Bowa's Diablo 4 Rogue Feedback (PTR)

Rogue
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I got to play some of the PTR last week. See my feedback and suggestions for the Rogue below.

Original document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19otU0XyH1tV8gLQoBtwiw9X5Bxot1Iu3agAI-syzUbo/edit?usp=sharing

Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/D4Rogue/comments/1c3lbzg/bowas_diablo_4_rogue_feedback_ptr/

Summary of Issues

  • Combo points are too dominant out of the 3 specialisations
  • Puncture is too dominant out of all the basic skills
  • Melee builds are more or less viable to play, but don’t feel as fantastic as before
  • Ultimates are limited in their use cases and general effectiveness
  • The removal of damage reduction from affixes has made survivability for Rogues challenging
  • Most Rogue uniques are underperforming or not build defining enough
  • Some build archetypes are not yet viable
  • One-shot builds currently trivialise boss content

Note: not all these issues will be wholly addressed here, though it’s still important to point them out.

Preface

  • This feedback has been prepared after playing the PTR in the lead up to Season 4 and contains suggestions to address the stated problems above and any other specific problems outlined in further notes
  • We will assume that Pit 200’s and Tormented Uber bosses are the chase achievements for a season. No matter how strong a build is, these bosses should always remain challenging on some level
  • This feedback will focus on changes that can be implemented for the Season 4 patch or a mid-season patch. This feedback will refrain from suggestions that are best suited for an expansion
  • All uniques will need to be revised with the new itemisation updates. Any feedback about uniques here will focus on their aspect powers or available mods only and not tuning of existing affixes.

Resolved in the PTR

The following items were resolved in the PTR and should be kept in mind when reading the rest of this feedback.

  • Close Quarters Combat : The tempering affixes and the new Gems add a lot of Damage to Crowd Control enemies on offensive slots. This addresses the heavy nerfs that Close Quarters Combat received in Season 3. Together with how much easier it is to stagger bosses, this will now do reasonable damage going into Season 4.

  • Victimise : The changes to Victimise to fix its damage bugs and increasing its lucky hit has put Victimise in a good place for Season 4. There’s some cases where Victimise double dips on certain damage but the cases seem natural and not imbalanced compared to alternative key passives (Precision, Close Quarters Combat). If more double dipping scenarios are found and are easily exploited, then Victimise may need a nerf in the future.

  • Poison Imbuement : With buffs to both Bane and Tracker glyphs as well as Close Quarters Combat mentioned above, Poison Imbuement no longer needs a buff.

  • Precision : With Close Quarters Combat and Victimise being competitive options now, nerfing Precision doesn’t sit right and will become far too niche, so the proposed nerf has been withdrawn.

Skills

  • Primary Forceful Arrow : Make all enemies hit after the initial pierce vulnerable as well.

Every 3rd cast of Forceful Arrow makes the first enemy hit vulnerable, but this currently doesn’t carry through to enemies hit thereafter.

  • Invigorating Strike : Merge the current Enhanced Invigorating Strike benefits into Invigorating Strike’s baseline skill.

  • Enhanced Invigorating Strike : Change to “When you hit a Healthy enemy or hit any enemy 3 times with Invigorating Strike, your next evade will give you 20% energy regeneration and movement speed for 4 seconds“

Currently “Enhanced Invigorating Strike” grants “Damaging a Crowd Controlled or Injured enemy with Invigorating Strike increases its Energy Regeneration bonus to 30%” and should be merged into the baseline skill. Adding a movement speed bonus to Invigorating Strike will add some extra mobility that will be especially useful for levelling builds.

  • Barrage : Spread Barrage arrows more evenly to not shoot as many arrows off to the sides as the number of arrows grows.

Currently Barrage with Cunning Stratagem shoots the last 4 arrows off to the sides which have a low chance of hitting anything. This change should make the probability of hitting stuff with the extra arrows higher.

  • Flurry : Increase the combo point damage scaling from 1.75 to 1.85 at 3 combo points.
  • Flurry : Increase the lucky hit chance from 10% to 13%.
  • Advanced Flurry : Increase the damage bonus from 30% to 35%.

These will increase the damage of Flurry to make it feel a little less terrible against bosses. Advanced Flurry utilisation may be affected by Jugganaught’s aspect which increases evade’s cooldown, hence the further increase in damage for this node.

