Thread: A newer burg trying to optimize rotation (w.r.t attack speed)

I'm a lvl 60 burglar, back from several year layoff (stopped around lvl 51 previously.)

Currently running 5 in QK with the capstone (will try Gambler once i finish the book quests to get the capstone).

I've read and experimented mixing fast attacks with the slower ones to try and make combat flow better. I assume this also gives dps increase, but mostly I hate the clunky feel when things don't happen when I push buttons. Drives me nuts as few other games are like this. (granted they often have global cool downs but those seem to be less annoying).

For example:

I'll open with Aim, SS from stealth. Crit chain opens up.

Will then go subtle stab, BA, DES, Trick, Flashing blades.

That seems to be a decent way to get things to happen quickly.

But I can't seem to make Flashing Blades speed up much , even if I follow with a fast skill.

There are also times where it seems I almost lock up and don't do anything for awhile. I'm guessing it is when I use to slow skills back to back? But it seems I mostly just stand there for a couple seconds.

1) Is there anything obvious I'm missing with this?
2) Lucky Strike also seems pretty slow, can that be speed up at all using a fast attack?
3) is it a dps gain to use a trick to speed up a slow attack at all times?
4) Which are the really slow attacks that I should always try to follow with a fast attack.
5) Does using addle speed up attacks, (it does seem to go off immediately but I can't tell if it forced the other attack to fire or goes off independently. And if so is it a dps gain to use after the really slow ones?
6) Any general tips folks could give for helpw me with the mixing of slow and fast skills?

I'm really enjoying Lotro but I have to say compared to every other MMO I have played it seems quite clunky and unresponsive.

Thanks for any tips you may have for me.

My relatively fast rotation is as follows:

Stealth>LiE>Aim>SS>BA>Subtle Stab>DES>Flashing Blades>Addle(almost straight after FB to make it go faster)>Subtle Stab>Trick: Disable

Works pretty well for me and the mob is usually dead or near enough to where I can use SS or CA to finish it off. However this isn't a sustainable rotation since you need the crit chain open and the cooldowns off. It's still good for inflicting massive damage.

I'd love to hear some other burg rotations.

A few general guidelines

1.) Some skills have a short animation but have a pause (skill delay) after the animation before the next skill in the que goes off. ALWAYS follow these skills with a "fast" skill (trick, or burglars advantage, or double edge strike). If you follow them with a "fast" skill it skips the pause (skill delay) after the animation and goes straight to the fast skill. Combat will flow more smoothly and your dps will increase. Two main candidates for this are subtle stab and feint attack. They have short animations but have pauses after the animation so always follow them with a fast skill to skip the pause.

NOTE: Since subtle stab has such a short cool-down, most burgs weave it between fast skills in their crit chain. (Ex: burglars advantage, subtle stab, double edge strike) Subtle stab flows so quickly when you use it this way it's almost like free dps.


2.) Some skills have long animations (Flashing blades and suprise strike from stealth) If you follow these skills with addle (an interrupt) it will stop the animation and just skip to the damage. This will speed up your rotation and improve dps. Because of this getting addle cd on you legendary burglar bag is actually an important dps legacy.

NOTE: The extra power cost of using addle this way can become a power drain.

ANOTER NOTE: The long animations of reveal weakness and riddle can also be skipped with addle.

Your rotation was Aim, SS from stealth, subtle stab, BA, DES, Trick, Flashing blades. You could move things around a little and try Aim, SS from stealth, Trick, BA, subtle stab, DES, Flashing blades, Addle (which is what will speed up FB)

Moving the trick and BA in right after SS should speed things up a little. Later when you get your auto crit from stealth, you could move Aim in before Flashing Blades.

I'm still of the opinion that while leveling, Aim +CA out of stealth can often be a better opener than SS. It's not until top level 75 gear and skills that SS is more often the better opener IMO.

Try traiting Exposed throat too, I do SS,BA,Subtle Stab,DES,Aim,FB+Addle,Feint Attack,Counterdefence,BA,DES,E xposed throat.

