Realmshifter: The odd one out in the endgame

[restive valve]

Introduction:

I'll start off by saying that Realmshifter is not in a terrible place right now. If we look back three years to the introduction of Avidity and the beginning of the class rework cycle, the game has come a long way. Realmshifter now is better than the Realmshifter that had Avidity added to it.

In 2023 Realmshifter was bad. The class relied on Chained Shield to hit more than a single enemy in endgame content, and had to build as a knock-off Gilgamesh both to deal damage with Chained Shield and to deal with getting hit by every single enemy on the backswing. Towers were really tough - and fairly slow even when you got good at them.

And so, in the H1 balance patch for 2023 Odie handed down a gift: Avidity. Avidity would give Realmshifter a small extra push to better survive encounters and was a cool thief-y mechanic. This was, at the time, not viewed in any way as Realmshifter's "identity". It was a just a little mechanic to help out a class that struggled and it did it's job well.

Avidity

Avidity is a small rng-based utility mechanic. You cannot build around it, you cannot rely on it, and it doesn't enable anything that wouldn't also be possible without Avidity. When Avidity was added, it didn't seem to be meant as a 'class line mechanic' that would drop down the entire thief stack, it was a just an extra thing, it worked great in that position.

This differs greatly from Collateral Damage, Apex, and Flasks. Avidity suffers from being the first mechanic added in what ended up being a cycle of increasingly complex and interesting mechanics. Avidity is not complex and avidity is not interesting. You simply have a chance to get an extra turn on every action, and there's a little bit of gear to boost that chance. That is all.

Avidity is powerful. Never get that wrong. But it's flawed.

Being left behind

Avidity is powerful and must be capped. I've run the math before and increasing the Avidity cap even beyond 30% would quickly run away with the numbers. That is also Avidity's biggest flaw. You can never have a build based around Avidity because Avidity can and should never be a high enough % to build around it.

That severely limits the gear that Northern Forge is able to add to interact with Avidity, and also limits what Realmshifter's options are.

Collateral Damage, Flasks, and Apex all have these things in common:

• At least two independently scaling stats
• At least one stat that can be pushed an unlimited amount
• Multiple builds across content that focus heavily on the mechanic.
  Those are class identities. Avidity is not.
  -# I didn't include beowulf and summoner in the comparison because those classes function differently overall (followers and summons, respectively) and as such scale and build completely differently.

All of those factors allow those classes to get unique amity bonuses, class ability-specific titan augments, and significantly more gear that is best specifically on those classes.

Conclusion

Realmshifter needs something that scales and can be included across event and non-event gear/augments/amities.

I titled this post "The odd one out in the endgame", since that's where this issue is most obvious, but it's technically not exclusive to the endgame. Flasks and CD exist up and down the full stack, and an item boosting one or the other is an easy indicator to newer players that that item is cool for their class.

The endgame is where the game becomes slower and more about crafting your build (instead of building with that the game gives you) so that's where it shows up as the largest problem.

(Unless you're EXP-Less then you can craft cool builds)

[thorny kindle]

As someone that's HoC'd to a ton of different builds, RS definitely feels like the odd one out for classes in total. (Dursa, looking at you, too)

RS is simple on the surface; add a little bit of avidity from gear, focus on immunities, crit, and attk stat. And that's about it.

RS is easy to build, but it's a very shallow pool. You've mentioned it already, but other classes have way better end game builds to build and design for over RS.

[worldly flax]

I really would like to see this become reality. It's a straightforward answer. The HP required to activate resurgence would be one stat and the resurgence % would be our infinitely scaling stat. Helps us push further in raids/dungeons/world farming. Towers stay difficult but RS will continue to struggle in towers unless starting at full hp changes

Avidity at this point isn't even a stand out ability. Parting Remarks is often much stronger and being able to manipulate the extra turn like some other classes is much more preferable

[thorny kindle]

Would this work for all other classes? IE Crit Chain now working for other classes etc

[restive valve]

Yeah, that's definitely an option. I wanted to avoid suggesting a specific solution in the initial post because I know Odie read that already and I'm not married to any one solution, I just want there to be a solution

[worldly flax]

No.

[restive valve]

When I wrote that the intention was for it to work for other classes, but it'd work far better for RS because of High Tenacity.

[thorny kindle]

I would love to see something class exclusive, much like Apex / CD / Flask / Summoner shenanigans / Bonds etc

[restive valve]

Yeah, at this point something exclusive might be better.

[worldly flax]

I imagine it specifically affecting resurgence, which I believe only the Thief line has

[thorny kindle]

Resurgence power would be cool

Or, much like frenzy and apex, tie something in that we can only use when at 1hp or a bar we fill while in full resurgance passive?

Big skill / tool set that comes online after we've been in passive

[worldly flax]

Non exclusive buffs have become a pain point for RS. Crit can't be our identity because everyone has access to crit and thus, a buff to crit buffs everyone. A buff to low hp would just buff any class that redlines. Of the things that RS already has that could be expanded, it's mystic feather or resurgence.

[thorny kindle]

They do be trending towards "fillable" skills, flasks, apex, frenzy etc

[restive valve]

Yep, and that really gets to one of the core parts of the issue. Because Realmshifter doesn't have something Northern Forge can easily put on items, even items that are "meant" for Realmshifter are frequently better on other classes.

I think it's cool for gear to be usable across classes even when it's not meant to be, but thief gear takes this to the extreme.

[plush blaze]

One thing that I am surprised RS doesn't get is excess baked-in functionality with existing skills. Kind of like how some skills were recently updated with gilga specific perks.

That is probably the easiest way to get them to that consistent pve usability threshold barring a full rework or malus adjustments for Crit stats.

[onyx peak]

I won't argue that realmshifter needs something.

I wonder tho if resurgence stats are what it's missing, for one they don't scale well into the endgame and they don't seem to address quicker combat.

CD is available turn one, mana flask and apex are available turn 3 or 4. properly prepping resurgence is like 10+ i reckon.

Is realmshifter struggling in content where it gets to that point?

[thorny kindle]

Built in skip-a-turn on multi turn skills 👀

melee version of sequencer 👀 ties into avidity

[plush blaze]

Could actually be doable in pve with some sort of required setup.

