video gaming: neverwinter – trickster rogue

So here is my little write-up on Trickster Rogues up to level 10. This post also goes into a bit more detail on Combat altogether, which was touched upon over yonder.

Combat skills are broken into several little sections:

1. At-will Powers (Left and Right Mouse Buttons)
2. Encounter Powers (Q, E, & R)
3. Daily Powers (1 & 2)
4. Class Feature (Tab)

As you can tell above, you can only have a certain amount of each skill at a time, which gives the game sort of a Guild Wars 1 vibe with limited skills during combat. I like this, as it means I have to make choices on skills. For right now I’ll go over what the Trickster Rogue has access to from levels 1 to 10.

At-Will Powers

At-Will Powers are not unlike auto-attacks in the sense they are always available to you. From what I’ve see, every class’s left click is just a spam-able attack. Right click is different for every class. You do gain more as you level (indicated by the powers tree).

• Left Click – Sly Flourish: Just an auto-attack, moves forward a small amount which each attack if the target is out of range.
• Right Click – Cloud of Steel: A ranged attack that will continue to toss blades that increase in damage as you toss them in succession. You can hold 12 at any given time, and they reload at a rate of 1/per second

Encounter Powers

Encounter Powers are your old-fashion skills with a cooldown, you can hold 3 at any given time, and get more to choose from as you level (but always capped at having three to use at one time). Trickster Rogue’s encounter skills gain added effects once you have access to their Stealth ability.

• Dazing Strike: With a slight start-up, you jump up then come back down, dishing out some heavier damage while Dazing a target. While under the effects of Daze, any and all attacks will interrupt that target’s action, effectively disabling their attacks during the duration of it. Great for fighting harder foes.
  • Stealth Bonus: Start-up is reduced by 50%. Meh.
• Bait and Switch: You leap backwards and a decoy is created at your previous location. Enemies will attack the decoy, making it an effect tank for soaking up damage, even more-so while playing solo. You also build action points every-time the decoy is struck. Fantastic ability!
  • Stealth Bonus: Will reset your Stealth cooldown when activated within Stealth, also does not remove Stealth when used. Way to make a great ability better!
• Deft Strike: Will leap towards your target, popping up behind them and dishing out some damage and slowing. I like to use this after or before a Bait and Switch (generally after to close the gap again).
  • Stealth Bonus: Double the travel distance, and allows you to target friendly players. Pretty usefully to the target friend feature alone, can use it to gain extra distance towards/away from a target
• Lashing Strike: Point blank strike that hits really hard with a bit of a cool-down. Great for burst damage
  • Stealth Bonus: 50% extra damage. Jesus. JESUS. Currently the best of the stealth-enders in terms of raw damage at level 10

Daily Powers

Daily Powers worried me at first because of the word “Daily.” I was worried these were literally usable once a day, but in this game they are associated with the Action Point gauge located in the center of the skill area. They have different requirements to build up based on the class, Trickster Rogues build it up by dishing out some damage, or having their decoy from Bait and Switch get attacked. Once the meter is maxed out, you can use your Daily Power. It doesn’t take too long to build up, I usually can use it once every 3-4 fights. You can also sit on it if you wish.

You start with only being able to slot one of these skills, but gain another slot later, allowing you to have two available to use (but share the same AP stock).

• Bloodbath: Channeled skill where you bounce around hitting various foes nearby. You are unable to be damaged during this, and you can strike the same foe multiple times. I liked this a lot until I was able to stealth, which then made me use their second one instead.
• Lurker’s Assault: You gain a temporary damage boost, and your stealth meter refills twice as fast. If you use stealth during this and don’t come out of it, it effectively allows you to stay in stealth during its entire duration and reap its 25% damage boost for longer.

Class Feature

Stealth is their class feature, and is tracked on the left side of your character via a little stealth meter. Here are the important notes on this ability:

• Last five seconds
• Refills while not being attacked
• 25% Damage Bonus during its duration
• At-Will powers DO NOT break stealth
• Encounter Powers DO break stealth, unless noted otherwise (Bait and Switch is an example)
• Encounter Powers gain extra features (as noted above)
• Enemies will stop attacking you if they are. You are undetectable until stealth is over.

Stealth is powerful and fun, as one would come to expect. Bonus points for them not making separate skills that are stealth only, but instead giving all skills a stealth version as well. I was worried I’d have to learn a whole new skill set at level 10.

So far so fun! They don’t die instantly as I was afraid of, and are pretty mobile. Up there right now in terms of what I’d play at launch!

video gaming: neverwinter – my first beta weekend!

So after a rather busy week, I finally got a nice little surprise, I got into the Neverwinter beta! I’m not going to say I was ultra excited about it, but the game got my attention because Cryptic decided to go a more third-person action RPG route rather than a top-down action RPG, which is a genre I’m getting sort of sick of at this point.

So earlier in the week I went ahead and installed the client to get ready, and played a bit on Friday and Saturday, but didn’t get some seriously game time until Sunday. After clicking random on everything but my class (seriously, I don’t have time anymore for names), I got right into it.

