Burglar Developer Diary

También mejoran al bulgaro!

Greetings to all those who tend to believe that ‘other people’s stuff’ is a temporary condition soon to be remedied. Yes, I am talking to all of you Burglars out there. 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.

Issue #1

We want to be able to get into Mischief stance in combat. Being in Stealth does nothing but allow a single attack and maybe an additional Fellowship Maneuver.

Well, we decided that allowing Mischief in combat would be contrary to our ideas of the whole purpose of the skill. Instead what we decided on is not one, but two new stances that Burglars can choose from in addition to Mischief. While these new stances share a cooldown with Mischief and cannot be toggled in combat, they can be used in Stealth. 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.

The other stance is the Gambler. This stance increases the healing and damage of Gambles as well as decreasing the resistance of monsters to Gambles. All three of these effects are increased by slotting deep into the Gambler trait set. The Gambler also comes with a +5% increase to the Burglar’s chance to Evade.

Issue #2

Why don’t bleeds caused by weapons take on the damage type of the weapon used to inflict them.

We are attempting to get this to work even as I am writing this. If all goes well then all damage over time (DoT) effects caused by weapons will take on the damage type of the implement that caused them. This won’t include those DoT’s that already have a special damage type, like the Warden’s Light DoTs.

A word of warning about this change… It hasn’t been fully implemented yet and there could be some unforeseen issues that will cause this change to not make it into the update.

Issue #3

Damage from Fellowship Maneuvers sure doesn’t seem to keep up with the increased hit points of monsters.

Well you are in luck! We did a thorough revamp of Fellowship Maneuvers and significantly increased the damage that they do at high levels. While we were at it, we changed what effects are applied by some of the Fellowship Maneuvers. Mostly these changes will increase the magnitude of effects applied by the more difficult to execute Maneuvers, like straights, and decreased the magnitude of easy to execute Maneuvers, like flushes. We also reduced the amount of Morale and Power returned by FM’s at low to mid-levels. Frankly, the amounts returned at these levels are so high you probably won’t even notice the change.

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

Issue #4

We want more speed in Stealth!!

Ok. We added to Stealth speed when traiting deep into Quiet Knife or Gambler. In addition, we added +3 Stealth Detection while in Stealth, just for all of you PvMP Burglars.

Issue #5

What’s the deal with Knives Out sharing a cooldown with Touch and Go? I’ll never use it when I can just use Touch and Go instead.

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.

Issue #6

Why do we have 3 Legacies that affect the duration of the effect applied by a devastating crit when we can only have one Legendary skill that uses those effects at a time?

We agreed that having mutually exclusive Legacies is a ‘bad thing’. We have converted the Gambler Devastate Buff Duration to become just Devastate Buff Duration that will increase the duration of all three effects.

To make things work out without letting you have three buff duration increasers on the same Legendary item, we had to change the Legacies granted by Mischief Devastate Buff Duration and Quiet Knife Devastate Buff Duration.

Mischief Devastate Buff Duration will convert to a new Legacy, Aim Cooldown. Quiet Knife Devastate Buff Duration will convert to a new Legacy, Subtle Stab Damage Multiplier.

Issue #7

We need more in-combat Power Regen!

On this one you will just have to get used to disappointment. Almost every class in the game wants more power regen. The combat changes in Siege of Mirkwood allow most classes to spend way more power than they can regenerate. We rather like the choice players must make about burning up your power quickly or playing at a more reasonable rate for a long battle. There are no changes to power costs or regen in this update.

Miscellaneous Changes

There are also two minor tweaks we have made that didn’t rise high enough to be considered major issues.

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