Thread: Dev Diary Feedback: Update 2 Burglar Dev Diary

"This update includes many changes, updates and new skills for your burglaring pleasure. We developed the list of these changes by going through all of the feedback on the forums and attempted to address all of the issues brought up by the Burglar community."

Read more from Ken "Graalx2" Burd in his latest developer diary and post your comments here!

Nearly every point made there seemed like a direct response to what we burglars have been saying for awhile now. A resounding hurrah from me.

The 3 stances reflecting our 3 trait lines seems great. One thing in particular really caught my eye... the +5% bonus to evade in gamble stance. Assuming this stacks with the evade rating cap of 15% (no reason to believe that it doesn't), this means that our evade can potentially be back to what it was in SoA.

Speaking of back to SoA.... can't wait to see how fellowship maneuver scaling works out. :-)

Edit: Forgot one thing... the only real issue I saw here was this change.

"We increased the range of Quite a Snag to 10m. It makes sense and it is a Legendary skill. "

I don't MIND the change, but it's kind of silly, considering that you need to run up the crit chain in order to use it, which are all close range melee skills. I can see how one MIGHT make use of a 10m range... but still seems silly.

These are all good changes (though the safe-fall skill is kinda random, it fits). But you missed a few big issues: first, Gambler burglars are required to use their Trick Removals to get gambles going. Second, you combined the Dev Crit duration buffs but not the QaS/FA/LS cooldown legacies. Third, Mischief-Maker is still lackluster due to the need to carry "dead-weight" traits into boss fights, where you'll be using traited Disable rather than any of your other Tricks. Finally, we're no longer the premier FM triggers (Guardian far outstrip Burg fellowship availability). We can just do it on-demand, but vastly less often.

Still, this seems like it will give us a revamped, unique role as FM-on-demand triggers, which has been lacking since Moria. And my groups normally run Wings of the Windlord or the like, so that'll help. Now, if only we could use these in boss fights...

It all seems good to me except for one thing,why does only the gamble stance get the +5% evade,all 3 should be given it in my opinion.But overall it looks like a good update for burglars.

Wow, talk about a letdown after the great news about the Minstrel updates. The only really exciting things in this were the revamp to FMs, and the bleed damage type. Neither of these is exclusively Burglar.

Two new stances? meh. That's one thing the game DOESN'T need is more stances, especially stances that you use while in a stance, that's just plain stupid.

The chamging of legacies makes sense but not to those. Granted those legacies are nice, but let us pick which legacies replace the outdated ones.

More speed in stealth? Why? You're in stealth, you're trying to be unseen, you should be moving slowly.

Knives Out vs Touch and Go? Wow really stretching here to have that a bullet point. Decent change, but both are situational skills at best, My burglar rarely uses either.

With the game for soloing having been nerfed to easy mode so every class can do every single quest with little need for being a buffed character, the only use for a burg seems to be those instances where there are a few humanoids that can be riddled. Maybe this is why I NEVER see a "LFM need a burg." I have 2 burgs (65 and 61), and never use them. They have no advantage in solo play (see first point) and for groups they cant tank (no good aggro skills) and do little damage. Yes, they have some fellowship maneuvers, that give a MINOR advantage over some other groups. But not enough for a group to prefer a burg over any other class. And I also have 65 champ, rk and cappy, and am working on a guard. And dont tell me, "well you dont know how to play burg, I can tank an elite mob." Yes, there always is quite a demand for burgs as tanks (this is sarcasm if you cant tell). They will be the last ones alive, but the rest of the group will be dead, especially the healers. As for buffs and debuffs, they are ok but are far inferior to cappies'. So if you want a buffer, get a cappy. A tank, get a guard. Damage, get a RK or a hunter, for AOE or off tank, get a champ. Why would you want a burg, unless there are no other players available?
This class needs a major revamp and not the puny and pointless changes in this update. To fix the burg: either increase effect of buffs and debuffs, greatly increase fellowship maneuver abilities, or give better aggro management, or better CC. Right now, they are good at nothing. And don't even start me on the way LOTRO nerfed burgle so it's a waste of time. Burgs went from being top class to worst. And this "fix" is a joke and won't increase the use of burgs in instances/raids.