The quick verdict: It’s funner than I expected, but still needs some polish.

The rundown of what I have done so far in the beta;

• Made a Guardian Fighter, Trickster Rogue, and Devout Cleric. Stuck with the Trickster Rogue
• Got the Rogue up to level 10, and the other two up to level 5
• Did the first skirmish twice, and got bugged out during the second one (more on that below)

So not alot, but the game overall is fun. Combat is not extremely fluid, but still alot looser than say, Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO). There is a good chance I’ll compare what I’ve seen so far to DDO, as its another free to play MMO using the D&D ruleset, and has similar gameplay elements.

Combat: Hitting stuff ALMOST feels good

Combat is quick and fast, you fight groups of enemies, and the lesser enemies die in a few hits. Red circle appear on the ground when more dangerous attacks are being used, and moving out of them prevents the damage. Regular attacks also are directional, promoting the usage of movement and not sticking to one place. This feels very much like Guild Wars 2, except you can’t really move and attack, the auto-attacks still sort of stick you in place. So it still feels rough around the edges and not as fluid as I’d hope.

Shift executes a defensive action based on the class; Guardians block, Rogues roll, Clerics dash. Block is rather weak, reducing damage by a small amount, I can hope this gets buffed in later builds (though it did just get the nerf, as it absorbed ALL the damage previously). Roll is fully invincible from start to end. Dash has greater distance than roll, but is only invincible during the first frames as a sort of trade off.  These actions get their own meter as well (Guard meter for Block, Stamina meter for Roll/Dash).

Combat is discussed in more detail in my write up on the Trickster Rogue up to level 10.

Quests: Explorers do not enter, yet

Quests are a standard affair, kill x y amount of times, loot something, no real surprises here. Instanced quests are very straightforward, which was mildly disappointing. Even early DDO quests felt like you were exploring a dungeon, and had all sort of knooks.  This game is quite linear by comparison, but I can only hope the Foundry fixes that later one (more on Foundry in a bit). Or maybe during later levels. Its too early to tell, but DDO gave you alot of what I just said rather early, so I dunno how I feel.

Skirmishes are little instanced quests. You queue up, then after a group forms, meet up and tackle whatever objectives they throw at you. The first one involves battling waves of undead until their leader appears, then wrecking him as well. It’s simple, and did feel like it needed a tank or cordination for that matter. I liked that, as I’m a fan of sort of pick up and play setups, and this caters right to that.

At the end of the first Skirmish

Other Stuff: Foundry, Cash Shop woes, and BUGGGS

In terms of other stuff in the game, we have The Foundry. This has been a staple in Cryptic games, Star Trek and Champions Online both have this feature, and it is player created dungeons that can be uploaded, and played by other players. This feels right at home for the dungeon makers around town, and sadly not available to me during the beta test weekend. Only a handful of players did have access to the creation suite, but everyone had access to try out the created maps. The one I tried was straightforward; go down alley, kill bad guy, get loot. I want to mess with the creation suite and see how fancy you can!

The cash shop is all of what you would expect, cosmetics, character slots, XP boosters, and other goodies. There is a in-game currency called Artifact Stones that you can use to purchase ZEN (the cash shop currency). So you can earn cash shop items that way. As of writing this, I do not know the conversions of the two currencies, so I’m not sure if its a fair trade or outright awful. Hopefully not that latter.

Bugs were all over in this beta build. The two I happen to run were not pleasant  One disabled my quest tracking completely until I logged out or zoned out. This is an instance where I’m thankful quests are linear. The more annoying one was at the end of a skirmish, it would not let me exit until I looted the treasure chest, but the chest could not be looted! I had to end up killing myself then click on the entrance of the skirmish in a certain location. Super annoying.

JUST LET ME LEAVE MAN

A tad bit of leftover

Hardcore D&D’ers who are looking to RP might be slightly disappointed in their options, while you can choose your starting town and deity, as well as write a personal story, alignments and factions have both been omitted for the time being by Cryptic. You’ll have to RP both those aspects out yourself if you really want it, but they won’t show up on your character sheet for others to see. Also while this game is based in the D&D world, it doesn’t exactly follow a ruleset like DDO does. Action Points are a super meter of sorts, Dailies are tied to said super meter,  and Mana is non-existent. This personally doesn’t bother me, as I’m not really into D&D, but I can see it putting off people who are.

Crafting and PvP were both not present in the build I played, but I would bank on them both appearing during the next beta. Also didn’t get to the first dungeon or companions yet, but still some time before the beta ends, so I might just try to get to both features! At worst I’ll know when the next beta weekend rolls around.

There are some things I didn’t go over, and perhaps another time I will (or once I encounter it in game). Next weekend is the 22nd (tail end of my Spring Break, AWESOME), I’m hoping they add the Great Weapon Fighter in that build. So I’m sure to write more stuff later.

My Trickster Rogue