Why does Sony hate Poisons?

[Doebi]

Why does Sony hate poison makers and users?

Who in their right mind would take up poisonmaking (caveat: most tradeskillers are NOT in their right mind)

I can get to brewing 122 for under 4 plat.
Each attempt in poison making, starting at the beginning, either costs over 1p, or has to be hunted/farmed

Preplaner poisons don't stack, are single use, are good for only 1 strike, and require that I sit down to reapply. So a backpack FULL of poisons will give me 10 chances to do something, and pretty much only 1 attempt/mob.

I have to work up 2 skills. Not 2 attempts on the same skill, like pottery. Not multiple skills that have other uses (ie brewing tempers for smithing), but 2 skills used only for poisoning. 1 to make the poison, 1 to apply it.

And probably the most annoying. Because poisons are rogue only, I can't skill up in bulk and sell my successes in the bazaar. No one else wants them. They can't use them. At least shammie's and tinker's can sell their products.

So I end up with a product that is a pain in the ass (or pricy) to skill up in, not worth squat on the open market, requires a cart to haul as much as I would like to have along, and can be used once a combat, if we aren't chainpulling.

/Teon shouts <Cash poor Rogue w/wheelbarrow LFG. Don't mind me if I sit in the middle of combat to reapply>

[gnormy]

Its because while most skill areas have progressed. They haven't done much with this one. I believe orginally, rogues could poison a blade and then hand it to someone else and that was removed because it was considered too powerful.

I guess, one option might be to request the resulting poisons stack but also be no-rent. This would a rogue to prepare his concoctions in advance but not be able to store them indefinately.

Another option woulb be if SOE were to add the skill APPLY POISON to certain Class/Race/Diety combinations. This would at least give the rogues at selling market while restricting it to those who have an actual gameplay reason for using poison. The poisons in this case wouldn't need to be changed at all, since the restriction lies with the character.

[splunge]

Heres why:

Rogues are pure melee class. They arent suposed to dot. They arent supposed to slow. They arent supposed to stun. They arent suposed to do all those nifty things that poisons let them do to mobs. So why make it easy? Rogues are supposed to pick locks, drag dead magicians and poke stuff in the butt.

[mystnife]

re.

splunge:

Rogues are supposed to pick locks,

being a rogue in a non high end guild, there are 3 locks in the entire game that i can get to pick that anyone cares about. CoM reaver door, Seb PLA and chardok royals

drag dead magicians

due to the amount of mobs that see hide & sneak in the game right now, and the advent of graveyards in zones, and not being in a full on raiding guild, the last time anyone asked me to cr or drag for them was the last time i raided hate (and that was long before they revamped it) and when i was cr'ing, half the raid was /consenting the monk 'cos fd-flop cr is faster

no one wants a cr done in an xp group 'cos we can wait 15 minutes and pick their corpses up at drive through window 3..

and poke stuff in the butt.

due to flowing thought, kei, focus items, dot stacking and upgrades to pets / charmed pets, wizards, mages, enchanters and necros outdamage me

due to high-ac mobs and crap for accessible weapon upgades since kunark, i've seen warriors, monks and rangers use 2 handers, get **** close to my damage output and not get ripped to shreds on ds's or ripostes

due to droppable playermade bows that sell for 6kpp on my server i'm seeing rangers getting **** close to out damaging me.. then /discing trueshot while i say 'i'll get my coat then?'


please excuse my bitterness, this is my viewpoint of a rogue at level 59 in a small family type guild right now, and sometimes it's pretty bleak..

i suppose my point is, i know what i'm supposed to do, my role is dps, high sustained dps.. and in order to have that high sustained dps my class has given up a lot.. i can't heal, i can't nuke, i cant crowd control, i can't tank, i can't buff, i can't port, i can't summon or enchant, i can't solo..

but with the way the games evolved / evolving, the gap between my damage output and that of other classes is disappearing, in some cases it is gone, and those other classes can all bring something else to the party

so if my class is no longer the best at fulfilling the role that my class was designed for, what am i supposed to do? why shouldn't i look for other roles?

i should make clear that i'm not screaming at SoE for the way that the other classes have evolved, i love the new tradeskill recepies for armour and bows, i love that rangers can use archery as a viable (ish) combat form..