Okay, I do not play a Burglar nor do I plan to but the diary still makes me happy:
looking forward to revamped Fellowship Maneuvers and bleeds dependent on damage type will make all the Warden spear bleeds even more impressive.

I also agree that they should combine the legendary cooldown legacys. I don't know how many times I've gotten a weapon with surprise strike damage and critical rating along with crit chain damage only to be ruined by a gambler cooldown instead of a feint attack

I wonder if Safe Fall will protect my pony's legs too....

Taking into consideration how much Minstrel's got, these changes look very mediocre. The stances are cool and the DoT damage is kinda cool. Never been a fan of gambles or Knives Out, it will be interesting to see just how much they tweak gambles. The biggest problem with FM's currently is simply the fact that you cannot use them in the only level capped raid with the exception of one or two trash mob types. Burglar is a very delicate class to try and expand on and I get that completely. My opinion, a few ok changes but nothing earth shatteringly cool like Minstrel's got yesterday.

Not a huge upgrade by any stretch. But Burgs are pretty damn good now IMO. Further defined trait lines is nice though.

Is this Safe-Fall going to work in the Moors? I know Sprint ect were changed world wide to make sure fall dmg stuck. Would go to reason that especially in the moors we can have anyone jumping off cliffs with out a cost.

Well, this is awkward. I appreciate that the class was looked at and I know Graalx2 put in some work on it; I really wish I could be much more enthusiastic about the results. The trait lines have been further fractured by adding more stances (we needed more things on the quickbars, after all). Now there's even less of a cohesive feel to the class and still no strong post-Moria identity. It honestly feels like a very random patching of issues with no thought about a direction or a plan for the class. After yesterday's minstrel diary, I unfortunately have to agree that it's an enormous letdown.

On the positive side, I like the separate cooldowns on Touch and Go and Knives Out. The weapon damage type DoT's will be nice if it works. And FM's were due for some attention since deliberately triggering them is the burglar's only truly unique skill. None of this will change game play, though.

The rest doesn't have much for me. I play a heavy Mischief-traited line by natural inclination and choice, and absolutely nothing was done to our debuffs, which is hugely disappointing.

Maybe those who trait QK or Gambler will be happier with things. Maybe someone will see something I missed in my initial review.

At least it wasn't a nerf! *sigh*

So glad we have still been using Hope of Men and Wings of the Windlore, might really be useful again! Looking forward to the stealth speed changes, especially in the moors. Overall, these look like great changes without really breaking anything.

Of course, we healer's now have one more class to remind about their stance...

Changes look neat. I'm curious to see how the new stances work out, and just how much the gambles will be affected.

I've been playing my burg off an on for 3 years, but given it up out of frustration on more than one occasion, but still somehow have managed to accrue about 2 months of play time on him.

My feedback on the changes:

#1 "Well, we decided that allowing Mischief in combat would be contrary to our ideas of the whole purpose of the skill"

I do feel special that the Burglar class gets to have the only stance in the game which can not be turned on during combat. Yay Burglar.

But you did not explain at all the reason why turning on this skill during combat would ruin the "whole purpose of the skill".

#2-#6 All good! Thank you. I hope those changes make it in.

#7 I understand what you are saying, I'm sure that a Minstrel could burn out his power quickly if he just spammed all his buttons constantly, and a Minstrel has to make sure that they equip gear with lots of icpr so similarly Burgs have to watch their power and equip the proper items.

Could you please re-consider though, I would be much happier, much much happier if I had just one skill which I knew would give me some power, even if it was a small amount of power.

I realize you want to give us a bit of a gambler feel, roll of the dice, but 20% is just too low to be useful at all (I'm talking about the chance for MD to apply a power restore, 20% chance).

