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Various balance changes to Rogue and associated classes, plus new Brawler and Defiler stuff

razakai requested to merge razakai/t-engine4:RogueFixes_2 into master

I've spent a lot of time discussing balance with some players, including some who play exclusively on Insane+. The general feedback was as follows:

  • The nerfs to Corruptors and Reavers were unwarranted and made reasonably balanced classes noticeably weaker.
  • Reflex Defense in Mobility made a lot of sense, as it's a proven method to cope with high burst damage. The new Trained Reactions, while interesting, did cause a bit of confusion due to complexity, and the balance implications were hard to evaluate.
  • Rogue would likely be incredibly tanky with their current design. Poisons and Duelist were highlighted as two areas of concern.
  • Rogue in general had a lot of talents that were 'overstuffed with value', especially when that came in the form of damage reduction effects.

The below changes to the Rogue and Defiler trees seemed to balance them a lot better - still Insane viable, but less tanky. Further playtesting is needed later, but the base framework seems to be solid now - hopefully it can be balanced by number tweaks than anything drastic.

In addition, a few changes were made to Brawler - this is less because they need it, and more because Open Palm Block and Roundhouse Kick were utterly useless.

Classes

  • Marauder has had Mobility locked.
  • Skirmisher gains Scoundrel at 1.1 mastery, locked.

Chats and Quests

  • Removed the Technique/Mobility reward from Sun Paladin. Individual talents are still granted. This was because the power level of Reflex Defense is far too high to have available to classes such as casters that naturally wear light armor.

Corruption/Blight

  • Reverted the nerf to Corrosive Worm, it now gains the damage storing effect it had before again.
  • Poison Storm's range has been increased by 1. Debuff power increased to around 45% at TL6.5, so less than the old one but more than the nerfed version. Damage can crit. Also gains a chance to bypass poison immunity, as blight poison is magic after all.

Corruption/Rot

  • Reverted the nerf to Infestation, it now gains it's damage reduction again.
  • Slightly reduced the cooldown of Worm Walk.

Cunning/Artifice

  • Rogue's Brew now removes effects before healing, so no more freezing/insidious blocking your heals.

Cunning/Lethality

  • Blade Flurry's attack speed has been reduced and the damage dealt increased.

Cunning/Poisons

  • Reduced the power of Crippling and Numbing Poison to approx 21% at TL6.5 (previously was 28%).

Cunning/Scoundrel

  • All talents that were formerly melee only now function with ranged attacks.

Cunning/Tactical

  • Counter Attack now dazes if the user is unarmed, or stuns if the user is unarmed and grappling the attacker.

Technique/Assassination

  • Garrote no longer inflicts damage reduction. Instead it does a short duration silence that is applied as part of the main debuff and so is removed automatically if Garrote ends early. This is so if you use a physical wild etc to cleanse Garrote, you're not stuck still being silenced or pinned.

Technique/Duelist

  • Duelist's Focus has been removed. Feint is now in tier 3 and has been significantly changed. It no longer deals damage, instead it swaps places, dazes, and grants a buff increasing the power of your parries briefly.
  • Lunge has been added to tier 4. This is an offhand melee attack that inflicts high damage and disarm, and gains a reduced cooldown each time you dodge or parry.

Technique/Mobility

  • Disengage has moved to tier 1. It now uses a special targeting method that allows you to choose your landing location in a line facing away from your target. The evasion bonus has been removed, and it is now usable in any armor - however only light armor users gain the movement boost and the ability to use while pinned. The reload has been increased, and also reloads Throwing Knives.
  • Evasion has moved to tier 2. The duration is now a flat 5, and the cooldown scales with talent level. Cost slightly increased. Evasion now also affects ranged attacks.
  • Tumble's cost, cooldown, and the duration and potency of the exhaustion buff has been increased. Range reduced by 1 at higher levels.
  • Trained Reactions now functions like the former Reflex Defense talent - damage above a threshold of maximum life is reduced by a percentage, based on defense.

Technique/Unarmed Discipline

  • Defensive Throw has been removed and replaced with Relentless Strikes. This grants stamina on combo point gain, and a chance to gain additional combo points.
  • Open Palm Block cooldown reduced to 6, stamina cost reduced to 5, and amount blocked increased to approx 3x the old value.
  • Roundhouse Kick has been removed and replaced with Touch of Death. This is an unarmed attack with perfect accuracy that inflicts massive physical damage over time. If a target dies from this effect, they explode dealing damage based on maximum life to other enemies nearby.

Typos and bug fixes

  • Fixed a typo in Terrorize.
  • Fixed a bug in Backstab where the pin effect did not check pinning immunity.
  • Fixed the level/stat requirement on Danger Sense.

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