Backstab Augs

[Grey]

Sounds like backstab augs across the board should be put into a spreadsheet and looked at very closely.

[Rude]

There's only one way to fix your argument here, however. Which is why I oppose any change at all. Raising the +BS dmg on mob dropped augs would only make the donor rogues even better than they are already. The only clear cut choice to appease your argument at this point is to nerf the donor augs. With all the 3.0's on the horizon, VT being worked on, there's no other obvious choice as far as time constraints go to make the gap smaller. If the rogue you watched "2 shot" a mini is making you feel small, there's other things you can do to boost your ego at this point without blatantly asking for a nerf.

B-

I don't understand. You oppose fixing your class, which has essentially become "donate and you're GOD, don't and you're meh", because you believe adding one additional stat to existing augs and doing some testing to find the right cap for backstab to prevent rogues from becoming even more uber from said change, would be too hard? It's a two-pronged fix. Not exceptionally complicated, but would require a good deal of testing (make adjustments on test server and let the players output the data and adjust until the final numbers make comparative sense to what Lillu/Vaion desire.) These kinds of adjustments are made all the time here, you've witnessed many of them yourself during your extended tenure here. Secondly, I never "blatantly asked for a nerf."

I'm not calling for an immediate cessation to all progress of future content until this is looked at. I'm merely pointing out a clear gap that has (likely) been inadvertently exaggerated by the addition of new items (bp), and dispensing ideas on how to reduce said gap to reasonable levels. I would have pointed this out entirely in a quiet PM to either Vaion or Lillu, but that would lack feedback from other players (the general consensus seems to agree with me?) and would prevent awesome ideas that would both fix the gap issue and be beneficial to all rogues, donor or not, in the long run.

I also know future content is coming very soon, which will hopefully do some mild balancing acts on the effects of the DPS BP's, which is why I'm not raving about that. The main point of my post has been the damage gap between the practical non-existence of legitimately obtained backstab augs and the left/right eyes.

As I said, I don't even play rogue anymore. It means little to me. It's just been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while now, and others have expressed the fact that as far as rogues are concerned you really "need" those augs as any kind of baseline in order for your class to work properly.

If I'm wrong, please say I'm wrong. I love to be wrong. It's how we learn. But I believe you know what I'm talking about, and "don't bring up this issue, because GMs are far too busy to fix my class right now" is not a valid defense. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see current parse comparisons though. With+without debuffs (sune clicky buffs on both, of course) as a baseline on what rogues/wizards/monks/beastlords (bards don't count, because I hate you Mary j/k j/k j/k!) can accomplish today inside and outside of a raid setting.

Has little to do with my ego (ok, ok, I am admittedly a little butt-hurt ), just a desire to see a clear progression that doesn't exist, which is likely the result of a lack of player testing and/or oversight.

I hope this clarifies my stance on the subject. (incoming Vaion comment saying "new content is in the works", because I love him )

Edit: Let me finish this by saying I respect you, Gio. You've been around the block a few times, I think This is not a flame against you, or any rogue. It's just a plea to "fix" something that myself and many others believe needs to be looked at.

[Bordamere]

I find it funny that you point out that I oppose fixing my class, when it is probably largely my fault for the rogue nerfs last fall over pointing out several disparities with a certain HoH boss dropped weapon being superior to either donor and the subsequent aug nerfed too.

Disparity is the key word here though. I can bring up all kinds of disparities based on the difference of donored toons and non-donored. Take tanks in their current state. I rolled an SK because the donor 1.0 back in the day made you an instant tanking badass way above and beyond pally/warrior. With all the changes, BP's, donor 2.0 etc, the disparity now is to the point that I feel Pally's are waaaaay superior tanks now heavily donored, with warriors a closer 2nd and SK's bringing up the rear. Is the difference big without donating? Probably not. (On a side note, my non-donored bard blows away my SK's dps even though SK has donor weapon, very nice augs and the donor tanking aug... fair? hmm).

Another disparity is casters. Wizards are excellent, excellent dps when you look at all the non-donored classes in the game. Now heavily donored, the caster curve isn't as sharp as melee curve. Monks, berserkers, rogues (I hear a heavily donored bard is a beast too, no?)... they're all BEASTS with some donor weapons/chest/legs augs etc. Is the ratio for rogues higher than the other melee? Absolutely. Berserkers are very, VERY good, yet I see no discussion about nerfing them down to monk level too? All of the above minus rogues have some sort of AE ability, even if it is on a long CD.... Rogues are single target, situational dps that has nothing on any other class other than sneak/hide.

