So in the latest Rogue refresh from the other day I was reading the tooltip for the Bloodletter ability and I was thinking that this could be a little bit ambiguous to it's meaning.
Here is how it reads:
Bloodletter:
Lacerate the target, dealing 120% Weapon damage and Inflicting Bleeding, dealing 50% of damage dealt as Physical damage every 3 sec for 15 sec. Bloodletter cannot Critically Hit.
As Minus was explaining the ability and I was watching the little animations in the video, my brain did some flip flopping on what exactly the numbers were implying here, as I could see 3 different ways to interpret this.
1.) This attack does 120% weapon damage total. The initial hit will do 60% weapon damage (50% of 120%) and then the remaining 60% (50% of 120%) weapon damage is split evenly into 5 ticks of 12% weapon damage over 15 seconds.
2.) This attack does 180% weapon damage total. The initial hit will do 120% weapon damage and then an extra 60% (50% of 120%) weapon damage split evenly into 5 ticks of 12% (60% / 5) weapon damage over 15 seconds.
3.) This attack does 420% weapon damage total. The initial hit will do 120% weapon damage and then an extra 60% (50% of 120%) weapon damage 5 times over 15 seconds.
Now I will concede that the 3rd interpretation is the most likely and I'm guessing this is what they meant. But the wording of the tooltip was just ambiguous enough that the other 2 are plausible and therefore it makes it confusing.
This is made even more confusing as later in the video Minus says "the other two abilities the Rogue receives at level 8 in backstab and waylay may end up being the favorites of Rogues as they offer two ways to deal massive damage."
Both of these abilities: Backstab and Waylay do 300% weapon damage. According to Minus this is when Rogues start to do massive damage, but if Bloodletter has been doing 420% total weapon damage from level 1... it makes me wonder again about interpretation 1 or 2. Especially since at level 8 the Rogue is perhaps still doing a bit of solo'ing which means Backstab and Waylay aren't even useable as hey require you to be behind your target; not happening much in a non-group situation other than for opening hits from stealth.
Although when grouping... Backstab and Waylay are on 10s cooldown where Bloodletter is on 30s cooldown. Backstab and Waylay are also using Readiness while Bloodletter uses Opportunity. Backstab and Waylay also can Crit, while Bloodletter cannot. So it's likely that Backstab and Waylay will overall be doing more damage over time than Bloodletter, even if it's doing 420%, simply because Rogues can use them more often. So I'm still inclined to use the 3rd interpretation.
I just would hope that VR could do a little better in making the Tooltips a little more clear in how they word things.
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Now let's move on to another ability tooltip issue that I'd like a little more clarity on:
Is Shadow Walk Stealth?
Nowhere in it's Tooltip does it have the word 'Stealth'. It's description may Imply that this is Stealth, but it does not clearly use this word.
Why does this even matter?
The Trap abilities state that they 'Requires Stealth'. We may guess that this means Shadow Walk, but it doesn't say 'Requires Shadow Walk'.
Now why does that matter? Shouldn't I just assume that when they say 'Requires Stealth' they mean 'Shadow Walk'?
Well the Tooltip for for 'Sinister Strikes' specifically says '...unless the technique is used while Shadow Walk is active'. This does not say 'unless used while in Stealth'. Why does this Tooltip specify 'Shadow Walk' while the other abilities use the word 'Stealth'; when the Tooltip for 'Shadow Walk' never uses the word 'Stealth'.
So it comes back to the initial question... Is Shadow Walk 'Stealth' and thus fulfils the requirements for those abilities that 'Requires Stealth'? If yes, shouldn't the Tooltip for Shadow Walk not be clear and actually say 'This is Stealth for abilities that require Stealth' in some way.
This of course leads into another question. Is Shadow Walk useable while in Combat? The tooltip just says this is a Toggle and does not say in any way if you can use it while actively in combat.
In past gameplay footage we saw that Rogues had an ability called Flash Bomb which auto activates Shadow Walk and removes the Rogue from Combat (the tooltip said: "Ends combat"). This always just seemed like a Feign Death for Rogues (and obviously could be used for this), but in fact seemed to be the way Rogues will be able to activate 'Stealth' while in combat.
