Player Guide: Class Changes Summary: Burglar

[bohbashum]

omg NDA dropped anyway I'll try be loyal to these threads to those who havn't been on beta and explain anything

Since Exposed Throat and Trip are now in the trees, should we expect to see far fewer FMs?

I might not have updated yet (will check quickly) but Exploit opening and Trip have had there cooldowns have been reduced to 2min.

I don't think due to the costs you can ever get both, not done the maths properly (just woke up lol) but I doubt it.

Can anyone explain (or link to an explanation of) how the new aggro works?

Since we can't Provoke or Enrage to affect aggro any more, is it hard to avoid getting aggro?

aggro is now very passive on tanks and is mainly from there dps x 3

they have new taunts that are simply match up there aggro from whoever has it +20%. they cann't use this on themselves so it's only really useful with tank swapping or taking off a dps who is over stepping there mark.

basically, enrage has a short critical chance debuff now (2%) and does reasonable damage now. enrage has a +5% inc damage debuff and can be boosted further. enrage will be the dps trick now while counter defence a little more even.

[podgie_bear]

SKILL - Knives Out

cannot avoid incoming attacks
sets incoming melee damage to 20%
on melee skill damage: reflect 30%
10s duration, 2m cooldown

Can someone please explain The Knives out skill to me?
1) Am I reading this correctly that we lose all ability to evade attacks, so every attack hits unless we successfully parry it?
2) Our inability to evade attacks is traded off by our only receiving 20% of the damage we would normally have received when we get hit?
3) The mob that hits us receives 30% of the damage they would normally have caused us?

[J_Howell]

Question about survivability - looks like each line has separate self-heal mechanics (Bob & Weave, Relish Battle, and MM having the Glee and Clever Retort skills we already know - and the ability to control the Retort, interesting!). How do these self-heals compare? I've been Gambling for years, so will Bob and Weave keep me up as well as Mischievous Glee/Delight does now?

How does the point allocation math work out in practice? I've seen elsewhere that we'll have 55 points, it takes 51 to completely fill a tree (which hopefully isn't strictly necessary, yes?), and other trees will cost double. So it looks like getting Aim back won't really be practical - too bad for my beloved four pieces of Hytbold Knife armor . Will a Gambler be able to pick up Dust in the Eyes and Startling Twist out of MM without gimping their Gambler traits? If we need all 51 points in our primary line the answer would clearly be no, what I'm not clear on yet is how much in a trait line can be skipped.

[bohbashum]

1) Am I reading this correctly that we lose all ability to evade attacks, so every attack hits unless we successfully parry it?
2) Our inability to evade attacks is traded off by our only receiving 20% of the damage we would normally have received when we get hit?
3) The mob that hits us receives 30% of the damage they would normally have caused us?

1) yes. I'll change that avoid to evade, sorry for the confusion there.
2) yes. it's worth it. it also is a slight exploit fix to make sure a reflect of somthing stupidly high in PvE couldn't happen. for example BG first boss where a burg *could* sacifice himself to deal 100k+ on the boss.
3) that 30% is calculated after the reduction in damage I'm pretty sure.

I'll give it a little test next time I can but I don't believe it's changed since Live so someone else might know better about the core maths.

How do these self-heals compare? I've been Gambling for years, so will Bob and Weave keep me up as well as Mischievous Glee/Delight does now?

Bob and Weave and Relish and pretty high. whie we've been reminded many times numbers get balanced very later (healing/dps and stuff like that) I was able to heal more with Bob than Glee.

for a rough guess at what the numbers are on live bob and relish are pretty much the same as glee. just glee you can pop whenever but you need to fit the criteria for bob and relish. bob is very powerful if your there target ofc, relish needs you to be stuck right into the action.

I would say bob is healing the most if the criteria is met correctly. that 1s cooldown is barely noticable tbh.