[modest fossil]

I don't completely agree with the statement that we can't build on avidity at all.
We can, up to 30%, which is how we can survive high Mel dungeons most of the time. But yes that's very limited, it doesn't scale and it doesn't help in raids.
We need something that the all-gear-equipping classes can't take from us

[thorny kindle]

Avidity having an increased chance to proc on multi turn skills would be cool, but there would need to be probably more thiefy multi turn skills

[modest fossil]

Or give avidity a chance to proc for each hit of multi-hit skills perhaps?

[thorny kindle]

2 turn skill that activates resurgence, bringing you to 20% health for example

RS being able to divine bastion easier would make getting into resurgence easier

[plush blaze]

Also, delete ward absorption malus from the game.

[restive valve]

Is realmshifter struggling in content where it gets to that point?

When Resurgeance is fully activated Realmshifter is a powerhouse, though not scaling with ALs does make it notably worse for the very high AL folks. A powerhouse that is deathly allergic to any dot statuses, but a powerhouse.

Getting into Resurgeance range is either time consuming or risky. You usually need Divine Bastion up for 100% ward absorption though some builds try and lean into zeroing things out.

Anguish maluses make 100% absorption nearly impossible the deeper you get though, basically shutting off the best thing RS has going for it

[worldly flax]

Warb absorption is honestly the biggest reason I would want to see resurgence buffed. Starting at 1 hp, relying on dodge and resurgence to 0 out raids is very fun, but atm resurgence doesn't do enough to make that possible on all raids.

[thorny kindle]

Realm Bastion - 3 turn skill, increased chance to lower turn counts (or proc avidity w/e) when used on RS classes

Generates 4 turns of ward, Absorption at 110% (hehe)
Lose 60% of total remaining life

[plush blaze]

Total remaining life conditional is actually quite smart.

[thorny kindle]

that way its still useful for RS and we dont kill ourselves

[plush blaze]

I was about to meme about RSes exploding when something hits them for 50% on turn 2.

[dire spoke]

I'm not sure if resurgence is the answer. RS doesn't exactly struggle with damage. Big Yoshi has a point that it's far more conditional than the other class abilities, and in PvP, resurgence is hardly relevant because it's just not hard to one shot a RS.

That said, if we are looking at resurgence, I think being able to gain more than just damage at low HP would be more helpful. Mystic feather is a good start.

[worldly flax]

Resurgence gives more than just damage, it also provides defense and resistance

[dire spoke]

Let's be real, we all run BoF anyway

[modest fossil]

Not in raids

[worldly flax]

Resurgence also takes effect in battle so even if your defense is low due to BoF, youre gaining considerable defense/resistance through resurgence

Unless you leave your defense at 0 for some reason

[toxic valve]

HocD off realm for this exact reasom, and an additional one that ill add-

For pvp, Dex is basically dead at higher ALs and pretty ineffective at even low ALs when everyone has access to easy accuracy and dex gear now. Having survivability be tied to dodging is extremely inferior to everyone else with second chance as currently constructed

[dire spoke]

I think a new mechanic would be refreshing. Here's just a few things I thought up that could match the thiefy vibe, definitely not fleshed out, but it could serve as a starting point:

Sleight of Hand - leaning into the status/assassin aspect of a thief class, think poison touch from pokemon - % chance to afflict a random status effect when dealing or taking damage. Building 100% around this in terms of gear can and should have heavy tradeoffs like building for 100% collateral damage.

Afterimage - chance to protect/force miss (could be fixed or capped), chance to deal weak damage, and chance to afflict status. Scales on shadow act % found through gear. Building 100% around this should also have heavy tradeoffs. Have to make this distinct from a follower somehow

Some other existing mechanics we could lean into:

Saboteur - ward damage focused. Ward damage is available everywhere, but RS does it best.

Dodge - dodge is available everywhere, but is easily overwritten by accuracy modifiers and FMC. Dorado already has this to an extent but I doubt it's healthy for the game to scale dodge %, nor is it reliable to lean on for survival

[thorny kindle]

I sort of like the status portion of it, however - Most raids are immune, and it's very slow damage

Unless there's RS specific statuses, similar to runes and sigils

[turbid lodge]

not to mention several high power 0 miss chance skills in the game negate any dodge advantage realms have

[plush blaze]

Regarding the afterimage mechanic suggestion, it'd be neat if avidity could be tied to it. Some way to combo/convert avidity into certain defense or unique damage increase?

As in thematically letting the after image take the hit, or using it to attack twice based on some conditional setup.

[dire spoke]

Yes that is definitely something to consider. This one wouldn't help with raids much unless this RS specific status increases damage or CCs somehow

[dire spoke]

That would be cool, like some sort of skill expression

[thorny kindle]

add specific RS statuses, such as "Wounds"

Open Wound - Easier to apply more wounds
Cut wound - Increased critical damage
Blinding wound - the enemy becomes blound
Gushing wound - Enemy takes per-turn damage, increased by number of wounds

[exotic owl]

Not everything needs to be wounds but I get what you're saying

[thorny kindle]

Im just spitballing ideas

[exotic owl]

Wounded wound

I really want special status effects being something for thiefs, one could be a better Blind that reduces way less accuracy but also affects sure-hit skills

[thorny kindle]

Blounding wound - Wounded parties become blounded by the wounds

english is a funny language if you look at "wound" for too long

[exotic owl]

I dont like the idea of building in Resurgence btw, but thats probably because i see it as just +%stats and I want something new

[restive valve]

Resurgence is the most interesting +stats class passive by far. It requires effort or planning to maintain it without dying

We've had this discussion before, but it's basically Realmshifter's real identity. It's the reason some of us love the class and the reason some people that don't play RS would never want to

[velvet mountain]

A little thought from my end, the whole "avidity is too powerful and it shouldn't be buffed to build around it " I don't understand. The game is 80% PvE, all the classes are one turning everything and raids last 20 secs. Avidity could be a cool mechanic if invested in it, but as it is pretty much rng cherry on top. Realmshifter could have guaranteed turns at the start of a raid, spells and skills that temporarily increase the cap, etc. But it's kept at 30% because idk, old fears and restrictions I'd suppose

Losing avidity for something better is a good idea for me
But this doesn't make avidity "not identity class" worth it
Odie just needs to make it an identity, not just unreliable rng

[little turtle]

Making RS more viable is very simple and, in my view, doesn’t require a full class rework. It only needs a few adjustments: make Arisen Feral Claws AOE for 5 targets with increased damage; increase the damage of Yelmogus Thinblade; and add a new high-damage skill with a 2-turn charge that grants an increased chance to dodge during the charging phase, especially useful for raids. That’s it—RS becomes viable.