It should be noted though that Flash Bomb may be used differently now, even though we did not learn about it directly in this Refresh. We did though get a hint in the tooltip for 'Smoke Trick' which stated: "If used while target is stunned by Flash Bomb, target will lose all threat against the caster." This tells us that Flash Bomb is no longer a 'Feign Death' type ability and is instead a Stun of some sort. If you 'Flash Bomb' and then 'Smoke Trick' the Rogue can clear himself out of Combat from that 1 enemy (like Feign Death), but may not be able to save himself from multiple targets this way.
We can still guess that 'Flash Bomb' might still auto-activate 'Shadow Walk' though.
So why is the Tooltip for Shadow Walk not clear if it is limited by In-Combat status?
Why does this matter?
Well if Shadow Walk is a 'Stealth' and thus fulfils the requirement for abilities that 'Require Stealth', if it can be Toggled on with no cooldown while in Combat... would this not just mean that it's simply an extra button you need to press before immediately pressing the button for the Ability that 'Requires Stealth'.
Why make a point of Requiring Stealth if you can just pop a button and you are instantly Stealth at any time with no cooldown. It just makes those Trap Abilities a 2 button press instead of a 1 button press.
Since this would just be silly... we probably can assume that Shadow Walk is NOT usable while in combat, and yet nowhere does it say this in the Tooltip.
I was watching in Zaide's gameplay video (source) that he was not able to Shadow Walk while he was actively fighting with a target, but seemed able to activate Shadow Walk between targets on a multi-target pull, even if those targets were all Agro and all seemingly in combat with the group. While he was actively attacking the first enemy his 'Shadow Walk' ability would be greyed out meaning not usable, but once that enemy was dead 'Shadow Walk' would light up again and be useable even though the next target had been standing right there fighting his Tank (not mez'd) the entire time.
This would imply that just because you are fighting their friend right next to them, an enemy isn't officially In-Combat with you until it actively picks you as it's Agro target or you attack it directly. In a Multi target pull, if the Rogue waited to engage he would only become 'In-Combat' with the targets he specifically starts attacking. Which would suggest that Rogues would never want to be the puller for the group as this would cause him to be 'In-Combat' with all the targets and prevent him from weaving in and out of stealth between targets.
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Now... what about those 'Requires Stealth' abilities. How do they interact with 'In-Combat'. Most of these are the Trap abilities such as 'Springwire Trap' or 'Explosive Trap'. If the Rogue is still in 'Shadow Walk' or 'Stealth' when the Trap is triggered will this automatically drop the Rogue out of Stealth and put the Rogue into Combat with that Target?
In the video, Minus demonstrates 'Springwire Trap' on a lone wolf. When the wolf stepped on the Trap, Minus remained in Stealth and the Wolf did not seem to turn his attention over to him. Does this mean that the trap does not activate 'In-Combat'? Can a Rogue stay in stealth and go around using 'Springwire Trap' again and again without causing any agro to himself as long as he doesn't drop out of Stealth?
Yet in the video when Minus was showing off Explosive Trap, when the enemy set off the trap he immediately turned and ran at Minus. We can guess that this is because this Trap actually does active damage and thus triggers 'In-Combat'.
Although... when Explosive Trap exploded, Minus's character stayed in the Shadow Walk semi-transparent effect and did so even after the enemy ran over and swung at him (perhaps it missed?). It only turned off the Transparent effect when he himself started attacking the enemy which had ran over to him. Does this imply that the Trapped enemy enters combat with the Rogue and will run to attack him, but the Rogue himself will remain in that 'Stealth' mode and perhaps if a Group-mate was able to get it's attention before the enemy actually hits the Rogue he would be free to stay in stealth and activate other 'Requires Stealth' abilities even though that enemy was now 'In-Combat' with him?
It makes this whole 'Stealth' thing confusing... and the Tooltips don't seem to be much help in explaining things.
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I also want to go back to the whole 'Sinister Strikes' ability. Let's read what the whole Tooltip says:
Sinister Strikes: "Consumes all Opportunity points to activate. While active, the damage of your combat techniques is increased by 15% for each Opporunity consumed. Using a combat technique will immediately end Sinister Strikes, unless the technique is used while Shadow Walk is active."