it's just that rogues were fixed when kunark came out and have been largely ignored since then, rogues need something, more dps would be nice, but honestly i'd be happier if there was more use for my roguely skills instead

i want to be the scout that can infiltrate the enemy stronghold and bring back information on strength and deployment of guards..

i want to be the thief in the night that can 'find' you the relic that you need..

i want be able to sneak up to the gatehouse and 'detain' the second guard for long enough that the party can 'deal' with the first..

i want to be the grandmaster of poisons that my profession suggests, i want to be able to treat the blades of the warrior in my party so that the wounds he inflicts fester or debilitate...

in answer to the original poster, yes we have to train up two skills, but it's not exactly hard work to do, in terms of cash cost to skill up i'd put make poison at around the jewel crafting level, costs a lot but sellback of successes cuts around 90% of that cost

the one shot one dose oldworld poisons could do with a little adjustment, namely allowing us to combine them to 5 / 10 slot versions in the same way that the PoP poisons work (but keep the one shot = one hit aspect)... or make the finished item stackable.

and also, they've added code that allows casters to automatically stand after memming a spell, can't they add that to the apply poison code?


sorry for ranting

edited to fix quotes[/i]

[Krazick]

ranting, in the Primal Scream Room is ok.

I am sure every class will be able to come up with a list of things that when taken all by itself, looks to make the class look "useless".

Now, please don't start building thoses lists.

It does appear, from a non-rogue viewpoint, that the poisons look sort-of weak. And that a rogue has to figure out how they fit into the game at the various levels. But so does everyone else.

[mystnife]

I am sure every class will be able to come up with a list of things that when taken all by itself, looks to make the class look "useless".

aye, which is why i'm not emailing SoE or jumping up and down on their dev boards about what i percieve as the problem with the class i play..

although i may just /feedback that bit about putting in the code to autostand after applying the poison

my point of view is just that, a point of view. it's biased by the fact that i play the rogue class almost exclusively.. i have a little experience of the other classes up to level 30 and i have even less experience of in game class balancing

from a tradeskilling point of view, making poison is not the hardest or most expensive or time consuming skill to raise, and the apply poison skillcheck rarely fails once you're around 100 in the skill

the new PoP poisons from what i have seen are pretty good, you can combine them into 5 / 10 dose vials and when they are applied they act as a charecter buff which causes you to proc the effect over the next x minutes

the oldworld poisons in timespent versus benefit are not really worth it, this is mostly because (again in my point of view) they are single use *and* not stackable, if they were changed to either be stackable single shot bottles, or combineable into non stacking 5 or 10 dose versions...

ranting, in the Primal Scream Room is ok.

i know, but ranting is rarely constructive as with my previous post, which is why i apologise

[Unidin]

chanter chain casting Insanity <<<<<<<<<<<<&l t;<<< rog dps

chanter with charmed pet > rog dps

dead chanter with former pet < rog dps

[Pojodan]

Rogues are a bit of a conundrum for class balancing.
They are and always have been the king of melee DPS.
That's melee DPS, charmed pets out DPS any rogue, most spell casters can out DPS a rogue if the MoB is weak to their best spells, etc. Rangers with good bows and lots of AA can often out DPS a good rogue even without the trueshot disc.
All other melee (Warriors, SKs, Pallys, Beastlords, Rangers, Monks) can't touch them if they're all similarily equiped.

However, to make everyone desireable in end game, it's become necessary for everyone to start encroaching on the rogue's territory so that there's more than just a ton of rogues on raids.
The lack of doors to pick, traps that are worth disarming, and MoBs that can't see the Rogue when sneaking makes their special abilities somewhat unnecessary.

I'd really like to see Rogues play a more important roll even though I've never played one. The main trouble with making Rogues necessary is that players would uproar over it and then end up just botting one rogue for the sake of using their special abilities and forget about everyone else.

To be perfectly honest I don't know what can be done to make rogues more desirable without them just being bot fodder =/ I've been faced with the grim reality that Beastlords havn't been prized raid material and once they got MGB paragon I saw a sudden rush of botted beastlords made for the soul purpose of MGBing Paragon, removing the need for the guild to have an actual player controled one at all since the botted one could dol out Spiritual Dominion, too.

[splunge]

Re: re.

splunge:

Rogues are supposed to pick locks,

being a rogue in a non high end guild, there are 3 locks in the entire game that i can get to pick that anyone cares about. CoM reaver door, Seb PLA and chardok royals

My response was partly in jest, but based on the general role of rogues.

