Do you guys use the Disabling Gamble?

Dear fellow burglars,

I find that I walk around with +Gamble Chance legacy and the Double Down skill in many of my builds, since I like the potential of the Disabling Gamble, but... Looking back, I barely ever use it. Either because things go down too easily to use it, or because Riddle does the job anyway, or because the situation is too messy to allow me to run around and mezz targets.

So, I'm starting to think about removing it completely from all my builds. Before doing so, I'd like to listen to other burglars' stories. Do you find it essential in certain situations? Do your kinmates force you to chain-mezz certain enemies with it? Do you find yourself frequently saving a poorly assembled PUG by cruising between mobs and keeping them mezzed with Provoke? Or do you think like me - it's a cool skill, has some great potential, but in reality it never gets used so might as well use the Trait Points and Legacy slot for something different?

Note: For me, this goes for my red/blue build, my blue/red build and my yellow/blue build. Raid support, solo, or 3-man DPS, doesn't matter, I don't seem to ever use it. Also, I'm talking PvE only, I never visit Ettenmoors with my burglar.

Any feedback is welcome!

imo, disabling gamble cries "exploit me" and I tend to avoid exploits. such, I dont even trait it anymore. Usually, Riddle does the job good enough and while disabling is strong, its not my style. and usually, in pugs, CCs get broken anyway, at least in my PUGs. doesnt matter if I play burg or LM or other classes, if I mez, root, fear... it seems like people actually switch targets to attack the ones I CC instead of focussing their old target down.

Depends on the fight. In some fights yellow-red is way better and in some fights yellow-blue is better and in some fights red-blue is better. I used yellow-blue on mumaks a lot and if I or someone else ####ed up I could easily patch it with provoke mez and keep several mobs mezzed if needed. However it's always not needed so might use more dps focused traits instead and do almost double the dps.

I mainly use it in my red builds. I trait deep into blue anyway and basically need to trait Double Down to advance down the tree.
I also loved gambling since I created my burg and this is the only good thing left from the otherwise absolutely useless blue line today. ;)

Its potential is unquestionable in PvP of course.
For PvE I find myself using it a lot in landscape. Especially in Mordor where things don't die as fast as they used to, the ability to go into positional for more damage and no avoidance almost all the time really speeds up things.
In instances - if traited red - I also use it, but more as a gimmick while DPSing, not to mez specific targets. Of course there's also that situation where you use it to mez a mob that's pounding right into the group or interrupt an induction.
I don't trait it in my standard yellow build. Going deep red for more DPS is almost always the better alternative as siipperi already mentioned. But who knows what the new instances might require...

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Originally Posted by Oelle

imo, disabling gamble cries "exploit me" and I tend to avoid exploits.

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Could you elaborate? I don't really see the exploit here.

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Originally Posted by dwarfThar

Could you elaborate? I don't really see the exploit here.

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You can use it to permanently daze enemies that are not immune to it while attacking them. They never get a chance to counterattack as mezzes dont result in immunity like stun does. every other form of CC has a downside to it... roots still allow ranged attacks, fears break from damage, stuns lead to immunity... mezz usually has the weakness that it breaks from damage. but when you trait that it takes 5s to break by damage and refresh it before it breaks, then your target is de facto permanently stunned. if this is wai, its bad design. I see such as exploit. And being able to permanently mezz up to 10 enemies (if no one attacks them) is incredibly strong, too.

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Originally Posted by Oelle

You can use it to permanently daze enemies that are not immune to it while attacking them. They never get a chance to counterattack as mezzes dont result in immunity like stun does. every other form of CC has a downside to it... roots still allow ranged attacks, fears break from damage, stuns lead to immunity... mezz usually has the weakness that it breaks from damage. but when you trait that it takes 5s to break by damage and refresh it before it breaks, then your target is de facto permanently stunned. if this is wai, its bad design. I see such as exploit. And being able to permanently mezz up to 10 enemies (if no one attacks them) is incredibly strong, too.

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It's clearly a skill that's WAI, although having provoke on a 5s CD makes it too strong.

Thank you for your input guys!

I agree that the perma-mezzing of Provoke and 5s grace period is broken. Only build I'd be able to do that in is yellow/blue, and I don't think I've ever actually used that build. I only have that build "just in case", but that case hasn't come yet.