[exotic owl]

Thats not it, Arisen Feral Claws have nothing to do with Rs and why would you increase the dmg of yemolgus thinblade in that case?, increased chance to dodge during the charging phase sounds good but it has nothing to do with a passive that you can build into

[little turtle]

Making towers easier with stronger weapons would also help, since in the case of raids—especially high Agony—RS can actually outperform Heretic, at least in my opinion

[thorny kindle]

interesting

what do you consider high agony?

[little turtle]

40+

[thorny kindle]

very interesting

[worldly flax]

Do you know any RS doing agony 40+ raids? I don't disagree, at least in terms of staying ability, not damage

[exotic owl]

Heretic can build with flasks to always have 0 turn skills

[exotic owl]

In towers btw

[thorny kindle]

Idk about super high torment, but RSD holds its own pretty well in towers with the skills we have available to us

[little turtle]

Heretic has a clear advantage at 0–20 Agony, but as incursions stack HP, RS Corvus stands out due to the number of buffs it can stack with crit poison. Trust me, I’ve already tested it.

[toxic valve]

Is there anything to even discuss in this thread? Serious question

[thorny kindle]

I mean, yes, I believe so. RS feels shallow and doesn't offer a lot of class identity compared to recent class changes.

[wild bobcat]

Ideas here:

"Shadowmancy" (whole skill set with a dab of lore):
#1469726590731817050 message

"Instances" (less detailed):
#1469726590731817050 message

[toxic valve]

Thats what i mean. Nothing to discuss

[thorny kindle]

Oh okay

[toxic valve]

Like its undisputed - think we have had tons of ideas in past realm threads and this one. Just a matter of action on it at this point

[thorny kindle]

Idk how the powers that be work, but I know in the past it's taken a lot of chatter to finally get the spotlight on something

We had thousands of messages on deity before someone finally said something that truly caught traction, speaking exclusively from experience so take that with a grain of salt

[restive valve]

Basically, yeah. The squeaky wheel gets the oil

[toxic valve]

You guys are more than welcome to discuss not discouraging that just wondering if there's a topic that hasn't been addressed. We can spam this for a while and see what happens but idk 🤷‍♂️

[thorny kindle]

Im here for it

[restive valve]

Presenting large paragraphs of text about class problems is what I do best, and have been doing for years 😆

[toxic valve]

Ironically because we are pretty aligned as realms we dont argue much and dont get any attention 😂

[exotic owl]

Let's just fuse every Rs Thread

[restive valve]

But I don't want any mistake about the purpose of this thread, like what @little turtle mentioned about making RS viable.

This is about the core problem of why RS is lesser than other classes, and patching the gap of what causes it to be that way. Instead of individual bandaid buffs as solutions

[exotic owl]

Btw, we should add Dual-wielding increasing Dodge chance and Crit

[restive valve]

If some gear gets buffed that's great and all, but that doesn't fix the problem a few events down the line when other classes have cool specific new gear that plays to their passives and the thief gear is equally good for RS, Deity, BeoH, and GUrsa.

[little turtle]

I don’t understand why they don’t give RS a weapon that can compare to BL2. Generally, RS tower sets have very limited defense and still deal less damage =[
That’s why I mentioned Arisen Feral Claws.

[thorny kindle]

buffing feral claws also buffs Beo/H, Dursa, Deity, Gilga in terms of melee aoe

[exotic owl]

Yep

[thorny kindle]

just buffing feral claws doesn't fix RS, but I know where you're coming from

(I hope to see more melee AoE options soon)

[worldly flax]

Personally, I dont want a skill thats comparable to BL2. BL2 is a mistake as far as game design goes. Have you seen other class builds? They center around BL2 because it can just kill everything and takes away the thought and fun behind builds.

But yea, it's not fundamentally related to RS

[restive valve]

Yeah, RS doesn't need to be a copy of other classes. That's what other classes are for

[worldly flax]

Unfortunately I think thats one of the reasons Orna continues to be fun. RS struggles so much that I have to find ways to overcome the difficulty :x

[little turtle]

But it’s not a matter of strategy. AOE weapons were added for greater efficiency, and all other classes benefit from this through BL2. If you’re okay with taking 2 or 3 turns to kill mobs in towers, that’s fine. The options are Ymir Brilliant Feathers, which hit 1 to 2 targets, and Yel Blade, which struggles against immune mobs.

[thorny kindle]

And gandring, but same as yelm

[little turtle]

But I understand the purpose of the discussion, which is to add a special passive to the RS class. However, I think it’s already a complete class that really just needs better weapons, nothing more.

[worldly flax]

I thought so too until I saw some gilga videos destroying agony/melancholy while sitting at full ward. The difference is night and day

Me running dungeons at 1 hp/0 ward and still getting out performed by a gilga with full hp/ward is insane

[thorny kindle]

I think it was knight that said, RS is a good class, assuming you don't compare to all of the other t11 classes. Lol

Heretic, Deity, Gilga and somewhat Beo if you count bonds, have control over their big cool class defining skills. They have amities, they have armor that supports it, they have builds around it. We have Avidity, that has an easy to achieve cap, and it's RNG with zero player control.

and then summoner does its thing too, with Hypa and BP and all their other made up summoner stuff

And resurgence, that's built in and nothing to support it besides needing a ton of immunities

[modern rover]

Even early-game thief (T1 to T4) has a similar comparison. A solid amount of Collateral Chance/Damage weapons for warriors (plus the Pauldrons/Greaves skills), Mages have the scrolls from Arena that give +Flask Charge. Its not a massive amount for either, but its something.
Though the counter-point there is that when Avidity has greater utility compared to CD and Flasks, at least at that point in the game.

[little turtle]

I believe RS’s identity should be higher damage and more evasion, while Gilgamesh should have lower damage and be more tank-focused — Gilga = absorbing damage, RS = dodging damage.