How does the point allocation math work out in practice? I've seen elsewhere that we'll have 55 points, it takes 51 to completely fill a tree (which hopefully isn't strictly necessary, yes?), and other trees will cost double. So it looks like getting Aim back won't really be practical - too bad for my beloved four pieces of Hytbold Knife armor . Will a Gambler be able to pick up Dust in the Eyes and Startling Twist out of MM without gimping their Gambler traits? If we need all 51 points in our primary line the answer would clearly be no, what I'm not clear on yet is how much in a trait line can be skipped.

you can have 65 points at max.

and no, you don't really want to go 100% into a line. in most builds I did I was happy around ~35 points into my main tree to get the capstone and what I wanted.

yes you can off-spec but it costs you twice as many point. right, don't panic! seriously it's not as bad as it sounds as yes a gamblar and QK can get twist and dust if they want but that will exclude them from going off-spec into the other line. for example, a QK could go into MM second to get dust and twist OR gamblar for more dps.

all of the "traits of special mention" are what I felt were seriously important traits to put in the guide to show people. skills or really interesting passive. but there are a lot of "meh" passives that arn't exactly the best. for example in gamblar there is a +melee damage trait. 5 points for +5%. personnaly most of my dps in that line is dots and I liked the sustain in that line so I ignorred it. thats 2.5 points I have to get something I really wanted. but if you wanted that +5% melee dps then you might find +bleed ticks kinda useless and ignore points there. so yeah around 31-40 points in your main tree you'll find the nice number, getting them all is over-kill and you'll miss some really good traits low down in other lines.

[Brewel120]

What does this legacy mean? Does it only increase the attack of counter defense, disable, and the red and yellow of clever retort?

[bohbashum]

What does this legacy mean? Does it only increase the attack of counter defense, disable, and the red and yellow of clever retort?

trick and trick removal damage means both :P iinc, it's 25% so it's quite chunky tbh.

ofc the only damaging trick removal skill is retort, BUT, you can make retort do both yellow and red by using trickster to apply 2 tricks on the target.

ofc the only damaging tricks are disable and counter defense.

you will be using these skills a lot in MM now with there cooldowns reduced by how much you can so to boost the very little damage you will be doing in MM it will be worth it compared to other legacies that won't do much in MM. it's a very specialist legacy but those who do make LI's for each line (many burgs already do) it will be a good one for MM build.

[bohbashum]

> Clever Retort - effect depends on what trick was removed

Since tricks can stack, which trick is removed if there are more than one?

both tricks are removed and both effects applied on retort. if you do 2 of the same trick you don't get double the effect however. if you know you want to be retort make sure to get 2 effects you like.

[Arathur]

Maybe I missed something so please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the legacy 'Devastating Critical Buff Duration' doesn't make any sense in future since the buff doesn't exist any longer.

[bohbashum]

Maybe I missed something so please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the legacy 'Devastating Critical Buff Duration' doesn't make any sense in future since the buff doesn't exist any longer.

this increases the duration on the upgraded versions of the skills Gamblars Strike, Quite a Snag and Faint Attack.

Feint attack:

• cooldown 5s (from 5m)
• on devastate: "+10% positional damage, +20% critical multipler"
• devastate buff duration 30s

A small snag:

• cooldown 5s (from 5m)
• on devastate: "+15% trick removal effect"
• devastate buff duration 30s

Lucky strike / Gamblers Strike:

• cooldown 5s (from 5m)
• on devastate: "+40% gamble chance"
• devastate buff duration 30s

I put these as critical before, there actually devastate sorry.

[Aranedain]

First, thanks, Bohbashum for writing up a guide, saving many of us lots of time. You deserve a pie made out of gummy bears.

Thanks also to RockX for a lot of work he's put into the burglar class, including some good dialogue with us!

-----------------------------------------------

Some have asked about the potency of the heals in each line. I'll give some of my perceptions from testing about not only the heals, but the survivability of the different lines (which I expect is the underlying concern and often has been for burglars).