There are otehr locks that are just as important. Jaled Dars room for one, and you CANT do Ssra important stuff without a rogue. Not just doors, but the traps will eat your raid up.

drag dead magicians

no one wants a cr done in an xp group 'cos we can wait 15 minutes and pick their corpses up at drive through window 3..

Theres other places besides PoP. =) And when you get the AA for Shroud of Stealth and you can roam in every zone at will...

and poke stuff in the butt.

due to flowing thought, kei, focus items, dot stacking and upgrades to pets / charmed pets, wizards, mages, enchanters and necros outdamage me

Until charm breaks.. or the mobs they are figting are completely MR/PR/DR etc..

due to droppable playermade bows that sell for 6kpp on my server i'm seeing rangers getting darn close to out damaging me.. then /discing trueshot while i say 'i'll get my coat then?'

In xp groups, most mobs arent walled, so rangers and rogues are on a moderately even keel. When the ubermobs get shoved into a wall or a corner, the rangers get THEIR coats.

please excuse my bitterness, this is my viewpoint of a rogue at level 59 in a small family type guild right now, and sometimes it's pretty bleak..

Think about the rangers. You get backstab early. Its your bread and butter yourwhole life. Its amazing right off the starting block. Archery isnt even useful till 55. Rangers dont really come into their own as archers until they hit lvl 59 and spend 45 aa points and spend tons of cash (or raid merit) on a bow. You dont have to do diddly to deal massive damage except do youre epic (as epic as making toast) and get a decent ratio dagger for mainhand.

i suppose my point is, i know what i'm supposed to do, my role is dps, high sustained dps.. and in order to have that high sustained dps my class has given up a lot.. i can't heal, i can't nuke, i cant crowd control, i can't tank, i can't buff, i can't port, i can't summon or enchant, i can't solo..

We all have our roles. Warriros are damage sponges. Nothing else.
Before they got the jewelry toys and /pet hold, Mages were Mod Rod Vending Machines. All classes have something to complain about. Youre no different. =)

so if my class is no longer the best at fulfilling the role that my class was designed for, what am i supposed to do? why shouldn't i look for other roles?

Rogues are needed. At all levels. I just today saw a post on a Time flagged Uberguild (cant remember offhand) that was recruiting. What was on the top of their list? 5 Rogues Needed ASAP. They needed DPS in a big way. They also needed a bard, cleric and beastlord. No need for rangers, int casters or tank classes.

it's just that rogues were fixed when kunark came out and have been largely ignored since then, rogues need something, more dps would be nice, but honestly i'd be happier if there was more use for my roguely skills instead

There is. You may just not have gotten to more of it yet.

[Takeshi]

I believe orginally, rogues could poison a blade and then hand it to someone else and that was removed because it was considered too powerful.

Nah, this was never possible.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. If poison-making was easy and effective, it'd be figured into your balance equation to a point that what you do now would suffer because you can do poisons. It won't be an option anymore, but a necessity. As it is, it's very situational. Perhaps a bit too situational. On the bright side, the skill is easy to up, one of 2 (unless fishing can as well) tradeskills that you can train up to max. Costs money, but cheaper than tailoring or smithing, especially timewise.

And as for your rogue, might I recommend you encourage your guild to group in Veksar some? There's a dagger there that should interest you. 5% backstab mod, think it's there pretty much to help bridge that Ragebringer to Ssra+ weapon gap rogues suffer from. Great xp in that zone for your level as well. And really, once you get past that gap, rogues pull ahead of other melees quite a bit, becoming high DPS in almost all situations.

And, as others have said, get Shroud of Stealth...that'll make you the undisputed master of sneaking around. Quite good for scouting unknown dungeons or dragging bodies. Even in PoP, bodies get dragged. Beats waiting 15+ minutes, sometimes easiest way to get people to the party.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

There are a number of rogues in my guild ... and being a small, family guild, they don't have access to the uber daggers. Your comments echo theirs - other melee can more easily get weapons upgrades that will cause them to reach rogue levels of DPS.

It seems like the pendulum does swing back the rogue's way higher up, but there is that nasty gap

Rogues are still needed for dragging - "rogue coth" seems to be very common, and some people choose it even when a mage is available. Maybe my view is just slanted, since the guild I raid with has few monks ... but the rogues do get a workout dragging, heh.