[restive valve]

I think an adjustment of the current passives could work better than just adding another passive and risking the cycle restarting

[sinful dust]

At one point we all worked together to give ideas about the +resurgence mechanic and all went through gear that we thought could use the passive to really make it easy for Odie and he hit us with a “K”
Never seen an entire class work together like that in that short space of time to be shutdown 🤣

[worldly flax]

Its probably far more reasonable as well. I really feel mystic feather, at least in pve, should've been a higher number considering how squishy we are

[velvet mountain]

we peaked there

[sinful dust]

Yeah that was a mad one for real

[exotic owl]

Maybe because Resurgence is only on Realmshifter and not on the whole classline?

So we need to change avidity in that case? Which is great on early Tiers by what Exp-less says

[little turtle]

I think the main point of the discussion shouldn’t be “we need an identity like other classes”, but rather answering a much more practical question: what are the weaknesses of RS that actually need to be addressed?

In my opinion, the biggest issue is weapons. That’s why I keep insisting on this topic, especially when it comes to AOE — this is clearly the class’s biggest bottleneck right now.

To give a concrete example: I have 120 AL on RS, and I’m still less efficient in towers than my friends playing Beo and Heretic with around 60 AL. That shows the problem isn’t progression — it’s structural.

On the other hand, in high agony, RS performs better than Heretic (which I’m currently testing). At the start of agony, Heretic can hit very high numbers in just a few turns, but this is limited by the fact that mana flasks are capped at 5 sigils. At higher levels, this means it won’t be able to fully delete a target’s HP in a single attack anymore.

Meanwhile, RS Corvus scales much better in this scenario and even shares the top spot in Other Realm with Deity. Even without much hands-on experience, it’s clear that setups like 2000 Eventualus seals can reach absurd damage numbers.

Knight, who has high RS AL, knows exactly what I’m talking about.

[exotic owl]

You dont use T.Def-- with corvus?

Well, it consumes a turn so its not viable for towers

[little turtle]

Realmshift + Horseshoes for raids

[exotic owl]

Horseshoes is good?

[little turtle]

Generally, in towers, you need to clear mobs quickly, so you end up relying on AOE attacks or Ward of Ortanite if you run low on HP. However, most of the time, Stonewarg already covers that need well. The exception is when you encounter a Medea Fanaita, where you often have to use a single-target skill to finish her off.

[little turtle]

I believe it is currently BiS for Endless. For high agony raids, especially with crit poison, it may also become BiS — I’m still testing, but the results are promising.

[exotic owl]

I understand endless, but The boots from halloween are better imo

But not for raids, what do you need dex for?

[little turtle]

for towers yes

[little turtle]

"To avoid being hit, imagine stacking a huge amount of buffs while sitting at 1 HP — you simply can't take any damage."

[exotic owl]

But you have Mystic Feather for that, 60% chance of dodge

Dodge chance from dex only goes up to 40%

You can use something better for Raids

[little turtle]

In high Agony, mobs reach massive HP values. Imagine a fight against Arisen Morrigan with 150k HP — you want to constantly dodge and attack to maintain crit poison

[exotic owl]

Yes but Dex buffs dont affect your dodge chance

Mystic feather works differently

You dodge more the less HP you have

[wild bobcat]

Flasks were designed with each mage class in mind, which is allegedly why we cannot select from all of the Flasks available throughout the classline.

So designing or reworking something for the whole classline and not just Realmshifter might see more consideration.

[exotic owl]

So reworking Avidity, the only way to do that is making it more complex

[wild bobcat]

I find "complex" to be more fun than spamming BL2 🤷🏾‍♂️

If it weren't for Thieves' unfortunate lack of Steadfast and Second Chance, I might have given them a try a long time ago. Second Chance I can do without but I cannot be plagued with status effects lol

[exotic owl]

It is more fun, i got a new idea

But its difficult to balance it for the whole classline

[little turtle]

HOC

[exotic owl]

Na, i dont like other classes

[restive valve]

Odie doesn't like AoE

If BL2 wasn't viable in towers, Realmshifter would still be worse because AV4 and Storming Tempest are way better than anything melee has. But that would at least be a very different conversation.

Asking for more/stronger AoE is going to continue to get us nowhere, unfortunately. But Northern Forge also tends to be allergic to nerfing things (especially if they're magic) so BL2 doesn't seem likely to get nerfed either. I don't know what the solution to that is, and it's going to be outside the scope of this thread

[exotic owl]

"Especially if they're magic"

I got 0 ideas for avidity, we need a class ability like frenzy for Warriors T8+

And we can connect that with avidity

[sinful dust]

Well we did almost get Shadowveil at the same time as frenzy

[burnt gale]

I haven't been tracking much on this, but i thought there was a plan on giving BL2 a "haircut"?
But on the topic of this thread, avidity does pale in comparison (with respect to complexity and utility) to flask turns.

[restive valve]

Avidity Concept #1: Talents
[Has an X% chance to trigger]

Instead of Avidity's scaling chance to take an extra turn, each thief class instead has a "talent" with an X% chance to trigger. Talents could include a 25%(?) chance to take an extra turn when they trigger.

Similar to flasks, which differ per mage class, talents could differ per thief class (but be repeated for easy implementation of course). Talents would be straightforward but play into that class's strength.

Talent concepts:

• Your attack hits one additional target.
  • Functions like a chain damage proc, not like CD
• Your opponent is stricken by multiple debuffs.
  • Ideas could be like t. Def , blind, paralyzed, bleeding
• Your opponent is struck by an elemental blight (or windblight?)
• You gain t. crit (or ?)

All of these work well across the entire classline, can scale to 100% (not infinitely, but it's at least better than 30%) and can be tweaked and balanced more easily than current Avidity.

Event gear could add talents in addition to just adding talent %

[exotic owl]

And thats the error in my idea, it didn't add anything new to avidity and is just a boost of something that already has a low cap

[exotic owl]

I like the first part, not the talents thought , elemental Blight is something for mages

So we could make gear give something like +%avidity /+%Shadowmancy? To increase the new things added with that

Or talent

[restive valve]

I would imagine everything that currently gives Avidity blanket being replaced by +% chance to trigger your talent.

Talents as an idea are meant to be a slot-in replacement to Avidity.

[stray hamlet]

The ONE change I would dislike the most would be non-realm specific buffs to items

This would just buff deity and other classes without solving realm issues

We’ve had enough of shadowveil deity etc.

