I hate the new Duelist sneak :(
I hate the new Duelist sneak :(
It's almost useless for most situations. The blink ability is too short range to be meaningful, and one turn of invisibilty is useless, no actual time to do anything.
The previous ability (several turns of invisibility) was actually super useful, you could use it to reposition, escape tricky situations, close distance on ranged foes, or get out of range of the deathgaze as it powered up.
But with a short range blink and one turn of invis, all you are left with is a very limited reposition. I invariably find that any place I can actually blink to is still a place of danger, still in range of whatever ranged attacks I am trying to evade, and the single turn of invis is not enough to even step through a door out of sight. The very next turn you are visible again, and taking damage from ranged attacks or hit by the deathgaze or whatever. It becomes a pointless ability, and I find I no longer even use it.
Evan, I beg you to reconsider this change. Even if you got like 3-5 turns of invisibilty after the blink it would be useful. As it stands, it makes using dirk/assassin's blade for Duelist utterly useless. Feels so horriby nerfed as to no longer be an option, which is a shame, because it was such a fun option for Duelist.
I'm honestly a bit surprised that the feedback I've gotten so far is that this change is a nerf. Let me explain why I called it a buff:
- Dagger type weapons are currently a standout as having the lowest comparative weapon winrate on Duelist by a fair margin, increasing the duration of invis that was granted had minimal impact on winrate.
- Way back in the early v2.0.0 alpha daggers used to have exactly this blink ability, I removed the blink and extended the invisibility before the beta as the overwhelming feedback I got was that the blink ability was absolutely busted.
If the ability does in fact still show as weak, there are a bunch of easy levers to turn now to make it stronger, such as increasing blink distance, invis duration, or having the ability occur instantly instead of spending 1 turn.
For me the biggest nerf aspect is the fact that invis only lasts 1 turn. It's almost impossible to do anything meaningful in that time. Extending it to like 3-5 turns would help. For example you could then blink near to a door and get through it to the other side without taking hits. As it is now, you blink to near a door, move into the doorway, and then become visible in the doorway, and everyone just fires on you there :/
It's not enough time invisible to do anything, and the blink is too short range to get away without more invis
Dagger used to be a secondry life-saving weapon because of it's long invisiblity, the new ability is just 0-damage combat ability compared to it
EDIT: It also made tansmuting the rapier interesting because it gave you a chance to get the best invisiblity dagger, which was unique change compared to the classical "Save SoT for high level artifacts"
It's meant to be a purely offensive ability, so now you can blink and have exactly long enough to do a sneak attack.
Having six turns of invisibility was totally overpowered. If you want to play a rogue, play a rogue.
this is why Summoning's Warrior rework is better concept than duelist