  • Reactive Defense : Change to “Gain 3% Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies, or instead gain 6% Damage Reduction while inflicted with Control Impairing Effects”

This change will add some modest damage reduction benefit versus distant enemies when the Rogue is not crowd controlled.

  • Enhanced Smoke Grenade : Reduce the damage bonus to 10% but make it work on bosses and unstoppable enemies for a flat 2 second duration.

This will shift some of the utility of smoke grenades towards bosses to make Smoke Grenade more usable in more scenarios.

  • Dark Shroud : Reduce the cooldown duration from 20 to 16 seconds and add cooldown reduction for additional ranks to Dark Shroud.

Dark Shroud is very useful for damage mitigation but is far from ideal to put into the skill bar due to its long cooldown duration. This change should be a big help for melee based builds that don’t or can’t use Umbrous Aspect that want to explore additional damage mitigation options.

  • Poison Trap : Increase the damage from 396% to 450%.

This change will make pure trap based builds more viable.

  • Poison Imbuement : Increase the damage from 100% to 120%.
  • Blended Poison Imbuement : Reduce the increased poisoning damage from 75% to 60%.

Poison Imbuement to be tuned a bit stronger overall, and more so independently of learning the Blended Poison Imbuement node. Great for melee builds that can’t take advantage of Precision in particular.

  • Blended Cold Imbuement : In addition to the instant freeze, when one or more enemies are frozen by Cold Imbuement, gain 20% damage to those enemies for 6 seconds and reduce the cooldown of Cold Imbuement by 3 seconds.

Blended Cold Imbuement has never been a popular choice throughout Diablo 4. With freeze on lucky hit tempering affixes being introduced in Season 4, Blended Cold Imbuement in its current state will be totally redundant and needs some extra utility to have some relevance.

  • Shadow Clone : Apply legendary aspects, paragon nodes, glyphs and other modifiers on the Rogue onto the Shadow Clone. In exchange, reduce the Shadow Clone’s damage from 60% to 45%.
  • Supreme Shadow Clone : As per above, reduce the additional Shadow Clone damage bonus from 20% to 15%.

Currently the Shadow Clone takes on 100% of the Rogue player’s stats. However the vast majority of the Rogue’s damage comes from its other modifiers, making the Shadow Clone only do small fractions of the Rogue’s damage. Shadow Clone should also benefit from enhancers such as Trickshot or Repeating aspects but not trigger any lucky hit effects. Shadow Clone should not use imbued attacks unless the Rogue is also using Aspect of Imitated Imbuement.

  • Momentum : Increase movement speed from 15% to 20% and add 10% dodge chance.

The reward for momentum has been overlooked as damage output has been favoured when survivability has not been a major issue until now. This change along with the removal of damage reduction from gear will make this passive more attractive for melee builds.

  • Precision : Reduce the additional Critical Strike Damage bonus from 15% to 13%.

Precision synergises with combo point attack rotations very well and is one of the reasons why ranged combo point builds have been dominant in Season 3. To put this into perspective, an Inner Sight based build takes more than twice as long as Combo Point based Precision builds to take down high end bosses. With the reworked itemisation in Season 4, Precision will still see a net buff, so this change will just lighten that buff a bit.

  • Precision : Remove the small Precision stack delay so that stacks gained are gained immediately.

This is a quality-of-life change to make Precision more intuitive to play by making Precision stacks immediately rewarded to the Rogue ready for that large follow up attack.

  • Exposure : Increase the damage and size of all traps by 10% and increase stun grenade damage from 40% to 50%.

In addition to Exposure’s current benefits, increasing the size of all traps (including Death Trap) will allow pure trap builds to deliver damage to more enemies at the same time. Death Trap will be able to pull in more enemies this way for greater utility.

Specialisations

  • Inner Sight : Marked enemies increase your critical strike chance against them by 10%, while in Inner Sight do 10% more damage.

Despite the recent buffs to Inner Sight, a build using it still has markedly lower damage output compared to combo points. Making marked enemies receive more damage will also provide a small additional benefit for attacking marked enemies and improve Inner Sight’s performance in boss fights.

  • Inner Sight : Rework the mechanic to refund 100% of the energy spent instead of reducing the energy costs of core skills to 0.