MM's Mischievous Glee/Delight is on a max cooldown of 20s (and less with Stabs thrown in!) and now it has two legacies that increase its potency (+mischievous healing and +self healing which is a new legacy). When you trait far enough to make trick removal effects fellowship-wide, you become a battery for the group as well as a significant off-healer. Clever Retort is a good heal as well, and on a lower cooldown now with the ability to choose what effect(s) you get from it based on your trick(s) on the target. Speaking of tricks, we shouldn't ignore the fact that MM is the only place to get the tricks now, so MM burglars will have the full arsenal of things up their sleeves compared to the other lines which need to sacrifice to spend points outside of their main traitline to get them. MM burglars also have +mits and +morale traits in their line. In the end, MM does more than make you feel sturdy; it will help your group feel strong and you will actually feel like a support/debuff class--the way the class has often been billed in the past. Did I mention you'll also have a good bit of cc, including Quite a Snag on a 5s cooldown? (A root of this duration on 5s cooldown is kind of crazy!)

TG's Bob and Weave passive is also incredibly strong if you are being attacked with physical attacks (those which can be evaded). You get a nice little heal/HoT from virtually every evade since Bob and Weave's effect only has a 1s cooldown right now. (In my opinion, the cooldown should be increased by some seconds.) Currently this makes Touch 'n' Go and Find Footing a full morale restore for gamblers if they are attacked. Also, don't forget that the new buff skill All In gives gamblers +20% evade for 15s on a 1m cooldown (just make sure to kill your target in that time so you don't get a debuff!). All this evade, along with traits in TG line that give you extra evade % make sure that you will be evading a lot if you are attacked. Finally, since you can also keep the debuffing gamble up 100% of the time now, TG has very strong survivability against physical attacks, all while still dealing good sustained damage.

QK's Relish Battle passive does not seem to me like it is working properly at the moment, and that's part of why QK feels less sturdy than the other two lines. (QK is also supposed to be less survivable according to the descriptions.) When Relish Battle does trigger, the heal/HoT is nice and about as strong as Bob and Weave (both benefit from the new +self-healing legacy, by the way). The problem is that Relish Battle is supposed to trigger on 25% of critical hits that the burglar does, and it appears to be triggering much less frequently. Hopefully this will be fixed. QK players have no innate debuffs other than the -2% crit chance now on Provoke, unless they trait into MM. They also have less cc to achieve positional damage when solo (no Twist and no Provoke daze). Expect QK to feel a bit more like a glass cannon than before--big dps skills flowing in fast succession, and you will need to kill your opponent before they can kill you or rely on the heals of your fellows. In a situation where your fellows can take care of your green bar and help you gain some positional damage, QK should have some great burst dps.



Personal Conclusion/Opinion:
I have played QK about 80-90% of the time in the past. However, the survivability gap between QK and the other traitlines seems to be widening. MM and TG feel notably sturdier since they have debuffs in their lines as well as stronger self-heals. Moving forward I expect I will be using TG and MM more than QK because of the increased squish factor and because I won't have much in terms of debuffs or cc to offer my group in QK. Don't get me wrong: QK will still have its use, but most likely it will be just for those times when you don't need survivability and can focus solely on killing things quickly (something that you can probably do better from range or with AOE if you switched to a different class).

[LeRaginAsian]

Just to add my 2c:

1. Tricks and trick removals are almost exclusively yellow line now.
2. No more Mischief stance. The stealthy MM is now viable.
3. Auto-crit SS and CA are QK only
4. Fewer FM starters available even maxed out, but to be honest we don't need that many for anything but Draigoch. And screw that guy.
5. Clicky cooldown weapons and bags are dead. Cooldown reductions are rolled into trait trees.
6. The new finishers for each line are awesome (QK in-combat restealth, MM trick stacking/aoe, TG damage boost)

In essence, red line has taken two steps back and three steps forward, yellow line has taken one giant leap forward, and blue line has taken one step backward and roughly two and a half hearty skips in the generally correct direction.