Really please re-consider upgrading it to at least 50% even if you have to reduce the amount of power returned by an equal amount. 100 points of power returned every time I use the skill is far more useful than 1000 power returned once per day.

Things that make me unhappy:

#1 You did nothing with Flashing Blades, the animation is super slow and there is absolutely nothing "legendary" about this skill, I expected to hear that you would have fixed the animation, and that you would have turned it into a 3 target AOE, or SOMETHING, thus actually making it into a real legendary skill.

#2 So we now have a new stance that we can use in stealth, that is great, but we still have nothing to actually "do" while we are in stealth except 1 attack or maybe a trip and then thats it. So we really haven't gone forward at all in that area. Being in a stance isn't "doing" something.

#3 Every class except for the Burglar has a skill which does not require a target, for example the Captains Pressing Attack, Guardians, Minstrels, etc etc, they all have something that can be used without a direct target, it would have been really nice if you had removed the target requirement from Dust in the Eyes and changed it into an AOE by default, even a lowly 2 targets by default would have made me sooo happy, alas, and then with trait it could have been upgraded to 4 and be slightly more powerful.

#4 Absolutely nothing done with our traits, no much needed reorganizing, no adjusting to bring them in line with where they should be given the increase in level since several of them have been unchanged since level 50. Big time let down.

Summary: Overall, not nearly as great as the Minstrel update. I feel that these changes did not have the same amount of thought put into them nor will they affect our class to the same extent, but at least the few changes you've given us are nice.

Burglar is/was still a very strong class and tweaking it one way risks breaking the class, tweaking it another risks making it insanely overpowered. Personally I think Burgs are still fine but looking from a raid perspective, the design of BG didn't really give Burgs a chance to flourish like we could in other raids and the fact that disable was broken for most of the spring and summer didn't help.

Originally Posted by Grampsaz

Not a huge upgrade by any stretch. But Burgs are pretty damn good now IMO. Further defined trait lines is nice though.

Is this Safe-Fall going to work in the Moors? I know Sprint ect were changed world wide to make sure fall dmg stuck. Would go to reason that especially in the moors we can have anyone jumping off cliffs with out a cost.

Exactly what I was thinking plus one. If safe fall now effects falling damage, it seems that burgs jumping off of stab or any other high point coupled with a smart use of their hips (to set movement to 100%, and off set any other movement wounds) will make burg kbs and jumping burgs alot more difficult to drop.

As for burg power issues, assuming they make an epic rift set (the old one helped with power issues alot)...power issues may be getting a break via the set vs via the skills.

Sorry but i have to say - i am hugely unimpressed. All those changes are things i could do without.
One thing needed to be redone and that is - class deeds. Those are designed years ago when it took 3 times as much time to level a toon. Now they require too much repetition and have daily caps - due to all that, traits that i am supposed to get at lvl 30 - i get at 50 -> IF i grind them (through using the same skill over and over again without any other need to do so besides getting the deed done) which runs the fun.
There are some deeds that will take me a year to accomplish - like Confound the Fools, Overwhelming Odds, Sharp Wit - Sharp blade. All of these are designed for an era when fellowship quests were a lot lot more common. The skills i need to use for those deeds are never used outside of a fellowship and group play is almost nonexistent these days.
Burgle also need a change - i never bother using it because i have never gotten anything other that junk.
Also switching between Mischief and Sneak is unnerving because of the long cooldown for the two stances. Could be lowered. Right now i have to stand like an idiot waiting for the cooldown before i could switch.

"As an added bonus, Heal over Time effects received from a Fellowship Maneuver will no longer break Stealth."

I am crying tears of joy right now. The DoT thing is awesome as well. But these occur to me more as fixes than updates -- things that should have been there all along.