Minus then explains saying "...also gives them a chance to strike twice with an empowered Technique, one such as a shiv a basic dagger technique, once to start from stealth but again before the 15 seconds Runs Out."
Whoa... 15 seconds? The tooltip doesn't say anything about 15 seconds.
The tooltip implied that once activated Sinister Strikes would stay active until you use a Technique, no matter how long that took. It didn't say that you only had a 15 second window of opportunity.
Although, I guess it would need to have a time limit in order to justify it's cost. But shouldn't it be a shorter duration? Shadow Walk generates 1 Opportunity every 2 seconds. This means you can fill up your 4 Opportunity in 8 seconds. So if you activate Sinister Strikes, using 4 Opportunity... then wait 8 seconds to regain that cost and regain full Opportunity. You can Shiv or Backstab out of Stealth and then still have 7 more seconds to use another Boosted Technique.
One would think that they should lower the Duration to say 8 seconds total. That way you spend the Cost and don't have time to recover it all back and still use the boost. If you are going to have such a long duration you may as well just say 'If used in stealth it costs no Opportunity and gives maximum bonus'.
Now to throw another Wrench into this debate... When watching Zaide's video (source) he was showing us the Mastery and we see that the Tier 3 Mastery for Sinister Strikes says "Damage bonus is applied to all outgoing physical damage." Tier 3 Mastery for Shadow Walk says "Readiness and Opportunity generation ticks every 1 sec."
So now if you fully Master both of these, you need to math out if it's better to stay in stealth and waste 4 seconds to regain 4 Opportunity, or do you want to immediately get to fighting and hold off using a second Technique so that you don't end it early, so you get the full 15 second duration of auto attacks and things like Blackjack Kick and Bloodletter ticks being boosted by Sinister Strikes. Then you need to time it so you use the Second boosted Technique right at the last second before the Boost fades.
This would mean that these Tier 3 Mastery boosts could be wasted entirely if you make the wrong choices.
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In conclusion... we need better Tooltips. Many things are unknown or unclear simply because the Tooltips for these abilities don't bother to give us all the info. I do understand that this is Pre-Alpha and things will change and Tooltips will get altered as time goes by and the Abilities are more finalized. I just want to make my Plea to the VR team to make sure that when you are creating Tooltips you take the time to make sure all relevant info is included.
I also would hope that once the game goes into launch, tooltips will actually also calculate out the math and include accurate damage based on your actual weapon damage and power. So for example if your weapon damage is 20 and the Ability does 120% weapon damage, the tooltip should read something like "Does 24 damage (120% Weapon Damage)." or something similar so that players don't need to be doing their own math all the time.
So using the above example of a player having 20 weapon damage, the tooltip for Bloodletter could read: "Lacerate the target, dealing 24 direct Physical damage (120% Weapon damage) and Inflicting Bleeding; Bleeding deals 12 damage (50% of initial damage dealt) as Physical damage every 3 sec for 15 sec (60 damage in 5 ticks) for a total of 74 damage. Bloodletter cannot Critically Hit."
The same example of 20 weapon damage, the tooltip for Backstab could read: "General Technique. Deals 60 Physical Damage (300% Weapon Damage). Must be behind your target. Requires a piercing weapon."
I hope they will find the time to clean up tooltips. While I like some mystery, I would prefer if at least my ability descriptions are clear :)
Regarding Bloodletter, I thought it meant 120% of normal weapon damage, then 50% of that amount as DoT. So for a weapon hitting 50 damage normally, you would see:
- initial hit of Bloodletter for 120% of 50 = 60 damage
- 50% of that damage = 30, resulting in 5 hits of 6 damage each (every 3sec for 15sec)
So Bloodletter deals 60 + 30 = 90 damage total, or 180% of a normal weapon hit.
But of course, my interpretation might be wrong :)
@Sarim Yes that would be my number 2 interpretation above.
2.) This attack does 180% weapon damage total. The initial hit will do 120% weapon damage and then an extra 60% (50% of 120%) weapon damage split evenly into 5 ticks of 12% (60% / 5) weapon damage over 15 seconds.
Which makes my point, since you thought 2nd while I picked 3rd interpretation. So obviously it wasn't clear enough.