Blue Burgler

Hi all,

I was thinking of trying out the burgler for the first time and had questions about the different lines, dps and soloability. I was mainly looking at the blue line as i will be mainly solo and had heard blue would be the best..would most consider this true? Is there any healing in blue line? Is this class mainly just a single mob class, like hunter? I have heard red has great dps..how would blue compare to red? As far as soloability can the burgler do any instances beside landscape mobs and quests? I tried to find up to date info since burgler patch and didn't find any good info. Ty for all advice, tips and help!

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Originally Posted by kalil

Hi all,

I was thinking of trying out the burgler for the first time and had questions about the different lines, dps and soloability. I was mainly looking at the blue line as i will be mainly solo and had heard blue would be the best..would most consider this true? Is there any healing in blue line? Is this class mainly just a single mob class, like hunter? I have heard red has great dps..how would blue compare to red? As far as soloability can the burgler do any instances beside landscape mobs and quests? I tried to find up to date info since burgler patch and didn't find any good info. Ty for all advice, tips and help!

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If you're talking about general viability, red line is superior to blue line. Red line is pure dps, yellow line is pure support, blue line is somewhat of an inbetween but not particularly good at anything.

When you're just leveling, it doesn't matter if you play red line or blue line (I wouldn't recommend yellow linei tho). However, once you reach max Level, Red Line is superior to blue in every way. Red Burg has incredible burst damage, very high cleave/3target AOE capability and on top of that, very good CC and Cooldowns. The only thing that red line Burglar doesn't have is consistent healing ... but he doesn't need that anyways. Blue Line Burglar on the other hand is nowhere close to being that good on any of these points, except for healing. Both specs are very regarding their "solo viability".

I think the Blue burg would be much better if Cash Out actually worked correctly. Gambler's Strike ticks for 20k damage every 2 seconds, Hedge Your Bet T6 says it increases Cash Outs damage multiplier by 100%. Cash Out hits for 16k damage for me. Why would you EVER use Cash Out? A single tick of Gambler's Strike does more damage than Cash Out. Cash Out should be the equivalent of Red burgs backstab from stealth, it should be hitting for 150k+. Cash Out is bugged and needs to be fixed.

I enjoy playing blue and with my 91 burg I'm adding tricks from the yellow line to improve my AOE. I was one of the few who didn't like having to choose dps vs. crowd control via trait trees, as at one time (a long, long time ago) burgs could choose whether to go for a gamble, use tricks, or sneak and hit hard, depending on the skills used for each situation. Life was simpler then ;)

To me, being a burg means being clever at using your skills. If I want to one-shot everything, I play my mini or hunter. If you like playing a line that makes you think, you'll like the blue line.

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Originally Posted by kalil

Hi all,

I was thinking of trying out the burgler for the first time and had questions about the different lines, dps and soloability. I was mainly looking at the blue line as i will be mainly solo and had heard blue would be the best..would most consider this true? Is there any healing in blue line? Is this class mainly just a single mob class, like hunter? I have heard red has great dps..how would blue compare to red? As far as soloability can the burgler do any instances beside landscape mobs and quests? I tried to find up to date info since burgler patch and didn't find any good info. Ty for all advice, tips and help!

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(Quoting the original question as I intend to answer it as posed, rather than following the thread drift.)

My Level 55 Burglar ["Twostep"] started in Blue line several years ago, dabbled with Yellow and Red, and then went on pause about two years ago before the great Burg overhaul. While she does do some solo work, she plays mostly in a 6-ish person slow leveling group. Generally speaking the survivability was dramatically better in Blue before update due to some skills that are now nerfed, and played very well in groups as a DoT based DPS-er, albeit as mostly single target with some limited crowd control.

Bottom line/too long - didn't read: While starting out with Burg, Blue line is much more forgiving than Red, while killing slower and dying slower. Getting good at Blue will make you a much better Red burglar. Getting good at Blue will also make you a better fellowship burglar as long as they don't need you specifically as a Yellow burglar.