[Beleg]

Since the different trait lines have different skills, and you can swap between trait lines fairly easily, how do the skill bars keep up?

Do we get different skill bars that open when we're in a particular trait line (sort of like Mounted Combat skills)? Or do we have to manually swap them?

[nightday]

First, thanks, Bohbashum for writing up a guide, saving many of us lots of time. You deserve a pie made out of gummy bears.

Thanks also to RockX for a lot of work he's put into the burglar class, including some good dialogue with us!

-----------------------------------------------

[B]Some have asked about the potency of the heals in each line. I'll give some of my perceptions from testing about not only the heals, but the survivability of the different lines (which I expect is the underlying concern and often has been for burglars).

Thanks very much for the analysis. Looking over the trait lines, I run QK a lot and was moderately concerned about the removal of mischievous glee. I may have to switch lines given the extra glass-cannon-y-ness (not really my preferred style). Overall, though, the burg looks like it's getting some badly-needed love. If we can stealth in Mischief now, that would become 10x more useful as a viable line of play.

[Darkheart06]

Burglar has been my favorite class because of it's extremely fast combat when you take advantage of using the instant attacks and animation times.

So, Burglars getting skills moved around and being trait specific is concerning. Have more complex playstyles like the Burglar really been "dumbed down" like other people keep screaming?

[Bootstwaddle]

Since the different trait lines have different skills, and you can swap between trait lines fairly easily, how do the skill bars keep up?

Do we get different skill bars that open when we're in a particular trait line (sort of like Mounted Combat skills)? Or do we have to manually swap them?

Very much like Mounted Combat.
If you leave your basic skills where they are, when you retrait (or choose a preset trait tree), the bars will auto populate with the skills where you left them.

So basically, once you set them up, you can easily switch between traits without having to manually place skills (at least, that's the intention).

[Bootstwaddle]

Burglar has been my favorite class because of it's extremely fast combat when you take advantage of using the instant attacks and animation times.

So, Burglars getting skills moved around and being trait specific is concerning. Have more complex playstyles like the Burglar really been "dumbed down" like other people keep screaming?

As it stands now in Beta, all Burglar skills have become Fast skills.. it makes for very quick combat. Much, much faster than on Live.
Animation times and delays have been reduced (still a work in progress).

It's actually very fluid despite a shorter Crit Chain. The complexity will be in how you use your points and the new skills for your desired build and desired rotation.
Gambler for instance, has a slew of new skills to give it a fairly complex feel.. it is certainly not a faceroll line (same goes for MM).
I can't speak to QK as I didn't really muck around with it all that much.. but with what has been called a Mini-HiPS (Coup De Grace), it certainly has some potential to be more than faceroll.

Although, if not having to use Addle to cut animations and animation delays means dumbed down. Then.. yup.

[Atheling]

Burglar has been my favorite class because of it's extremely fast combat when you take advantage of using the instant attacks and animation times.

So, Burglars getting skills moved around and being trait specific is concerning. Have more complex playstyles like the Burglar really been "dumbed down" like other people keep screaming?

It's the best state the class has been in for a very long time. No more QK with the occasional bout of MM for me - as it has been for way too long. Against that, you make your choices about what you're going to be doing much more clearly and before combat begins. 'Dumbed down' is wrong. Different is probably right. And some of the different is really good for burg.

[Darkheart06]

As it stands now in Beta, all Burglar skills have become Fast skills.. it makes for very quick combat. Much, much faster than on Live.
Animation times and delays have been reduced (still a work in progress).

It's actually very fluid despite a shorter Crit Chain. The complexity will be in how you use your points and the new skills for your desired build and desired rotation.
Gambler for instance, has a slew of new skills to give it a fairly complex feel.. it is certainly not a faceroll line (same goes for MM).
I can't speak to QK as I didn't really muck around with it all that much.. but with what has been called a Mini-HiPS (Coup De Grace), it certainly has some potential to be more than faceroll.