Just no.

[exotic owl]

Eh? They cannot use what knight suggested

[restive valve]

Beresad was just making a statement

That's what Shark suggested earlier though

[agile imp]

Avidity and the highest dodge chance among classes already make RS an extremely potent class tbh.
And Dorito just got a very nice boost with the change to Beastfelled Cuirass

[exotic owl]

I dont think you need to replace avidity, it could be like collat chance and collat dmg, avidity and talent

[stray hamlet]

Yea about the shark stuff

No offense but sounds like ill intent from other classes

[exotic owl]

Silence Beowulf player, Begone

But if you say that for real you should know is not like that

[restive valve]

This sentence reads like you didn't read any of the post that started this thread

[agile imp]

I read most of it, you want more identity, and as a beoH player I definitely feel that.
But thief has an identity imo, it’s the luck class, luck to dodge, luck to gain extra turns, and it’s the best class for running bof

[restive valve]

99.99% of the time 99% of players don't care about running BoF 🙃

And Beo is currently the best class for it because of the double hit mechanics

[agile imp]

Why do I see bof recommended in 99.99% of RS builds then 🧐

[stray hamlet]

And the luck is pretty unreliable and outclassed atm
Performance wise and identity wise

Im curious as to if you have tried playing rs

[restive valve]

I thought you were talking about BoF the guild since that's big in discussions

Running BoF as a whole doesn't matter, Realmshifter is hard locked to it because we need extra turns not to die in towers.

A class being locked into running one spec is a bad thing, not a good point for the class 😆

[agile imp]

If it were reliable it would be op, imo it’s meant to be luck for big effects

I have tried RS, I don’t prefer it, I prefer tanky over dodgy

[agile imp]

I feel like a lot of the specs need some love tbh

[restive valve]

Thief does have an identity, I completely agree with that, and I basically say as much in the post that started this thread

This thread is about build variety, item variety, and a lack of thief-classline specific items that function best when used by the thief classline

It's not about power level, or identity, or whatever

Those things are improved when a class has scalable stats - we've seen that extremely obvious with Heretic, Deity, and Gilga - and it could solve a lot of concerns naturally if RS had something that could be applied to gear.

[agile imp]

I mean, they aren’t thief specific, but the bof spec specific gear is pretty synonymous as is lol

[restive valve]

Every single piece of swash gear is just as good or better on Gilga Ursa and Deity Ursa

There's nothing unique about it

Or BeoH running a melee focused build

[agile imp]

More variety is a fair ask, though I’d be concerned about balance

[restive valve]

Me too, which is why, and I repeat, this is not a thread begging for thief buffs -.-

[stray hamlet]

Ya hence why we want to change things up

As things are, we can’t change rs without it being too OP or leave it underwhelming

We want a way to have identity tied to gear etc. like flasks/collat without risking OPness

Arguably we’re one of the most OP-inverse classes out there, our playerbase actively “self-censors” suggestions that may seem overwhelming

Beo, deity, gilga on the other hand… (Ik ive done it here but let’s refrain from class comparison discussion)

So let’s focus on the “change things up” part, not if rs is OP or not atm (I assure you, when beo/deity/gilga exists, that’s advantageous for rs not beo)

[restive valve]

That's also why all my suggestions have focused on adjusting things thief already has instead of adding/buffing new things entirely. Avidity is incredibly powerful and entirely lacks any ability to be dynamic, which kills Northern Forge's ability to make "Thief classline identity" gear

It's like BeoH. BeoH is quite literally one of the best classes in the entire game.

What's it's identity? Hit hard, pet acts a good amount. That's it.

You can't add anything to BeoH because it's already one of the best classes in the entire game, but it's sure as heck not exciting.

-# (This is an example please don't start a BeoH discussion in my thread, but feel free to make your own)

[exotic owl]

Avidity Power would be the option to interact with things thiefs already have

Now whats avidity power, 0 idea

[worldly flax]

If this were to develop, I'd rather it based off a meter filled by dodging or critting. Preferably dodging

[restive valve]

That wouldn't effect that start of a battle at all though

[stray hamlet]

Ok back to constructive,

I like this generally! I originally suggested something similar with skill recast per avidity proc’d (once per non-avidity turn)

Something like:

Avidity: In battle, you often receive an additional turn after performing an action, with the action being recast if it’s an offensive skill. Recast may only happen once per non-avidity turn.

Kinda fits thief identity of hitting multiple times instead of strong 1 hit and should help with crit chain & turn economy

[velvet mountain]

Ahh yes thief got buffed by an event warrior only item

Dorado got a 20% dmg bonus
What a beautiful buff

(20% because zerk 1 is 80% and sharpen 3 is 100%)

[restive valve]

Zerk 1 is 50%

[velvet mountain]

Well
Point is clear anyway

[worldly flax]

Unless it can be charged before battle

[agile imp]

lol what, you can still run zerk? Eastern Mask exists

[plain wind]

thats a chance to happen instead of the ability to guarnetee it

[agile imp]

Unless you’re running berserker spec, there’s no way to guarantee it on Dorito

[plain wind]

you can techinically get every single buff in the game on a single champion doesnt mean its viable

i can tmm and guarentee zerk on turn 2

same way i can tmm guarantee both t.mag3 and t.att3

on turn 2

[velvet mountain]

That's just like saying realm can do raids at agony 50 because you'll dodge everything and avidity will proc 100% of the time

[agile imp]

I forgot that beast garb exists, that one’s on me lmao. Point still stands

[plain wind]

no it doesnt

[agile imp]

Nobody is suggesting that

[plain wind]

your point is mute because thief is the one getting shafted with buffs

rs doesnt have a solid spot in anguish 2.0 which is the point of this thread

its the only class thats class passive isnt unique. avidity is pretty similar parting remark

extra turns is possible on any class.

[velvet mountain]

Summoner has extra turns?