This small quality-of-life change to Inner Sight will allow energy consumption based mechanics like the Second Wind passive to work while in Inner Sight. Note that Channelling Shrines run into this same issue and a change should be applied to the shrine effect as well as long as it doesn’t break any other class mechanics.

  • Inner Sight : Gauge should fill up from damage over time effects and damaging enemies with barriers.

Inner Sight has cases where the gauge does not fill up. Filling the gauge in these cases should make Inner Sight gameplay more consistent.

  • Inner Sight : Rework the gauge fill up mechanic to be less weighted on fractions of life removed from enemies.

Currently it requires roughly 1/6th of Nightmare Dungeon 100 boss and 1/12th of a Pit 200 boss’ life to completely fill the Inner Sight gauge, even though Pit 200 bosses have many times more life than Nightmare Dungeon 100 bosses. This results in exponentially higher Inner Sight downtimes for the more difficult bosses and for attack rotations much more likely to fall off because of running out of energy. Smoothing out this curve to make Inner Sight behave more consistently across different levels of content will make Inner Sight builds less frustrating to use.

See 2 timestamped videos below for comparison purposes:

Video Boss Fill up time
https://youtu.be/kVsrea_7ilo?si=S0BQLpW44ZD7J_jU&t=4 NMD100 2 seconds
https://youtu.be/Dk9lHskrjEA?si=4ol11OoSSUHkNXLR&t=356 Pit200 13 seconds
  • Preparation : Increase the cooldown reduction on ultimate skills from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.

Increase the potency of Preparation in light of gear in Season 4 having high amounts of cooldown reduction.

Paragon

  • Diminish : change the damage reduction bonus to apply for all types of damage received from Vulnerable enemies.

Diminish’s damage reduction bonus is too conditional, and with the scarcity of damage reduction options this change will make this Glyph more attractive to use.

  • Fluidity : Increase the energy regeneration bonus from 9% to 13% and also gain 10% Mobility Skill cooldown reduction for 6 seconds.

With energy sustain options increasing in Season 4, the current bonus is boosted to help match the options that will be available. Some extra utility should be added to this glyph to make it a more all round attractive option to use.

  • Tricks of the Trade : Increase the damage bonus from 25% to 30%.

This damage bonus will improve cutthroat based core skills and make cutthroat based basic skills more enticing options to use. This will also help alternating cutthroat and marksman dual core skill based builds like Flurry with Rapid Fire.

  • No Witnesses : Keep the same benefits, but also increase the total damage bonus by 20% when your ultimate skill is cast with Preparation.

This will make ultimate skills and other accompanying skills more punchy overall while making it impactful with minimal investment into Ultimate Skill Damage bonuses. For example if you have 0% Ultimate Skill Damage, your total bonus will be 20%.

  • Leyrana’s Instinct : Increase the Core Skill Damage bonus from 25% to 35%.

The removal of Core Skill Damage from item affixes has indirectly nerfed this node. This change is designed to help offset the effect of this nerf.

Aspects

  • Pestilent Points : Make this aspect work for all Rogue basic skills.

Why Blizzard made this aspect only work with Puncture is honestly beyond me.

  • Arrow Storms : Increase the base damage of Arrow Storms by 50% and increase the damage bonus from 35% to 48%.
  • Vengeful : Increase the base damage of Arrow Storms by 30% and increase the damage bonus from 40% to 48%.

Arrow Storms currently do not deal enough damage to be worth using long term.

  • Enshrouding : Change to “Gain a free Dark Shroud shadow every 3 seconds when standing still, or when you Dodge an attack at a 22% chance. Each Dark Shroud shadow grants 2.5-4% increased Damage Reduction.”

Enshrouding aspect is under-used and lots of combat requires moving away from incoming attacks in order to avoid death or crowd control. With dodging attacks now adding a chance to gain a dark shroud shadow, Rogues and melee rogues in particular won’t be penalised as much for standing still.

  • Cruel Sustenance : Increase the amount of life gained per enemy damaged from Victimise.
  • Stolen Vigor : Increase the amount of life gained per second per Momentum Stack.

With the removal of damage reduction and survivability in Season 4 being weighted towards maximum life, the effectiveness of Cruel Sustenance and Stolen Vigor has been indirectly nerfed. An increase to the healing amount is needed to compensate for this indirect nerf.

