The first of the class diaries has been released today by Jonathan “RockX” Steady and focuses on the Burglar class. Now, while this may have been a shorter diary than what some may have been expecting it’s important to remember that this is not a class revamp, but the changes coming with the Riders of Rohan expansion.
Our primary focus for Riders of Rohan was on Mischief-maker and the Mischief-maker trait line. There’s a particular focus on Finesse debuffs, which is an area we haven’t really touched yet. There are also the standard Quality of Life improvements you’d expect in this update.
What we discover first is that there are three skills coming to the Burglar class in Riders of Rohan.
- Trick: Improved Disable
- Level 77
- Grants a minor Finesse debuff
- The debuff can be enhanced by traiting Disabling Attack
- Improved Confound
- Level 80
- Adds a potent Finesse debuff
- 15m range
- Confound the Fools increases the duration of the debuff
- Improved Addle
- Level 83
- Applies a Tactical Damage debuff to the target
I really think that the Finesse debuff is a nice addition to the Burglar’s skill set; especially if the two debuffs from Improved Disable and Improved Confound stack with one another. I would expect that utilizing these two debuffs would be a pretty nice when confronting some of the tougher mobs in LOTRO.
There are also some other interesting skill changes including, but not limited to:
- Find Footing now heals 25% of the Burglar’s maximum health.
- Clever Retort’s “red” damage should now be just as strong as a single red conjunction.
- Burglar’s Antidote will remove all Poison effects.
- Confound’s cooldown has been reduced to two minutes, from five.
Most of these are pretty nice changes to the Burglar class. The only one that might be a bit of a stretch is the Find Footing heal which will be dependent on your Morale pool now. I personally don’t have a character that is high enough level to state whether or not this will be a benefit or not; so any input is welcome.
The only trait line that is listed as being modified is the Mischief line, which seems to focus on reducing the duration of Cure Poison and Burglar’s Antidote for the 3- and 4- set bonus and then allowing those skills to affect the entire Fellowship for the 5-set bonus. Rock also mentions that the trait Footpad as the only one that has been modified
Footpad will now give Diversion a chance to inflict a Debuffing Gamble, in place of Burgle. As such, Improved Feint Attack will no longer allow Burglars to use Diversion from stealth.
And lastly, but definitely not least, Quite a Snag will allow Burglars to switch into Mischief stance when in combat, which I personally think is pretty darn cool. So what do you Burglars think of the changes? Good, bad, other? Let us know!
July 26, 2012 at 3:09 pm
but no stab to the neck /sadface
July 27, 2012 at 10:29 am
might be coming with the mounted combat dev diary.
July 26, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Switching to Mischief during combat!! Yes yes yes. I use Mischief almost exclusively since once I blow stealth, I don’t have access to those skills that require Mischief be active.
I don’t find “Find Footing” to behave how I expect anyway now. When I get stunned and reach for it, it still takes relatively lots of time to recover. Adding a 25% morale boost would be quite cool though.
July 26, 2012 at 3:18 pm
I do like the addition of debuffing Finesse with Disable. Disable is a defensive trick to lower the mob’s damage output. Reducing their finesse is logical so they will miss more.
Their improvements on Confound is… well, confounding. You need to be in Mischief stance to use it. Most burglars are either in Quiet Knife or Gambler stances for their respective bonuses. Adding in Finesse isn’t going to make much of a different in my opinion. The countdown timer on it even with the -10s maxxed legacy is a pain to time for the mez. If something needs mezzed, it needs mezzed right away. Also, the Quite a Snag allowing a stance change into Mischief? If someone is traited 5 deep into MM, I’m sure they’re already in Mischief stance. o.O
While I appreciate Burglar’s Antidote FINALLY being improved so that’s actually different than Cure Poison, the set bonuses for traiting down the Mischief Maker line are, eh. You’d have to trait that way first, and most enjoy TG and QK. I suppose it’s a step in making MM something but not too much.
Thank you for adding a tactical debuff, though why Addle? Addle’s primary purpose is for interrupting inductions and extending the length of future inductions. On a 5s cooldown, it’s the best interrupt there is (ranged). I’m still going to save it for that purpose more than likely. Otherwise, I fear it’ll be a power hog if spammed too much.
Other changes I do like. For Find Footing, no matter how much the morale pool is, a heal is a heal. Glad the red Clever Retort effect is being scaled.
Good changes, just some of them are confusing to why… I still haven’t finished my Confound class skill deed yet on my 75 burg.
August 10, 2012 at 10:37 am
Improved addle I say is especially useful for monsterplay. Most burgs in the moors use addle right after flashingblades to cut the animation duration of it in half. Adding this tactical debuff helps alot because all monster players use tactical damage.
July 26, 2012 at 5:40 pm
What I cannot understand is that there a no new skills coming with an expansion….
July 27, 2012 at 4:16 am
Because theres already too many skills perhaps?
I would rather see skills merges…
July 27, 2012 at 10:31 am
RoI had most of the skills being upgrades as well, more than likely any skill thats totally new will come in under the mounted combat side of things as thats where the focus is being weighted.
July 26, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Finesse is such a pointless attribute. It’s mysterious since you never know how much you need or if you are missing because you don’t have enough. Everyone slots it based on faith that it’s needed. Plus it is only used in raids so it’s just another form of a raid attribute, same as radiance. Just dump the whole concept! Let anyone raid who has reasonable gear without having some strange attribute added. The game has in no way become better by having finesse.
July 27, 2012 at 4:18 am
Actually you can guess very closely how much finesse you need for a particular encounter after some testing. It’s not that cryptic.
I.E.: Draigoch I use 6-7k, Shadoow lights: 8k, etc.
Burgs finesse debuffs will be very useful in the moors.
July 27, 2012 at 10:19 pm
>Improved Disable; Added effect that makes sense with the ability – pretty cool.
>Improved Confound; Confound already stinks, it stinks less – but the purpose of confound is to mez; IE: remove from combat. A buff(or debuff) focused on combat(Finesse debuff) is pretty useless. While it can be argued that, you can use confound now /just/ for the debuff(and if it mezzes it’s a plus) but it’s still asinine at it’s core.
>Improved Addle; Addle is awesome; and is already spammed on every mob; so a buff(one that’s in line with the ability is pretty cool).
Overall if this is the full update it’s -really..really.. disappointing. The trait line bonuses are meh. The other ability shuffles are..meh. This still doesn’t address the many issues burgs have, so lack of Turbine understanding the class still shows…
August 12, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Burgs are getting the short end of the stick yet again… I’m still bitter over the ‘month of the burglar’ that was mostly general updates