Under ideal conditions that require so many donors... my rogue needs donor legs, chest, mainhand, 2x augs with an enchanter with a full rk. III repertoire, a shaman, a druid with donor weapons/chest2.0 and rogue duration clickies... the donor chest, the T8 chest, the donor weapon clicky, I think I can max out for a 1.7 million backstab with everything aligned to perfection. Is this sustained? Hell no. This is the anomaly, not the norm. I can pull this off for 22(?) seconds every 8-10 minutes theoretically. If you want a watering down of the classes, give everyone of them an ae ability, everyone gets FD, sneak, hide, defensive abilities. There's no way to compensate everyone for every situation.

The fact that donor rogues are so above and beyond non-donors has more to do with the stat-weight of +BS and the fact that the only way to get +BS dmg into the type 4/30 slots on the donor weapon is to donate for the augs. My rogue has +320 BS due to this, and would only be +120 since there's no other way currently to get any +BS into these augment slots. To fix the difference, the augs would need their +BS nerfed or the calculation that adds in the +BS dmg would need to be a far lower multiplier. I would say increasing the donor weapons +BS dmg to slightly compensate wouldn't hurt if these were done, but it's still a very large nerf for everyone, non-donor included. No matter how you slice it, there's going to be a massive disparity between a non-donor rogue and a donor rogue without doing massive overhauls to the entire backstab calculation, much like the disparities between any non-donor and donored toon.

I think if you want to point out these kinds of disparities, I can go back to caster dmg. Personally, I think that the +spell dmg and +Healing on items is a wonderful idea. I feel strongly that they should absolutely be more multiplicative for all classes as this is the only way to close the gap at this point without handing all casters a 30k, medium CD nuke or something across the board.

One could also bring up the pet nerfs now. I think the last time I saw a mage with double donor weapon/chest parse for 130k+ with just the pet alone. Is this remotely close to the new T8 pets? probably a bigger percentage disparity here than with rogue donors. This is probably due to the 3.0's for mage/necro being able to cast an all new pet or something to the like.

I also love the new cleric 3.0 and I have a feeling that most classes will be very happy with theirs, but I am pretty sure I was told they will all have unique new effects. Why not wait and see how the playing field unfolds with the new AA's, 3.0's and abilities before jumping all over the class the emasculates you the most right now?

B-

[Masthycator]

Gap

Actually just putting more +Bstab on "non donor" augs is the only thing required coz if you look at it :

Gap

Rogues with already max Stab wont be able to go further if some augs get +10 or +15 to BStab, Im refering here to Vistrinda augs for exemple or Rallos Zek aug which have no Backstab modifier. So no change. Gap

Rogues without donor augs will be able to close the said "GAP" from donor rogues.( actually im thinking to get custom name " Catlynne The Gap" )

Can Lillu or Vaion help with this "Gap". Gap

Catlynne The Gap.

[Rude]

before jumping all over the class the emasculates you the most right now?

B-

The "change" you influenced was the reduction of BS damage by 3 points on T8 weapons so that donor dagger remains the weapon with the larger BS damage. 3 points is hardly a "huge" reduction, to me it felt like just another "donator item should always be the best" and is exactly within my manner of thinking. (there may have been aug reductions with this patch too, but I can't recall?)

Yes, disparity is the key word. ATM I'm not focusing on pets (can you compare donor pet dps to donor rogue bp dps? absolutely not). ATM I'm not focusing on donor zerkers (I have very little info on the class, though I too hear their DPS is absolutely stunning, but not quite comparing to rogues iirc.) Do wizards need help? Yes. Their DPS is 100% dependent on assistance from many other classes for debuffs/buffs, as well as their complete lack of soloability and their tendency to boomboominstadie pretty well balances their DPS which imho is *somewhat* close to what it should be, if not more.

Lets not go off topic here, discussing what other classes "need" in order to perform. The fact remains, the only BS augs for 4/30 are donator augs, and they are far far (did I say "far" enough?) overpowered in comparison to any other type of aug.

Again, again, again, I am not asking for a nerf for your precious, heavily invested and largely thought by the community as overpowered class. The new nerf on t8 pets is in preparation for upcoming content that should be released relatively soon.

You mentioned donor mage pet with 2x donor weapon buffs pets parsing 130k. DPS from mage spells are... um, I'm going to leave that part blank... Can you tell me your parse? I'd be interested in that comparison.

Lets please refrain from the "my class emasculates you" and "if my class hurts your ego so much..." comments. It kind of proves my point.

[Dreos]

before jumping all over the class the emasculates you the most right now?

B-

The "change" you influenced was the reduction of BS damage by 3 points on T8 weapons so that donor dagger remains the weapon with the larger BS damage. 3 points is hardly a "huge" reduction, to me it felt like just another "donator item should always be the best" and is exactly within my manner of thinking. (there may have been aug reductions with this patch too, but I can't recall?)

He's actually talking about a change from a weapon that had over 90 BS damage, so it would be around a 30 point reduction.