  • Explosive Verve : Change to “Your Grenade Skills count as Trap Skills. Whenever you arm a Trap or drop Grenades, you gain [10-25]%[+] increased Movement Speed for 3 seconds. Grenade Skills that hit enemies activate Trap Mastery.”

Mixing Explosive Verve and Trap Mastery allow greater uptime on Trap Mastery during combat and new ways of activating Trap Mastery before engaging in close combat. Note that the Trap Mastery effect will only work if you have 1 or more ranks in Trap Mastery.

Uniques

  • Windforce : Change ranks to Concussive to Marksman Skills. Remove the lucky hit chance requirement on the aspect.
  • Eaglehorn : Change Physical Damage to Dexterity. Make the aspect every 3rd cast instead of every 4th cast and double this damage bonus versus bosses.

Changes to both bows above should help them be more competitive inline with Skyhunter. Windforce being the general all rounded option, and Eaglehorn carved around penshot and Victimise.

  • Condemnation : Change the damage bonus from 20-40% to 25-40%.

This change should make finding a not-so-terrible Condemnation easier.

  • Eyes in the Dark : Keep the damage bonus, but make Death Trap re-arm itself at a random nearby location when it kills an enemy or hits a boss.

There is no real use case for Eyes in the Dark right now. Either you hit a boss, kill an enemy, or missed completely and have to kite an enemy into the Death Trap. Having Death Trap re-arm at a random location after it kills an enemy or hits a boss has a chance of getting more free kills or free damage while fitting with the theme of “Eyes in the Dark”.

  • Cowl of the Nameless : Change the lucky hit chance bonus to also work versus bosses and players.

The lucky hit chance affix spawning on helm slots in Season 4 will overshadow Cowl’s 25% lucky hit chance vs crowd controlled enemies. Making the lucky hit chance bonus apply to bosses and players opens up the uses of this unique in other scenarios.

  • Grasp of Shadow : Change to “Damaging an enemy with a Marksman or Cutthroat skill has up to a 20% chance to summon a Shadow Clone that mimics your attacks for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds.”

Grasp of Shadow in its current form often summons the clone too late and/or misses. Having the clone active for a short period of time mimicking your other attacks would however be more useful.

  • Beastfall Boots : Reduce the damage per energy bonus from 0.5-1.5% to 0.5-1% and cap the total damage bonus to 110%.

Beastfall Boots have been used in “one-shot” builds to cheese all boss content. This change will remove the one shot potential without destroying the theme or purpose of the boots. With the extra ultimate cooldown reduction and maximum resource bonus potential available in Season 4, the damage bonus can be triggered more often and triggered more often with sufficient energy to get the maximum effect in normal gameplay. If possible, cap the resources spent in line with the damage bonus cap.

  • Scoundrel’s Leathers : Rework to spawn traps under enemies on hit rather than at the mouse cursor’s location and fix the spawn rate of traps to match the tooltip’s description.

Currently Scoundrel’s Leathers do not spawn traps often enough (see Scoundrel's Leathers unique not spawning traps as often as it should) and have a weird mechanic where they spawn near the mouse cursor position (see one of Wudi’s latest videos).

  • Word of Hakan : Rain of Arrows casts with Word of Hakan to apply the Prime Rain of Arrow’s imbuement potency bonus.
  • Scoundrel’s Kiss : Rework to lob arrows in a small cluster-like formation instead of a straight line.

This turns Rapid Fire with Scoundrel’s Kiss into a skill shot that can be done at range instead of arrows spreading over a long line that derps its single target damage potential. Enemies caught in the middle of the cluster will then take the most damage while enemies clipped will only get explosions from 1 or 2 exploding arrows.

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Great writeup.

Can you elaborate on what is making Victimize Viable?

The Blended Cold Imbuement changes seems too powerful and overshadows Mixed Cold Imbuement. I would either have it just gain 10% more damage for enemies frozen by Blended Cold Imbuement. or make it where the player has a 15% increased Lucky Hit chance for enemies frozen by Blended Cold Imbuement to make it more different from Mixed Cold Imbuement.