[plain wind]

dof

specifically gsh dof bl2 build

[sinful dust]

For super high risk, high reward, let us buff resurgence and then have gear that starts us at low hp.
Then we should have a set of skills that became available based on our level of resurgence <50%>

[plain wind]

i mean shadowveil shoulda been yalls but it got codded shitty so it killed rs make it not kill rs and its good

you can then allow things similar to make it similar apex for deity but rather take x amount of self inflicted damage

[exotic owl]

Thats not what happened, we didn't like it because it was suggested as the solution for Rs things

And consumed ward, but what else would it consume tbh

[elder mango]

Give an RS Celestial Valhallan gear and “shadow clone” summons

But on the same vein, I also find RS fun and decent but lacking. Something to help that feeling and give the class some proper oomph like other classes have would be great!

[plain wind]

it litterally kills you if you use it as an rs at 1hp

it had the same issue tree cutter did

[exotic owl]

Yep, but when it was suggested it was a third button for Rs and it didn't kill you

[plain wind]

it didnt respect class passive for self inflicted

[exotic owl]

Odie only added it just because it was already done, but since Rs people say we don't want this, he added it bypassing High tenacity

[exotic owl]

It did

[plain wind]

ahh so then youre saying that the issue is realmshifter mains and they are the reason they dont have a new feature to work with in 2.0

[exotic owl]

No, what im saying is that odie added it as a solution for Rs but since Rs still has place for another ability(not only increasing dmg and dex, not even accuracy), they rejected that

[plain wind]

this specifically sounds like a realmshifters rejected the new toy so now theyre complaining they didnt get a new toy

teh combination of avidity + shadowveil was more than enough to keep you guys capable of handling 2.0 without feeling terrible

[exotic owl]

Nah, it was years ago, and it wasnt on purpose, odie was making frenzy for warriors and he copied that for Rs, but Rs had other problems at that time

[plain wind]

years ago this was litterally last year

legit like 8 months ago

[exotic owl]

It wasnt iirc

Nvm it was almost a year ago

[plain wind]

#patch-notes message almost a year ago to the month

may 21st of 25

which lines up with 2.0 give or take 15-20 days

meaning yall rejected a new toy and complain about no new toy

[exotic owl]

The new toy didn't work very well for Rs, what people are complaining is about how we cannot have a class passive that were able to build into, because avidity has the cap of 30%, and Shadowveil didnt solve that, just more dmg and more dex

[plain wind]

it gave avidity meaning requires less adorns to build into max %

just like apex cant start at 100%

[burnt gale]

does shadowveil even work with the tenacity passive?

[exotic owl]

You're comparing apex with avidity?

[plain wind]

#patch-notes message this version did

[exotic owl]

No, it did when it was added in the beta as something for rs

[plain wind]

up until the scaling of apex % on gear quality yes it was

[exotic owl]

Yep, but apex also adds dmg and new skills to use

Avidity you win a turn thats capped at 30% you cannot build into that

[plain wind]

more than half werent viable until apex gear scaling started

[exotic owl]

Thats why it started scaling

Now you're in a good spot

[plain wind]

youd use dc or youd use on d.ara a faction aoe/netura

you guys would be in a good spot

[exotic owl]

How?

[plain wind]

because you can build around needing less avidity proc

more into damage

look at gilga

it was all or nothing cd

[exotic owl]

We cannot build in our on passive, and gilgamesh can build into full cd

[plain wind]

now its all damage around frenzy cd

[exotic owl]

You cant compare

[plain wind]

you guys are glass cannon build

the only think yall cant really work with is anguish 2.0 crit malus

[exotic owl]

So Shadowveil solved that because we just needed less adorns? Compared to Apex,Cd or Flasks you see a great difference in your example

[plain wind]

because it gave you the ability to build better glass cannon yes

[exotic owl]

Aja, with much less dmg and not a passive that we can build into

[crude harbor]

Crit malus isn't really a problem 🤔

[plain wind]

considering ive seen rs get 6 turns in a row

[plain wind]

go into agony 30+ and then say that

[exotic owl]

There's a great difference between Shadowveil and frenzy in that case, Shadowveil reduced the amount of adorns, Frenzy reduced the amount of adorns and increased dmg output by a lot

[plain wind]

attack dodge rate and avidity rate

[exotic owl]

I saw Deity deal 128 millions dmg in one turn, there's no comparison

[exotic owl]

No dodge rate, only dex

[plain wind]

litterally look at the think i sent above

[exotic owl]

Meaning you miss less if you don't use Realm Strikes

[plain wind]

it litterally says dodge rate

#patch-notes message

[exotic owl]

Thats an error, it never had dodge rate, it was suggested

But it was just dex x1.5

[plain wind]

ahh so youre saying odie

[exotic owl]

Yes im saying

[plain wind]

made a typo

about something he coded

[exotic owl]

X1.5 Dmg/Dex/Avidity

It was tested if you dont believe it

[plain wind]

btw youre talking about back when dex didnt even have a solid stat modification

aka dex one was something like 1.2 instead of 1.25

[exotic owl]

Yep, and it was still ×1.5 dex

[plain wind]

no it wasnt

it was accuracy

[exotic owl]

It wasn't

[plain wind]

litterally dex effects dodge and accuracy

what are the 2 things it says

dodge and accurcy

[exotic owl]

Not dodge from mystic feather

Accuracy only from skills that didn't have fixed miss chance like Realm Strikes

Only dex

[burnt gale]

dodge and accuracy solely from dex caps out at some point though

[plain wind]

but no one litterally no one could tell the difference bettwen the 2 because dodge rate a flat dodge rate and dex which is dependant on the enemies dex did nothing different

[exotic owl]

40% dodge

99% for dex accuracy and normal accuracy too

[plain wind]

no you can have a 100% hit rate?

[exotic owl]

What? If it was dodge rate it would have been more than the 60% from Mystic feather

[exotic owl]

You cant

[plain wind]

and if it was 5% dodge rate and 5% accuracy

[exotic owl]

Well, unless you use sands

[plain wind]

then youd see about the same results as mystic feather

[exotic owl]

Again, it wasnt, you're just making arguments at this point

[plain wind]

mystic feather also probably didnt respect dodge rate

[exotic owl]

You cant compare This with Apex/CD and flask

[exotic owl]

It was normal dex

[plain wind]

because you cant increase dodge rate if in mf range

[plain wind]

lets see odie say that

[exotic owl]

Whatever

[plain wind]

since hes the one who litterally coded it

and no one litterally no one could tell the difference between dodge rate and accuracy and dex modifier

[exotic owl]

You never have tested something do you? Its normal in the Rs community

[plain wind]

again because they do the exact same thing just one is a stat modifier that can be changed and the other is a number that cant be seen not a single person could know the difference between the combanation of 2 %s that do exactly what dex does

[exotic owl]

What? Why would it be only 2% at that point?