• Never open with Aim. Start with your free crit from stealth instead, then use Aim after having hit IFA and gone through your crit chain at least once.
• Always use Aim on from stealth (ie: while IFA is up) Cunning Attacks if the mob is going to live longer than 30s (otherwise use on from stealth Surprise Strikes).
• Always use IFA when it is available asap. Try not to use SS/CA/Provoke until the buff is in its last few seconds (but make sure you do always get either a SS or CA off before the IFA buff ends).
• Use short animation non-fast skills (subtle stab & IFA in particular) in between fast skills where possible (esp between BA and DES).
• Try to always follow DES with a crit chain ender. Crit chain ender skills (esp Flashing Blades) seem to fire off much faster that way for some reason (almost as if they were fast skills).
• Always interrupt Flashing Blades with addle (it is ridiculously long if you don't). Cutting the animation gains you a load of dps. You can also use Addle to interrupt a from stealth Surprise Strike for a dps gain, but its not as important, and you can't always interrupt both.
• Always follow up a from stealth Surprise Strike (that you don't interrupt with addle) with subtle stab (it will always be available and will fire almost instantly since the SS animation is so long).
• Make sure you have Exposed Throat traited. You need something to use when FB is on cooldown. Lucky Strike is not that slow and you should always use it in preference of ET if the mob is going to live 20s+, but it has a long cooldown since you weren't stupid enough to trait Gambler.
• Make sure you get CD up early and keep it up. But in general using tricks does not increase your DPS because the animations are slightly too long. If you've got nothing else to hit, you may as well refresh your debuff though (sometimes happens when IFA is up so you can't use Provoke and everything else is on cooldown, or in the very rare times when you don't get a crit response immediately when needed).
• Slot two -2.5% AD runes.
• Stay focused. If you start zzzing, you are liable to lose a lot of DPS because you have to watch that IFA buff closely and press a lot of buttons quickly.

• And get the QK PvP set, and macro it in when you hit Surprise Strike (then you have to change your rotation a bit) ...

Also don't bother trying Gambler (it sucks for DPS and has no other meaningful benefits that are of any use when grouping - queue the QQ).


Yes combat is still clunky and annoying and not very well designed at all and occasionally an attack just won't go off. Getting your FPS up as high as possible will help somewhat.

Originally Posted by Evendale

[*]Never open with Aim. Start with your free crit from stealth instead, then use Aim after having hit IFA and gone through your crit chain at least once.
[

The OP stated they were level 60. Our answers reflected their not having auto-crit from stealth.

Originally Posted by Evendale

Also don't bother trying Gambler (it sucks for DPS and has no other meaningful benefits that are of any use when grouping - queue the QQ).

You are writing gambler off too quickly. Gambler is VERY nice if you build for it and get used to the changes in attack rotation. My frontal DPS in 5 gambler is slightly BETTER than my frontal DPS in 5 QK. In addition

- My evade will be about 6% better than a QK burg

- In the moors it is easy for me to fit the +2 stealth lvl trait into my build. (A QK burg will have to give up something significant to fit this in their build.)

- I have extra cc with a minute long mez from glee about every 20s (at lvl 75)

- The extra debuff and extra mezs make gambler a far better build for soloing big mobs. I can easily burn down the 75k limelight gorge mobs without using touch and go in a gambler build. If I am traited QK there is a good chance I will need to blow touch and go to kill them.

Your advice on attack rotations is solid and I agree that QK is better for raiding/group content.

However, Gambler is a VERY good solo build.

Thanks all for the great tips, was exactly what I was looking for. Will try them out tonight!

T

Originally Posted by Irenmund

The OP stated they were level 60. Our answers reflected their not having auto-crit from stealth.

Oh woops; well I tend to skim read walls of text so you'll have to forgive me.

I'm sure the info will be of use to some people anyway (and the OP when they level up).

Feel free to critique my list; I'd be interested if there are any players (who are consistently able to parse 2k+ on the dummies) who do anything differently than stated (or not listed) that they feel improves their DPS.

Originally Posted by Tyval

I hate the clunky feel when things don't happen when I push buttons.

...

I can't seem to make Flashing Blades speed up much , even if I follow with a fast skill.

There are also times where it seems I almost lock up and don't do anything for awhile. I'm guessing it is when I use to slow skills back to back? But it seems I mostly just stand there for a couple seconds.