Diminish Glyph, I kind of disagree with, I think most of the damage reducing nodes should be conditional and Vulnerable is easy to get on most enemies. Damage reduction at least on Paragon board is in a solid spot imo. I’d rather Diminish stay the same or work only as a Glyph that reduces Damage Over Time taken.

Fluidity, no one uses Fluidity. If they intend for Arrow Storm to be something a player strives for, I would just change it to something similar to the Explosive Glyph, or make it where after casting an Agility skill, the damage to Arrow Storm is increased. Certain Aspects, like Mangler is also less desirable due to changes like the addition of the Concussive Aspect. Mangler could also be changed into a Arrow Storm aspect.

No Witnesses, I think that change can be potentially challenging to balance around given equips like Flickerstep and Hakan can have masterworked Ultimate Skill Damage. I think the bonus should be changed from 10% to 15%. With just Diamond Gems in your weapon, that’s a 21% multiplier for just slotting gems.

Again lots of good stuff.

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Cheers👍

Blizzard have largely fixed up the scenarios that weren’t increasing victimise damage (crits, etc). In some cases now, it double dips on certain damage sources such as Chip, Exploit Weakness and Caltrops. They’ve also increased the proc rate from 45% to 50% as well.

I definitely wouldn’t have suggested this with the current itemisation system, but with the removal of DR from affixes now the options feel much scarce than before. Diminish competes with glyphs like Efficacy (for imbued builds) and Pride (for non-inbued builds) and the DR is still conditional so I don’t think this would be a bad buff. Side note to this as well is I’m not sure if DR vs vulnerable reduces the damage from the shadow bosses in the pit.

That wouldn’t fit the theme of “Fluidity” unless you’re talking about a new glyph altogether. I’d be curious to see if any builds would use Fluidity after the buffs to Inner Sight since the other magic node boosting glyphs are also not commonly used but have their use cases: Versatility for ultimate and poison imbuement, and Devious apparently doesn’t work on bosses at all, staggered or not, which I get but is also disappointing. Another suggestion is for Fluidity to grant some temporary CDR for 5 seconds.

Agreed. I mention this in my general PTR feedback here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sFk4x37VSbIIz8-YokutfPCzF9thlPuGV4lI4bDp2yY/edit?usp=sharing.

That’s why I went with a flat percentage increase instead of it scaling with Ultimate Skill Damage bonus. At 100% Ultimate Skill Damage, this would make it 30% (100% * 0.1 + 20%).

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Victimize; I see, thats good to hear then.

Diminish, eh, maybe I am overestimating the Glyphs and node options on the paragon board in Season 4 but I just don’t see a additional blanket damage reduction as necessary via the board. I think DR issues especially outside of Dark Shroud, should be solve elsewhere. Now, if the glyph did reduced damage for just Elites/Bosses, then I would get behind that.

Fluidity; Yes, I am saying completely rework it. I don’t think the glyph will ever be used in a Season 4 and beyond environment unless the Energy Regeneration is absurd. Energy Regeneration as a stat will become easy to get without having to resort to using a Glyph. Its just not a strong effect when there is too many competitive Glyphs. CDR could be interesting, a really good effect but the player still has to give up another solid glyph more likely; that could work too.

No Witnesses; Ah, I understand the calculation you are doing now. I think that is actually good, especially for Word of Hakan builds.

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What else is there? :stuck_out_tongue: I suppose there’s corpse bows and the like, but those enemies are most likely not vulnerable anyway when they snipe you.

You’re not wrong, at least in the current meta. Resourcing hasn’t been an issue in part because most Rogues used combo points. The change to Fluidity is given that Inner Sight opens up, it’s more a “let’s tune it up and see if anyone uses it” kind of approach. Otherwise I wouldn’t be against seeing a “grants 10% mobility skills cooldown reduction for 5 seconds” mod on there.

A new glyph for Arrow Storms (and maybe Rain of Arrow tucked in there) wouldn’t be bad either.

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Enshrouding is bad design, ranged gameplay already has a superior form of getting more shadows. They should rework this one to benefit melee too, maybe get a shadow every time you dodge? With the doge reworks and stealth 100% dodge, kind of think this could be good to refill up shadows.

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I disagree with this, but I think you’re focusing on balancing the class around itself and not taking other classes into consideration. In that context is makes sense why you’d leave this alone and suggested nerfing Precision slightly.