I'll keep the Gamble Chance on my Red/Blue Burglar tools, since I don't really find myself lacking other legacies on it. I like dwarfThar's idea to use it for bypassing avoidances in Mordor. On my Support tools, I'll replace it with Positional Damage or Critical Multiplier. (My support book isn't very DPS-oriented.)

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Originally Posted by dselden

It's clearly a skill that's WAI, although having provoke on a 5s CD makes it too strong.

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thats like saying barrage would be fine if it only stacked three times and T3 only had +90% damage and if u19 had buffed focusskills less ;)
or saying bolster courage healing at 105 was okay, it only had a too strong groupheal...

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Originally Posted by Oelle

thats like saying barrage would be fine if it only stacked three times and T3 only had +90% damage and if u19 had buffed focusskills less ;)
or saying bolster courage healing at 105 was okay, it only had a too strong groupheal...

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Wait, now using a skill that's working perfectly as described is an exploit now? Exactly like bolster group heal or barrage (you could argue about this one although I wouldn't label it exploiting even in its current state), the disabling gamble works as described. I don't see an exploit of unintended mechanics/bugs here. That's completely independent from it being overpowered or not...

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Originally Posted by dwarfThar

Wait, now using a skill that's working perfectly as described is an exploit now? Exactly like bolster group heal or barrage (you could argue about this one although I wouldn't label it exploiting even in its current state), the disabling gamble works as described. I don't see an exploit of unintended mechanics/bugs here. That's completely independent from it being overpowered or not...

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I'm no dev. But with disabling gamble, I have the feeling the dev creating this trait thought something like: "hey, blue burgs should have some good CC. lets give them a mezz. mezzes get broken with the first damaging hit anyway, so mezzes never get very strong, it'll be fine."
Then, some updates later, no one cared about trait trees anymore, they just added more traitpoints because people like traitpoints and it was possible to trait disabling gambit and +5s grace period at the same time. Now, mezz infact is stun. and no dev ever would have thought: "hey, lets give any class a permanent stun without immunity." It just happened over time, because someone didnt think it through till the end. Like "why should someone use two half traitlines if there are nice capstones?" "Maybe because some capstones suck and actually the upper traits are better." The whole traitline situation feels like that. just much too many points available. thats just one of the resulting issues. Even without +5s grace period, provoke CD is too small which makes disabling gambit very strong. with it, its just ridiculous. if its intended to permanently stun enemies to death, then the dev creating this with this intention is just bad. If provoke was on 15-20s CD, everything would be fine with disabling gamble.

besides this... most relevant enemies are immune to CC anyway. so it doesnt really matter much. I'd prefer less CC immunity and more sensible CC skills. Playing LM for example very much depends on the ability to use CC... especially yellow line. I hate playing my LM blue...

burglar blue line should get a full rework. red has more damage, yellow has better debuffs (becaus blue debuff is bugged/additive/whatever). Besides exploiting permamezz and all-in-switch to oneshot enemies, there is no good reason to run blue. There are nice traits, but running blue line as main line is just ####. And if they buff blue line, either yellow or red gets obsolete. There shouldnt be two traitlines that do exactly the same.

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Originally Posted by Oelle

I'm no dev. But with disabling gamble, I have the feeling the dev creating this trait thought something like: "hey, blue burgs should have some good CC. lets give them a mezz. mezzes get broken with the first damaging hit anyway, so mezzes never get very strong, it'll be fine."
Then, some updates later, no one cared about trait trees anymore, they just added more traitpoints because people like traitpoints and it was possible to trait disabling gambit and +5s grace period at the same time. Now, mezz infact is stun. and no dev ever would have thought: "hey, lets give any class a permanent stun without immunity." It just happened over time, because someone didnt think it through till the end. Like "why should someone use two half traitlines if there are nice capstones?" "Maybe because some capstones suck and actually the upper traits are better." The whole traitline situation feels like that. just much too many points available. thats just one of the resulting issues. Even without +5s grace period, provoke CD is too small which makes disabling gambit very strong. with it, its just ridiculous. if its intended to permanently stun enemies to death, then the dev creating this with this intention is just bad. If provoke was on 15-20s CD, everything would be fine with disabling gamble.

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It was possible to trait that way right from the beginning. If I remember correctly it was also brought up during beta. I completely agree it's horribly overpowered in certain situations and badly designed, but I still can't see the exploit. But who cares, the devs certainly do not ;)

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burglar blue line should get a full rework. red has more damage, yellow has better debuffs (becaus blue debuff is bugged/additive/whatever). Besides exploiting permamezz and all-in-switch to oneshot enemies, there is no good reason to run blue. There are nice traits, but running blue line as main line is just ####. And if they buff blue line, either yellow or red gets obsolete. There shouldnt be two traitlines that do exactly the same.