[Deleted note about KO; I really have no idea what the heck is going on. Will have to double check on this one. Sounds like they upped the absorbed damage and lowered the reflected? Reflected damage used to be calculated based on level, right? I am not 100% sure how I feel about this change; will need to compare further.]

That said, I enjoy the fact that there's a challenge in that there's foresight required in knowing when to run in Mischief and when Sneak will benefit you more. I don't think the fact that we can't toggle Mischief in combat is the problem. However, there still stands the fact that if you drop Mischief for some reason and can't jump back into it, you are considerably less awesome in group play. I mean, I understand that there's supposed to be a disadvantage, but there's really very little return on making that choice right now. Sweet, I can use Feint Attack/IFA! But what do I do for the next four? six? minutes? Maybe I should slot full QK...

I'm guessing I missed the "suggestion" thread that spawned this, but for all we complain about debuffs being underpowered, having pitiful Might, and whatever else, the only thing that still consistently bothers me about my class is that Ready and Able doesn't reset Confound. That one I just don't get.

Thankful for the updates, BUT...

It buffed some of the already stronger points of a burglar. QK and TG were the most used trait lines because they were generally the strongest. MM needed the most love and got none.

Notes:

>Stealth is kind of silly in LOTRO, but I'm hoping with this update a stealth speed equiped/traited burg will be on par or better than a stealth speed traited warg.

>KO sounds like it's a little over powered. 80% adsorb? If any burglars still out their old Knives Out LIs, that could be unbalancing. May want to consider removing them completely.

>FMs needed the boost. Thank you.

>Falling damage skill will be abused in the Ettenmoors. May want to look at it carefully in that area.

Uh, KO got a big buff. It was a fixed reflect and 30% damage absorb. Now it's variable damage reflect, but more importantly 80% damage absorb. That's huge. Heck, depending on how it works, it could be invulnerability to common damage for 30s (60s with Ready and Able) if common mit adds to the damage reduction. We'll have to see how it works.

I really love this update. Sure there is nothing earth shattering, but it is the small stuff that is great. I am looking forward to the extra toggle to focus our trait lines, looking forward to bleeds being useful on non normal mobs, increased stealth speed is always good, and most importantly we did not get a nerf anywhere in those notes!

Overall, I'm quite happy. The KO switch may actually allow me to use the skill for than just grinding mobs with lvl < 30. and Safe Fall, though kinda random, but I easily see this becoming useful, esp. in PvP-as will the +3 stealth detection. And the new stances? Awesome. I like options, and these seem balanced and . one question I did have though: if the 2 new stance share a CD with mischief, does that mean that stealth and mischief no longer share a CD?

Oh, and FM scaling = HALLELUJAH!!!

OK, so the Burg "just" got a redo with Moria, so I wasn't expecting much. Aim CD legacy is nice. + Evade is nice. But the real issue for the Burg for me is how so many encounters are FM immune. Crazy...it'd be like having bosses that are "Arrow Immune".

I was honestly hoping to see that "Kick" would work on EVERYTHING to start an FM if not stun...or a new FM skill that shares a CD with kick, can only be used stealth, and has a set-in-stone 30 minute CD but never fails.

Our +10% damage is the only reason to bring us anywhere anymore.

Good job on this update, seems well balanced and thought out. Considering it has been quite a long time since Burgs got any real love, this will be refreshing.

Looking forward to this update!

will the preventing broken legs thing work in the moors?

Things I like:

The first stance is Quiet Knife. It grants a small bonus to melee damage and positional damage that increases when slotting deep in the Quiet Knife trait set. It also comes with a -10% decrease to perceived threat.
This will help with soloing traited deep in QK.

Touch N Go/KO: this is a welcome change, and will actually help with survivability of a very survivable class. I do use these often when I get into a sticky situation. For the naysayers, I'll say that Touch N Go + Stick N Move Legendary trait allows for great burst DPS when facing multiple unexpected mobs, since each evade event opens up the crit chain.

