Aim to Miss Mechanism

[Toad Sage 22]

This is replacement idea for Poisonous Blades skill.

 

Partial Evasion

 

Applies one Partial Evasion positive effect to the character for every 12.5% "Dodge" parameter.

 

The effect reduces incoming damage from instant damage attacks against the character by percentage of character's "Dodge" parameter.

 

Every succesful dodge will remove one effect.

 

One effect is removed every 6 sec.

 

 

Commentary and explanation:

 

The skill should enter cooldown when all effects expire or are used up.

 

The damage reduction isn't amplified with the number of effects. But the damage reduction needs at least one effect active to take place.

 

The purpose of the skill is to give an option for rogue when to use Kick in The Back skill.

 

Nowadays, there is only option: in the beginning of the fight. And a rogue relies on it not getting resisted to survive, which is not a good chance anymore.

 

And it also defeats the purpose of a rogue as a "surprise attacker" because often we are forced to use Kick in The Back skill under Stealth and lose too much benefit from Stealth and element of surprise.

 

With this Partial Evasion skill, we can decide whether or not we want to dodge, or just take some reduced damage in case of attacks that can't be dodged. And it still forces us to have dodge parameter and level up Dodging Skill.

 

It will also give more benefit for people with left branch. Because people with 60% max. dodge will only have 4 stacks of effects. While people with 63% max. dodge may have 5 stacks of effects. If they both have max. dodge while they activate the skill, of course.

 

Numbers can be modified but at least give it a try and test it. Also, put our poison somewhere else and make sure the animation doesn't take the whole anime opening to complete.

[Toad Sage 22]

This is an "Aim to Miss" mechanism because we can use this to intentionally "fail" to dodge in order to keep the damage reduction. And only dodge when we see the time is right.

[vavavi 240]

4 or 5x 60% dmg reduction only on instant skills from a skill thats relatively low cd is really strong. With rogues being able to dip in and out of fights very rapidly with stealth this could really easily turn into a case of nearly permanent 60% dmg reduction. Atleast if i understood it correctly as 60% dodge=60% dmg reduction. Thats a higher dmg reduction than seekers have in exchange for -70% of their max hp.

[Axetricks 42]

I like the idea, the only thing I would suggest is to replace it with “Absolute Reflexes“ to serve that passive defense that rogue needs, “Poisonous Blades“ still got some utility for a rogue (healing with TT, more dmg on skills, etc) even tho some kind of buff for it would be welcomed too.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Axetricks

[Toad Sage 22]

22 minutes ago, vavavi said:

4 or 5x 60% dmg reduction only on instant skills from a skill thats relatively low cd is really strong. With rogues being able to dip in and out of fights very rapidly with stealth this could really easily turn into a case of nearly permanent 60% dmg reduction. Atleast if i understood it correctly as 60% dodge=60% dmg reduction. Thats a higher dmg reduction than seekers have in exchange for -70% of their max hp.

Yes, that should be 60% damage reduction with 60% dodge. But, the thing about 60% dodge is, it works but not in a favorable way by itself. And 4 or 5 stacks will quickly be consumed in just 3 sec if we use Kick in The Back skill because we dodge rapidly.

 

This idea is subject to adjustments, I just want to note that 4-5 stacks may effectively last 6-8 sec in combat. Which is not a problem for 60% damage reduction (that if we assume max. Dodge by the time the damage is received). Because I suppose a shield that reduces 100% of damage and effectively lasts 6-8 sec. is fine. This duration can even be shorter with multiple attackers. Adjustments can be made if this estimate is wrong in testing. Or if there is any better set of numbers to use.

 

It will also require the rogue to have Dodging skill buff to get max. number of stacks they can have. 40% base dodge is usually a lot of sacrifice for max. level rogue so without Dodging skill, we only have 2-3 stacks with up to 40% damage reduction.

 

And we should also consider skills that reduce dodge. Which can lower the damage reduction itself, or the stacks. And enemies who can intentionally make their accuracy low to just use up the stacks quickly. This will effectively be the weakness of the skill.

 

And after all that, the numbers can be modified. No problem. But for this one I need to make is as ideal as possible so hopefully devs will start with that condition, if they even test it at all.

 

If this idea is brought to reality, it will become like a CVT for damage reduction.

[Toad Sage 22]

32 minutes ago, Axetricks said:

I like the idea, the only thing I would suggest is to replace it with “Absolute Reflexes“ to serve that passive defense that rogue needs, “Poisonous Blades“ still got some utility for a rogue (healing with TT, more dmg on skills, etc)

I agree we still need dot mechanism. That's why I said put the poison somewhere else. But yeah, maybe it can work as replacement for reflexes and fix how poisonous blades works.

 

The benefits you are mentioning don't neccessitate the existence of poisonous blades skill. It is more about having poison damage mechanism, which is required for rogue as a form of dot. So it can either be put somewhere else, or the poisonous blades skill can be modified to fix its existing problems.

[vavavi 240]

13 minutes ago, Toad Sage said:

Yes, that should be 60% damage reduction with 60% dodge. But, the thing about 60% dodge is, it works but not in a favorable way by itself. And 4 or 5 stacks will quickly be consumed in just 3 sec if we use Kick in The Back skill because we dodge rapidly.

