadow Cascade & Dancing Strikes), though Shadow Cascade can be ācastā via Shift without needing dual wielding.
Still use weapon stats and work the same way? The ācastā is throwing me off lol
Yup. Normally Shadow Cascade requires you to be dual wielding, but if it gets procād by the node in Shift then it doesnāt.