Aim Cooldown legacy: drool. Maybe it will get aim down to 15 seconds to be on par with the traited legacied Improved Feint Attack, so you can crit your surprise strike every 15 seconds.

Question:
Will our current weapons be affected by the change, or only ones that are IDed after the change?

Issue #1
Resume: added a bonus to the trait set of QK and Gambler.


Issue #2
Resume: DoT damage of same type of weapon AND MAYBE this will go live, no promises.

Issue #3
Resume: Finally escalated the FM

Issue #4
Resume: increase of speed during stealth. Only useful in the Moors

Issue #5
Resume: separated the cooldowns of 2 skills (Touch and Go and Knives Out). But who use Knives Outs today?

Issue #6
Resume: Try to fix poor legacy design (Gambler, Mischief Devastate Buff Duration and Quiet Knife Devastate Buff Duration) to consolidated in a single one... But forgot another major one (Snag, Luck Strike, the other one). Burg, keep hunting for a LI with the legacies you want. lol

Issue #7
Resume: Power issue. Request denied.


Miscellaneous Changes
- little changes that doesn't deserve mention because they weren't an issue from start :P

We added a new skill called Safe Fall that makes the burglar immune to Falling Injuries for a short time. It doesn’t stop falling to your death but you won’t be slowed.
- a useless skill.... maybe useful in the moors.

We increased the range of Quite a Snag to 10m. It makes sense and it is a Legendary skill.
- you need get melee range to open the critical chain. so what is the point of range increase is beyond me

Gambles and the trait lines definitely needed some reworking as did some skills like small snag and knives out that were scarsely used but honestly I think they should have re-did Champions instead of Burglar's they needed it more than we did unless they are planning on doing a Champ one in this update as well.

Originally Posted by Radardog

>Stealth is kind of silly in LOTRO, but I'm hoping with this update a stealth speed equiped/traited burg will be on par or better than a stealth speed traited warg.

>KO sounds like it's a little over powered. 80% adsorb? If any burglars still out their old Knives Out LIs, that could be unbalancing. May want to consider removing them completely.

>Falling damage skill will be abused in the Ettenmoors. May want to look at it carefully in that area.

Point 1 - Agreed.

Point 2 - KO is now only 10secs, kinda hard to be OP for 10sec, still a grain of sand compared to the mountain of OP Guards are at the moment.

Point 3 - Did not say it will negate damage or death, only falling cripple. I don't think it can really be abused. Do you have any example in the Moors how this can make any major effect .. Other then causing QQ-fests ? ... It will irritate the creeps but nothing game changing.. Anyways who cares about Burgs in the Moors anyway, most useless class up there imo.

Originally Posted by ANewMachine

Uh, KO got a big buff. It was a fixed reflect and 30% damage absorb. Now it's variable damage reflect, but more importantly 80% damage absorb. That's huge. Heck, depending on how it works, it could be invulnerability to common damage for 30s (60s with Ready and Able) if common mit adds to the damage reduction. We'll have to see how it works.

It has 10s duration now:
"but will now last only 10 seconds.".

Originally Posted by Streetpunk08

Gambles and the trait lines definitely needed some reworking as did some skills like small snag and knives out that were scarsely used but honestly I think they should have re-did Champions instead of Burglar's they needed it more than we did unless they are planning on doing a Champ one in this update as well.

There *is* one more class coming. I for one hope it's Wardens, though, for reasons that should be obvious from the signature. There was a big explosion in the Warden forums very recently, though, that didn't make it into our TtCT thread, so at the same time I kinda hope they put off updates until they have the time to react properly to those threads.

So yeah. I'd be cool with Champ updates (remove Ardour, mostly).

I would make one suggestion. When traited for Gambler and in the new Gambler stance...Michievious Glee should be a guaranteed power return.

Originally Posted by ANewMachine

There *is* one more class coming. I for one hope it's Wardens, though, for reasons that should be obvious from the signature. There was a big explosion in the Warden forums very recently, though, that didn't make it into our TtCT thread, so at the same time I kinda hope they put off updates until they have the time to react properly to those threads.