Edit - forgot "be"

[Rude]

before jumping all over the class the emasculates you the most right now?

B-

The "change" you influenced was the reduction of BS damage by 3 points on T8 weapons so that donor dagger remains the weapon with the larger BS damage. 3 points is hardly a "huge" reduction, to me it felt like just another "donator item should always be the best" and is exactly within my manner of thinking. (there may have been aug reductions with this patch too, but I can't recall?)

He's actually talking about a change from a weapon that had over 90 BS damage, so it would around a 30 point reduction.

Ah, I didn't know of a 90 BS damage dagger My bad.

[jkwon84]

I think if your whole focus is basically upgrade non-donor rogue dps (by way of adding/upgrading more +bs augs)... I dont think that really fixes anything. It's not even a band-aid on a gaping wound. If you look at ANY melee class, the difference between the donor/nondonor dps is HUGE. If you want to bring that gap in closer.. I think it should be looked at globally, and not so short sighted.

Do I think rogue donor dps is ridiculous? of course.. anyone that doesn't is ...

if you bring up non donor dps (+bs augs), all that will do is change the above sentence into a class wide gap.

basically, this is no small fix.

[Rude]

I think if your whole focus is basically upgrade non-donor rogue dps (by way of adding/upgrading more +bs augs)... I dont think that really fixes anything. It's not even a band-aid on a gaping wound. If you look at ANY melee class, the difference between the donor/nondonor dps is HUGE. If you want to bring that gap in closer.. I think it should be looked at globally, and not so short sighted.

Do I think rogue donor dps is ridiculous? of course.. anyone that doesn't is ...

if you bring up non donor dps (+bs augs), all that will do is change the above sentence into a class wide gap.

basically, this is no small fix.

True, but it's a start. And it's a relatively easy fix as compared to a nerf to donor items which is *not* going to happen. One thing at a time is my philosophy I think people may be over complicating things, or maybe I'm not seeing something. BS damage is the bases for rogue DPS, and it is what gets multiplied by buffs/other donor DPS. Increasing non-donor DPS via more/better BS augs lessens a gap, in conjunction with a cap on BS damage to keep donored rogues from one-shotting khasva with these new augs.

Sure, non donor rogues with higher BS augs still aren't close to donor rogues with left/right eyes, bp, pants; but as stated, it's a *start* that paves ways for future changes.

And I'm not focusing on other classes because, as you yourself stated, rogues are by far the largest offenders in this situation.

[Bordamere]

if you bring up non donor dps (+bs augs), all that will do is change the above sentence into a class wide gap.

basically, this is no small fix.

This is a huge part of what I was attempting to get at in a long-winded kind of way I suppose. You keep asking me for parsing numbers. I can't get you fair and adequate parsing numbers due to how the zones react that you have the parsing dummies in.

In the guildhall and forest, my discs are infinite, my clickies never run out, I can basically make that 22(?) seconds of pure bliss last forever instead of once every 8-10 minutes. Going all out on the T8 dummy with my best clickies/discs/and even opening with Death Bringer rk. III, I can push just over 500k over a 3 minute period without any debuffing assistance. This is the problem though and makes it impossible for anyone to do a real assessment on comparable dps because mine lasts forever only in these 2 zones...

If you take even the mage calculation with the double donor weapon/aug/chest and take that outside of the guildhall/forest, they can sustain theirs, where as I cannot. Again, not a fair assessment for anyone. If I remember correctly, there were dummies in the arena too, weren't there? If so I can go give you a real number from there, but if they aren't there anymore, I don't know what to tell you. It's just not a realistic number otherwise.

Sosten is right about the above too. It was the Immaculate Blade of the Elements and it had +95 BS dmg on it without augs. Chaos aug, Shard of Avilaine or whatever had +45 BS on it.

A simplistic way to less the gap between donors and non is to add some +BS to the type 4's, either the T5 quest aug, Sol ro even? and add some to the 2.5/2.8 augs since anyone donating wouldn't use them anyways. None of the augs outside of this could have more than +15 without helping the donor achieve greater heights. Dark Coffin from DSK2 only has +2 bs, Immaculate Gem of Plague from Twins(?) has +6. Obviously these could be and probably should be boosted to be more in line. I dropped a couple million plat during christmas picking up both Green Ornaments. The DSK3 aug that you will find in Gio's mainhand weapon is from DSK3 as well. You have choices out there. I did my research and farmed all available options there were before recently buying my donor augs even.

Again, Koraf hit it on the head. It's not a simple fix, and not going to be a simple fix. The only simple fix to this is nerfing donors augs to please the people feeling disparaged. It wasn't intended to be a shot at you, it just felt like you were on the offensive against rogues; no lynch mobs please!

B-