Not sure if I should bring this up now, but I've always wanted to make an epic swashbuckler hero Rogue, so I've been thinking of some ideas for that.
New ranged abilities:
TRICK SHOT: Basically a movie special. The intrepid hero comes across some unsuspecting guards and needs to find a way to dispatch them quickly. So what does he do? He finds something to throw to grab the guards' attention, and watches as the guards unknowingly walk straight into an ambush.
-This is a rough idea, but I'm thinking a 0 rage ranged special that does minimal or no damage but leaves you stealthed, and causes the mob to walk towards your general direction for a couple seconds to investigate. The hope is you can walk stealthed into a room, draw 1-4 mobs out to where you are and then backstab/switch to foils/ss and tear them to shreds.
-Sure the fighter can walk in to the room and tank everything pretty easily, but you can lure out decent chunks of mobs and then kill them quickly with high dps (at least that's what I'm hoping for). In a party with no tank? The rogue can help set up ambushes for you.
HEADSHOT: Replaces point blank headshot. I don't actually know what to do for this one, but point blank headshot needs to be replaced. Maybe Headshot is like a ranged backstab? Or Headshot causes mob to choke on blood and not cast?
Buffed fencing:I feel like fencing has fallen behind other weapon skills, so here are some changes.
-Decrease rage req for disarm(and slice and dice) to 75. Disarm buff: Is two instantaneous hits- The first hit deals normal damage and disarms mob, then the next one goes for the kill and does double damage. This way you choose between gouging target or holding out just a little bit longer to deal lots more damage.
SLASH: To increase fencing damage output, I'm proposing something like wallop for foils, which lets you get extra attacks in and build rage.
-Bonus idea: Some sort of defensive slash. When you attack with this you get a temporary 50% damage reduction that lasts for a short period of time. I have two potential ideas with this- either it lasts 0.75 seconds w/ 1.5 second cooloff (approx times), and you try and time the attack to right before a mob casts, or you can spam it all you want but it burns up rage. The idea being in a tough situation you can throw up a defensive flurry to gain a pseudo-tanking stance, but it drastically slows your ability to gouge/disarm/slice and dice and do extra damage.
Riposte+Parry upgrades:
-Riposte counter attack surprises mob and causes them to be slowed
-Can parry & riposte magic when you are adjacent to the caster (Think of riposte in this case as interrupting a spell with a well timed strike- it should do melee damage, not reflect the spell effects)
Other bonuses:
-Can dodge with bucklers equipped
-Having traps skill gives some defensive abilities against magic attacks from mobs (either you do an epic roll dodge or just passive damage reduction). Only works if you aren't wielding a 2h melee weapon, and works best in light/ua armor.
-When leaving stealth, mobs 4 spaces away don't immediately see you, making hit and run backstab easier (and you could also use trick shot if you want)
Sidenotes:
-fighter/rogue but especially rogue/fighter sounds a lot more appealing with these changes, especially if class cap reworks goes in.
-Hopefully hp calculations will also be adjusted for all classes to give rogues and mages some much needed survivability.
-Dual shortswords are looking weaker now in comparison
; they should probably get something too.