However considering how other classes are performing Rogues are clearly bottom of the barrel, I’d rather they leave Precision and buff CQC and the rest up so Rogues can actually compete. It sounds nice to say “oh, who cares how other classes are doing, just focus on you king/queen!” but the reality is if Rogues are doing 100k damage/sec in a small AOE while Barbs are doing 10 milion/sec while deleting screens no one is going to play Rogue.

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Ignoring Precision, CQC is clearly still better than all the other passives…let’s buff base Rogue skills first and/or the other passives before the one giving a 100% multiplier.

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That’s honestly not a bad idea. Melee builds would certainly take more advantage of that than ranged builds. The gaining extra shadow should be a % chance. Imagine having Leyrana’s or Uncanny Treachery active and instantly getting 5 shadows. I would say a 25% chance of getting a shadow after you dodge is reasonable on top of the standing still and the extra DR.

I agree that saying “who cares about other classes” should not be taken literally, it’s more the opposite point that we shouldn’t be buffing Rogues because and only because other classes are stronger. There needs to be a common benchmark that the game be balanced around which is what I was alluding to at the start of my feedback where I said that Tormented bosses and Pit 200 content should be the stretch goals for players during a 3 month season.

There will be some players that can still get there very quickly (having a good understanding of the game and blasting for 10 hours a day) and super casuals that don’t understand the game at all (will take lucky execute mods on weapons, don’t get any DR on gear, have unoptimised aspects and paragon, etc) and won’t be able to achieve this goal in a 3 month season, and probably don’t intend to.

Without that perspective, we only judge balance from a relative point of view between the classes and neglect how that balancing would then affect the vast majority of most player’s experiences around the difficulty of the game content.

As for the 10 million tick damage for barbs, that will certainly get nerfed in time for the live season.

You haven’t tried victimise in the PTR then I take it :slight_smile:

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Visually the rogue is very poor. Barrage, Rapid Fire and Penetrating Shot are visually identical. The skills need to be unique. Many aspects only release grenades when I use some skills. While mages release several frozen orbs and invoke other spells.

*We need a rework on the basic skills, punching seems much better than the others. The alchemist aspects are all based on luck. In the first season there was a heart that applied all the imbues, where is this power as unique or as an aspect?

-Pestilence just being punched doesn’t make any sense.
-% Lucky strike when hitting vulnerable enemies to summon shadow clone seems very conditional.

  • Ice burn must be snorted
    -The harkam amulet should be a glove or helmet… losing an aspect at 50% is not viable.
    -Rain of arrows needs to be faster in your frame.
    -The Clone doesn’t attack very often.
    -The rapid fire ring must be conditional on the character’s distance, get the maximum bonus if you are as far away from the target as possible (This would avoid getting stuck in the bosses). The same with salvo.
    -Ice Imbuing has become null now. I would like some aspects to improve damage in rapid fire area and I would like barrage and penetrating shot to be better against single targets. Homing missiles, lightning chains, frost nova, burning enemies… are some ideas that I miss.
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I’ll be honest I only meddled with it a bit, but was mostly doing grenade builds in the PTR. I did want to try an inner sight TB using victimize. Would love a reworked Windforce to use with pen shot victimize too.

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I have never played Diablo 2 or Diablo 2 Ressurected or made a single post about that game until now. I also dont know you. So have a nice day, thank you.

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I actually kinda agree with this. Where the state of the game is right now I probaly wouldnt nerf anything on Rogue that isnt a stupid broken build. If something is overpwrforming and Rogue is in a solid state, then that can be changed midseason or the next.

I do think the OP’s methodology as a whole is the smart way to go though when we dont know what buffs and nerfs to expect.

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Really hope Blizzard reads this and takes notes. Great write-up and good suggestions.

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If you are playing a non-combo point build, there are essentially no class specific aspects that increase xx% damage. (Exception being Stun Grenades, they need to consolidate some of those aspects).

I spent majority of the PTR trying out Flurry builds and let me tell you, Pit bosses felt ABSOLUTELY AWFUL with Flurry. Pushing 70+ the clear up to the boss was fine, but all the over lapping one shots and low uptime on hit the boss felt extremely bad. Playing a melee that was more midrange like a Boulder Druid or Ball Lightning Sorc was a night a day difference. The Pit bosses spam their abilities so often that most of the bosses you are unable to kite out of the center away from all the effects.

