U78 Lamannia Arcane Trickster Preview

[l_remmie]

You only get 1 chance to make one of the most beloved things in all of d&d a reality in the game. Make the best of it.
The mage hand needs to do at least a bunch of the basic hand movements.

Poke
Slap ( palm slap)
Grab ( gripping hand)
Swipe ( backhand swipe away breakable boxes)
Crush (Fist slams down)
Punch (fist goes forward)
Stop
Middle finger
Peace sign
Wave
Swat (open hand down)

Some attacks, some cc and some protective abilities. AT should have all, other casters maybe can have a few.

If you get this right people will play AT even of it absolutely sucks.

 

[justin credible]

You only get 1 chance to make one of the most beloved things in all of d&d a reality in the game. Make the best of it.
The mage hand needs to do at least a bunch of the basic hand movements.

Poke
Slap ( palm slap)
Grab ( gripping hand)
Swipe ( backhand swipe away breakable boxes)
Crush (Fist slams down)
Punch (fist goes forward)
Stop
Middle finger
Peace sign
Wave
Swat (open hand down)

Some attacks, some cc and some protective abilities. AT should have all, other casters maybe can have a few.

If you get this right people will play AT even of it absolutely sucks.

 

[Matuse]

Not sure if it got mentioned anywhere else, but the Trickster cannot take Improved Mental Toughness. Regular mental toughness is on the Trickster bonus feat list, but I have a feeling I could only take it because I'd splashed a level of wizard. The other Mental Toughnii should be on the bonus list as well.

 

[waxinglyrical]

Shadowdancer!

 

[droid327]

The extra long cooldown on these compared to the normal spells (Sounds burst 20s vs 3s and Flash Freeze 30s vs 6s) is going to make these abilities pretty meh for anyone that runs higher skull content. The 3s/6s normal durations work well with the reductions to durations that CC get; down to 6s in r10. Without shorter durations, they'll be mostly just there for leveling/easy difficulties. It'd be nice if the durations were brought down.

Sound burst only lists 8 sec in the tool tip in game, though I didn't actually test it

FF is 6 sec per clvl, so upwards of 2 mins with no fail DC. Even in R10 that's going to still be 13 secs of aoe helpless. If you can survive being in melee range to deliver it.

 

[rabidfox]

Sound burst only lists 8 sec in the tool tip in game, though I didn't actually test it

FF is 6 sec per clvl, so upwards of 2 mins with no fail DC. Even in R10 that's going to still be a very long CC. If you can survive being in melee range to deliver it.

CC gets reduced in reaper. R10 is 8% duration. So FF would be 12ish seconds. Soundburst would be down to 6 seconds.

 

[Frisson]

Third, how do I get in Lamania?

Here you go: https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/how-to-access-lamannia.39/

 

[Smokewolf]

8. Replace the thief-acrobat tree with swashbuckler. Way cooler and far more thematic.

True!

!!! This !!!

 

[droid327]

CC gets reduced in reaper. R10 is 8% duration. So FF would be 12ish seconds. Soundburst would be down to 6 seconds.

40% helpless uptime for a splash investment is pretty long

 

[Smokewolf]

The extra long cooldown on these compared to the normal spells (Sounds burst 20s vs 3s and Flash Freeze 30s vs 6s) is going to make these abilities pretty meh for anyone that runs higher skull content. The 3s/6s normal cooldowns work well with the reductions to durations that CC get; down to 6s in r10. Without shorter cooldowns , they'll be mostly just there for leveling/easy difficulties. It'd be nice if the cooldowns were brought down.

Its not just meh... its avoid at all costs.

 

[AlmostDecent]

Sonic Blast was not working. It worked fine against enemies, but trying to break crates or the like and it refused to fire off.