Although, if not having to use Addle to cut animations and animation delays means dumbed down. Then.. yup.

This is reassuring. Faster than live and animations FINALLY being fixed is the best news a Burg can hear.

I have always been QK but that was mainly just by default. There was never any reason to trait MM and Gambler was a novelty for when you got bored.

[Bootstwaddle]

This is reassuring. Faster than live and animations FINALLY being fixed is the best news a Burg can hear.

I have always been QK but that was mainly just by default. There was never any reason to trait MM and Gambler was a novelty for when you got bored.

Well, there are definitely reasons now.
Against Physical Damage, the Beta Gambler is currently darn near undefeatable.
And MM's make for one heckuva off-healer.. or even main healer.

And that's just the start.
I'm pretty excited about where Burgs are in Beta.. and there are still more tweaks coming.

[Darkheart06]

Well, there are definitely reasons now.
Against Physical Damage, the Beta Gambler is currently darn near undefeatable.
And MM's make for one heckuva off-healer.. or even main healer.

And that's just the start.
I'm pretty excited about where Burgs are in Beta.. and there are still more tweaks coming.

Has anything been done with MC? Mainly an in combat trick? Or am I walking again for the rest of Rohan?

[furtim]

New warbands, but otherwise Mounted Combat is the same.

[bohbashum]

1. Tricks and trick removals are almost exclusively yellow line now.
...
4. Fewer FM starters available even maxed out, but to be honest we don't need that many for anything but Draigoch. And screw that guy.

1. thats not completely true, you can still get dust in eyes and twist very easily, even counter defense if you off-spec enough. if you build for dps AND debuff it's still a viable alternative than off-speccing in blue where your kind of selfishly increasing your own dps instead of group help with debuffs.

4. remember that there cooldowns have been slashed dramatically to 2m. just exploit opening on 2 burgs should be enough to do draigoch. even 1 burg *might* be enough now given that trips cooldown is reduced too. I've not checked for a hybrid build around FM's but I'm sure it's possible at the expense of dps.

Burglar has been my favorite class because of it's extremely fast combat when you take advantage of using the instant attacks and animation times.

So, Burglars getting skills moved around and being trait specific is concerning. Have more complex playstyles like the Burglar really been "dumbed down" like other people keep screaming?

many skills have turned into "fast" skills and it's even faster than before imo. things like cunning attack and surprise strike won't have you stood still for a few seconds after use. faint attack also goes without even noticing.

if you like the speed... CAN YOU HANDLE THE SPEED!!!!

I would say it's so fast that you can end up running out of skills to use on the odd occasion in group combat and captains buffing you, so you might feel like your mashing buttons but honestly I think it's more than that. we'll see how that pans out though as RockX (our awesome developer) said he'll be playing with stuff to balance it out.

[Madmanthief]

What about Sneak, did anyone besides myself think that the cd on this skill is a tad too long ?

Ex. I sneak by lower level mobs to get at a node of some kind and then I stand there in plain sight for 3-4 secs too long.

Will this ever be addressed or is it too much of an impact on PvMP w/o doing the same for Wargs ?

[Apex9221]

New warbands, but otherwise Mounted Combat is the same.

This is disheartening... Bur on MC is such a drag, Bur need at least one range skill in my book.

[KMUCHa]

What about Sneak, did anyone besides myself think that the cd on this skill is a tad too long ?

Sneak movement speed in beta if you trait for QK/Gambler is -10% (without legacy). Currently MM builds are kind of screwed if you want to play with it in the moors, because you will be having -50% movement speed in stealth (-40% speed if used with legacy). You will pretty much move like a turtle if you choose to wander about in the moors as a MM.

Can't really comment on the cd in beta because i havn't bothered looking at its cd, but i do wish it was from 10sec cd to 5sec cd (due to all the tracking i get while in stealth).