So yeah. I'd be cool with Champ updates (remove Ardour, mostly).

I agree Warden's could use one as well if there is one more it would have been cool to see both Champs and Wardens get it. Burglar's could have waited for the Anniversary update or Isengard for these changes imo.

Originally Posted by justis

Point 1 - Agreed.

Point 2 - KO is now only 10secs, kinda hard to be OP for 10sec, still a grain of sand compared to the mountain of OP Guards are at the moment.

Point 3 - Did not say it will negate damage or death, only falling cripple. I don't think it can really be abused. Do you have any example in the Moors how this can make any major effect .. Other then causing QQ-fests ? ... It will irritate the creeps but nothing game changing.. Anyways who cares about Burgs in the Moors anyway, most useless class up there imo.

W/ point 2 I'm more concerned about old Knives Out legacy + the buff. There are a few buglars out there that kept those weapons around for a reason. Does this mean that a burglar with a grandfathered legacy now has 100% melee damage adsorb for 10 seconds? That's pretty powerful IMO.

W/ point 3, right now all other things being equal, if two players are fighting with broken legs, both also have a BPE debuff. After the change, two players that previously would have had broken legs, not only will one be crippled, but it will also have no BPE, which is pretty huge. Granted, it's their decision to follow them off of the cliff, but it's still a huge difference from where we're at today.

Maybe don't allow the skill to be used in combat? That might be a fair balancing act. I'm not sure in which cases the dev expected the skill to be used. Is it mostly for a PvE factor to get to places quicker w/o having to worry about broken legs? Or is it meant for combat?

Does this change the common damage bleed found in many FMs? Would be nice! Light DoT, please.

Originally Posted by Wagnard

We increased the range of Quite a Snag to 10m. It makes sense and it is a Legendary skill.
- you need get melee range to open the critical chain. so what is the point of range increase is beyond me

ba-DUM. :P

By the way, try using QAS on a different mob than the one you're pummeling with your melee skills. Honestly I wish the range were 20 or 30m.

Anyone forget about TnG? It's useless in the moors with all the tactical dmg (warg, BA, spider DoT's).

I think evade for ALL classes should be reworked to mitigate ALL damage types like it used to in SoA.

Originally Posted by RGilthanas

Anyone forget about TnG? It's useless in the moors with all the tactical dmg (warg, BA, spider DoT's).

I think evade for ALL classes should be reworked to mitigate ALL damage types like it used to in SoA.

Those 5k Epic Toxins boy, I'll tell ya, Oh Pee!
Those 3k AoE 5s Stun's Wargs throw down-O.o too much, whats it called? Wargs go to War or something.
Those 2k Stun/interrupts BA's spam every 20s..Something Cry...

Wait..
Never mind.

I forgot to comment Knives Out

We agreed. Knives Out will now be on a separate cooldown from Touch and Go. Knives Out’s effect will be buffed to now absorb 80% of incoming melee damage and return 20% of the incoming damage to the attacker. It retains the no parry and evade but will now last only 10 seconds.

Separate cooldown - GREAT. The rest makes me sad, because after the update i will never use that skill again. The only thing i use it for now is grinding low level mobs for deeds or reputation. It is our only AoE skill. Buffing it to 80% damage reduction is cool but reducing it to 10 seconds i cannot understand. With all my parry/evade ratings i can easily survive 10 seconds against 3-4 mobs without Knives Out. Once the 10 seconds are gone what do we do then?? Die or use Touch and Go [once very 5 minutes] or shamefully use HiPS to save your miserable life....

At lvl 56 i reflect 53 damage with KO - when you change it to 20% of the incoming damage, i will actually do less damage since few normal mobs do more that 200dmg with every hit. So i will do less damage for 1/3 of the duration.

I may be wrong but it seems this skill would not be worth using anymore unless you want to get yourself in serious trouble.