 

[pirotessa]

As many have already said, swashbuckler may be a good option to replace acrobat. Also giving options of touch ranged spells with sneak dice addition, it's much more thematically appropriate. This changes will giving him a SWF plus touch spell style with sneak dice, a niche not occupied by any class.
Maybe adding imbue dice AND sneak dice to touch ranged spells. On the other "hand", the hand could cast touch range spells in a ranged range to support crossbow user. This could be a interesting way to use wepons and spells togather.

Swashbuckler also gives int to damage so they could then add the int to hit Spell instead of damage...also a good chance to give swashbuckler tree a trance and update a lot of the weak bonuses and effects in it since probably 99% of people dont go above tier 3 in swashbuckler ever.

 

[Terranigma]

CC gets reduced in reaper. R10 is 8% duration. So FF would be 12ish seconds. Soundburst would be down to 6 seconds.

Flash Freeze has no Caster Level cap. On a capped character on Lamannia I was getting a duration of 2:42 at Caster Level 27 (which would be ~21 seconds on Reaper 10). I don't know if Reaper durations round down or up, but between that and Soundburst, along with the rather high Difficulty Checks folks can get via Disable Device's skill being used, that sounds like a theoretical lockdown of a cluster of foes with good timing, providing the foe is both stun and freeze vulnerable. The 30 second cooldown is probably fine to prevent Arcane Trickster's Flash Freeze from being overly spammed.

 

[rabidfox]

On Lamannia outside of Reaper I was getting a duration of 2:42 (which would be ~21 seconds on Reaper 10)

2:42 = 162s. 162 * .08 = 12.96. That's 13s, not 21s.

 

[Terranigma]

Yeah, I flubbed the math. You are right.

 

[pirotessa]

As stated earlier, from test playing the hand spells are waaaaaaay to slow. This game keeps moving to fast paced where these are practically unusable as implemented. Maybe on the way running to a mob, maybe? But for actual combat you lose too many actions for the benefit. Better off using falconry to blind/assassinate.

 

[ThreeBanks]

I haven't been on Lamannia, but I think Mage hand should be able to open chests and pull levers which from the description doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[Underflow]

I haven't been on Lamannia, but I think Mage hand should be able to open chests and pull levers which from the description doesn't appear to be the case.

I think they're scared of letting ATs activate things from far away, because it'd break a ton of quests, and fixing those bugs would take literal weeks.

Same thing with opening chests, there's too many maps where opening a chest triggers some kind of vent (immediately von5 comes to mind).

Right now, the absolute worst thing you can do with ranged disable is roll a 1 rank of disable device dumped int AT, then wait for your 'real' rogue to run up to disarm, then kill them with a blown box the moment their search animation finishes, but before they are actionable again.

 

[pirotessa]

This Enhancement should be replaced with anything else as this class will not be pulling aggro ever -

• I prefer subtly: you generate 10%/20%/30% less hate

 

[Pretty Good Old One]

After playing with the Trickster, I like a lot of how it plays. The interactions with Magical Ambush are satisfying, especially when you build up the sneak attack dice.

The stolen spells are great too, but it left me wanting more. I know it would be a lot of work, but expanding the choice at each core to 2 spells per caster type would add a lot. You would still only get one spell, but having one damage choice and one utility choice per caster type would allow a lot more configurable. More crowd control with the disable device DC, more defense, more multi- hit spells.

The mage hand is great! It also leaves me wanting more. If nothing else, I would love to see a confusion effect. Simple animation of hand tapping on the shoulder from behind and then 10-20 seconds of confusion with a disable device save.

Other option that might be a little over the top, at some point let the mage hand help with two handed wielding. Especially with the two other trees being primarily quarter staff and great cross bow - have the hand eventually allow equipping an orb or buckler with a two handed weapon. There are a lot of sneak attack dice in Mechanic that would be even more effective with the extra equipment slot.

Another fun use of the hand could be buff / debuff swapping. Allow the hand to randomly exchange a debuff on you for a buff on an enemy target - maybe upgradable up to 3 debuffs for 3 buffs. When the target dies, the stolen buffs go away.

Also, love the idea others have had for swapping Acrobatic for Swashbuckler.