General perceptions post-update: I just took her through sections of Moria solo and then played her in a segment of a 6-person Skumfil instance in Moria. We had a Blue Champ doing the tanking so this was a better than average test of what could go right and wrong. In solo as Blue, she was killing mobs too quickly to use her complete rotation, although in Red she was killing them almost twice as quick. She barely lost any health unless facing mobs with a high damage reflection skill, while the Red run she was taking a fair amount of damage before killing, rest, and recuperation. Keep in mind that at Level 55 she has enough trait points to get the two capstone skills but not enough to branch much in the Red/Yellow lines, but did spend 2 points for Dust In The Eyes (which I recommend for even a low level Burg).

Damage and DoTs: With the Gamble damage and debuff nerfed, and the inability to step up the tiers on the Gambles, your damage is now coming as much or more from the base Burglar skills. The Gamble and bleed damage is now supplemental. That doesn't mean you should ignore bleed stacking, since a DoT that criticals on a pulse still does significant damage. But you can't bleed out a foe like you used to pre-nerf, which means you can't stack a foe and then evade it while it bleeds out. You used to be able to lead from stealth with the damage gamble, now your best stealth lead skill is probably Stealth Provoke since it has some of the highest base damage from stealth and a high percentage to daze from stealth. When the daze procs you can stay behind the target and shred it. You can no longer gank a foe with the old Disable gamble but the variable daze from Provoke is a reasonable substitute.

Health and Survivability: Bob and Weave used to be all the healing you needed short of a nasty spike or DoT. Now Bob and Weave keeps you topped off as long as you don't take on more foes than you should. If you use Touch and Go wisely you can still get away with amazing acts of self preservation. In Skumfil we ran into a couple of nasty outcomes with bosses, and Twostep was usually the last to die, well after the Champion, and without using Hide In Plain Sight. I could not tell if using Cash Out on the Green Gamble made a meaningful difference on healing. I also couldn't tell if the health rebate from the Green Gamble was meaningful as a heal over time, since the Bob and Weave was doing most of the work.

Tactics: The old tactics in prolonged fights was either gank with Disable, or 1) choose a gamble, 2) apply, 3) step up Tier to 6 then continue refreshing, and 4) add other bleeds Gambler's Advantage and Cunning Attack. Now the Blue burglar has to be more nuanced since DoT stacking isn't the be all and end all. For the basic rotation, you add a Green and Red gambles without need of a crit, then use whatever rotation until a crit event and then apply the Blue gamble. By all means use Cash Out with 3 gambles so you can rinse and repeat, or use it earlier if you need a damage spike, healing spike, or another evade buff. I now lead with Stealth Provoke because when the daze procs you stay behind the foe and end it quickly. If the battle is going to last awhile or against multiple foes I add Dust In The Eyes (Yellow trick) to cut down damage sustained.

Utility In Group Play: It used to be my role in a full fellowship was to either stack dots on trash mobs or to debuff/bleed out a boss. All the evade buffs meant that very little damage was sustained and it was self healed quickly. Now the primary role is to crowd control, debuff, interrupt, and/or damage whichever foe is giving or will give the party the most grief. None of this requires stealth mode, in fact a talented burglar can be surrounded by foes and situational awareness means the mobs will be agroing the tank and healers while you are taking them out. You do that by mostly paying attention to agro like a tank has to, and then being behind the foe while they are distracted and getting all your positional bonuses.

Thanks for the informative write-up Galdhron. I have a level 32 Burglar, Thorbella, that generally uses red line, which after a while can become boring. Switching to blue line is pretty neat and, you’re right, feels more nuanced.

I have a couple more observations about Blue burglaring in a four to six man fellowship after running 16th Hall.