Indeed this can be annyoing - and particularly frustrating if you have debuffs on you that increase your attack speed (makes you hit slower). That's when your rotation becomes important...


***Wall of text in-coming***


2 concepts you must understand if you want to make the most of your skills:

Skills have animations and post animation-delays (PA-delay).

These are important because burglars have skills that can affect both.


Fast skills ignore the PA-delay and activate right after the animation has finished. Important thing to notice though: They only ignore the PA-delay during the time it takes for their own animation to fire off, meaning PA-delay can carry over and affect the next skill if it's long enough. Noticeable with feint/stab > BA > any non-fast skill.

Immediate skills (addle, T&G and hips) ignore animations as well as resetting any underlying PA-delay, and activate as soon as you press it.



To further understand how this affects combat, let's take a look at some of the burglar skills:

- Surprise strike (SS): Different timings depending on whether it's from stealth or not. From stealth it has a very long animation but not much PA-delay if any (I honestly can't remember as I hit addle straight after whenever I can).
Not-from-stealth: "Medium" animation and little to no PA-delay (can't remember, mostly use fast skills after it I think...).

- Subtle stab (stab): Very short animation but with a very long PA-delay. Don't use it after a skill with PA-delay and always use a fast skill - or two - after stab.

- Feint attack: crucial skill for a dps-burg. Should be fully QK traited and legacied to have 15 secs cd. Similar to stab with a very short animation and very long PA-delay. -> Use it after skills with no PA-delay and follow it up with fast skill(s).

- Tricks (CD, Disable or DitE), fast skill: "medium" animation AND medium PA-delay. Some ppl think there's no PA-delay on fast skills but there is in this case. Use tricks after skills with long PA-delays and follow it up with BA to get rid of the PA-delay from the trick (and the PA-delay that's carried over from either feint or stab).

- Burglar's Advantage (BA), fast skill: Very important skill for all burglars. Very short animation and no PA-delay makes it perfect at speeding up rotations. Don't use it straight after long PA-skills like feint/stab cause once the quick animation is over you're still waiting for the remaining PA-delay to finish. Should be followed up with a non-fast skill because BA has no PA-delay

- Double-edged Strike (DES), fast skill: "medium to long" animation with no PA-delay. Perfect after feint/stab cause the animation fills out the long PA-delay from these skills. It's tempting to use after BA but then it doesn't remove any PA-delay for you, so it's a bit of a waste. Should always be followed up with a crit-chain ender (Feint, FB, ET or lucky/gamblers strike/Snag if you must).

- Flashing Blades (FB): Hideously long animation, that must be addled, T&G'd or hipsed away. Always. Next to no PA-delay so using a fast skill after it won't help you much. Always use it after skills with no PA-delay like DES or BA.

- Exposed Throat (ET): "medium" animation with no PA-delay. Use after DES or BA and follow it up with a non-fast skill since it has no PA-delay itself.

- Addle, immediate: crucial skill for any burg. Get the legacy to reduce the cd to 5 secs. Only down-side is its' high power cost that's not affected by -melee power cost bonuses on armour or tools. Being immediate it interrupts all animations. Use after FB and stealthed/feinted SS and use a non-fast attack after it since it resets all PA-delay and has none itself.

- T&G and HiPS, both immediate: similar to addle, but with long cd's so can't use them often.

- Cunning attack (CA): Long'ish animation, some PA-delay. Only really worth using (imo) with feint attack active for the 30 sec dot, and aim if it's not on cd.

- Provoke: mostly for group play and not really worth using for dps (imo). For group play it should be used with feint attack active to make the most of it.

- Aim: Takes a while to execute so don't use it after a skill with PA-delay. Particularly horrible after feint/stab. Ideal use is after DES for either feinted SS, CA or FB.



Trying to combine all these things I usually do smt like this for full dps:

SS > addle > Feint > CD > BA > stab > DES > FB > addle > stab > CD > BA > SS


This way you get the feint buff going asap and hit the second SS just before feint expires. Also you make the most use of addle as it's used initially after SS and as soon as it comes off cd again (5 secs) it's used for FB. Also there's a lot of stabs in there which helps cause it's a medium dmg skill with low power cost.
This rotation effectively ignores all PA-delays but it does require using low-damage tricks often. But imo it's well worth it.