[plain wind]

no im talking about dex being a number

and dodge rate

and accuracy rate

dodge and accuracy are %

dex is a litteral number that has its limits

pre calculation of dodge and accuracy

[exotic owl]

Do you know the difference between dex and dodge from mystic feather? Because at the start of this discussion you didnt even know that shadowveil was something that was added in Rs before, and it didnt kill you, I feel like you just want to argue at this point

[plain wind]

theres a space between the numebr 2 and the %s for a reason

[plain wind]

first shadowveil was added to beta which i didnt realize it was different than what was added to the helm, 2 yes mf is 60% and ignores dex period dex maxs at 40% i believe and effects accuracy + dodge rate

its about 1500 dex iirc difference between a 40% dodge rate and what im pretty sure is a 0% dodge chance

every about 30 dex is equal to 1% accuracy and dodge rate

[exotic owl]

Then its not 1500 dex difference

Is 3000

No its not that either

1200

[plain wind]

if i was off by 300 for dex which until late last year didnt even have an equation

[exotic owl]

Where did you get that equation?

The error is visible, its not even math

[plain wind]

the equation from people who actually did the testing

[burnt gale]

0% dodge chance? Hit rate for non guaranteed hits (like strikes of ursa, pocket sand, flask rays, ...) i think caps at 99%

[exotic owl]

Honestly this is not part of the thread, the point is that Rs is asking for a passive that we can build into, and its wrong that you just said well shadowveil solved all your problems when it didnt

[plain wind]

it might im pretty sure its 100% tho but if thats the only part im wrong about is a 300 dex difference and 1% accuraccy/dodge

[exotic owl]

Good night

[exotic owl]

99%

[exotic owl]

Makes sense, there goes your 30

[plain wind]

shadowveil did solve shit for you again glass cannon class means explosive damage and what did it do gave you att and the ability to dodge more and be more accurate

that solves the issue of being glass cannon

dodge more hit more

it kept you relavent for 2.0 and made it easier to raid 40+ easier

then you got put on the back burner for not accepting the gift that fit rs more

anyways my suggestion in a dif thread was giving thief classes specifically more hits for skills learned via thief class line

aka 2 extra hits on rs

[thorny kindle]

Oh shit my bad

[worldly flax]

It really didn't. The issue past 37 is ward absorption which rs can't get past without amities. Shadowveil doesn't fix anything because you can still get hit and get melted. That's a very good reason we didn't want it.

When the avidity on it was busted it was okay, but it didn't fix anything outside of raids

[sinful dust]

Busted avidity Shadowveil was how Realmy should’ve been from factory

[plain wind]

you mean youre playing glass cannon and its 1shot or be 1shot 99% of the time already

[worldly flax]

Not really. We can build tanky if we need to and for raiding it's often the right answer

[stray hamlet]

Are there any rs players doing 40+ ang?

Esp raids?

[plain wind]

theres not really anyone doing 40+ efficiently

so yah there probably are

[burnt gale]

there's definitely deities out there (and probably beos too) that can go agony 40+, but i've never seen a RS do that yet

[stray hamlet]

Ive seen deities and gilgas (maybe beos with stasis?)

But I havent seen a RS do it yet
Im guessing bc we simply dont have the tools to do so, and Im doubtful shadowveil would have changed that imo

Korosei and cosmo some of our most achieving players (Borodoras left us for gilga) and I dont think they are doing 40+ like deities or gilgas can atm

[burnt gale]

i forgot about gilgas 😅
beos also suffer the ward absorption malus, but we get away with stasis and are not as affected as RS is

[worldly flax]

The highest I've done is 38. I can probably do 40 depending on the raid but doubt consistently against all raids

I put more time into torment than agony

Odie has implied that anguish choices aren't changing which is one of the reasons i really like resurgence being buffed via gear. It's either we lean into follower act and use mammoth or rely on 0ing out a raid via resurgence and hoping mystic feather does enough to let us buff, which isn't always an answer because we often need immunity gear which lacks the stats needed to 0 out raids. Most raids require at least 2 slots dedicated to immunities

[stray hamlet]

Bruh odie just give us resurgence change and let’s call it a day

[rose tusk]

I noticed several people in the thread mentioning struggling with towers. With Dorado Oracle + Swansong I've been having zero issues with towers. Definitely agree with the theme of the thread that RS feels like it lacks class identity though

[pseudo ginkgo]

Idk if anyone has mentioned it already but since the bof event is going rn, i feel like avidity is just a worse version of second chance in pvp (30% max and you need to build for it vs 50% innate)

Especially given the 1 shot nature of the gamemode

[stray hamlet]

Yep we lose the competition in long run there

[restive valve]

The discussion about towers in this thread was about at deep Torment levels. There's no way a swansong is working for you there 😅

(Unless you have proof that it is, which doesn't really make sense given our stats)

[rose tusk]

I'm only at 22 torment right now but it works so well I don't see it falling off anytime soon. The magic buffs you inevitably get as you climb the tower also help tremendously with swansong

[restive valve]

Can you post a screenshot of your loadout? The way Swansong calculates damage it should be worse than Dragon-Tail Sweep or Envy in pretty much any case

Swansong has basically the same m1/m2 as those skills but gets stats from 65% of your attack and 65% of your magic. Given we just really don't have magic, that (usually) basically just means you're using 65% of your attack. Instead of the other two skills that use all of your attack

[rose tusk]

It's marginally lower damage early floors where the mobs are easier anyway, but once you double dip on the magic and attack buffs in later floors the damage is pretty much comparable in my experience. The reason for using swansong is no immunities, particularly the dragon immunities are very common in towers. Gonna send my loudout in a sec, it's just pretty basic setup tho

[rose tusk]

I found myself interested in the math so I dove a bit deeper. These are my towers stats. (10,708 x 0.65) + (6,594 x 0.65) = 11,246.3. So it actually ends up higher than my base attack even unbuffed. Granted with yelm weapon my base attack is 11,386 so pretty much equivalent damage unbuffed. The difference is if you can get both the mag and atk buffs then the damage from swansong is pushed even higher.