• You have to think of mob damage control differently. First, don't get hit (Riddle and daze/stun/evade is your friend). Second, don't get hit hard (Provoke, Blind Bet, Addle all mitigate damage). Third, be in control of when you heal, through timing Cash Out and Touch And Go.
• While you can do respectable DPS, you still have some terrific crowd control skills. You can Riddle One, Provoke a second, and Stun a third to let your party work it down. If you invest in Trick: Dust In The Eyes, you can slow run speed and cause to miss on 3 foes.
• You are now one of the most survivable classes in a full fellowship. Tanks, healers, and hunters will siphon off your agro and evade/parry will avoid a lot of blows.
• You know how to position yourself with respect to a foe, so don't be in front of its frontal AoE. Your Addle is faster than most of your foe's big damage skill cooldown. Even a weak Provoke proc will often let you get behind a foe for several seconds.
• All In has a duration of 1/2 it's cooldown, so use it early and often. If you go All In -> Cash Out you have a much greater chance of landing a killing blow. Even if you fail that, the negative effect is only 10 seconds. If you get swarmed have both Touch And Go and All In active in order to be a whirling dirvish of damage that will hardly get hit.
• Have Hedge Your Bet up at all times to give you and your fellowship a heal-on-hit. When a critical response procs, prioritize Hedge Your Bet over Exposed Throat.
• Don't forget you have both Double Edge Strike and Gambler's Advantage to activate Blind Bet and Exposed Throat. All In will trigger more crit responses so having one or both on cooldown then matters a lot.
• Provoke for a Blue Burglar hits very hard from stealth. In most cases use that instead of Surprise Strike for your initial blow from stealth.

The final test of Blue burglaring was the last boss in 16th Hall, The Lost One. His point blank damage will kill most non-tanks. A Blue burglar can survive it if he has Provoke/Blue Gamble active and can sometimes cancel his PB attack with Addle.

This is great stuff, thank you!

After splitting my time among all my characters for literally years, I am going all in (see what I did there?) On my Burg bro. I am currently getting used to a red line rotation for Remm grouping, but I have always had a soft spot for Gambler. As I usually play solo, this little write up is super helpful as I get into my group content and max out my blue LIs. Thanks!

Honestly, I never understood why people would give opinions about which trait tree to run in, especially as an early level Burglar.

If you are pre-legendary weapon/item. You by all means should try all 3 and make up your own mind.

If you are running burg as alt or have help and are pre imbued legendary, still you can swich around and respec, easily.

That out of the way, yellow line has mit and morale buffs right off the start. So anyone to say that that line does not have good ways to survive is not seriously considering these.

Red line on the other hand simply survives through killing opponents before the fight gets too long.

General idea is that landscape on level should never give you any issues on any class and in any line.

While running instances that are bigger then 3 man and on level and without T2 / T3 and so on (like moria) there is surely a role for you as a burg in blue, red or yellow. General idea is that to run these instances one has to be somewhat accomplished in moria, not just arrived so level 60 to 65 is recommended.

All of these ideas change a LOT when you cross 100 and start making your 1st ager LI that you would eventually take to max.

It is possible to have 2 weapons and one bag and run say red and yellow and swich weapon only and have legacies that somewhat "cover' both on the bag. But most people to be completely happy at this point usually plan on 2 sets. (which is a lot of relics, scrolls and crystals). So in a way picking your trait tree is only ever very important in relationship to your imbued LI. Because nothing b4 that should stop you from checking out all 3.

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Originally Posted by kalil

Hi all,

I was thinking of trying out the burgler for the first time and had questions about the different lines, dps and soloability. I was mainly looking at the blue line as i will be mainly solo and had heard blue would be the best..would most consider this true? Is there any healing in blue line? Is this class mainly just a single mob class, like hunter? I have heard red has great dps..how would blue compare to red? As far as soloability can the burgler do any instances beside landscape mobs and quests? I tried to find up to date info since burgler patch and didn't find any good info. Ty for all advice, tips and help!

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Blue used to have really good heals from evades, coupled with extra evades, you could do well. (I hear blue line heals from evades are nerfed now? I have not run in blue in 3 years, so can not compare well)

Red survives by killing fastest in a burst of damage. And gets heals from crit hts.

Yellow is the tankiest with only one setback, if you want to sneak while in yellow your moverate will be very slow. Otherwise Trickster is great fun and has a bit of self (and others) healing, that can be self administered. All of these would also heavily depend on how many trait points you have. (The more - The better!)

red all the way :-)