The second SS can be followed up like this:

SS > (T&G) > DES > ET >
stab > CD > BA > feint > DES > FB > addle >
(stab) > CD > BA > DES > SS > addle > ET >
stab > CD > BA > Feint > DES > FB > addle >
(stab) > CD > BA > DES > SS > addle > ET >

Repeat until:

"No power!" (I usually run outta power after 42-45 secs on the dummy - 2,4k'ish power)

This is how I usually do it (I think - not in-game atm so might've gotten the timings a bit wrong).
This rotation is not perfect and there is a short delay in a few places, yet not long enough to fill in another skill without messing up the feint -> SS timings. The benefit though, is that it uses addle after both SS and FB and makes good use of the feint-buff. And ofc most importantly it bypasses all PA-delay so that won't slow you down
As for dps it 'can' get up to 2k though you will need some crit-luck and high-end gear. I usually parse just below 2k. If you have the QK EM-armour you 'should' be able to go higher than 2k.


There's plenty more to talk about gear-wise but I'll leave that to someone else. Hope this is useful - happy to take feedback

Originally Posted by Gilias

Indeed this can be annyoing - and particularly frustrating if you have debuffs on you that increase your attack speed (makes you hit slower). That's when your rotation becomes important...


***Wall of text in-coming***

Thanks Gilias. I've been away for too long!

Originally Posted by Gilias

- Subtle stab (stab): Very short animation but with a very long PA-delay. Don't use it after a skill with PA-delay and always use a fast skill - or two - after stab.

Are you sure about this one?
In my experience subtle stab has pretty much no PA delay.

If you are DPSing mobs down quickly I think it's important to put on counter defense asap. When I do Subtle Stab - CD they both fire extremely quick but if I do it the other way around they fire very slowly which means that CD does have a long PA delay but Subtle stab does not.

I just made a FA dagger and left out any bleed legacies and instead maxxed the subtle stab legacies as I use it a lot in my rotation. I'm not using Cunning Attack anymore as the bleed is too low to justify it's place in my rotation.

Really nice post gilias!

Originally Posted by Ixinix

Are you sure about this one?
In my experience subtle stab has pretty much no PA delay.

The PA delay is pretty noticeable. Subtle>any non-fast skill takes ages to fire.

Originally Posted by Feomalo

Really nice post gilias!

Thank you

Originally Posted by Ixinix

Are you sure about this one? In my experience subtle stab has pretty much no PA delay. If you are DPSing mobs down quickly I think it's important to put on counter defense asap. When I do Subtle Stab - CD they both fire extremely quick but if I do it the other way around they fire very slowly which means that CD does have a long PA delay but Subtle stab does not.

Subtle stab does have a long PA-delay and you'll need to use a fast skill to bypass it. Counter defense is a fast skill and therefore ignores the PA-delay on stab and kicks in right after the animation is finished. If you use a non-fast skill like CA after stab you'll have to wait for both stab's animation and PA-delay to finish before CA kicks in. This proves that subtle stab does have a long PA-delay. Remember that the delay is always after the animation and never before, meaning that any pause in your rotation is due to the PA-delay from the skill that's currently executing and not from the skill you got queued up. Of course as already stated many times you can bypass that delay by following it up with a 'fast' skill.

Originally Posted by Gilias

This rotation effectively ignores all PA-delays but it does require using low-damage tricks often. But imo it's well worth it.

The second SS can be followed up like this:

SS > (T&G) > DES > ET >
stab > CD > BA > feint > DES > FB > addle >
(stab) > CD > BA > DES > SS > addle > ET >
stab > CD > BA > Feint > DES > FB > addle >
(stab) > CD > BA > DES > SS > addle > ET >

Hrm. Have you parsed your rotation with a different skill in place of the tricks? The tricks do a lot less damage than most people realize, because they get no positional, crit damage, or bonus damage from traits, LIs, set bonuses and self buffs, although they do get bonuses from outside buffs such as the dp damage perk and debuffs on the mob such as reveal weakness and the like (didn't test out sword bro).

I'd imagine that a regular skill would do more damage than the trick even though the trick "feels" better in your rotation, especially since you're saying that you have dead time.