 

This idea is subject to adjustments, I just want to note that 4-5 stacks may effectively last 6-8 sec in combat. Which is not a problem for 60% damage reduction (that if we assume max. Dodge by the time the damage is received). Because I suppose a shield that reduces 100% of damage and effectively lasts 6-8 sec. is fine. This duration can even be shorter with multiple attackers. Adjustments can be made if this estimate is wrong in testing. Or if there is any better set of numbers to use.

 

It will also require the rogue to have Dodging skill buff to get max. number of stacks they can have. 40% base dodge is usually a lot of sacrifice for max. level rogue so without Dodging skill, we only have 2-3 stacks with up to 40% damage reduction.

 

And we should also consider skills that reduce dodge. Which can lower the damage reduction itself, or the stacks. And enemies who can intentionally make their accuracy low to just use up the stacks quickly. This will effectively be the weakness of the skill.

 

And after all that, the numbers can be modified. No problem. But for this one I need to make is as ideal as possible so hopefully devs will start with that condition, if they even test it at all.

 

If this idea is brought to reality, it will become like a CVT for damage reduction.

The major differences between shields and a dmg reduction are that every hit, even if not instant dmg lowers them, and correct me if im wrong, the shields don't actually take the characters defense into consideration. So for example a palas shield can be a 10k shield, but its raw 10k dmg, not damage that would be done to the pala through their defenses. As far as i know anyway 

 

And yes the 5 stacks would end fast, but only in situations where multiple ppl are targeting the rogue. If 1-2 ppl only target, it does take a while to land 5 instant damage skills/autos, by which time the rogue can just disappear with stealth and renew those stacks. 

 

60% is alot, like really alot, seekers have 55% at 2-3k hp and people say they're extremely tanky. Now having a higher dmg reduction than that with no lower max health really easily takes it overboard.

 

The idea is interesting, and creative, but personally i think if the numbers aren't toned down/something else changed it could really fast turn into rogues taking even lower dmg than seekers and being at 10k hp at the same time. For example making the dmg reduction equal to half of the rogues dodge would be strong, but not borderline immortality.

Edited November 21, 2023 by vavavi

[Toad Sage 22]

8 hours ago, vavavi said:

The major differences between shields and a dmg reduction are that every hit, even if not instant dmg lowers them, and correct me if im wrong, the shields don't actually take the characters defense into consideration. So for example a palas shield can be a 10k shield, but its raw 10k dmg, not damage that would be done to the pala through their defenses. As far as i know anyway 

 

And yes the 5 stacks would end fast, but only in situations where multiple ppl are targeting the rogue. If 1-2 ppl only target, it does take a while to land 5 instant damage skills/autos, by which time the rogue can just disappear with stealth and renew those stacks. 

 

60% is alot, like really alot, seekers have 55% at 2-3k hp and people say they're extremely tanky. Now having a higher dmg reduction than that with no lower max health really easily takes it overboard.

 

The idea is interesting, and creative, but personally i think if the numbers aren't toned down/something else changed it could really fast turn into rogues taking even lower dmg than seekers and being at 10k hp at the same time.

It needs to be tested, yeah. I will have no problem if this idea is tested and there are better numbers than the ones I am mentioning.

 

What other classes with damage reduction or shield have and rogue don't, is a harmonic relationship with damage reduction stats. A seeker can have full resil and invest so much in hp, that's why their low hp is so tanky even with only 55% damage reduction. Because they can focus on damage reduction stats. This is ofc not the case with rogue because you need to sacrifice resil for dodge and vice versa. And a class with shield may have fixed amount of shield power. But this amount is amplified by damage reduction stats. The lower the damage the character receives in general, the longer the shield works.

 

Rogue is not a good friend with damage reduction stats, not even with hp stats. So 60% damage reduction is the reduction of very high damage we should take. Not significantly lowered damage like in Seekers' case.

 

Now in pve rogues have insanely little to no dodge (~10% dodge is no dodge because it won't work at all) due to vamp stats. I have nothing much to say about this mechanism for pve.

 

And again, I agree that the idea needs to be tested for the appropriate numbers. Even if, even if the numbers I suggest here are indeed terrible, it must not make the mechanism bad.

 

I can also understand that is is hard to imagine a class that can't use damage reduction stats like other classes. And we know that full resil rogues are usually weak. While high dodge rogue is a gamble. It's always somewhere in between. That's why imagining how this numbers will work with this mechanism is also hard.

 

What I refer as "numbers" are

 

- How much the damage reduction from dodge %

- how many stacks for how much dodge

- how long a stack will last when not used

- how long the cooldown for the skill should be.

 

Everything here is subject to adjustments. I will not defend my numbers at all if they are indeed OP but we have to start somewhere in testing.

 

Moreever, there are external factors like the possibility of Dodging and Absolute Relexes skills getting modified or adjusted for rebalance. There is no reason for now to conclude that the such and such numbers are too much.

 

Another note I want to add is the damage reduction should vary with dodge (more dodge = more reduction). Otherwise rogues will go full resil and become seekers. There should be some sacrifice and in this case it's resil or solidity.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Toad Sage
Fixing typos and adding a note.