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Agreed. But seeing there are classes much more in need of a revamp, I'd be happy with a fix for the debuffing gamble. That would allow for some pretty funny hybrid debuffing builds.

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Originally Posted by dwarfThar

Agreed. But seeing there are classes much more in need of a revamp, I'd be happy with a fix for the debuffing gamble. That would allow for some pretty funny hybrid debuffing builds.

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If debuffing gamble was better than debuff trick, yellow would only be good for healing. how many heal burglars do you see?
But yea, if this was the case, I'd run blue and put nearly all points in yellow. permanent debuffing plus trick:enrage is better than having to decide between enrage and debuff like yellow does.

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Originally Posted by Oelle

thats like saying barrage would be fine if it only stacked three times and T3 only had +90% damage and if u19 had buffed focusskills less ;)
or saying bolster courage healing at 105 was okay, it only had a too strong groupheal...

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I never said the skill was fine, only that it's WAI. Obviously, the devs made the CD on provoke too short, but there's nothing to indicate any sort of bug or exploit with the skill.

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Originally Posted by dselden

I never said the skill was fine, only that it's WAI. Obviously, the devs made the CD on provoke too short, but there's nothing to indicate any sort of bug or exploit with the skill.

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Provoke was originally a niche utility skill to manipulate threat, and the cooldown was fine. Repurposing it to have a completely different (and inconsistent...) effect without changing the c/d was dumb (and typical of the lack of attention to detail by the revolving-door dev team).

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Originally Posted by Oelle

If debuffing gamble was better than debuff trick, yellow would only be good for healing. how many heal burglars do you see?
But yea, if this was the case, I'd run blue and put nearly all points in yellow. permanent debuffing plus trick:enrage is better than having to decide between enrage and debuff like yellow does.

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Yeah, it would be better by a tiny bit. At least in pure numbers. There would still be fights where yellow is clearly superior. You can't debuff more than 2 enemies simultaniously with the gamble for example. You also need to be in melee range (apart from the occasional HiPS + Diversion). Thinking about debuffing Mumaks T2C in blue causes nightmares for me ;)
But yes, specializing blue and traiting trickster would probably be the standard debuffing build. Though yellow's use then would still be not as limited as blue's is currently I think.

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But yes, specializing blue and traiting trickster would probably be the standard debuffing build.

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Isn't this undoubtedly the case (I think that's what you're saying) where (1) the burg stays on one target, (2) the burg is always in melee range, and (3) it is important that the burg not only boost group dps but also reduce incoming damage?

In other words, in that situation, Enrage x2 + Debuffing Gamble > Snag + Disable x2? Also > Snag + Enrage x1 + Disable x1?

I've done this on Sagrog, and it seems to work well.

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Originally Posted by Samsgaard

Isn't this undoubtedly the case (I think that's what you're saying) where (1) the burg stays on one target, (2) the burg is always in melee range, and (3) it is important that the burg not only boost group dps but also reduce incoming damage?

In other words, in that situation, Enrage x2 + Debuffing Gamble > Snag + Disable x2? Also > Snag + Enrage x1 + Disable x1?

I've done this on Sagrog, and it seems to work well.

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In theory this is the case. BUT the Debuffing Gamble is severely bugged.
As explained in this thread https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-Chance-Debuff (scroll down a bit to get to the relevant part) the gamble doesn't take into account some mob damage increases depending on the "tier" of mobs introduced with Mirkwood freaking 8 years ago!
Sagrog is an Arch Nemesis, so the Debuffing Gamble reduces his damage by around 3,1%. Yay! ;)
So sad that blue line will never be really viable until they fix this - which they will never do, I'm quite confident about that.

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Originally Posted by dwarfThar

In theory this is the case. BUT the Debuffing Gamble is severely bugged.

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So I read that thread . .. AARGH! I really enjoyed putting the "ka-ching" on Sagrog.

I suppose if the leader calls for double Enrage, you're not losing any damage reduction by going blue, because the reduction from the gamble (though pitiful) is still better than nothing. But by going blue you sacrifice Snag, as well as the occasional heal, and raid-wide wound/fear removal.