Dodge really needs to be looked into more. It’s still pretty limited on gear and usually there are uniques that tie up that spot.
There should also be a cap on dodge, 100% should not be achievable, something more in the lines how resist and armor have caps.
A passive that adds dodge % and coverts half of your dodge into a partial hit would be huge. With the lack of Barrier and Fortify, Rogues really need another layer of protection (Dark Shroud is nice but not very reliable for melee and also takes up skill slot)

I agree with this but at the same time doing this would kind of just turn it into Rapid Fire.

Flurry shouldn’t need a target to cast. Should behave as if you were holding down the force attack. With the increase Flurry size temper, your character runs right up to the target’s face to cast. Even though it can hit it from a further distance.

In S3 the attack speed from Combo and gear. You attack so fast with Blade Shift/Puncture that the visual effect from the Combo Point UI are useless.

In general I think they need to reconsider the Combo Point and Tempering effects for Twisting Blades/Flurry. The Marksmen skills give more hits and extra chance to double cast with Tempers. Where as the Cutthroat skills give some minor utility in both Combo Points and Tempers. Flurry hits 4 times adding extra hits or have blades continue to spin around after casting could make it feel so much better while adding much needed damage.

Also just make Grenades count as traps by default, ditch the need for Verve aspect. Would be a nice QOL.

Imbuements:
The extra imbue chargers are nice. However they take up the resource slot so if again you are playing a Non combo point build, that resource cost is important to have there to spam your core skill. All imbuement tempers could be moved to its own Temper category and be an Offensive slot.

With the new item rework movement speed and energy regen is very easy to get. This passive just becomes a take less damage passive. Which is fine but in comparison the Sorc has Vyr’s Magic which gives 20% increased damage and 25% reduced damage from enemies that you’ve critically hit.

With the ease of resource generation in the item rework Inner Sight is just a small uptime buff to Critical Strike.

Instead of being based on a flat number a percentage would make more sense. Exposure resets Death Trap instantly in large packs, don’t see why the Specialization can’t do more for Shadowclone and Rain of Arrows. Also the 100 energy should take reduced resource cost into the equation.

From a Stun Grenade standpoint, this one and the Flurry ring flat out need a buff in damage. The Stealth Aspect Grenade hit’s so much harder than both these combined.

It would be nice if these just worked better. They don’t seem to move and for melee they just attack nothing so often. Just spawn these things beside the player and mirror their attacks/movements.
Or even better change it to a charge system so you can drop multiple shadows and have it mimic your next core skill. Surrounding an enemy with 3 Shadow Clones and hitting it with a Core skill could be very pleasing. It could even be used to generator Combo Points as well for a fun combo point build.

Stealth:
Concealment is the only reliable way to enter stealth. The evading through a Shadow Imbued enemy and casting an Agility skill on a dazed target are too situational and clunky to use.

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It can… unless console is different

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Yes its different with Mouse and Keyboard vs controller. Controller you just need to press the button and it cast where you are at. Keyboard it will move you right up to the target than cast.

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Hold shift and you can cast it on keyboard without moving.

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Should also note that with all of the attack speed that will be available on gear come the new patch the combo point buff from Flurry won’t be nearly as desirable, if at all. Perhaps instead it should buff damage or lucky hit by 5% per combo point.

For a class where mobility is part of its identity this aspect never sat right with me. Also, while I love the concept of dodging it seems to me that when you’re not able to dodge is when you would need the mitigation most. I feel that movement should be the mechanic. Looking at the Impetus passive you get the buff after moving a certain distance but I would also include evading and movement skills. This way when you most need the mitigation you can take action to make it happen.

With how well Elemental Surge was performing the fact that CQC being the only key passive that buffs its damage is going to make builds that incorporate it perform better than any other key passive. With tempering being a core part of the game going forward the rest will need to buffed.

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With the new ways to get full dodge, you would have full shadows on the times you don’t have dodge up and that’s when you need the DR. Unless they nerf that, this would be way better than movement considering melee won’t be moving as much as range, but maybe the secondary effect should be that. Instead of standing still every X distance gives a shadow.