If I optimised my tower adornments I could push those numbers even higher as well, but it's working out for me so far so I haven't felt the need

[restive valve]

Attack buffs don't boost Swansong damage

Unless that was something Northern Forge secretly changed at one point

[restive valve]

Ok yeah they still don't

But I'm sorry for doubting your swansong build, even getting it fairly equal with the Thinblade is impressive and maybe I doubted it too much

[rose tusk]

I don't know how it works on the backend to be quite honest but I can say just from experience of using all 3 aoe weapons extensively in towers that with ALL the tower buffs Swansong is putting out at least equivalent if not more damage than the other 2, while also not being resisted. Also I just dislike gandring for the low ward. I like to be able to tank a hit or 2 if shit hits the fan

Also sidenote swansong all the way for horde dungeons too lol. Just stack all the mag buffs on corvus

[worldly flax]

Cant say I've ever tried running swansong in towers either, really cool you're making it work. I feel like Dorado does great in towers despite never being at full damage because of the evasion and accuracy. BL2 exists but thats not really a class discussion and more it's just a busted ability. Dorado does well for what it has

[fossil forum]

True

Exclusive to RS, skills that require 2+ plus turns become 1 turn.

[worldly flax]

I was thinking, what if avidity just became with realmshift is now. Every 5 turns we're guaranteed a 2nd turn. The counter starts at 5 so at the start of every fight we're guaranteed a 2nd turn, then every 5 turns after that. It's simple to plan around, immensely helps with our turn 1, doesn't make anything op. Realmshift could just be changed back to what it was but make it less likely to work on non RS classes

[exotic owl]

We lose advantage on horde and you really want Realmshift to be what it used to be?

[worldly flax]

If the downsides were less when used on RS then yea, crit poise makes it worthwhile. Also 2 turn guarantee is very strong in horde compared to the rng it currently is

[exotic owl]

Na, the one that we have right now is better for horde

[worldly flax]

The potential is higher but it's still dependent on chance. Even at 30% avidity against a group of 5 you're not guaranteed an extra turn and unless you're running dorado you probably don't have 30% avidity.

Spec off BoF for a while and trust only in avidity, it's jarring how bad it is to rely on

[magic heart]

Etc

[restive valve]

I think that could be interesting, but it's not really what this thread was about. This was specifically about a scaling stat that could be added to gear, which is the largest gap between RS and other classes.

[magic heart]

I feel like RS problems stem more from stagnation in gameplay loop than scaling. Is scaling an issue absolutely especially when you add in anguish

But its a feel bad class because it feels bad to play the class not because the bad numbers at scale

[restive valve]

I don't think there's anything stagnant about RS's gameplay loop. All the classes with OP 1-shot abilities are the stagnant ones.

[magic heart]

Idk I tried it and it felt off to me.

[restive valve]

I love playing RS and I think it feels great to play ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[magic heart]

Actually rs was my first class

[restive valve]

That's why I make these threads and why I try to put effort into keeping them on-topic for what I made them about lol

[magic heart]

XD fair enough

I truly feel like we should do a stats rework

Because the scaling stems from core gameplay fundamental s. So trying to tweak will ultimately either make you too strong or will never actually scale well in a balanced way.

[magic heart]

Do you think mm maybe its an anguish issue? Or what exactly

Because every class scales but what exactly is the ideal endstate of RS being similarly scaled in your opinion?

[restive valve]

The first message in this thread is me writing a short essay on what I think the issue is :p

[magic heart]

Well im discord dumb and when I try and type threads after I hit the down arrow I cant go to the inital post without scrolling 6 business days. >->

[restive valve]

It's pinned

https://discordapp.com/channels/448527960056791051/1493298049584468018/1493298049584468018

[worldly flax]

You can also click the arrow

[magic heart]

🙃

Where

[magic heart]

Iv asked this sevral times but people always hate it out of existence

Is wanting avidity to scale its probability based on what TYPE of move is used not a feasible solution to not being able to build around it?

[restive valve]

Wdym? I just meant my first message is pinned, to make it easy to jump back to

[magic heart]

So say I used a buffing skill, avidity proc chance increases by 30ish% compared to if i were to used an attack in which case it would retain its current values.

Which would make the imo worse part the buffing portion feel significantly better

[restive valve]

That could be a thing, it's been suggested before. Namely like Avidity having a higher chance to proc if you're using a debuff skill

Doesn't really solve the build-around issue though

[magic heart]

If youre using a non attack skill/spell.

Not a debuff

And my suggest was far more indepth

[restive valve]

Yeah, that's what you said. And I said that it's been suggested before mainly around debuffs 🙃

And that it wouldn't solve the build-around issue

[magic heart]

A whole additional passive

Where the skills you choose and the order they are in and if you can get the avidity chains before using attacking skill changes the outcomes of the attack.

Called combo.

[restive valve]

Imo that seems potentially overly complicated and not that fun

[magic heart]

Not really

[restive valve]

But that's just my initial impression

[magic heart]

Say you use Blood shift

Then realmstrikes

So

BS avidity RS then it would deal increased damage and youd take recoil damage that cannot lower you past 1hp.

Or realm shift into bloodshift into Sortie = small chance to confuse + the above affect.

Essentially avidity chaining skills and combos makes them a greater effect.

It would essentially make RS into a toolbox class, and at that point buffs and nerfs only really have to be applied to how strong the combos outcomes are.

[restive valve]

I stand by my statement, sorry

[magic heart]

I truly think something like this is the answer to RS issues with scaling. Because the class isn't bad, but its identity is half of what an identity should be.

It dosent have to be that

But something that uses RS base kit in all its classes, in an unconventional or built in way that makes it shine opposed to trying to share other classes tools.

Or relying on weapons to feel alil better.

Gsh became hypact in the same way RS became avidity. The answer isnt buffing the gear its building synergy with itself.

[restive valve]

Nothing about this thread was asking for a buff either

RS doesn't really need a buff, or if it does it's a very small one

[magic heart]

->

I said buffing its gear.

[restive valve]

Shozen you have some cool ideas but I made this thread for a very specific purpose lol. You necroed it to paste in one of your own suggestions 😅

[magic heart]

Rs isn't in such a bad place that its gear is the problem

I removed that suggest